Lyrics of Life

Florence Earle Coates

1909

Exported from Wikisource on July 24, 2024

LYRICS OF LIFE

BY

FLORENCE EARLE COATES

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

1909

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY FLORENCE EARLE COATES

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published December 1909

TO

S. WEIR MITCHELL

PHYSICIAN, NOVELIST, AND POET

WITH ADMIRATION

AND GRATEFUL REGARD

CONTENTS

PAGE

EARTH'S MYSTERY

1

A TRAVELLER FROM ALTRURIA

2

INDIAN-PIPE

5

LOVE, DOST THOU SMILE ?

6

THE LARK

7

"HONOR, NOT HONORS"

9

SONG : "SWEET IS THE BIRTH OF LOVE"

10

MOTHER

11

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

12

LEADERS OF MEN

14

HELEN KELLER WITH A ROSE

15

LEAVE-TAKING

16

VESTAL

17

THE HOUSE OF PAIN

18

TO-DAY

19

AFTER THE PAINTINGS BY GEORGE F. WATTS

I. LOVE AND DEATH

21

II. LOVE AND LIFE

23

APRIL

24

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

25

BEFORE THE DAWN

27

AB HUMO

29

NOCTURNE

30

A HERO

31

AMOR CREATOR

32

THE MIRROR

33

OF LOVE

34

AFTER THE PLAY

35

BEYOND

40

A FAREWELL

41

TO HENRY MILLS ALDEN

43

SONG : "IF LOVE WERE BUT A LITTLE THING"

45

WITH BREATH OF SPRING

46

A LOWLY PARABLE

47

INFLUENCE

49

THE POET

50

L'AMOUR FAIT PEUR

51

HONOR

52

EURYDICE

53

BEAUTY'S PATH

56

FRITZ SCHEEL—A TRIBUTE

57

REPROACH NOT DEATH

58

MARS—1907

59

BESIDE A PLEASANT SHORE

61

THE SUN-DIAL

62

RETROSPECT

63

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

65

THE PILGRIM

66

MOTHER-LOVE

69

"THE SENSE OF TEARS IN MORTAL THINGS"

70

AN AMERICAN AT LINCOLN

71

AFFINITY

73

TWO BROTHERS

74

CONFLICT AND REST

78

CHILD-FANCIES

I. ASPHODEL

79

II. GATHERED WILD-FLOWERS

80

DEARTH

81

MID-OCEAN

82

ON THE DEATH OF LADY CURZON

83

BEREFT

84

THE MARTYR JEWS

85

LE GRAND SALUT

86

INHERITOR

87

WHEN YOU CAME

88

THE YOUNG WIFE

89

SONG : "LOVE NEVER IS TOO LATE"

91

THE CHRIST OF THE ANDES

92

EARTH'S BLOSSOMS

93

ECHO CONSOLATRIX

94

JOHN HAY

95

PRIVILEGE

97

DÄI NIPPON

98

A LITTLE SONG

101

THE EMPTY HOUSE

102

KINDRED

103

COURAGE

105

CRUEL LOVE

106

"EACH AND ALL"

108

SAINT THERESA

109

IN MEMORY OF CAROLINE FURNESS JAYNE

111

AFTER

112

THE VIOLIN

113

PER ASPERA

115

THE HERMIT

116

THANKSGIVING

117

POETRY

118

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1927, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 96 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

LYRICS OF LIFE

EARTH'S MYSTERY

I LOOKED on Sorrow, tragical and dread;

Beheld the anguish in her sunken eyes,

Which yearned no longer upward to the skies,—

As dumbly pleading to be comforted,—

But bent their blinded vision on the dead:

The dead removed—how far!—from human sighs,

Lying majestic, as a conqueror lies,

Indifferent to tears, so costly shed.

But as I pondered, seeking, soul-oppressed,

To read the riddle of a world like this—

Where Nature still seems waiting to destroy,

I saw immortal Love descend and kiss,

With timid wonder, reverent and blest,

The quivering eyelids and the lips of Joy!

A TRAVELLER FROM ALTRURIA

HE came to us with dreams to sell—

Ah, long ago it seems!

From regions where enchantments dwell,

He came to us with dreams to sell,—

And we had need of dreams.

Our thought had planned with artful care,

Our patient toil had wrought,

The roomy treasure-houses where

Were heaped the costly and the rare,—

But dreams we had not bought:

Nay; we had felt no need of these,

Until with dulcet strain,

Alluring as the melodies

That mock the lonely on the seas,

He made all else seem vain;

Bringing an aching sense of dearth,

A troubled, vague unrest,

A fear that we, whose care on Earth

Had been to garner things of worth,

Had somehow missed the best.

Then, as had been our wont before,—

Unused in vain to sigh,—

We turned our treasure o'er and o'er,

But found in all our vaunted store

No coin that dreams would buy.

We stood with empty hands: but gay

As though upborne on wings,

He left us; and at set of day

We heard him singing, far away,

The joy of simple things!

He left us, and with apathy

We gazed upon our gold;

But to the world's ascendancy

Submissive, soon we came to be

Much as we were of old.

Yet sometimes when the fragrant dawn

In early splendor beams,

And sometimes when, the twilight gone,

The moon o'er-silvers wood and lawn,

An echo of his dreams

Brings to the heart a swift regret

That is not wholly pain,

And, grieving, we would not forget

The vision, hallowed to us yet,—

The hope that seemed so vain.

And then we envy not the throng

That careless passes by,

With no remembrance of the song,

Though we must listen still, and long

To hear it till we die!

INDIAN-PIPE

IN the heart of the forest arising,

Slim, ghostly, and fair,

Ethereal offspring of moisture,

Of earth and of air;

With slender stems anchored together

Where first they uncurl,

Each tipped with its exquisite lily

Of mother-of-pearl;

'Mid the pine-needles, closely enwoven

Its roots to embale,—

The Indian-pipe of the woodland,

Thrice lovely and frail!

Is this but an earth-springing fungus—

This darling of Fate

Which out of the mouldering darkness

Such light can create?

Or is it the spirit of Beauty,

Here drawn by love's lure

To give to the forest a something

Unearthy and pure:

To crystallize dewdrop and balsam

And dryad-lisped words

And starbeam and moonrise and rapture

And song of wild birds?

LOVE, DOST THOU SMILE?

LOVE, dost thou smile—believing thou shalt cheat

The triform Fates, because thou art so sweet?

Thy beauty, which delights and makes afraid,

Shall surely as the rose of autumn fade,

And pain and grief shall find thee, and slow scorn;

And thou shalt know neglect, and friendship hollow;

And at the last, pale hope, thy light of morn,

Shall bring thee to a goal where none will follow.

Love, dost thou weep—in all the sorrowing earth,

Thou the one only thing of perfect worth?

Midnight and morn alike to thee belong;

Poor, thou art rich; defenceless, thou art strong;

Upon thy altar burns perpetual fire

That mounts and flames aloft to heaven's high portal;

Thou quickenest, from evil, pure desire,—

Triumphant in defeat, in death immortal!

THE LARK

THERE is a legend somewhere told

Of how the skylark came of old

To the dying Saviour's cross,

And circling round that form of pain

Poured forth a wild, lamenting strain,

As if for human loss.

Pierced by those accents of despair,

Upon the little mourner there

Turning his fading eyes,

The Saviour said, "Dost thou so mourn,

And is thy fragile breast so torn,

That Man, thy brother, dies?

"O'er all the world uplifted high,

We are alone here, thou and I;

And near to heaven and thee

I bless thy pity-guided wings!

I bless thy voice—the last that sings

Love's requiem for me!

"Sorrow shall cease to fill thy song;

These frail and fluttering wings grown strong,

Thou shalt no longer fly

Earth's captive—nay, but boldly dare

The azure vault, and upward bear

Thy transports to the sky!"

Soon passed the Saviour; but the lark,

Close hovering near Him in the dark,

Could not his grief abate;

And nigh the watchers at the tomb,

Still mourned through days of grief and gloom,

With note disconsolate.

But when to those sad mourners came,

In rose and amethyst and flame,

The Dawn Miraculous,

Song in which sorrow had no part

Burst from the lark's triumphant heart—

Sweet and tumultuous!

An instant, as with rapture blind,

He faltered; then, his Lord to find,

Straight to the ether flew,—

Rising where falls no human tear,

Singing where still his song we hear

Piercing the upper blue!

"HONOR, NOT HONORS"

HAST thou for honor laid ambition down?

Honor, itself, shall be thy sure reward,

A guard more certain than a flaming sword,—

A crown—above a crown.

Since it is honor stays thy lofty quest,

Welcome the high defeat thy spirit dares!

Aye, wear it proudly as a victor wears

The star upon his breast!

Notes

1. ↑ Motto of Sir Richard Burton.

2. ↑ Motto of Sir Richard Burton.

SONG

SWEET IS THE BIRTH OF LOVE

SWEET is the birth of love, and the awaking,

The bashful dream, the faltering desire,

The vision fair—of all fair things partaking—

The wonder, the communicable fire:

Sweet is the need to give and to obtain,—

And sweet love's pain!

MOTHER

AT twilight here I sit alone,

Yet not alone; for thoughts of thee,—

Pale images of pleasure flown,—

Like homing birds, return to me.

Again the shining chestnut braids

Are soft enwreathed about thy brow,

And light—a light that never fades—

Beams from thine eyes upon me even now,

As, all undimmed by death and night,

Remembrance out of distance brings

Thy youthful loveliness, alight

With ardent hope and high imaginings.

Ah, mortal dreams, how fair, how fleet!

Thy yearnings scant fulfilment found;

Dark Lethe long hath laved thy feet,

And on thy slumber breaks no troubling sound;

Yet distance parts thee not from me,

For beauty—or of twilight or of morn—

Binds me, still closer binds, to thee,

Whose heart sang to my heart ere I was born.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

"Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis."

FRANKLIN! our Franklin! America's loved son!—

Loved in his day, and now, as few indeed:

Franklin! whose mighty genius allies won,

To aid her, in great need!

Franklin! with noble charm that fear allays,—

Tact, judgment, insight, humor naught could dim!—

"Antiquity," said Mirabeau, "would raise

Altars to honor him!"

How should one country claim him, or one hour?

Bound to no narrow circuit, and no time,

He is the World's—part of her lasting dower,

One with her hope sublime.

His kindred are the equable and kind

Whose constant thought is to uplift and bless;

The witty, and the wise, the large of mind,

Who ignorance redress:

His kindred are the bold who, undismayed,

Believe that good is ever within reach,—

All who move onward—howsoe'er delayed—

Who learn, that they may teach:

Who overcoming pain and weariness,

In life's long battle bear a noble part;

All who, like him,—greatest of gifts!—possess

The genius of the heart!

How should we praise whose deeds belittle praise,

Whose monument perpetual is our land

Saved by his wisdom, in disastrous days,

From tyranny's strong hand?—

How praise whose Titan-thought, beyond Earth's ken

Aspiring, tamed the lightnings in revolt,

Subduing to the will of mortal men

The awful thunderbolt?

Our debt looms larger than our love can pay:

We know not with what homage him to grace

Whose name outlasts the monument's decay,—

A glory to our race!

With tireless hope, he seems to move before

Beck'ning to all that helpful is and free:

A lover of mankind, inheritor

Of Immortality!

Notes

"Eripuit coelo fulmen, sceptrumque tyrannis": A line in Latin that Marquis Turgot wrote under a portrait of Franklin. An English translation by James Elphinston (pre-1817):

He snatcht the bolt from Heaven's avenging hand,

Disarm'd and drove the tyrant from the land.

LEADERS OF MEN

WHEN they are dead, we heap the laurels high

Above them where, indifferent, they lie:

We join their deeds to unaccustomed praise,

And crown with garlands of immortal bays

Whom, living, we but thought to crucify.

As mountains seem less glorious viewed too nigh,

So, often, do the great whom we decry

Gigantic loom to our astonished gaze—

When they are dead;

For, shamed by largeness, littlenesses die;

And partisan and narrow hates put by,

We shrine our heroes for the future days;

And to atone our ignorant delays

With fond and emulous devotion try,—

When they are dead!

HELEN KELLER WITH A ROSE

OTHERS may see thee; I behold thee not;

Yet most I think thee, beauteous blossom, mine:

For I, who walk in shade, like Proserpine—

Things once too briefly looked on, long forgot—

Seem by some tender miracle divine,

When breathing thee, apart,

To hold the rapturous summer warm within my heart.

We understand each other, thou and I!

Thy velvet petals laid against my cheek,

Thou feelest all the voiceless things I speak,

And to my yearning makest mute reply:

Yet a more special good of thee I seek,

For God who made—oh, kind!—

Beauty for one and all, gave fragrance for the blind!

LEAVE-TAKING

THOUGH hence I go—though with the fading day

I seem to fade away,—

Like to a primrose which beguiling Spring,

Too early fanning with perfumèd wing,

Tempts, only to betray:

Though soon I sleep,—yet sorrow not, nor fear

That you shall lose me, dear!

For not one cherished memory—

One single yearning of your heart for me,

Shall fail to bring me near!

How strange could death divide who, living, share

All happiness and care!

Still as you gaze, bereft of your desire,

On the dull embers of your lonely fire,

You shall behold me there,

And though through hiemal glooms you sometimes learn

To doubt, nor hope discern,—

Yet when the timid firstling buds awake,

And birds come back and sing, your heart to break,—

Always, I shall return!

VESTAL

SHE dwelt apart, as one whom love passed by,

Yet in her heart love glowed with steadfast beam;

And as the moonlight on a wintry stream

With paly radiance doth glorify

All barren things that in its circle lie,

So, from within, love shed so fair a gleam

About her, that it made her desert seem

A paradise, abloom immortally.

Some rashly pitied her; but, to atone,

If one perchance gazed long upon her face,

He grew to feel himself more strangely lone—

Love lent her look such amplitude of grace;

Yet who that would have made that love his own

Aught worthy had to offer in its place?

THE HOUSE OF PAIN

UNTO the Prison House of Pain none willingly repair,—

The bravest who an entrance gain

Reluctant linger there,—

For Pleasure, passing by that door, stays not to cheer the sight,

And Sympathy but muffles sound and banishes the light.

Yet in the Prison House of Pain things full of beauty blow,—

Like Christmas-roses, which attain

Perfection 'mid the snow,—

Love, entering, in his mild warmth the darkest shadows melt,

And often, where the hush is deep, the waft of wings is felt.

Ah, me! the Prison House of Pain!—what lessons there are bought!—

Lessons of a sublimer strain

Than any elsewhere taught,—

Amid its loneliness and gloom, grave meanings grow more clear,

For to no earthly dwelling-place seems God so strangely near!

TO-DAY

WHERE hast thou gone, my Day?

I meant to follow,

Extracting from thine every hour its sweet;

But thou, beguiling hope with pledges hollow,

Art flown on wingèd feet.

Hardly I greet thy morn,

The glory dwindles;

And as I plan thy moments with delight,

The evening-primrose in my pathway kindles

Her taper for the night.

Ah, too precipitate!

Might I not linger

To gather a stray blossom by the way,

But pointing onward with thy warning finger,

Thou must outstrip me, Day?

Gladly I welcomed thee,

An eager lover

Who deemed he knew each fleeting moment's cost.

Is there no way, no method, to recover

The treasure I have lost?

Ah, no! From Time, alas!

One may not borrow;

Nor move him what is squandered to restore.

The tide flows back, and there may dawn a morrow;

Thee I shall find no more.

AFTER THE PAINTINGS BY

GEORGE F. WATTS

I

LOVE AND DEATH

A MOMENT, Death!—only a moment more!

She is my all; have pity! stay thy hand!

Behold, a fearful suppliant I stand!—

Take not away what thou canst not restore!

At thy approach the birds have ceased to sing,

The roses of my lintel droop and pine,

The genial sun itself doth coldly shine,

And in thy shadow all seems darkening.

That thou art merciless, as men declare,

I'll not believe. Thy look is kind, not stern;

And they who judge thee ill, of me shall learn

To know thee better, Death!—for thou wilt spare!

See, thou art strong! and I am weak—so weak!

All beings that draw breath at last are thine:

Thou wilt not covet this sole joy of mine—

Nor to deprive me of its solace seek?

Yet come no nearer! Shouldst thou pass this door,

My heart that so importunes thee would break.

Go back a little! for compassion's sake,

Go back! and hither—ah, return no more!

In vain, in vain! O awful Majesty!

Thy very breath appalls my fluttering heart.

Invader dread, what strength have I, or art—

What, save my anguish, to oppose 'gainst thee? . . .

Enter! the door is open. Yet this much

Let my submission of thy pity earn:

When through the shaded portal thou return,

On me—me, also, lay thy easeful touch!

II

LOVE AND LIFE

THY hand I press,

And am not much afraid:

Though danger lie in wait in every glade,

Thou, Love, hast might to comfort and caress

My helplessness.

The way is steep;

But thou wilt soothe its pain;

And when at last the utmost height we gain,

To the soft shelter of thy wings I'll creep,

And sleep—and sleep.

The way is long;

But though I wearied be,

Still gazing upward, I shall gaze on thee;

And thy angelic voice, more sweet than song,

Will make me strong.

Whate'er betide,

I, Love,—who may not know

Whence I have journeyed, nor the way I go,—

Am still content to follow at thy side,

O deathless guide!

APRIL

SWELLING bud and fond suggestion,

Wafting of perfume,

Tearful rapture, thrilling question

Of restraint or bloom,

Life all dreamlessly asleeping,

As in death, but now,

Upward to the sunshine creeping,—

April, that is thou!

Mystery's authentic dwelling,

Faith's expanding wing,

Maiden loveliness foretelling

Fuller blossoming,

Prophet of the new creation,

Priestess of the bough,

Month of the imagination,—

April, that is thou!

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

1807-1882

IF tasting Heliconian springs

He of their waters drank not deep,

If, smiling, he beheld not things

Revealed to eyes that weep,

If dread Dodona's Oracle

And Delphi's voice for him were mute,

If grave Minerva in his path

Dropped never silver flute,—

Yet beauty wove a magic spell

For him, and early, at his need,

Upon a bed of asphodel

He found a tuneful reed,—

The Syrinx-reed Thessalian,

Of plaintive, far renown,

The universal pipe of Pan,—

Where the god laid it down.

Right reverently from the ground

He lifted up the sacred thing,

Accepted it with awe profound,

With faith unfaltering;

And when its music forth he drew

Earth half forgot her ancient pain,

For Marsyas himself ne'er blew

A purer, sweeter strain!

Though some there be who, self-attired

In robes of judgment they misuse,

Protest that he was not inspired

By the authentic Muse,—

Love, granting all his faults to these,

Forever holds his name apart,

Who moved not senseless stones and trees,

But the quick human heart.

"The people's poet." Did he lack

Return? He served in high degree

The people, and they gave him back

Their immortality!

Time careless grows of costly wit,

Brave monuments are quickly gone,—

But that which on the heart is writ

Lives on, and on, and on!

BEFORE THE DAWN

I LOOKED on beauteous forms, as I lay dreaming,

But on no form as beautiful as thine,

Who here, amid the moonbeams white and holy,

Standest in silence by this bed of mine.

I looked on faces fair, as I lay sleeping,

But on no face that seemed so nobly sweet

As that which in the pallid light above me

My wondering, half-awakened sense doth greet.

Who and what art thou? Have I kept thee waiting?

My sleep was as a river deep and calm;

Bring'st thou perchance some word of import for me?

Hast thou for broken hearts, like mine, some balm?

Who and what art thou? In my tranquil vision

I gazed through rifted clouds on azure skies,—

I seemed to gaze beyond them,—but naught moved me

Like the deep pity in thy brooding eyes.

Why art thou here to-night? I have been lonely—

Have waited, prayed, for such an one as thou,

To still with presence kind my pulse's throbbing,

To lay a cooling touch upon my brow.

Tell me thy name! Then, pain and fear forgotten,

I straightway will arise and follow thee,

Who, as I think, art hither come to guide me

To larger hope and opportunity.

Tell me thy name! I long, I need, to hear it!

Thy name!—I may not plead, for failing breath,—

With look compassionate, the august stranger

Made answer very softly: "I am Death."

AB HUMO

THE seedling hidden in the sod

Were ill content immured to stay;

Slowly it upward makes its way

And finds the light at last, thank God!

The most despised of mortal things—

The worm devoid of hope or bliss,

Discovers in the chrysalis

Too narrow space for urgent wings.

These are my kindred of the clay:

But as I struggle from the ground

Such weakness in my strength is found,

I seem less fortunate than they.

Yet though my progress be but slow,

And failure oft obscure the past,

I, too, victorious at last,

Shall reach the longed-for light, I know!

NOCTURNE

THE houseless wind has gone to rest

In some rude cavern-bed of ocean,

And Neptune smooths each foamy crest,

At Dian's will, with meek devotion;

The shepherd, gathering his sheep,

Has brought them safely to the fold,—

And in my arms my world I hold!

Sleep!

Forespent with hunting on the hill,

My truant, in the dusk returning,

Finds the lone heart, he left at will.

With the one worship burning.

The moonlight pales—the shade grows deep—

The nightingale doth silence break!

Ah, love, till first the lark shall wake,

Sleep!

No homeless wanderer art thou!

Here, pillowed safe, thy head is lying.

The nightingale! Ah, listen now!

What passion—death itself defying!

Peace! All the stars thy vigil keep.

And fragrant breathes each mystic flower

That blooms to-night in Dreamland bower:

Sleep!

A HERO

HE sang of joy; whate'er he knew of sadness

He kept for his own heart's peculiar share:

So well he sang, the world imagined gladness

To be sole tenant there.

For dreams were his, and in the dawn's fair shining,

His spirit soared beyond the mounting lark;

But from his lips no accent of repining

Fell when the days grew dark;

And though contending long dread Fate to master,

He failed at last her enmity to cheat,

He turned with such a smile to face disaster

That he sublimed defeat.

AMOR CREATOR

LOVE is enough: were all we fondly cherish

To pass as visions melt at dawn of day,

Were bud and blossom, fruit and leaf, to perish,

Love could rebuild them in his perfect way;

For he who makes the tides to ebb and flow,

Each secret of creation well doth know.

His warmth illumes the glow-worm's fickle spark,

And beams in Aldebaran's steadfast fire:

With him there is no winter and no dark;

The font, the burning font, of pure desire,

All forms of beauty unto him belong,—

The rose, the avalanche, the wild bird's song.

On Latmos' height pale Dian dreams about him,

His voice low echoes in the ocean shell,

The bee could fill no honey-cup without him,

The violet no fragrant secret tell:

Remote yet near, changeful yet still the same,

Love is creation's breath and vital flame!

THE MIRROR

POET, why wilt thou wander far afield?

Turn again home! There, also, Nature sings,

And to thy heart—her magic-mirror—brings

All images of life: thence will she yield

Every emotion in Man's breast concealed:

Love, hate, ambition,—hope, that heavenward wings,—

The peasant's toil, the care that waits on kings,—

All, in thy heart's clear crystal, plain revealed.

Hast thou forgotten? One there was who turning

His poet-vision inward, through the years,

Found Falstaff 's wit, and Prospero's high yearning,

Shared Hamlet's doubt, the madness that was Lear's,—

Saw Wolsey's pride, and Romeo's passion, burning,—

Knew Desdemona's truth, and felt her tears!

OF LOVE

OF Love the gods require no task,

Content to grant whate'er may ask

The boy from Venus sprung,—

For howsoever grave his mask,

They know the lad is young:

Aye, young, indeed! Though, spite of warning,

Often at dusk, all prudence scorning,

He daring sail unfurls,—

Yet, fragrant still, the breath of morning

Lingers amid his curls.

What count takes he of days or years?—

E'en pain itself but more endears

The strange, immortal boy,

Who whilst his eyes o'er-brim with tears,

Yet keeps the heart of joy!

AFTER THE PLAY

YOU say I'm dying! It is so, I think:

All pain has left me, and I seem to sink—

A child, content, back to the Mother's breast.

Life grew full sweet of late,—but death is best.

I wanted just this one last quiet hour

To tell you how hope grew fruition's flower,—

Giving me, in a moment, bliss to know,

Beyond what tranquil ages might bestow.

You must not weep, my friend! Consider still

How many lives go frustrate of their will;

How many spend in vain, and fruitless tire!—

I near the goal of my supreme desire.

Your tears reproach the happiness I feel,

And from this dear contentment something steal.

Smile, if you can, beloved! nor delay

What I would tell you ere I go my way.

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

Love gives but as Love will: this have I proved,

Who through long wistful years have vainly loved,

Yet find my life at last on death's sheer brink—

Of purest joy from lethal fountains drink.

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

You know 't was not my right to dream of her,

Though I had served her long—love's pensioner—

Grateful for modest favor at her hands,

For mere acceptance, or for mild commands,—

But on that night, across the theatre

I saw her come, and felt the restless stir

Of mad desires held in leash till then:

A longing to stand equal with the men

Who, for no merit, dared to keep her side,—

Suspecting not the barriers that divide

Natures like hers from those of meaner birth.

I knew her throned above me, felt the worth

Of things they recked not of—her richest dower—

Yet longed that life should yield me for one hour

The right to stand before her—even as these?

Nay; but the right to fall before her knees,

To touch in worship her white garment's hem,

To win the smile so lightly given them

Because her heart with happiness o'erflowed,

Unconscious of the largess it bestowed.

Ah, me!—to think, what barren pain I felt!

Hopeless as one who in a desert dwelt,

Exiled from all that made his soul's delight,

I gazed upon her,—was it, friend, last night?

The Play—what matter?—it drew near the end,

Scarce marked by me. You know the rest, my friend:

Waiting I sat there full of sad desire,

When, suddenly, it came—that cry of "Fire!"

How suddenly! I started to my feet:

But—as when two on-rushing torrents meet

And break the one the other—mad with fear,

The panic-stricken people, deaf to hear

Counsel or warning, in that burning tomb

Hurtled each other, battling to their doom.

Kind God, blot out the scene—soon past!

I to a column near me clinging fast,

Resisted the fell tide that onward bore

Its helpless prey with hideous uproar.

Twice had I lost my footing; yet I clave,

As one who struggles more than life to save—

My every thought of her; but when at last,

Sore bruised and breathless, as one shoreward cast

After rude shipwreck, I dared raise my eyes—

Seeking in that vast Hell my Paradise,—

There, like some virgin image carved in stone,

She stood in her white radiance—alone.

Where were the men that loved her, as they said?

Ah, bitter "where"! They, all, too rashly fled,

Had entered that ignoble human strife,

Paying a shameful price for paltry life.

She read my soul, I think; and then—she smiled.

Nay, friend,—imagine not my speech grown wild!—

I tell you true: in that appalling place

She smiled—the calm of heaven in her face.

Her service had been long my soul's emprise;

Yet a new, wistful wonder lit her eyes,

And pale—ay, pale as Hades' death-crowned queen—

Across the fatal barriers between,

Her glad look seemed to say:—"At last, I know!

You, who alone have loved me, could not go!

"All help were vain.— Stay!—let me see your face!"

So plead the look; then, with a poignant grace,

Her form bent toward me, her white arms apart,

She gave me the veiled secret of her heart.

Think you we marked the fiery sepulchre

In which we stood,—thence nevermore to stir?

A glory strange enwrapt us.—Then, my friend,

I woke, and saw your face, and knew the end,—

Not that which you suppose—the end of strife,—

Not dissolution—and not loss—but life!

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

I think she felt no anguish, knew no fear,

So mercifully swift the flames drew near;

For, even as she smiled, narcotic death

Enveloped her, and stifled her sweet breath;

And the fire passed her by and left her there,

Like to a sleeping child, untouched and fair.

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

·

All—all that life withheld—is mine at last!

With love, with God,—believe me,—there's no past.

The future waits—it calls—I must not stay!

The night is over,—look! the dawn—of Day!

BEYOND

HAD we the present—only that, no more!

Were the past, hidden by Oblivion's door,

Impenetrable to our backward gaze,—

Its lessons lost, its joyful, tearful days!

Were there no vision of untrodden ways,

No distant fields of morn,—no blooms unfound,—

No skyey hopes to beckon from the ground,—

No loves whose waiting welcome ne'er betrays!

Were there no promise of returning spring

When autumn preens a migratory wing,

And on earth's hearth the fire is burning low!—

Were there no future with romance aglow,

When the chilled blood within the vein moves slow,

No dream of a fair dawning, in the night,—

No fond expectancy,—no pledge of light

Fairer than cloud-veiled days of winter know!

··········

To-morrow!—mystic word of the Ideal!

What were all else, wert thou not there to heal

The deepest hurt that e'er the present gave?

Friend! Ever wise consoler! We are brave

Because of thee! Trusting thy might to save.

We journey onward toward an unknown land,

And close, and closer still, we clasp thy hand,—

Nor will be parted from thee at the grave.

A FAREWELL

"The utmost for the highest."

Motto of George F. Watts.

AVE! Thou goest from us,

Apart from us to dwell;

Through sacrifice to find thyself.

Ave!—but not farewell.

Thou hast dreamed a dream of Leisure;

Thou hast heard her call thy name,—

The handmaid of enduring Art,

Who feeds the quenchless flame,—

And after the Ideal

Thou wistfully would'st fare,

Before whose shrine 't is blest to wait,—

Though ne'er to enter there!

Go forth,—for thou hast willed it,—

Untrammelled as the sea!

To find new forms of loveliness,

Go forth! Lo, thou art free

To hope, to learn, to listen.

To be breathed upon, inspired,

To wait on the unhasting gods,

With soul intent, untired;

Careless of gain or profit,

Of markets, or applause,

To yield thy heart to Nature's heart,

To learn her dearer laws;

To gaze beyond the present,—

From the fleeting view of things.

To lift the vision up and up;

To feel the growth of wings;

Through love and self-denial,

To gain at last the goal

That hidden from the vulgar gaze

Beckons the purer soul;

Naught asking of the moment,

Content to strive and strive,—

Knowing when lesser gods depart,

The gods themselves arrive!

·······

Ave! Thou goest from us,

Apart from us to dwell;

Through sacrifice to find thyself.

Ave!—but not farewell!

TO HENRY MILLS ALDEN

OUR days by deeds are numbered,—and by dreams,

If we dream well and nobly; for it seems

That he who would respond

By deed to what is loveliest and best,

Must, holding to the near and manifest,

Find in the things beyond,

Faith, ay, and courage, duty to fulfil,—

Hearing the higher voices calling still.

Thy youth those voices heard on many a height,

In the fresh dawn and the all-fragrant night,

For thou wast mountain-born;

And looking to the hills,—from boyhood-days

Thy comrades,—learned the wonder in their ways,

Reglorified each morn;

Gaining, with deeper draughts of upland breath,

Large images of Life and lordly Death.

And as a man but follows his lodestar,—

For our ideals make us what we are,—

Through self-effacing years,

Thou, toiling where the burdened city moans,

Hast lost no accent of the higher zones.

Smiles, and the truth of tears,

And memories, and melodies unsung,

Have visited thy heart, and kept it young.

Thou hast had strength, where many failed, to glean

Good from a doubtful harvest; thou hast seen

Light where the shade lay deep.

The future with the present praise must blend

To crown thy triumphs worthily, dear friend;

But we remembrance keep

More grateful, even, for thyself than them,

And lay upon thy brow love's anadem.

SONG

IF love were but a little thing—

Strange love, which, more than all, is great—

One might not such devotion bring,

Early to serve and late.

If love were but a passing breath—

Wild love—which, as God knows, is sweet—

One might not make of life and death

A pillow for love's feet.

WITH BREATH OF SPRING

THE air is full of balm, I know;

The winter vanished long ago.

In sheltered plots along the street

Crocus and tiny snowdrop meet,

And children skip about and play—

Rejoicing in the glad noonday—

Or loiter 'neath some budding bough

Where bird-notes will be warbled now—

Outside the prison wall.

The brook, by winter long enchained,

Flows through the meadow unrestrained;

The violet will blossom soon,

The moth will break from the cocoon;

And where the happy children sing,

The fledgling bird will try his wing,—

But, O my heart! the sunshine there!—

The grateful shade!—the boon, free air—

Outside the prison wall!

A LOWLY PARABLE

AT first the birds—so runs the gentle story

The priest of Buddha to the people told,

With only feet to bear them o'er the mould,

Hopped to and fro, nor marked the varied glory

Of days and seasons in their wondrous passing;

Saw not the wintry branches overhead

By vernal airs revived, engarlanded,

Saw not the clouds, their forms in rivers glassing,

Dreamed not of birch-tree-haunts on lovely islands

Where sunsets tarry late, as loth to go,—

Nor ever knew what winds delicious blow

From piny mountain-peaks o'er verdurous highlands.

Now here, now there, absorbed in one endeavor—

One single aim—poor birds!—the search for food,

They looked on all which aided that as good,—

Toward any larger goal aspiring never.

But came a morning, strange and unforeboded,

When from their tiny shoulders started things,

Feathered atip, which presently were wings,—

Full irksome to the birds, and heavy-loaded.

Impatient of the undesired burden,

They huddled on the ground, disconsolate,

While some complained reproachfully:—"Does Fate

Lay on us this new care in lieu of guerdon

"For all that we have done and borne so bravely?

Is't not enough that oft, through blight and snow,

We starve—we who from toil no respite know?"

They drooped, they pined; but said the bluebird gravely,

His pretty head with gallant air uplifting:

"This is indeed a burden which we bear—

An added burden; yet—O why despair?"—

Then, from one foot to t' other his weight shifting,

He hopped about, in valor growing bolder,

Till—for new effort new ambition brings—

He found at last that he could stretch his wings! . . .

Straightway the birds forgot the day grown colder—

Forgot the future's care, the past's privation;

And when, their fond desires fixed on high,

They knew—O happy birds!—that they could fly,—

The burden had become their exaltation!

INFLUENCE

MY friend leaned o'er the flowery brink

Of evil, bending down to drink;

But though he stooped, resolved to take

The harmful draught despite my fears,

He yielded for my pleading's sake—

Feeling my love and tears.

Again he stoops; again I long

To save a fellow-man from wrong.

He was my friend! Fain, in this hour,

Would I defend him as before:

I strive—but I have lost the power,

Who love him now no more.

THE POET

IS he alone? The myriad stars shine o'er him,

The flowers bloom for him mid wintry frost;

He needs not sleep to dream,—and dreams restore him

Whatever he has lost.

Is he forsaken? Beauty's self is nigh him,

Closer than bride to the fond lover's arms,—

Veiled, guarding still, to lift and glorify him,

The mystery of her charms.

Unto his soul she speaks in accents moving—

In moving accents meant for him alone,

Revealing, past all visioned heights of loving,

Far-beckoning heights unknown.

L'AMOUR FAIT PEUR

A COWARD is man, yet a hero

Whose will overmasters his fear,

Till peril no longer appals him,

And danger itself groweth dear.

Poised and strong, asking no intervention,

He hazards the rock and the shoal;

One only thing halts his pretension—

Love frightens the soul.

Self-disciplined, slowly but surely,

Disaster accustomed to brave,

He makes a companion of sorrow,

Nor falters at threat of the grave;

Nay, often would hold it at nearer

Approach a beneficent goal—

But, ah! with the thought of one dearer,

Love frightens the soul!

HONOR

DIVINE abstraction, shadowy image, dream

More vital than substantial shapes made strong

By all the tireless energies of wrong,—

Who should deny thy being would blaspheme

The power that made thy loveliness supreme,

Lending thee accents of auroral song

To comfort those who unto thee belong—

Though they go down to dark Cocytus' stream.

Patient as Time art thou, eternal one!

Yet who may change thy judgments—or destroy?

The conqueror whom wily Egypt won

Found with life's honeyed draught a bitter blent;

And Hector, fallen by the walls of Troy,

Looked up, and saw thy face, and was content.

EURYDICE

I HEAR thy voice!—

Ah, love, I hear thy voice!

Faint as the sound of distant waters falling,

I hear thy voice above me calling, calling,—

And my imprisoned heart,

Long held from thee apart,

Responsive thrills, half-tempted to rejoice.

In Hades though I be,

Where the unnumbered dead abide

In uneventful, sunless eventide,

I yet live on,—for thou rememberest me!

And like to far-off waters falling,

I hear thee, from the distance, calling,—

Eurydice! Beloved Eurydice!

In thy bright world, I know,

The firstlings of the Spring begin to blow;

Moss-violet and saffron daffodil

Their perfumes new distil,

And through the veiled elysian hours,—

Sweeter for wafted scent of citron-flowers,—

Voices of nightingales soft come and go.

The halcyon again

Contented broods beside the quiet main;

The ringdove tells her wound

With throbbing breast, and undulating sound

Which still, thy passion wronging,

Awakes in thee the wilder, lonelier longing.

And still my buried heart reflects thy pain!

Of yore I had a dream:

I thought—the awful sentinel asleep—

Thou, with that lyre divine, supreme,

Which first drew Argo downward to the deep,

Entering here, where chains are never riven,

Had with thy golden strain, Apollo given,

Taught Dis, the pitiless, himself, to weep:

I had a dream of yore:

I thought love, mightier than death,

Wide opened the inexorable door,

And offered me pure draughts of sun-warmed breath.

I saw thy form; trembling, I seemed to follow,—

When, sudden, to these rayless caverns hollow

Fate caught me back—thee to behold no more!

·········

Yet still I wait for thee!

And surely thou wilt come again to me!

The hours delay; I make no moan,—

Apart from thee,—yet not alone,

Sweeter than far-off music sighing,

I hear thy voice forever crying:—

"Eurydice!—lost, lost Eurydice!"

BEAUTY'S PATH

ALL ugliness wears on its brow the brand

Of Time and Dissolution; from of old,

Its doubtful journey through a shifting sand,

The life in its ophidian breast is cold.

But beauty's path is one forever bright'ning

In glory to each far horizon's rim;

Warm in the rose and golden in the lightning,

Love's altar flame, the upward way to Him,—

Beauty, transcending all that bans and bars,

Moves as the light moves on, eternal as the stars!

Too well acquaint with passions that benumb,

Earth is with them no more in kind accord.

'T is only by ascending one may come

Where waits for her the new, the unexplored.

She longs—ah, how she longs!—to break asunder

Her ancient chains, to lave in morning dew,

To stand a little space 'mid realms of wonder,

To feel her nearness to the good and true.

She longs for beauty—vernal through the years—

To touch the dried-up spring and fount of happy tears!

FRITZ SCHEEL

A TRIBUTE

HE gave his life to Music,—gave—

For love, not hire,—himself denying;

His body rests, o'erwearied, in the grave,

But Music lives and gives him life undying.

In the deep silence, may he hear

Such harmonies as he could wake,

And O, may some faint accents reach his ear

From the great City's heart that sorrows for his sake!

REPROACH NOT DEATH

REPROACH not Death, nor charge to him, in wonder,

The lives that he doth separate awhile,

But think how many hearts that ache, asunder,

Death—pitying Death—doth join and reconcile!

MARS—1907

IN the blue, cloudless heaven

A single star,

Lone torch and lamp of even,

Burning afar;

Not with the radiance tender

Of other stars,

But with insistent splendor,—

Celestial Mars!

Above the summits hoary

Of ancient hills,

It yet pours out a glory

On lakes and rills,

As when Selene passes

Across the night

And her fair image glasses,

Leaving its light.

Strange planet! Thou dost awe me,

As by a spell;

Thou dost uplift and draw me

Where thou dost dwell!

Thy mysteries to capture

Let others guess;

Mine—mine to feel with rapture

Thy beauteousness.

BESIDE A PLEASANT SHORE

I LAY upon my narrow bed,

And dreamed life's happy moments o'er;

I thought that love my footsteps led

Beside a pleasant shore.

Care for a moment loosed its grasp,

And breathing deep the fragrant brine,—

My hand locked in my lover's clasp,—

I felt his pulses throb with mine;

And dear contentment seemed my right,—

There roaming from the world apart;

I saw his eyes, I felt their light

Beam through the shadows, in my heart;

And waves, and trees—all nature—sang

A paeon by that pleasant shore.

Then I awoke, and with a pang

Remembered that we loved no more.

THE SUN-DIAL

THEY that read my message clear,

When the sun is shining near,

Know that moments tarry not

Though I keep no record here.

Noiseless as the river's flow,

Onward still the moments go;

Naught delays them—yet they be

Freighted for Eternity!

As the sand drops from the glass,

Unreturning, so they pass;

And the Power that bids them fall

Knows their value—each and all!

RETROSPECT

HOW had it been, my belovèd,

Had Fate united us sooner,—

In the bright days when our hearts

First dreamed of loving?—

When—a thrice exquisite vision—

Hope, all her lute-strings unbroken,

Smilingly beckoned us on—

Wooed us to follow?—

When our youth, eager, expectant,—

Trusting the north as the south wind,

Hardly, its pulses a-throb,

Staid life's unfolding?

Had I been more to you, dearer—

Bearing my myrtle and roses—

Than, as I came, crowned with rue,

Weighted with sorrow,

Seeing both light and its shadow,

Taught both of truth and illusion,

Knowing earth's rapture and pain,—

Sharing earth's travail?

More had I been to you—dearer?...

Deep in my heart a voice answers,

Healing the sense of unworth,

Whispering comfort:—

"Love takes no counsel of prudence;

Wherefore men, timid and doubting,

Marvelling oft at his choice,

Charge him with blindness;

"But—this believe!—not Apollo,

Clothed in his glory celestial,

Bears such a light in his breast

As that which Eros

"Holds in the heart of his darkness,

Guards as a torch never failing,

Given to guide him where waits

His sole desire!"

THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH

1836-1907

WE celebrate with pomp and pride

A Cromwell or a Wellington;

We venerate who, self-denied,

Earth's higher victories have won;

But through the all-remembering years,

We love who give us smiles and tears.

The voice that charmed us may grow still,

The poet cease to weave his spell:

Ascended to the skyey hill

Remote, where the immortals dwell,—

Time to our thought but more endears

Who gave us smiles and gave us tears.

THE PILGRIM

ONCE a man set forth at morning,

Journeying with eager footstep,

Onward over fields new-wakened,

Where the dew lay on the blossoms,

Like to softly gleaming opals.

All the earth, refreshed by slumber,

In the early light and tender

Wore a green, benignant beauty;

And his heart sang high within him,

As the birds sang in the branches.

On he sped with fond impatience,—

While the world took on new wonder,—

Till he came unto a river

Where there waiting stood an angel,

Dark-browed, but with look celestial.

Then, appalled, the pilgrim started:—

"Death! Awaitest thou my coming—

Here, where least I thought to meet thee?

It is Love that I am seeking!"

Very gently smiled the angel,

Dark-browed, with the look celestial:

"I am Love,—thyself hast named me;

Yet thou fearest! Lo! I leave thee,

Till as now, thou come to find me."

········

Once again the man, at sunrise,

Journeyed forth,—his step less buoyant,—

Passing over fields new-wakened,

Where the dew lay on the blossoms

Like to softly gleaming opals.

Once again Earth, fresh from slumber,

In the early light and tender

Wore her green and mystic beauty;

Yet his heart sang not within him

As the birds sang in the branches.

Onward still, without impatience,

Through a world whose charm half pained him,

Journeying,—behold!—the river

And the long-forgotten angel—

Dark-browed, with the look celestial!

As of old, the pilgrim started,

And his pale cheek flushed with anger:

"Death, thy pledge! Thou hast betrayed me!

Naught have I and thou in common:

It is Life that I am seeking!"

With transfiguring smile the angel,

Whose whole look now showed celestial,

Answered:—"Is it Life thou seekest?

Be at rest, thou weary pilgrim!

Seek no further: thou hast found me."

MOTHER-LOVE

THINK not of love as of a debt—

Due or in May or in December!

Nay, rather, for a time, forget;

Life always helps us to remember!

A child whom harmless toys beguile

To loiter for a little while,

Put heart into your play, and then,

When you are tired—come home again!

Fair, yet how fragile, pleasure's rose!—

How vain the toil to make it stronger!

It blooms—it withers,—but love knows

A sweeter blossom that lives longer!

"THE SENSE OF TEARS IN MORTAL THINGS"

WHY does great beauty waken in the soul,

Together with the pleasure it inspires,

Sadness and inaccessible desires?—

Why, in our joy anticipating dole,

Ask we for lovely things a lasting goal,

Though knowing well their destiny requires

That, wasted and consumed by their own fires,

They pay on earth, full soon, Death's heavy toll?

Nay, love! The seed may fail within the sod,

But beauty fails not. Though it seem to die,

It lights a quenchless torch in Hades' portal:

A gift benignant as a smile of God,

Through myriad fading forms it mounts on high,

And at the last creates beauty that is immortal!

AN AMERICAN AT LINCOLN

THE vast cathedral-crown of the high hill,

The long, low-vaulted nave, the transepts where

The light is glory shed through windows rare

In rainbow tintings: glory deep and still,

Gift of a past forever present there!

Beyond the lantern, the carved Gothic Choir,

And, as interpreting the hallowed place

Athrob with harmonies, a boyish face—

English, yet with the look of awed desire

Which speaks America,—the younger race.

In the half parted lips without a smile,

In the whole rapt, impassioned gaze,

I read the travail of the distant days,

The wistful hunger of the Long Exile—

The yearning that survives through all delays:

I read thy soul, my Country! thou dear Land

Across the deep and all-dividing sea!

I read thy soul and theirs who founded thee

With sacrifices few could understand—

Renouncing and enduring silently.

And I perceived that thou hast still retained

Their strength to toil, their courage to resist:

That seeking ardently whate'er they missed,

Thou hast remained—in spite of all, remained—

That which they made thee—an idealist!

And once again I felt how blest it is

To hunger and to thirst: anew I saw

That by eternal high-appointed law,

Sublimity and beauty most are his

In whom they move the deepest thrill of awe!

AFFINITY

ALL are not strangers whom we so misname:

Man's free-born spirit, which no rule can tame,

Careless of time, o'er vasty distance led,

Still finds its own where alien altars flame,

Still greets its own, amongst the deathless dead!

TWO BROTHERS

MY brother's face is turned from me;

He sees a thing I must not see,—

Alas! what may the vision be?

His form is wasted as with pain;

A fever feeds upon his brain

Whose fire, extinguished, burns again.

Sometimes he seems to hear a cry,—

And the ravens croak on the turrets nigh,

And the echoes shudder as they die.

Sometimes a cloud o'er his sight is cast,

And something viewless, whirling past,

Is borne away on the moaning blast.

And still his face is turned from me,

To hide the thing I must not see,—

Alas! what may the vision be?

········

Her lips apart, her blue eyes wide,

My mother lay in her state and pride,—

The fairest thing that yet had died!

Like a royal rose,—the story saith,—

Peerless and pale, with a rose's breath

At her parted lips, she lay in death.

Her braids were held by a jewelled dart,—

And, where her bodice fell apart,

A jewelled dagger pierced her heart.

To find her foe, men strove in vain;

They sought again and yet again,—

But no one mourned with my brother's pain;

For he had loved her from the hour

His father won her with that dower

Of beauty, rare as an aloe's flower;

And she loved him till our father died;

Then something—was it grief or pride?—

Made her as marble at his side.

They say—the vassals of our race—

She wore thenceforth a wintry grace,

Like the frozen scorn on her fair dead face;

And though my brother strove at morn

And eve to comfort her, forlorn,

She met him still with that cruel scorn.

O poor, my Mother! Soon, they say,

She hid herself with her child away,

And looked no longer on the day;

But sometimes, when our towers were white,—

Bathed in the moon's celestial light,—

Her casement opened on the night

All tremulous with mystery,

And, motionless, without a sigh,

She stood there, gazing on the sky;

And they who saw her then, declare

There was nor pride nor passion there,—

Only a tearless, mute despair.

I knew her not,—or if I knew,

Forgot her quickly, as children do,—

Alas! as little children do;

But when she died, men say that I

So plaintive wailed in the chamber nigh,

That summoned thither by the cry.

They brought my brother; who, that hour,

Bore me away to this lonely tower—

This fortress of our ancient power,

Where ever near me, night and day,—

And happiest with me to stay,—

He kept the vexing world away. . . .

Ah, then, he did not seem to see

The haunting thing so constantly!—

Dear God! what may the riddle be?

·········

Mother! I scarce have grieved for you,—

So close to me my brother drew—

So gave me all the joys I knew,—

But I am frightened now, and cry,

Stretching my arms out to the sky.

Without my brother's love, I die!

And though I do not understand

Where lies yon far fair Heavenly Land,

I think that soon, hand locked in hand,

We two will find you where you dwell—

Will see the face he loved so well,

And, weeping, all our sorrows tell.

And then, I know, through me beguiled,

You'll smile on him,—as once you smiled,

Who was so good to your lonely child!

CONFLICT AND REST

THROUGH the long voyage we may welcome day,

Glad when the night is gone,

So many threat'ning perils of the way

Vanish before the dawn;

And yet a deeper darkness we may crave

When strife indeed is past,

And we from stress of tempest and of wave

Are nearing port at last.

CHILD-FANCIES

ASPHODEL

THE children played at naming, every one

Her favorite blossom, in the mild June even;

When, at the last, the others having done,

A little maid—her years but numbered seven—

Stood shyly forth and answered in her turn:

"Pale violets I love,—and love full well

Red poppies, which the elves for torches burn,—

But for my own I choose—the asphodel."

Indignant stared the children; then they cried—

Amid their pastime ready still for strife—

"The asphodel! You only choose through pride

A flower you never saw in all your life!"

Abashed, the culprit hung her pretty head,

As she accusèd of a crime had been;

Then, bravely, with conviction sweet she said:—

"But I love best the flower I have not seen!"

Ah, wistful child! Such lonely dreams as thine

Others have cherished in their hearts, I ween,—

And, grateful for all good, with thee incline

To love the best the flower they have not seen!

II

GATHERED WILD-FLOWERS

I'VE brought you some flowers, mother!

Please look at them, mother, look!

See this one!—and here's another

I found beside the brook!

They're very warm, for I held them tight;

You'll want them, I know, to keep,

When they wake again and you see them right,—

But now they're all asleep.

DEARTH

AS one who faring o'er a desert plain

Sees fountains clear in the mirage arise,

And, parchèd, longs the nectar sweet to gain

Which still before him flies—

So, wistfully, half doubting, half-believing,

Scornful of hope—yet hopeful, self-deceiving,

I thirst for love, which wastes before my eyes.

MID-OCEAN

A WASTE of heaving waters to the far horizon's rim,

And over them a vault of leaden gray;

No warmer tint or shading to relieve the aspect dim,

Save where the riven billows break away,

Revealing as we part them to the left hand and the right,

Beneath each curling crest of foam, the marvellous green light.

Here midst the heaving billows—this unending stretch of sea

Where scarce an ocean-bird has strength to fly,

Unnumbered leagues from any strand where habitations be,

Alone, no comrade vessel sailing nigh,

The deep, unplumbed, beneath us, and, above, a frowning dome,—

I do but turn my eyes on thee, and straightway it is home!

ON THE DEATH OF LADY CURZON

JULY 17, 1906

INTO the light where beauty doth not pale,

Into the glory that can never fail,

Beyond our yearning care, she passed from view.

Two nations loved and claimed her,—English flower,—

One gave her birth, one gave a regal dower,

But both—ah, both forgot how Heaven must love her too!

BEREFT

DEATH took away from me my heart's desire,—

Full suddenly, without a word of warning;

Froze with benumbing touch her body's fire,

And darkened her young morning.

Death hid her then where she is safe, men say,—

Imprisoned in a deep-digged grave and hollow,

Where grief and pain may never find a way,

Nor any torment follow.

Safe!—and because of fear, they deem 't was best

For her, perchance,—this thing which they call dying,

But cold she could not be against my breast

As there where she is lying!

Sometimes I dream, with sudden, wild delight,

That she escapes the cruel bonds that bind her,

And fond I seek through all the throbbing night,

But never, never find her!

Sometimes—But have the dead then no regrets?—

Ah, me! I think, though she hath so bereft me,

My loved one cannot be where she forgets

How lonely she hath left me!

THE MARTYR JEWS

THEIR fathers wronged thee, Master, long ago:

Rejected thee, because they knew thee not

Whom it had been their highest peace to know,

And nobler dreams forgot,

Preferred a kingdom of this world to thee,

And saw thee sacrificed upon a tree.

Yet thou in death—even in death, didst pray:—

"Father, forgive! They know not what they do!"

But what of those, more culpable than they—

Oh, more than they, untrue,

Who, in thy name, dear Christ! have tortured men,

And crucified thee countless times since then?

LE GRAND SALUT

"Major Dreyfus, in the name of the Republic and of the people of France, I proclaim you a knight of the Legion of Honour"

THERE is a power in innocence, a might

Which, clothed in weakness, makes injustice vain:

A strength, o'ertopping reason to explain.

Which bears it—though deep-buried out of sight—

Slowly and surely upward to the light:

A conscious certainty amidst its pain

That, robbed of all things, it shall all regain,

Through that eternal law which guards the right.

O Dreyfus! Thy dear country has restored

More than thine honour in her hour supreme.

Noble, indeed, though able so to err,

God spared thee to her that she might redeem

Herself, and hand thee back thy blameless sword.

Listen! the world salutes—not only thee, but her!

INHERITOR

SAY not the gods are cruel,

Since man himself is kind—

Man, who could give no tenderness

If, impotent and blind,

He stretched appealing hands on high

No tenderness to find,—

Who, wakened to compassion,

No longer stands apart,

Careless of others' suffering,

But, rather, shares the smart,

Because of pity drawn from out

The Universal Heart,—

Who feels within him glowing

A spark that dares aspire,

Flame-like, unto supernal things,

With never-quenched desire,

And knows that Heaven bestowed on him

A spark of its own fire!

WHEN YOU CAME

DEAR, when you came the day was bright;

The moments, roseate to my sight,

Flew by me, and my heart was glad

Without you; but I loved you, lad—

Loved in my own despite!

As morn, I thought, so would be night,

Nor feared eclipsing cloud, nor blight—

Nay, fancied naught to life could add,

Dear, when you came!

And now—the good I deemed my right—

But you with love will still requite

The follies that have made you sad!

You smile—there—whisper! Nothing had

Illumined for me love's altar-light,

Dear, when you came!

THE YOUNG WIFE

SHE leaned above the river's sedgy brink—

The little wife—half-minded there to drink

Forgetfulness of all the grief and pride

That overwhelmed her spirit like a tide.

She had so blindly trusted! Yet doubt grew—

Whence it had sprung, alas! she hardly knew,—

A hydra-headed monster that devoured

Her happiness ere fully it had flowered.

He who had been her truth!—could he betray?

"Ah, let me die," she cried, "or quickly stay,

Thou who bestowed, unasked, this gift of breath,

Imaginings more terrible than death!"

Lone and forespent, she leaned her heavily

Against a willow; when she seemed to see—

Doubting if that indeed she saw or dreamed,

So full of mystery the vision seemed—

A form unknown, ineffable in grace,

With look compassionate bent on her face.

"Thy tears have moved the Heart Omnipotent,

Wherefore I come, to thee in pity sent,—"

So, as she thought, the wondrous vision spake,—

"To serve thee, if I may, e'en though I make

Confession, grievous unto me, who know

My folly was forgiven long ago. . . .

"A youth was I who fondly pleasure sought,

Careless to ask how dearly it was bought;

Who passed my days in idleness, nor guessed

How close the coils of evil round me pressed,

"Till, like some swimmer boastful of his strength

Who dares too far, I faced the truth at length—

Perceived the awful distance I had come,

And, battling back, despaired of reaching home.

"Then I had perished in my utter need,

Had no one trusted me beyond my meed;

But—I reached port at last, my fate withstood,

Because one woman still believed me good."

Softly the vision faded, and was gone.

The young wife by the river stood alone;

Musing, she lingered there a little while,

And to her pensive lips there came a smile.

LOVE NEVER IS TOO LATE

LOVE never is too late; it sums,

Within itself, all that is lasting gain,

And, or at morn or midnight, comes

With blessings in its train.

We tarry, slow to give, alas!

But though delayed, love never is too late—

Love that has power beyond the grave to pass

And enter Heaven's gate!

THE CHRIST OF THE ANDES

FAR, far the mountain-peak from me

Where lone he stands, with look caressing;

Yet from the valley, wistfully

I lift my dreaming eyes, and see

His hand stretched forth in blessing.

Never bird sings nor blossom blows

Upon that summit chill and breathless,

Where throned he waits amid the snows;

But from his presence wide outflows

Love that is warm and deathless!

O Symbol of the great release

From war and strife!—unfailing fountain

To which we turn for joy's increase,

Fain would we climb to heights of Peace—

Thy peace upon the mountain!

EARTH'S BLOSSOMS

EARTH has her blossoms, and the sea his shells

Wrought with as fine a workmanship, and fair

As they had been some god's peculiar care;

And in the heart of each a spirit dwells

Whose voice, in flowers,—for they to earth belong—

Is but a perfume, evanescent, sweet,

While in the sea-born shell, as seemeth meet,

It is an echo faint of an unending song!

ECHO CONSOLATRIX

I SAID, "She is gone from the grieving earth—

The Maiden,—Spring; in the realms of Dis

She reigns o'er a world of tears and dearth,

With a homesick heart that yearns for this:

Frozen the meadows, the fields lie bare,

And afar, 'mid the fragrant dusk of her hair,

The violets dream of the light, in vain.

She is gone!—ah, will she return again?"

A voice breathed low, "Again."

I said, "In this joyless heart of me

Is a winter chill and comfortless:

I tire of the wail of the wind-swept sea,

My soul is afraid of its loneliness.

Is there a land, as poets tell,

Where beauty and love—as the asphodel

Unchanging—inhale an immortal air?

And my little lad?—shall I find him there?"

The voice made answer: "There!"

JOHN HAY

AMID ferns and mosses brown,

From the little mountain-town,

Through the driving rain they bore him,

Kearsarge frowning down:

Onward bore him, wrapped from sight

Under palms and blossoms white,—

While the grieving hearts of thousands

Followed through the night

To that grave, love-sanctified,

Where, in the full summer-tide,

Low they laid him, who had cherished

Sympathies world-wide.

Honored grave! Yet Azrael's dart

Only slays the mortal part,

And they die not who have written

On the human heart.

Sad Roumania, far Peking,

East with West, his praise to sing

Who deemed justice more than power,

Hither tribute bring;

And the mother-land who bore—

She whom most he labored for—

Bows her head in sorrow, knowing

He returns no more.

Fame has crowned her own again,

Writing with illumined pen,—

Lincoln's friend, who loved and truly

Served his fellow-men.

PRIVILEGE

BLEST is the right to share

The grief of hearts forlorn,—

With other men to bear

What must by men be borne;

For night bestows dawn's orient rose

And glories of the morn;

And as its shadow-wing

Lends to the sunlight worth,

So out of suffering

Arise the joys of earth—

The good and ill, united still

And offspring of one birth.

Great is the gift of life

To him who lives indeed,

A partner in the strife,

The toil, the pain, that speed—

Like hidden rills veined through the hills—

Life's ocean-deeps to feed!

DÄI NIPPON

APART from all,

"Child of the World's old age,"

Heedful of naught beyond the billowy wall

That closely girt her island hermitage,

She pondered still, with half-averted look,

The early lessons of the great World-book,

Nor cared to turn the page,

For a strange dread

Possessed her. To invoke

Aid of her gods she tried,—scarce comforted

That countless barrier-waves about her broke;

But when, with bold command, in Yeddo bay

A squadron anchored,—oh, prodigious day!—

The Orient awoke!

Though one long blind,

At first in fruitless quest

Must grope her course, yet, with enlarging mind,

She quickly clearer saw; and from her breast

Sent forth brave sons—of her new hunger taught—

Who, one by one returning, to her brought

The wisdom of the West.

Then earth beheld,

With awe and wonderment,

Goliath by this stripling nation felled,

Which—rising by no tedious ascent—

Swift as the upward flight of wind-swept flame,

Leapt from obscurity to dazzling fame,—

Star of the Orient!

And yet she won

Sublimer victories,

Who, high enlightened all excess to shun,

Did not exact remorseless penalties,

Nor force a brave and fallen foe to drain

Humiliation's brimming cup of pain

Down to the poisoned lees.

In lieu of things

Ephemeral—less worth,

She full-revealed the sweep of her strong wings,

And gained the suffrage of the grateful earth;

Choosing, as war should from her realms depart,

To give herself to the enduring Art

That was her own at birth.

Ah, great Japan,—

Who, staying griefs appalling.

Approved thyself magnanimous to man,—

The World, that long had felt thy charm enthralling,

Has laid full many laurels on thy brow;

But with a new, diviner accent now

She hears the East a-calling!

A LITTLE SONG

ROSES are but for a day,

Amaranths endure forever;

Joys there be that fade away,

Dreams that perish never;

But, whate'er the future's holding,—

Crown of all, all else enfolding,—

Love lives on!

Well they know, who with content

Hear his oft-repeated story,

How to earthly glooms are lent

Reflexes of glory!

Rapture's first and final giver,

Star of Charon's rayless river,—

Love lives on!

THE EMPTY HOUSE

I SEEMED to see thy spirit leave the clay

That was its mortal tenement of late;

I seemed to see it falter at the gate

Of the New Life, as seeking to obey

Some inner law, yet doubtful of the way

Provided for its passage, by that fate

Which makes birth pain, and gives to death such state

And dignity, when soul withdraws its sway.

A tremor of the pale and noble brow,

A tightening of the lips, and thou wast gone—

Gone whither? Ah, the hush of death's abyss!

All tenantless thy beauteous form lay now

As the cicada's fragile shell outgrown,

Or as the long-forsaken, lonely chrysalis.

KINDRED

TENDER grass in April springing,

Scent of lilacs wet with rain,

Bluebird jubilantly singing

Snatches of a loved refrain,

Falcon soaring high above me,

Light of stars in deeps divine,

Creeping earth-bound things that move me

To compassion, ye are mine!

Wind in varied cadence playing

Mystic runes on harps unseen,

Blossom hardily delaying

Where lost summer late hath been,

Shadow drifting o'er the mountain,

Mist blown inward from the sea,

Hidden spring and bubbling fountain,—

Ye are mine and parts of me!

What am I? The stars have made me,

And the dust to which I cleave,

Rivers, and the hills that aid me,

Past and future, morn and eve,

Nightshade lightly plucked unknowing,

Roses fondly twined with rue,

Harvestings of mine own sowing,

And from fields I never knew.

I have gained 'mid loss and capture

Strength not found in vanquishing,

Sharing oft the mounting rapture,

Trailing oft the broken wing;

Kindred with the sunlight streaming

Where nor dew nor rain-drop gleams,

With the parchèd desert dreaming

Incommunicable dreams,

Laid in cavern-bed at even,

Throned on rose-flushed Apennine,—

Multitudinous earth and heaven,

Naught ye hold that is not mine!

COURAGE

'T IS the front toward life that matters most—

The tone, the point of view,

The constancy that in defeat

Remains untouched and true;

For death in patriot fight may be

Less gallant than a smile,

And high endeavor, to the gods,

Seems in itself worth while!

CRUEL LOVE—ANACREONTIC

I LOOKED from out my window once

And saw Love standing there;

No cloak had he to cover him,

His dimpled feet were bare,

And fast and chill the snowflakes fell

On his ambrosial hair.

He lifted up to mine a face

Filled with celestial light;

Fond, fond with pity grew my heart

To see his hapless plight,

And down I sped to offer him

Warm shelter for the night:—

"Come in, come in, thou tender child,

A wanderer from thine own!

Hath all the world abandoned thee,

That thou art thus alone?

Come in, come in! that I straightway

For others may atone!"

I took his icy hand in mine,—

Why swifter throbbed each vein?

Was it the impulse of my blood

To ease his frozen pain?—

Yet still his lips refused to smile,

Still fell his tears like rain.

Bashful he seemed, as half inclined

To shiver there apart:

I led him closer to the fire,

I drew him to my heart:

Ah, cruel Love! my trustful breast

He wounded with a dart!

Ah, cruel Love! He smiled at last—

A wondrous smile to see!

And passing from my sheltering door,

With step alert and free,

He took my warmth, my joy with him,—

His tears he left to me!

"EACH AND ALL"

I SAW a soul contended for

By Evil and by Good;

And watching with solicitude—

As if my yearning could

Some succor bring—I trembled

Whiles the tempter was withstood.

Yet, soul—my soul, what meant the strife

To thee?—what power had

Another's wrong to make thee feel

Thyself so wronged and sad?

And when at last Good overcame,—

O why wast thou so glad?

SAINT THERESA

WEARY and long the winding way;

Yet as I fare, to comfort me,

Still o'er and o'er I tell the beads

Of love's perfected rosary.

The fire that once hath pierced the heart,

If from above, must upward flame,

Nor falter till it find at last

The burning fountain whence it came.

O fire of love within my breast—

O pain that pleads for no surcease—

Fill me with fervor!—more and more,

Give me thy passion and thy peace!

O love, that mounts to paths of day

Untraversed by the soaring lark,

O love, through all the silent night

A lamp to light the boundless dark,

O love, whose dearest pangs I bear,

This heart—this wounded heart—transform!

That all who seek its shelter may

There find a refuge safe and warm.

Were there no heaven of high reward,

Man's service here to crown and bless,

Were there no hell,—I, for love's sake,

Would toil with ardent willingness.

And if—O Thou that pitiest

The fallen, lone, and tempest-tost!—

If, Love Divine, Thou wilt but save

Whom I do love, none shall be lost!

IN MEMORY OF CAROLINE FURNESS JAYNE

COULD'ST thou—thou, also, die, whom life so cherished?

Could'st thou go from us, in thy beauteous June,

Leaving a sense of joy untimely perished,

Of music stilled too soon?

We had not dreamed, fair child, that thou before us

Should'st find the meadows of the asphodel—

Should'st hear, ere we, "the high imagined chorus,"—

But, ah, for thee, 't is well!

Not thine to creep reluctant to death's portal:

Thy spirit from the mirk of transient things

Rose radiant to the light of the immortal,

With eager, outstretched wings!

For the grave gods, bestowing every blessing

Upon a child of Earth, ere grief should come,

Crowned thee, in youth, with the mild touch caressing

That calls their loved ones home!

AFTER

AFTER the darkness, dawning,

And stir of the rested wing;

Fresh fragrance from the meadow,

Fresh hope in everything!

After the winter, springtime

And dreams, that flower-like throng;

After the tempest, silence;

After the silence, song.

After the heat of anger.

Love, that all life enwraps;

After the stress of battle,

The trumpet sounding "taps."

After despair and doubting,

A faith without alloy,

God here and over yonder,—

The end of all things—joy!

THE VIOLIN

HE gave me all, and then he laid me by.

Straining my strings to breaking, with his pain,

He voiced an anguish, through my wailing cry,

Never to speak again.

He pressed his cheek against me, and he wept—

Had we been glad together over much?—

Emotions that within me deep had slept

Grew vibrant at his touch,

And I, who could not ask whence sprung his sorrow

Responsive to a grief I might not know,

Sobbed as the infant that each mood doth borrow

Sobs for the mother's woe.

Wild grew my voice and stormy, with his passion,

Lifted at last unto a tragic might;

Then swift it changed, in sad and subtile fashion,

To pathos infinite,

Swooning away beneath his faltering fingers

Till the grieved plaints seemed, echoless, to die;

When, calm, he rose, and with a touch that lingers,

Laid me forever by.

Forever! Ah, he comes no more—my lover!

And all my spirit wrapped in trance-like sleep,

Darkling I dream that such a night doth cover

His grief with hush as deep.

PER ASPERA

THANK God, a man can grow!

He is not bound

With earthward gaze to creep along the ground:

Though his beginnings be but poor and low,

Thank God, a man can grow!

The fire upon his altars may burn dim,

The torch he lighted may in darkness fail,

And nothing to rekindle it avail,—

Yet high beyond his dull horizon's rim,

Arcturus and the Pleiads beckon him.

THE HERMIT

LISTEN! O listen! 'T is the thrush—God bless him!

How marvellously sweet the song he sings!

All Nature seems to listen and caress him,

And Silence even closer folds her wings

Lest she should miss one faintly throbbing note

Of high-wrought rapture, from that flutelike throat.

The warbling world, itself, is hushed about him;

No bird essays the amœbean strain:

Each knows the soul of Music—full without him—

Could bear no more, and rivalry were vain.

So, Daphnis singing in the tamarisk shade,

All things grew silent, of a sound afraid.

The aspens by the lake have ceased to shiver,

As if the very zephyrs held their breath:

Hearken how, wave on wave, with notes that quiver,

It rises now—that song of life and death!—

"O holy! holy!" Was it Heaven that called

My spirit, by love's ecstasy enthralled?

THANKSGIVING

NOW gracious plenty rules the board,

And in the purse is gold;

By multitudes in glad accord

Thy giving is extolled.

Ah, suffer me to thank Thee, Lord,

For what thou dost withhold!

I thank Thee that howe'er we climb

There yet is something higher;

That though through all our reach of time

We to the stars aspire,

Still, still beyond us burns sublime

The pure sidereal fire!

I thank Thee for the unexplained,

The hope that lies before,

The victory that is not gained,—

O Father, more and more

I thank Thee for the unattained,

The good we hunger for!

I thank Thee for the voice that sings

To inner depths of being;

For all the spread and sweep of wings,

From earthly bondage freeing;

For mystery—the dream of things

Beyond our power of seeing!

Not to be confused with Poetry (Coates, "One spot of green, watered by hidden streams").

POETRY

CONTEMPLATIVE and fair, with look divine,

Her wistful vision fixed on the unseen,—

The future hers, as the long past has been,—

She waits apart. Who disregard her shrine,

Who pour to her libations of red wine,

Who heal their griefs at her loved Hippocrene,

She noteth not,—enwrapt in thought serene,

And pondering grave meanings, line by line.

She has envisaged the veiled heart of things—

Has passed through Purgatory, and her way,

Darkling, unravelled through the deeps of Hell;

And thence arising where the blessèd dwell,

Has touched the stars with her aspiring wings,

And knows that she is deathless as are they!

About this digital edition

This e-book comes from the online library Wikisource. This multilingual digital library, built by volunteers, is committed to developing a free accessible collection of publications of every kind: novels, poems, magazines, letters...

We distribute our books for free, starting from works not copyrighted or published under a free license. You are free to use our e-books for any purpose (including commercial exploitation), under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported license or, at your choice, those of the GNU FDL.

Wikisource is constantly looking for new members. During the transcription and proofreading of this book, it's possible that we made some errors. You can report them at this page.

The following users contributed to this book:

- Kathleen.wright5

- CalendulaAsteraceae

- ShakespeareFan00

- Billinghurst

- Markhurd

- Djr13

- Beleg Tâl

- George Orwell III

- Mudbringer

- AdamBMorgan

- Londonjackbooks

- Inductiveload

- Longfellow

- Eliyak

- Simon Peter Hughes

- Jan.Kamenicek

- WhatamIdoing

- Mackenziemrk

- Xover

- TE(æ)A,ea.

- Chrisguise

- Jarekt

- Rocket000

- Dbenbenn

- Zscout370

- Jacobolus

- Indolences

- Technion

- Dha

- Abigor

- Reisio

- Blurpeace

- Dschwen

- Steinsplitter

- Boris23

- KABALINI

- Bromskloss

- Tene~commonswiki

- AzaToth

- Bender235

- PatríciaR

Table of Contents

Title page

Lyrics of Life

earth's mystery

a traveller from altruria

indian-pipe

love, dost thou smile ?

the lark

"honor, not honors"

song : "sweet is the birth of love"

mother

benjamin franklin

leaders of men

helen keller with a rose

leave-taking

vestal

the house of pain

to-day

after the paintings by george f. watts

april

henry wadsworth longfellow

before the dawn

ab humo

nocturne

a hero

amor creator

the mirror

of love

after the play

beyond

a farewell

to henry mills alden

song : "if love were but a little thing"

with breath of spring

a lowly parable

influence

the poet

l'amour fait peur

honor

eurydice

beauty's path

fritz scheel—a tribute

reproach not death

mars—1907

beside a pleasant shore

the sun-dial

retrospect

thomas bailey aldrich

the pilgrim

mother-love

"the sense of tears in mortal things"

an american at lincoln

affinity

two brothers

conflict and rest

child-fancies

dearth

mid-ocean

on the death of lady curzon

bereft

the martyr jews

le grand salut

inheritor

when you came

the young wife

song : "love never is too late"

the christ of the andes

earth's blossoms

echo consolatrix

john hay

privilege

däi nippon

a little song

the empty house

kindred

courage

cruel love

"each and all"

saint theresa

in memory of caroline furness jayne

After

the violin

per aspera

the hermit

thanksgiving

poetry

About