IDYLLS BESIDE^ 
 THE STRAND ' 
 
 Franklin F. Phillips 
 
Class TS3d '3i 
 Coipglit}!" i'^ i ^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
IDYLLS 
 BESIDE THE STRAND 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANKLIN F. PHILLIPS 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE WHITE ISLES." ETC. 
 
 BOSTON 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 ! 1912 
 

 Cop-iTlIGHT, 1912 
 
 Shermax, French & Company 
 
 //.^H> 
 
 (gClA33063i? 
 
TO 
 
 THE NAMESAKE OF MY REVERED ANCESTOR 
 
 NANCY PAGE PRESCOTT 
 
 MY GRANDDAUGHTER 
 NANCY PAGE KIMBALL 
 
 THIS FRAGILE FLOWER OF MY 
 MUSE IS DEDICATED 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I. SEA AND STRAND 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PRELUDE— MAY 1 
 
 A HOUSE BY THE SEA 3 
 
 SOXG OF THE NORTH WIXD 7 
 
 A LESSON FROM THE SEA 10 
 
 THE GRANITE ISLES 11 
 
 PONCE DE LEON 13 
 
 NEWFOUNDLAND 18 
 
 UNCONQUERED 19 
 
 RESPITE 22 
 
 IMPRESS 24> 
 
 PART II. VIA SACRA 
 
 THE FORERUNNER 27 
 
 THE SEAMLESS VESTURE 28 
 
 OUT OF THE DEEP 33 
 
 THE LIFE IMMORTAL 34 
 
 REPOSE 35 
 
 PART III. THE HERMIT'S TALES 
 
 PROLOGUE 39 
 
 THE BOETHICS 42? 
 
 THE MONTAGNAIS 48 
 
 MYTH OF THE CREATION OF RED MEN . 54 
 
 THE GIFT OF INDIAN CORN 57 
 
 PART IV. CENTENARY 
 
 PROLOGUE 67 
 
 MONTVILLE go 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 AT THE GOLDEN WEDDING 73 
 
 THE SCHOOLGROUND SPRING 76 
 
 INSECT INDUSTRY 78 
 
 PART V. THE SEASONS 
 
 EARLY SPRING 81 
 
 SUMMER GRACE 82 
 
 AUTUMN POMP 83 
 
 WINTER WAYS 84 
 
 SNOWFALL 85 
 
 A VISION 88 
 
 ACROSS THE ZONES 90 
 
 MT. SAINT BERNARD 91 
 
 THE TRANSIT OF YEARS 93 
 
 PART VI. BATTLE MEMORIES 
 
 THE EAGLE AT LAKE GEORGE .... 97 
 
 FORT TICONDEROGA 98 
 
 THE SILENCE AT MOUNT McGREGOR . . 99 
 
 THE ENCAMPMENT 101 
 
 TO AN OLD SOLDIER 102 
 
 MEMORIAL DAY 104 
 
 PART VII. TRIBUTES 
 
 EMERITUS 107 
 
 TO JOHN W. HUTCHINSON 108 
 
 WALTER KITTREDGE 110 
 
 A GARNERED LIFE Ill 
 
 ELEGIAC 112 
 
 BIRD 113 
 
 SWITZERLAND 114 
 
 FOR THE PEACE OF THE WORLD . . . .115 
 
 MY COUNTRY 117 
 
PART I 
 SEA AND STRAND 
 
PRELUDE 
 MAY 
 
 Woven is sun-lit green 
 In sweet designs frost-saddened hues among: 
 
 Through many a glade is seen 
 The garland-grace that tender hands have 
 flung: 
 
 The forest kings review 
 
 A joyous retinue. 
 
 A boundless rhapsody 
 Unto the brooks and birds belongs: 
 
 They in their ecstasy 
 Toy in the shallows, fill the woods with songs: 
 
 Young leaves the measures keep, 
 
 And bells wake on the steep. 
 
 A happy thought to stroll 
 With youth's light sandals borrowed for my 
 feet, 
 
 The sparrow's tufted knoll 
 And cuckoo's hazel copse in joy to greet: 
 
 Haunts of a nested love. 
 
 Arched by the blue above. 
 
 [1] 
 
Now is, glad Hope, thy way 
 Embosomed in the fondness of the spring, 
 
 Cheered for the livelong day. 
 Till eve's dull eyes behold night's spreading 
 wing, 
 
 When flowers enfold the dew, 
 
 To wait the morrow new. 
 
 [2] 
 
A HOUSE BY THE SEA 
 
 Let me live in a house by the side of the sea, 
 
 Where the ships of the world go by, 
 Where their sails appear and disappear 
 
 On the line of sea and sky: 
 Where the ocean hound looms above the surge 
 
 With a proud, defiant mien. 
 And the tireless beat of her vulcan heart 
 
 In her crater smoke is seen. 
 There the rose blooms sweet at the open door, 
 
 That looks on the cliff and strand. 
 The gray sea wall, the thus-far bound, 
 
 That was set by an unseen hand. 
 There the sailor went out on his voyage world 
 round. 
 
 But returned not again for aye ; 
 On a coral bier in a crystal crypt 
 
 He's sleeping the years away. 
 There is seen at times in swelling throng 
 
 A convention of the waves ; 
 At times a mirrored sea of glass, 
 
 That sunken ledges laves. 
 Great songs are sung there in the night, 
 
 In diapason tone. 
 The victor's pean and the dirge. 
 
 Echoed from zone to zone. 
 
 [3] 
 
The light of sun and moon and stars 
 
 Makes ever changing mood, 
 The eve's dull gray, the morn's wine red, 
 
 When inky storm clouds brood. 
 
 I hate the black and bitter sea, 
 
 I love the smiling tide, 
 I kneel and kiss the monarch's hand 
 
 That bears a rule so wide. 
 I have read his skilled diplomacy, 
 
 That sways the world afar; 
 I have seen the Titan battle gage 
 
 Of the elements at war. 
 When the freedom-loving ocean fought 
 
 The winter's grim advance, 
 And, in the fury of assault. 
 
 Battered his helm and lance. 
 
 On the shores are scattered the dregs and dross 
 
 Of the alchemists' surmise, 
 And over them — peerless monuments — 
 
 Marconi's towers rise. 
 For the universal panacea 
 
 Of ills still hides away, 
 And gold, from the baser metals made. 
 
 Awaits a fairer day. 
 The sea, the bitter, briny sea 
 
 Holds drugs and metals rare; 
 But science raises her shining lance. 
 
 And pierces the night and air : 
 
 [4] 
 
She hurls against the sleet-clad winds 
 
 Her million candle light, 
 And laughs the mariner to sleep, 
 
 Mammocked in blackest night: 
 She sings her messages of cheer 
 
 In pulsing ether lays ; 
 She wings a voice across the seas, 
 
 The miracle of days. 
 She whispers glorious prophecy 
 
 Of triumphs at the gate, 
 That sages and sears have so long 
 
 Bade trembling hopes await. 
 Soon shall be laid the good ship's keel, 
 
 That stranded will not break. 
 That, foundering in the wildest floods, 
 
 Home will her life-freight take. 
 Soon shall the grim, ice-bearded face 
 
 That looks upon the pole. 
 Happily smile, because the while 
 
 Air-ships that way will stroll. 
 
 Let me live in a house by the shore of the sea, 
 
 For a race of men stood here. 
 Too near to the dawn of creation's morn. 
 
 To know a shade of fear; 
 Too near to the great lives in the sea 
 
 And the earth and radiant air — 
 Too near to that from which they sprung. 
 
 To have a thought of care. 
 
 [5] 
 
In ancient mounds it doth appear, 
 
 They sometimes ate their kind, 
 Till they learned one day a better way 
 
 Through some frenzy of the mind. 
 When first upon the azure sea 
 
 A shallop came to view. 
 Unto their wondering thought it sailed 
 
 Out of the heaven's blue. 
 
 The Norse man came through the northern sea, 
 
 And the north wind blew him hard. 
 It blew him alack in the foamy track 
 
 Of the Celtic monk and bard : 
 For the monk had brought the holy cross. 
 
 The bard had sung of peace. 
 And in such gracious ministries 
 
 The heart found sweet release. 
 But the Viking's hands were stained with blood. 
 
 And fire was in his brain ; 
 He carved his rage upon the rocks. 
 
 He mocked the wind and rain. 
 From the skulls of his foes he drank their 
 blood, 
 
 That his own blood came to be ; 
 And flowing into and out of his heart, 
 
 It tamed his progeny : 
 * Till like the sun and foam-sprung race. 
 
 The monk and the cross he bore, 
 
 * Red Men, as set forth in one of their myths. 
 
 [6] 
 
Like the bard that tuned his skin-strung harp 
 
 And sung around the shore, 
 He better loved the soil and bay 
 
 Than he loved the berg and wind ; 
 He hailed the dawn of a fairer day, 
 
 And wished not so hard he'd sinned. 
 
 Let me live by the sea, where a league away 
 
 No nation can claim the wave: 
 'Tis the world's highway, and its battlefield. 
 
 Its treasure-vault and grave. 
 One night when no stars in heaven were seen 
 
 For the haze that swept the sky, 
 Old Boreas, the Northwind, sang to me, 
 
 With a tear froze in his eye. 
 And the sad night's tears froze as they fell, 
 
 But the sea drank up the sleet ; 
 And the song he sung I have written down, 
 
 And this is it complete: 
 
 SONG OF THE NORTHWIND 
 
 A hardy and brusque Titan, born 
 Of the sweet rosy goddess of morn. 
 From my wild rock-ribbed cavern I go. 
 To wantonly buffet the snow: 
 
 [7] 
 
But I sigh and sob and sough 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff, 
 O'erlooking the gray, salt sea, 
 I have vexed uproariously. 
 
 My father, stern Astreaus, frowns, 
 When he ponders what kingdoms and crowns 
 Could be bought with the wealth I have strown 
 In the ocean depths soundless and lone. 
 
 Then I sigh and sob and sough 
 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff; 
 
 For the stubborn, gray, salt main 
 
 Will not give it back again. 
 
 My brothers — the fairest, I ween. 
 Have Auster and Zephyr e'er been — 
 And my sisters, loved stars in the sky, 
 Oft reproach me with look and with sigh ; 
 
 And I sigh and sob and sough 
 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff; 
 
 For down the gray, salt strand 
 
 There's a blanched corse on the sand. 
 
 [8] 
 
The mariner knows my shrill voice, 
 Now cheering the way of his choice, 
 Now calling the storms on his path. 
 Provoking his fear and his wrath : 
 But I sigh and sob and sough 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff; 
 O'erlooking the gray, salt waves, 
 That fashion my victims' graves. 
 
 Disdaining all gui le and intrigue, 
 But regardless of treaty and league, 
 Many good ships and stores I've destroyed. 
 As with war's fitful fortunes I've toyed. 
 
 Still I sigh and sob and sough 
 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff; 
 
 For round the gray, salt deep 
 
 The slave and exile weep. 
 
 Though far from my dim mountain home 
 On most mischievous missions I roam. 
 From the blest Hyperborean lands 
 I withhold my rough, riotous hands: 
 And I sigh and sob and sough 
 On the moss and fir-clad bluff; 
 And gaze o'er the gray, salt way. 
 On their long and gladsome day. 
 
 [9] 
 
A LESSON FROM THE SEA 
 
 Proud main, what heart pulsations thine must 
 
 be, 
 To send into each far extremity 
 Such vital currents ! Thy hoar face, forsooth, 
 Impugns nor Atlas strength, nor fadeless 
 
 youth. 
 Expectant thou dost never wait 
 At Oriental or Hesperian gate 
 Thy loud knock's answer; entering thou dost 
 
 gain 
 New acquisitions for thy vast domain. 
 
 Last night I went beyond the land-locked bay, 
 To do thee homage, own thy rightful sway. 
 Received my vows the votaries of the seas, 
 The azure fields were thronged with witnesses. 
 I heard thy edicts thundered on the strand. 
 Great peans sung, such as round Indian land, 
 The icy poles, Pacific islands lone. 
 Are sung and wafted on from zone to zone. 
 Over the billowy way and gusty height 
 Came the clear voicings of the erudite; 
 Arts, mathematics, philosophic seat 
 Appealed from alga-shade, coral retreat, 
 Bidding me bow unto the docile grace 
 That ever makes of mine a nobler race. 
 
 [10] 
 
THE GRANITE ISLES 
 
 Grouped on the heaving bosom of the tide, 
 Where artless lays the fluvial waters sing, 
 
 To lull the weary surf that inlets hide. 
 
 And o'er the voiceful flood the mountains fling 
 
 The sky's dark bodes, or takens of its smiles, 
 
 Appear, in modest guise, the granite isles. 
 
 Low evergreens, that sterile lands deplore — 
 Meet growth from soil that winter's rage 
 infests — 
 Mantle the silex of the drifty shore. 
 
 Where strand in pebbly shoals the sinking 
 crests 
 Of billows tired of the sculptor's art 
 On stone whose rugged form is slow to part. 
 
 The cliff's, grim warriors mailed in iron-gray, 
 Resist the furious onsets of the sea; 
 
 Clear blazoned on their shields, that glance 
 the spray. 
 Are seen the types of time's immensity. 
 
 Such might in earth's primordial ranks arose. 
 
 And valor such the glacial fields ne'er froze. 
 
 No man hath valid title to a rood 
 
 Of this dull glebe, lingering 'twixt storm and 
 main. 
 On which, when azure gates ope o'er the flood, 
 
 [11] 
 
The sun and stars their showers of beauty 
 
 rain: 
 Long hath Atlantis, in his watery grave, 
 Held it in mortmain 'gainst the encroaching 
 
 wave. 
 
 The dweller in the clime where sun and air 
 Make need of bowery nooks and breezy calls. 
 
 The while JSolian harps, attuned most rare. 
 The languid winds light trill, or silence 
 thralls. 
 
 Finds on these isles, in sound of ocean's song. 
 
 The blood to leap anew in currents strong. 
 
 [12] 
 
PONCE DE LEON 
 
 Hide Porto Rico in the tropic waves 
 
 And dissipate embittered memories 
 
 Of dispossession of an arduous rule, 
 
 Stint of mj worth tried in Ovando's cause, 
 
 And with our daring Pilot on the seas, 
 
 When faith's full buds had opened half to sight, 
 
 And his renewed quest would certify 
 
 Whether these wilds are but the outer gates 
 
 To India's opulence, the sounding shores 
 
 Of waters flowing from bright Eden's plains. 
 
 Or providential pontoons hither thrown, 
 
 To bridge the "sea of darkness" and the gulf 
 
 Of mutinous despair, so he might prove 
 
 That paradox unto our mother faith, 
 
 A western way to reach the ancient east. 
 
 Before us lie the late-found Sporades 
 On Neptune's shallow areas, trident-plowed. 
 Where from his briny fist the seeds were flung 
 And scattered by autumnal hurricanes, 
 To sprout in gentle winters, and to grow 
 In summers long. Come, comrades, let's ex- 
 plore 
 These waifs from Paradise, perhaps to find 
 Atlantis risen from his watery bier, 
 With head exalted in Elysian skies. 
 
 [13] 
 
As ripples now imagination's calm 
 
 With such conceit, and refluent wakes a wave 
 
 Of the incertitude beyond life's bound, 
 
 I make to you confession of a thought 
 
 That in my cup, for years so full and sweet, 
 
 Has come to be the dregs, the bitterness 
 
 Of which morn's nimble fingers stir, and eve 
 
 With hasty palm presses unto my lips. 
 
 Ponce is growing old: Whitens this brow: 
 
 The fires that kindled bright on Leon's hills 
 
 Against the proud Cantabrians' northern cold. 
 
 And lent their warmth unto the south plateau. 
 
 Sink to dull embers in this wasting frame. 
 
 To nature's course in our historic night 
 
 I would have yielded; but dawn streaks the 
 
 shade, 
 Prophetic of a day that I must see 
 And gain therein a full and fitting meed. 
 Then search, and from each bosom-jeweled 
 
 hill 
 And dale take ye the gold: enough of that 
 Have I: but where gem-radiant beauty gleams 
 From bubbling founts, wet your tentative lips. 
 Drink light, drink deep, drink eager, oft, and 
 
 press 
 The dripping garlands to your brows, telling 
 To me, in the same quest, if strength's begotten. 
 These simple natives — fools, they had not 
 
 marked 
 
 [14] 
 
The spot — tradition have of one whose flesh 
 Was withered, and whose frame was lowly bent 
 Beneath the arching sunset of his day, 
 But who, finding by chance a magic pool, 
 The fine complexities of which so long 
 Have baffled all the skill of alchemy. 
 For earth is jealous of her rarest arts. 
 Drank, and in rapture stood again in youth, 
 And saw anew his dusky progeny. 
 So, if not sooner found, that boon shall claim 
 My search till this worn heart no longer can 
 Shake off the heavy hand of time ; and you 
 Who share the boon, will some day hold a cup 
 Of it against the barter of a world. 
 
 Your zeal for me, my friends, has overrun 
 Th' applauding isles and reached these ever- 
 glades, 
 That whisper continental prophecies: 
 But the bright days with hurried strides move 
 
 on, 
 Urged by the lashes of invidious age. 
 The voicings of each new-found strand to me 
 Sound not unlike pathetic threnodies. 
 While desperation goads my struggling want 
 The lotion and potation yet to find 
 Which so involve chaotic elements. 
 As in our human mould to balk the bane 
 Of dissolution. Nature's sons have been 
 
 [15] 
 
Unto our project mainly tractable, 
 But yonder thicket glooms with fell designs, 
 And — Holy Saviour, fate has set its seal 
 Upon my breast, and writ its name in blood! 
 Draw out the arrow, but probe not the wound ; 
 'TVill give me needless pain: the gash, alas. 
 Too surely rankles with a poison barb. 
 Grim Death, around me now thy eloquence 
 Fast weaves its wordless spell ;, athwart my 
 
 :sight 
 Thy justice stands with fine-poised balance 
 
 beam ; 
 In thy might's presence all my cherished 
 
 thought 
 Of healing waters is but mockery. 
 With its renunciation — lo, a calm. 
 My dim view clarifies : proud Leon's hills 
 In joy again I see, and far beyond. 
 O'er the gray crests of ancient Ephraim, 
 Behold a vision that our sacred shrines. 
 Through their fair symbols, ne'er to me dis- 
 closed. 
 E'en where on Shechem's slope, by Jacob's 
 
 well, 
 Stood in meek majesty the Nazarene, 
 And through Samaria's gates spake to the 
 
 world 
 Of living waters. I have found the fount, 
 To drink in this last moment, and to press 
 
 [16] 
 
The untried strand with but a stripling's feet. 
 Full long ago I should have drank and slaked 
 The fever-thirst of my delusive dreams; 
 So could I enter now the boundless way 
 In the full stature of God-imaged man. 
 
 [17] 
 
NEWFOUNDLAND 
 
 First of the Atlantic isles to bow 
 In true allegiance unto Britain's sway: 
 First I beheld thy towering headland's brow 
 Above the sleet of Cabot's surge and spray, 
 Stern mountain wall that shelters far retreats, 
 Where fishers furl the brown sails of their fleets. 
 What genial phase and gentle mood 
 Could I bethought October's morn would bring. 
 With Phoebus low across the swinging flood, 
 Far southward destined on gray stretching 
 
 wing, 
 While icy arms from pale of Arctic night 
 Reached out and held thee from his fleeting 
 
 light? 
 Kind nature sought to clothe thy shore 
 With both deciduous and perennial green; 
 But frighted by the ocean's tragic roar, 
 Or pierced by barbs of boreal arrows keen, 
 She fled to dales of inland deep and still. 
 And lavished there the graces of her will. 
 The Basques the Britons did not love. 
 From Basques and Britons the Boethics fled; 
 A joy to me, these days of twilight prove. 
 The Britons have a shelter for my head. 
 Homes have they reared, made fire-sides on the 
 
 strand ; 
 True conquerors such in every clime and land! 
 
 [18] 
 
UNCONQUERED 
 
 With strength of triple brass was bound, 
 E'en so the ancient classic said, 
 The breast of him who first was found 
 To brave the sea's white-crested head. 
 
 Their way but sunlit and pole-starred. 
 And neither when the tempests rose. 
 The Norseman and Druidic bard 
 Defied the arctic bergs and floes. 
 
 A thousand years their little barks 
 Of triple bull-hide, ribbed with oak. 
 Dashed over seas of chartless marks. 
 But on ice horrors never broke. 
 
 Both impact and resistance tried. 
 Hulls tanned, or salted in the main. 
 With raging winds and waves they vied. 
 They mocked the pelting hail and rain. 
 
 Displacement, buoyancy well told, 
 
 What cared they for the threatening sky. 
 
 The hollow of the water-wold. 
 
 The crest, though rising mountains high? 
 
 [19] 
 
To latest time, proud Genoa, 
 
 Is sung thy daring Pilot's praise, 
 
 Who steered his caravel afar. 
 
 To find the east through western ways. 
 
 Bridging with faith dark floods of fear, 
 And gulfs of mutinous despair. 
 Finding perchance a hemisphere 
 In virgin beauty hidden there. 
 
 And aye for daring constant bides 
 The praise unto the Cabots sung, 
 Who from the ice-gorged Laurentides 
 The tribute of our northland wrung. 
 
 Bridged are the seas, beaconed the strands 
 With glare of incandescent light: 
 Signals are sent by viewless hands, 
 Warnings of every bane to blight. 
 
 Ships, ribbed and planked with bolted steel, 
 Now span the sea's successive waves. 
 With Vulcan heart, with rushing keel 
 Still hollowing treasure vaults and graves. 
 
 What genius of a rushing world 
 Can build a ship, that avarice, 
 With purple to the breeze unfurled, 
 May safely sail the fathomless? 
 
 [20] 
 
What captain of our life marines 
 Can trumpet from a true command 
 The word, when the ice-spectre sheens, 
 That brings each man unto his stand. 
 
 To do, to die, as did, indeed, 
 Columbia's soldier in the night. 
 When the Titantic's direful need 
 Brought every character to light. 
 
 The high, the lowly, strong and weak? 
 He, acting for himself alone, 
 Too far to hear his Chieftain speak, 
 Well met his country's judgment throne. 
 
 Sail on, Oh, Ship of State, sail on, 
 Sail valiantly, sail guardedl}^ ; 
 And, whether in the dark or dawn, 
 Beware of perils of the sea. 
 
 [21] 
 
RESPITE 
 
 When a summer's fair hand beckoned, from a 
 
 classic seat and tome 
 I came to a strand of the ocean, drifty with 
 
 moss and foam ; 
 And heard the waves' sage whispers, and 
 
 shared in their mirth-prompted smiles. 
 Where the river and sea chased each other 
 
 among the applauding isles. 
 
 Youth of a noble impulse, native of rigor's 
 
 clime. 
 Bell of a lofty import, marking the student's 
 
 time: 
 The air once breathed by sages, that did the 
 
 gods regale 
 Whose home was white Olympus, whose haunt 
 
 was Tempe vale. 
 Could not inspire your mission more grandly 
 
 than the breeze 
 That wafts your mountain pine-balm and odor 
 
 of the seas ; 
 Nor tell in whispers plainer the beauty and the 
 
 worth 
 That gracious knowledge giveth the homes and 
 
 marts of earth ; 
 The way that aspiration impels Fame's feet 
 
 to go 
 Unto her splendent temple and stars of fade- 
 less glow. 
 
 [22] 
 
To me, on whose young spirit your joys and 
 
 cares once fell, 
 Like the sunshine and the shadows, that flecked 
 
 the bay and dell. 
 The past kaleidoscopic, in multi-form and hue. 
 Gives back the joys and pleasures, blending the 
 
 old with new: 
 But the cares and pains are likened to vesture 
 
 faded and old, 
 That in oblivion's chamber is given to moth 
 
 and mold. 
 
 May lore's unfailing fountain life's noontime 
 thirst assuage, 
 
 Her sunlight linger fondly on the whitening 
 hills of age, 
 
 And her star rays descending in the quiet even- 
 tide, 
 
 Come as the benedictions of those who early 
 died. 
 
 Died e'en as flowers the sweetest, and fairest 
 to the sight. 
 
 Soon drop their fragile petals, and vanish from 
 the light. 
 
 Now on the breath of greetings farewells re- 
 luctant fall. 
 
 And respite's tent is folded at duty's stirring 
 call. 
 
 [23] 
 
IMPRESS 
 
 'TwixT day and night we speed away, 
 Fast fade the headlands o'er the sea ; 
 
 The tranquil deep and shadowed sky 
 Blend in a zone of mystery. 
 
 Of this wide calm the magic spell 
 And overpowering sense I feel, 
 
 But little reckon of the storm 
 
 That rages round the good ship's wheel. 
 
 Till in its throes unto my sight 
 
 A baffled birdling doth appear, 
 Soon to be laid, a little corse. 
 
 To rest upon so great a bier. 
 
 This little life, parting, recalls 
 A youthful dream, an early choice ; 
 
 O'er storm and calm and mystery 
 Is heard the whisper of a voice: 
 
 "Duty, in bark however frail. 
 Its sail will set for every breeze. 
 
 And grandly into port will come. 
 
 Or sail with God the surging seas." 
 
 [34] 
 
PART II 
 VIA SACRA 
 
THE FORERUNNER 
 
 Hail, leathern-girdled, 
 Thou seer with front of bronze and heart of 
 
 oak: 
 All who their age outrun, the truth to greet, 
 With thee must bow to condemnation's stroke, 
 Dealt in the darkness of wrong's old retreat. 
 
 [27] 
 
THE SEAMLESS VESTURE 
 
 Unto the bards and seers of ages gone, 
 All who have sung in thrilling note divine 
 The All-abounding, and man's destiny. 
 Is brought the tribute of deep-welling joy: 
 All who have seen and spoken better things 
 Than to their ages of trite mould had come, 
 Hail, and to each a lasting meed of praise ; 
 To him whose lofty text the Orient taught. 
 And him, the Himalayas' perfect sage, 
 The Indus' son, with face unto the sky, 
 The Lawgiver from Sinai's cloud and flame. 
 Him who, with ear deaf to the Delphic voice. 
 Heard through death's night a morning call 
 
 serene. 
 And the enshrined at Mecca in the plain. 
 Time's latest melodies, eternal song. 
 
 Thou Genesis, chant of primordial morn, 
 Apocalypse, unfolding tragedy 
 Of time unto the day that needs no sun. 
 For naught but God lights the perfected soul. 
 And Paradise lost, and regained, moving 
 In vast procession militant arrayed. 
 Worthy all be unto celestial choirs. 
 Prophets of days that break more cloudless still 
 Than eyes inured to storms painlessly view. 
 Whether about the shades of ancient night. 
 
 [28] 
 
Or mediaeval watch, or this late hour : 
 Priests who have offered blameless sacrifice 
 Upon the altars of a human need: 
 Kings who have ruled not by their lineage, 
 But by the power divine proclaimed and 
 
 crowned ; 
 Be yours the beauty of a hallowed lay. 
 
 Beside a protozoan stood a man, 
 And both were perfect in a plan divine, 
 Although a million ages intervened 
 Since first to last the Architect unseen 
 Proclaimed in each his satisfaction wrought. 
 The myriad undertakings and defaults. 
 That fill in daze of wonderment the mind. 
 Say not unworthy of so high an aim. 
 To make an universe companion to Himself. 
 The struggle of blind instinct from the worm 
 Unto the lion, crouching in his lair. 
 To rear a self, that set the starlit pace 
 Through rugged heights unto unselfish day: 
 The gnawing pain, the racking torture borne, 
 The stain and curel blotch, count not amiss. 
 Heights have no lasting worth without the 
 
 climb. 
 And many a fall but goads the purpose on 
 To that sure footing in the wasteless realm. 
 
 Full long the Flowery Kingdom's ancient hope 
 Was for perfection in an earth-born soul, 
 
 [29] 
 
For the ideal man, whose mind and heart 
 All parentage by sex purely contained, 
 The holy one, in whom sweetly inhered 
 Reality of spirit without days. 
 The Indian Yogi in his cult enjoined 
 The high attainment of the perfect sage : 
 But Persian magi hailed the star divine, 
 That led them to the child of manger birth: 
 For heaven's high will into the cosmic warp 
 Enjoins the weaving of humility: 
 And love and purity and duty twine 
 Threads tinted warm with sanguine sacrifice: 
 And these must never fail, lest fail at last 
 The aspiration of the universe. 
 Sing then, O Muse, in thy divinest key. 
 Earth's tragic mishap foiled in Heaven's pure 
 
 law; 
 Sing in thy thrilling notes of rhapsody. 
 
 One dark and bitter day when hate was rife, 
 
 And a discordant sect unto its own was lost. 
 
 While a hard civic world conjured withal, 
 
 They led unto a malefactor's cross 
 
 Him who but benefaction nothing knew. 
 
 In meekness drank he then the purple cup. 
 
 Attesting thus an altruistic soul; 
 
 Soul that a mother gives unto her child. 
 
 Gave he, with anguish stung, to all mankind. 
 
 The executioners o'er much inured. 
 
 Noting 'twixt guilt and grace no chasm wide, 
 
 [30] 
 
Failed the high import even to respect, 
 But 'mongst them then his raiment eager doled ; 
 And for his seamless vesture cast they lots. 
 Nature in toil had spent a million years 
 On warp and woof, weaving thus seamlessly: 
 But when her shuttle had last sped its beam, 
 They travestied the fabric wantonly. 
 
 What is the meed for such a life so snven? 
 And for the martyr hosts whose banners white. 
 By him entrained, wave so submissively 
 Above their ranks fallen in causes won? 
 It is the meed that prompts e'en bitter tongues 
 To sing in peans sweet of truth's new day. 
 Of justice, poised more beauteously. 
 Of peace, whose joyous wings stretch shadow- 
 less, 
 Of purity, as is the starlight pure : 
 A priceless meed, that in both warp and woof 
 Shall clothe in faultlessness a tattered world. 
 
 Of those who ply with zeal life's texile art. 
 Plain though they weave, or on a jackard loom, 
 The pattern shown in vision on the mount 
 Can never fail to win the docile mind. 
 To weave the vesture in its seamlessness. 
 
 [31] 
 
Some with a nimble grace will weave, 
 Some slow the shuttle and the beam impel; 
 Full many sundered threads must knotted be; 
 But though the ages still on patience wait, 
 Perfection's holy kiss awaiteth all. 
 
 For that my lowly song more loudly swells, 
 And trills immeasurable in ardent note, 
 And hails the heavenly orbs, that listen deft 
 Unto the vibrant choristry of worlds. 
 
 [32] 
 
OUT OF THE DEEP 
 
 Pride hath its falls ; ambition, precipices 
 Let not my heart go down 
 In world abysses. 
 
 33 
 
THE LIFE IMMORTAL 
 
 In chosen converse one with me once sate: 
 Clear voiced he spake of the transcendent state 
 Above the zones, beyond the passing years, 
 Where life all freedom hath among the spheres. 
 "For me," he said, "it hath some great sur- 
 prise, 
 Some nameless beauty for new-sighted eyes. 
 But simple as the starlight and the dew: 
 Such is the power that maketh all things new." 
 
 [34] 
 
REPOSE 
 
 Serene the mountain sank into his slumber, 
 When the bright harvest-laden day was done. 
 Soft was his couch, the fen : his robe of sun 
 And sea-blent hues, wondrous in shade and 
 
 number, 
 Could not, forsooth, his giant frame encumber. 
 Then, as the chemic dews in stealth begun 
 To fall, night palled the robe with wrappings 
 
 dun. 
 And veiled with mist the sleeper's visage sombre. 
 The winds within their caverns went to sleep: 
 Weird voicings of the waves to silence fell: 
 Into a faultless mirror sank the deep. 
 To image all when morn should break the spell. 
 Thus go earth's great through the celestial 
 
 portal, 
 And radiant souls, unto the realm immortal. 
 
 [a5] 
 
PART III 
 THE HERMIT'S TALES 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 Where the white man's habitation 
 First beside "the Georges" rose, 
 And a scenic beauty graces 
 Summer green or winter snows : 
 Where the quiet river, wending 
 Out into Saint George's flood. 
 Seems a spright of wondrous beauty 
 In wild meadows of the wood ; 
 There a hermit early ventured 
 To the cheerful open door. 
 But he named no cause of leaving 
 Kindred, home, and goodly store. 
 Only telling that he journeyed 
 To a wilderness retreat. 
 Where his heart, in slow repining. 
 In God's time might cease to beat. 
 He it was who cut the opening 
 Near the hilltop in the swale : 
 Hence the name of Bogue is given 
 To the clearing and the Dale. 
 With the fur of fox and otter. 
 Trapped and hunted, he was clad: 
 He was withered, he was pallid. 
 Deep his eyes, his visage sad: 
 All his mien and look dejected 
 Told his heart-appalling plight. 
 Woes of many years reflected, 
 Not the sorrows of a night. 
 
 [39] 
 
Palsied hand and hickory staff, 
 All he had to lean upon, 
 Warded winters of neglect, 
 Whirlwinds of oblivion. 
 
 Oft as at the genial fireside 
 He was welcome to a seat, 
 Indian legend and tradition 
 There he tarried to repeat : 
 And whatever else he mentioned, 
 Memory urging ardently, 
 He bespoke of unspoiled red men 
 Peace and hospitality. 
 That was shown of the Nippissings, 
 Iroquois and Montagnais, 
 The Abenaques and Boethics, 
 Chippewas and Ojibways. 
 Never had he come among them 
 Faint and cold from tempest ire. 
 But the best they had they welcomed 
 To him — raiment, food and fire: 
 And to them a sacred symbol 
 Was the pipe of peace when given, 
 A sure pledge to the Great Spirit 
 Of good-will, witnessed in heaven. 
 If perchance within the Avigwam 
 Something lured the stranger's gaze, 
 Straightway it was his possession. 
 Such were their accustomed ways. 
 
 [40] 
 
Of the picturesque old recluse 
 Why then palter, narrating? 
 Let us introduce his subjects, 
 Bring him harp, and let him sing. 
 
 [41] 
 
THE BOETHICS 
 
 Fleeing Arcadia's ruined peace, 
 And Louisburg with fallen gate, 
 A bark, hard battered by the seas, 
 Bore me o'er Cabot's stormy strait ; 
 And in the calm of Baie des Isles 
 I sought Ste. Mary's holy fane. 
 Hoping within her cloister walls 
 To find my loved and lost again. 
 
 And never be the night forgot. 
 When autumn gales the mountains tore, 
 And leaf and branch a,nd drifts of hail 
 Were hurled upon the Humber's shore. 
 The little hospice, built of stone 
 And roofed with spruce on rafter-oak. 
 Quivered at times when tempest blasts 
 In fury o'er the hamlet broke. 
 
 About the stone hearth, where the fire 
 Burned with the anger of the wind, 
 Were seated sisters, priests and monks. 
 Devoted to all who had sinned. 
 Or known a sorrow of the mind, 
 And in their midst sat Mary March, 
 And she was old and she was blind: 
 A fair young Indian in the days 
 When the Boethics held the Isle, 
 Now bowed beneath a hundred years, 
 
 [4-2] 
 
With face that had forgot to smile; 
 As brown and withered as the leaves 
 That fluttered round Ste. Mary's tower, 
 And mingled with the frozen sleet, 
 That thickened to the midnight hour. 
 Pier brow was like the mountain's brow, 
 On which the centuries had stormed ; 
 Her hands were thin, like eagle's claws 
 Her fingers that the fire warmed. 
 
 And when I asked if not perchance 
 Some wigwam in the forest wild. 
 Guarded by sleepless vigilance. 
 Might keep for me my wife and child. 
 The holy father crossed himself. 
 Turned unto Mary March and said: 
 "Tell to the stranger sore in grief 
 How your Boethic kindred fled." 
 
 Her voice rose strident as the wind; 
 
 Her words fell rattling as the hail. 
 
 That crashed upon the arching roof. 
 
 Swept by the fury of the gale. 
 
 "Unnumbered moons had waxed and waned 
 
 Since first my sires in bark canoes 
 
 Began to fish the friths and bays 
 
 That lave the arctic bergs and floes. 
 
 And plant their meager plats of maze 
 
 Among the rocks 'neath sheltering hills, 
 
 Where scanty summer's slanting sun 
 
 [43] 
 
Makes growth or blight, as Heaven wills ; 
 
 But where the Spirit great and good 
 
 With mete of compensation came 
 
 And filled the seas and streams with fish, 
 
 The woods with furred and feathered game, 
 
 Before a pale face from beyond 
 
 The sea, that hissed remonstrance stern. 
 
 Here built a roof hewn with an axe, 
 
 And made a chimney hearth-fire burn. 
 
 My fathers' brows gloomed at the sight 
 Of sails with oak and hemlock dyed. 
 And shores, on rock and rack far strown 
 With fish their seamen caught and dried ; 
 Then turned their faces to the woods, 
 And sought unbroken peace within, 
 Assured that He who rules the world, 
 Would sanguine strife impute as sin. 
 
 Their valor then the Saxons ruled 
 As cowardice, and pressing far 
 Into the forest depths, they found 
 And took beneath a luckless star 
 A maid, that in a wigwam slept. 
 And from her kindred to St. Johns 
 They led her, to be taught the tongue 
 Native unto their mothers' sons: 
 That she might be interpreter 
 For them unto her kindred chiefs. 
 That thus perchance might be revealed 
 
 [44] 
 
Accordant motives and beliefs, 
 Embracing which, the races twain 
 Might live in harmony as one, 
 Ranging the woods, exploiting seas. 
 Spurning the arrow and the gun. 
 Save that their use in taking game 
 For food and vesture both should ply. 
 Where plenty filled the boundless haunts 
 Of river, wood, and crag-cleft sky. 
 
 When first my parents knew my loss. 
 
 What lamentation woke the wild. 
 
 And tragedy of grief disclosed 
 
 The heart of nature's dusky child, 
 
 I have not heard, but well believe ; 
 
 For, gauging it by woes mine own. 
 
 When the strange footfall in the woods 
 
 Beat out a direful monotone. 
 
 And I was borne to pale face haunts, 
 
 Faces and forms I fain would shun. 
 
 It rose like tempests lightning-plumed. 
 
 That with black pinions veil the sun; 
 
 It smote as smites the bitter sea 
 
 Gray rocks, that fringe far Notre Dame, 
 
 When rage has forced the rampant winds 
 
 To beat the surf white with alarm. 
 
 Young fawns from copses cast shy looks 
 Of pity that I must depart; 
 The ptarmigan, white plumed and brown. 
 From nested young was seen to start, 
 [45] 
 
And cleave the air in wild affright, 
 
 Adding a gloom unto my fears, 
 
 That from dun clouds of alien night 
 
 Have rained their sorrow through the years. 
 
 For what to me was kindness' gift 
 
 And comely manners in a race, 
 
 That from my brown-cheeked kindred turned 
 
 The steps I never can retrace? 
 
 They gave me vesture, food and bed, 
 
 But in my dreams the silent stars 
 
 Whispered a language they knew not. 
 
 To teach futility of wars. 
 
 Two years the accents of their tongue 
 Fell on my ears, till I could tell 
 Their wishes to Boethic hearts, 
 In whose domain they thought to dwell. 
 But when they led me forth to meet 
 Those whose resentment they'd appease, 
 Gone were Boethics, not a trace 
 Haunted the woods, or flecked the seas. 
 After long years of solitude 
 I left the harbor of St. John, 
 And gladly took a Christian's vows 
 At Saint Pierre and Miquelon." 
 
 Her voice fell with the dying moans 
 Of tempests in their fury spent; 
 Her brown face took an ashy hue. 
 That to the midnight umbrage lent. 
 
 [46] 
 
"Her grief as poignant e'en as mine, 
 Old though she was, and I was young. 
 No holy mission could assuage: 
 Thus is my song of sorrow sung." 
 
 The Hermit rose and said goodnight, 
 The pioneers kind wished him cheer: 
 The moon had set, the stars were dim; 
 Haply his lonely lodge was near. 
 
 [4T] 
 
THE MONTAGNAIS 
 
 In the snows of winter falling 
 Came the Hermit to the door 
 Of the pioneers' log house, 
 At their fireside sang once more. 
 
 Hied I to the headstrong waters 
 
 Of the cliff-walled Saguenay, 
 
 Listened to the spruces' idyls 
 
 Sung along the desperate way 
 
 From the lake, St. John, and river, 
 
 St. Maurice, haunts of the wolf. 
 
 Bear and otter, and the wild fowls 
 
 Migrant from the distant gulf. 
 
 Tragedy of every semblance 
 
 There appeared on shores and falls ; 
 
 Grandeur of the wildernesses 
 
 Loftiest in river walls ; 
 
 Purling depths no plummet reaches 
 
 In the water caves beneath; 
 
 And the bay of Ha Ha drawing 
 
 All the summer at a breath; 
 
 For white winter reigns supernal 
 
 On the polar reaches drear. 
 
 Sheltered by the spruce and pine trees. 
 
 Aborigines appear. 
 
 [48] 
 
Underneath the cliff o'erhanging 
 
 And the boughs of fir and pine, 
 
 Little minded they the wigwam, 
 
 At the summer's swift decline; 
 
 But when first white snows of winter 
 
 Hailed the white full moon o'erhead 
 
 In the gray-walled plain they gathered, 
 
 And weird incantations said. 
 
 They were nature's sons, peace-loving, 
 
 And th' Algonquin's sanguine rage 
 
 Never found their hearts responsive 
 
 To the tribal battle gauge. 
 
 They were trappers ; they were hunters ; 
 
 And they fished the lake and stream ; 
 
 Twanged the bow and flashed the arrow, 
 
 But the tomahawk's dread gleam 
 
 In their hands ne'er brained an infant 
 
 On a trembling mother's breast ; 
 
 Stood their dusky braves for honor; 
 
 Prayed their prophet for their rest 
 
 In the happy grounds of hunting 
 
 Never seen on mortal strand ; 
 
 But his prayer was never wanting 
 
 Of stern justice's sure command. 
 
 Central sat the aged Sachem, 
 With his forehead brown and bare. 
 Bony limbs clad in skin vesture. 
 Eagle- feathered, thin gray hair; 
 
 [49] 
 
But his eye was like the starlight, 
 And his face, calm as the moon ; 
 Silver-voiced, his words came mellow 
 As the wind in summer noon. 
 He had seen the leaf and hoar-frost 
 Come and go for ninety years ; 
 Brown and pale-face both he counted 
 As his brothers and his peers 
 In the right to conquer nature, 
 Winning vesture, food and fire, 
 When the winter crossed the wildwood. 
 And the storm beat in its ire. 
 
 Next sat Prophet Kaonabo, 
 Who was hoary, bent with years. 
 Who had known the wilds of nature. 
 Known them ever without fears ; 
 Known the habits of the panther. 
 Catamount and wolverine. 
 Loved the beaver and the otter 
 Of the tangled wood ravine ; 
 Heard with ravished ear the song-thrush. 
 Seen the lark mount up on high, 
 Known the water-fowl's far-voiced note. 
 When the winter left the sky — 
 Bird, whose astronomic instinct 
 Made no error, as it flew 
 In its thousand mile migration 
 From old summer unto new. 
 
 [50] 
 
He'd traced the wild bee, culling honey 
 
 From the wild bloom in the glade, 
 
 Noting all the lines and angles 
 
 That unerringly it made 
 
 From its vineyard to its storehouse 
 
 In the trunk of hollow tree. 
 
 Seen how every drone was slaughtered 
 
 At the queen bee's high decree ; 
 
 Watched with interest the mould-hill. 
 
 Where the ants at break of day 
 
 Drew their young to air and sunlight — 
 
 Sanitarians in their way. 
 
 So he prayed for peace and plenty. 
 With extended, trembling hands. 
 That the trappers and the hunters, 
 From the reaches and the lands 
 Stretching from Laurentian mountains 
 To the ice of Hudson Bay, 
 Might return with furs and fawn-flesh, 
 Cured in Indian summer day ; 
 Thus to bless the hoary winter 
 With the comfort and the cheer, 
 That the aged and the helpless 
 Needed in the time of drear. 
 
 On the moon's full sea of glory, 
 Flooding on the bars of snow. 
 Sailed the phantoms of his vision, 
 Through the wampum smoke wreathed slow- 
 
 [51] 
 
Sailed unto the seat of power, 
 Sailed up to the throne of stars, 
 Sailed unto the great peace-Giver, 
 Teaching hatred but of wars. 
 
 Then a hundred maidens, kneeling 
 In red fox-skins on white snow. 
 Raised brown hands in ways appealing 
 For a lay some brave might know. 
 Then a youth in tawny wolfskin, 
 With dark stripes upon his face. 
 Sang how first that decoration 
 Marked the features of his race. 
 
 .Long and cold had been a winter ; 
 Hunger pressed a tribe most sore, 
 And a brave, most lithe among them. 
 Sought a deer round glade and shore ; 
 But a raging mountain lion. 
 Desperate too for flesh and blood, 
 Scented there his wandering footsteps 
 In the leaves along the wood: 
 And a chase to desperation 
 Then ensued until poor Lo, 
 Faint and well-nigh dead with panting, 
 Found no further he could go ; 
 When he chanced to meet a brown bear. 
 Of his race as grandsire hailed. 
 And besought him for protection 
 From the danger thus entailed. 
 
 [52] 
 
Quickly bruin scratched his fore paw, 
 
 And besmeared with his warm blood 
 
 Both cheeks of the fallen red man ; 
 
 And the lion spurned for food 
 
 Flesh that thus the bear had tainted, 
 
 And he smote the Indian's cheek 
 
 With his paw, making deep scratches. 
 
 And rushed on, new prey to seek. 
 
 Then the bright blood from the bear's paw. 
 
 And the lion's scratches dun 
 
 Were preserved by the poor Indian, 
 
 Long exposed unto the sun. 
 
 So upon the red men's faces 
 Is the legend handed down; 
 Dire contention, sure deliverance 
 In the streaks of red and brown. 
 
 Then all turned unto the Prophet, 
 Braves and women, young and old, 
 Urging there a repetition 
 Of the story often told. 
 Wondrous legend of creation 
 Of the brown race of the wild; 
 And with strange, syllabic sweetness 
 He begun it as a child. 
 
 [53] 
 
MYTH OF THE CREATION OF RED MEN 
 
 It was Nijinduke Klosekombeh 
 
 That prepared the earth for red men : 
 
 Then he met an aged woman, 
 
 And she called him Noosus (grandson). 
 
 She was bowed, the old Nokami, 
 
 Mother of all earthly beings. 
 
 "I am old," she said unto him, 
 "But when shone the sun in heaven 
 Warm upon the dewy mountains, 
 I sprang forth unto my mission: 
 I will keep your lodge and furnish 
 Food and comfort for your children." 
 
 The next day came to Klosekombeh, 
 A youth, who hailed him as Nassarsis, 
 Meaning thus "my mother's brother." 
 He had all the bloom and beauty 
 And perfection of dame nature, 
 And he owed his fair existence 
 To the sun on foam of waters ; 
 And the winds of heaven bore him 
 To the lands to find a sweet bride. 
 Whom the bloom of plants should bear him. 
 
 Yet another morrow dawning. 
 Brought him then a beauteous maiden. 
 On her brow was all the color 
 Of a life of true perfection ; 
 
 [54] 
 
And with downcast eyes she greeted 
 All who met her; and Klosekombeh 
 Named her Neegoroose, men's mother. 
 Then Klosekombeh joined in wedlock 
 Sun and bloom-bom youth and maiden. 
 
 "I am love," she told her husband, 
 
 "And I give to you my being; 
 
 And if you my wish shall grant me, 
 
 All the world, e'en beasts, will love me ; 
 
 I am gentle, kind and tender. 
 
 Yet I am in power a wonder, 
 
 And a woe's in store for that one 
 
 Who would taint a life so pure. 
 
 I sprang from a fragrant flower 
 
 Of a plant the earth had nourished: 
 
 Dew of morning and of evening 
 
 Fell as seed in bud of perfume. 
 
 And the sun the dew warmed sweetly. 
 
 Bringing thus the life I give you." 
 
 Then Klosekombeh called the spirit 
 Of the lightning to the deadwood. 
 That a fire might thus be kindled, 
 To prepare for food the fishes, 
 Beasts and birds ; and old Nokami 
 Taught them then to eat as healthful 
 Nuts and fruits and roots abundant. 
 And to drink the crystal waters, 
 Whence she sprang in life's bright fountain. 
 
 [55] 
 
Thus began the race of Red Men ; 
 And great peace and full contentment 
 Were their lot for many seasons. 
 
 "I," said Bogue, "stood one among them 
 In the moon-lit winter air, 
 As 'twas common to Arcadians 
 To their wigwams to repair, 
 When, upon far missions traveling, 
 We had need of food and rest ; 
 And our good Franciscan brothers 
 Often spake of them the best. 
 As the prophet closed his legend, 
 All acclaiming the sweet lay. 
 Echoing from the hills about us, 
 I could hear the dogs' wild bay, 
 And the whoops of braves resounding 
 Nearer, clearer, louder still ; 
 Presently fur-laden sledges 
 Drawn by dogs came o'er the hill : 
 Then all cried, "The trappers, hunters, 
 And the dogs, with game and skins. 
 Are returning, thank Nokami, 
 Winter gladness now begins." 
 
 Then in silence sat the Hermit 
 Till good-night was said again. 
 And he went by the dim starlight 
 To his lodge beyond the fen. 
 
 [56] 
 
THE GIFT OF INDIAN CORN 
 
 A LEGEND 
 
 When the gold and purple sunset 
 Closed a genial day in May 
 The pioneers the Hermit welcomed, 
 Heard again his rustic lay. 
 
 In the long-past days primeval 
 Famine dire came to the red man, 
 And his paradise no longer 
 Gave him bliss, but anguish only : 
 For the fish and game had failed him. 
 Disappeared the lakes and rivers: 
 And in great distress he wrestled 
 With the spirit of the wildwood, 
 Called to aid the best magicians : 
 But their wizard arts were futile. 
 Presently appeared a virgin 
 Most resplendent in her beauty. 
 Clad not save in waving torrents 
 Of black tresses, o'er her figure 
 Falling as a perfect mantle. 
 
 Then the youths, charmed by her graces, 
 Straight forgot the bite of hunger: 
 And her black eyes, bright with passion. 
 Soon enthralled the bravest of them. 
 Who in marriage gave her wampum. 
 
 .. [5'!'] 
 
Only three short days were blissful: 
 
 Then a spell of deepest sadness 
 
 Fell upon the young bride's spirit : 
 
 With indifference was clouded 
 
 Her sweet face, so late entrancing. 
 
 In the quiet depths of midnight 
 
 She would wander from the wigwam, 
 
 To return when dawn was breaking. 
 
 One drear night her mate, heartbroken, 
 
 Followed far her ghost-like footsteps. 
 
 Hoping some act to discover, 
 
 That would break the spell that bound her. 
 
 Through the dark and tangled forest. 
 
 To the river-bed then barren 
 
 He the nymph divine was tracing. 
 
 When her song most weird and doleful. 
 
 Like a loon's note in the meadow, 
 
 Pealed and echoed in the distance. 
 
 She retreated in the forest, 
 
 And the youth no more could follow, 
 
 But sat on the shore dejected. 
 
 Then again he heard the echo 
 
 Of her song, like wild winds wailing. 
 
 And he saw her form emerging 
 
 From the woods across the river. 
 
 She was in delirious rapture. 
 
 And the glades rang with her laughter. 
 
 [58] 
 
On the beach he saw an object 
 
 Clinging to her slender ankle, 
 
 Bearing semblance to a serpent. 
 
 Like a lightning-bolt the Indian 
 
 Sprang to render her assistance: 
 
 But, e'er he from his concealment 
 
 Had emerged, his eyes in wonder 
 
 Saw beneath her feet the water 
 
 Of the river bubbling greatly. 
 
 Saw it full of jumping fishes: 
 
 Deer and moose came down to drink it. 
 
 Seeming well to know his coming. 
 
 Swam she then across to meet him. 
 
 As she waded up the shallows. 
 
 With wide open arms to greet him. 
 
 Rushed the Indian to receive her : 
 
 But before they met he noticed 
 
 A long leaf tied to her ankle. 
 
 Which, when seen across the river, 
 
 He'd mistaken for a serpent. 
 
 From her limb he saw it falling: 
 
 And the spell was changed thus quickly : 
 
 For again the river waters 
 
 And the fishes all had vanished: 
 
 Game the forests had deserted. 
 
 The young bride but for a moment 
 More resplendent seemed than ever: 
 Then she turned her back unto him. 
 Sat aloof upon a boulder, 
 
 [69] 
 
Covered by her raven tresses. 
 
 Then the young brave, wild with passion, 
 
 Prostrate at her feet, implored her 
 
 To explain the changeful wonder: 
 
 At her bidding life he'd forfeit 
 
 For the weal of all the red men. 
 
 Then she turned, in sweetness saying, 
 
 "Know, my brave, I am the daughter 
 
 Of the Spirit Great and Bounteous, 
 
 And am sent to save your people 
 
 From calamity most direful. 
 
 With a stone axe kill my body. 
 
 Draw it round the open spaces 
 
 In the forest, till with leaf-mould 
 
 Shall be mingled blood and sinew: 
 
 Bury then the wasted remnant 
 
 In the pine-clad earth's warm bosom. 
 
 Nothing else can give assurance 
 
 Of salvation to your people." 
 
 Such a cruel deed the young man 
 Stout averred he'd never compass: 
 He would suffer endless torture. 
 Rather than to shed the life-blood 
 Of so beautiful a creature. 
 Back unto the lodge he led her: 
 Of the young braves called a counsel. 
 Sternly rose their resolution: 
 Her decree they'd never sanction. 
 Then the old men were assembled, 
 
 [60] 
 
As the last resort in counsel: 
 And to them the strange appearance, 
 Want and plenty alternating, 
 And the appeal of the fair stranger, 
 That over her husband's shoulder 
 Should be shot a flint-head arrow, 
 Taking thus the life she'd forfeit, 
 As decreed by the Great Spirit, 
 Seemed to justify the action. 
 
 Long the will of the young warrior 
 Strove against the cruel venture: 
 Vowed he that the bow and arrow 
 By his strength should never carry 
 Polished flint, to shed the heart's blood 
 Of his heaven-gifted consort. 
 When at length they found another 
 Who would brave the undertaking, 
 Then he quickly took upon him 
 The unwelcome execution: 
 For he thereupon determined 
 That the arrow, aimed high upward. 
 Should transcend its deadly mission. 
 
 Back of him full twenty paces 
 Meek and calm there stood his loved one. 
 Waiting for the consummation. 
 From the throng, that stood expectant, 
 Then emerged the trusted chieftain. 
 Bringing him the bow and arrow. 
 Grasped he both as in convulsion: 
 [61] 
 
In his might he drew the bow-string, 
 And the arrow shot like lightning, 
 Back and upward in the tree-tops. 
 Dead and dry a limb of hornbeam 
 Glanced the fatal missive downward, 
 And it pierced his darling's bosom, 
 Spilling on the ground her life blood: 
 So she died without a murmur: 
 But her slayer then in anguish 
 Rent the forest with his wailing. 
 And for many days ensuing 
 Tireless drew the lifeless body 
 In a willow wicker basket. 
 With wild roses deeply pillowed, 
 O'er the leaf-mould, that was drinking 
 Of the dew and rain from heaven. 
 Then the wasted form he buried 
 In the bosom of the pine lands. 
 
 In his loneliness and sorrow 
 At the grave he kept his watches. 
 With wood fires at night repelling 
 Every spright of evil genius, 
 Till at length from fasts and vigils 
 He became so weak and wasted. 
 That the fuel he replenished. 
 On his hands and knees slow crawling. 
 Then, indeed. Oh, gracious wonder! 
 Witnessed he the resurrection 
 Of the body in the green blades, 
 
 [62] 
 
That bore com in great profusion. 
 Ne'er before had seen the red men 
 Food hke that — 'twas sent from heaven. 
 Strong they waxed from it partaking : 
 And supreme was their contentment. 
 One blade grew without fruition, 
 Which, instead of bark of willow, 
 Smoked they in their pipes gladhearted. 
 The Great Spirit thus had sent them. 
 For repose of mind and body, 
 Tomoonal and tomawae. 
 (Corn and tobacco.) 
 
 Thus the weird narration ended; 
 Magic of the harp-strings lulled. 
 On a couch the Hermit slumbered: 
 Glowing hearth-fire embers dulled. 
 
 [63] 
 
PART IV 
 CENTENARY 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
 The bard sat on the steep, and he was gray ; 
 He looked upon the stars with eyes of clay, 
 The stars that rose and sank beyond the hills ; 
 'T was there he tuned his harp to sound of 
 
 rills ; 
 And as their cadence fell upon his ears, 
 Fires, kindling in his heart, burned out his 
 
 fears. 
 And lit his late dull eyes with vision's flame. 
 That urged his thought astir, and gave it name. 
 And then he sang of mount and mead and pine, 
 Of men whose lofty wills could not incline 
 To bow unto oppression's galling yoke. 
 Who in the wild Freedom's glad pathway 
 
 broke ; 
 Of men who lords and kings disdained to be, 
 Who felled the virgin wood and cleared the lea, 
 Built in the wilderness the shrine of right. 
 And cleft wrong's fetters forged in feudal 
 
 might. 
 He smote the quivering strings and sang of 
 
 home 
 Made where the ancient forest used to gloam. 
 Foreshadowing sheltered lawns and stretching 
 
 leas. 
 With apple bloom and hum of busy bees. 
 Ancestral hearths, lamp-lights, thanksgiving 
 
 boards, 
 
 [67] 
 
The rarest worth that jealous memory hoards 
 Of toys and books, of rural song and lore, 
 The tear-dimmed eye, the blessing at the door, 
 As one by one the grown and scattering brood 
 Essayed the world's wide fields of ill and good ; 
 The hand-thrown shuttle and the spinning 
 
 wheel, 
 The flax and wool wound on the elbow-reel; 
 Quaint sounds and sights were mingled in the 
 
 lay. 
 As sang the pastoral bard the bygone day: 
 But most of all he joyed that feudal power 
 Had there no castle built with moat and tower. 
 
 [68] 
 
MONTVILLE 
 
 My Montville, visions of a hundred years 
 Hallow my smiles and consecrate my tears ; 
 The pride your mountains speak unto the sea. 
 Witness, O throng, this anniversary, 
 'T is not their wooded slopes, nor orchards 
 
 fair, 
 Nor fields that sickles wait, nor garners there, 
 Nor lakes, nor streams, nor marts, nor busy 
 
 mills, 
 Nor rose-embowered homes, that plenty fills ; 
 'T is men both tall and strong in heart and 
 
 hope. 
 And women true and tried with them to cope 
 For civic weal: this do your mountains proud. 
 With heads erect, boast to the sea and cloud. 
 The man that strides afield is more than swain ; 
 Laws, marts and ethics aggrandize his brain; 
 Of signs in earth and tokens in the sky 
 Science has taught him her utility ; 
 And he who fells the oak has prophet gift. 
 And destiny divines in grain and rift. 
 
 Some tell us gold and gems are in the West, 
 Beneath the Southern Cross life's fruits are 
 
 best. 
 Perpetual sunshine adds to length of days, 
 And the dream islands lie in tropic bays: 
 
 [69] 
 
But when the wanderer returns at last, 
 
 And counts his treasure lost and sorrow past, 
 
 Joy crowns the hills that wall our tempered 
 
 clime. 
 Brief days and star-lit nights he counts sub- 
 lime. 
 Whether the leaf is green, or winter white. 
 Flocks in the pastures feed, or birds take 
 
 flight; 
 The fields, the herds, the woods, the birds, the 
 
 lea. 
 The mount, the river wending to the sea, 
 All claim the heart weary of alien skies ; 
 Where first he saw the light is paradise. 
 
 Beside the river there and in the dale 
 The soldier sleeps who heard the rattling hail 
 Of war's wild storms, but faltered not to go 
 And save his land and kin from blight and woe ; 
 The child with golden tress, the mother young, 
 Who left the world, the cradle song unsung ; 
 The youth, the old, the good, the reverend head 
 Are treasure-trove — we count them not as dead : 
 Hearts of our kind within this zone of fear. 
 Seeing of life the shadowy marge appear. 
 They took in trust the compass and the chart, 
 To find of being here the counterpart. 
 
 [70] 
 
The school, the spring, where at the bubbling 
 
 brink 
 True aspirations rise, but never sink 
 To drown the thoughts of childhood's radiant 
 
 days, 
 As in the pool we dip the fading bays ; 
 Twin founts are they of virtue and of light, 
 Before whose rising flood departs the night. 
 Youth, drinking there, shall gain an Atlas 
 
 strength, 
 And on broad shoulders bear the world at 
 
 length : 
 And drinking, some shall stay and others go. 
 But on the lips of all the draught shall show 
 What is the gift that makes for highest good, 
 The gift of God and human brotherhood. 
 
 Return bearing your shields, or on them dead, 
 The battle fought, the Spartan mothers said. 
 Such valor, sons of light, knew ancient Greece. 
 Stern was her age, but yours flutes sweet in 
 
 peace. 
 Heed ye the stern command never the less ; 
 Ye must be tried in fires of righteousness. 
 Ours is the age that burns as ovens burn. 
 And proud and wicked hearts to ashes turn 
 As stubble: so the Hebrew prophet told: 
 The dross shall disappear, leaving the gold. 
 
 [71] 
 
If for that heated fray one takes the field, 
 True pride shall hail him back bearing his 
 
 shield, 
 Or on it dead, since for the right he fought, 
 And none shall speak his life as come to naught, 
 But all about him shall his loss bemoan. 
 And they who knew him say in undertone, 
 How is the strong staff broken, and the rod 
 Of beauty ! as they turn reluctant sod. 
 'T is better thus to go than wistful stay. 
 And guard the paltry hoard for life's ill day. 
 Heaven keeps the priceless treasure time has 
 
 lost, 
 Counts him who fights for right more than a 
 
 host. 
 Valor like that gladdens the century past; 
 Honor thus bright awaits the goal at last. 
 He who shall sing the next centennial song 
 Will own this truth I fain would waft along. 
 
 [72] 
 
AT THE GOLDEN WEDDING 
 
 I've been walking to-day in ancestral ways, 
 
 And thinking of days that are gone, 
 Of a sheltering roof and orchards round. 
 
 With bloom like the blush of morn ; 
 And the brooks and birds and bees astir 
 
 Made nature's symphonies. 
 And the corn and grain, in the sun and rain. 
 
 Of bread were prophecies. 
 'Twas my grandfather's house and indeed your 
 home, 
 
 O matron with silver hair, 
 'Twas you. Uncle John, in life's buoyant morn. 
 
 That found her a maiden there. 
 
 I've been walking softly in sooth to-day 
 
 In my tracks of fifty years, 
 I've traced them back to a white spired church 
 
 Of my childhood smiles and tears; 
 I've sat in a green pew cushioned green, 
 
 And heard what a good man said. 
 The strange things told — things new and old — 
 
 From an old, old book he read. 
 'Twas you, O matron with silver hair. 
 
 That guided the children's thought, 
 'Twas you. Uncle John, in Life's broadening 
 morn. 
 
 Superintending the lessons taught. 
 
 [73] 
 
I've been listening to-day to hear again 
 
 The boom of the distant gun 
 In the seaport town that told renown 
 
 By our gallant soldiers won ; 
 When, the Nation's flag and fate assailed 
 
 By impassioned men in gray, 
 My kindred with loyal legions fell: 
 
 In unknown graves their clay. 
 'Twas you, O matron, with silver hair, 
 
 In your tears' mute eloquence 
 That saw Uncle John the bright blue don 
 
 For his country's strong defence. 
 
 I linger at the ancestral home, 
 
 In the pathos of a sigh, 
 That True, the old folks' living hope, 
 
 On the battlefield should die. 
 One soldier had left his parents old. 
 
 The other, his children young, 
 Would not a righteous God keep both 
 
 From death, by the bullets stung? 
 'Twas you, O matron with silver hair, 
 
 That to parents the hard news told, 
 'Twas you, Uncle John, when the fight was won. 
 
 That cared for both young and old. 
 
 [74] 
 
I linger in the home retreat, 
 
 Though it's getting late I fear, 
 For the shadows creep o'er the day's last steep, 
 
 And the twinkling stars appear. 
 But I love the balmy air of eve 
 
 That follows the burning sun, 
 And the orbs of heaven in myriads given, 
 
 When the glare of day is gone. 
 'Tis to you, O matron with silver hair. 
 
 That we rightful homage pay, 
 'Tis to you. Uncle John, that we say, "Well 
 done," 
 
 On your Golden Wedding Day. 
 
 [75] 
 
THE SCHOOLGROUND SPRING 
 
 'MoNG the moss and wild florescence 
 Of the tangled copse and vines, 
 With a placid opalescence, 
 Lent by gems in earth's rare mines, 
 In dulcet and mild pulsations. 
 Still as ether-waves' vibrations 
 Breaking on a viewless shore, 
 Rise thy waters as of yore. 
 
 Now as then the brink's o'erflowing 
 Works its way through plash and sedges, 
 Past the gray primordial ledges. 
 Thence to meadow-channel going. 
 To find respite in the sea^ — 
 Respite I would find in thee, 
 O cool spring, haunt of my childhood. 
 Sheltered by a plat of wildwood. 
 Left by woodman's axe, a boon 
 To the school-boy's sultry noon. 
 
 In thy mirror's crystal crowning 
 
 Do I look for the reflection 
 
 Of a boyhood face in vain, 
 
 Flushed with pleasure and with frowning. 
 
 With high hope and deep dejection, 
 
 Like the days that wax and wane. 
 
 [76] 
 
In the strange and brooding stillness 
 That thy magic holds enchanted, 
 Pause I, as to hear in shrillness 
 Voices that the dell once haunted. 
 
 From the swart grove, from the meadows, 
 From the school-room, grounds and knoll, 
 Hush o'er hush my spirit shadows, 
 And, for voicings to the soul, 
 Turn I to the fount's sweet throbbing. 
 To the low boughs' breath-roused sobbing, 
 To the spell within the air. 
 That seems lurking everywhere: 
 
 Not in vain: for like a vision 
 Bursting on my dreamy gaze. 
 Fancy makes for me a mission. 
 Bringing back my boyhood days. 
 
 [77] 
 
INSECT INDUSTRY 
 
 The hazel copse the school-boy's noon 
 Would well have made a sheltering boon, 
 But for the hornet's ancient art, 
 That wondrous instinct did impart. 
 It made its nest, then in it curled, 
 First paper-maker in the world. 
 It ran its mill, and like to men, 
 Lest others learn its craft and ken. 
 It posted notice fair and clear, 
 "No visitor can enter here." 
 Insooth we read it, we could read; 
 Of warning took a proper heed. 
 And when it said, "My busy day," 
 We took the hint, and kept away. 
 
 [78] 
 
PART V 
 THE SEASONS 
 
EARLY SPRING 
 
 Winter's firm grasp with icy arms 
 Reluctant yields unto the charms 
 Of toying waves and sparkling rills, 
 With which the flooding spring-time fills 
 Its bosom, while the lakelet's shore 
 With flaky foam is silvered o'er. 
 
 Maples and elms, with prudence rare, 
 
 Have flung no banners on the air: 
 
 They stand like knights with lance in rest, 
 
 Defiant to the breezes' zest. 
 
 Bursts fitfuly the rattling hail 
 On Phoebus' burnished shafts of gold, 
 Descends in moulten silver showers. 
 And sinks in glades of sodden mold. 
 
 [81] 
 
SUMMER GRACE 
 
 Past a clear pool lately going, 
 Saw we water lilies growing, 
 Stars within a liquid sky, 
 Dropped from the blue dome on high. 
 
 [82] 
 
AUTUMN POMP 
 
 Hail, September, bronzed and sturdy, 
 Breaking through the mists of summer, 
 Followed by a train of sunshine, 
 That shall deck thy noble standards 
 With autumnal wreaths of glory. 
 Sound recall unto the reapers: 
 Prouder troops ne'er stood for combat 
 Than the host with golden helmets, 
 Challenging a bloodless onset. 
 Call for aids the youths and maidens: 
 Let spring's sunlight shed in beauty 
 Greet with sheaves the moon of harvest. 
 Waxing full and waning slowly. 
 
 [83] 
 
WINTER WAYS 
 
 White winter strides across the moors, 
 And builds the fires and shuts the doors 
 The chimney corner's cosey seat 
 Has hence become a glad retreat. 
 Heaven's signal-light is ruddy Mars, 
 Among the wolf-eyed, hungry stars. 
 
 [84] 
 
SNOWFALL 
 
 With crystal eyes 
 
 Oped in the skies, 
 With wings of sparry spangles, 
 
 In ghostly plight — 
 
 A habit light, 
 That loosely round me dangles, 
 
 I fill the air 
 
 With visions rare, 
 And blanch the somber meadows 
 
 My woolly feet 
 
 The cold earth meet 
 As noiselessly as shadows. 
 
 From frith and bay 
 
 And ocean's way 
 I climbed the sunbeams golden, 
 
 O'er mountain walls, 
 
 In castle halls, 
 By dewy hands was holden. 
 
 A pompous king 
 
 Bade menials bring 
 Me robes of downy feather, 
 
 Then called me snow. 
 
 And let me go, 
 To grace the winter weather. 
 
 [85 1 
 
O'er field and down 
 
 And road and town 
 I toy and twirl and flutter: 
 
 Fair cheeks I kiss 
 
 Of lad and miss, 
 But praises never utter. 
 
 The fen's meek crest, 
 
 The marsh-grass nest, 
 By water-fowl forsaken, 
 
 I cover o'er 
 
 With wrappings hoar. 
 Till spring their life shall waken. 
 
 Caressing now 
 
 The mountain's brow, 
 I court the spectral stillness : 
 
 From one lone bird 
 
 A note is heard 
 To trill the air in shrillness. 
 
 Through woods I wend. 
 
 The branches bend, 
 I make an arch and ceiling: 
 
 The pines' low boughs 
 
 Whisper their vows. 
 Mid incense heavenward stealing. 
 
 [86] 
 
I nestle round 
 The grassy mound, 
 
 The sear blades stoop and shiver, 
 And sadly sigh 
 That life's fond tie 
 
 Is sundered by its Giver. 
 
 From turret gray 
 
 At break of day 
 The startled pigeon's cooing 
 
 And sparrow's prate 
 
 Unto his mate. 
 Proclaim my magic doing. 
 
 As night shades fall, 
 
 My silent call 
 Is made at every dwelling, 
 
 The plenty-blessed. 
 
 The want-oppressed. 
 Alike my steps repelling. 
 
 The cliff's dun verge 
 
 My feet would urge 
 To meet the bounding billows : 
 
 I go to sleep 
 
 Within the deep, 
 On soft and foam-white pillows. 
 
 [87] 
 
A VISION 
 
 At eventide the miller took 
 Beside the fire his wonted nook, 
 And as the stones their rounds would keep, 
 He presently dropped off to sleep. 
 Then through his slumbering senses stole 
 A rapturous vision of the soul: 
 There seemed to drop before his eyes 
 A Jacob's ladder from the skies. 
 
 Outside the sleety sky had cleared: 
 
 Fair to the west the wind had veered. 
 
 White looked the moon through cloud-fleece 
 
 white. 
 White peered the stars that winter night, 
 White were the woods and fields and hill. 
 White lay the snow upon the mill: 
 White flour the floor made white within. 
 White stones and bolt their rumbling din. 
 White-cased in clear resounding pine. 
 Kept on, while he in rapt recline, 
 With white upon his frock and hat. 
 That, fallen, lay upon the mat. 
 Saw dreamy forms in white appear. 
 Bespeaking him an heavenly cheer. 
 
 [88] 
 
The miller gazed full fair and long, 
 Till on his ears burst forth a song. 
 Was it from the immortals bright? 
 If so, they vanished from his sight. 
 And forms that late in life he knew 
 Went back into the ether blue. 
 
 [89] 
 
ACROSS THE ZONES 
 
 I SIT among the snows of winter keen, 
 Where sad-voiced winds bemoan the tragic scene 
 Of sea and land, that wage a bitter fight 
 Beneath the wolf-eyed, hungry stars of night, 
 And the ice-laden bark is madly hurled 
 Against the crags, caught in a drowning world. 
 
 I, who so late talked with the whispering pines. 
 That with their fadeless green bedeck the water 
 
 lines, 
 And with the oaks voiced by the zephyrs low, 
 Greeting the holly and the mistletoe. 
 Albeit, Northland or the sunny South, 
 Divided heart, I own I love them both. 
 
 [90] 
 
MOUNT ST. BERNARD 
 
 (Translation from the French) 
 
 From thickly shrouded skies the snow 
 Is rushing through the vaulted atmosphere; 
 
 The shapeless drifts incessant grow 
 Round St. Bernard's old summits lone and 
 drear. 
 
 Each pass bemoans obstruction bleak ; 
 Shade falls, and on the wild winds of the night, 
 
 From his dim, solitary peak, 
 The eagle hurls a final scream of fright. 
 
 At that lone cry, presaging ill, 
 A traveller, chilled, pauses with bated breath, 
 
 Then sinks beneath the storm and chill 
 Upon the precipice, awaiting death. 
 
 Steals on apace the final hour. 
 No watch attending 'neath the inky skies; 
 
 Fate lurking in the clouds that lower. 
 For aye would close the cold lids on his eyes. 
 
 There in his dazed and wandering thought 
 Visions of wife and children now appear 
 
 About his couch with ices fraught. 
 Adding a double horror to his fear. 
 
 [91] 
 
Oh, great surprise ! Oh, chance most strange ! 
 Faintly he hears the tinkle of a bell; 
 
 The sound augments at shorter range ; 
 A gleam of light breaks through the darksome 
 spell. 
 
 Anon, indeed, another sound 
 Relieves the pain of listening suspense; 
 
 It is the barking of a hound. 
 That with a monk would brave the storm in- 
 tense. 
 
 Joy, echoing in the dog's clear bay. 
 Rouses the lost one from his sinking state ; 
 
 Grim death, thus foiled, lets slip his prey, 
 And charity recounts a wonder great. 
 
 [92] 
 
THE TRANSIT OF YEARS 
 
 Sunset of gold and star-light glowing, 
 And a nameless rhythm flowing 
 In the music of the spheres, 
 That would lull to sleep the years: 
 Of one that now meets the calm 
 Of the western crimson chamber, 
 Wealth and beauty let's embalm. 
 Sure as gauzy wings in amber; 
 Cherish as the words of sages. 
 Crystals of the thought of ages. 
 
 How fell Time betrays his trust ! 
 
 Deeper ever in the dust 
 
 Sinks the stone that genius' breath 
 
 Touched with triumph over death. 
 
 The earth-worms and elements, 
 
 Leagued, despoil the tenements 
 
 In which earth's rare sons and daughters 
 
 Once lit fires of eloquence. 
 
 Reverie, cease : the stars are glowing, 
 
 And a nameless rhythm's flowing 
 
 In the music of the spheres. 
 
 That would wake from sleep the years: 
 
 Of one that now meets the calm 
 
 Of the eastern rosy chamber, 
 
 [93] 
 
Wealth and beauty let's embalm. 
 Sure as gauzy wings in amber; 
 Cherish as the words of sages, 
 Crystals of the thought of ages. 
 
 [94] 
 
PART VI 
 BATTLE MEMORIES 
 
THE EAGLE AT LAKE GEORGE 
 
 Well hast thou chosen, daring bird, 
 To haunt this billowy bound to earth and sky, 
 
 These domes and peaks, a mighty herd. 
 That in disordered grandeur troop and vie. 
 
 Each most to trespass on the brink. 
 
 And deepest welling beauty drink. 
 
 Did this proud wilderness alone 
 Allure thy storm and tempest-loving heart 
 
 Here to deride the balked wind's moan. 
 And, pennon-shielded, breast the lightning's 
 dart, 
 
 To view above the storm's affray 
 
 The cloudless splendor of the day? 
 
 Or cam'st thou in avenging mood, 
 To haste the judgment heaven will mete at last. 
 
 And on fell violence's bloody brood 
 Hurl down a terror-wakening trumpet blast, 
 
 Mindful of father Jogues' death throes. 
 
 And fated William Henry's woes? 
 
 From some dim height may be thy glance 
 Oft runs the mazy water way along, 
 
 At thought that yet again perchance. 
 In pomp, with bugle note and martial song, 
 
 Down forest ways, through lake and gorge 
 
 Shall come the bannered host of George. 
 
 [97] 
 
FORT TICONDEROGA 
 
 Old Ti, dismantled and unguarded now, 
 Save by the buckthorn's bristling bayonets: 
 Standing upon thy crumbling battlements, 
 Within thy ancient barracks yet, methinks, 
 I catch a panoramic view of throngs. 
 Wearing successively insignia 
 Of France and Britain and America ; 
 Upon the wooded slope in fancy hear 
 Wounded and dying men, whose piercing cries 
 Nature long since to painless stillness soothed. 
 
 [98] 
 
THE SILENCE AT MOUNT MCGREGOR 
 
 Mute midnight the mount is holding, 
 Forest, glade and fount enfolding, 
 Sentry-pace the stars are keeping, 
 Round the silent soldier, sleeping 
 On his country's bosom, throbbing 
 'Neath the low boughs stifled sobbing. 
 Silent forest, silent fountain. 
 Silent midnight, silent mountain. 
 Silent stars, O witness ye. 
 Silent death and victory 1 
 
 Think we on the world's commanders. 
 On the Caesars, Alexanders, 
 On the Corsican's campaigning. 
 With ambition's glory waning. 
 Freedom, through the ripening ages. 
 Names of thine fill brightest pages. 
 Silent forest, silent fountain. 
 Silent midnight, silent mountain. 
 Silent stars, O witness ye. 
 Silent Grant's great victory 1 
 
 Battles fought and state-toil ended. 
 World-round our Ulysses wended. 
 Bane of lotus quick discerning. 
 Siren voices ever spurning. 
 Home the way he fain would single — 
 With our dust his ashes mingle. 
 
 [99] 
 
Silent forest, silent fountain, 
 Silent midnight, silent mountain, 
 Silent stars, O witness ye, 
 Silent loving victory ! 
 
 Lo! a blest transfiguration 
 Throws its halo round the nation ! 
 Alienation, to devotion 
 Turning like the tide of ocean, 
 Seas above the pale corse shrouded 
 Mighty virtues all unclouded. 
 Silent forest, silent fountain, 
 Silent midnight, silent mountain, 
 Silent stars, O witness ye. 
 Silent crowning victory! 
 
 [100] 
 
THE ENCAMPMENT 
 
 Now on our Northern hills, 
 
 At close of day, 
 Ranks break and tents are pitched 
 
 By Blue and Gray. 
 
 Not as when Lee and Meade 
 
 Struck, and were riven 
 Their dauntless hosts, that tried 
 
 Before high Heaven 
 The dread arbitrament: 
 
 But kind and still. 
 Face answering face, and hearts 
 
 Beating one will. 
 E'en as when on the slope 
 
 The Hessians' fires 
 Flared on the infant State 
 
 Born to our sires ; 
 So too, in common cause, 
 
 All hail to-day 
 Standards with spangled blue 
 
 O'er heads gro^vn gray. 
 
 [101] 
 
TO AN OLD SOLDIER 
 
 Soldier who knew a strife 
 
 Of blood thine own, 
 That on thy country's life 
 ' Dyed red a zone: 
 The tribute of the years 
 To thee, who knew no fears. 
 
 A hundred battles fought. 
 
 And their red tide. 
 Bearing the unforgot 
 
 Forth from thy side, 
 Nerved then thy heart anew 
 To breast the struggle through. 
 
 What meed hast thou for scars 
 And warm life blood — 
 
 Receipt and price of wars 
 For human good? 
 
 And some who wist not said, 
 
 "Go count him with the dead." 
 
 Methinks that Heaven decreed 
 That thou should'st live. 
 
 Example for a deed 
 That heroes give 
 
 To those whose cradles rock. 
 
 Swayed by the battle shock. 
 
 [102] 
 
A generation gone, 
 
 Another war 
 Fought out while yet the dawn 
 
 Of Freedom's star 
 Pales sweet on Orient hills ; 
 Her hope thy pulses thrills. 
 
 Dim grows the echoing boom 
 
 Of thunder shot ; 
 The iron hail becomes 
 
 Forget-me-not : 
 Stand thou, our pride, and hear 
 
 Homage thrice speaking cheer. 
 
 [103] 
 
MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 Mid balm-fraught zephyrs of the spring, 
 Going to couch in summer bowers, 
 After the sun and rain have called 
 From buds the nascent leaves and flowers, 
 Beauty to earth, voicings to air. 
 And myriad life to hold their sway. 
 Memory undying, emblem-wreathed. 
 Greets now a nobly solemn day. 
 
 O Wilderness of bloom ! Day, 
 To loyal hearts an honored trust! 
 How fitly do ye meet and blend 
 Above the brave boys' silent dust 
 And ashes dull, that fell beneath 
 Fair Freedom's fervid altar-flames, 
 While they, cheering the Union grand. 
 Went the star way, with deathless names ! 
 
 Through time's far flow and ages' trend 
 O'er empires to republics wide, 
 Columbia, her citadel 
 A beacon still above the tide. 
 Shall hail recurrence of this day. 
 And, bending o'er her soldier-dead. 
 Place flowers of a thousand hues, 
 A laurel wreath above each head. 
 
 [ 104 ] 
 
PART VII 
 TRIBUTES 
 
EMERITUS 
 
 With brow of silver and with beard of snow, 
 He stood among a wistful laureate throng, 
 His words of mellow thought in accents low 
 Voiced the refrain of life's pure, golden song. 
 The strange, sweet rhapsody that lights its 
 
 fire 
 In hearts accordant to the quivering strings, 
 When the time-wonted minstrel smites his lyre, 
 And unto all the listening ages sings, 
 Was felt and welcomed, if in joy or pain. 
 What then the import of his muse might be : 
 And first and last he sang old age a gairiy 
 Pronouncing thus its fitting eulogy. 
 
 [107] 
 
TO JOHN W. HUTCHINSON 
 
 (Eighty-second Anniversary) 
 
 Thou lofty singer of the century past, 
 Whose thrilling voice sent out a trumpet blast 
 'Gainst human slavery and the demon cup, 
 Asserted what God-given rights make up 
 The hope of woman and the multitude 
 Whose toils complete the sum of human good: 
 Columbia heard thee, when with visage pale, 
 She faltered not amid the iron hail 
 That swept the Nation's flower of youth away. 
 But cleared her skies for a serener day. 
 
 Thou silver tongued, now graced with silver 
 
 hair, 
 Full oft insooth in sweetly solemn air. 
 When bard, or seer, or warrior was laid low. 
 To sleep beneath the clover and the snow. 
 In tenderest strains, like symphonies of heaven. 
 Thy benediction song in love was given. 
 The lowly heard thee, when their own fair dead 
 Lay in the winding-sheet ; e'en at the head 
 Enrapt thou chantedst virtues that arise. 
 To bloom in beauty in the boundless skies. 
 
 Thou singer of keen wit and merriment. 
 The happy home and all that makes content 
 Around the hearthstone with its cheer and 
 
 grace. 
 Where bud and bloom the virtues of the race, 
 [ 108 ] 
 
And fibre grows within the family tree, 
 Strength for the State's proud ship of destiny. 
 Thy Country heard thy song among her hills, 
 Rhythmic and vibrant as the gushing rills 
 That leap adown her granite mountain walls, 
 When spring breaks through the white-wrapt 
 winter thralls. 
 
 Thou singer, not of the retreating past, 
 Thy gifted song insooth was born to last, 
 Abound, pervade, redound and permeate, 
 A light to men where ancient darkness sate; 
 E'en as the word, unlike to common lore, 
 Goes round the world, wafted from shore to 
 
 shore. 
 The bright celestials turn their listening ears. 
 They who have heard the music of the spheres, 
 Glad that the light of life may longer burn. 
 Late to the heavens abiding thy return. 
 
 [109] 
 
WALTER KITTREDGE 
 
 (Author of "Tenting To-night") 
 
 My sweet-songed Walter: now, indeed, too well 
 
 I know, 
 Tenting thou art beneath the clover and the 
 
 snow, 
 And though the days' reveille beauty round 
 
 thee flings, 
 Thy low tent's curtain for thee never outward 
 
 swings. 
 For us, however, who still tent upon this shore, 
 The cheer thy song can give is echoed o'er and 
 
 o'er. 
 On all of life's great battlefields in all the world, 
 And will be, when the battle-flags in peace are 
 
 furled. 
 
 [110] 
 
A GARNERED LIFE 
 
 (Death of Senator George F. Hoar) 
 
 Once more, O Mother State, the sheaves 
 Of harvest stand upon the hills. 
 And he who gamers small and great. 
 Anticipates the frost that kills. 
 
 More tardily would he had plied 
 His sickle to the field aglow 
 With growth of grain so full and ripe. 
 No blight nor chill can harm it now. 
 
 And not the shadow of a cloud 
 Entrains the closing of the day 
 Across the fallowing of the mold. 
 That turns the glebe back into clay. 
 
 Though in the time of falling leaf 
 'Tis mete that harvest joys abound, 
 O Commonwealth and sister States, 
 Your countless tears bedew the ground: 
 
 Not tears of unexpected loss, 
 
 But of immeasurable gain. 
 
 That from the granary of God 
 
 Shall sow the world with good amain. 
 
 [Ill] 
 
ELEGIAC 
 
 Under the promontory's crest 
 
 There is a spot of pillowed rest, 
 
 Couched in the scented bloom of May, 
 
 Kissed by the dew and wafted spray. 
 
 The ruby blushes of the morn 
 
 With beauty's glow this spot adorn: 
 
 The modest hues of parting light 
 
 Here linger late to say goodnight. 
 
 From distant shores the breaking sea 
 
 Is echoed here in elegy. 
 
 The mountains yonder, rising high, 
 
 Clad in the mystery of the sky. 
 
 Since to them such a trust is given. 
 
 Guard well this gateway unto heaven. 
 
 The star that shineth over all 
 
 From fading day to morning call. 
 
 Lest seas should slumber, mountains sleep. 
 
 Doth here long nightly vigils keep. 
 
 [112] 
 
BIRD 
 
 'TwAs my school-boy, with eyes of blue, 
 Lent from the sky in smiling June, 
 With heart in youth as strong and true 
 As fullest manhood ever knew, 
 But gentle as the zephyrs' sylvan tune. 
 
 [113] 
 
SWITZERLAND 
 
 Sweet Freedom hails her merited defence, 
 
 The very pillars of Omnipotence, 
 
 The gorge deep cut, the eternal-snow crowned 
 
 height. 
 Her garrison against tyrannic might. 
 Disdains she every proud berg-castled lord, 
 Civilians fostering, not a vassal horde. 
 Pure white she sits above the chariot-cloud. 
 Teaching in dales of green virtues to bud. 
 Where crystal waters from the glaciers flow 
 As constant as their source, the ceaseless snow, 
 Guiding pure souls above earth's storm and fray 
 Unto profound repose in perfect day. 
 
 [114] 
 
FOR THE PEACE OF THE WORLD 
 
 Come, sweet Peace, brood o'er the world, 
 
 Let the battle-flags be folded; 
 
 Best by council, not by war. 
 
 Nations' destinies are molded. 
 
 Blood of men gashed and slain. 
 
 Under the starlight, the dew and the rain. 
 
 Cries to Heaven yet again. 
 
 Yet again, but in vain. 
 
 Sons inspired by Bethlehem's song. 
 Stand in wisdom's right engaging. 
 Calm the troubled seas of state, 
 Speak rebuke to war's mad raging. 
 Blood of men gashed and slain. 
 Under the starlight, the dew and the rain. 
 Cries to Heaven yet again, 
 Yet again, but in vain. 
 
 Martial fame has gained its height; 
 
 Naught remains for song or story 
 
 In the awful holocaust 
 
 Of a strife ghastly and gory. 
 
 Blood of men gashed and slain. 
 
 Under the starlight, the dew and the rain. 
 
 Cries to Heaven yet again, 
 
 Yet again, but in vain. 
 
 [115] 
 
In the world's rich diadems 
 
 What's the gem of highest worth? 
 
 It is Peace, whose radiant light 
 
 Kissed the manger child at birth. 
 
 In the palaces of kings 
 
 What shall be the loftiest song? 
 
 Peace, with her arbitrament 
 
 Righting every nation's wrong. 
 
 On the hilltops of the world 
 
 What shall make the proudest day? 
 
 Peace, with battle-flags all furled. 
 
 Wars forever done away. 
 
 Then the blood of the gashed and slain, 
 
 Under the starlight, the dew and the rain, 
 
 Shall not cry to Heaven again, 
 
 Not again, as in vain. 
 
 [116] 
 
MY COUNTRY 
 
 Land of the free : Nation of nations : 
 Justice acclaims thee; tyrants lose sway: 
 Land of the light: Beacon to pilgrims: 
 Liberty hails thee ; empires decay. 
 
 Liberty's stars, Freedom and Justice, 
 Shed their pure rays in order and law 
 Constant forever: God is their author: 
 Patriots from Him their aegises draw. 
 
 Sons of oppression, Hesperian wanderers. 
 Fleeing the night, seeking the light: 
 At law's pure altar bow in devotion: 
 Enshrined there is right ; enthroned there is 
 might. 
 
 Sons of the Pilgrims, whose hallowed ashes 
 Patriot fires stern virtues attest: 
 Priceless your birthright: boon of the ages: 
 Yours is the west : yours is the best. 
 
 Father and Savior and Guardian of Freedom: 
 In this bright realm to despots unknown, 
 Purchase of heroes, ransom of life-blood, 
 History's cardinal virtues enthrone. 
 
 [117] 
 
Manhood and Brotherhood, Knights of true 
 
 causes : 
 Mix with the gold no glittering alloy: 
 Freedom with law, Justice with order. 
 Spangle your banner with peace and with joy. 
 
 [118] 
 
JAN 8 1913 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 I