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THE MAN AND 
 THE ROSE 
 
 ALANSON TUCKER SCHUMANN 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 I9II 
 
Copyright 191 1 by Alanson Tucker Schumann 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 
 The Gorham Press, Boston. U. b. A. 
 
 (gCI.A'4l80758 
 
My Mother, I inscribe this book to thee; 
 Well knowing it would give thee bitter pain 
 To hurt the little children of my brain 
 
 That live among its leaves, even though they be 
 
 Dwarfed, immature, deficient in the free 
 
 Full excellence which ampler growths attain: 
 But as they are, small seeds of feeble grain, 
 
 I place them in thy dear hands trustingly. 
 
 As lovely Luna's warm soft kiss unsealed 
 The fetters of Endymions tranced sleep 
 To make the boy uplift his wondrous eyes. 
 So thoughts upon these pages stand revealed. 
 Which slumbered in the bud till caused to leap 
 To sudden bloom by thy sweet sympathies. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 The Man and The Rose 9 
 
 The Sacred Story 1 1 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Unwritten Songs 19 
 
 Ocean 19 
 
 At Tintagel 20 
 
 Berkshire Hills 20 
 
 The Voices of the Sea 21 
 
 The Riches of the Sea 21 
 
 Nature's Last Flicker 22 
 
 Puget Sound 22 
 
 Nasturtiums 23 
 
 Love That Is Love 23 
 
 Thou Art Divine 24 
 
 The North Star 24 
 
 Mount Shasta 25 
 
 Cease, Mighty Sea, To Murmur 25 
 
 The Earth 26 
 
 A Humming-Bird 26 
 
 Progress 27 
 
 Suggestion 27 
 
 The Life of the Valley-Lily 28 
 
 A Flute Upon The Waters 28 
 
 The Conjunction of Jupiter and Venus 29 
 
 The Sonnet 29 
 
 Byron 30 
 
 October 30 
 
 California Poppies 31 
 
 Written on Birch Bark 32 
 
 Fireflies 32 
 
 A Voice 33 
 
 The Old Home 33 
 
 Baldur 34 
 
 Deane's Grove 35 
 
 Merrill Farm 35 
 
 Rossetti 36 
 
 Poe 36 
 
 Milton 37 
 
 The Singer 37 
 
 Burns 38 
 
'Next Door 38 
 
 Jean Ingelow 39 
 
 The Silence of the Snow 39 
 
 Too Late 40 
 
 Venus Victrix 40 
 
 On the Rocks 41 
 
 Beyond the Surf 41 
 
 Days 42 
 
 Songs 42 
 
 The Two Lives 43 
 
 Corn 43 
 
 // Thou Wert Here 44 
 
 Guidance 44 
 
 The Roadside 45 
 
 When Love Is Near 45 
 
 Interwinding Streams 46 
 
 In Frugal Minors 46 
 
 When Fancy's Fingers 47 
 
 The Earth-Touch 47 
 
 The Three Immortals 48 
 
 Conditions 48 
 
 Christ before Pilate 49 
 
 // We Be Alone 50 
 
 Two Friends 50 
 
 Bayard Taylor 5 1 
 
 Pope 51 
 
 Flotsam 52 
 
 Jetsam 52 
 
 O Winter Night 53 
 
 Longfellow 53 
 
 Lilies of the Valley 54 
 
 The Sonnet 54 
 
 The Cove 55 
 
 // Thoughts Were Words 55 
 
 Life 56 
 
 Its Vanished Summer 56 
 
 Mayflowers 57 
 
 To-Day 57 
 
 Realms Aerial 58 
 
 Thy Hand Rests Lightly, Lady 58 
 
 When The Nights Come 59 
 
At Eleusis 59 
 
 Browning 60 
 
 Mrs. Browning 60 
 
 Swinburne 61 
 
 Crabbe 61 
 
 A Water-Lily 62 
 
 The World Is White 62 
 
 Landor 63 
 
 Indian Summer 63 
 
 Tennyson 64 
 
 In The Boston Athencsum 64 
 
 A Snowless Winter 65 
 
 By Hushed Degrees 65 
 
 Recompense 66 
 
 Beyond The Jordan 67 
 
 Sea and Land 67 
 
 Bryant 68 
 
 Whittier 68 
 
 BALLADES 
 
 Ballade of a Friend 71 
 
 A Ballade of Content 72 
 
 The Song That I Shall Never Sing 73 
 
 The Immaculate Child 74 
 
 A Ballade of Love 75 
 
 The Man Who Listens With His Eyes 76 
 
 Ballade 77 
 
 A Ballade of Poets 78 
 
 A Ballade of Myself ' 79 
 
 When William Shakespeare Wrote His Plays. 80 
 
 Jehovah Is The Lord Of All 81 
 
 When Phoebus Turned The White Crow Black 82 
 
 A Ballade of After Years 83 
 
 Ballade of a Man 84 
 
 // Lancelot Had Loved Elaine 85 
 
 A Ballade of Decay 86 
 
 A Ballade of Immortality 87 
 
 Will Immortality Be Mine 88 
 
 A Ballade of Difference 89 
 
 The Man Who Whistles When He Goes 90 
 
 A Ballade of Shadows 91 
 
A Ballade of Knowledge 92 
 
 A Ballade of Silence 93 
 
 Ballade of a Singer 94 
 
 Charon 95 
 
 RONDEAUS AND RONDELS 
 
 Bleak Blows The Blast 99 
 
 In Starry Ways 99 
 
 The Lighted Cross lOO 
 
 In Hampton Roads lOO 
 
 When Shakespeare Wrote lOl 
 
 In Harvest Time lOl 
 
 In Winter Nights 102 
 
 In Winter Days 102 
 
 The River Lights 103 
 
 In Tudor Times. . 103 
 
 Somehow, Somewhere 104 
 
 When Melba Sings 104 
 
 My Friend, the Snake 105 
 
 My Friend, the Dog 105 
 
 Soft Falls The Snow 106 
 
 I Sing My Song 106 
 
 He Knows It All 107 
 
 When Wordsworth Walked 107 
 
 Rondel 108 
 
 Rondel 108 
 
 LYRICS 
 
 The Oriole ill 
 
 Purpose 112 
 
 The Night-Wind 113 
 
 Autumn 113 
 
 Saviour, Master, Make Me Thine 115 
 
 Mutability 1 16 
 
 The Blue-Bird 117 
 
 Rest 117 
 
 Drowned 1 18 
 
 VILLANELLES 
 
 In Villanelles I Love To Sinp 121 
 
 When Night Is Come Upon The Sea 122 
 
 QUATRAINS 
 Quatrains 123 
 
THE MAN AND THE ROSE 
 
 The rose that you gave me I prize overmuch, 
 Its petals are thrilled with your sensitive touch, 
 Its perfume reveals what your fond spirit saith, 
 Your soul is its beautiful, exquisite breath. 
 
 In its opulent life is a hint of decay, 
 
 Its ardor endures but a brief summer's day; 
 
 Its glory is gone, its mission is done. 
 
 Ere the stars give place to the splendid sun. 
 
 As the life of the rose is the life of the man. 
 Save that he has the hope of an ampler span; 
 To-day he bustles about at his will. 
 To-morrow, perchance, he is utterly still. 
 
 And w^hat is the fate of the man and the rose, 
 When the life that we see has come to its close? 
 If the man have the joy of eternity's dower. 
 Shall the same gracious boon be denied to the 
 flower ? 
 
THE SACRED STORY 
 
 The Story was told 
 
 For fact, not for fable: 
 In language of gold 
 The Story was told, 
 By men honor-bold, 
 
 Love-ardent and able: 
 The Story was told 
 
 For fact, not for fable. 
 
 In the hush of the night 
 
 Lay the Babe in the manger; 
 
 Shepherds saw a great light 
 
 In the hush of the night; 
 
 Even Time stayed his flight 
 To welcome the stranger; 
 
 In the hush of the night 
 
 Lay the Babe in the manger. 
 
 Safe-led by a star, 
 
 The Wise Men have found Him; 
 They journeyed from far, 
 Safe-led by a star. — 
 How humble they are! 
 
 With gifts they surround Him. — 
 Safe-led by a star. 
 
 The Wise Men have found Him. 
 
 Breathing Nazareth's air, 
 As a sensitive child would, — 
 
 Of His birth unaware. 
 
 Breathing Nazareth's air, 
 
 His happy feet fare 
 
 To the neighboring wildwood, — 
 
 Breathing Nazareth's air. 
 As a sensitive child would. 
 
 ZI 
 
Over woodland and lea, 
 A lad now, He wandered ; 
 
 Birds and brocks voice their glee 
 
 Over woodland and lea; 
 
 On the soul-life to be 
 
 His lofty mind pondered ; — 
 
 Over woodland and lea, 
 A lad now, He wandered. 
 
 At the age of twelve years. 
 In the temple He tarried: 
 
 His wisdom appears 
 
 At the age of twelve years: 
 
 Amazed were the seers 
 
 At the knowledge He carried: 
 
 At the age of twelve years, 
 In the temple He tarried. 
 
 When His life dwelt aloft 
 With the love-central fire, — 
 
 On His ravished ear oft, 
 
 When His life dwelt aloft, 
 
 Strains ineffably soft 
 
 Fell from angel-swept lyre, — 
 
 When His life dwelt aloft 
 With the love-central fire. 
 
 To the river He went. 
 
 The Baptist baptized Him; 
 
 On His mission intent, 
 
 To the river He went, — 
 
 By the All-Father sent — 
 
 How the All-Father prized Him!- 
 
 To the river He went. 
 
 The Baptist baptized Him. 
 
 12 
 
His labor begun, 
 
 He brooked no delaying; 
 He left naught undone, 
 His labor begun : 
 His disciples He won, — 
 
 They loved Him, obeying. 
 His labor begun, 
 
 He brooked no delaying. 
 
 When the multitude came. 
 He patiently taught them; 
 
 His words were like flame 
 
 When the multitude came; 
 
 To a sense of sin's shame 
 He tenderly brought them; 
 
 When the multitude came, 
 He patiently taught them. 
 
 On the Galilee lake 
 
 He stilled the loud billows — 
 When the wild tempest brake 
 On the Galilee lake. — 
 The crew ceased to quake, 
 
 They returned to their pillows.— 
 On the Galilee lake 
 
 He stilled the loud billows. 
 
 His faithful friend dead, 
 
 To the hurt home He hastened. 
 Those few words He said. — 
 His faithful friend, dead, 
 Regained the life fled. 
 
 And Martha was chastened. 
 His faithful friend dead. 
 
 To the hurt home He hastened. 
 
 13 
 
Betrayed by a kiss 
 
 In Gethsemane's garden I 
 O the anguish! — the bliss! — 
 Betrayed by a kiss! 
 At the mob's howl and hiss, 
 
 The soldiers' hearts harden! 
 Betrayed by a kiss 
 
 In Gethsemane's garden! 
 
 In the dim judgment-hall 
 
 Stands the luminous Master — 
 
 'Mid the indecent brawl 
 
 In the dim judgment-hall — 
 
 Serene through it all, — 
 How dire the disaster! 
 
 In the dim judgment-hall 
 Stands the luminous Master. 
 
 With a plaiting of thorns 
 They cruelly crowned Him. 
 
 A mark for men's scorns 
 
 With a plaiting of thorns! 
 
 Tossed on hate's savage horns, 
 Angels crowded around Him. 
 
 With a plaiting of thorns 
 They cruelly crowned Him. 
 
 Upon the coarse wood 
 
 They brutally nailed Him. 
 
 Their taunts He withstood 
 
 Upon the coarse wood: 
 
 He prayed for their good 
 
 When they mockingly hailed Him. 
 
 Upon the coarse wood 
 
 They brutally nailed Him. 
 
 M 
 
Fierce fire rent the sky — 
 The daylight diminished! 
 
 Earth groaned tar and nigh — 
 
 Fierce fire rent the sky! 
 
 Hark! — the conquering cry 
 
 From the cross, "It is finished !"- 
 
 Fierce fire rent the sky — 
 The daylight diminished! 
 
 The first at the tomb 
 
 Was the Magdalen holy — 
 
 In the dawn's lifting gloom 
 
 The first at the tomb! 
 
 Down her cheek's tender bloom 
 A tear trickled slowly. 
 
 The first at the tomb 
 Was the Magdalen holy. 
 
 The others have fled 
 
 In frightened behavior. 
 She seeks her dear dead — 
 The others have fled. 
 From His lowly, chill bed 
 
 Gone — gone is her Saviour! 
 The others have fled 
 
 In frightened behavior. 
 
 He is risen to-day! 
 
 How sweet is the Story! 
 The Life and the Way, 
 He is risen to-day! 
 Clouds cloven and gray 
 
 Do but screen the Sun's glory I— 
 He is risen to-day! 
 
 How sweet is the Story ! 
 
 IS 
 
Let the jubilee swell! 
 
 Shout, ye hills and ye mountains! 
 Sing, valley and dell! 
 Let the jubilee swell! 
 Ring! ring! merry bell! — 
 
 Leap higher, ye fountains! 
 Let the jubilee swell! 
 
 Shout, ye hills and ye mountains! 
 
 The forty days past, 
 
 He gently ascended. 
 Scene loveliest and last, 
 The forty days past: — 
 Blow the glad trumpet-blast 
 
 For Heaven and Earth blended! 
 The forty days past. 
 
 He gently ascended. 
 
 The Spirit remains, 
 
 Though He hath departed! 
 Till the final moon wanes, 
 The Spirit remains: — 
 It frees from sin's stains, 
 
 It cheers the faint-hearted! 
 The Spirit remains 
 
 Though He hath departed ! 
 
 i6 
 
SONNETS 
 
UNWRITTEN SONGS 
 
 O poet who hath never writ a line, 
 
 How purposeful must be thy pleasant daj^s! 
 No care hast thou for the scant words of praise, 
 
 Which to uplift and to deject combine. 
 
 The soul's unaging utterance is thine. 
 
 To voice the witchery of the sunset ways — 
 The golden purples vanishing to grays 
 
 And twilight pathos of remote star-shine. 
 
 Thy songs unwTitten sing to thy glad heart. 
 Thou hast no use for time-consuming pen. 
 Thy greatness only to thyself is known. 
 Why shouldst thou from thy wonder-visions part! 
 Thou wouldst but yearn to have them back again. 
 O poet, keep them! they are thine alone. 
 
 OCEAN 
 
 Before me ocean in its vastness lies. 
 Unwearied by perpetual ebb and flow: 
 Out on its billowy plains the great ships go, 
 
 To vanish in the blue of shoreless skies; 
 
 O'erhead the circling sea-gull with glad cries 
 Proclaims his liberty; the keen winds blow 
 The shreds of salty spray; and to and fro 
 
 The golden arrowy gleaming sunlight flies. 
 
 I pace the smooth soft-yielding shore, and see 
 The wet sand w^hiten from the pressing heel 
 And the lone crags their jagged arms outreach: 
 The billows, rolling landward ceaselessly, 
 
 Exhaust themselves in shallow weaves that feel 
 With quick foam-fingers up the shining beach. 
 
 19 
 
AT TINTAGEL 
 (For a Picture) 
 
 Before me in its crumbling grandeur lies 
 King Arthur's castle by the Western sea, 
 Upon a cliff that rises raggedly 
 
 From the wild waters to the wistful skies. 
 
 A last-left link of ancient centuries, 
 A royal relic for the years to be, 
 It stands untenanted; in mocking glee. 
 
 Above the near, foamed beach a white gull flies. 
 
 And over all the artist's hand has drawn 
 A vague mysterious visionary veil — 
 The dimness of an antique atmosphere. 
 Where Fancy's eye beholds a crimson dawn, 
 And Lancelot kneeling passion-weakened, pale, 
 To the warm loveliness of Guinevere. 
 
 BERKSHIRE HILLS 
 
 Empurpled, stern, imperially grand, 
 Against the azure of the arching skies, 
 Yon giant hills in solemn silence rise, 
 
 The guardians of the fruitful valley-land: 
 
 Storm-scarred, immovable, broad-based they stand; 
 Around their tops the wreathing vapor lies. 
 Touched with the sunlight's softly-golden dyes. 
 
 And into weird aerial motion fanned. 
 
 What fierce convulsions of earth's inner fire 
 Upheaved these massive monuments of stone! 
 Proud landmarks of the centuries to be, 
 Bold trusty sentinels that never tire, 
 Unchiselled cenotaphs of ages flown, 
 Majestic in their calm eternity! 
 
 20 
 
THE VOICES OF THE SEA 
 
 How various are the voices of the deep: 
 The whisper of the surf upon the shore; 
 On the dread reef the breakers' hungry roar; 
 
 The lulling undersong that tells of sleep; 
 
 The baffled howl of surges as they leap 
 To the calm skies; the murmur evermore 
 Of waves that neither sway nor swing nor soar. 
 
 But into some inscrutable cavern creep. 
 
 Falling tumultuously upon the sands, 
 The ocean makes a music all his own — 
 A symphony superb, triumphant, free ; 
 And when, aroused, his mighty breast expands, 
 He utters an imperial organ-tone 
 Of immemorial solemnity. 
 
 THE RICHES OF THE SEA 
 
 How countless are the riches of the deep : 
 Lost treasures lie upon his viewless floor — 
 Perchance the crown some ancient empress wore, 
 
 Of gold and elitter one great gorgeous heap. 
 
 No human toil shall these quaint marvels reap. 
 Even though the weary world be aged and hoar; 
 The ocean shall retain his garnered store 
 
 So long as his broad billows heave and sweep. 
 
 But when benign Omnipotence commands 
 Thy rolling waters to be backward thrown. 
 And thou shalt vanish, O majestic sea! 
 Where now thy tides conceal strange underlands, 
 Each precious gleaming jewel will be shown 
 In all its loveliness and mystery. 
 
 21 
 
NATURE'S LAST FLICKER 
 
 The gaunt trees naked stand; the dead leaves lie 
 And stir and rustle in the piercing chill, 
 In hurried tumult they forsake the hill, 
 
 Or flutter to the brook that shivers by; 
 
 Bleak vapors wreathe and circle in the sky; 
 
 From out the ragged shrub the snow-bird's trill, 
 A frosty treble tremulously shrill, 
 
 Blends with the moaning of the wind's weird sigh. 
 
 On crooked scant-clad branches upward spread 
 Blooms the strange yellow hazel, braving death — 
 Nature's last flicker to repel the breath 
 
 Of cruel iciness. Lo, life is fled! 
 
 Now Winter hastens to the mournful scene. 
 And shrouds in white the ashes of the green. 
 
 PUGET SOUND 
 
 Broad, deep, and beautiful the waters lie. 
 
 With scarce a motion of their gleaming breast. 
 The sun is golden in the golden west. 
 
 The day is done, and the dim night is nigh. 
 
 Upon the azure of the eastern sky 
 
 The twilight's dusky hues are manifest. 
 
 While the fair clouds that near the day-star rest 
 
 Are bright with colors that persuade the eye. 
 
 The tints, combining, shifting, come and go — 
 Imperial purple, lingering the last, 
 Fades to a permanence of final gray. 
 Now one by one the stars emerge and glow, 
 And now the moon, the pensive gloaming past. 
 Relumes the heavens and glorifies the bay. 
 
 22 
 
NASTURTIUMS 
 
 Adown the stone-wall in the summer daj^s, 
 
 The dear nasturtiums trail their tangled vines. 
 Their petals orange are, as are the wines 
 
 Of the warm south; or crimson, as the blaze 
 
 That fires the dawn; or golden, like the haze 
 When sunset colors burn ; or, veined with lines 
 Of twilight purple, their quick scarlet shines; 
 
 And all are flecked and dashed with browns and 
 grays. 
 
 And w^hen the autumn comes, and the frost nips 
 The pansy, sweet-pea, rose, and other flowers, 
 Touching the aster to a quivered fear — 
 These blossom-children whisper with brave lips: 
 *'We scorn the chill of the September hours! 
 Even October finds us happy here!" 
 
 LOVE THAT IS LOVE 
 
 Love is not love that loves not when bleak age 
 Gnaws the life's vigor with unpitying tooth, 
 And deadens the resourcefulness of youth, 
 
 And makes the clown the comrade of the sage. 
 
 By change we live. As in a book each page 
 Is diverse in its action, so, forsooth. 
 Each heart-throb speaks for jollity or ruth, 
 
 For strength or weakness, for repose or rage. 
 
 Why should you tell me that on such a day 
 I was to you as fragrant as the breath 
 
 Of the pure flower whose beauty hasteneth 
 By its own blossoming its own decay? 
 
 Love that is love defies and conquers death — 
 It greatens though the worlds be swept away. 
 
 23 
 
THOU ART DIVINE 
 
 Incomparable man, we bow to thee, 
 
 Caring not when, or where, or how thy birth; 
 
 Thy precious feet once trod the teeming earth — 
 What matter if they walked the rolling sea? 
 From thy sweet presence sin was forced to flee, 
 
 Thou broughtest cheer to homes of ruth and 
 dearth, 
 
 The friend thou wast of children and of mirth, 
 Thy mission was assured by God's decree. 
 
 We honor thee, we love thee, we obey; 
 
 Whate'er we have or hope to have is thine; 
 Thou goest with us through the garish day. 
 
 And through the night when stars do flash and 
 shine ; 
 Our strength thou art, our faith, our guide, our 
 way — 
 Thou art immaculate, thou art divine. 
 
 THE NORTH STAR 
 
 It shines amid the dim inscrutable skies 
 
 Of the cold North, whereof no annals are. 
 The constant clear inviolable star 
 
 On which the patient mariner relies. 
 
 Divinely sent, its gracious message flies. 
 Soft flashing like some slender scimitar, 
 Down dreamless voids, incalculably far, 
 
 To give to earth a pledge that never dies. 
 
 Fair friend, in awed conjecturings we ask 
 
 What splendid system circles round thy blaze, 
 What mighty peoples live within thy light? 
 But unavailing the stupendous task. 
 Our queries vanish as dissolving haze. 
 Thy distance bars Imagination's flight. 
 
 24 
 
MOUNT SHASTA 
 
 We go from Redding through the lesser hills 
 
 Amid the mistiness of early day ; 
 
 As onward, upward, skyward is our way, 
 The heart beats quicker and the bosom thrills. 
 We pass the gleam of the impetuous rills, 
 
 Which down the precipices jagged, gray, 
 
 Tumble and dash, and toss their beaded spray, 
 To find some level which their ardor stills. 
 
 Now near the loftier wilder heights we are, 
 And mighty Shasta comes upon the view; 
 He gives the lower peaks a stern adieu. 
 
 And strives to reach some splendid silent star, 
 Which, though unseen, shines down the spacious 
 blue 
 
 From its Imperial station high and far. 
 
 CEASE, MIGHTY SEA, TO MURMUR 
 
 Cease, mighty sea, to murmur! Moan no more! 
 For I would have enfranchisement from pain: 
 Than the insistence of thy saddened strain. 
 
 Better the surges' internecine roar; 
 
 Better the billows thundering up the shore 
 
 And the foiled hiss of their spent backward drain. 
 Mocked by the gull that seeks the surly main 
 
 To curve, to poise, to dip, to lightly soar. 
 
 The wear of the Incessant fret and sob, 
 
 The hurts that harass and the cares that crush. 
 Are tyrants that we cringe to and obey: 
 Better the revel, the passionate engine-throb. 
 The turbulence, the tension, the thrilled hush, 
 The toss tumultuous of life's swirling spray. 
 
 25 
 
THE EARTH 
 
 Two travellers meeting upon Mars, one said — 
 Our world hung lustrous when their day was 
 
 done, 
 Flashed by the beams of the resplendent sun — 
 
 "Think you bright Terra is inhabited?" 
 
 And so, by similar conjecturings led. 
 
 When earth's majestic evening is begun, 
 Our queries oftentimes in this wise run: — 
 
 "Do human feet Mars' mystic valleys tread?" 
 
 Kind mother Earth, of thee what do we know 
 Save that we strangely breathe thy generous air. 
 Striving life's purpose and life's cause to learn? 
 And of those charming other worlds that glow 
 Above us in the splendid silence there 
 
 The tidings never come for which we yearn. 
 
 A HUMMING-BIRD 
 
 In early summer's soft luxurious days, 
 
 When nature is full clad in leaf and flower 
 That freshen at the touch of pearly shower 
 
 And stir and glimmer where the zephyr strays — 
 
 In whirring quivering poise a bright form plays, 
 Amid the tw^ilight's briefly-golden hour. 
 In lightning zigzags near the fragrant bower 
 
 And on some bloom's delicious sweetness preys. 
 
 Did some rare, oddly painted pansy try 
 With limitless desire to leave its stem 
 Till it was free and fluttered in^o you? 
 Or did some rainbow in the southern sky 
 Detach a fragment from its radiant hem, 
 That, falling, to a living opal grew? 
 
 26 
 
PROGRESS 
 
 Have they on the fourth planet from the sun 
 
 Answered the questions which we vainly ask? 
 
 Did life with them begin its endless task 
 Before life on the earth-world was begun? 
 Have they by eons of stern progress won 
 
 Truths w^hich we seek? Have they upraised the 
 mask 
 
 Which yet for us is down ? And do they bask 
 In the pure light of w^ork supremely done? 
 
 We know not : but we have good faith to know 
 That in the earth's august and fuller years, 
 When that which is withheld is not denied ; 
 That though he struggle through wastes of ice and 
 snow, 
 Through places of sorrow and strange lands of 
 fears, 
 Man ultimately will be deified. 
 
 SUGGESTION 
 
 Inviolable and serene it stands, 
 
 A massive pyramid against the sky ; 
 
 Its summit dwells in light and Deity, 
 Fit place for issuance of God's commands. 
 The shadowy vapors clasp it like dim hands; 
 
 Above it shapes of shifting cloudland lie; 
 
 Only the eagle to its top may fly; 
 Its lofty grandeur scorns the valley-lands. 
 
 Then comes to me the retrospective thought 
 That this imperial landmark w^as the same 
 
 When the glad world was thrilled with voice 
 divine — 
 That its far peak dawn's primal crimson caught 
 While earth was haloed with the purer flame 
 Of Him who walked the ways of Palestine. 
 
 27 
 
THE LIFE OF THE VALLEY-LILY 
 
 When snows are here the valley-lily sleeps — 
 It does not die, as we are used to say, 
 It merely knows 'tis time to go away, 
 
 So down its stem to its kind roots it creeps. 
 
 Half roused, perchance it hears the wind that 
 sweeps 
 Over the cold white world, and feels the sway 
 Of the trees grinding branches bare and gray. 
 
 It dreams, may be; it surely never weeps. 
 
 And when Spring comes, and suns are warm, it 
 wakes. 
 
 And looks about its cosy little room. 
 And leaves its bed, and its glad journey takes 
 
 Through corridors of ever-lessening gloom 
 Into the splendid light, and buds, and breaks 
 
 With no sound and no effort into bloom. 
 
 A FLUTE UPON THE WATERS 
 
 A summer's eve beneath the restful trees: 
 A lilied lake, dim, shadow-pencilled, still; 
 And long lithe grasses crowning yonder hill. 
 
 Gracefully poised, unkissed by wandering breeze. 
 
 Through parted leafiness the gazer sees 
 Those orbs whose awful interspaces thrill 
 The soul, — keen points of liquid fire that fill 
 
 The boundless blue with circling mysteries. 
 
 But list! — sweet sounds of music touch the ear 
 In soft vibrations tremulously low; 
 
 Strains pleading tenderly, tones pearly-clear, 
 In undulations of aerial flow. 
 
 A flute upon the waters! — dip of oars, 
 
 And moonlight sleeping on the silver shores. 
 
 28 
 
THE CONJUNCTION OF JUPITER AND 
 
 VENUS 
 
 The two immortals fain would touch to-night, 
 Suspended in the far celestial air: 
 The god omnipotent, the goddess rare, 
 
 Each circled with a halo of fine light. 
 
 Ineffably and gloriously bright 
 
 Through the inscrutable voids of space they fare. 
 Until to meet and kiss and part they dare 
 
 That earth may thrill and quiver at the sight. 
 
 The god once ruled the world our footsteps press, 
 The goddess walked its ways as Beauty's queen, 
 Now, from the hushed and omnipresent skies, 
 She in her soft supernal loveliness. 
 He in his majesty of might and mien. 
 Watch over it through Time's eternities. 
 
 THE SONNET 
 
 Severely fashioned should the sonnet be, 
 
 In utterance imperially clear; 
 
 Its cadences should captivate the ear. 
 As to the beach the billows voice the sea. 
 Its major movement, flowing full and free, 
 
 Should make its own majestic atmosphere; 
 
 Its minor, like the rounding of a tear, 
 Should crystallize the thought's eternity. 
 
 Dost think to carve this jewel without toil? 
 Ah no ! by reverent labor it is wrought — 
 
 The brain that builds it should be quick and 
 keen. 
 It is a diamond fixed within a coil 
 Of finest gold ; it is an opal fraught 
 With shifting, fiery, iridescent sheen. 
 
 29 
 
BYRON 
 
 Song's passionate son, he sails the purple seas 
 In winged Apollo's lyre-enchanted bark — 
 Sweeping the waves as lightly as the lark 
 
 Mounts to the mid-air in sweet-throated ease — 
 
 The one Childe Harold of two centuries! 
 Pursuing Love's elusive rosy spark, 
 Or striving to attain Joy's restful mark, 
 
 Which at his flushed approach, mirage-like flees. 
 
 Saddened and shunned he visits alien lands, 
 
 A worn foiled wanderer through the tents of 
 Time, 
 While Fame's fair star above him beams and 
 glows ; 
 Till with tired feet and faltering failing hands. 
 He finds — an exile in a classic clime — 
 The stately silence of life's last repose. 
 
 OCTOBER 
 
 Resplendent summer leaves her purple throne, 
 Her vivid green is changed to flaming gold: 
 Dim drowsy wreaths of opal haze enfold 
 
 The distant hills; the little birds have flown 
 
 To sing 'neath softer skies; sublime, alone. 
 
 Tossing his head to brave the frost-charged cold. 
 Stands a tall pine-tree, cone-capped, rugged, 
 bold,— 
 
 His wind-swept branches bend with murmuring 
 tone. 
 
 The sombre waters in the sun's slant ray 
 
 Reflect the dropping acorn's transient gleam; 
 
 The sere leaves falling in their aimless way 
 Hush the low murmur of the pebbly stream; 
 
 And the far forests robed in tinted gray 
 Sleep in the silence of their autumn dream. 
 
 30 
 
CALIFORNIA POPPIES 
 I 
 
 Along the fields they lift their leaves of gold, 
 
 And guard the humbler growths with patient 
 
 care; 
 They glimmer in the grateful gracious air, 
 
 And multiply to masses manifold. 
 
 Our eager vision they persuade and hold, 
 That we their message beautiful may bear 
 To those in sterner climes who never fare 
 
 Beyond the limits of ungentle cold. 
 
 O kindly offspring of the genial soil! 
 
 blithe companions of the weeds and grass! 
 O comrades of the sun and wind and dew! 
 
 You grow to fullness with no thought of toil, 
 Content your charm-unconscious lives to pass 
 In the first homes your blossom-breathings 
 knew. 
 
 II 
 
 On the sand-drifted hills that skirt the sea 
 
 1 find you with no trace of greenness near; 
 Your petals turn with not a touch of fear 
 
 To the wild tumult and the wilder glee. 
 It seems an irony that you should be 
 
 The only life that buds and blossoms here; 
 
 But something whispers to my inner ear, 
 Such is kind Nature's purposeful decree. 
 
 The billows hail you with their threatening voice, 
 The stern winds hold you in their stern embrace 
 And shake you till you shrink and hug the 
 ground. 
 The bitter rains to harass you rejoice, 
 And yet, a smile upon your loyal face. 
 
 Your life with brave serenity is crowned. 
 
 31 
 
WRITTEN ON BIRCH BARK 
 
 The legend Is that once when Orpheus played 
 Upon his magic lute, the forest trees 
 Were so enamored of the melodies, 
 
 They gathered round him charmed and unafraid. 
 
 But the prim birch in sober suit arrayed, 
 Deeming a finer dress would better please. 
 Withdrew, and while she tarried, on the breeze 
 
 The lute's last echo vanished from the glade. 
 
 Expectant still, she patiently aw^aits, 
 
 In silver silence through the long dim years, 
 Those wonder-waves of harmony again ; 
 But ah! the gods, with their large loves and hates, 
 Their joys, their cares, their tumults, and their 
 tears, 
 Are gone forever from the paths of men. 
 
 FIREFLIES 
 
 Ye fitful stars of valley and of field 
 
 That glance and palpitate and glow and pass, 
 A flash of flames along the living grass — 
 
 Night's tiny torches by the day concealed! 
 
 Life pulses in the vivid fire you yield ; 
 For as 3'ou revel a quick splendid mass 
 In charming silence o'er the dim morass, 
 
 Dusk winged shapes are transiently revealed. 
 
 It may be Danae is imprisoned here, 
 
 And Zeus, love-guided, hastes this very hour 
 In fall of golden rain to wed with her: 
 Haply Selene graciously comes near. 
 
 In guise of moonlight-fragments in soft shower, 
 To watch Endymion's dreaming eyelids stir. 
 
 32 
 
A VOICE 
 
 Upon a lone imperial height I stood 
 
 In some strange world that thrilled to some 
 strange sun; 
 
 Creation, endless, seemed but now begun, 
 Invoking meditation's loftiest mood. 
 With omnipresence graciously indued, 
 
 Illimitable vision I had won; 
 
 Round orbs of flame the planets flashed and spun 
 In circlings of celestial magnitude. 
 
 The earth revolved incalculably far — 
 
 And yet 'twas near, its peoples I could see; 
 
 I heard the hum, the turbulence, the jar, 
 
 The laughs, the moans, the clamoring, the glee: 
 
 Then came a voice, majestic as a star, — 
 Time were not were there no eternity! 
 
 THE OLD HOME 
 
 In the dim silence of the purpling gloam, 
 
 At gleaming dawn or glittering noon of day. 
 Or when the stars flash on their golden way, 
 
 I seek the old familiar sacred home. 
 
 The present is the past. Once more I roam 
 My childhood scenes; an ardent youth, I stray; 
 In calmer years — life's glow just touched with 
 gray— 
 
 I hail the vision of hope's airy dome. 
 
 There is a pathos in the shrubs, the trees. 
 The very weeds that struggle into leaf, 
 
 The aged trellis where the grape-vines cling. 
 There is a pathos in the murmuring breeze ; 
 In the dear house itself there is a grief — 
 A majesty of grief in everything. 
 
 33 
 
BALDUR 
 
 Of all who dwelt within Valhalla's halls 
 Baldur was hailed most eminent and fair; 
 The sweetness of his presence cheered the air, 
 
 As from the heavens the healing night-dew^ falls. 
 
 His virtues freed him from the fears and thralls 
 Of lesser gods, and often did he bare 
 His generous breast that, scathless, it might dare 
 
 The mortal missiles hurled against its walls. 
 
 But Hoder, blind, from Lok took the sole spray 
 That could the gentle son of Odin wound, 
 And, witless, cast it. Baldur breathes no more! 
 To Hela's realm he wends his pallid way, 
 Vexed by the sad incessant shuddering sound 
 Of life's spent waves along death's chill mute 
 shore. 
 
 II 
 
 But some aver that when the heavens are new 
 And earth is disencumbered from its sin. 
 His penance over, Odin's son shall win 
 
 His bright way back and scenes familiar view^; 
 
 Shall walk the meadows, glad with dawn and dew, 
 Sloping to shores where splendid seas roll in, 
 And, reunited with his lovely kin. 
 
 Shall all the ancient rugged rites eschew. 
 
 Then will Valhalla's hall again rejoice 
 With shouts that echo to its golden roof, 
 "Let Odin's son forever reien and live!" 
 Loudest in joy rings Hoder's quick clear voice, 
 While to Lok, standing penitent aloof, 
 
 Baldur calls softly: "Brother, I forgive!" 
 
 34 
 
DEANE'S GROVE 
 
 I went for acorns one October day 
 
 Into a grove — Deane's Grove we called it then. 
 
 It was my time of happy childhood when 
 All sounds were welcome and all sights were gay. 
 With the kind patient trees I had my way, 
 
 My eager way. Good trees, unlike to men, 
 
 Each journeying year you gave to me again, 
 And seemed to join me in my rugged play. 
 
 Now I am old I seek the grove once more. 
 To find the trees that were my joy are few — 
 And they, alack, are old as well as I ! 
 Some limbs are barren that were green before, — 
 But as each year their tops their life renew, 
 The fruit they bear is nearer to the sky. 
 
 MERRILL FARM 
 
 O gentle spot! O pensive quiet scene! 
 Where once a child in eager vivid play 
 The mother gone gave gladness to the day, 
 
 From thee what treasured memories I glean! 
 
 O peaceful lake, thy pleasant shores between, 
 Where shadow-pictures in the water stay. 
 And gleam and ripple move and meet alway, 
 
 To welcome thee what vanished lives have been! 
 
 Where goes the friend who journeys with me here, 
 And, journey-weary, stops — and says: "Good bye! 
 For me to leave you for a while is best! 
 The far to you to me may be the near. 
 
 You shall stop sometime — and shall dimly sigh: 
 *I am so tired I feel that I would rest!' " 
 
 35 
 
ROSSETTI 
 
 A strange life and a dreamful life he led, — 
 Strange in its methods, dreamful in its inoods; 
 He seeks occult and visionary woods, 
 
 By vague elusive things inhabited; 
 
 His Orphic soul, imagination-sped, 
 Betakes itself to voiceful solitudes, 
 Where emulous love imperially broods. 
 
 Fond, ardor-flushed, superb, and passion-fed. 
 
 Song-sound uniquely volumed he obtains 
 From sources alien to his native speech; 
 
 Masterful quivering cadences he gains, 
 
 Like thrill and throb of billows on the beach; 
 
 The splendor of his rhythmic sweep remains 
 Within and yet beyond our dazzled reach. 
 
 POE 
 
 He is the poet of the weird and drear : 
 
 For things uncanny he awakes and calls; 
 
 He sits with midnight in deserted halls, 
 Amid the hush and imminence of fear; 
 He walks where foul shapes hover hugely near, 
 
 Where death's chill step his shuddering soul ap- 
 palls ; 
 
 He sees in caves, round hollow waterfalls. 
 Slim serpents their hot hissing crests uprear. 
 
 In visions vague, disconsolate, and grim. 
 
 He roamis lone lands where wailing winds blow 
 shrill, 
 And the gaunt ghost of desolation dwells; 
 With ebon croak the Raven comes to him; 
 
 Then, music-tranced, he hears the throb, the 
 thrill. 
 The revel and the rapture of the Bells. 
 
 36 
 
MILTON 
 
 Visioned, I saw majestic Milton stand 
 
 Upon a towering height; his broad, full brow 
 Imperial shone; his eyes, sight-splendid now, 
 
 Gazed with strange pity on the teeming land. 
 
 With one stern finger of his fine strong hand 
 He points In scorn to Englishmen who bow 
 To England's Church, and In base homage vow 
 
 To yield her to the sway of Rome's command. 
 
 Against the shore the inexorable sea 
 
 Thunders its billows of disdainful sound. 
 
 "England, your awful ocean makes you free — 
 If you but will!" he cries: "O sacred ground, 
 
 Resist the pressure of the cringing knee. 
 
 And spurn the Cardinal, scarlet-capped and 
 gowned!" 
 
 THE SINGER 
 
 The happy singer sings from sheer delight: 
 He heeds not what the prating people say; 
 And though the clever critic seek to slay, 
 
 His song soars scathless In aerial flight. 
 
 When winter wails through naked woods and white, 
 He breathes the living perfume of the May: 
 He makes the clouds the comrades of his day, 
 
 The stars the glad companions of his night. 
 
 He notes a sentience in comm.on things: 
 
 The blade of grass is trembling with desire; 
 
 The flower articulates; the leafage sings; 
 The very stone thrills with exultant fire; 
 
 The drop of dew a mighty message brings ; 
 
 The spurned mute clod is fraught with force and 
 ire. 
 
 37 
 
BURNS 
 
 O royal Robbie! there Is not a king 
 In all of Scotland's immemorial line 
 So crowned as thou ! Nature's unstinted wine 
 
 For thee flowed freely! Thou wert born to sing! 
 
 Soaring with ease of flight and sweep of wing 
 Up to Song's firmamental stars that shine, 
 Thou comest nearer to the touch divine 
 
 Than mightier bards for whom Fame's pasans ring. 
 
 This bit of verse I dedicate to thee 
 
 With diflSdence of awe-encumbered pen ; 
 Not mine thy mastery of ruth and mirth! 
 Often to Afton's murmuring stream I flee, 
 And feel the quick tear start and trickle when 
 The ploughshare turns thy Daisy from the 
 earth. 
 
 NEXT DOOR 
 
 Within is flash and vividness of light, 
 
 Dazzle and witchery and swirl of dance, 
 Exultant jest and captivating glance — 
 
 Sheer merriment is at its loftiest height. 
 
 Without is dimness and inscrutable night; 
 
 The greatening shadow^s veer, recede, advance. 
 The trees are motionless as in a trance — 
 
 Time tarries in his ever-onward flight. 
 
 Next door the rooms, save one, are void and drear — 
 Where the lamp pales, a widow, crazed with 
 grief, 
 Clasps her doomed only child against her 
 breast : 
 With visage stern that chills the atmosphere. 
 Death comes with summons pitiless and brief — 
 A tremulous gasp — the fluttering pulses rest. 
 
 38 
 
JEAN INGELOW 
 
 She thought much, and she wrote much, and she 
 died, 
 
 And the vague world was very good to her. 
 
 Her fine ear caught the vivid free wing-whir 
 Of far-off bird. Her wistful gaze descried 
 Fair hues and shapes to duller sight denied. 
 
 Of star and flower she was interpreter. 
 
 She loved the clouds, the hills, the brooks, the stir 
 Of leaf. And the great sea she glorified. 
 
 And she is gone from earth, is vanished quite: 
 No more she weeps with us, and laughs, and 
 sings : 
 
 She lives beyond our shifting day and night, 
 Beyond our discords and our murmurings, 
 
 Within the larger and the fuller light. 
 Amid the music of immortal things. 
 
 THE SILENCE OF THE SNOW 
 
 How silently the feathery snowflakes fall 
 
 Adown the stillness of the placid air! 
 
 They fold the withered leaves with gentle care 
 And fill the fissures of the gray stone-w^all ; 
 Through their soft dusk the snow-bird sends his call 
 
 From out the clump of alders brown and bare; 
 
 Their touch of tenderness is everyw^here — 
 On lowly shrub, on pine-tree brave and tall. 
 
 And now they greet the chance-uplifted eye, 
 Like delicate petals floating dimly down 
 From fertile meadows and fair fields above; 
 But when so lic^htly each on each they lie. 
 Earth's barrenness receives a quiet crown 
 Of perfect whiteness and of perfect love. 
 
 39 
 
TOO LATE 
 
 If I could fix within the sonnet's space 
 
 The thought that agitates and frets my brain, 
 What ecstasies of triumph should I gain, 
 
 Treading song's altitudes with ardent pace: 
 
 But just as some inimitable grace 
 
 And wonderment of wedded words obtain, 
 I feel the prick and impotence of pain — 
 
 My feet have failed me ere they won the race. 
 
 And if perchance at any future hour 
 
 The thought shculd come again and stir my soul, 
 And I should capture it and make it sing — 
 The fascinations of its natal power 
 
 Would never thrill me at the singer's goal. 
 For I should miss the music's primal ring. 
 
 VENUS VICTRIX 
 
 Up from the sea, through the green wave she came ; 
 
 Around her swirled the foam in silvery dance. 
 
 She conquered gods and men with one bright 
 glance, 
 And Jove said : Venus Victrix is her name ! 
 She flashed to far Olympus, swift as flame, 
 
 Where tranced ears leaned to Beauty's utter- 
 ance, — 
 
 Ah, curious caprice of stress or chance, 
 To wed with Vulcan, ugly, marred and lame! 
 
 But many lovers clasped her after this; 
 
 And chief of all the fierce and fiery Mars, 
 Against whose breast she heaved voluptuous 
 sighs. — 
 Was it because of her celestial kiss. 
 To him as lovely as the li-^ht of stars, 
 That he was placed forever in the skies? 
 
 40 
 
ON THE ROCKS 
 
 Far downward from the friendly lighthouse tower 
 Slopes a precipitance of jagged rocks, 
 Which brave the fury of the breakers' shocks 
 
 And fling the surf back in a diamond shower. 
 
 From the cliff's beetling edge I shrink and cower 
 At the drear awfulness: but see, in flocks 
 The sea-gulls yonder ! their glad screaming mocks 
 
 The baffled yearnings of the wild waves' power. 
 
 As these strange birds in perfect safety glide 
 Above the dangers of the dread abyss — 
 
 So, in faith's fearlessness, may we outride 
 
 Life's perilous whirlpools where the waters hiss. 
 The foes we conquer, not the foes we miss, 
 
 Do strengthen us to meet the hostile tide. 
 
 BEYOND THE SURF 
 
 Beyond this ceaseless striving there is rest! 
 
 The smooth, broad billows swing and heave and 
 sway, 
 
 And o'er them hosts of little ripples play, 
 Curled by the quick light breezes of the west. 
 A boat sails by in pleasure's idle quest. 
 
 Swift pressing from her prow the crisp white 
 spray, 
 
 Her slender-trailing wake a level way 
 Of bubbled foam a-dance in gleeful zest. 
 
 At the horizon's edge, where distance blends 
 The soft low dimnesses of sea and sky, 
 Monhegan lifts his dusky, sombre pile. — 
 Silence — save when the warning fog-horn sends 
 Across the waters its far mournful cry. 
 
 Whose tone forbids the listening face to smile. 
 
 41 
 
DAYS 
 
 Creative, also uncreatlve days 
 
 We have: — either days emulous and keen, 
 Bright, stately, prescient, sensitively clean, 
 
 Vocal with birds upon the vibrant sprays; — 
 
 Or days blank, effortless, dull with dead grays, 
 In which a few spent, ragged leaves are seen 
 Upon the withered boughs where life has been, 
 
 While bleak winds moan down the mute, barren 
 ways. 
 
 Our moods inevitably mix and shift: — 
 
 Who sent the mighty thrill to Shakespeare's 
 brain, 
 Which woke his spirit from unvisioned sleep? 
 What caused the impermeable cloud to lift 
 
 From Milton's eyes? And whence was flashed the 
 strain 
 To Keats, which made his soul to music leap? 
 
 SONGS 
 
 All singers do not sing their songs in words: 
 
 The brook's low ripple is unwritten rhyme; 
 
 The melodies we hear in summer's prime 
 From leaf-dimmed coverts are the songs of birds; 
 Unlanguaged music to his listening herds 
 
 The shepherd pipes, prone lyine 'neath the lime; 
 
 The star-march, grandest symphony of time. 
 In silent splendor walks the sky that girds. 
 
 Save those invisible letters on the ground, 
 The sinless Man who dwelt in Galilee, 
 Our perfect Poet, wrote nor verse nor line: 
 The story that He voiced is angel-crowned. 
 And to earth's ultimate children it will shine 
 And be their light through kind eternity. 
 
 43 
 
THE TWO LIVES 
 
 What think you of the larger life, my friend — 
 The life beyond the vague, brief life of earth, 
 Into whose homes we have our second birth, 
 
 And toward whose mystic shores all mortals tend? 
 
 Lightly I answered: "With the ways I wend 
 I am content; it were of little worth 
 To check with cheerless thoughts my present 
 mirth — 
 
 Haply this known life is life's ultimate end." 
 
 Later, when day's last western flush retires, 
 
 When dews and dimnesses and dreams delight, 
 And naught of dissonance the silence mars — 
 Above the regions of inscrutable night 
 I see the inextinguishable fires 
 
 Of hosts of incommunicable stars. 
 
 CORN 
 
 I drop a kernel in the quickening ground. 
 That from its golden burial may be born 
 A sturdy growth of tall and tasseled corn, 
 
 Amid whose leaves the precious fruit is found. 
 
 To the fixed laws of kindly nature bound. 
 It gladdens at the crimson cup of morn. 
 Low rustling when the aftermath is shorn 
 
 And sickles through the shimmering harvest sound. 
 
 True emblem of Columbia's power and pride, 
 How universal is thy splendid sway! 
 
 Thou wavest by the bold Atlantic's side, 
 And where the broad Pacific flings its spray: 
 
 Thy constant usefulness the rich divide 
 
 With the dear poor who bless thee every day. 
 
 43 
 
IF THOU WERT HERE 
 
 A sense of sorrow greets me everywhere 
 
 Since thou hast gone away. What is't I miss? 
 The touch of a soft hand ; a fragrant kiss 
 
 Laid warmly on my lips; I miss the hair, 
 
 Eyes, speech, laugh, smile; the light step on the 
 stair ; 
 A white soul closely clasping mine through this 
 Time-measured, outer garb — love's holiest bliss; 
 
 A tender gladness from the very air 
 
 I breathe is gone; the stir of the gre^n leaves 
 Is a sad, dreary sound ; the happy song 
 Of yonder bird is mournful to mine ear; 
 The pebbled brook disconsolately grieves; 
 
 And bright-winged clouds move sombrely along: 
 How joyous all would be if thou wert here! 
 
 GUIDANCE 
 
 Upon the corner of a village street, 
 
 Close to the limits of my homestead lands, 
 An unpretentious upright firmly stands. 
 
 In workmanship plain, commonplace and neat. 
 
 To make its purpose clear, its form complete, 
 Below its top, like fingerless still hands, 
 A lettered board, transversely placed, commands 
 
 To the right path the stranger's doubting feet. 
 
 And when the vision w^idens, and the stars 
 Majestically move across the night, 
 
 And God seems near in their eternal glow, — 
 When no harsh voice the sacred silence mars, 
 I see, beyond the structure's slender height, 
 The shadow of a Cross upon the snow. 
 
 44 
 
THE ROADSIDE 
 
 Along the roadside in September days 
 The goldenrod in rich abundance grows; 
 Into the air it fearlessly up-throws 
 
 Its mimic steeples of soft billowy sprays; 
 
 It seems a silent sea of saffron haze — 
 And here and there a radiant lily glows 
 Amid its gold, whose scarlet life outflows 
 
 In slender tongues of quivering, harmless blaze. 
 
 Fair yellow and brave red together dwell 
 Contentedly in autumn's tuneful air, 
 
 And shrink not till the pitiless frosts are come; 
 Perchance some dryad's merry magic spell 
 
 Caused these glad blossoms their gay hues to 
 wear, 
 And sweetly smile while crickets chirp and 
 hum. 
 
 WHEN LOVE IS NEAR 
 
 When Love is near, though of him unafraid, 
 
 Ofttimes the power of speech forsakes my tongue, 
 Like to a voiceful bell, once lightly rung, 
 
 Which now by some impediment is stayed; 
 
 And yet the words, from utterance delayed, 
 When Love is gone, are fluently outflung; 
 In stress of fervent feeling, said or sung, 
 
 I call to him in accents passion-made. 
 
 Haply he heeds me and trips blithely back, 
 Haply he heeds me not and ne'er returns. 
 
 Ah, pained and saddened am I at the lack 
 
 Of light when Love's lamp neither cheers nor 
 burns ; 
 
 For if he come not, all is bare and black — 
 But if he come, the flame-warmth upward yearns. 
 
 45 
 
INTERWINDING STREAMS 
 
 Ah, life hath naught more beautiful to show 
 Than thou, sweet, gracious lady of my dreams! 
 A tender light from thy pure presence beams 
 
 As from dawn's crimson over stainless snow: 
 
 In twilight calm thy excellences glow 
 And lull to restf ulness ; thy motion seems 
 Free as the flow of interwinding streams 
 
 That through the meadows and the woodlands go. 
 
 The petals of the frail anemone 
 
 Open not to the day's rare loveliness 
 
 Till softly startled by the warm wind's breath- 
 So my heart's leaves were closed till touched by 
 thee! 
 And when I feel thy lingering caress 
 
 My wakened love to thy love answereth. 
 
 IN FRUGAL MINORS 
 
 In frugal minors I am forced to sing, 
 My brain with lyric melody is fraught; 
 From its chipped shell I free some slender thought 
 
 To let it soar on unambitious wing. 
 
 I voice the bubbles that the brooklets fling, 
 The sunlight by the fluttered leafage caught. 
 The blossom to immaculate beauty wrought, 
 
 The vision of a cloud's far vanishing. 
 
 A flush, a frown upon my lady's face, 
 And fires of fancy in my spirit start; 
 
 About her throat a witchery of lace. 
 
 And rhythmic raptures through my bosom dart; 
 
 The marvel of her motion's vivid grace 
 Wakens to music my impassioned heart. 
 
 46 
 
WHEN FANCY'S FINGERS 
 
 When fancy's fingers softly turn the key 
 
 Upon the noises of the outer air, 
 
 Backward through memory's corridors I fare 
 And sit once more with summer and with thee. 
 The same large womanhood appeals to me, 
 
 Patrician from light foot to splendid hair; 
 
 And the same smile the dear face used to wear 
 Plays round the lips from petty passions free. 
 
 Thy voice, so marvellously sw^eet and clear, 
 Is music felt and folded in the soul. 
 
 Like the low ripple of some ceaseless song. 
 The beauties of thine inner self appear 
 
 When from thine eyes love's purities outroll 
 And whisper of a life that knows no wrong. 
 
 THE EARTH-TOUCH 
 
 Above the grosser air the ether is; 
 
 And when the gods upon Olympus dwelt. 
 
 Their splendid life its quickening ardors felt, 
 And thrilled and greatened in its rarer bliss. 
 And yet (how fain w^e are to flout at this!) 
 
 The gods with earth-folk supped, convened, and 
 dealt — 
 
 To mortal maidens amorously knelt 
 For warm caress and passion-quivered kiss. 
 
 One signal truth both gods and men aver: 
 
 Life's perishable forms are dearer far 
 Than those immutable and permanent. 
 The ocean charms with its inconstant stir. 
 
 The flow^er is fairer, sweeter than the star. 
 The forest friendlier than the firmament. 
 
 47 
 
THE THREE IMMORTALS 
 
 A land of silence in the sunset's glow, 
 
 Low-traversed by an ever-murmuring stream, 
 Whose moving waters tremulously gleam 
 
 And tarry lingeringly where slim reeds grow. 
 
 A spacious marble palace white as snow, 
 
 With towers and tapering pinnacles that seem 
 The lofty actuals of some splendid dream, 
 
 Some dwelling of the gods of long ago. 
 
 In the dim porch the three immortals stand: 
 
 Hypnos, warm-limbed, with drowsy poppied eyes. 
 Caressing winged Oneiros' dusky hair; 
 Behind them looms, with cruel beckoning hand. 
 Stern Thanatos, majestically fair, 
 Unchanging through the changeful centuries. 
 
 CONDITIONS 
 
 What need to fret about the day to be? 
 Enough for us to know the day that is: 
 Each moment brings its brief realities — 
 
 To their conditions all must bend the knee. 
 
 You walk the street, but ere you reach yon tree 
 Ten level rods away — some sudden whiz 
 May daze your brain, and query, laugh or quiz 
 
 Will nevermore quick stir your lips for me. 
 
 And I shall live for you a few strange days. 
 And weep sad tears, and often seek your grave 
 To put flowers there to wither, fade and pass: 
 But skies have brighter hues than sombre grays, 
 The seas grow calm when tempests cease to rave, 
 And sunshine follows shadow on the grass. 
 
 48 
 
CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 
 I 
 
 Christ before Pilate! Cruel, sacred scene! 
 
 With head close-cropped and weak, repellent face, 
 The ruler sits within the judgment-place; 
 
 Before him stands the Master, meek of mien. 
 
 With look benign and countenance serene — 
 A Presence of incomparable grace, 
 Patiently waiting in the narrowed space 
 
 Toward which the hungry rabble surge and lean. 
 
 With visage of commingled hate and fear — 
 His jaws agape, his wicked hands up-thrown — 
 A creature of the mob yells: ''Let Him die!" 
 While through an opening in the hall's dusk rear, 
 Over a scrap of summer, zephyr-blown. 
 Broods an infinitude of tranquil sky. 
 
 II 
 
 When first I saw the picture, I but saw 
 The stir and stillness of the mighty scene. 
 The wondrous coloring, the shade, the sheen, 
 
 And Pilate parleying with the Jewish law; 
 
 The blatant rabble's murder-craving maw. 
 And the hushed gaze of Pity's dusky queen; 
 The distant window with its glimpse of green, 
 
 The near calm Figure, without fleck or flaw. 
 
 But now, to tranced imagination's eye. 
 
 The visions from the canvas pass and fade. 
 Save two, which softly, vividly increase: 
 The scrap of summer with its arch of sky. 
 And the dear Christ, in majesty arrayed — 
 A Presence of triumphant love and peace. 
 
 49 
 
IF WE BE ALONE 
 
 There is no drearier place upon the earth 
 
 Than the great city if we be alone, 
 
 If no voice of rememberable tone 
 Amid the moving multitude have birth. 
 We drift about in aimlessness and dearth, 
 
 Like the dropped leaf hither and thither blov^n; 
 
 The heart for sweet companionship makes moan 
 And saddens at the sound of alien mirth. 
 
 But with the forest's winding, shadowed ways, 
 Though unfamiliar, if the birds be there 
 And through the vocal glades the light winds fare. 
 
 While the brook chatters as it purls and plays, 
 A sense of kindly comradeship we share 
 
 Amid the dimnesses of greens and grays. 
 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 Two friends are gone, two precious poet-friends, 
 Who walked the dear old city's honored ways: 
 One with his wealth of keen convincing phrase, 
 
 One ripe with wit and all wit's pathos lends. 
 
 Each, following thought's tumultuous turns and 
 trends. 
 Fulfilled the splendid mission of his days; 
 In virile verse, amid life's gleams and grays. 
 
 Each wrought a treasure that sure fame defends. 
 
 Holmes, Lowell — names we love to hear and speak. 
 Caress and iterate, till they become 
 A ceaseless lofty echo in the heart! 
 For their great words and greater thoughts we seek, 
 Unmindful of the multitudinous hum 
 And callous clamor of the surging mart. 
 
 50 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR 
 
 Where, traveller, have thy restless footsteps gone? 
 
 What swift inscrutable summons bade thee go 
 
 So silently, nor let thy near friends know 
 Thy mission's purpose? Art thou toiling on 
 Beneath chill skies in regions bleak and wan 
 
 With desolations of eternal snow? 
 
 Or dost thou journey where the tropics strow 
 Rare blooms, and summer suns have ever shone? 
 
 Or in some splendid dream didst thou behold 
 The glimmering borders of the spirit land. 
 
 Making earth's brightest visions bare and cold? 
 Did God's majestic voice thy soul command 
 
 To burst the bonds of elemental mould. 
 And in a larger life and manhood stand? 
 
 POPE 
 
 Bedizened, rouged, this pompous little man. 
 
 In lines that glitter still, charmed England's ear. 
 Him even lords and ladies held in fear 
 
 Or praised w^hen called his polished verse to scan. 
 
 If a new thought to fret his brain began 
 
 At midnight's quiet hour, when sleep was dear 
 To those that served, he roused them — duty 
 
 queer 
 
 To furbelow him for a fevered span. 
 
 Patrons he sought among the rich and great, 
 Then lashed their foes with artificial ire. 
 
 His wit was apt; his words had wondrous weight 
 With queens and kings; yet to no pure desire 
 
 Or noble purpose was he consecrate: 
 Fine phrasing his without the poet's fire. 
 
 51 
 
FLOTSAM 
 
 Tossed by the billows on the pebbled strand 
 Are bits of board and other wooden things, 
 Such fragments as the sailor often flings 
 
 On the far waters with unthinking hand; 
 
 And as, obeying some supreme command, 
 
 The gull flies nestward with unerring wings, 
 So, after weary wave-washed wanderings. 
 
 The dull wood, as by instinct, finds the land. 
 
 So may the poet's little chips of verse. 
 Cast careless on opinion's fickle seas. 
 
 Survive the critic's billow-lashing curse. 
 The storm-gusts of fierce envy's enmities. 
 
 And safe on fame's palm-weaving shores rehearse 
 To listening ears love's lingering melodies. 
 
 JETSAM 
 
 Below the surges that upheave and sway, 
 
 Strewn on the ocean's mute unfathomed floor, 
 Are placid treasures shut for evermore 
 
 From gleam of stars and glare and glow of day. 
 
 They reck not of the curled waves' jocund play. 
 Of boom of billows on the barren shore. 
 Or scream of gull that skims the surf to soar 
 
 Above the tumult of the torn, tossed spray. 
 
 But when the seas are still and skies are fair. 
 Haply anear some treacherous bar or reef. 
 
 The diver will these watery dangers dare. 
 
 And after search delayed, perchance, or brief. 
 
 Will find a tangle of trailed dripping hair, 
 The sole survival of some mighty grief. 
 
 52 
 
O WINTER NIGHT 
 
 The moon Is up, and on the patient snow 
 
 Pours a soft gleam of quiet golden light; 
 
 And to the clumps of fir, half-clad in white, 
 The moonbeams in hushed yearnings love to go 
 To seek the shadow in the nooks below. 
 
 No cloud is seen ; no bird in happy flight ; 
 
 Only the tender glimmer of the night, 
 With wealth of starry points that flash and glow. 
 
 O Winter Night so beautiful and still, 
 So soon to leave us in the sun's quick ray! 
 
 O snowy garment robing dale and hill, 
 So soon to vanish in the warmer day! 
 
 Thy influences guard the germs that fill 
 
 With flowers and fragrance the sweet lap of May. 
 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 {For a Picture) 
 
 Poet, a shining aureole crowns thy days! 
 Thy regal summer's purple pomp is past, 
 And autumn's burning glories o'er thee cast 
 
 Their mellow crimsons pencilled with soft grays. 
 
 As, canopied with wreaths of pearly haze. 
 
 The sun-clad mountain, distance-dimmed and vast, 
 In living grandeur shall forever last, 
 
 So through the years to be thy work shall blaze. 
 
 A privacy of labor wins thee fame : 
 
 Inglorious ostentation's petty pride 
 Blurs not one letter of thy rounded name; 
 
 Thy lucid forehead, generously wide. 
 Bespeaks the might of Honor's gracious flame, 
 
 By purity of soul Intensified. 
 
 53 
 
LILIES OF THE VALLEY 
 
 When spring is generous with song and sun, 
 
 And apple-blossoms falling snow the ground; 
 
 When brooks delight to babble, flash and bound, 
 And rapid ripples with the grasses run ; 
 Amid thick leaves the lily-cups are spun 
 
 In looms invisible, devoid of sound; 
 
 The airy shuttles ply their magic round 
 Until the marvels are divinely done. 
 
 As twilight's golden purples fringe the west. 
 And fraught with fantasy we dimly hear 
 A merry chiming as of elfin bells, 
 From pealing petals rhythmically pressed, 
 A delicate fragrance fills the atmosphere 
 And of the dew's celestial mission tells. 
 
 THE SONNET 
 
 As, poised on slender stem, some perfect rose 
 Unfolds its delicate petals to the air. 
 Till lo ! a little rounded life is there. 
 
 Amid the sweetness that its breath bestows; 
 
 Even thus, within the sonnet's classic close. 
 Beyond whose limits it may never fare, 
 The thought should shape itself until it wear 
 
 A rhythmic garb of tumult or repose. 
 
 A sonnet is a lover's laughing song; 
 A sigh, a symphony, a lyric brief; 
 
 A throb of mighty music from the sea; 
 It seeks the stars, or brook-like bounds along; 
 'Tis now a cry of passion-throated grief, 
 And now an epic in epitome. 
 
 54 
 
THE COVE 
 
 An inlet of the sea with wooded shores. 
 
 Some cottages whose painted roofs are seen 
 
 Among the many shades of living green. 
 A sky from which a softened sunlight pours — 
 Fragments of cloud about the sky in scores. 
 
 A narrow wake where a small craft has been. 
 
 Breaths from an ocean that with salt is keen. 
 A distant sound of measured, dipping oars. 
 
 An island yonder with a long low point 
 
 Of smooth brown rock, and a gull sitting there 
 Watching the waves that wander restfully: 
 Just back a pine that seems as out of joint 
 It were. A hawk that seeks the higher air. 
 The lone sad voice of a complaining sea. 
 
 IF THOUGHTS WERE WORDS 
 
 If thoughts were words, and I could make them 
 sing. 
 
 How all my days were filled with melody! 
 
 But song must native and impassioned be, 
 And its own life-triumphant message bring. 
 The wood-lark's note is loftier for the wing 
 
 That bears him skyw^ard in ecstatic glee. 
 
 And mightier is the music of the sea 
 When ragged, whitening billows plunge and swing. 
 
 It is the gift of song that gives renown. 
 
 The thoughts that urge are often scant and few; 
 Some seeming dullard or some shiftless clown 
 
 May flash a lyric from a drop of dew; 
 Some graceless wight may wear the poet's crown 
 
 For singing of the love he never knew. 
 
 55 
 
LIFE 
 
 A little longer and the toil is done, 
 A little farther on the road to go, 
 A little stress of shifting, drifting snow, 
 
 A little journeying through shade and sun, 
 
 A little rest where quiet waters run, 
 A little parleying with friend and foe, 
 A little oasis where blossoms grow, 
 
 A little darkness ere the light is won. 
 
 A little sin that leaves a little stain, 
 A little sorrow and a little joy, 
 A little mending of a broken toy, 
 
 A little pleasure and a little pain, 
 
 A little thought of when I was a boy, 
 
 A little fear that I have lived in vain. 
 
 ITS VANISHED SUMMER 
 
 I found a rose beside my path one day, 
 It faced the autumn with a pleading fear ; 
 Its leaves were cold, and some of them were sere, 
 
 With edges withered to a flaccid gray. 
 
 In the pale glimmer of the sun's thin ray 
 It got a semblance of pathetic cheer. 
 But shuddered when the barren wind was near, 
 
 And for its vanished summer seemed to pray. 
 
 I stooped to pick the flower; but, musing, said: 
 If I should take you from your patient stem. 
 
 Your mournful beauty would be sooner dead 
 Than if I left you where the stern frosts hem 
 Your pathos round, and you do shrink from them 
 
 Till the last quiver of your life is fled. 
 
 56 
 
MAYFLOWERS 
 
 Now March with gusty turbulence and glee 
 Blows weary winter from the softened air, 
 And earth and sky the tender touches share 
 
 Of April's gently tearful sympathy. 
 
 The robin whistles from the budding tree 
 
 A welcome to the cheer that thrills him there ; 
 And, ice-released, the bright brooks jocund fare 
 
 Over the polished pebbles babblingly. 
 
 Later, on ragged hillocks in the field, 
 
 From 'neath the dank decay, once living green, 
 Some faint flushed petals shyly peep and peer, 
 Whose vivid lips, by whiffs of warmth unsealed. 
 Sweet whisper through their trailed leaves' tangled 
 screen : 
 "The Spring, the Spring, the merry Spring is 
 here!" 
 
 TO-DAY 
 
 No day has been, no day will ever be 
 In all its many features like to-day: — 
 The clouds that slowly through the thin air stray, 
 
 Once lost to sight we never more shall see ; 
 
 The gentle wind that blows so restfully 
 Will ne'er return to toss the leafy spray, 
 Nor waft again the wild bird's merry lay 
 
 From out the shadow of the forest tree. 
 
 Thus Nature's changes to her children show 
 Some fragments of creation's endless scheme 
 And the grand harmony which through it runs: 
 Earth's transitory phases come and go. 
 
 Parts of one perfect whole, lit by the gleam 
 Of vast, unnumbered, planet-circled suns. 
 
 57 
 
REALMS AERIAL 
 
 Thy voice comes to me, lady, in the night, 
 As sweet as music o'er the waveless sea, 
 As clear as church bells pealing distantly, 
 
 As pure as dawn's first dewy, rosy light. 
 
 Thy golden presence makes the darkness bright, 
 The place is exquisitely filled with thee; 
 No leaf is stirring on the drowsy tree, 
 
 No bird is heard in startled sudden flight. 
 
 And in my poppied semi-sleep I feel 
 Myself Endymion, Zeus-favored boy, 
 And thee Selene, goddess chastely fair. 
 Ah, happy I, that thou shouldst softly steal 
 From realms aerial in hushed, timid joy 
 
 To watch and guard me with thy pitying care ! 
 
 THY HAND RESTS LIGHTLY, LADY 
 
 Thy hand rests lightly, lady, on my face, 
 As soft as dew that cheers the weary flower, 
 As gentle as the fall of summer shower. 
 
 As warm as sunshine in a sheltered place; 
 
 Its touch is exquisite in tender grace, 
 Its pressure is a sweetly thrilling power 
 In which I miss the tick of Time's dull hour 
 
 And live in soul beyond the bounds of space. 
 
 As Eos, goddess, kindly draws aside 
 
 Night's veil to let her royal brother pass 
 And drive the day across the happy skies, 
 So my heart's veil thy presence opens wide 
 That Love may rise, like fragrance from the 
 grass. 
 And move above the life it glorifies. 
 
 58 
 
WHEN THE NIGHTS COME 
 
 How pallid are the brief November days! 
 
 The sunbeams flicker pale, and scant, and chill; 
 
 The far, perpetual prattle of the rill 
 A wistful iterance to the ear conveys: 
 No wood-birds pipe their dissyllabic lays. 
 
 The expectant air is tenuous and still; 
 
 Field, meadow, forest, upland, valley, hill, 
 Present a barrenness of browns and grays. 
 
 When the nights come the heavens are brave and 
 clear ; 
 An azure green prevails about the west, 
 
 Dappled with tints of evanescent rose — 
 And Mercury's fire is dimly manifest, 
 And Venus shines imperial and near, 
 And Jupiter majestically glows. 
 
 AT ELEUSIS 
 
 As Phryne, at Eleusfs, laid aside 
 
 Her garments, and let fall her sweet, warm hair, 
 
 Before the populace mutely gathered there — 
 Then sought, waist-deep, the cool sea's foam-flecked 
 
 tide. 
 That stern Poseidon might be satisfied. 
 
 And great Apelles greater honors wear. 
 
 And Aphrodite live, supremely fair. 
 The poet's ecstasy — the painter's pride — 
 
 So, should I put this mortal garb away, 
 
 And stand, heaven-viewxd, in Love's resplendent 
 
 sea, 
 
 Wouldst thou on memory's canvas fix my soul ? 
 
 For that which thou didst love in earth's brief day — 
 
 Form, features and glad life, shall w^ait for thee 
 
 Where time's tossed billows neither strive nor 
 
 roll. 
 
 59 
 
BROWNING 
 
 Least comprehended of the later bards, 
 
 Most shunned, most praised, most scorned, most 
 
 deified. 
 To Shakespeare in imperial thought allied. 
 
 And like to Landor for whom fame retards, — 
 
 From the dim pallidness of drooping chards 
 To yonder oak against the dawn descried, 
 His loving search no living thing denied: 
 
 Man's deeper nature claimed his grave regards. 
 
 No stern recluse, he passed his songful days 
 Faith-loyal to Mirth's luminous decree; 
 
 He walked great London's multitudinous ways 
 With agile step, with bearing genial, free; 
 
 Once only yearning to Death's awful gaze 
 Below the skies that arch the classic sea. 
 
 MRS. BROWNING 
 
 In Dante's home her mortal summons came, 
 Near the hushed Arno, river of rest and song, 
 Beneath the skies where flash and quiver and 
 throng 
 
 The eternal stars that guard great Dante's fame. 
 
 Did her flesh-weak but spirit-ardent frame 
 Still yearn to right oppression's cruel wrong? 
 Did she for earth-life or for soul-life long? 
 
 The thoughts that chance with death we may not 
 name. 
 
 Haply her eyes, which looked their wondering last 
 On the loved poet-partner of her prime. 
 
 Shone with the preciousness of memories past 
 And visionings melodious and sublime. 
 
 Then with one prescient gaze ecstatic, vast, 
 Forever closed upon the scenes of Time. 
 
 60 
 
SWINBURNE 
 
 This singer sings an eagle-soaring song, 
 A mighty music yearns within his brain, 
 He voices passion's fierce and splendid pain. 
 
 His utterance, as the sea's, is sweet and strong. 
 
 The cloud-accustomed hills he sweeps along. 
 He thrills the rivers as they thread the plain, 
 The gods he wakes to ancient life again. 
 
 He strives to crush oppression's cruel wrong. 
 
 England, reject him not! He is your pride, 
 The offspring of your songward years of toil, 
 
 Your chiefest bard howe'er you may deride; 
 The boldest singer he that treads your soil, 
 
 Swayed by your ocean's uncontaminate tide 
 And quickened by your errors' stern recoil. 
 
 CRABBE 
 
 He knew the Borough's every turn and twist — 
 The church, the shop, the tavern, and the school. 
 The lads, the lasses, the contented fool. 
 
 The ragged beggars roving where they list. 
 
 His searching eye no sight of sorrow missed — 
 The prone inebriate with his nauseous drool, 
 The ugly beldam on her crippled stool, 
 
 The wistful hunchback by his sister kissed. 
 
 He had a pleasant word for each and all, 
 Their lot he strove to mitigate and cheer: 
 
 He sought the sick; he answered to the call 
 Of those in poverty when death was near; 
 
 He helped the sinners who were like to fall, 
 And made their duties beautiful and clear. 
 
 6i 
 
A WATER-LILY 
 
 I twirl a lovely lily in my hand 
 
 With yellow trembles round its beaded heart — 
 Its softly tinted petals touched apart, 
 
 It may be at some Naiad's hushed command. 
 
 On the lake's level it was kissed and fanned 
 By breeze and ripple; quivered by the dart 
 Of agile pike that takes his sudden start 
 
 To seize the lure by artful angler planned. 
 
 Were it not kinder to have left you there, 
 Restfully floating near your ample leaf, 
 
 Stem-anchored to the sheltered lakelet's bed? 
 You thrive not, lily, in this alien air; 
 
 Your beauty droops and fades in silent grief 
 That never can be healed or comforted. 
 
 THE WORLD IS WHITE 
 
 The world is white with winter and with snow; 
 The sleighbells chime and merrily go by, 
 Late autumn has forgot to wail and sigh, 
 
 The sudden frost-flames glitter to and fro. 
 
 Few leaves are left for wanton winds to blow, 
 The trees are silhouettes against the sky. 
 The summer birds have ceased to sing and fly. 
 
 The keen brooks bicker not in rippled flow. 
 
 The maple branches, yearningly outspread, 
 Seem fountain-jets quick frozen in mid-air; 
 
 Before the twilight's fading fires are fled, 
 The heavens their bright eternal jewels wear; 
 
 And Luna comes, with lovely, queenly tread, 
 To lay the fullness of her beauty bare. 
 
 62 
 
LANDOR 
 
 August he gazes on the southern sea — 
 An ancient man, superb and leonine: 
 The unquiet waters scintillate and shine — 
 
 The white sails gleam — the light winds w^ander 
 free. 
 
 Like some storm-vexed and age-defying tree, 
 
 In whose gnarled life decay and strength combine, 
 He resolute stands; about his temples twine 
 
 The few thin hairs that mock his fled youth's glee. 
 
 Landor, self-exiled from thy natal shore, 
 
 A lone sublimity exalts thy state! 
 As the stern blUow^s, luminous and frore, 
 
 Unceasing roll with voice reverberate, 
 Thy crescent fame shall sound for evermore 
 
 Above the ills and ironies of fate. 
 
 INDIAN SUMMER 
 
 There comes a day when autumn suns are brief — 
 
 A little, perfect day when w^inds are still; 
 
 Soft gleams of golden light the warm air fill, 
 And fire the crimson of the maple's leaf. 
 The robin's clear, full note, unfraught with grief. 
 
 Blends with the sparrow's finer, slenderer trill; 
 
 And o'er the summit of the far-seen hill 
 Float clouds, rose-tinted, like the coral-reef. 
 
 The brooklet ripples o'er its pebbled bed, 
 And tosses damps upon the sedgy shore; 
 
 The oak, with foliage of dark-burnished red. 
 Stands bold, frost-rifled of its fruited store; 
 
 And over all the halcyon skies are spread — 
 The semblance of the skies that summer wore. 
 
 63 
 
TENNYSON 
 
 The singer of the perfect song is gone: 
 
 Has stepped beyond the limits of our sight; 
 Beyond the changefulness of day and night; 
 
 Beyond where brows are wrinkled, cheeks are wan. 
 
 Amid supernal scenes he journeys on, 
 'Neath fadeless skies of iridescent light 
 Flashed with effulgences divinely bright 
 
 From suns unsetting which have ever shone. 
 
 In song superb, ethereal, unique, 
 
 He leaves a place majestic and unfilled: 
 
 His words a witchery of music speak, 
 
 With their sweet grace the heart is lulled and 
 thrilled: 
 
 Though throbs of other splendid song we seek, 
 This singer's mighty peals are never stilled. 
 
 IN THE BOSTON ATHEN.EUM 
 
 How sweet to linger in a place like this, 
 
 Relieved of life's monotony and strain; 
 
 Amid an atmosphere of books and brain 
 The hurrying city's ceaseless din to miss! 
 Happy within Thought's charming chrysalis, 
 
 We glimpse Imagination's pageant train; 
 
 Dwelling awhile in Italy we gain 
 The fervor and the thrill of classic bliss. 
 
 Around is ranged the w^ondrous world of books: 
 Quaint iron stairways, spiral and antique, 
 Conduct to tomes unreachable below. 
 And as the eye through yonder window looks, 
 The outer air is busy with a freak 
 And flurry of inviolable snow. 
 
 64 
 
A SNOWLESS WINTER 
 
 A snowless winter we look out upon: 
 
 The trees are bare, and seemingly are dead, 
 The bleak roads are not keen for sleigh or sled, 
 
 The clouds that dim the sky are vague and wan. 
 
 In nooks and angles where the sun has shone 
 A chill damp tells that warmth is not all fled; 
 The anxious workman is dispirited, 
 
 Feeling his hope for sustenance is gone. 
 
 The river's ice in places is so thin 
 
 'Twill hardly bear the weight of beast or man. 
 What shall they do who have their bread to win 
 
 Waiting for work without the power to plan? 
 O serviceable flakes, to fall begin, 
 
 And cheer the barrenness we dread to scan ! 
 
 BY HUSHED DEGREES 
 
 True art consists not of facsimiles; 
 
 It lies not in mere niceness of detail. 
 
 The man to paint the perfect flower will fail 
 If he but reproduce the flower he sees 
 With the material eye. By hushed degrees 
 
 A loftiness of vision lifts the veil 
 
 From the supreme ideal that it may sail 
 Freely among the mind's sublimities. 
 
 From out the canvas looks a striking face, 
 A likeness clever as to parts and whole; 
 
 The trend of finest line and curve we trace, 
 We note the tender glimmer of the hair; 
 Yet mark we most the spirit-touches rare 
 
 That show the presence of the living soul. 
 
 6s 
 
RECOMPENSE 
 I 
 
 Apart from life's monotony and toil, 
 We have our higher selves to satisfy; 
 One pores upon the stars that gem the sky, 
 
 And one upon the flow^ers that gem the soil; 
 
 He seeks the city's vastness and turmoil, 
 And she the spots where birds and brooks go by 
 Poesy to some rare souls is sweet and nigh, 
 
 Round others painting's vivid raptures coil. 
 
 And each one lifts his favorite pursuit 
 Above the dollar drudgery and grind. 
 And clings to it, whatever it may be; 
 Haply upon this joy the lips are mute. 
 But ah! how often in the face we find 
 The presence of some wondrous ecstasy! 
 
 II 
 
 If all the melody my mind h??s m;ide 
 In fitful moments of impassioned zeal 
 Were put upon the page, would it reveal 
 
 The excellence for which my spirit prayed? 
 
 Would the lost music, lingeringly stayed 
 
 Just short of utterance ere the pen could steal 
 Its magic from the brain, if found, unseal 
 
 Faint echoes of the lyre that Orpheus played? 
 
 Could I but make one ditty that should live, 
 In place of many, weak and fugitive — 
 
 A thrill of gladness or a lover's lay — 
 To pass unheeded I should be content, 
 Happy that one clear joy-gleam had been sent 
 
 Into the gloom of one grief-laden day. 
 
 66 
 
BEYOND THE JORDAN 
 
 Beyond the Jordan — so the record saith — 
 
 The Master tarried when the tidings came. 
 
 Did sudden shivers shake his mortal frame, 
 Or grief one mighty moment choke his breath? 
 To the dear weeping home he hasteneth, 
 
 And Martha's unbelief is put to shame; 
 
 The dead man answered, living, to his name, 
 And Love stood, victor, at the gates of Death! 
 
 Ah! Love heeds not the timid tick of time; 
 No fetters bind him to earth's little hour: 
 He stays the tempest and he stills the sea: 
 He reigns unchallenged, graciously sublime, 
 Supreme in his illimitable power. 
 He is divine, he is Eternity! 
 
 SEA AND LAND 
 
 the foiled iterance of the yearning sea! 
 Moaning as if his mighty heart w^ould break, 
 In unrelenting voice of passionate ache: 
 
 "Of my fell fetters would that I were free; 
 
 1 long on yonder scornful land to be, 
 
 And there my joy of absolute empire slake; 
 What ravage and what ruin would I make, 
 Then utterly drown it in my pitiless glee!" 
 
 The stern shore shuddered at these ominous cries; 
 Tw^as evening, and above the horizon's rim 
 
 Stepped Luna, lady of loveliness and light! 
 "Back to thy caves mysterious and dim, 
 Insatiate sea," she said; "Hush, no replies! 
 Thou art my vassal by God-given right." 
 
 67 
 
BRYANT 
 {For a Picture) 
 
 Skilful artificer of rhythmic song, 
 
 Thy rounded verse in fervent color plays, 
 As snowy cloudlets bathed in golden haze 
 
 Flock westward, vermeil-tinged, a burnished throng. 
 
 Again thy lay glides tenderly along, 
 
 Tracing the rivulet's ever-gladsome ways; 
 Soaring, in final flight, to suns ablaze, 
 
 In sweep majestic, meditative, strong. 
 
 Command thy pen to build undying lines! 
 
 Inscribe each thought upon the waiting page! 
 If action sleep, the brain-force droops and pines: 
 
 The great are keenest oft in hoary age. 
 As o'er thy brow the gradual silver shines. 
 
 We hail thee man of men — prince, poet, sage! 
 
 WHITTIER 
 
 How sweet the song this gentle singer sings! 
 
 For in glad melody his pure verse flows. 
 
 Like pebbled brook that musically goes 
 And bubbles from its busy ripples flings. 
 He carols of the summer's blossomings. 
 
 Of spring's warm breath, of winter's eddying 
 snows. 
 
 Of radiant autumn when the keen wind blows, 
 Of joyous birds with softly feathered wings. 
 
 In voice unshaken, with unwearied zeal. 
 He labors for the fettered slave's release, 
 
 That torture from the cruel iron heel. 
 
 From thong and blood and baying hound may 
 cease. 
 
 That o'er our whole broad gracious land may steal 
 The holy hush of freedom, love, and peace. 
 
 68 
 
BALLADES 
 
BALLADE OF A FRIEND 
 
 A friend, a quaint and prudent friend, 
 
 It is my happy chance to meet, 
 As on my daily walks I wend, 
 
 Through dust and drizzle, cold and heat. 
 
 To my salute upon the street 
 Or in the shop or at the door, 
 
 His lips immutably repeat, 
 I'm fair to middling, nothing more! 
 
 Of stature tall, he's prone to bend, 
 
 His face is patient and discreet, 
 A subtile charm his manners lend. 
 
 He is composed from head to feet. 
 
 His glance is keen, his garb is neat, 
 His beard is long and thin and hoar. 
 
 And is this phrase his one conceit, 
 I'm fair to middling, nothing more? 
 
 He's oft absorbed (I apprehend) 
 
 In thoughts of some polemic sheet. 
 Whose view^s he labors to defend 
 
 Or strives to controvert and beat. 
 
 His intellect is clean and sweet. 
 And quick and lucid to the core. 
 
 From his reply there 's no retreat, 
 I'm fair to middling, nothing more! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 As pure as gold, as good as wheat. 
 
 His answer I do not deplore. 
 I love to hear, when him I greet, 
 
 I'm fair to middling, nothing more! 
 
 71 
 
A BALLADE OF CONTENT 
 
 Why prate we of the future spheres 
 
 And wish our present lives away? 
 Why close our eyes and shut oar ears 
 
 To sights and sounds that flash and play? 
 
 The rustle of the startled spray, 
 Of clouds the pomp and pageantry, 
 
 The note of bird, the glint of May: 
 This world is good enough for me. 
 
 Mayhap we oft are touched with fears, 
 Perchance are crippled in the fray, 
 
 And now we weep complaining tears. 
 Now through the bitter valley stray, 
 Haply the hills are bleak and gray. 
 
 But much we get of gleam and glee — 
 The sun oft yields a jocund ray: 
 
 This world is good enough for me. 
 
 We hail the glimmer that appears 
 To herald the approach of day. 
 
 The hush that captivates and cheers 
 When stars their charming visits pay. 
 The blossoms, virgin, flushed and gay. 
 
 The thrill, the throb, the ecstasy, 
 The winds that freshen and delay: 
 
 This world is good enough for me. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 O hand-clasps that our troubles stay! 
 
 O words that cause our doubts to flee! 
 And shall we ask for more, I pray? 
 
 This world is good enough for me. 
 
 72 
 
THE SONG THAT I SHALL NEVER SING 
 
 When twilight's purples pass to gray 
 
 And stars emerge in majesty, 
 When Night's dim fingers close the day 
 
 And all is hush and ecstasy — 
 
 From the fond homes of Memory, 
 In immemorial murmuring, 
 
 Supreme, illusive, comes to me 
 The song that I shall never sing. 
 
 The v^ords allure, delude, delay. 
 
 Kiss, captivate, combine, agree, 
 Flash, quiver, tantalize and play, 
 
 Then soar in matchless harmony: 
 
 I thrill with unconjectured glee 
 To catch the final faultless ring — 
 
 When sudden fades, and utterly, 
 The song that I shall never sing. 
 
 The voice of bird from budding spray. 
 
 When winter dies by spring's decree — 
 The flush and perfume of the May, 
 
 Which quickens meadow, field, and tree — 
 
 Vague throbs of far-heard melody. 
 The perfect poise of perfect wing. 
 
 Are hints of what might chance to be 
 The song that I shall never sing. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Friend, I would give all else for fee, 
 
 I'f by the forfeit I could bring 
 To my poor brain the power to free 
 
 The song that I shall never sing. 
 
 73 
 
THE IMMACULATE CHILD 
 
 In the manger the sweet Babe lay, 
 
 Under the wintry sky; 
 The place was barren and gray, 
 
 The inmates were hushed and shy: 
 
 A tremulous, infantile cry 
 Is uttered by lips undefiled ; 
 
 The fond Mother breathes a fond sigh. 
 Lo, the immaculate Child! 
 
 In a wonderful, sudden way, 
 
 Far off, yet dazzlingly nigh, 
 A light outshining the day 
 
 The innocent shepherds descry: 
 
 AfFrighted and awed they would fly 
 A vision so vivid and wild ; 
 
 But list! the clear voice from on high. 
 Lo, the immaculate Child! 
 
 With feet that no obstacles stay, 
 
 With fire of vehement eye, 
 With tongues that fervently pray, 
 
 The Wise Men their glad journey ply; 
 
 A luminous star they espy. 
 Like a lamp in the mid-air enisled — 
 
 It leads where their promised hopes lie. 
 Lo, the immaculate Child! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 The young Mother's soft lullaby 
 Is pure and pleading and mild. 
 
 The angels in praising Him vie. 
 Lo, the immaculate Child! 
 
 74 
 
A BALLADE OF LOVE 
 
 Each creature is none other like, 
 
 We all are variously made; 
 We cleave the world as does a dike 
 
 That cuts its course through sheen and shade; 
 
 Our very comforts are purveyed; 
 Sly meannesses we're not above; 
 
 Some push the pen and some the spade: 
 The only thing that lasts is love. 
 
 The ignorantly crafty tike 
 
 For what he does not do is paid ; 
 Often the honest name of Mike 
 
 Is 'gainst the gift of genius weighed. 
 
 I've know^n a person's prospect swayed 
 Because he chanced to wear a glove. 
 
 In life's perplexing masquerade 
 The only thing that lasts is love. 
 
 Some pierce their foes with hatred's pike, 
 
 And then rejoice to see them flayed; 
 Some reck not where fate's bolt may strike. 
 
 If from themselves the blow be stayed; 
 
 Some care not whom their sins degrade; 
 The serpent are we and the dove: 
 
 But when the losing card is played, 
 The only thing that lasts is love. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Though settlements be long delayed. 
 Some time will come the clasp or shove; 
 
 And when self's littlenesses fade. 
 The only thing that lasts is love. 
 
 75 
 
THE MAN WHO LISTENS WITH HIS 
 EYES 
 
 He walks with me, this comrade true, 
 
 Amid the evening, star-bedight, 
 Or when the glitter of the dew 
 
 Proclaims the morning to the sight. 
 
 His face is kind, his manner bright, 
 His bearing is discreetly wise; 
 
 He is (with verity I write) 
 The man who listens with his eyes. 
 
 As each to other closer grew 
 
 There came large moments of delight, 
 And from the stillnesses we drew 
 
 More solace than from wordy might. 
 
 Ah, heeded not was Time's dull flight, 
 Subdued were life's perplexing cries. 
 
 When near me breathed, benignant quite. 
 The man who listens with his eyes. 
 
 Majestic is his mental view, 
 
 His ethics dare the noblest height; 
 Ideal schemes his brain imbue, 
 
 In him the practical is slight. 
 
 He is a comfortable wight, 
 A creature of succinct replies. 
 
 To share my musings I invite 
 The man who listens with his eyes! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 My fealty to him I plight, 
 
 His very weaknesses I prize; 
 May nothing from me disunite 
 
 The man who listens with his eyes I 
 
BALLADE 
 
 quaint Ballade, I wonder why 
 Such toil it is to fashion thee I 
 
 By dainty twist and turn I try 
 
 To make the sense and sound agree; 
 But rhymes are birds, and often flee 
 
 When most we think them in the snare :- 
 Return, O winged words, to me. 
 
 And sweetly sing and fleetly fare I 
 
 1 watch the stars that walk the sky, 
 They tell of bright eternity; 
 
 The eerie shadows brush me by, 
 I marvel what their trend may be; 
 A brief breeze startles yonder tree. 
 
 Of lisp of leaf I am aware: — 
 Come, cadence crisp and silvery. 
 
 And sweetly sing and fleetly fare! 
 
 I wander where the waves are nigh. 
 
 And list the voices of the sea; 
 The vivid plunging billows ply 
 
 The shining shores in foamy glee; 
 
 To win a sudden simile, 
 I note the white gull cleave the air: — 
 
 O flitting thoughts, be fond and free, 
 And sweetly sing and fleetly fare! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 I woo the vast, the weird, the wee; 
 
 More, dear Ballade, I may not dare:- 
 My farewell take for final fee. 
 
 And sweetly sing and fleetly fare! 
 
 77 
 
A BALLADE OF POETS 
 
 ^M^e^e are the poets of the past 
 
 Whose voices rang divinely true? — 
 
 Whose thoughts muniiicent and vast 
 
 From stars and suns their music drew? — 
 To whom the gods a welcome blew, 
 
 And lamps from far Parnassus shone? . . . 
 None dare the heights to which they flew, 
 
 Since Alfred Tennyson is gone. 
 
 The freshening gale strained spar and mast, 
 
 The billows great and greater grew ; 
 The vessel forward sped and fast. 
 
 Nor port nor anchorage she knew; 
 
 Naught recked they of the circling view,- 
 Their only end was to sweep on. . . . 
 
 Vanished are captain, ship, and crew, 
 Since Alfred Tennyson is gone. 
 
 Now lesser men their fortunes cast 
 
 In lesser seas, and zephyrs woo ; 
 Their lutes are thin, they cannot last, — 
 
 We listen but to say adieu. 
 
 The artificial gems they strew 
 Of specious glitter fade anon. . . . 
 
 Is there no granite left to hew, 
 Since Alfred Tennyson is gone? 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Fled are the mighty bards and few; 
 
 The ways of song are barren, wan. . . . 
 Fled is the perfect manner, too, 
 
 Since Alfred Tennyson is gone. 
 
 78 
 
A BALLADE OF MYSELF 
 
 Some sing of mirth and some of pain, 
 
 And some of matters grave and high; 
 Some sing or pelf or praise to gain, 
 
 And some their yearning powers to try; 
 
 Some pijDe like birds that flit and fly, 
 Some woo a weird and minor tone, 
 
 Some like the eagle seek the sky, — 
 I sing to please myself alone. 
 
 To me the thoughts are fond and fain 
 
 That into words I weave and tie 
 With rhymes that make some merry strain 
 
 Or some sweet elegiac cry; 
 
 And yet I'm free to testify 
 That from my intimates I'm prone 
 
 To shield my songs. The reason why? 
 I sing to please myself alone. 
 
 The rustle of the ripened grain, 
 
 The breaths of spring that flutter by, 
 
 The patter of the busy rain, 
 
 The summer's flush and pageantry. 
 
 The sounds that through the autumn sigh, 
 
 The winds that through the winter moan, 
 Persuade my ear, compel my eye, — 
 
 I sing to please myself alone. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 When night is come I love to lie 
 And feel the stars my very own ; 
 
 Then most it is, none other nigh, 
 I sing to please myself alone. 
 
 79 
 
WHEN WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 HIS PLAYS 
 
 Methinks it was a merry scene, 
 
 This London Town of long ago; 
 The chaste Elizabeth was queen 
 
 (She caused her cousin's blood to flow) ; 
 
 The courtier sought his wit to show, 
 And voiced his artificial lays; 
 
 The Thames was mightier than the Po — 
 When William Shakespeare wrote his plays. 
 
 The lasses were alert, I ween, 
 
 In sparkled gaud and ribboned bow, 
 To greet the lads upon the green 
 
 And to the fiddle trip the toe; 
 
 Proud dames were wont the dice to throw; 
 Perchance the plotter got the praise; 
 
 The fawning friend was oft the foe — 
 When William Shakespeare wrote his plays. 
 
 The query of the world has been, 
 
 Was William's manner quick or slow? 
 His doubtful face, was it serene — 
 
 Or flashed with introspective glow? 
 
 Alack! of him we little know, 
 And of that little most is haze. 
 
 Did other bards the palm bestow — 
 When William Shakespeare wrote his plays? 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Ah, passing old shall England grow 
 
 Ere such great poets walk her ways 
 As in the stately times, I trow. 
 
 When William Shakespeare wrote his plays! 
 
 80 
 
JEHOVAH IS THE LORD OF ALL 
 
 Sfng not the gods of long ago 
 
 And blazon their heroic deeds; 
 The stress of Saturn's overthrow, 
 
 The flash of Phoebus' flaming steeds, 
 
 The shifts of Jove's capricious needs 
 (He in a golden rain did fall) ; 
 
 Abjure the ancient rugged creeds — 
 Jehovah is the Lord of all! 
 
 Think not that Mammon can bestow 
 
 The largess that from Love proceeds; 
 Hope not the generous grain to grow 
 
 If cramped and choked with noxious weeds; 
 
 Each hour the suffering Saviour bleeds 
 And from the bitter Cross doth call: 
 
 Even now his voice divinely pleads — 
 Jehovah is the Lord of all! 
 
 Ye trees that stand in stately row. 
 Ye valleys, rivers, hills and meads, 
 
 Ye unpretentious flowers that blow, 
 Ye everlasting light that leads — 
 O every thing that moves and feeds, 
 
 Birds, creatures of the field and stall, 
 To you the mighty message speeds — 
 
 Jehovah is the Lord of all! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 O narrow spites! O petty greeds! 
 
 O doubts that menace and appall 1 
 A gracious God restrains and heeds — 
 
 Jehovah is the Lord of all! 
 
 8i 
 
WHEN PHCEBUS TURNED THE WHITE 
 CROW BLACK 
 
 The world exultant must have been 
 
 In those superb and primal days 
 When gods and goddesses were seen 
 
 To walk its newly blossomed ways; 
 
 Of pomp and puissance and blaze 
 There was nor lull nor pause nor lack; 
 
 More fulgent were Selene's rays 
 When Phoebus turned the white crow black. 
 
 Methinks a deeper, fuller green 
 
 Darkened the drooped and pliant sprays; 
 That fairer songsters perched to preen, 
 
 And fluted more melodious lays; 
 
 That quicker crimsons, pearls and grays 
 Followed flushed Eog' quivering track; 
 
 That woods were blithe with fauns and fays 
 When Phoebus turned the white crow black. 
 
 Life haply was more stern and keen, 
 
 And more heroic were its plays; 
 More rugged were its rites, I ween — 
 
 Its zests more ardent and its frays; 
 
 All was one merry, mighty maze, 
 Which of intrigue and plot did smack; 
 
 Mortals oft won the arduous bays 
 When Phoebus turned the white crow black. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 But the same torture then did craze 
 
 From love that shifts and doubts that rack 
 
 And grief that rends and hate that slays, 
 
 When Phoebus turned the white crow black. 
 
 82 
 
A BALLADE OF AFTER YEARS 
 
 How oft obtrudes the sombre thought, 
 In moments of supreme delight, 
 
 Of Youth's unprosperous battles fought 
 And Time's irrevocable blight, 
 Of loss of vehemence and might 
 
 When v\^ithered, v^aiiing age appears: 
 And shall wt stare in speechless plight 
 
 When we shall meet in after years? 
 
 The revel we have blithely sought, 
 
 The merry music thrills the night. 
 To fullest pitch is joyance wrought. 
 
 The swirling dance allures the sight. 
 
 You at my side, a marvel bright! 
 Will (cruel sudden touch that sears) 
 
 Your hair be gray and mine be white 
 When we shall meet in after years? 
 
 By hint of sadness to be caught 
 In truth I am a surly wight, — 
 
 And yet a lesson it hath brought, 
 Which let me soberly indite: 
 'Twere easier far to fly Faith's kite 
 
 When flash of sun dispels Life's fears. 
 Than haply 'neath the dun cloud's flight 
 
 When we shall meet in after years! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Perchance I'll be an anchorite! 
 
 And you — why seal those rosy ears? — 
 A dowager, oppressive quite, 
 
 When we shall meet in after years! 
 
 83 
 
BALLADE OF A MAN 
 
 A complaisant and cheery wight 
 Upon my daily walks I meet, 
 
 Who is (he grants me to indite) 
 
 The man who never feels the heat. — 
 And he subjoins: You may repeat — 
 
 Deem not my boast is overbold — 
 I am — I scorn to use deceit — 
 
 The man who never feels the cold. 
 
 The loping gait, the manner light, 
 The naivete from head to feet, 
 
 Announce (with equity I write) 
 
 The man who never feels the heat. — 
 The voice, the bearing brave and sweet 
 
 (No useless wraps around him fold). 
 Proclaim (my statement is discreet) 
 
 The man who never feels the cold. 
 
 Once ('twas an odd, uncanny sight, 
 The summer sun was on the street) 
 
 I saw, with reefer buttoned tight. 
 The man who never feels the heat. — 
 Again, amid the winter sleet, 
 
 I passed (O agony untold!) 
 With linen visible and neat, 
 
 The man who never feels the cold. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 When grilled, with anguish I do greet 
 The man who never feels the heat. — 
 When chilled, with horror I behold 
 The man who never feels the cold. 
 
 84 
 
IF LANCELOT HAD LOVED ELAINE 
 
 What perfectness had Arthur had, 
 
 What good had come to Guinevere, 
 What woes unutterably sad, 
 
 What peril, what disorder sheer. 
 
 What battle to defile and sear, 
 What hosts of wounded and of slain. 
 
 Had never been whereof we hear, 
 If Lancelot had loved Elaine! 
 
 In unassuming beauty clad. 
 
 With innocence devoid of fear, 
 Coy, wistful, ardent, chaste and glad. 
 
 In Arthur's realm without a peer, — 
 
 She wandered blithely by the mere. 
 She carolled in the sun and rain. 
 
 What prosperousness had been, what cheer, 
 If Lancelot had loved Elaine! 
 
 Her purity rebuked the bad; 
 
 She knew her mission, it was clear. 
 What though her love should drive her mad? 
 
 What though her life was wan and drear? 
 
 To this one man she must be near: 
 He was her joy, her grief, her bane. 
 
 No blight had been, no barge, no bier. 
 If Lancelot had loved Elaine! 
 
 Envoy 
 
 O lily maid, we drop a tear 
 
 When we repeat the hushed refrain, 
 Whose mournful pathos haunts the ear: 
 
 // Lancelot had loved Elaine! 
 
 8s 
 
A BALLADE OF DECAY 
 
 You may go to the ends of the earth, 
 You may visit the old and the new, 
 
 You may go to the places of mirth, 
 You may go to the places of rue, 
 You may go where the people are few. 
 
 You may go where the multitude sway. 
 And one thing you'll find to be true — 
 
 The quiver and touch of decay. 
 
 The mountains of masterful girth, 
 
 The valleys the brooks glitter through, 
 
 The cliffs that rise sheer from the firth. 
 The lakes that the dawn-lights imbue. 
 The seas with their labor to do. 
 
 The rivers that sweep on their way. 
 Proclaim, as they come to the view — 
 
 The quiver and touch ot decay. 
 
 The jewels of fabulous worth. 
 
 The blossoms of varying hue. 
 The grasses that gleam at their birth. 
 
 The woods that the glad breezes woo, 
 
 The stars that the night-skies bestrew. 
 The clouds that encourage the day. 
 
 Strangely hint — and the great sun too — 
 The quiver and touch of decay. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 But the Babe that his first breath drew 
 In a manger rude, barren, and gray. 
 
 Taught the questioning world to eschew 
 The quiver and touch of decay. 
 
 $6 
 
A BALLADE OF IMMORTALITY 
 
 I look upon the teeming world ^ 
 And find It good and very fair: 
 
 Leaf, bud, and bloom caressed and curled, 
 The birds that pipe and preen and pair, 
 The clouds that course the upper air, 
 
 The brooks that flash and bicker by — 
 And is it strange that I declare 
 
 I cannot feel that I shall die? 
 
 I watch the billows wrenched and hurled 
 
 That from their crests the foam-shreds tear, 
 Or when to phosphorescence whirled 
 
 The gulls their seething peril dare ; 
 
 I glimpse the colors brief and rare 
 That through the wave's poised glimmer fly — 
 
 And is it strange this thought I share, 
 I cannot feel that I shall die? 
 
 I hail the Dawn, flushed, dewy-pearled, 
 
 With orient face and quivering hair; 
 The Twilight lulls when Day is furled. 
 
 And dimnesses its quiets wear; 
 
 I welcome Night's compassioned care. 
 When stilled is every alien cry — 
 
 And is it strange I triumph where 
 I cannot feel that I shall die? 
 
 Envoy 
 
 No doubts perplex with crafty snare. 
 No hint of what must come is nigh: 
 
 Even when on the dead I stare 
 I cannot feel that I shall die. 
 
 87 
 
WILL IMMORTALITY BE MINE 
 
 I often muse at close of day — 
 
 When stars idealize the sky 
 And scintillate the gathering gray 
 
 With coruscations keen and shy, 
 
 When stilled is every alien sigh 
 To peace ecstatic and benign, 
 
 And earth is touched with Deity — 
 Will immortality be mine? 
 
 In vistas dim and far avray 
 
 Vague cottage-lights persuade the eye; 
 The cricket shrills his little lay 
 
 In nooks mysteriously nigh; 
 
 Vast formless shadows pass me by 
 Whose mission I may not divine: — 
 
 Whence comes the thought, and how, and why, 
 Will immortality be mine? 
 
 Asleep are blade and flower and spray, 
 
 The trees are motionless and high; 
 The silences around me play. 
 
 The birds forget to sing and fly; 
 
 Forest and field reposeful lie; 
 All sights and sounds are far and fine: — 
 
 Then comes the thought my faith to try, 
 Will immortality be mine? 
 
 Envoy 
 
 I search, I plead, I yearn, I cry, — 
 
 But from the vanished comes no sign: — 
 
 My question is my sole reply. 
 Will immortality be mine? 
 
A BALLADE OF DIFFERENCE 
 
 He writes in prose and I in rhyme, 
 
 His work is labor, mine is play; 
 He gets the dollar, I the dime, 
 
 He promptly acts and I delay; 
 
 His task is done at close of day, 
 Mine waits when stars are in the sky; 
 
 And hence it is I'm urged to say, 
 He's made of sterner stufE than I. 
 
 He culls the news from every clime, 
 
 In dreams I live my life away, 
 He has no heed of dust and grime, 
 
 I shun the world's ungracious fray; 
 
 He gives no thought to leaf or spray, 
 I seek the brook that bubbles by; 
 
 Judge as you will or as you may. 
 He's made of sterner stuff than I. 
 
 And yet methinks he's tied to time, — 
 
 I wonder does he ever pray! — 
 Eternity's majestic chime 
 
 Seems not his inner self to sway; 
 
 To him no forms ethereal stray. 
 He hears no voices far and high; 
 
 From very overplus of clay. 
 He's made of sterner stuff than I. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 When evanescent things decay 
 And things immutable are nigh. 
 
 Will immortality betray 
 
 He's made of sterner stuff than I? 
 
 89 
 
THE MAN WHO WHISTLES WHEN HE 
 GOES 
 
 I have a little tale to tell, 
 
 A tale that's appositely true — 
 We've had enough of asphodel, 
 
 And we have had enough of rue — 
 
 'TIs Interest-compelling too, 
 It has the brightness of the rose: — 
 
 Hence I am eager to review 
 The man who whistles when he goes. 
 
 No matter what he has to sell, 
 
 No matter what he has to do, — 
 If luck be kind, If luck be fell. 
 
 If skies be harsh, If skies be blue, — 
 
 If ecstasies his pathway strew, 
 If misery his footstep slows, — 
 
 Thoughts cheerily persuasive woo 
 The man who whistles when he goes. 
 
 And If the bitter funeral bell 
 
 Declares a life occultly through, 
 He hears with sympathy the knell. 
 
 But ponders not death's baffling clew. 
 
 All grave concerns he would eschew, 
 He lives — and that Is all he knows: — 
 
 No questions erudite Imbue 
 The maa who whistles when he goes. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Each day to him Is only new 
 
 With what his dally need bestows: — 
 
 He Is, with wants benignly few, 
 The man who whistles when he goes. 
 
 90 
 
A BALLADE OF SHADOWS 
 
 We joy to see a little child 
 
 Close clinging to his mother's breast, 
 By doubt and peril undefiled, 
 
 Of all known things the loveliest: 
 
 But when his journeying life is dressed 
 For manhood's brief and hurried show, 
 
 On him this truth w^ill be impressed — 
 The shadows deepen as we go. 
 
 Days have we that are calm and mild, 
 Days have w^e that are keen with zest, 
 
 Days have we that are stern and wild, 
 Days have we of malign unrest, 
 Days have we when we deem it best 
 
 To plunge into the river's flow: — 
 
 And hence we feel — though w^e protest — 
 
 The shadows deepen as we go. 
 
 Perchance by love's mirage beguiled. 
 
 We make of love a sacred guest. 
 And though we hear him oft reviled, 
 
 Slaves are we to his least behest; 
 
 And yet — it seems almost a jest — 
 His very raptures end in woe: — 
 
 And thus we find — though vaguely blest- 
 The shadows deepen as we go. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 Now glad, now eager, now distressed — 
 We travel swift, we travel slow; 
 
 And till WT reach life's final west — 
 The shadows deepen as we go. 
 
 91 
 
A BALLADE OF KNOWLEDGE 
 
 We have authoritative creeds, 
 
 Which notify us what to do: — 
 How we must regulate our deeds, 
 
 And regulate our conscience too; 
 
 Which way is false, which way is true; 
 What we must love, what we must fear: — 
 
 But though they bias me and you — 
 We only know that we are here. 
 
 There are who humbly count their beads. 
 
 And by such act for pardon sue; 
 There are who think to get their needs 
 
 By looking upward to the blue; 
 
 There are — I hope that they are few — 
 Who vex their lives with moan and tear: — 
 
 But after testing every clue — 
 We only know that we are here. 
 
 The gracious light to-day that leads. 
 
 To-morrow flickers from our view; 
 The inner voice that calls and pleads, 
 
 We slight, and haply we eschew; 
 
 The joys that in our paths we strew. 
 The specious fabrics that we rear — 
 
 They fade, or else they end in rue : — 
 We only know that we are here. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 And yet the Master said he knew. 
 
 And made his mighty meaning clear: — 
 
 But though his words our thoughts imbue — 
 We only know that we are here. 
 
 92 
 
A BALLADE OF SILENCE 
 
 When the young world rolls to the close of day, 
 
 And the life-sounds lessen in hushed retreat, — 
 When into the glimmer of dreams we stray. 
 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sweet. 
 
 But when youth's ardors have lost their heat, 
 And seldom a moment is keen or glad, — 
 
 When our once full pulses duller beat. 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sad. 
 
 When we pause in the cool of a woodland way, 
 
 And our limbs the lull of the leaf-bed meet, — 
 When the sheen and the shade with the bright 
 brooks play. 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sweet. 
 But when through the air comes the cry of the 
 sleet, 
 And the wild winds moan as they were mad, — 
 When our hurt hearts bleed from the blows of 
 deceit, 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sad. 
 
 When the good sun shines with a jocund ray. 
 
 And the dews are aflash that our fond eyes 
 greet,— 
 When we drowse 'neath the droop of a soft-blown 
 spray. 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sweet. 
 But when our zests are no longer fleet. 
 And the trust is gone that we one time had, — 
 
 When our faiths and our hopes have suffered 
 defeat, 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sad. 
 
 Envoy 
 When the things that we love are with warmth 
 
 replete. 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sweet. 
 
 When the things that we love are in cerements 
 
 clad, 
 To be wakened by Silence is dimly sad. 
 
 93 
 
BALLADE OF A SINGER 
 
 I found a song in a faded book, 
 
 A song that was sung in the Long Ago : 
 I feel that the brain of the singer shook 
 
 And thrilled to the measure's rhythmic flow; 
 
 That his heart caught the heat of the sacred glow, 
 As he gave his soul to the wistful page 
 With the joy of a child and the joy of a sage, 
 
 Unmindful of life and the sting of its thong. 
 The voice of its fame, and the gleam of its wage : 
 
 But where is the singer who sung the song? 
 
 His birth-name, or haply the name that he took 
 
 As a foil or a whim, I shall never know: 
 He strolled, may be, with a shepherd's crook, 
 
 Or the halls of a palace he paced, I trow; 
 
 Perchance he was chained to a prison of woe ; 
 Was a priest, mayhap, or a prince, or a mage. 
 Or, a statesman, he stood in the front of his age: 
 
 Ah, me! the conjecture 'tis vain to prolong. 
 For his song is his only heritage : 
 
 But where is the singer who sung the song? 
 
 In the shadowy glimmering past we look 
 
 For the perfect lyre, for the perfect bow : 
 The singer is dim in a quiet nook. 
 
 The archer is bright in the face of the foe : 
 
 The song and the arrow each deals a blow; 
 But the song escapes from its barred cage, 
 While the arrow is held to its brief swift gage: 
 
 And what if the singer were right or wrong? — 
 If he travelled afoot or w^ent in a stage? 
 
 But where is the singer who sung the song? 
 Envoy 
 And what was the style of his pupilage? — 
 And what were his dress and his equipage? — 
 
 And was he unstable, or shy, or strong? — 
 Did he heed the laws of his vicinage ? 
 
 But where is the singer who sung the song? 
 
 94 
 
CHARON 
 
 Chant Royal 
 
 A desolate wind disturbs the pallid reeds, 
 
 The strange waves heave and fluctuate and sink; 
 
 An ominous mist advances and recedes, 
 The craft is dim upon the river's brink; 
 
 The Boatman, with inscrutable face and stern, 
 
 Stands where the last faint fires of sunset burn, — 
 In shadowy garments thin and sere arrayed — 
 Or paces w^ith bleak step the sterile glade, 
 
 Against the vague w^est's lurid fitful glow. 
 Full soon the lessening final light will fade. 
 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 On the low shore a long slim lizard feeds. 
 And smaller reptile creatures glide and slink: 
 
 A snake's foul length emerges from the weeds. 
 Then backward draws to some rock's humid 
 chink. 
 
 No sound is heard save cry of startled hern 
 
 That some far egress labors to discern: 
 Even Time is of its blighted self afraid, 
 And seeks for strength to stir some outer aid — 
 
 Some hand to lift it from its numb mute woe. 
 And through such scenes of frigid damps I wade, 
 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 Here are forgot the world's imperious creeds. 
 
 Where dead leaves in the ghastly glimmer blink: 
 Here is no trace of earth's triumphant deeds, 
 
 Fled even is the force to feel or think; 
 Gone is the power the creeping chill to spurn; 
 Beneath the rotting trees is rotting fern ; 
 
 No child upon this turf has ever played; 
 
 This land knows not the stroke of any spade; 
 
 95 
 
No husbandman comes here to till or sow. 
 
 Yet I do walk these wastes of things decayed, 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 The pathway In Its downward sloping leads 
 
 Through glooms where horrid phantoms crowd 
 and shrink; 
 Through bitter ways where naught my presence 
 heeds, 
 And where my footfalls cause no slightest clink; 
 Through noisome sloughs wherefrom I can not turn, 
 But am compelled their perils all to learn. 
 No respite from these dreads can be purveyed: 
 
 for one little breath from summer strayed! 
 But till I find the waters dark and slow. 
 
 My only comfort Is that I have prayed, 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 A strange emotion In me wakes and breeds. 
 
 Dear draughts of joys that were I strive to drink; 
 
 Memory my struggling spirit youthward speeds. 
 And momently Is thrilled some treasured link. 
 
 To rouse my faith I infinitely yearn: 
 
 I crave from ancient sins release to earn, — 
 
 The chance of urging some great good delayed — 
 The generous motive, pure and lofty, stayed — 
 
 The checked forgiveness to some contrite foe. 
 But shall the future by the past be swayed? — 
 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 Envoy 
 
 The sombre stream is reached, the fee Is paid, 
 The awful ultimate mandates are obeyed, 
 
 1 touch the coldness of the flood's dull flow. 
 Now the veiled shuddering voyage must be made. 
 
 For Charon beckons me, and I must go. 
 
 96 
 
RONDEAUS AND RONDELS 
 
"BLEAK BLOWS THE BLAST!" 
 
 "Bleak blows the blast!" So Coleridge wrote: 
 You know 't is seldom that I quote ; 
 
 But from a poet-prince, I feel 
 
 It is magnanimous to steal; 
 In truth he struck a surly note. 
 The words are uttered from the throat, 
 Their sound suggests an overcoat. 
 
 With snow and frost and ice they deal: 
 "Bleak blows the blast!" 
 
 They neither ripple, flash, nor float, 
 Nor swirl like wake from rapid boat; 
 They make the bounding blood congeal. 
 Life's vivid showers they stay and seal; 
 Yet on their turbulence I dote: 
 
 "Bleak blows the blast!" 
 
 IN STARRY WAYS 
 
 In starry ways if we could go. 
 
 What things we know not we should know! 
 
 What wonders we should meet and see — 
 
 What unimaginable glee. 
 What unconjecturable woe! 
 Perchance vast rivers there would flow. 
 Great seas 'neath splendid suns would glow, 
 
 If awesome pilgrims we should be 
 In starry ways. 
 
 Should gracious winds divinely blow 
 For mighty peoples there who grow 
 To fuller, nobler height than we, 
 To welcome them should we be free? 
 Should we to earth one thought bestow 
 In starry ways? 
 
 9g 
 
THE LIGHTED CROSS 
 
 The lighted cross upon the tower 
 Emerges at the evening hour, 
 
 And gives, until the gleam of day, 
 
 With no monition of delay, 
 Reposefulness of patient povv^er. 
 When stern winds blow, when storm-clouds lower, 
 When falls the cool of summer shower, 
 
 It glows amid the darkling gray, 
 The lighted cross. 
 
 For them that lurk, for them that cower, 
 For them that strive in pleasure's bower. 
 
 For them that never think to pray, 
 
 It shines, to point the better way, 
 A fadeless, golden, perfect flower, 
 The lighted Cross. 
 
 IN HAMPTON ROADS 
 
 In Hampton Roads the monsters met 
 To settle an outstanding debt. 
 
 The hidden sky was black as ink; 
 
 The very ocean seemed to shrink 
 From battle's narrowing cruel net. 
 Time waited not for thought to let 
 The blameful deed the conscience fret; 
 
 Of life or death men did not think 
 In Hampton Roads. 
 
 Now all is peaceful-still, — and yet 
 Here is the seal of horror set; 
 For as the waters rise and sink. 
 In brutal sternness link by link, 
 A vision of the shame we get 
 In Hampton Roads. 
 
 lOO 
 
WHEN SHAKESPEARE WROTE 
 
 When Shakespeare wrote his mighty plays, 
 
 Superb in action, thought and phrase, 
 He got but meagre, vague renown 
 Beyond the wits of London Town: — 
 
 To know the great the world delays. 
 
 Obscure he walked the urban ways; 
 
 From queen and courtier came the praise, 
 The sneer, the cuiiE, the smile, the frown, 
 When Shakespeare wrote. 
 
 But in our modern, modish days, 
 From sheer caprice the critic slays. 
 Or seeks to put the poet's crown 
 Upon some pompous pedant-clown. 
 No poetasters wore the bays 
 When Shakespeare wrote. 
 
 IN HARVEST TIME 
 
 In harvest time, with cheeks aglow, 
 
 Into the fields the reapers go, 
 And, singing some persuasive strain. 
 They stand amid the glimmering grain 
 
 The billowy golden mass to mow. 
 
 The sickles gleam like crusted snow. 
 
 Or like the brook's impetuous flow: — 
 I wonder if their touch is pain, 
 In harvest time. 
 
 Children their happy shouts up-throw 
 From valleys where no breezes blow, 
 
 And, like far surf-sounds from the main, 
 The swift blades shear the shimmering plain 
 Till all the yellowing life is low, 
 In harvest time. 
 
 lOI 
 
IN WINTER NIGHTS 
 
 In winter nights, when thoughts are high, 
 We watch the stars that pace the sky, 
 
 And with the circling planets share 
 
 The joy of their celestial air; 
 To us, though distant, they are nigh. 
 We hear, in fancy, Pollux cry. 
 And faithful Castor deify; 
 
 To look on Jupiter we dare 
 In winter nights. 
 
 Now Sirius, with burning eye, 
 And Vega, luminous, we spy; 
 
 Arcturus, Betelgeuse are there; 
 
 Aldebaran is ruddy, fair; 
 And Mars for Venus breathes a sigh 
 In winter nights. 
 
 IN WINTER DAYS 
 
 In winter days an ermine dress, 
 
 As fine as worn by virgin Bess, 
 As soft as foam upon the seas, 
 Enfolds the valleys, fells and leas, 
 
 Screening their withered loveliness. 
 
 And yet we're fain to here confess 
 
 We much resist the strain, the stress, 
 
 When winds are hushed and waters freeze 
 In winter days. 
 
 To counteract the cold's excess. 
 Around the throat the fur we press; 
 
 The flashing frostpoints sting as bees. 
 
 Upon the hills the naked trees 
 Are mournful, mute, and motionless 
 In winter days. 
 
 t02 
 
THE RIVER LIGHTS 
 
 The river lights emerge and shine 
 
 After the garish day's decline: 
 
 Like stemless golden flowers they stand 
 Over the shadow-visioned land, 
 
 Of home and happiness the sign. 
 
 So far even thought may not divine 
 
 The strange stars glitter cold and fine: 
 But we who walk the earth command 
 The river lights. 
 
 Along the bridge, a glowing line, 
 Their cheer and welcome they combine. 
 To be of use is to be grand 
 If love hold duty well in hand. 
 May we, our hearts peace-thrilled, enshrine 
 The river lights. 
 
 IN TUDOR TIMES 
 
 In Tudor times, when Bess was queen, 
 Red-haired and wrinkled, rouged and lean. 
 She trifled with her courtiers gay. 
 And, plotting precious lives away, 
 She strove her cruelty to screen. 
 Such bards as then have never been: 
 One William Shakespeare walked the scene! 
 Ben Jonson held unchallenged sway 
 In Tudor times. 
 
 And Mary Stuart, in death serene, 
 I wonder was her conscience clean 
 
 Of Darnley's murder! — who shall say? 
 
 But, be conjecture as it may, 
 The axe was bloody kept and keen 
 In Tudor times. 
 
 103 
 
SOMEHOW, SOMEWHERE 
 
 Somehow, somewhere, we often say, 
 We shall pursue our endless way. 
 Beyond the land that takes the seed, 
 Beyond the blossom and the weed, 
 Beyond the night that shuts the day. 
 We find no moment of delay — 
 Amid the gleam, amid the gray. 
 Our paths inevitably lead 
 
 Somehow, somewhere. 
 
 To journey back we vainly pray, 
 The onward call we must obey — 
 And if the conscience-voice we heed, 
 And life's good purpose-values read. 
 It will be joy for us to stay 
 
 Somehow, somewhere. 
 
 WHEN MELBA SINGS 
 
 When Melba sings the music sways. 
 
 It creeps, it quivers, purls and plays. 
 It pleads, it palpitates, it trills, 
 It sighs, it yearns, it throbs, it thrills; 
 
 It laughs in crimsons, grieves in grays. 
 
 And now it hastes, and now delays; 
 
 And now in minor murmurings strays 
 And wanders weirdly where it wills, 
 When Melba sings. 
 
 It quavers in pathetic ways, 
 Upon its knees it sinks and prays; 
 It ripples as the rippling rills, 
 Then soars to song's celestial hills, 
 And dies in far dissolving haze, 
 When Melba sings. 
 
 104 
 
MY FRIEND, THE SNAKE 
 
 My friend, the snake, I met to-day — 
 'Twas In a place with blossoms gay. 
 
 Around the roots of things he crept — 
 
 He is in creeping an adept, 
 It is his lowly only way. 
 A nether impulse to obey, 
 I seized a stick that near me lay, 
 
 And at the blameless creature leapt — 
 My friend, the snake. 
 
 But something came my hand to stay. 
 
 He raised his head, and seemed to say: 
 ''Before you startled me I slept!" 
 And then he looked at me and wept. 
 
 O shame, that I should think to slay 
 My friend, the snake. 
 
 MY FRIEND, THE DOG 
 
 My friend, the dog, beside me lies, 
 
 And by his loyalty denies 
 
 That comradeship is but a jest — 
 A thing as briefly manifest 
 
 As color in the twilight skies. 
 
 He seems to hear me with his eyes— 
 
 And while as if to talk he tries, 
 I welcome as an honored guest 
 My friend, the dog. 
 
 And is it odd if I surmise 
 That to be good is to be wise? 
 If to be good is to be best. 
 And is of constancy the test, 
 I should be craven not to prize 
 My friend, the dog. 
 
 105 
 
SOFT FALLS THE SNOW 
 
 Soft falls the snow among the trees, 
 It glints, it eddies, floats, and flees; 
 It flutters up, it flutters down. 
 Above the busy, jostling town; 
 Its every motion tells of ease. 
 And now it has the sound of seas. 
 By distance dimmed to faint degrees; 
 It gives the gray a white mute crown; 
 Soft falls the snow. 
 
 It feels the breath of lightest breeze; 
 
 Love's perfect law its course decrees; 
 It heeds nor riches nor renown, 
 But comes alike to sage and clown : 
 
 In days that thaw, in days that freeze, 
 Soft falls the snow. 
 
 I SING MY SONG 
 
 I sing my song, and what care I 
 If critics carp and quip and sigh. 
 I know I've not the eagle's wing, 
 That of the sea I cannot sing, 
 Nor of the stars that walk the sky. 
 But of the little birds that fly. 
 And of the brooks that ripple by 
 In softly-ceaseless murmuring, 
 I sing my song. 
 
 To sing of love I often try, 
 Its sweet unrest, its wistful cry, 
 
 The flutters that its favors bring. 
 
 On minor bells my notes I ring. 
 And now I've frankly told you why 
 I sing my song. 
 
 toS 
 
HE KNOWS IT ALL 
 
 He knows ft all: and when I meet 
 This pompous man upon the street, 
 At dawn, at noon, at close of day, 
 Or 'neath the night occult and gray. 
 He cuffs me with his coarse conceit. 
 His dress is negligent but neat, 
 He's vivified from head to feet, 
 His manner is intense and gay: 
 He knows it all. 
 
 His face is flushed, his tongue is fleet, 
 His talk is wild and indiscreet, 
 
 His words he never waits to weigh. 
 He scoffs at caution's kind delay: 
 Though absolutely squelched and beat, 
 He knows it all. 
 
 WHEN WORDSWORTH WALKED 
 
 When Wordsworth walked the Cumbrian hills. 
 
 Forgetful of his frets and ills, 
 And saw the splendid sun arise 
 To climb the flushed and orient skies. 
 
 His soul was stirred with mighty thrills. 
 
 He loved the tinkling tumbling rills, 
 
 The dew the hushful night distils; 
 The trees and rocks had ears and eyes 
 When Wordsworth walked. 
 
 To him the song of whippoorwills 
 Had more of meaning than its trills: 
 
 The mavis greeted him with cries 
 
 Of dissyllabic harmonies. 
 Winter was welcome with its chills 
 When Wordsworth walked. 
 
 107 
 
RONDEL 
 
 Goddess born of the sea, 
 
 Flashed from the silvery foam, 
 
 Holding of love the key. 
 
 Why are the skies thy home? 
 
 Once thou w^ert fain and free 
 
 Envious earth to roam: 
 Goddess born of the sea, 
 
 Flashed from the silvery foam. 
 
 Forever a friend to be 
 
 Of the purpled deepening gloam, 
 What of thy primal glee, 
 
 Queen of the starry dome? 
 Goddess born of the sea. 
 
 Flashed from the silvery foam. 
 
 RONDEL 
 
 What voice ye, rolling waves that beat 
 And mourn upon the classic shore? 
 
 Do ye incessantly repeat, 
 
 "The gods are gone for evermore!" 
 
 Would ye have hoary Neptune greet 
 Your iterance with kingly roar? 
 
 What voice ye, rolling waves that beat 
 And mourn upon the classic shore? 
 
 Should sea-nymphs with cool vivid feev 
 Make of your curves a quivering floor, 
 
 Would ye their merry measures meet 
 With ardors of the days of yore? 
 
 What voice ye, rolling waves that beat 
 And mourn upon the classic shore ? 
 
 xo8 
 
LYRICS 
 
THE ORIOLE 
 
 In flight through the skies of the early day 
 
 The oriole fitfully gleams, 
 To rest on the tall elm's yielding spray 
 
 In the leaves and the sun's soft beams. 
 
 "You're sweet! You're sweet!" he tenderly sings 
 
 To his mate in her swaying nest, 
 As he lightly lifts his ebon wings 
 
 From the throbbing gold of his breast. 
 
 To his patient call there is no reply 
 
 From the dame, save a timid note ; 
 But she knows her loyal lover is nigh. 
 
 And she ruffles her feathered throat. 
 
 On her eggs, purple-flecked and pale as sea-foam, 
 
 Safe hid in her snug dainty bed. 
 She quietly broods, — from her branch-hung home 
 
 Oft showing her busy brown head. 
 
 Again comes the cry, "You're sweet! You're sweet!" 
 
 In mellow tones plaintively clear ; 
 The sober wife stands on her tiny feet, 
 
 And says, with a look, "I am here!" 
 
 And after the hungry little-ones six 
 
 Have burst the imprisoning shell. 
 And he finds them food, by bird-known tricks, 
 
 In pasture and woodland and dell, 
 
 "You're sweet! You're sweet!" he joyfully sings 
 From his perch near the happy nest, 
 
 As he lightly lifts his ebon wings 
 
 From the throbbing gold of his breast. 
 
 Ill 
 
PURPOSE 
 
 Do all you can with life — 
 Accept its calm, its strife, 
 
 Its griefs, its joys; 
 Vanquish its doubts, its fears — 
 Baffle its dreads, its tears, 
 
 Its vague annoys. 
 
 To-day the ocean roars, 
 Lashes its lonely shores. 
 
 On the land leaps — 
 To-morrow humbled, still, 
 By its Creator's will 
 
 Conquered, it creeps. 
 
 We needs must girded be 
 With faith, with charity, 
 
 With hope, with love; 
 Some steady goal must shine — 
 Some guiding star divine 
 
 Glitter above. 
 
 If worldly fame, if wealth, 
 Be got by deeds of stealth, 
 
 If by deceit — 
 We miss the precious peace 
 That aids at life's release 
 
 Death's touch to meet. 
 
 When from the earth we go 
 Where all is shifting show, 
 
 Tentative, vain — 
 Will wished rest begin? 
 Will the spite pause? — the sin 
 
 Cease and the pain? 
 
 112 
 
THE NIGHT-WIND 
 
 Through the black night the wild wind howls and 
 moans, 
 
 And shrieks out madly like a thing in pain — 
 Strives with sharp gusts and sobs in piteous tones, 
 
 With interludes of fiercely beating rain. 
 
 And now it simulates half-human sounds — 
 Low inarticulate utterances of grief, 
 
 Hoarse mutterings of despair that know no bounds, 
 And bursts of passion, vehement, frantic, brief. 
 
 I shudder, safely housed, for them that sail 
 The perilous ocean when the storm is high, 
 
 Cruelly harassed by the frenzied gale. 
 And not a star to cheer them in the sky. 
 
 But with the morn rises the golden sun 
 And shines upon a peaceful, perfect day — 
 
 Smiles on the tempest's harmless havoc done, 
 And on a ship at anchor in the bay. 
 
 AUTUMN 
 
 Late autumn is sighing 
 
 For the changing and dying 
 Of the tree-clinging embers that linger. 
 
 And the aimlessly drifted 
 
 Sere dropped leaves uplifted 
 By the chill wind's invisible finger. 
 
 How dun and how dreary 
 The clouds look! How weary 
 The bird's slender call from the thicket! 
 While from under the masses 
 Of dry tattered grasses 
 Comes the shrill piercing voice of the cricket. 
 
 113 
 
One lily, unthinking, 
 
 Has bloomed, and is shrinking 
 In fear of the brook's cruel waters. 
 
 Which murmur and shiver 
 
 And icily quiver 
 To the last left of Dian's fair daughters. 
 
 The empty husks rattle 
 
 As the slow patient cattle 
 Displace them with awkward dull motion, 
 
 And through lofty pines yonder 
 
 Weird air-currents wander 
 With a dirge like the echo of ocean. 
 
 From far roofs upcurling 
 
 Thin smoke is unfurling 
 In spirals grotesquely inwreathing — 
 
 Now falling, now flowing. 
 
 In quaint coils on-going, 
 Like some giant life ceaselessly breathing. 
 
 The distance is nearer 
 
 And finer and clearer 
 Unsoftened by hazy blithe shadows, 
 
 And even the noon-light 
 
 Is cold as the moonlight, 
 The greenness is gone from the meadows. 
 
 With tops downward turning 
 
 The gaunt elms are yearning 
 To the bleak skies in mute supplication, 
 
 Like Andromeda moaning 
 
 To great Zeus, and groaning 
 At the chains, and the rock's desolation. 
 
 114 
 
SAVIOUR, MASTER, MAKE ME THINE 
 
 Saviour, Master, make me Thine! 
 I am human, Thou divine. 
 Burdened with the w^oes I bear, 
 Weary v^ith the w^eight of care, 
 To Thy sheltering arms I flee: 
 In Thy bosom comfort me! 
 
 When adversity and strife 
 Wound and desolate my life. 
 When the lands no blossoms yield 
 And the hills are unrevealed. 
 To Thy sheltering arms I flee: 
 In Thy bosom comfort me! 
 
 When the awful thunder-roll 
 Of the tempest frights my soul, 
 When my fancied strength is gone. 
 Lonely, pleading, tearful, wan. 
 To Thy sheltering arms I flee: 
 In Thy bosom comfort me! 
 
 When the day forsakes the sky. 
 When the final sleep is nigh, 
 When the low last words are said, 
 When the failing breath is fled. 
 To Thy sheltering Love I flee: 
 Saviour, Master, comfort me! 
 
 115 
 
MUTABILITY 
 
 The house was guestless when I came first time ; 
 Now, it is glad with guests from many a clime: 
 
 Musing, I sigh that such a change should be — 
 
 It saddens me. 
 
 Then the stern rooms were desolate and drear; 
 Now they are jubilant with jest and cheer: 
 
 The mighty difference makes my tears to start — 
 
 It thrills my heart. 
 
 Not long we linger in one mood or way ; 
 We should be weary of unceasing day: 
 
 Night with its hush brings ease of fret and care, 
 
 Of din and glare. 
 
 If a life vanish from a family flock, 
 Those left are bruised as by blow of rock. 
 
 Gold will nor gild nor blunt nor lessen grief, 
 
 Nor make it brief. 
 
 Time is the healer of our troubles all — 
 His mists encircle in their gradual fall 
 
 And give surcease. When all again is well 
 
 We ring Mirth's bell. 
 
 And this is why the house to which I went 
 
 First time was guestless — a dear life was spent — 
 
 And now its merry rooms, of sorrow stilled. 
 
 With guests are filled. 
 
 ii6 
 
THE BLUE-BIRD 
 
 A glint of blue flits 'neath the sky, 
 Amid the merry May-time; 
 
 A living gem, light-winged and shy, 
 Enjoying its brief play-time. 
 
 Now perched upon an alder-spray 
 That bends beneath its lightness, 
 
 It gives unto the dewy day 
 A soft and sudden brightness. 
 
 And from its little throbbing throat 
 Comes "Twitter, twitter, twitter!" 
 
 A sweet, a swift, a slender note, 
 But never one that's bitter. 
 
 It is the voice that tells of Spring, 
 
 At rosy dawn and after; 
 The busy Blue-bird carolling 
 
 A song of love and laughter. 
 
 REST 
 
 Rest, weary spirit, for the day is here, 
 
 The glancing of the leafy spray is near, 
 
 The land is luminous, the way is clear. 
 
 Rest, weary spirit, rest. 
 
 Rest, weary spirit, for the night is done. 
 The wing that frees thee for the flight is won. 
 The thread that leads thee to the light is spun. 
 Rest, weary spirit, rest. 
 
 Rest, weary spirit, God is nigh to thee. 
 He beckons from beyond the sky to thee. 
 Even now His happy angels cry to thee. 
 Rest, weary spirit, rest. 
 
 nt 
 
Rest, weary spirit, precious rest is thine, 
 The shelter of thy Saviour's breast is thine, 
 The doing of His dear behest is thine. 
 Rest, weary spirit, rest. 
 
 DROWNED 
 
 They were seen to go down to the river, 
 The lad and the laughing boy-child: 
 
 Its waters, with sunshine a-quiver, 
 Were level and rippled and mild. 
 
 As the light from the long day was creeping, 
 "Where is Willie?" the fond mother said! 
 
 Ah me! the wild wailing and weeping 
 
 When she knew that her darling was dead! 
 
 For we found on the stream idly drifting 
 
 A boat with its keel in the air. 
 And near it the ripples were lifting 
 
 The cap that had pressed the child's hair. 
 
 And cold, 'mid the grasses and cresses 
 That tangled the river's dim floor, 
 
 Close-clasped in each other's caresses 
 
 Were the two that went down to the shore. 
 
 ii8 
 
yiLLANELLES 
 
IN VILLANELLES I LOVE TO SING 
 
 In Villanelles I love to sing 
 
 When vivid fancies flash and play 
 And make the merry love-bells ring. 
 
 When blue-birds w^histle on the vising 
 And give their gladness to the day 
 In Villanelles I love to sing. 
 
 When busy brooks their foam-beads fling 
 
 I listen to their roundelay 
 And make the merry love-bells ring. 
 
 When grasses from their rootlets bring 
 
 The green that vivifies the gray 
 In Villanelles I love to sing. 
 
 Amid their minor murmuring 
 I love to linger and to stray 
 And make the merry love-bells ring. 
 
 When every sleeping sentient thing 
 
 Is wakened in a vrondrous vi^ay 
 In Villanelles I love to sing 
 And make the merry love-bells ring. 
 
 121 
 
WHEN NIGHT IS COME UPON THE SEA 
 
 When night is come upon the sea, 
 
 And shadows congregate the shore, 
 Immensity bewilders me. 
 
 And, swayed to spirit, I am free 
 
 Beyond the journeying world to soar, 
 When night is come upon the sea. 
 
 Empowered by some august decree, 
 I walk the sky's majestic floor — 
 Immensity bewilders me. 
 
 Around me splendid systems flee, 
 
 Creation greatens more and more, 
 When night is come upon the sea. 
 
 It seems so strange that I should be 
 So far, yet hear the billows roar! 
 Immensity bewilders me. 
 
 I watch, with neither grief nor glee, 
 
 The cold stars glitter as before. 
 When ni8;ht is come upon the sea. 
 Immensity bewilders me. 
 
 122 
 
QUATRAINS 
 
SHELLEY 
 
 He sent out paper boats on the rough lake, 
 
 And watched them from the shore with childlike 
 glee. 
 
 How odd that he that last dim sail should take 
 To find Poseidon 'neath the swirling sea! 
 
 KEATS 
 
 Each word he wrote dripped with his great heart's 
 blood, 
 Earth joy-thought had a sorrow in its tone; 
 Briefly he revelled in brave poesy's flood — 
 
 Death found him ere his marvellous youth was 
 flown. 
 
 II 
 
 He dipped his pen in flowers various-hued, 
 We feel the color in each verse he wrote ; 
 
 As daisies mostly on his page he strewed, 
 Over his mound their tutelar spirits float. 
 
 We say we shall not die, 
 
 And yet we know each breath, 
 
 Each laugh, each sob, each sigh. 
 Is omnipresent death. 
 
 Your life is yours to make or mar, 
 Your life is yours for good or ill. 
 
 Though powerless to touch a star. 
 You have the power to climb a hill. 
 
 125 
 
Better one word of kindness to your friend 
 While you with him the pleasant earth-paths wend, 
 Than a whole volume of unhelpful praise 
 When he has utterly vanished from your gaze. 
 
 FAILURE 
 
 What most we do is to anticipate — 
 To plan is easy, but to act is hard. 
 
 I often think to open yonder gate, 
 But fail to cross the separating yard. 
 
 EQUIPMENT 
 
 No two there are of the same mental weight- 
 This fact by stern experience we know. 
 
 The man who is equipped to guide a State 
 May fail if he attempt to guide a hoe. 
 
 COWPER 
 
 Till Cowper sang the sofa's praise, 
 Distressed and tortured were his days; 
 But from the lamp of rhythmic toil, 
 Came sweet contentment's healing oil. 
 
 NIOBE 
 
 Niobe, the inconsolable, I dreamed I met — 
 
 Her hair was a white gray: 
 Her pale and tenuous and pathetic lips were set 
 
 In a severe, Greek way. 
 
 136 
 
Often my friend appalls me when we meet 
 By his immoderate, superb conceit. 
 I stand aghast at the audacious glance 
 Of his unparalleled insouciance. 
 
 The poet should his work begin 
 
 With doubting hand and prayerful heart: 
 His only thought should be to win 
 
 The perfect touch of perfect art. 
 
 In life he was unscrupulous, cruel, base, 
 He had for pity in his heart no room. 
 
 A man equipped with every Christian grace !- 
 Is the carved irony on his costly tomb. 
 
 Rash Phaethon who strove to drive the sun, 
 And by his boastful folly was undone. 
 Deserves less pity than to him is given 
 Who only fails because he has not striven. 
 
 STEVENSON 
 
 Alone he stood on a lonely height 
 That shadowed the Southern sea, 
 
 Wearied of time, and touched with the light 
 Of a near eternity. 
 
 127 
 
How marvellous the stem that day by day 
 Holds the drooped lily in its graceful poise ! 
 
 How kind the wind that lingers on its way 
 And lifts the lily-leaves and with them toys! 
 
 Whichever way we look the mind is there, 
 It gives its color to each thing we see; 
 
 From its quick touch the sky is foul or fair, 
 Leaf-stripped or bravely foliaged the tree. 
 
 THOUGHT 
 
 If thought be high Time is annihilate, 
 The fatal precious moments do not flit: 
 
 No knowledge have we if we walk or wait, 
 We are unmindful if we stand or sit. 
 
 128 
 
B 13 t9H 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
LIBRARY 
 
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