r\ ,T THE POEMS A OF CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON THE POEMS /to/ OF CORINNE ROOSEVELT ROBINSON NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1921 Santa Ana Public Library COPTRIOHT, 1912. 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917, 1918, 1919, 1921, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS COPYRIGHT, 1917. BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & co. COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY SMALL, MAYNARD & CO. COPYRIGHT, me, wis, 1919, BY THE MCCLURE PUBLICATIONS, INC. COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE FLYING MAGAZINE ASSN., INC. COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY ESS ESS PUB. CO. THE SCRIINER PHES* PREFATORY NOTE This volume includes, with several new poems, the previous volumes by Corinne Roosevelt Robin son, "The Call of Brotherhood," "One Woman to Another," and "Service and Sacrifice." CONTENTS > THE CALL OF BROTHERHOOD LIFE PAGE THE CALL OF BROTHERHOOD 3 VISION 5 LINCOLN 7 DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR 8 AMFORTAS 9 FATE'S DUEL .....;... 11 REMBRANDT'S POLISH RIDER 12 MATERNITY 13 To F. W 14 MA BELLE 15 FRIENDSHIP 16 STRETCH OUT YOUR HAND 17 A SONG OF THE BY-WAYS 18 MY COMRADE 20 SPRING . 22 THE TRAIL TO WHITE TOP 23 JUNE ...*..... 27 vii PAGE AFTER LONG LIFE . 28 THE GREAT QUESTION 29 PRAYER 30 DEATH 31 HEROISM THE TITANIC: THE LUST FOR SPEED 35 PARTING 38 TOGETHER 39 THE MEN 40 To A. W. B 41 THE ENGINEER! 42 THE WIRELESS TOWER 44 THE BAND 47 LOVE AWAKENING 51 LOVE HAS A MYRIAD OF WINNING WAYS ... 52 LOVE Is A BEGGAR 53 ONE HOUR 54 "AMOR SCONSOLATO" 56 UNFULFILLED 57 THE LESSER PART 58 THE BETTER PART 59 DISILLUSION 60 viii PAGE IF SOME FAIR ANGEL 61 LOVE AND UNFAITH 62 LOVE AND FAITH 63 THE FORGOTTEN COUNTERSIGN 64 THE FAILURE OF KING ARTHUR EIGHT SONNETS 65 FRAGMENT 73 DEBT 74 TRUE LOVE Is SUCH A SWEET AND SACRED THING 75 GRIEF GRIEF 79 To S. D. R. . 80 To HER 82 IMPOTENCE 83 To HIM 84 MARCH NINETEENTH 86 FEBRUARY 21sT, 1909 87 FEBRUARY 21sT, 1912 88 HEART OF MY HEART 89 THE GARDEN IN THE WOODS 92 PAIN THE INTERPRETER 93 ONE WOMAN TO ANOTHER ONE WOMAN TO ANOTHER 97 COULD I FORGET? 103 IF I COULD PURGE MY LOVE 104 ix PAGE JUGGERNAUT 105 IF You SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE ME . . . . 106 "AND MEN SHALL KILL THAT WHICH THEY LOVE" 108 FORFEIT Ill MIRIAM, " LOVED OF GOD" 112 FROM A MOTOR IN MAY 113 SPRING ON THE MOUNTAIN 114 SONNET TO A SATYR 116 RUNNING IN THE RYE 117 BOB WHITE 118 JUNE ON THE MOUNTAIN 120 INDIAN SUMMER 121 A FRAGMENT ' . . . . 122 BY AN OPEN WINDOW IN CHURCH 123 MOUNT BALSAM 124 THE METROPOLITAN TOWER FROM ORANGE MOUN TAIN 125 VERA CRUZ 126 To FORBES ROBERTSON, AS HAMLET 127 "ABSENT THEE FROM FELICITY AWHILE" . . . 128 THE POET 129 HOSTAGE 130 THE NIGHT BEFORE 133 LIFE, A QUESTION? 136 SOLUTION 137 A KENTUCKY GRAVE 139 x PAGE LOVE Is A TALENT 143 IF I WERE NOT so YOUNG 144 LOVE'S ARREARS 145 WHICH? 146 IN PRISON 147 GOD'S FAIR WORLD 152 SPRING AND GRIEF 154 AUTUMN AND GRIEF 155 GETHSEMANE 156 MOTHERHOOD . . . . . . .... . . . . 157 AFTER 161 FEAR 162 SERVICE AND SACRIFICE SAGAMORE 165 To FRANCE 167 SERVICE 169 AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE 170 SUSPENSE 172 To PEACE, WITH VICTORY 173 THANKSGIVING DAY, 1917 174 THANKSGIVING, 1918 175 To GENERAL LEONARD WOOD 176 CHRISTMAS, 1918 177 To ITALY . 178 IN BED 180 xi PAGE SOLDIER OF PAIN 182 "DEWEY" 183 THEODORE ROOSEVELT 185 To MY BROTHER 187 THE A. E. F 189 VALIANT FOR TRUTH 191 URIEL 193 THE LAST LEAF IN SPRING 196 FLIGHT 201 FROM A MOTOR AT MIDNIGHT 204 \THE PATH THAT LEADS NOWHERE 206 "!F I COULD HOLD MY GRIEF" 208 THE WOMAN SPEAKS 209 -"WE WHO HAVE LOVED" 210 LIFE HURT ME 211 THE OLD HOUSE 212 LE GRAND DISPARU 213 THE PLUS SIGN 214 LINES TO A FRIEND ON PARTING AFTER Six WEEKS IN INDIA 219 THE FUTURE OF CHIVALRY 222 To DOROTHY D 226 xii VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE OFFICIAL BENEFIT FOR THE RELIEF OF BELGIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN, DECEMBER 8, 1914 PAGE MISS SYBIL CARLISLE 230 MR. WALTER HAMPDEN ........ 231 MISS EDITH WYNNE MATTHISON ..',.. 232 MISS VIOLA ALLEN 232 MR. HOLBROOK BLINN 233 MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL 233 MISS ETHEL BARRYMORE 234 MR. WILLIAM H. CRANE 235 MISS FRANCES STARR 235 MLLE. DORZIAT 236 MR. FRANCIS WILSON 236 MISS JANE COWL 237 MISS ANNIE RUSSELL 237 MR. HENRY MILLER 238 MR. WILLIAM GILLETTE 238 MR. WILLIAM FAVERSHAM 239 MME. NAZIMOVA 239 MESSRS. WEBER AND FIELDS 240 MISS ROSE COGHLAN 240 MISS MARIE DORO 241 MR. HENRY DIXEY 241 MISS MARY SHAW 242 MISS BLANCHE BATES 243 MISS ELLEN TERRY xiii To JOSEPH H. CHOATE 244 A NEW YEAR'S TOAST TO OUR G. O. M., JOSEPH H. CHOATE 247 To SOTHERN AND MARLOWE 249 HENDERSON HOUSE 253 To A BISHOP 257 THE POETRY SOCIETY ANTHOLOGY 259 Verses written for an annual dinner of the Poetry Society of America EDWARD J. WHEELER 261 MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT 263 JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE 265 MILES MENANDER DAWSON 267 PADRAIC COLUM 269 CHARLES HANSON TOWNE 270 ARTHUR GUITERMAN 271 AN AMERICAN'S APOLOGY 273 A PLEA FOR THE " ULTIMATE CONSUMER " IN LITER ATURE 276 xiv THE CALL OF BROTHERHOOD AND OTHER POEMS TO FRANCES THEODORA PARSONS THE FRIEND TO WHOSE INSPIRATION AND COMPANIONSHIP I OWE MY HAPPIEST HOURS WITH BOOKS AND NATURE LIFE THE CALL OF BROTHERHOOD TTAVE you heard it, the dominant call * * Of the city's great cry, and the thrall And the throb and the pulse of its life, And the touch and the stir of its strife, As, amid the dread dust and the din It wages its battle of sin? Have you felt in the crowds of the street The echo of mutinous feet As they march to their final release, As they struggle and strive without peace? Marching why, marching where, and to what! Oh! by all that there is, or is not, We must march too and shoulder to shoulder. If a frail sister slip, we must hold her, If a brother be lost in the strain Of the infinite pitfalls of pain, We must love him and lift him again. For we are the Guarded, the Shielded, And yet we have wavered and yielded To the sins that we could not resist. 3 By the right of the joys we have missed, By the right of the deeds left undone, By the right of our victories won, Perchance we their burdens may bear As brothers, with right to our share. The baby who pulls at the breast With its pitiful purpose to wrest The milk that has dried in the vein, That is sapped by life's fever and drain The turbulent prisoners of toil, Whose faces are black with the soil And scarred with the sins of the soul, Who are paying the terrible toll Of the way they have chosen to tread, As they march on in truculent dread, And the Old, and the Weary, who fall Oh! let us be one with them all! By the infinite fear of our fears, By the passionate pain of our tears, Let us hold out our impotent hands, Made strong by Jehovah's commands, The God of the militant poor, Who are stronger than we to endure, Let us march in the front of the van Of the Brotherhood valiant of Man! 4 VISION CRIEND of the People, purposeful and strong, You, who would right their wrong, You, of the ardent eyes That woo the glory of the further skies! For the glad answer of a new sunrise Must you then wait so long? Oh! Man of Vision! though the rest be blind, You, who do love Mankind, You, who believe That our fair Country shall indeed retrieve The promise of the ages. You shall find Your heart's reprieve. With your own motto "Spend and so be spent,'* Your high intent Makes of yourself a willing instrument. 5 With heart and soul afire You do aspire But to be broken, should the cause require, An arrow shattered ere the bow be bent! What though the sordid sneer! They may not hear The cry of those Who suffer the fierce throes Of pain and hunger after deadly toil. Your brothers of the soil Follow your beacon light Away from their dark night. And in the end, Though you be spent, You, who were glad to spend, Who would not be A baffled Moses with the eyes to see The far fruition of the Promised Land, Who would not understand How to lead captive dread Captivity, Who would not even crave A lost and lonely grave By Jordan's wave? 1912 6 LINCOLN A MARTYRED Saint, he lies upon his bier, While, with one heart, the kneeling nation weeps, Until across the world the knowledge sweeps That every sad and sacrificial tear Waters the seed to patriot mourners dear, That flowers in love of Country. He who reaps The gift of martyrdom, forever keeps His soul in love of man, and God's own fear. Great Prototype benign of Brotherhood Incarnate of the One who walked the shore Of lonely lakes in distant Galilee; With patient purpose undismayed he stood, Steadfast and unafraid, and calmly bore A Nation's Cross to a new Calvary! DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR SUGGESTED BY DANIEL C. FRENCH'S RELIEF IV A AY I not carve the message of thine eyes * * * That long 'neath adamantine brows is hid, Oh! mighty Sphinx that near the Pyramid, Beneath the glamour of Egyptian skies, The riddle of the ages still defies? Youth is my master Dauntless Youth would bid Me find the answer underneath thy lid Where Life's solved mystery unwritten lies. Lof as I carve, I feel Death's ruthless hand. And I, so young, must lay my instrument Away with all my eager, ardent faith. May it not be that one revealing wand Alone can point us what the secret meant, Interpreter of Life Thy name is Death! 8 AMFORTAS T AM the Sinner, purer than the sin, * I am the Doer, worthier than the deed, I am the Loser, who was meant to win, I, the Forswearer, yet who loved the Creed. I, the Inheritor of Holiness, The knighted Guardian of the mystic Grail, Lo! I am lost in deep and dire distress, For I have loved the best, and yet could fail. I was the bearer of the Holy Spear But, through my sin, the sacred Thing I bore Turned on my breast, and what I held most dear Has left an anguished wound for evermore. Mine was a soul freeborn to love the light Astir with winged hope and high emprise, Self slain, and chained to dark and dreadful night, Though doomed to deathlessness, it faints and dies. 9 To love the right, and yield unto the wrong, To have the best, and know it, yet to lose; To be the weak, though born to be the strong, To crave the pure, and yet the loathly choose. Perchance the tortured terror which I bear Forever burning in my bleeding breast Shall purge my sin and win for me a share In the Redeemer's gift of perfect rest. I am the Sinner, purer than the sin, I am the Doer, worthier than the deed, I am the Loser, who was meant to win, I, the Forswearer, yet who loved the Creed! 10 FATE'S DUEL \ TT comes to all of us, or soon or late, * And we must buckle close our coat of mail; Hand may not falter, nay, nor keen eye quail Before the destined duel with our Fate! And some who conquer, find they abdicate The throne which was their joy; and some who fail To win the battle, ardent still and pale, Fight on, nor will the angry Gods placate. But some, with visor down to hide the eyes' That looked upon a high love's shattered faith, And some, whom Love relentlessly passed by, Must battle without hope. For them there lies No eager glory in Life's sacrifice, No victory except in loyal Death! 11 REMBRANDT'S POLISH RIDER WITH careless ease, lithe, supple, lissome, free, He sways the rein with adolescent grace, And Youth is in the ardor of his face; His eyes are wells of Life's expectancy, The romance of the wonder yet to be! What will he lose or win before his race Is gained or lost? Shall honor or disgrace Crown or defame his fine, fair chivalry? Go, Rider! Fare unto the Golden West And though the Master, with unerring hand, Hath fashioned that the frowning Dark Tower stand So sadly close Fear not your gallant breast Shall never shrink before the prison wall No fetters could your spirit high enthrall! MATERNITY IV AY little one, thy mother's dreaming eyes * * * Dwell on thy nestling head against her breast With that supreme and satisfied surprise, Maternity achieved. The strange behest Of Life infused and made animate, Of soul incarnate, loosened from the spell Of mortal matter, and sent forth elate To wing its flight from that unfathomed cell Whence it was born, unto the radiant sun That ever beckons to a higher flight; The golden goal for which the race is run, The heavenly goal which is eternal light. Oh! dreaming mother, dost thou recognize The winged spirit in thy baby's eyes! 13 TO F. W. OHE wore the crown of wife and motherhood ^ With noble dignity. Her limpid gaze Could see beyond the weakness of men's ways, And yet all human things she understood. Not of the world, yet in it, for she would Respond to Love's demands or blame or praise And spent herself in each succeeding day's Fair opportunity for doing good. Her lips had quaffed the Sacramental Wine Of High Communion from her childhood's faith; Her eyes had early visioned the Divine And found in Christ the Conqueror of death. Serene amid the clamor and the strife She bore the lily of a blameless life! 14 MA BELLE '""PHE fine, fair cameo of her lovely face * Was like a perfect flower in tint and hue, And from her being, breathed the nameless grace Of sheltered woods and violets shy and blue. She did not seem to know she was so fair; Her tender cheek would flush with sweet surprise, When, sometimes, we who loved her, praised her hair Or prized the fawn-like beauty of her eyes. Nor could we think too much of form or line, Or dainty coloring. The radiant soul That from those hazel eyes was wont to shine Seemed to be one with God, and claimed the whole Of Angel Sisterhood. Now, one of them, We reach toward Heaven by her garment's hem! 15 FRIENDSHIP '"THOUGH Love be deeper, Friendship is more wide; Like some high plateau stretching limitless, It may not feel the ultimate caress Of sun-kissed peaks, remote and glorified, But here the light, with gentler winds allied, The broad horizon sweeps, till loneliness, The cruel tyrant of the Soul's distress, In such sweet company may not abide. Friendship has vision, though dear Love be blind, And swift and full communion in the fair Free flights of high and sudden ecstasy, The broad excursions where, mind knit to mind, And heart by heart renewed, can all things dare, Lit by the fire of perfect sympathy. 16 STRETCH OUT YOUR HAND OTRETCH out your hand and take the world's ^ wide gift Of joy and beauty. Open wide your soul Down to its utmost depths, and bare the whole To Earth's prophetic dower of clouds that lift Their clinging shadows from the sunlight's rift, The sapphire symphony of seas that roll Full-breasted auguries from deep to shoal, Borne from dim caverns on the salt spray's drift. Open the windows of your wondering heart To God's supreme creation; make it yours, And give to other hearts your ample store; For when the whole of you is but a part Of joyous beauty such as e'er endures, Only by giving can you gain the more! 17 A SONG OF THE BY-WAYS T SING to the joy of the By-Ways, * The road that is grass overgrown, That leads from the dust of the high-ways To the meadow that never is mown; The subtle seduction of places Where Silence her magic has wrought, And the Dream, or the Vision, effaces The thralldom of thought. II The hour we wantonly wasted, How rich in its passing, how fleet! The fruit that we should not have tasted, How perilous transient and sweet! The dim and unfathomed recesses Where flushes the bud of desire, The swift, half acknowledged caresses, The moth and the fire! 18 Ill Then search for the flower that grows not Except where the pathway is blind, And the breath of the blossom that blows not Where its beauty is easy to find; The thrill of its scent aromatic No gardens of ease ever give, Where Life is fulfilment ecstatic, And to love is to live! IV For the Heart is the Lord of the By- Ways And bids us forever to climb To the distant and delicate shy-ways Where even the Conqueror, Time, Must pause on his march for a minute, To yield us the consummate right For the sake of the bliss that is in it To our Dream of Delight. MY COMRADE I V a day when Youth was winging Lo! I heard a comrade singing And he beckoned me and beckoned Till I joined him on his way; "Come," he said, "for Time is flying Age is hastening, Youth is dying Come and we will turn September Back into the bloom of May!" II Oh! I thanked my Comrade kindly, And I followed him right blindly, He was such a merry fellow As he sang his roundelay; All my happy heart I showed him For the fairy gift I owed him, He who taught me that September Still could hold the joy of May! 20 Ill So, my Comrade, I was ready With a spirit staunch and steady, Quick to snatch the fickle moments Of our fleeting holiday. How we laughed, the hours whiling, Though we knew that no beguiling Could do aught but cheat September With a masquerade of May! IV Sometimes still I hear him calling, But the autumn leaves are falling And his voice has lost its lilting, Luring music, blithe and gay And his song is faint and hollow, For I may not rise and follow, I who know that bleak November Is a mockery of May! SPRING HPHE budding promise of recurrent Spring * Has filled my heart with all its primal fire, And, like a flight of birds upon the wing, It soars celestial with the wild desire For all that was, when Youth and Love were young Ere Pain articulate had found a tongue. There is a fragrance in the April air That breathes of Resurrection; and the blue Compelling canopy that arches fair Above our heads, would bid us to renew Our childhood's faith in Heaven's sapphire gate, And once again our souls rededicate. What if the holy fires of youth are shaken, And burned to dust before Life's common waste, One touch of Spring and all our veins awaken And crave once more the lost delights to taste; Undying, and reborn, dim memories stir The old, sweet pregnancy of days that were! 22 THE TRAIL TO WHITE TOP I OH! the trail that leads to White Top in the merry month of May, What a galaxy of beauty we shall find upon the way. There the haughty hemlock's shade is Bending o'er the quaker ladies In the gorge as deep as Hades where the lady slippers stray! II Would you climb the dappled pathway toward the misty mountain height You must balance on your saddle, right to left, and left to right For the branches stoop and press you As a lover would caress you, Begging only you confess you greet their ardor with delight. 23 Ill There the painted trillium glances from her trinity of leaves, And her sister, the Wake-Robin, nods serenely and believes That perchance her singing brother On some rapid flight or other Brushed her petals with a feather where the bur nished crimson heaves. IV Near the rocks the wild azalea, flaring in an orange flame, Leans above the mandrake blossom, hiding 'neath her leaf in shame And Clintonia Umbellata Gleams beside the laughing water Like a monarch's royal daughter who disdains a common name! V As we climb we see Elk Garden, with its broad and grassy sweep, And the crown of black old Balsam casting shadows long and deep, 24 But we mount forever higher Where the wind plays like a lyre, And the sunset's sudden fire falls on summits wild and steep. VI Here the delicate Spring beauty clambers up the mountain side, And the wind flower swaying gently, pristine as a pallid bride, White Top's children shyly peeping From the undergrowth where creeping Pine and fir their tryst are keeping, though we crush them as we ride. VII Now we scale the final hillock, and before our wondering eyes Range on range of mountains rising from the valley to the skies, Far unto the dim horizon Peak on peak the faint flush lies on, And the young moon's shadow dies on myriad purple mysteries. 25 VIII Oh! the trail that leads to White Top When the days are cold and gray, And the winter nights are chilly, how I long to wend my way Back to Springtime and its glory, There where Life's an untold story On the trail to White Top hoary in the merry month of May! JUNE '"PHE frail felicity of April hours * Has yielded to the prescient joy of May And she, in turn, has laid her fragrant flowers Upon the altar of this perfect day. The spring with lavish hand her incense spilled, An ardent acolyte to June fulfilled. June in the meadow, lush with living green, June on the hill side, soft with waving grain, June in the rich completion of the scene, June in the fulness of the thrush's strain And yet! Ah! June, must you, too, wend your way Have you no potent spell Time's hand to stay? AFTER LONG LIFE A FTER long life if I could be bereft ** Of this Earth's passion and its endless pain, And then, if I could live my life again As one by Death forgotten and youth left, I wonder should I long, with all the deft Desires of my now free, unshackled brain To enter Life's arena? Should I gain No more 'twixt hope and mortal anguish cleft A disembodied view of soul and sense, A swift solution of the mystery Of Life's great pageant, and the poor pretense Of Heaven's high-handed inconsistency? So visioned, would I still kneel unto God, Or yield obeisance to the soulless sod? THE GREAT QUESTION IV AY heart is weary with the world's distress, * * * The cry of those who struggle in the night. Oh! Lord, who sent thy Son for our redress, We pray thee as of old "Let there be light!" I would not ask the "Why" nor pierce the veil; All that I long for is to know, behind The torture, and the terror, and the wail Of human woe, there is no cruel, blind, Unreasoning chance, that hurls us here and there, Victims of an insensate tyranny; I would not ask the cause, but this my prayer To know there is a cause for misery; Could I but see the working of Thy Hand I should be willing not to understand! PRAYER /"""'RANT me, oh! Lord, the attitude of prayer! ^ * My joys, my griefs, my sins, to lay them all At Thy dear feet! I would not prostrate fall, But I would have my spirit always there. From such a vantage point, could I not bear The fierce temptations which my heart enthrall, And with Thy help so lift the heavy pall Of anguished grief. Perchance if I could share Each secret thought and raise it unto Thee, Just as the dew is lifted from the flower By the great Sun's benign compelling ray, My faltering glance could so Thy beauty see, Until my spirit drawn by Thy pure power Would turn to prayer as night must turn to day. 80 DEATH T AM the Master of the Secret Road, * Silent I stand behind the half closed door. And you, who shrink the blind, black path before. Though driven by the inexorable goad, You, who have paid to Life the debt you owed, Good coin or bad, from scant or ample store, Poor Pilgrim, furtive-footed on my shore, May it not be that I shall lift your load? Then, with undaunted brow, come woo my eyes And lay in mine nor cold, nor craven hand May you not thrill as one with sweet surprise Who finds a friend beloved in alien land? Perchance my face you thus shall recognize And all my secrets fitly understand! 31 HEROISM THE TITANIC THE LUST FOR SPEED PROLOGUE T AM the Juggernaut * Crushing beneath my wheel All that is finest wrought; Iron and wood and steel Shatter and writhe and reel, Yielding before my greed I am the Lust for Speed! What do I care for cries, What unto me are throes, What do I reck who dies I am the will of those, Who from the phalanx rose, Captains of business need I am the Lust for Speed! 35 Lo! I must make my way O'er the vast Continent, I must hold Time at bay, Rush till the rails be rent Reek from the girders bent, Mine is the criminal deed I am the Lust for Speed. And when the Ocean's toll Reaches to hundred score, When Death's defiant roll Clamors for more and more Than ever claimed before; What though my victims plead- I am the Lust for Speed! I must the record break, I must be ever first, None shall my laurels take, Mine is the burning thirst Bred from the greed accursed; Nor shall a rival lead I am the Lust for Speed! ENVOI Captains of Industry, Pause but a single hour! Those who so silent lie Voice my malignant power; This is their final dower, Death and Despair decreed- By the fell Lust for Speed. 37 PARTING DELOVED, you must go ask not to stay, ** You are a mother and your duties call, And we, who have so long been all in all, Must put the human side of life away. For one brief moment let us stand and pray, Sealed in the thought that whatsoe'er befall We, who have known the freedom and the thrall Of a great love, in death shall feel its sway. You, who must live, because of his dear need, You are the one to bear the harder part Nay, do not cling 'tis time to say good-by. Think of me then but as a spirit freed, Flesh of my Flesh, and Heart of my own Heart, The love we knew has made me strong to die! 38 TOGETHER F CANNOT leave you, ask me not to go, * Love of my youth and all my older years We, who have met together smiles or tears, Feeling that each did but make closer grow The union of our hearts Ah! say not so That Death shall find us separate. All my fears Are but to lose you. Life itself appears A trifling thing But one great truth I know, When heart to heart has been so closely knit That Flesh has been one Flesh and Soul one Soul, Life is not life if they are rent apart, And death unsevered is more exquisite As we, who have known much, shall read the whole Of Life's great secret on each other's heart. THE MEN WOMEN and children all First to the boat! Quick to the crucial call Lower and float Only a swift good-by, Meeting ah when? And we are left to die We are the men! Ours is the better fate, Would we then live? They, without son or mate May God forgive This untold sacrifice. Courage! again, Under the starlit skies We are the men! Steerage and financier Answer the roll, Each with his duty clear, Peace to his soul, 40 Though the great ocean roar Victor what then! Heroes for evermore, We are the men! TO A. W. B. TTERE'S to you, gallant friend, * * Gentle and brave, You, who full fathom deep Lie 'neath the wave. You were a soldier still Up to the last, Doing your Captain's will As in the past. Not from a bullet's flight, Not under arms, But in the Ocean's night Of wild alarms. Calm in the midst of fears, Taking command, Courage! in spite of tears For Fatherland. 41 We who have known you long, Gallant and gay, First in the dance and song, Pleasure and play, Knew, too, the valiant soul That would stand by (Women and children first!) Ready to die! THE ENGINEER! WORK, work, work, Down in the ship's deep hold. Was there a man would shirk? They of the tale untold; Down by the hot flames fanned, Theirs was the cruel part; They of the tireless hand, They of the dauntless heart! 42 II 'Boys! we must keep her straight, She is a gallant boat, Worthy a better fate, Finest of all afloat Now, as the Wireless Call Sweeps the encircling sea, Here in this prisoned wall It's up to you and me!" Ill Work, work, work, Water is creeping higher, Was there a man would shirk? Engines must have their fire. Up on the ship's great deck Many are careless still, They, in the deep hold's wreck, Work with an iron will. IV Knowing they have no hope When she must list and lunge, Never a piece of rope, Theirs is a fettered plunge, 43 Fires are out, and cold Rises the fluent fear,- Here's to the tale untold, Here's to the Engineer! THE WIRELESS TOWER I TPHE "ambulance call of the sea" * Winging its frenzied flight Hark! 'tis the C Q D Rushed through the breathless night! "Sister Ships, do you hear? Hurry, turn on your trail. Is there none that is near? Quick or your quest will fail!" II Like an insistent hand, Searching the baffling dark, Far from the tranquil land Travels the gallant spark. 44 Fingers frozen and numb, Phillips, and pale young Bride "Hurry! Danger! and Come!" Working there side by side III "Sister Ships, do you hear Carpathia, Olympic?" At last! "Courage! have a good cheer Lo! we are coming fast. Turned on our tracks are we Sped with our utmost speed, Over the icy sea, Racing to meet your need!" IV Whose is the pallid face? "Down we sink, by the head, Boys! you may leave your place, Each for himself!" he said. Fingers frozen and numb, Phillips, and pale young Bride Hist! to the dogged hum, Working there side by side. 45 V Hark! to the S O S "Down we go, by the head Quick! we are in distress, Hurry to aid," it said. "Phillips! we must not stay, Come, there is no more time." Yet does the Wireless play, Beating its rhythmic rhyme, VI "Down we go, by the head," Splutter and dot and dash- Darkness! Peace to the Dead! Silenced the dauntless flash. 46 THE BAND HPHE boats are lowered, floating on the sea, * And as the men, with silent courage, stand, Like to a battle call of minstrelsy, A sudden volume sweeps. Oh! Gallant Band, Calmly, as if on terraced garden green, The liquid music lifts to starlit skies, As though the breathless horror of the scene Were but a prelude unto Paradise. II The sweet, old hymn that every little child Has learned to whisper at his mother's knee, Perchance, at that dread moment, reconciled Each doubting heart to meet Eternity. The flute and cornet, cello, violin, Not one was missing from the accustomed place, And wafting sound, above the water's din, Followed each warrior to his resting place. 47 Ill No hope forlorn, by martial music led, Was ever cheered by anthem more inspired; Each hero, now amongst the deathless Dead, Ready to meet his fate, with ardor fired, Owed his last debt to those who, unafraid Though face to face with Death that was to be, With valiant hearts and hands so firmly played Unto the end, their Requiem of the Sea! 48 LOVE AWAKENING T^HE tender glamour of the dreamy days * Before Love's full effulgence was complete Dwells in my soul. The dim untrodden ways That wooed our eager yet reluctant feet; The mute communion of our meeting eyes, The hand's elusive touch, when still no word With its supreme significant surprise The pregnant passions of our beings stirred; The shadowy dawn of unawakened pain, Love's counterpart, with its evasive thrill, Haunted our hearts, and like the minor strain Of some great anthem ere the sound is still, Mingled with all the rapture yet to be A note of anguish hi its harmony! 51 LOVE HAS A MYRIAD OF WINNING WAYS T OVE has a myriad of winning ways * ' Beside the wells of his deep tenderness, The frolic of his fugitive caress As in my hair his wanton finger strays, The lyric laughter of his witching gaze That draws my own, reluctant, to confess The swift response that borders on distress, So clearly it my willing heart betrays. Love sometimes makes a petulant pretense Of injured dignity that he doth feign, As though, in truth, his wayward heart did swell With artless ardor in his own defence, A playful parody of poignant pain, Created only to enhance his spell! LOVE IS A BEGGAR T OVE is a beggar, most importunate, * ' Uncalled he comes and makes his dear demands. He storms my heart which doth capitulate And then he asks the homage of my hands. He claims my eyes, and wistfully they turn, He craves my lips, half-willingly they yield Their soft obeisance to his own that burn With potent passion in the power they wield. And when, with woman's faith, I give my whole, I wonder if dear Love doth recognize That, with it all, unless he claim my soul, He gives me naught and asks but sacrifice! For Love, if Love be Love, should wish no dole, Nor eyes, nor lips, nor heart, without the Soul! 53 ONE HOUR ONATCHED from the greedy hand of ruthless ^ Time, We saved one hour of golden afternoon. Oh! Love, it seemed our hearts, as one, did chime In subtle symphony; and so in tune Our spirits were, that speech was hardly part Of the deep language of the happy heart. II The sunset lingered in the misty sky, Till dim cloud shadows in the water grew, And lilting reed-birds from the rushes, by The gliding stream, across our vision flew, With low, sweet cries, as though to thrill the ear With the close thought that Nature was so near. 54 Ill We seemed in unison with bird and flower, At one with all the soft and sensuous light; I thought of Danae in her golden shower And felt the God had claimed me as his right The terrible, strong God whom men call Love, Who rules "the Earth below, the Heavens above!" IV And yet, in that sweet hour, the Soul was king! And held the heart in pure and potent sway, And we can ever to that memory bring The grateful knowledge that our perfect day, With all its essence of a mortal union, Was touched with high and Heavenly communion. 55 "AMOR SCONSOLATO" WRITTEN FOB THE FIGURE CARVED BY PHILIP SMITH HPHE broken lyre is lying at thy feet, * All hushed and mute the rich and vibrant strings Oh! Love disconsolate, with drooping wings, Must thou forego the music once so sweet? Yet that deep note, forever incomplete, Its haunting melody through memory sings, Lost, unfulfilled, triumphant still it rings Once perfect chord, soon silent, full but fleet! My broken heart lies crushed within thy hand, Dumb as the severed lyre's harmony, No more a magnet to thy magic wand, It lies inert Lean, lowlier, Love! and see The hidden symbol by thy sad wings fanned Death is Love's hostage Immortality. 56 UNFULFILLED T READ the pain and pathos of your eyes, * The aftermath of anguish in your smile, And yet I can but envy you the while! Your heart has bled, an ardent sacrifice To Love's fulfilment. You have paid the price Of keen, fierce living; nor can aught defile The joys that once have been they still beguile The tear-swept memory that Time defies. My soul's adventure, pallid, incomplete, Has lingered in the twilight, for my heart Has dwelt aloof in some dim atmosphere Betwixt the Earth and Heaven. My alien feet Have known nor Pain nor its great counterpart. I, who have never loved, may shed no tear! 57 THE LESSER PART TTAD I been true to my deep loneliness, * * Nor sought a lesser love to soothe my grief, Had I been willing not to find relief, But so to live, companioned by distress, I, sometimes, to my inner soul confess The fierce and inarticulate belief That such despair forever held in fief Could heal my spirit better than caress. I have done nothing wrong I only take A human love that longed to lift my woe, I only give a tender sympathy, And yet ah! yet, I sometimes long to wake Alone, to taste again the bitter throe Of loveless and unsolaced misery. 58 THE BETTER PART T LOVED you and I lost you long ago, * And though the life within me wells in Spring With sudden joy in every living thing, 'Tis but a fitful fever, for I know I may not feel the glamour and the glow That one dear presence never failed to bring; And though my ravaged heart may sometimes sing, Its music cannot lose the note of woe. So though Love plead to give surcease from pain, I would not have it otherwise. My heart Would lose its life with its dear loneliness. I am of those who may not love again, Who find the bleeding wound the better part, And Grief assuaged, but Grief without redress. 59 DISILLUSION TF I could sleep and dream that love were true, * Had e'er been true, unsullied and supreme, I'd gladly forfeit all the bliss I knew And all I ever could know. Blessed dream, Lay on my weary eyes eternal sleep, For now they never open but to weep If I could count from off their bitter span The days of disillusion I have known, The cruel knowledge that the heart of man Has never climbed the heights, has never grown Through passion purified to peaks sublime, Would I not barter all that's left of Time? 60 IF SOME FAIR ANGEL IF some fair angel from the Upper World, * With silent steps and pinions softly furled, Could lay cool hands upon these tired eyes, Once more the scalding tears might be empearled. Perchance, if it could feel such sweet caress The Heart could conquer its own bitterness, And once again, through pity and through love, The Soul be loosened from this dark distress! 61 LOVE AND UNFAITH "1 \ 7E, who have loved, and from our Faith have * * faltered, And made of love a desecrated thing, How can we bear to face the God we've altered? Like some great eagle on a broken wing, No more our love can rise to heights transcendent Where glows the light that ne'er on sea or shore Has shone except for those whose love resplendent Has lent them wings of fire on which to soar. From that dim region which our souls inherit We bore the promise of a pristine flame; Alas! that we, who knew the holy Spirit, Should clasp a lifeless ghost without a name. How empty now the way through Heaven's portal, Since Faith has failed and Love is not immortal! LOVE AND FAITH I laughed, and you echoed my laughter. I wept, and you mirrored my tears, But when life is over, and after The tender enchantment of years, Is there aught in high Heaven to discover That our intimate joy may transcend. For I found in the heart of a lover The faith of a friend! It may be the part that was spirit, God lent as a shield for our fight, And we who were worthy to bear it Shall lift it aloft in our flight To the ultimate regions of ether, Where Faith holds the key to the throne, And Love, kneeling proudly beneath her, Our victory has won. 63 THE FORGOTTEN COUNTER SIGN T IFE met me on the threshold young, divine, ' And promised me unutterable things; And Love, with fragrant greeting on his wings, Looked in my eyes and laid his lips on mine, And bade me quaff the magic of his wine That deep delight, or disillusion brings. Ah! had I kept my fair imaginings, I had not lost the heavenly countersign; The Shibboleth of soul supremacy; The dower from my birth in higher spheres. Then might I know the purer ecstasy Of conquering Earth's test of alien tears, And Life, perchance, her promise might redeem, And Love be more than a delusive dream! 64 THE FAILURE OF KING ARTHUR EIGHT SONNETS SHE SPEAKS TF some fierce wind of hot and alien breath * Had swept the petals from my pure white rose. I had been more content to watch the throes Of such complete and devastating death, Than to have seen it marred. For mortal faith Accepts the wild tornado when it blows, And, sooner than a bleeding wound disclose, Lays on its buried hopes the final wreath. But when the fitful gust of man's desire Leaves on the spotless bloom of love a scar, Barters its beauty for a transient hour Of lesser love, that cannot claim the power To wake within the breast a lasting fire Then must high Heaven mourn a fallen star! II Perchance I could have better borne the pain Of knowing Love so infinitely frail, Had it not been your hand that did disdain To guard me from the falling of the flail. I was secure in my sublime belief That human passion bordered on divine. How could I dream that you would be the thief To rob my cup of its immortal wine? Drained to the dregs, the empty glass I fling Down the dim path of disillusioned years; The Rose of Time is withered in its Spring, The Wine of Life transfused in bitter tears, And on my lips is left the tainted taste Of Love once holy turned to weary waste! 66 HE ANSWERS III VfOU, who have suffered much because I failed, * This bitter anguish you can never know To see in eyes you love the utter woe Of one whose heart unto a cross is nailed. Must those dear eyes forever be half veiled As though afraid to meet the cruel blow Of disillusion? Ah! how faint their glow Poor, martyred spirits by their love impaled. Beloved, I would give my days to this, Could I but render back the joy you miss. And lift the load I laid, the deep distress. I, by whose hand your soul was rudely torn-~ Is not my fate more frustrate and forlorn, To rob the one I love of happiness? 67 IV % OELOVED, do you know that when you weep, ' My heart weeps too in unison with tears That water the lost joy of all our years? Be it your will that I forever steep My soul in this despair, I gladly reap The pain I sowed and pay my Faith's arrears, If I could but dispel your soul's sick fears And for your spirit its sad vigil keep. Teach me, my own, some ardent sacrifice To win the gladness back to your dear eyes. Some antidote to this eternal pain. What would I give if I could bear a part Of what I have inflicted on your heart, And by my torture let you live again! 68 V IN vain! The punishment that I must bear, The bitter price that I must always pay Is that I cannot wash the stain away Which I have made upon a love so fair. I sometimes think, that, dark though the despair, Which binds your being in relentless sway, It does not your sad heart more fiercely slay Than the remorse in mine beyond compare To give, and have the fulness of return, To love as few have loved, and then to mar That spotless love by a belittling scar Which must a soul beloved forever burn. What anguish can be greater than to know One you would shield is bleeding from your blow; 69 SHE SPEAKS VI T OVE comes to me, and knocks at my sad heart, *-' And bids me let him in that he may heal The cruel wound that will not cease to smart Which Love himself has made. I would not steel Myself against his dear and pleading voice, Ah! no, with ardor would I fain forgive; But, though I long with passion to rejoice, And once again the old sweet rapture live, In vain! for naught can break the iron bars That hold my prisoned and enfettered soul. And I, who once was kin unto the stars, Who soared triumphant to Life's utmost goal, Must dwell in wingless depths because I know Had Love been true I could not suffer so! 70 HE ANSWERS AGAIN VII T KNOW you love me still, for all the blue * And ardent glances of your tender eyes Can never feign, or you would not be you; And yet in your high heart you do despise The thing I did, and swift resentments rise That I, unto myself was so untrue, That I could stain the perfect love I knew, That I could so defile my life's set prize! You love me, yes, and yet you hate the sin Against our love's convincing purity; I mourn with you for what I might have been, High priest of loyal Love's security There is no thought that crucifies your heart But in my vain regret doth bear its part. 71 SHE SPEAKS ONCE MORE VIII OELOVED, you have taught me to forgive, *' Your strong and fervent effort to redeem Has quickened my dead heart and made it live, And though I mourn the glory of my dream I see that my own love was faint and frail To meet the disillusion of your need. I could not bear to know that you could fail, Nor have you lean where you were wont to lead But now you lead again. Your deep remorse Has won my fainting soul to higher flight, And all the bitter anguish and the loss Have been the magnets to a purer light. We, who have fallen but to rise again, Perchance have won the victory of pain! FRAGMENT r "PHE dreamy drift of honeysuckle scent, * A sensuous breath of beauty on the night And we who shared the intimate delight Of Life and Love with youth and rapture blent! For such complete communion we were meant To be but one in thought, and that thought right, To love the lovely and to find the Light! 73 DEBT "\ \ /"HAT do you owe me, Love of all my years? * * Not love, ah! no, for love can not be owed. Love must be free, accepted or bestowed, E'en though we pay its price with bitter tears! But this one debt you owe, that fearlessly Your eyes shall meet the candor of my eyes; No veiled untruth may desecrate the prize Of a great love's untarnished memory! TRUE LOVE IS SUCH A SWEET AND SACRED THING TRUE love is such a sweet and sacred thing! When I am with the One who understands, I need not touch her lips nor clasp her hands, Just to be near her makes my glad heart sing True love is such a sweet and sacred thing! True love is such a sweet and sacred thing That sometimes, when I cannot have a word, I feel as though her tenderness I heard, A full communion that the thought may bring-- True love is such a sweet and sacred thing! True love is such a sweet and sacred thing That often when my ardent spirit stirs In rich and rhythmic unison with hers, I almost hear its mystic murmuring True love is such a sweet and sacred thing! 75 True love is such a sweet and sacred thing That all of beauty is intensified, The world is so much fairer at her side, So much more exquisite the bloom of Spring True love is such a sweet and sacred thing! True love is such a sweet and sacred thing That even Death might lose for me its dread, If that dim hour could be interpreted Through her pure soul that lifts me on its wing True love is such a sweet and sacred thing! GRIEF TO S. D. R. GRIEF HPHE hollow waking ere the cruel dawn * Has brought the fulness of my conscious pain, The effort of the numb and weary brain To know by what pale torture it is torn, To comprehend the burden it has borne Through fitful sleep, where ardent dreams would fain Dispel the horror on the spirit lain, And by fair visions cheat a fate forlorn. Before I fully face the day's blank grief This misery of waking grips my soul, Till fiercer anguish were perchance relief And, better than so nebulous a goal, The surer knowledge that no glad sunrise Unrolls a radiant world to radiant eyes. 79 n TO S. D. R. DELOVED, from the hour that you were born * " I loved you with the love whose birth is pain; And now, that I have lost you, I must mourn With mortal anguish, born of love again; And so I know that Love and Pain are one, Yet not one single joy would I forego. The very radiance of the tropic sun Makes the dark night but darker here below. Mine is no coward soul to count the cost; The coin of love with lavish hand I spend, And though the sunlight of my life is lost And I must walk in shadow to the end, I gladly press the cross against my heart And welcome Pain, that is Love's counterpart! 80 Ill F)ERCHANCE some day when we shall see the Whole We may rejoice that he should thus depart, With joy incarnate in his radiant soul And one pure love, untarnished, in his heart; For we, who near our life's relentless goal, With tattered banners in our listless hands, No more, head high, can answer to the Roll: Our feet have slipped amid the shifting sands Of standards lowered and illusions lost. His is eternal dawn, no setting sun, And we, so passion-driven tempest-tossed May scarce regret his short, glad battle won. And yet this anguished thought cannot be stilled So young, so loving, and so unfulfilled! 81 IV TO HER JV/I Y child in love, the beauty of your eyes * * * Holds in their ardent depths a poignant pain, How many sad and sacramental sighs Breathe through their glance and wring my heart again. What would I give could I your burden bear Mingled with mine; I would not sink below All of your grief and all of your despair, Could I but once again transform your woe Into the joy whose promise fair you knew, Birthright of love which his great love fulfilled; Passion more pure, and faith more firm and true Earth hath not known and Heaven hath not willed. And yet, perchance, could I your anguish lift I should be robbing you of Life's best gift! V IMPOTENCE TO HER JOVE is so strong and yet so sadly weak! ^ ' When I behold the glory of your eyes Sad with the sorrow which they may not speak Dim with the forfeit of their glad sunrise, I long to hold and fashion all the years Back to your birthright and away from tears. II I have had joy Ah! would that it were yours I have known life and its broad vision pain I have had love, the love that love allures; If I could only give you all my gain, There is no prize that I would set apart Could it but help the healing of your heart. 83 VI TO HIM F3LUE were thine eyes, reflections of the flower *-* That bids us not forget, nor dream that we Can be forgotten by Love's mighty power. Their lucid depths were wells of constancy. Perchance this world had changed those ardent eyes That met its call with loyal, level blue For it may be, alas! that Life belies The promise that it gives when Love is true. And so, although I weep these blinding tears That fill my cup unto the bitter brim, I can rejoice that the corroding years Thy clear and crystal glance shall never dim. Are we so frail that none can stand the test, Can Death alone be true to Love's behest? 84 VII T TIS gift was Joy, and surely we must keep * * The gift he brought, as tribute to our love; And we must smile, with eyes that fain would weep Hot tears of desolation, till we prove That, through his sunshine, we have caught the gleam Of radiance from a higher sphere than ours; Just as, of old, his presence used to seem To bring a sweeter fragrance to the flowers, A keener beauty to the morning sky, A lilt of laughter to the buoyant breeze! So we must gather close his legacy Of Love and Joy, and then, perchance, the Peace Which passeth understanding shall abide In our sad hearts until the eventide. 85 VIII MARCH NINETEENTH '"PHIS is the day I held you to my breast * For the first time, and looked into the eyes So soon to welcome with a gay surprise The joy of life and all its ardent zest. For, ere its severed span was rent, the best, The most desired and achieved prize, The heart's high love that only true love buys, Had crowned your youth with its divine behest. I try to sate my longing with the thought That you have known the beauty and the joy Of Life and Love, without their bitter pain; But as the miracle of Spring is wrought, And its new birth doth Winter's death destroy, My heart cries out for you to come again! 86 IX FEBRUARY 21ST, 1909 HPHIS was the day I died, when all Life's sun * Was blotted out in dark and dreadful night. And I, who lived and laughed and loved the light, In one brief moment knew my race was run; Knew that the glory of my days was done, Because no more with happy, human sight In your dear eyes could I read love aright, No more could feel how closely we were one, As we had been for all the perfect years From boyhood till you came to man's estate; My bliss is bartered now for blinding tears. So young to die! And Joy with step elate Had chosen you her own. Love unafraid Had brushed your lips with royal accolade! 87 FEBRUARY 2 1ST, 1912 it be true the triple years have passed With dull and laggard steps above your head, And yet, my Own, I cannot make you dead! Light of my life, the glamour that you cast Is with me still I hold it close and fast, And, if from Earth it has not wholly fled, May not the sunshine which your presence shed Break through this leaden loneliness at last? Not that I would my bitter pain deny, For Love is Pain and I would pay its price, The poignant price of what was once so sweet! The Cross that Christ Himself did sanctify Symbolled the ardor of Love's sacrifice, And still can lift us, kneeling at His feet! 88 XI HEART OF MY HEART Heart of my heart, If you could come again, And I could look once more into the blue Clear depths of your dear eyes whose soul I knew, Should I be free of this eternal pain, Heart of my heart? Heart of my heart, If I could kiss your brow, The broad young brow that promised virile thought, With lines of vital joy and ardor wrought, Would such a kiss suffice me even now, Heart of my heart? Heart of my heart, If I could hear your voice And thrill to its clear tone with dazed delight, Would all the world seem luminous and bright And every living thing with me rejoice, Heart of my heart? 89 Heart of my heart, If I could touch your hand And feel its vibrant strength enclose my own, I sometimes think the very touch alone Would answer all my soul could e'er demand, Heart of my heart? Heart of my heart, If this could ever be, And all my loneliness were so forgot In your dear presence, yet I could not blot From out my heart this mortal misery, Heart of my heart! Heart of my heart, To taste the depths I've known Is to be part of this World's utter woe. How could I then forget the pain I know? Pain and my heart so firmly knit have grown, Heart of my heart! Heart of my heart, Not even your loved smile Could ever wake my own to answering glee, 90 For, from the knowledge of Earth's agony, No sweet reunion could my thoughts beguile, Heart of my heart! Heart of my heart, My lips have drunk too deep Of Marah's waters ever to forget. All I can do, with eyes from anguish wet, Is but to love and weep with those that weep. Heart of my heart I 91 XII THE GARDEN IN THE WOODS '""THERE is a garden in a distant place, * In a far field where trees encircling grow, And, often when the summer breezes blow, I go alone to muse upon a face That was my joy. White roses interlace His resting spot the granite cross below. There my dumb heart can sometimes voice its woe And ask the healing of our dear Lord's grace. The fragrance of the rose is as his youth, The blue forget-me-nots reflect his eyes, The deep dyed pansies are for memory. In that sweet garden I can feel the truth That all my love doth follow to the skies And pledge the Spirit's immortality. XIII PAIN THE INTERPRETER P)AIN the Interpreter with level eyes * Has bound a crown of thorns upon my brow And bids me wear it valiantly, nor bow A vanquished head before joy's sacrifice. Pain the Interpreter with searching hand Has probed my heart to all its pregnant woe, That I may feel the world's titanic throe, And all the Earth pain fitly understand. Pain the Interpreter has seared my soul Until its flame-swept yision may discern The utter loneliness of souls that yearn Through some deep anguish toward a distant goal ONE WOMAN TO ANOTHER TO CORINNE ROBINSON ALSOP MY DAUGHTER, MY FRIEND MY VALUED CRITIC ONE WOMAN TO ANOTHER VfOU are the friend of all his early years; * He told me that the bond was strong and close, His comrade, his companion, even more, For in your veins there flowed the same hot blood That coursed in his, your mothers, sisters, born In selfsame hour, linked by that close tie. Thus were their children knit by call of flesh Often he told me that you never failed, And that when others, with averted gaze, Would have him know his own unworthiness, Your eyes held only memories of the past With hope for fairer future in their depths Loyal and loving in their tender blue, Fit mirror for the loyal, loving heart. Come with me, then, and stand beside him here; How still he lies, who was in love with life ! Ah ! yes, his face is sweet to look upon, 97 The restlessness is gone and all the lines Are softened back once more to vanished youth, And that strange look, so foreign to his heart, Which came because his cruel enemy held So fierce and firm a sway it, too, is gone And so your tender kiss upon his brow Falls on the face your childhood knew so well. The last words that he spoke were all for you. In fierce delirium his accents fell, Murmuring with contentment "She will come" And now that you are here my bursting heart Must pour out all its anguish, all its joy For joy there was, though now this bitter pain. I was of that strange world you cannot know, The "half- world" with its glamour and its glare, Its sin and shame; where men, like ravening wolves, Feed on the bodies and the souls of us Who, either steeped in callous wickedness, Or reckless with a dull and hopeless dread Of cold and hunger and all bitter things, Are willing, nay, are sometimes even glad, To yield our outer selves for inner warmth. And yet I shrank, for I was young, so young And very simple, made for better things. One night he came and looking in my face 98 He said: "You have a true and tender heart, If you will come with me I'll shelter it, For I am weary and athirst for love." Thus, then, I went. At first I only knew That I could eat until I had enough, That I could sleep without the haunting thought Of what the dreaded day was sure to bring; But soon a great and mighty passion grew O'erwhelming both my body and my soul Because he was so very good to me Never a harsh or cruel word or deed, And even when the fire filled his brain, For me he only had the anguished look That seemed to pray me to forgive him all. You, who have never known the fierce, hot fumes That rise and choke the very soul of man And blur the tottering reason till it fall, How can you judge of him, and how could she Whose fair white bosom was a thought too chaste To pillow a repentant weary head? But I who knew the evil of the world Could never shrink before so sad a thing; My breast was ready for that burning brow, My hands to clasp his hands, my lips to meet His sad petitions that I hold him close. 99 And so the mother that is in us all Joined with the love of woman unto man And gave me strength to battle for his sake. Only, when in his eyes I read the look That longed for her, my swift resentment rose; And sometimes when he stroked the soft fair coil Of ash-gold hair that crowned my drooping head, I almost flung the tender hand aside, Because I knew he dreamed of other hair That he had loved, when eyes as soft as mine Smiled into his and pledged their marriage vow. Then, sometimes, friends of his would come and speak Of that fair world of yours, unknown to me, And afterward he would be lost in gloom, Or quick to let the Beast spring out and grip His shattered being in relentless sway. And sometimes they would whisper when they went Saying, "Poor fellow, he will die some day With boots on, in some cheap and drunken brawl. " Then I, who heard, did register a vow That he I loved should never perish so. Look at him now in fair and cleanly sheets, The picture of his mother near his hand, And all the darkened room as sweet and fresh 100 ^6764 As was the memory of his mother's home; For when he fell to-day, I heard the cry And saw him lying, and I ran to lift His fallen body from the cold hard stones; With strange, undreamed of strength I bore him up And laid him here, where, quick, with eager hands I dragged the boots from off the weary feet So that harsh prophecy should not come true, While he was moaning like a little child In wild delirium your very name. ********** And so I sent for you, and you have come, Although too late to listen to his words, Yet not too late to hear what I must say Surely, the Christ whose very name is love Will hear me too, for long ago He said Of that poor woman who had been like me: "She has loved much, so much shall be forgiven." So now, perchance, my prayer for him I love Will reach the far and heavenly mercy-seat Where Christ, who waits with wide, condoning arms, Shall welcome him because of what he did Because he taught me what a holy thing Is human love, and by his gentleness He saved my vagrant and despairing soul. 101 Then God, who is our Father, can but save His erring soul by love that is divine What! you would kiss me? Yes, I take your kiss; We are both women, and we both have loved ! 102 COULD I FORGET? I forget that I have held the best Of this Earth's treasures in my fervent grasp Then should I be content to sadly clasp The wreck of beauty, and my soul might rest! But I, who thought I knew the perfect whole, Must still remember that lost ecstasy, And so this lesser thing you proffer me But sets the seal of anguish on my soul ! 103 IF I COULD PURGE MY LOVE TF I could purge my love and make it pure * Of all except the essence of divine; If I could turn to crystal flood its wine And change to peace its passion and allure, Then, like a holy flame in paths obscure, Lift its translucent light and make it shine A beacon to some other soul than mine, Perchance I might my loneliness endure. But I am weak and woman, and my heart Falters before the last great sacrifice, A stumbling-block to stay my ardent will; And thus I must accept the lesser part And try forever just to blind my eyes Until my craven heart is cold and still. 104 JUGGERNAUT HPHE love that I would banish from my heart * Has nothing for me now but bitter pain, And yet it holds me and will not depart Nor leave my tortured s6ul to peace again And all my brooding spirit cries to God, Just, for one single hour to turn Time's wheel, Remit the sentence, stay the righteous rod, And all the beauty of the past reveal. Let me once more believe that Love was deep, Impregnable, unbartered for desire, And I, who sowed the wind, would gladly reap The burning whirlwind of its flaming fire, But, no ! the adamantine wheels roll on, And faith, and peace, and purity are gone! 105 IF YOU SHOULD CEASE TO LOVE ME T F you should cease to love me, tell me so ! * I could not bear to feel your ardent hand That waked the chords of life to understand, Hold mine less closely; no, Beloved, no; If you should cease to love me, tell me so ! If you should cease to love me, do not dare To meet me with a masque of tenderness; I could not stoop to suffer one caress That any other had a right to share, If you should cease to love me, do not dare! If you should cease to love me, do not fear I would not have you think I made one claim. If your great love should pass, there is no blame; For love grown cold, I would not shed a tear, If you should cease to love me, do not fear ! 106 If you should cease to love me, let us part, As friends who part for all eternity; Let us make grave and reverent obsequy For what was once our very soul and heart If you should cease to love me, let us part ! But while you love me, keep our hearts' deep faith As some High Priest would guard the holy place; Let me not see the shame upon your face Of one unworthy of Love's vital breath, So while you love me, keep our hearts' high faith ! Thus, if you cease to love me, save my soul By having kept our love so pure and high That if the time must come when it shall die, I may retain my treasure fair and whole, If you should cease to love me, save my soul! 107 'AND MEN SHALL KILL THAT WHICH THEY LOVE" " AND men shall kill that which they love!' -* Alas ! that I should prove This sorry truth ! I, in whose eager youth, Myself did dedicate To true love's high estate, That I should bring such dread and dire fate Upon that, which to me Stood with the Deity ! Yours was a spirit that had never quailed, No matter how assailed, Yours was a heart That would have borne the dart Of each indignity That had not come from me, Nor bowed a vanquished head. But now I see 108 That spirit faint and dead, Because I failed In fine fidelity ! I cannot make it true That I have so killed you, That my strong arm, Which longed to guard you safe from every harm, Has been the weapon that has dealt the blow Which lays you low, That my weak Faith Has done you unto Death ! I had not thought to yield To any man my right to stand as one Who wooed the fiercest rays of Truth's hot sun To break upon my shield. And yet After long years of such liege loyalty, With wild regret I pay the sad arrears Of bartered Faith's decree. And you That which I loved and killed 109 Your anguish now is stilled. You, who once knew the gleam of perfect things, You, who were wafted high on Love's strong wings, Now fallen to earth by sudden heaviness, What torture to the one who struck the blow That he should know That you, so silent now, feel no distress Dead of Love's littleness! 110 FORFEIT I\ AUST there be forfeit of such gift and grace * " * That we should hear this faint and feeble cry, And see frail fingers searching helplessly The frigid marble of the mother's face, As though to claim a loved and lost embrace? Is there no answer to the fierce, blank "Why?" That springs unto our lips resentfully Until they may not frame or prayer or praise? Would life be fairer could we understand The law immutable of sacrifice, That we must lose to gain, must pay the toll Even of death? If we could see God's hand Perchance our forfeit were a petty price Before the wonder that He shall unroll! Ill MIRIAM, 'LOVED OF GOD' IX AIRIAM, "Loved of God," my little child, * * * I anguished so that thou mightst come to me, And now my being bleeds as poignantly, My mother's heart can scarce be reconciled That God has called thee, pure and undefiled, Back to His presence. It would seem that He, Miriam, "Loved of God," had need of thee. Yet I can still rejoice that thou hast smiled And lived to bless me for this fleeting hour, For in my soul has grown the wondrous power Of perfect motherhood, the one sublime And stainless passion of the human heart, And though our God has willed that we should part, I am a mother to the end of time! 112 FROM A MOTOR IN MAY '""PHE leaves of Autumn and the buds of Spring * Meet and commingle on our winding way And we, who glide into the heart of May, Sense in our souls a sudden quivering. What though the flash of blue or scarlet wing Bid us forget the night in dawning day, Skies of November, sullen, sad, and gray, Once hung above this withered covering. There is no Spring that Autumn has not known, Nor any Autumn Spring has not divined, The odor of dead flowers on the wind Shall but enrich a fairer blossoming, And though they shiver from a breeze outblown, The leaves of Autumn guard the buds of Spring. 113 SPRING ON THE MOUNTAIN f OVE of mine, come climb the height ' Far beyond the thirsty plain, There we'll find our lost delight, There the Spring is born again ! High above this dreamy dell Where her first-born flowers fade We shall see her hi the spell Of her coming. In the glade Where the balsam branches spread Shadows o'er the deeper blue Of the violets we thought dead, There the bellwort's golden hue Rivals still the sunlight's gleam, Come ! my heart is wild and gay With the glory of the dream Of a reincarnate May ! 114 Love of mine, I cannot wait, For our joy attends, aloof Let us go with hearts elate There to put it to the proof. What if, as we meet the Spring Evanescent, frail and fair, Swift, on its elusive wing, Our lost youth should greet us there! 115 SONNET TO A SATYR LINES WRITTEN FOR A FIGURE CARVED BY PHILIP SMITH WILD creature of the woods whose merry hoof Has trampled many a fine and tender blade Amid the forest where remote, aloof, Thou sportest in nymph-haunted sylvan glade. Anon, with reed against thy mirthful lips, Pan's music thou evokest, shrill and clear, Until the flying bird, affrighted, dips Her far spread wings that she may pause and hear What message she may find of swift alarm In your quick note; but soon again she sweeps The broad horizon without thought of harm, Seeing thee lie there while Dame Nature keeps Her tender watch above thy graceful rest, Holding thy form against her loving breast. 116 RUNNING IN THE RYE "THERE'S a boy, a little fellow, * And he's running in the rye Tumbled hair with tints of yellow; All the color of the sky Shining in the starry wonder of his deep and dreamy eye. How he races, as he chases First a gleaming butterfly, Swift to follow then a swallow Dipping, floating, sailing by, Skimming o'er the brimming billows of the un dulating rye! He is Spring-time, he is sing-time, And the joy that grief has slain Wells within me like a torrent Till it purges me of pain And the passion that I bear him Floods my heart with youth again ! 117 BOB WHITE T HAVE stumbled in the stubble, * I have lingered in the lane, I have taken every trouble Just to hear your voice again, For I want to see you closer, Though I'm sure that you are plain ! Now I know just how a lover Feels about a "hot pursuit." It was broiling in the clover, And I could have been a brute If I only might have found you, But you suddenly were mute! After singing all the morning Sometimes late into the night When I follow without warning Then you take to shameless flight, For I never, never find you, Most elusive Robert White! 118 You're delusive, Mr. Bobby That is why I like you so. You're intrusive, that's your hobby, Or at least you strike me so You're exclusive and so snobby, All your traits are poor, I know. Yet I stumble in the stubble, And I linger in the lane. Pray, why do I take such trouble When I hear your note again? For I know that if I found you I should think you very plain! 119 JUNE ON THE MOUNTAIN T^HERE'S a rhododendron thicket * Where the Laurel River flows, Shining leaf and gleaming blossom, Pearly white and radiant rose, Shading deep, and ever deeper Where the richer purple glows. June is waning on the mountain, And the kalmia's petals fall, But the rhododendron thicket Rises like a glistening wall Twining, blinding all our pathway Under hemlocks straight and tall. As the sun sinks over Round Top, All the glittering bud and bloom Seem to vanish in the shadow . Of the valley's sudden gloom Winds amid the pines primeval Shiver with the summer's doom! 120 INDIAN SUMMER CAIR fallacy of Nature whose pale skies * Would cheat us with a mockery of Spring, As though behind them undiscovered lies The great renewal, Indian Summer, bring Back to my heart the glory that was June, Before the withered bud, the fallen leaf. Mirage of Autumn hours I commune Once more with joy's fulfilment in the brief Sweet ecstasy that you afford the heart. I yield in acquiescence, lulled by scent Wafted from breezes that have played their part In softer moments; now, alas ! but lent By Nature in a garment of disguise To blind, with sweets foregone, my willing eyes. 121 A FRAGMENT ! quiet hour of happy vagrancy ! To float upon the river's tranquil breast, Content to lie and watch how aimlessly It follows its meandering, random quest Through meadows where the noontide's drowsy hush Is only quickened by a sylvan thrush. Apart, as though in some far golden dream, I lie and muse; with indolent delight I catch the shadows where the lilies gleam In serried rows of yellow and of white, And wonder that the world is so in tune Till I remember you are here, and June! 122 BY AN OPEN WINDOW IN CHURCH T HEAR the music of the murmuring breeze, * It mingles with the preacher's quiet word; Dim, holy memories are waked and stirred, I seem to touch once more my mother's knees. Christ's human love, His spirit mysteries Envelop me. It is as though I heard An angel choir in the singing bird That floats above the fair full-foliaged trees. The old sweet Faith is singing in my breast With peace in Nature's summer subtly blent, All of my being breathes a deep content Life and its unremitting, baffled quest Fade into this rich sense of perfect rest My soul, renewed, is steeped in sacrament. 123 MOUNT BALSAM [ STAND upon the heights beneath the blue, Wide, sunlit spaces of a sky, cloud-torn. Below, far ranges on my vision dawn, Transfused in soft and amethystine hue. I feel, perchance, as some great god would do At the first break of an Olympian morn, When to his primal senses freshly borne, He caught the wonder of the world he knew. So might Apollo thrill, when flying rein And fiery chariot flung the day outspread; Thus Proserpine, as all the fields of grain Blossomed beneath her cool, creative tread; Or Jupiter, with joy that stabbed like pain, Looked in the eyes of Juno, newly wed ! 124 raiy THE METROPOLITAN TOWER FROM ORANGE MOUNTAIN AN oval opal, shining in the mist, ** Set amid battlements which, like a dream, Some fairy palace guarding close would seem. Shot through with azure and with amethyst, You rise a beacon, by the breezes kissed, Incarnate of the heights that would redeem, Forever beckoning, wooing, as the gleam In longing eyes that wait at some dear tryst. Like a mirage in fever-fetid lands Luring the traveller from the heat accursed, You seem a magic thing not built with hands, But moulded to allay our vision's thirst. Above the sullen city's sordid slime You point us upward to the far sublime ! 125 VERA CRUZ '"THEY called for the Youth of the nation. And swift at the call, Marines and the Middies were ready To fight and to fall. They dreamed of a past that was glory, And glory to be, Of a flag that was waving in triumph On land and on sea. No war ! But a mother is weeping, A father grown old No war ! But a harvest is reaping Of hearts that are cold. No war ! But the Country was calling And theirs not to choose, The North and the South had their heroes, And so Vera Cruz ! 126 TO FORBES ROBERTSON, AS HAMLET INTERPRETER of mighty moods and men, * Creator of a Hamlet so supreme, Shakespeare's incarnate thought is born again To shape us Life the substance and the dream. And yet thy very Hamlet falsifies His own sad words. Imperious Caesar's clay May stop a hole, but Caesar's will denies The earth, the ages, and their brief decay. The immemorial cycles count him great, Just as forever from the wheel of Fame, Each revolution shall but dedicate Another spark to thy immortal name. "The rest is silence." Words may not impart The majesty and magic of thy art. 127 ABSENT THEE FROM FELICITY AWHILE" TO J. S. E. BSENT thee from felicity awhile" Your voice, sonorous, lingers on the line, I see the tender ardor of your smile And meet your eyes that claim the thought in mine. 'Twould seem you answer only to the sound Of Shakespeare's melody, your smile and eyes Though lit with depth of meaning, have not found The desolation that half hidden lies Behind the genius of the perfect word; But I, being woman, not alone to art, But to the world's great loneliness am stirred, Conscious of all the emptiness of heart That I shall feel when you no more for me With loyal love can make felicity ! 128 THE POET THE Poet should be one who sings, Whose rhythmic music lilts and rings With images inspired; And he must be the Seer who sees Beyond his utmost melodies, Until, with soul afired, He brings the waiting world the word That only Seer and Singer heard ! 129 HOSTAGE TIFE, wilt thou wait awhile * ' And let me smile? Before the stress and turmoil have begun, Grant me one hour, One hour of golden dalliance in the sun, The fair, sole dower To hold forever close against my breast, And so forever rest In happy knowledge that joy has been mine; That in my veins like wine Has run the glamour of the sunlight's glow; That winds so soft and low Have brought me fragrance of the distant brine, Or honey-sweet amid the Spring-touched trees Have swept the scent of these Into my eager senses, till I seem A part of my own dream, My dream of youth And nature's flowering, Life, let me sing ! 130 Wilt thou not stand aside Until with all the fair world's gifts allied I shall have armor of delight to bring Against the fierce, hot sting Of thine assault when that dread day shall come? I promise thee, O Life, I shall be dumb, Nor utter one reproach, if only now I may go forth with gay uplifted brow And meet my golden hour of happy fate Life, wilt thou wait? I am no coward when the trumpet calls, Valiant, my feet shall climb the crumbling walls, My breast be bared to hail of shot and shell; But now, while all is well, Let me hold fast To this sweet hour that it shall ever last, A hostage for the future and the fight. Thus, when the darkness comes and clash of arms And all my soul is sick with fierce alarms, The healing light, The peace of what has been, Shall guide me through the din, 131 And pledge me promise of what is to be; Thus may I see My happy hour once more restored to me, Transfigured, dim perchance, yet glorified Although with Death allied ! So be it, then if now, Stern Life, if thou Wilt wait a little while, And let me smile! 132 THE NIGHT BEFORE "\ \ THY should I linger in these cramping walls * And yield my being to their dull constraint ? Why should I bow before this dread disease That creeps so slowly through my languid limbs That it may never reach my burning heart Before it kills the fire of my brain, And leaves me with half -blurred, unseeing eyes? Surely no gracious God has so decreed, No God whose name is Love. Love could not work For the beloved such a dire fate To meet the impotence of yielding flesh, To feel the flickering of waning sense, And yet, to know that years unending stretch In dim succession ere all life decay. I am no coward I could bear even that, If, by my living, I could ease one pain Of one I love, or shield a single heart To whom I owe a crumb of fealty. But in the watches of the long black night 133 I take account of each and every one, And can but see them better for the deed Which I do purpose ere another dawn. They who are young can have no need of me, For what has youth to do with such as I? Youth with its splendid, gay inconsequence Its laughter in the very eyes of fate, Its daring in the face of destiny Youth reaches for the glove that Life throws down And, smiling, flings it back with unconcern. I know, for I, too, picked the gauntlet up, Although my youth was riddled through with age The premature, sad age that comes with care, And cruel disillusion with a world That turns a cheap, inglorious, shallow cheek To many a valiant and resentful heart. Why should we dread this door that we call Death 'Tis but the other end of Life, we know Birth at one end, we may not understand, Death at the other end, unfathomed too Why should we fear to meet it, when our day Of use in this strange world is past and gone? 134 I read of one who in the Antarctic cold Wandered apart to die, because he felt Himself a hindrance rather than a help, With weight of sickness and of suffering And all the world cried, "Gallant, selfless one!" And yet, because I lie within four walls I may be deemed a coward, though my heart Has struggled long, to choose the nobler way I, too, am selfless, nor will courage fail Full armored then, I greet my comrade, Death! 135 LIFE, A QUESTION? TIFE? and worth living? * ' Yes, with each part of us Hurt of us, help of us, hope of us, heart of us, Life is worth living. Ah ! with the whole of us, Will of us, brain of us, senses and soul of us. Is life worth living? Aye, with the best of us, Heighths of us, depths of us, Life is the test of us! 136 SOLUTION T ASKED you if you loved me as of old, * And in your eyes I read a questioning, As though you feared your ardor had grown cold, And Love no more were such a wondrous thing; But even as I searched that look, my own Reached to the vision you have never known. And so, through all your doubt, my seeing soul Smiled, for it knew you could not fathom love, For none have scaled the heights nor dreamed the whole, Till Death's blank silence comes the test to prove Had I not met its echoless despair, How could I know that your deep love was there? But I have walked with that grim comrade, Pain, And yearned with baffled longing for a word That lips, once joyous, may not speak again 137 To happy ears that knew not what they heard I, who have anguished through the endless night, Can measure all your love for me aright ! And so I know if I should pass away, The question in your eyes would pas with me; If I should die before another day, Your heart would bleed for mine as poignantly As though we had been severed in the Spring Of our great passion's pregnant blossoming. Death shall interpret what Life may not see, And eyes that bless our own with love and laughter Are only fully prized when mystery Curtains the present from the dim hereafter. What fruitless, fond assurance you would give, If I were dead, and words could make me live! 138 A KENTUCKY GRAVE HPHERE lies a lonely grave beneath tall trees * In that fair State where birds afire flash Above the azure-purpled waves of grass. Upon the nameless stone is but a date, Mid- June, when all Kentucky's loveliness Was at its full, and on a year before The cruel war had ravaged the sweet South. But though no word is on the barren stone, The legend runs that one both fair and young Ah ! passing fair and brimmed with eager youth Lies cold and still and nameless 'neath the sod. For in that year the old-time hostelry, That still stands by the mound where she is laid, Was gay with dance, and song, and revelry, And all the Blue Grass State had gathered there As they were wont to do in other days. On that warm mid-June night, all suddenly, She stood within the hall, while her dark maid With coal-black hands unloosed the fleecy cloak, And every eye was drawn unto the gleam 139 Of jewels at her waist and round her throat That seemed a lily, dew-dropped in the dawn. Her strange dark eyes were flashing jewels, too, Set in the pallor of her dreamy face That turned to one as though his life was hers. Now, as the rhythmic music of the dance Fell on her ears, her eyes sought his and sank Into their depths as one who drowning steeps His failing memory in things best loved Then slowly to the soft and sensuous sound Of flute and viol and of violin, They floated in a circled harmony; And in her eyes one saw the love that leaned And lavished everything, and on her lips An evanescent smile that came and went. She seemed a pure white flame of loveliness ! ********* The music ceased, and as the last sweet note Wafted away to star-lit depths of June, She sank, and swooned in sinking, to the floor And died, without a murmur, in his arms. They laid her on a snow-white couch, and left Her weeping woman crouching at her feet, And her dark lover kneeling with her hand Listless as lily when the dew is gone 140 Clasped in his own to watch the weary night. But when the dawn broke, lo ! they found her there In utter loneliness, for both had fled ! So runs the story none have ever heard More than these lines have told, and thus the stone Bears nothing on it but the lonely date, And all who come must listen to the tale. ********* One, learning of the legend, lays a rose Upon the mound and leaves the gift of tears To keep its petals fresh, because of grief That one so young should perish ere the bud Had fully flowered in its blossoming. Ah, happy heart that weeps at such a fate! But still another comes, with laggard step And eyes opaque from disillusion's blow, Whose lips once long ago knew laughter well, Now parched with pallid parody of mirth And curved with scorn that any pity one Who never can know aught but Youth and Faith Ah, bitter heart that smiles at such a fate! And we who ponder on the twice-told tale, Shall we then laugh, or weep, or turn aside, 141 Perchance, and envy her? Had she not lived She who had loved, and danced, and dreamed, and died, Like some resplendent butterfly that wings To immortality in one brief hour! 142 LOVE IS A TALENT JOVE is a talent, like the gift of song * ' ' That thrills its cadenced passion on the ear, So Love, with harmony as rich and clear Strikes on the chord of Life, a vibrant, strong, Full note, that turns to right the cruel wrong, That lifts the lonely, stills the starting tear, Heals the bruised heart and casteth out all fear With peace that only can to Love belong. But if the singer sing not, then the high, Sweet resonance shall harsh and tuneless fall Thus Love, if only garnered and not given, Of its own atrophy must droop and die The dowered of Love must lean and lavish all Their boon on Earth, their Sesame to Heaven! 143 IF I WERE NOT SO YOUNG IF I were not so young, the vistaed years * Had not for me such pale, perspective dread, For I could turn, beneath this veil of tears, To swift reunion with my longed-for Dead But Youth is mine, and all its baffled fires Burn fiercely on within my ravaged breast, And all its ardent, innocent desires Defiant still their heritage attest. My blurred, blank gaze that once was wont to shine With prescient glow in what fair Time should bring, Now scans Life's far and faint horizon line Knowing that Death alone shall hold no sting My dumb despair, when it can find a tongue, May only falter, "Were I not so young!" 144 LOVE'S ARREARS T WAS in love with life and then I died * Because I lost the thing that I loved best. In my embittered soul with arid zest Sad disillusion, with fierce hate allied, Battled with murdered love and wounded pride; And harsh resentment, harbored in my breast, Festered the wound in my dead soul, till Rest Even the Rest of Death could not abide. My holier self in grief unholy lost Struggled to win my soul from sullen shame And lift my eyes through sacrificial tears, But though I proudly paid the crucial cost I wept for Love's dear sake and Love's fair fame And died again before lost Love's arrears. 145 WHICH? "\ \ 7E ask that Love shall rise to the divine, * * And yet we crave him very human, too; Our hearts would drain the crimson of his wine, Our souls despise him if he prove untrue ! Poor Love ! I hardly see what you can do ! We know all human things are weak and frail, And yet we claim that very part of you, Then, inconsistent, blame you if you fail. When you would soar, 'tis we who clip your wings, Although we weep because you faint and fall. Alas ! it seems we want so many things, That no dear love could ever grant them all ! Which shall we choose, the human, or divine, The crystal stream, or yet the crimson wine? 146 IN PRISON OHE is a murderess? Nay, it is not true ^ Such eyes, such gentle eyes, such loving eyes, And then her smile it is so gentle, too. You held her poor hard hands, and spoke to her In tender tones, as mother to a child, And she, with quick-caught breath, cried: "Anna's good; So good, dear lady, always as you wish." And with those same adoring, pleading eyes She seemed to drink your kind, protecting smile. We gave her flowers, gay with Autumn sun, That we had plucked in freedom, and the thought Stabbed in my heart. She murmured little words, In that soft tongue that poets love so well, And pressed the blossoms to her patient breast. So then we left her by her grated cell, Hearing the prison door with dubious clang Swing back behind us. Oh ! the sunset light Never had colors that were so divine, 147 Never was riotous wind so fresh and free, And the pale moon was shining dimly, too, As though fair nature held high carnival Of all her beauty; lavish in her gifts That we might know the contrast of our joy To that poor inarticulate sister's fate. A murderess? Then you told me and the tale Sent the hot blood in torrents to my head Until my eyes were blinded with her pain. They had been boy and girl in Italy, Had danced and sung together by the shore, And she was always his, had never known Father or mother, and the priest had smiled Because their pennies were too few to give That he should bind them with a marriage vow ! But she was her Luigi's, he was hers And when his gay, adventurous spirit willed, She followed him to this far land of ours "We think we find much gold, and make our home," She said, and then a glory swept her face. She told of how he worked, and every day She brought with her own hands ah ! patient toil- The stones with which to build the little house. And so it grew with all the long, hard days 148 Till one Spring morning, lo ! the home was done. She was so tired that her eyes were dim, Her once straight body twisted out of shape With heavy loads, but all her heart was glad Now it was done and she could rest awhile. And then he came. Looking her in the eyes, Laughing, he said: "This home is not for you You are grown old and ugly Anna, go A fair young girl will share this home with me." Dumb, like a stricken dog, she turned and went He was Luigi, and she must obey ! She hardly knew what happened after that, She had not died, it is so hard to die Yes, she had worked and earned her daily bread And days went by days pass when souls are dead Just as they pass when hearts are full of song And so a laggard year dragged to its close. The Spring had come again the gracious Spring! When all the earth is redolent with joy And happiness the birthright of each heart. Ah ! but the Spring has bitter pain for one Who dreads its coming, fears the long sweet days Fashioned for bursting blossoms and for love. All suddenly she came to life again 149 She, who had died that day the year before. Her home, the little home her hands had made, Surely it could not hurt Luigi if She looked once more at what her toil had wrought ! Her hurrying feet could hardly carry her, So eager was she. In her weary brain There was no thought of evil, only thirst, For that sweet past consumed her like a flame. There was the porch, and on it was a girl, Young as she once had been, with curling hair Falling on cheek and breast, and in her arms A dark-eyed baby clinging to that breast; She leaned across the railing and she laughed Luigi, too, had laughed a year ago ! And laughing, called in shrill and taunting tones: "You are the woman that Luigi kept Until you grew too old you had no child To bind his love. Look what I've given him." She laughed again; mocking, she held the babe As though to give it into Anna's arms Those arms that knew Luigi's, and had clung In love's first ecstasy around his neck In primitive passion. Now, that love, betrayed. Called on the savage that is in us all, 150 Caught at her broken heart, her blazing brain A flash of steel, and the dread deed was done What wonder? Ah, the pity of it all ! Twelve years of prison, did you say, twelve years Have passed already in that little cell? A life-long sentence, but commuted now, Because of good behavior ? Ah ! those eyes Such tender, quiet, sad, beseeching eyes Eyes of a murderess! And the man is free! 151 GOD'S FAIR WORLD IN some old book I read a legend quaint * Of one who wandered from the haunts of men, One who had sinned and suffered, turned a saint He never looked upon their like again. His eyes drawn inward, shriving his sad soul By counting over the monotonous bead, He put away the joy of nature's whole Musing upon his own poor, trivial deed. Nor would he look upon the glad sun rise Shedding a hope reborn adown the day, He dared not glory in the sunset skies But ever turned his eyes within, to pray. Year after year behind his narrow wall In garb of monk with crucifix on breast, His head averted from the sight of all, He built his pathway to eternal rest. 152 And when his time was come, with faith assured He met his hour with longing satisfied, Content that God should know what he endured; Alone as he had lived, alone he died. Swift to the gate of Heaven, the legend ran, His soul was wafted. Peter, at the gate, Spake but this word, "Loved you your fellow man?" And led him to the throne where suppliants wait. And there, so runs the tale, the God of Love In majesty upon his throne empearled Leaned to the saint and said, from heights above: "What did you think, O man, of my fair world?" Kneeling, the saint turned sinner, humbly prayed: "O Lord, my selfish eyes were blind with pain; I knew not your fair world; I was afraid Grant me to serve my fellow man again!" 153 SPRING AND GRIEF I SEE my love in every little child * Whose eyes meet mine with laughter in their blue; I hear him in the note, half sweet, half wild, When bird calls bird their promise to renew; I feel him in the ardor of the sun That woos the fragrance from the waking flower, And maple buds, rose flushed by beauty, won To swift fulfilment of the Sun God's power. The world is young once more as he was young, With life and love reborn in everything singing hearts ! My own is faint and wrung; The rapture and the riot of the Spring Can but enhance the throb of my despair 1 miss him most when joy is everywhere! 154 AUTUMN AND GRIEF THE short dark day, the chill of sombre skies, Are far less poignant to my brooding heart Than Spring with all her pregnant mysteries, And promises in which he has no part. Autumn is kind to one whose soul must weep, While radiant Spring with callous cruelty Awakens every longing that would sleep, To stir once more the joy that was to be. Autumn ! You are the healer, for in truth You seem to say, all things must change and die. Spring slays me with the memory of his youth, Cheats me with happiness that passed me by But Autumn murmurs, with pale lips and cold, "Death alone spares us, for we soon grow old!" 155 GETHSEMANE A LONE we kneel in our Gethsemane '** And blame our brother that he watcheth not ! We crave not him but drain his sympathy, All but our own fierce grief have we forgot. We cry, "Canst thou not watch with us one hour?" And, yet, aloof, we bow, a thing apart. Grief-scarred, we have nor wish, nor will, nor power To clasp our brother to our bleeding heart. He who was closest may not reach the soul, Shrouded and veiled, by anguish felled and slain; How can he watch, unfainting, when the whole That once was his responds to naught but pain? We blame our brother, yet it is not he, But our dead heart that makes Gethsemane ! 156 MOTHERHOOD T SOMETIMES think because at first I shrank, * And in my girlish heart rebelled, that I Should face again the long and weary months, 'Twas just for that as well as other things That when he came I could not love enough. But long before the day my doubt had passed, The child had leaped within me and I knew The sweet and holy joy of sacred things. And so my hour came, and, fierce and long, I battled for his life in agony, A wheel of fire in my shattered back And all my being crucified with pain. Then suddenly, as though by earthquake rent, The world went black with torture, and I knew That my cry mingled with another's cry So faint I hardly heard, and yet I thrilled To know the anguish gone, because once more A man child had been born to this strange earth. 157 There, as I lay, exhausted, I rejoiced That I had known the whole, each primal pang That any squaw might feel beneath the bush That I had proved myself what women were Who brought the pioneers into the world, The virile men who conquered wood and plain, For I had never murmured till the last Great wrench of nature brought my body's fruit. Perchance because of all this poignancy, I loved him with a love so deep and strong As though 'twere born of elemental things; But then, I lay within the darkened room Content to float upon a seeming mist, So very quiet, almost in a dream The calm and placid days slipped softly by, Those days of sweet seclusion, when the world Seemed very far away, when even love, Except the love I bore my little one, Was quite a thing apart, though hovering near And guarding me from care, a loyal shield That locked my chamber door to all but peace. So still I lay, till he would come to me; Then I would hold him closely to my breast Against the sheltered haven of my heart, And feel that God was in His Heaven high. 158 Sometimes I took him in my happy arms And scanned the little face and touched the hair, The fair soft hair, and looked into the eyes That were my father's in their shining blue One of my father's race, ah ! it was so For as he grew to childhood I could see The very traits I loved, the joy of life, The gay, bright heart, the sweet simplicity, The love and courage and the fierce contempt For one who could be cruel to the weak And even as he grew my passion grew, For we were one in heart and very soul His spirit lifted me, and all my sky Was filled with light if he were only near. Life seemed so sweet for him, and so for me With every perfect thing that it could bring. But suddenly, the awful summons came, For he was dead, and so my heart died too! The pangs I suffered when I gave him birth Were only in my weak and pliant flesh, But when he died it was my heart was torn, My passionate heart that seemed a living thing, That loved with love that was affinity The one affinity that cannot fail. 159 Just as the world went black when he was born, So blacker far it went when he was dead, For my strong heart was shattered by the blow. Thus, though I know that I have many joys, And though I greet the beauty of the Spring, And welcome Summer with its golden days, The glory is departed from the earth Because he is not part of this same Spring, Because the Summer and its golden days Can never more be seen through his dear eyes. And though the Autumn with its rich red glow Awakens a response within my breast, I cannot laugh as once I laughed with him, When riding neck and neck across the hills Into the glory of the dying day ! Ah ! no, the chill of Winter holds me fast, For he was the fair flower of my youth. But even with the anguish that is mine, I could not wish that it should ever pass, For it is but the other side of joy, And I must meet it as I met the pangs Of that fierce birth that brought me my delight The essence of the part that is divine, The perfect joy of perfect motherhood. 160 AFTER T HAVE lived and rejoiced in the living, * I have loved and accepted the pain, I have given for joy of the giving And counted the gift as a gain Like music that melts into laughter, And laughter that trembles to tears, I have waked every chord but hereafter How mute are the years ! They are dim with the fear of forgetting, And numb with a joy that is cold, They are wan from a sun that is setting, And blank as a tale that is told. No thrill in the rush of the river, No throb in the hush of the seas, In the wound of Grief's guarding, no quiver, For drained are Life's lees! 161 FEAR OEAST in the jungle, ready, crouched to spring; *-^ The spawn of sorrow, and the price of pain; Lurking in shadow, dark and evil thing, Waiting to claim my craven heart again. Grief slew my joy, and bore it far away, And left me in its place this barren blight That turns the gold of morning to the gray And haunting terror of the murky night; Fear that the ones I love shall anguish too, Fear for the heart red-hot, the heart turned cold, Fear of the grief, the blinding grief I knew, Fear of the shortening day, the years grown old. God of my Fathers, from thy throne above, Lean in thy tenderness, and draw me near, Teach me, O gracious Lord, the perfect love, The perfect love that casteth out all fear! 162 SERVICE AND SACRIFICE TO THE MEMORY OF MY BROTHER THEODORE ROOSEVELT WHOSE WATCHWORDS WERE COURAGE AND SERVICE WHOSE LIFE WAS A TRUMPET CALL TO LOYALTY TO AMERICA THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED SAGAMORE At Sagamore the Chief lies low Above the hill in circled row The whirring airplanes dip and fly, A guard of honor from the sky ; Eagles to guard the Eagle. Woe Is on the world. The people go With listless footstep, blind and slow; For one is dead who shall not die At Sagamore. Oh I Land he loved, at last you know The son who served you well below, The prophet voice, the visioned eye. Hold him in ardent memory, For one is gone who shall not go From Sagamore! January 6, 1919 TO FRANCE OCTOBER, 1916 "\ A 7"E, who have loved the France of old, * * The France that gave us Lafayette, Now deeper still our poignant debt, And tenderer ten thousandfold. Our youth has shed its blood for you, Because your valor wrung the heart. You, who have borne so brave a part, You builded better than you knew. If we of alien race and tongue Shall face, once more, the God of War, What you have been and what you are Shall be the flame before us flung. 167 Your gallant heart shall strengthen ours To reach unswerving toward the goal, Through you, perchance, a new-born soul, Unrecognized, within us flowers. Ah! France, who gave us Lafayette When we were scarred as you are now, Before your wounds we humbly bow, And bless you for our deeper debt! 168 SERVICE APRIL 6, 1917 TN terms of service, not of sacrifice, We pledge our bodies for our souls' desire, Infused with flame, heart-high with holy fire, Yet not as martyrs would we pay the price. Rather as lovers, asking but to give, And giving only passion purified, Craving one epitaph "Behold here died A Freeman who would have his country live ! n 169 AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE "TAFAYETTE, we are here!" Doffed helmet, bowed head Greet you, the great Dead. Were it weakness to shed So impassioned a tear? Lafayette, we are here ! We are here, Lafayette! Though we waited so long, We have come to right wrong, Here are arms lithe and strong That would pay the old debt, We are here, Lafayette! 170 Lafayette, as we kneel, Can you hear in your grave That our pledge is to save Or to die as the brave Men of France do reveal How to die for her weal ! Lafayette, we are here ! Vive la France ! She shall live For her life we would give What you gave, and retrieve The dear debt by your bier; Lafayette, we are here! 171 SUSPENSE BEFORE THE AMERICAN TROOPS GO INTO ACTION MARCH 30, 1918 A \ TE wait and hold our breath, for it must come, * * The hour of anguish which shall strike for all : When, like a heavy and unyielding pall, We know what we have sensed with pulses numb. The measured march of Sorrow strikes us dumb. Imprisoned by our dread, as by a wall, Breathless we wait, and neither rise nor call, Yet tremble at the echo of the drum. Oh ! Spring that we have loved and welcomed oft, When bursting buds acclaimed the new-born year, We shudder at the thought of what you bring, Each breeze that murmurs softer and more soft Hurries the breaking heart, the bitter tear, Death, the Intruder, tramples down the Spring ! 172 TO PEACE, WITH VICTORY NOVEMBBH 11, 1918 T COULD not welcome you, oh ! longed-for peace, Unless your coming had been heralded By victory. The legions who have bled Had elsewise died in vain for our release. But now that you come sternly, let me kneel And pay my tribute to the myriad dead, Who counted not the blood that they have shed Against the goal their valor shall reveal. Ah ! what had been the shame, had all the stars And stripes of our brave flag drooped still unfurled, When the fair freedom of the weary world Hung in the balance. Welcome then the scars ! Welcome the sacrifice ! With lifted head Our nation greets dear Peace as honor's right; And ye the Brave, the Fallen in the fight, Had ye not perished, then were honor dead! 173 THANKSGIVING DAY, 1917 TET us give thanks, and lift our ringing voices, * ' Though not for plenty, nor for paths of peace; Let us rejoice, as a strong man rejoices To run his race; nor pray for swift release: We who have doubted, dumb with indecision, Nor turned our faltering footsteps toward the Right, We who have heeded not the surer vision, Let us give thanks for we have seen the light ! Let us give thanks that once again, compelling, Our flag shall float for Freedom to the skies, Ten thousand times ten thousand voices swelling Proclaim our service and our sacrifice. Let us give thanks an undivided nation, One purposed now, we press toward the goal, To Thee, our Fathers' God and our Salvation, Let us give thanks for we have found our Soul ! 174 THANKSGIVING, 1918 JET us give thanks, and meet with head uplifted * ' The pealing bells that ring for righteous peace; Now that the coward souls like sand are sifted, We, who are purged, can welcome our release. Had we not seen the light, our honor, lying Like unsheathed sword, had lost its dauntless edge, Had we not conquered death by our own dying, We had been false to Freedom's fairest pledge. But now we kneel, eyes lifted in thanksgiving With peace triumphant deep within our heart, We, who have failed nor fallen dead, nor living, Let us give thanks, for we have borne our part ! 175 TO GENERAL LEONARD WOOD NOVEMBER 11, 1918 VfOUR vision keen, unerring when the blind, Who could not see, turned, groping, from the light, Your sentient knowledge of the wise and right Have won to-day the freedom of mankind. Honor to whom the honor be assigned! Mightier in exile than the men whose might Is of the sword alone, and not of sight, You march beside the victor host aligned. Had not your spirit soared, our ardent youth Had faltered leaderless; their eager feet, Attuned to effort for the valiant truth Through your command, rushed, swiftly to compete To hold on high the torch of Liberty Great-visioned Soul, yours is the victory ! 176 CHRISTMAS, 1918 ONCE more with Christmas Eve comes "Peace, Good-Will." Once more the Christmas hope unstifled springs, And hearts are glad because it seems that still We hear the rustle of the Angels' wings. As, long ago, the men who watched their sheep Welcomed the radiant messengers of light, So we who walked in darkness, woke to weep, No longer dream of slaughter in the night. Ring out oh! bells of Peace, and let your voice Be the new pledge of brotherhood in truth The valiant Dead would bid us to rejoice, For this they gave their ardor and their youth. That all the anguish, all the mortal pain Shall bring new vision to a world once blind; The booming guns, though silenced, call again Not now to die, but live for all mankind! 177 TO ITALY OCTOBER, 1918 CAIR land of dear desire, A Where Beauty like a gleam Has waked the hidden fire Of what our souls would dream! Where shining ilex glistens, And cypress' sombre shade Above dim fountains listens In some forgotten glade. Oh ! land of dear desire, Thy beauty sweeps again My heart with sudden fire And burns away its pain. I dream with Perugino On some far Umbrian hill, Or pray with sweet St. Francis Till this world's fret is still. 178 Until my soul reposes As once, unscourged he lay, Amid the thornless roses Until the break of day. Dear Saint, who was the brother Of every living thing, Could we to one another Thy gracious message bring, The world renewed, awaking, Would shed the shattered, torn, Grim night of its own making, And pledge a peace reborn. Fair land of dear desire, Thy beauty like a gleam Shall kindle and inspire What all our souls would dream! 179 IN BED WRITTEN FOR A BENEFIT FOR THE "ENFANTS DE LA FRONTIERE," 1917 A A 7HEN evening comes And I'm in bed And mother sits and sings And holds my hand And strokes my head, I think of all the things That I have heard Can they be true? That children just like me Are cold and lost and hungry too In lands across the Sea? They say they wander in their fright All dumb with cold and dread; And when I think of them at night I want to hide my head Upon my mother's gentle arm That holds me close and still, And seems to promise that no harm Can ever come, or ill. 180 And then I hear my mother's voice So tender in a prayer, "Dear God, may all the girls and boys Who wander 'Over there* Be brought for kindly sheltering To those who crave to give, And they who mourn shall learn to sing And they who die shall live." And when the prayer is done I sleep So still without a sound, And dream no little child shall weep And all the lost are found! 181 SOLDIER OF PAIN TO HER \ TOT in the trenches, torn by shot and shelling, Not on the plain, Bombed by the foe; but calm and unrebelling, Soldier of Pain ! Facing each day, head high with gallant laughter, Anguish supreme; What accolade in what divine hereafter Shall this redeem? Through the long night of racked, recurrent waking, Till the long day, Fraught with distress, brings but the same heart breaking Front for the fray. In a far land our Nation's patriots, willing, Fought, and now lie, But you as brave a harder fate fulfilling, Dare not to die! 182 "DEWEY' ! the gallant first of May When our ships stole in the Bay, Under cover of the darkness, Into deep Manila Bay. What cared they for mine or shell, For our Dewey knew full well, That we'd sink the Spanish vessels, With the dawning of the day. And amid the cannon's roar Bursting from Cavite's shore, Pointing at our daring flagship, As it neared Cavite's shore, Clear, above the deafening gun, From the lips of everyone, Rose the hoarse cry of defiance, Swelling ever more and more. 183 "Tis in memory of the Maine, And our gallant sailors slain, Faraway in Cuban waters, All our gallant sailors slain.'* Fierce and swift the deadly shot, For the strong arms faltered not, We were paying debts of honor, As we made the bullets rain. And the Stars and Stripes shall wave, Over many a Spanish grave, For the harbor of Manila Now is but a Spanish grave. And the first of May shall be Dewey's Day on land and sea, Honor to our dauntless Dewey, Honor to his seamen brave! May 1 1898 184 THEODORE ROOSEVELT A WOMAN SPEAKS TO HIS SISTER I NEVER clasped his hand, * He never knew my name, And yet at his command, I followed like a flame. I pressed amid the crowd To touch his garment's hem, As one of old once touched The Man of Bethlehem. I was of those who toil, Whose bread is wet with tears, A daughter of the soil, And bent, though not with years. 185 His words would lift the veil That blurred my tired eyes, They seemed to strengthen me To serve and sacrifice. And all the values lost, When life was cold and grim, Were clear and true again Interpreted by him. Our leader and our friend, He knew what we must bear, And to the gallant end He bade us do and dare. Clad in an armored truth And by high purpose shod, He gave us back our youth, Our country, and our God! 186 TO MY BROTHER I LOVED you for your loving ways, * The ways that many did not know; Although my heart would beat and glow When Nations crowned you with their bays. I loved you for the tender hand That held my own so close and warm, I loved you for the winning charm That brought gay sunshine to the land. I loved you for the heart that knew The need of every little child; I loved you when you turned and smiled, It was as though a fresh wind blew. I loved you for your loving ways, The look that leaped to meet my eye, The ever-ready sympathy, The generous ardor of your praise. 187 I loved you for the buoyant fun That made perpetual holiday For all who ever crossed your way, The highest or the humblest one. I loved you for the radiant zest, The thrill and glamour that you gave To each glad hour that we could save And garner from Time's grim behest. I loved you for your loving ways, And just because I loved them so, And now have lost them, thus I know I must go softly all my days! 188 THE A. E. F. To T. R. FROM "THE STARS AND STRIPES" ONE is the joy, gone is the thrill of returning, We who had longed to share with you all our laurels, To lay them at the feet of our great companion; Hushed is rejoicing ! Never again to see the light from your window, Shining across the land that you loved and in spired, "Put out the light," you said, and slept; but not dreaming The darkness for others. You, our leader, but more, our greatest companion Near enough for the spur of your voice and your hand grip, Ever ready to share, but sharing, still leading Upward and onward. 189 Listen ! This is our pledge, to fare and to follow, Follow the trail you blazed, without shadow of turning, We, who have learned of you, shall not be found wanting Here or hereafter! 190 VALIANT FOR TRUTH " And so Valiant for Truth passed over, and all the trumpets sounded for him on the other side" WALIANT for Truth has gone Alas ! that he has left us, Valiant for Truth, the leader that we love, Where shall we find his like? Grim death, thou has bereft us Of that great force that lifted us above. Valiant for Truth, thy voice rang strong, and clear, and loudly, We had not borne to have its accents fail; Nor would we choose, oh ! Knight, that thou shouldst go less proudly Ardent and young, upon the last, long trail. What though we stumble blindly over ways that darken, We are not worthy if we do not fare 191 Forth to the West, where still thy voice calls us to hearken Up to the heights, and we shall meet thee there. "Valiant for Truth has come," thus all the trumpets sounded, "Valiant for Truth who faltered not, nor fell; Fearless he rode the trail, the last long trail un bounded, Rode to the final goal, where all is well ! " 192 URIEL II ESDRAS IV THEN Uriel spake, the great angel, the angel of God- " Would ye know then the secrets of Yaveh, the rule of his rod? So, weigh me the weight of the fire, the blast of the wind That has left in the wake of the tempest no whisper behind; Or call me the day that has vanished, one hour of the day, And I will interpret Jehovah, His will and His way !" And I answered, "Oh! Angel of Yaveh, ye know and I know That the questions ye ask are a riddle. The gleam and the glow Of the flash of the fire are fitful, and cannot be weighed, 193 And the whirl of the cyclone unmeasured can never be stayed, And the day that is past could we call it then Heaven would be here, But, perchance, we could walk, even blindly, were the pathway more clear!" Then Uriel answered, "I ask ye of things ye have known. Ye have sat at the warmth of the fire; the breeze that has blown Has cooled ye when faint with the summer's long sweep of the sun, And the day that is past, ye have lived it, although it is done. If ye cannot discern, though half hidden, the things ye have seen, Would ye look on the veiled face of Yaveh, His might and His mien?" And I answered God's angel in sorrow, "'Twere better by far That we ne'er had been born to the bitter, blind things that we are; 194 To suffer, and not to know wherefore, to be but the sport Of Jehovah who reads not the riddle of all He has wrought." Then, gently, the angel of Yaveh made answer to me "When the flame of the fire has vanished, oh ! what do ye see, The smoke that is left? Yea, the ashes, but fire and flame Are greater than smoke or than ashes. The clouds are the same They pass to the earth in the shower, the drops shall remain, But greater than drops and unending the rush of the rain. What has been is but drops and but ashes to the more still to be, For the ways of Jehovah are wondrous. Wait, mortal, and see!" 195 THE LAST LEAF IN SPRING am I here? I, who belonged to that dread season drear, When, wet and cold, November rains did change to formless mould My comrades, and did sweep Them all to their last sleep; But I I was passed by. Even the storm that wild Autumnal night, When winds, tornado-like, rushed by in might, And carried my companions on their breast, Left me at rest. I had been happier far with them to fly Fiercely dissolved, against an avenging sky Riding Death's ride upon the sounding gale, Than, wan and pale, Against this branch to cling, And wait a new-born Spring! 196 I have no place Where buds do bloom apace. One near me now Burst into adolescence, How, ah ! how ? Her fragrant scents With youth's impertinence Importune me to know why I still hold The branch, with tendrils cold "Why," they would ask of me, "have you survived? Your brothers were short-lived And went their way, Why did you stay?" And I Can but reply, A monk at heart, As though apart, unshrived, "I know not nay I only know I would not have it so." And yet, and yet Perchance 'tis not so sad To see the earth once more, reborn and glad. I cannot feel it not one hollow vein 197 Can nature's sap retain; But I can see The mystery of bloom, on bud and tree, Can hear new leaves Murmur within their shoots of days to come, Can almost hear the hum Of some precocious and marauding bee Around the roots Of flowers it may not see. And even I A skeleton indeed at such a feast, For one brief moment From my fate released, Can chant my threnody Can lift my voice And in the thought rejoice, As one who, living still, though out of time, Has heard again the rhythm and the rhyme Of Earth's renewal. The sublime Recurrence of the beauty of the days Born but to praise, When, long and sweet and slow, The hours linger and the flowers grow. 198 Ah me! Ah me! I strive to think I am content to see, And not to feel. It is not true, I long to revel in the Heaven's blue, I long to dance And waver gayly in the wooing breeze Balanced at ease, Sure of my strength to brave its harmonies With no mischance. I long for mad Sweet ecstasy, when all the world is glad I strain to thrill When robins trill The song of passion to their waiting mate; But no, my fate Is otherwise. Come Wind, arise Blow, feigning Autumn, Blow, as though the world In cold November's fog and mist were furled,- Blow fiercely till upon the new grass hurled, 199 I lie, a shattered thing That none regret. I had no right To that stupendous sight The promise and the pageant of the Spring. And yet ! and yet ! Hurried to Earth at last Upon the April blast I would not quite forget! 200 FLIGHT T HAVE followed the flush of the morn * To the heart of the sun. Aurora, the spirit of Dawn, Ere the day has begun, Has winnowed the way of the wind For the beat of my wings, Above the dim haunts of mankind To the essence of things. Apollo awaits me afar With his horses in-reined, As I float with the faint morning star Where the ether is stained. By the crimson that flares as he sweeps Down the fire-touched mist, As his chariot wavers and leaps From the heights amethyst. 201 I swing in the nebulous space Till I welcome the shroud Of night; and the stars in their race Are singing aloud, They chant of the past, of the days When the song of the spheres, The rhythm of prayer and of praise Knew no mortal ears. Orion has thrown me his belt As a life-line of light, The Pleiades shimmer and melt As a lure to my sight, Arcturus points up to the crown, To the crown I have won I am morning and night, I have mown My path to the sun. Must I fall from the kingdom of air To the bondage of earth, Man calls me his shackles to bear, For 'twas he gave me birth. 202 His vision has buoyed my flight, Has given me grace To conquer the dawn and the night, And the infinite space. Man-made, I have pierced the wide blue Of the heavens on high, Nor Hermes, winged God, as he flew Were freer than I Man-made, as a God, lo ! I dare Olympus to span I am kin to the uttermost air, Yet the daughter of Man ! 203 FROM A MOTOR AT MIDNIGHT ! the strange wild thrill of a motor flight In the still, clear cold of an Autumn night, When led by the lure of the straight white road The car leaps loose to the engine's goad, And the front lamps shine down the distant track And the small red point at the motor's back Sends a crimson glow on the quick-left trail Like Antares' eye in the scorpion's tail. How the brain responds to the pulsing throb, And the soul replies to the wind's faint sob As it meets the branch for a cool embrace Of the Autumn trees in their leafless lace. I look straight up in the wide-lit skies And I know that the vaulted depth replies, For it bids me join in the planets' race While it offers the prize of a stellar place Till I dream that Auriga, charioteer, Is at the wheel, and the whirling sphere Answers my dream as I meet the stars. Orion's belt, with its golden bars, Is in my grasp; and a hunting-song Echoes the meadow road along, Borne on the breath of the midnight breeze Chanted by distant Pleiades. The hill sweeps low as we skirt the stream Where, upside down, with a laughing gleam The dipper flings from the milky way A frothing spoonful of yellow spray. And air and water, and earth and sky Call out "Good Speed" to us rushing by We are one with the spaces, and one with the dark, Alive as the flash of electric spark, In tune with nature, at one with man, Who has made us part of the cosmic plan By the child of his brain, which he curbs and reins, Or hurls headlong through the midnight plains Oh ! the strange, wild thrill of a motor flight In the still, clear cold of an Autumn night! 205 THE PATH THAT LEADS NOWHERE HTHERE'S a path that leads to Nowhere * In a meadow that I know, Where an inland island rises And the stream is still and slow; There it wanders under willows, And beneath the silver green Of the birches' silent shadows Where the early violets lean. Other pathways lead to Somewhere, But the one I love so well Has no end and no beginning Just the beauty of the dell, Just the wind-flowers and the lilies Yellow-striped as adder's tongue, Seem to satisfy my pathway As it winds their scents among. 206 There I go to meet the Springtime, When the meadow is aglow, Marigolds amid the marshes, And the stream is still and slow. There I find my fair oasis, And with care-free feet I tread For the pathway leads to Nowhere, And the blue is overhead ! All the ways that lead to Somewhere Echo with the hurrying feet Of the Struggling and the Striving, But the way I find so sweet Bids me dream and bids me linger, Joy and Beauty are its goal, On the path that leads to Nowhere I have sometimes found my soul ! 207 "IF I COULD HOLD MY GRIEF" TF I could hold my grief in calm control, * And look its blinding terror in the face; If I could welcome it to its own place Deep in my heart; if I could sweep the whole Of this fierce pain, that seems to drown my soul, Into my being like a firm embrace, And let it with my life's stream interlace, Then Grief and I, perchance, might win the Goal. But if I shrink, with dim, averted eyes, Craving to hurry through the restless days, Seeking escape, a wounded creature, blind, Then all my deeper self, that hidden lies, In vain shall strive to lead me in the ways That Grief would teach my lagging feet to find. 208 THE WOMAN SPEAKS I\ A Y would-be Lover, wait believe me, this * * * Perchance shall prove, of all, the fairest hour; When I have felt your arms' compelling power, When I have known the rapture of your kiss, Life may not hold again such tranquil bliss Eternal forfeit! Friendship's perfect flower Withers before the Sun-God's golden dower, Will you not grant me, now, an armistice? Let us call loyal truce that we may steep The mind and heart and soul in this rich sense Of full communion. Faith, serene and deep, Shall hold our passion to an innocence Of spirit union Wait, and let Love sleep Before the blinding harvest he shall reap. 209 "WE WHO HAVE LOVED" A \ 7E who have loved, alas ! may not be friends, * ^ Too faint, or yet too fierce, the stifled fire, A random spark and lo ! our dead desire Leaps into flame, as though to make amends For chill, blank days, and with strange fury rends The dying embers of Love's funeral pyre. Electric, charged anew, the living wire A burning message through our torpor sends. Could we but pledge, with loyal hearts and eyes, A friendship worthy of the fair, full past, Now mutilate, and lost beyond recall, Then might a Phoenix from its ashes rise Fit for a soul-flight; but we find, aghast, Love must be nothing if not all in all! 210 LIFE HURT ME IIFE hurt me * ' But I welcomed even pain So keen I was the full deep cup to drain, I courted all the clamor and the strife, The grief, the joy I was in love with life. Death hurt me But I wept and bowed my head To learn the lesson Christ interpreted. With dear Love's help I raised my anguished eyes And thought I read the message of the skies. And then Love hurt me And I lost the whole Of faith and peace. "Ah!" cried my struggling soul, "If Love can fail its own, why live?" it said And lo ! still-born, I found my soul was dead ! 211 THE OLD HOUSE 'T'HE old House on the Hill * Has harbored many a fire,- Keen heart and young desire, All silent now and still ! The old House on the Hill Behind its sheltering walls Held Joy that Hope recalls And Love that hearts fulfil. The old House on the Hill Surmounts the flying years, Fit frame for smiles, or tears, Strong shield for good or ill. The old House on the Hill Still harbors many a fire, New lives, but old desire Soon silent, too, and still ! LE GRAND DISPARU the far hill, where all your people love you Silent you lie, 'Neath the Scotch cross that rises there above you Under the sky. Stanch as its stone, the hand you held out gladly, To meet the need Of those who turned to you; who now greet sadly What was decreed. Deep in your heart's far innermost recesses, You held your Own, Scorning all lighter loves and their caresses You gave alone All that you had and it was worth the keeping To those who bore Your honored name. Ah ! may you now be reaping That love and more! 213 THE PLUS SIGN CHRIST SPEAKS FROM A CRUCIFIX IN BRITTANY /\ /I Y people, oh ! my people, pass not by, * * * Or passing, turn again and look, for lo ! The shadow of my rough hewn cross and me Hangs in the waning West, a great Plus Sign, And bids you add us, add my cross and me, To every joy and every pain of yours. My arms outstretched, my weary head and feet Nailed to the rugged cross are like the sign The little children make to show that more, And even more shall still be added to The teacher's task until it all is done: And so, my people, look, and looking, learn For I would bid you add my cross and me To make the fulness of the final sum, The great Plus Sign of pain and penitence, My cross and I are penitence and pain, The great Plus Sign of joy and sacrifice, 214 My cross and I are sacrifice and joy, The great Plus Sign of service and of love, For we are service, and, above all, love. My cross and I are love in everything, For love is pain, and love is penitence, And love is service, joy and sacrifice. Then pass not by, my people, turn and look; The great Plus Sign is fading in the West Above a weary and a waiting world. Before the shadow of my crucifix Is lost in murky mist of setting sun, Take it, and add it unto every day's Appointed task, and let the great Plus Sign Enrich your spirit with its priceless boon Of pain and joy and love and sacrifice, The sum of all that means my cross and me. My people, oh ! my people, turn and look, The great Plus Sign is waning in the West. 215 IN LIGHTER VEIN LINES TO A FRIEND ON PARTING AFTER SIX WEEKS IN INDIA fellow-traveller, pleasant Friend, 'Tis sad we near our journey's end, And now the "parting of the ways" Hangs like a pall upon our days An "Indian Summer" we have spent With which the winter weeks have blent Until we really hardly knew Which season 'twas; for skies so blue Have crowned so many charming hours It surely was the "time of flowers." Please don't forget your comrade when The busy world shall claim you, then A special loyalty 'twould be To give a wandering thought to me, A train of thought just send my way As long as up to Mandalay ! 219 Remember Ahmedabad's procession Where we were seized by an obsession For Hindu weddings; wreathed in flowers We whiled away the twilight hours And Udaipur ! ah ! fairy palace, A "wonderland" where many an "Alice" Might lose her way in happy dreaming, And soon forget to be, in seeming ! Oh ! silent cranes that fly to rest Above the water's placid breast, And light that flushes as it closes And turns the sky to ash of roses, Full long, in memory's amber pressed, Will dwell that scene I love the best. Then Chitore's towers of Victory Against a dark and murky sky, They dominate the long-dead past, And teach us Beauty's worth at last. From Delhi and from Agra, too, We learn that Art and Love are true; We prayed before the Taj Mahal That stands a living seneschal, To guard a love that cannot die For love outlives all history. And once again our souls replied 220 When Sunrise on its crimson tide Swept over Kinchin junga's height And bade the day destroy the night ! It seems to me when we respond To sights like these, a subtle bond Is forged, and never heart from heart Can after such a union part And so though oceans roll between We're ever linked in what has been "Es ist so schon gewesen," Friend, That such a tie can never end! THE FUTURE OF CHIVALRY LINES READ AT A DEBATE WHAT shall become of Chivalry? The very word spells Arcady And visions o'er my fancy play Of those brave knights of yesterday ! Launcelot and Bors and young Gawaine Go tilting through the woods again, The shadowy woods where "lutes were strung And love-knots from the branches hung;" Where lovely maiden in distress, Soft shielded by her loveliness Had but to call to any swain To rescue her from any pain. The modern Launcelot, half a knight, Perchance might leave her to her plight. While modern Bors is spelled with "e," There were no bores in Arcady! And modern Gawaine, worst of all, 222 Is only summoned when things pall, And then, alas ! for him poor swain His name dismembered spells but gain ! And so, alack-a-day ! Ah, me ! What shall become of Chivalry? Fair Woman, we must turn to you (In any stress we always do) The future of this gracious art, Lies only in your subtle heart, And would you not confess it lost, Just pause awhile and count the cost. Through you alone it must survive, Man cannot keep this hope alive Dear Chivalry, a beggar, prays That you should save him from disgrace. That you should in his cause enlist, Though Suffragette, or Suffragist. Forget there is a Bernard Shaw Or "Self-expression" new-made law Forget Eugenics, put aside The many modern fads allied, "Sex problems" of biology, 223 And all the strange doxology That rings with every ill and ism That color Life's illusive prism. If you would keep your old-time place Call back the half-forgotten grace That haloed love, and hallowed life, And made the game seem worth the strife And put aside the fallacy That one can be one's own "per se. " One's life can never be one's own, Too strong the grasp, too deep the groan Of other lives that grip the soul And stand between us and our goal; For life is like a giant tree That stretches up right valiantly, But every branch must brush another, And every tendril bind a brother ! So, would you keep fair Chivalry, Don't crush it by your "right to be Just your own self" Put "Self-expression" Away with "Cubes" and "Post-impression." Give heart, and soul, and love a chance, And happiness, with song and dance 224 And praise and prayer and gracious things, That lift us from the earth on wings. Oh, Woman, give us back our right To simple things of deep delight. Just be a woman, if you can, And Chivalry '11 come back to man! 225 TO DOROTHY D. ON HER FIRST BIRTHDAY, JUNE 30, 1917 'T'HIS is to little Dorothy D. Granddaughter mine so sweet is she. Long ago a poet knew A dear little girl called Dorothy Q.; But I am convinced she could not be Any sweeter than Dorothy D. Dorothy Douglas, may you grow Into the dearest girl I know: May you be loyal, frank and true, Just as your mother is; may you Loving, joyous, and honest be, Like your father, my Dorothy D. Welcome into the great, strange world, Now where the dogs of war have hurled Bitter cries that have stunned our ears, Into this world where no one hears Echoes of that sweet peace we knew. May your mother have peace through you- Peace of the heart that love shall bring, Love, that conquers the bitter sting Of grief or failure or suffering. Ah ! my Dorothy, Dorothy D., Little bundle of joy to be, We who are grateful thank you, dear, For coming to bring us love and cheer. 227 VERSES WRITTEN FOR THE OFFICIAL BENEFIT FOR THE RELIEF OF BELGIAN WOMEN AND CHILDREN, DECEMBER 8, 1914, STRAND THEATRE, NEW YORK, TO INTRODUCE THE DIS TINGUISHED ACTORS AND ACTRESSES WHO GAVE THEIR SERVICES READ BY COMEDY AND TRAGEDY MISS SYBIL CARLISLE At Comedy I AM the Comic Muse, Soft as the summer rain, Come the children I bear Out of the breath of my brain; Love, and Laughter that lifts, Joy with the lilt of a song, Beauty that's born of praise, And Faith that has righted wrong. I am the heart of a child, I am the trust of a maid, Spirit and passion of man, Love that is unbetrayed; I am the Muse that smiles, Lo ! and gladness is rife, Comedy, I am called, I am the mirror of Life. 230 MR. WALTER HAMPDEN As Tragedy I am the Tragic Muse; Born of the web of my brain, Lo ! my children shall pass, Poverty, Pathos, and Pain; Labor, and Love forsworn, Each in their turn I name. Jealousy, evil born Sorrow, and Sin and Shame. I am the World's despair, I am the heart's despite, Woven of me is fear, Shadow of mine is night; I am the Muse that weeps, Out of my grief is Strife, Tragedy, I am called, I am the mirror of Life! 231 MISS EDITH WYNNE MATTHISON As "Everyman" Could "Everyman" and every woman too, But hear your voice as we were wont to do, In deep rich tones invoking prayer or praise, Then Every Man were better all his days. MISS VIOLA ALLEN As Hermione, in "A Winter's Tale" Heraiione, thine was a "Winter's Tale," Chill winds of foul suspicion did prevail; Thou, ever blameless, Overborne by blame, Thou, never shameless, Crucified by shame. Hermione, we weep thy hapless fate, So swiftly sentenced, Justified so late! 232 MR. HOLBROOK BLINN As Jack Marbury, in "Salomy Jane" Have you heard of Jack Marbury, he from the West ? He's a terror at cards But his heart is the best. Oh ! the maids he caressed, And the sins he confessed. But he's white just the same For he'll take all the blame, Have you heard of Jack Marbury. he from the West ? MRS. PATRICK CAMPBELL As Melisande, in "Petteas and Melisande" Creator by your rare impersonation Of Melisande, a Master's fine creation, At your seductive charm, we cry again, "May God have pity on the hearts of men." 233 MISS ETHEL BARRYMORE As Mme. Trentoni, in "Captain Jinks" Our Ethel Barrymore, Queen of Queens In Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines, Has made us thrill as she laughs and leans, To the Captain in the army. For she is a Siren through and through, And she calls to me and she calls to you, That is the way that Sirens do, To the Captains in Life's Army. 234 MR. WILLIAM H. CRANE As "David Harum" Dear David Harum, your quaint wisdom comes Fresh from the land we love to call our own. It is the bird that sings, the bee that hums, The wind that blows across a grove o'ergrown; In him who voices you, you live again, We know not which is Harum, Which is Crane! MISS FRANCES STARR As Juanita, in " The Rose of the Rancho" Rose of the Rancho, Flower-like you are, A rose indeed, But even more, a Starr! 235 MLLE. DORZIAT As Countess Marina, in " The Hawk" There is a land of language exquisite, Where every word may to the gesture fit, A tongue that's fashioned for divine finesse, Each syllable a song or a caress, From that fair land we have with us to-night, Mile. Dorziat for our delight. MR. FRANCIS WILSON As Cadeaux, in "Erminie" Come listen to the "Dickey Bird," The gayest song you ever heard, Sung by a tramp as fresh and gay As ever wandered by the way Incorrigible, fickle, fond, The first "Beloved Vagabond." 236 MISS JANE COWL As Mary Turner, in " Within the Law " Protest supreme against the Law's lost soul, Your fine presentment would lay bare the whole Of tangled lack of justice, till in awe, We shudder at Life's wreck, "Within the Law." MISS ANNIE RUSSELL As Kate Hardcastle, in "She Stoops to Conquer" "She stoops to conquer," But a star in falling, Brings a new gleam on earth, A heaven recalling. 237 MR. HENRY MILLER As Sidney Carton, in " The Only Way" When Sidney Carton in the twice-told tale Would have us weeping, or perchance turn pale, The price of such sweet pain we gladly pay Is it not Henry Miller's "Only Way"? MR. WILLIAM GILLETTE As "Sherlock Holmes" Subtle, sincere, illumining, illusive, Convincing, captivating, and delusive, You who can thrill until we hold our breath, And hang suspended as 'twixt life and death Who are you then, but one of two? and yet You must be Sherlock Holmes You are Gillette! 238 MR. WILLIAM FAVERSHAM As logo, in "Othello" lago, sinister, unhappy role, The Bard with swift unswerving instrument Portrays the pit for every human soul That is not with a purer purpose blent. Degraded man ! Supreme indeed the art Of one who may interpret such a part. MME. NAZIMOVA Aa "Hedda Gabler" Nazimova, none but your potent gift, Could Ibsen's Hedda to perfection lift, Half woman, and half serpent, wholly vile, Yet Hedda in your person doth beguile. 239 MESSRS. WEBER AND FIELDS Two names that seem to all of us but one, What memories arise of happy fun ! Two names we hold together in the heart; Twice "Welcome Home" when they are not apart, For neither to the other glory yields, Immortal Weber! And immortal Fields! MISS ROSE COGHLAN As Lady Gay Spanker, in "London Assurance" Did ye ken our Rose as the Lady Gay, Have ye heard her tell how she rode away, To the crack of the whip at the break of day, With the horse and the hounds in the morning? Oh ! the sound of the horn on the echoing hill, And the cry of the pack as they ran at will, And our dear Lady Gay, I can hear her still, As she told of the hunt in the morning. 240 MISS MARIE DORO As "Oliver Twist" You, Marie Doro, do for us restore Poor little Oliver who "wanted more." Plaintive, pathetic youth foregone and missed, Oh ! sad anomaly, a child unkissed ! MR. HENRY DIXEY As "Adonis" When Dixey in Adonis plays, All hearts would sing their lightest lays, For who could frown or who would sigh, Or feel the world had gone awry When, luring us to happy ways, Our Dixey in Adonis plays ! MISS MARY SHAW As Mrs. Airing, in Ibsen's "Ghosts" Heredity, the spectre of the past, Ghost of the present, Claims its own at last; Ghosts of the future, Lo ! the child unborn Yields its fair birthright To a fate forlorn. 242 MISS BLANCHE BATES As "Madame Butterfly" Creator, of a smile, a sigh You gave us Madame Butterfly. MISS ELLEN TERRY At Portia, in "Merchant of Venice" And now the climax of it all, We yield to a familiar thrall. Here's Portia, here fair Rosalind, Gay Beatrice, and Kate unkind; Olivia whose tender folly Immortalized a sprig of holly Ah ! be they sad or sweet, or merry, All, all are you, dear Ellen Terry! FINIS 243 TO JOSEPH H. CHOATE FEBRUARY 18, 1913 A LENTEN TOAST TO "ALL SAINTS" TAST Friday night St. Valentine "* Was pledged in many a bowl of wine, Our Patron Saint is now before us, So join with me in grateful chorus, St. Joseph, reverenced, &nd dear, We pledge you life, and love, and cheer! We cannot but rejoice that you The habits of Jerome eschew; It is not needful in the least To wander always with a beast, Especially if, like St. Joe, One is the "sure enough" whole show! No lion can compete with him, For Lion is his synonym ! 244 Unlike Sebastian, you are free From darts that pierce excessively And, here again, the reason why Is evident to any eye, Your darts are always flung before Another's sting your wit can floor, And so, unscathed, you bare your breast Secure that e'en the sharpest jest Though aimed with skill, could never carry Against your "rapid fire" parry. Another Saint forever sits Upon an iron base that fits Above a slowly burning fire, A horrid scheme, both dread and dire. St. Lawrence, Joseph goes one better, No fire could his spirit fetter, For he, himself, so full of fire, Would conquer any funeral pyre, And, Phoenix-like, would put to shame The fate that tried to quench his flame. In fact, his friends have always boasted, He is the roaster, not the roasted! 245 Now last not least we come to her y Where Worshipped turns to Worshipper, For while we kneel at Joseph's shrine, He kneels before St. Caroline, And, thus, in him we honor too His loyal lady, liege and true, And so, once more, lift high the bowl, To pledge twin Saints, with heart and soul! 246 A NEW YEAR'S TOAST TO OUR G. O. M., JOSEPH H. CHOATE JANUAKT 5. 1917 LL high the glass a New Year's Toast! To one who is our city's boast Of all her jewels, quite the Gem Here's to our charming G. O. M. ! The G. O. M. that England knew Was grand and wise and manly too, And strong and powerful, but he Could never, never, never be What our dear G. O. M. to us Has come to mean, for good or "wuss" (That rhyme is quite ridiculous!) With rapier wit and tender heart, On every side he bears his part, With literature and politics He doth a social glamour mix, Past master of diplomacy An adept in Philanthropy Who would not drink a New Year's brew, 247 Dear G. 0. M., to such as you ! But when / dwell upon your gift, Your gift of gifts, it seems to lift My thought from social charm and wit, From epigram with laughter lit, Or legal eminence, or deep Desire to have your country reap From high ideals and strong endeavor A place within the sun forever. Nay, when I think of you, I feel The dearest gift that you reveal Is that you never cease to lend Your finest self to be a friend And we who press an eager claim To call you by that priceless name, Would have you fully realize Your friendship is the gift we prize. Thus, as we drink our New Year's toast, The wish, perchance we wish the most, Is this, until our journey's end, That we may claim you as our friend. Your friendship is our diadem Here's New Year's joy, dear G. O. M. : 248 CLANKED by such comrades, I am loath to lift * A trembling voice, as one who is the rift Within the lute; for how can I aspire To rival all the past and future fire Of incense burned before this gifted pair, Sothern and Marlowe two beyond compare! August is Thomas, waiting by my side, To prove that words and wit are fast allied And if he can't suffice in his short span To stir the house to homage Otto Kahn I And Agnes Repplier, she of rapier blade, Has cast all other speakers in the shade Except that one whose method no one shames, So nobly conscious is he of his Ames ! Now mark 'em all, yes, Edwin Markham too, To think that I should follow one like you, Poet and prophet, master of the flow 249 That makes a hero wield for sword, a hoe! So, listen, Friends, with kind and lenient ear To these few lines that I would have you hear, Lines only worth your favor since they dwell On two we honor, two we love as well ! First to the man, though ladies should be first, Who but remembers how he slaked our thirst For high Romance, when tried, and true, and ten der, He made us all believe there was a Zenda, Or, who forgets him, gay and debonair, Inimitable, laughing Letterblair ! And Chumley echoes from a brilliant sire The memory of hours that could not tire. Magnetic magic, joined to all that's human Of course he knew "the way to win a woman" ! And so he won her, she who had already Inflamed our brains and made our hearts unsteady Who, by the wonder of her low, deep voice Could make an audience tremble or rejoice, Whose Barbara Frietchie thrilled us overmuch, (Methinks she'd sensed e'en then the Sothern touch), 250 She who with dainty grace and poignant power, Had made us live "When Knighthood was in Flower" ! He won her and, as one, they climbed the height Of Shakespeare's "Jocund Morn" or "dreadful night" And we, who enter now a holy place, Would bend with reverend knee, though lifted face, Before the fair presentments they have made. Here is our tribute, May it then be laid With loving ardor at the Altar-Throne Of two who made great Shakespeare all their own. This "wise young Judge," this madcap Rosalind, Gay shrew untamed, and yet not half unkind, Fair Juliet, so bewitching r her caress Had left sweet Romeo in a sorry stress Or Viola, part boy, yet wholly woman, Capricious, tender, petulant and human ! And now, in turn, behold, as in a glass The fawning Shylock, or Malvolio pass, Or, suddenly, with quick vibrating pain We sense the torture of the noble Dane, 251 Or, yield ourselves, philosophers as well, To "melancholy Jacques'" potent spell We crown them with their vast achievement Rise And honor those who read the mysteries Of Avon's Bard, and read them all aright. Who would not then be Julia's Satellite, Or Sothern's slave? Once more the laurel bring To her, the Queen of Queens "If he were King!" 252 HENDERSON HOUSE ON PUTTING NEW WINE INTO OLD BOTTLES, OR THE TYRANNY OF THINGS T LONG to linger on the porch, I long to lie and dream To watch a flash of singing blue, athwart the sunlight's gleam To close my eyes and lift my face to meet the sum mer breeze That plays amid the maple-grove a thousand har monies. But just as I would yield my soul to nature's potent spell, They come, and call me from my dream to smell a horrid smell ! A drain gone wrong, what shall be done ? No plumber for nine miles The telephone won't work at all, this modern life defiles The crimson of the sunset sky, the shadow of the cloud I seek the porch once more, but they are calling fierce and loud "The fire in the northwest room won't burn, 'twill only smoke Come quickly, Mrs. Robinson, the lady there will choke!" What can be done? The horrid caps will ruin all the towers, But ladies must not choke, and so we pray the Heavenly powers That we the mason can persuade to build the chim neys higher, And in the meantime leave the guest to shiver with out fire ! Again I seek a sheltered spot and hope for sweet repose To bathe my senses in the hush that comes at day light's close But no ! They rush to find me there, the windmill won't go round, The wind has died, the engine's stopped, in sullen gloom profound 254 I listen to the dreadful tale "one of the bathrooms leaks Four thousand gallons lost last night " I feel resentful shrieks Are creeping up my throat and soon will reach my trembling lips I want to go to far-off isles, too far for any ships, Where there is nothing but the beach and just one scrub oak-tree, And plumbing never was, nor is, and never more shall be, I want to have no modern joys, no "comforts," no, not one But just to sink upon the sand and swoon into the sun! When "Great-Aunt Harriet" ruled the Roost, and ruled it very well She never had to smell a drain there were no drains to smell ! She never heard the windmill stop with sinking of the heart Or lost four thousand gallons of the pumping's bet ter part. 255 She caught the rain in little tubs and washed her guests in sections ! We have the tubs, they must have caused most graceful genuflections And by a small coal-stove each one was warmed and cheered aright A candle's blaze is better far than Gasoline's no light- Aii ! me, Ah ! me, when nature's call would bid my soul take flight, When fleecy mist of amethyst is mingled with the night And some pale crescent moon adown her silvery glamour flings, Must I still bow, a slave, before the Tyranny of Things? Nay, for in spite of drains and flues and windmills gone astray And lights that flicker and burn low in weird and woful way In spite of watery waste galore, from plumbing all awry There is no place like Henderson beneath the mid night sky ! 256 TO A BISHOP WHO SAID HE KNEW NO FLOWERS BUT THE IRIS AND THE BRIDAL-WREATH brilliant Bishop says he never knows Aught but the Iris and the Bridal- Wreath, And yet his words do blossom like the breath Of a most fragrant and redundant rose, Whose scent shall linger with us, for it blows Its scattered petals while it perisheth, Lavishing sweeter perfume in its death, As a fair day is fairest at its close ! May we not broaden, though, his floral scope With Monk's-Hood and with pious Mitrewort Whose fragile beauty foams in distant dells, While Jacks-in-Pulpits, on the forest slope, In surreptitious fashion, coyly flirt, With careless clouds of Canterbury -Belles ! 257 THE POETRY SOCIETY ANTHOLOGY VERSES WRITTEN FOR AN ANNUAL DINNER OF THE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA WITH APOLOGIES TO EDGAR LEE MASTERS, AUTHOR OF "SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY" EDWARD J. WHEELER PRESIDENT OF THE POETRY SOCIETY OF AMERICA T WAS President not of the United States, * No, of something much more unique, Much more subtle I was the President of the Poetry Society ! Long ago, one of America's greatest statesmen Said he would rather be right than President I would much rather be President than Wright! Anyway, Wright could never have been President He did not have the power of public opinion or was it Current Opinion behind him And then, too, they elected me President because of my judicial manner and my reserve of speech Wright's speech is torrential, He is about as reserved and as silent as Niagara He could never have controlled himself as I did, When the authors of unpublished poems were being slaughtered My calm was never ruffled My smile never altered, 261 No one of those authors ever knew how I felt about their poems And now they never will know, For I am dead And though I would not rather be Wright than President Sometimes I think I might Rather be dead than President of the Poetry Society ! MERLE ST. CROIX WRIGHT T WAS always Wright, and even though * I am dead, I am, still Wright It was a habit of mine to be Wright, Pre-eminently right And even after death one does not get over a life long habit I never gave anybody time To prove me in the wrong Suave, sonorous, adequate, My words drowned patient protests And swept them away As the scum is swept from a river I was the Knower Do not mistake me Not Noah, spelt with an "N," Although my words were like a flood, But Knower, spelt with a capital K One who has knowledge Of all things and who expresses it in all ways At all times 263 Wheeler, who lies near me in this vault Had no such bottomless well t>f water springing- And yet, the Poetry Society made him President- Why? 264 JESSIE B. RITTENHOUSE SECRETARY I OUGHT not to have died and come here * I was young and strong until they made me Secretary Secretary of the Poetry Society. It was not the work that killed me No, it was trying to be fair Fair about those unpublished poems. When Miles Dawson and Arthur Guiterman and Corinne Roosevelt Robinson and Dr. Smith Would get up and talk about "convincing" and "not convincing" And say the poems "left them cold" and "really were not poems at all," I could see spasms of rage Chase over the faces of the authors, Poor authors, unwitting attendants At their own "marche funebre. " And then, within me, would overflow The soft and soothing milk of human kindness 265 And all my veins would fill with a gentle anaemia Of desire to be fair to all present, And I, too, would rise, and say That "I had not thought much of the poem they were discussing Till I came to the last line, and then I did think There was punch in the last line, real punch" Well, later, I became more anaemic and died and came here. I have never been quite sure if I died of anaemia or punch I mean the punch we all used to drink at the Poetry Society But that was not real punch! 266 MILES MENANDER DAWSON TREASURER T OFTEN wonder what the Poetry Society does, * now that I am dead Perhaps there is no Poetry Society Or, if there is one, it can only be a little one that survives How its members must muse on my name, and all that it meant to them ! It is a beautiful name, and very suggestive Miles! Miles! and Menander! Those words seem to inspire a vision of leafy laby rinths And one who walked in them slowly with other sages Confucius Socrates and many more, talking and answering each other And then the end of my name, Dawson, Perhaps it was the end of my name that made me Yukonic, like a river, ceaselessly flowing. A chill, like the end of my name Reminiscent of cold countries 267 Would creep over the Poetry Society When I addressed them, A curious numb look would spread over their faces, As if they were snowed under Perhaps it was my name that did it The snow is heavy in the Klondike Dawson City is there, but Miles M. Dawson, him self, lies under other snowflakes. 268 PADRAIC COLUM INE are the ashes of a valiant heart, It was I Who once disarmed the Mighty Imagiste, Amy, She, who, with fluent tongue, did hypnotize The wordiest members of the Poetry Society, And rendered them mute, impotent and dumb She wiped the floor up with them One by one And then I rose, and with beguiling brogue, And that sweet voice that sings with Celtic charm, I laid her low I could never have done it if my name had been Patrick But it was Padraic! 269 CHARLES HANSON TOWNE T DO not like being dead at all, * I was so fond of Manhattan Nobody ever knew of which I was most fond Man hattan or a Manhattan Not even the Poetry Society knew, Though they thought themselves so subtle! Another thing they never knew was Whether I cared most for the Town or just for Towne It would have been easier to find that out, for some times I nearly gave it away for it was so plain to me that Towne Charles Hanson Towne was the Town, And the Town of Manhattan is the Earth But the Poetry Society never were quite sure What I did think I always kept them guessing--- It is easy to keep poets guessing ! 270 ARTHUR GUITERMAN f USED to wonder sometimes if they thought me as clever as I really was, When I criticised all the others In those far-away nights when we met at the Na tional Arts Club. I think Corinne Roosevelt Robinson knew I was clever Because I never liked any of her unpublished poems I tried to be lucid about it, but sometimes when I was speaking, I saw by the smile on the faces of some of the other writers That they thought I had come to a line of theirs that I really admired. Lucidity is a lost art, And Poets are very provincial, unless they can combine humor and pathos as I can It is hard to be funny after one is dead, however. It is lonely being funny after one is dead 271 I think I would rather be at the Poetry Society than dead, At least there, the joke is on the other fellow! FINIS 272 AN AMERICAN'S APOLOGY TO A SLANDERED GENTLEWOMAN FOR INTRODUCING A CERTAIN GEN TLEMAN AS HER GRANDSON (To Austen Leigh, a grandnephew of Jane Austen) f REALLY feel a poignant pain, To think I slandered your Aunt Jane, Whose morals high and reputation, Have been the "Pride" of all your Nation I'm sure she had a "Prejudice" Against a bearded Suitor's kiss, And shrank with "Sensibility" From every sort and kind of he, And yet, my brutal speech inferred A man's advances had been heard, By your refined, austere Aunt Jane, Whose heroines would hardly deign To see your Sex without the "Vapours" (They never read the Sunday papers), They were so sensitive and tender, So modestly aware of gender. 273 When I reflect on what they were, I feel the more how due to her Is this apology sincere, By one who holds her memory dear, Who never would accuse of levity, A spinster (not known by her brevity), But still the soul of wit and grace, Whose name is loved in every place! Accept, then, Mr. Austen Leigh, My most contrite apology, And should we ever meet again, I will not slander your Aunt Jane. (Answer of the grandnephew) DEAR MRS. R: YOUR witty letter, Has made me more than e'er your debtor, For what 'mere man' his heart could harden When a fair lady asks his pardon? In fact I bless the insinuation, That brings such charming reparation. It surely was an easy slip, To miss the exact relationship, 274 But as you recollected quickly, Madam, Jane was an Eve who never met her Adam. She used to say that should she wed, She fancied Crabbe, from all she read. But he already had one spouse (That's all the British law allows) Which placed the authoress of "Emma" In quite a terrible dilemma. However, she subdued her passion, Not being of George Eliot's fashion, And thus Aunt Jane, a spinster, ended Her days in isolation splendid. So, too, as rhymin' is exhaustin', E'en for great-nephews of Jane Austen, I'll end, asking your tender mercies, For my poor, wretched, halting verses. Could I have been to school at Groten, They had not been so awfully rotten! 275 A PLEA FOR THE "ULTIMATE CONSUMER" IN LITERATURE AX7HEN Miss Burney's "Evelina" * * In her "delicate distress" Leaned upon her stalwart lover Till her "fragile loveliness" Filled him with immoderate ardor This despite his calm endeavor And he murmured "Lovely Burden, Why, ah! why not thus forever?" Then the "Ultimate Consumer" Knew the climax was at hand, And it did not take unusual Subtlety to understand ! In the "Children of the Abbey," Have you ever read that book? There the heroine had "vapors" If she ever undertook Anything at all emotional, But the hero would forgive 276 While he kissed her tear and called it "Just a pearly fugitive"- And the "Ultimate Consumer" Almost felt himself unmanned By the purity and pathos Which he, too, could understand ! In our day of modern Isms 'Tis a very different thing, For the "Ultimate Consumer" Finds a circus a three-ring If he wishes to be cultured, And he strives so very hard, He must try a dip in Ethics, He must battle with a bard Quite unlike the soothing singer Which the Eighties did demand And the "Ultimate Consumer" Really cannot understand. He must take a dab at Science Some time in his busy day He must feed on bits of faience In a most artistic way, 277 All the question of the sexes, Intricate though it may be, He must solve, although it vexes Much his innate modesty; Books on china, be it crockery Or the ancient Manchu-land, How to make a garden rockery He must fully understand ! He must bow to polyphonic, Unpoetic, parlous prose (And for this he needs a tonic Stronger than his nature knows) He must struggle till he catches Faintly at the hazy gist Of the cults, in sudden snatches, Futurist or Feminist, He must tackle every "newness," And, believe me, it takes sand, Till he sometimes feels discouraged, For he does not understand ! 278 He must soar with Henri Bergson, He must sneer with Bernard Shaw, He must ask the Swedish Ellen For the key to Free-Love lore, He must thrill to the dramatic "Damaged" quality of "Goods" Which were better in an attic Kept with other poisoned foods; He must let his lower feelings To a flame be fiercely fanned Just to keep himself "eugenic," But how can he understand? Ah ! dear Authors, let me ask you, I, the "Ultimate Consumer," I, whose rapid dissolution Borders on a "Russian Duma," Santa Ana Public Library 279 Could you not, I only ask you, Be at times more clarifying, Like a Shakespeare, or a Sappho, Winged word with thought undying ? Socrates and all the Sages, Prophets from a far-off land, Thunder down the deathless ages Thoughts we still can understand! Santa Ana Public Library 280 DATE DUE GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S A. 3 1970 00699 4914 UC SOUTHERN RE