<SPAN name="startofbook"></SPAN>
<h1>Weeds by the Wall</h1>
<h2><i>VERSES</i></h2>
<h3><small>BY</small><br/> MADISON CAWEIN<br/> <small>Author of "Myth and Romance," "Undertones," "Garden of Dreams," "Shapes and Shadows," etc., etc.</small></h3>
<h5><i>"I am God in nature; I am a weed by the wall."</i><br/>
<span style="margin-left: 18em;">—<span class="smcap">Emerson.</span></span></h5>
<h4>LOUISVILLE<br/>
JOHN P. MORTON & COMPANY<br/>
1901</h4>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h4><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1901,<br/>
By MADISON J. CAWEIN</span></h4>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h4><small>TO</small><br/>
<span class="smcap">Dr. HENRY A. COTTELL</span><br/>
<small><i>Whose Kind Words of Friendship and Approval have Encouraged
me when I Most Needed Encouragement.</i></small></h4>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<div class="blockquot"><p><i>For permission to reprint most of the poems included in
this volume thanks are due to the "Atlantic Monthly,"
"Harper's Magazine" and "Bazar," "Lippincott's," "Saturday
Evening Post," "New England Magazine," "Leslie's Monthly,"
"Smart Set," "Truth," "Outlook," "Independent," "Youth's
Companion," "Woman's Home Companion," "Munsey's," and
a number of other periodicals and magazines.</i></p>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents">
<tr>
<td> </td>
<td align="right"><small>PAGE</small></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_WILD_IRIS">A Wild Iris</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_1">1</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_PATH_BY_THE_CREEK">The Path by the Creek</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_2">2</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_ROAD_HOME">The Road Home</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_5">5</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_TWILIGHT_MOTH">A Twilight Moth</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_6">6</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#ALONG_THE_STREAM">Along the Stream</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_8">8</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_CRICKET">The Cricket</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_9">9</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#VOICES">Voices</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_11">11</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_GRASSHOPPER">The Grasshopper</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_12">12</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_TREE_TOAD">The Tree Toad</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_13">13</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_SCREECH-OWL">The Screech-Owl</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_14">14</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_CHIPMUNK">The Chipmunk</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_15">15</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#LOVE_AND_A_DAY">Love and a Day</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_16">16</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#DROUTH">Drouth</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_18">18</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#BEFORE_THE_RAIN">Before the Rain</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_20">20</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_BROKEN_DROUTH">The Broken Drouth</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_20">20</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#FEUD">Feud</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_21">21</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#UNANOINTED">Unanointed</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_22">22</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_END_OF_ALL">The End of All</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_24">24</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#SUNSET_AND_STORM">Sunset and Storm</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_25">25</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#BEECH_BLOOMS">Beech Blooms</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_25">25</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#WORSHIP">Worship</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_27">27</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#UNHEARD">Unheard</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_28">28</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#REINCARNATION">Reincarnation</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_28">28</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#ON_CHENOWETHS_RUN">On Chenoweth's Run</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_29">29</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#HOME_AGAIN">Home Again</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_30">30</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_STREET_OF_GHOSTS">A Street of Ghosts</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_31">31</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#IN_THE_SHADOW_OF_THE_BEECHES">In the Shadow of the Beeches</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_33">33</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#REQUIESCAT">Requiescat</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_34">34</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_QUEST">The Quest</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_35">35</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#MEETING_AND_PARTING">Meeting and Parting</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_36">36</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#LOVE_IN_A_GARDEN">Love in a Garden</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_37">37</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#FLORIDIAN">Floridian</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_39">39</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_GOLDEN_HOUR">The Golden Hour</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_40">40</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#REED_CALL_FOR_APRIL">Reed Call for April</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_41">41</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_YEARS_WHEREIN_I_NEVER_KNEW">"The Years Wherein I Never Knew"</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_42">42</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#MIGNON">Mignon</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_42">42</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#QUI_DOCET_DISCIT">Qui Docet, Discit</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_43">43</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#TRANSUBSTANTIATION">Transubstantiation</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_44">44</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#HELEN">Helen</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_44">44</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_CAMEO">A Cameo</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_45">45</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#LA_JEUNESSE_ET_LA_MORT">La Jeunesse et la Mort</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_46">46</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#LOVE_AND_LOSS">Love and Loss</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_47">47</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#SUNSET_CLOUDS">Sunset Clouds</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_47">47</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#MASKED">Masked</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_48">48</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#OUT_OF_THE_DEPTHS">Out of the Depths</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_49">49</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#RICHES">Riches</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_50">50</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#BEAUTY_AND_ART">Beauty and Art</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_50">50</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_AGE_OF_GOLD">The Age of Gold</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_51">51</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_LOVE_OF_LOVES">The Love of Loves</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_52">52</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THREE_THINGS">Three Things</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_52">52</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#IMMORTELLES">Immortelles</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_53">53</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_LULLABY">A Lullaby</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_54">54</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#DUM_VIVIMUS">Dum Vivimus</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_56">56</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#FAILURE">Failure</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_57">57</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_CUP_OF_JOY">The Cup of Joy</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_58">58</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#PESTILENCE">Pestilence</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_59">59</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#MUSINGS">Musings</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_60">60</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SKULL">At the Sign of the Skull</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_62">62</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_CAVALIERS_TOAST">A Cavalier's Toast</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_63">63</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#SLEEP_IS_A_SPIRIT">Sleep is a Spirit</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_64">64</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#KENNST_DU_DAS_LAND">Kennst du das Land</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_65">65</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#AT_MIDNIGHT">At Midnight</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_65">65</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_MAN_IN_GRAY">The Man in Gray</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_66">66</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#HALLOWEEN">Hallowe'en</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_67">67</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_IMAGE_IN_THE_GLASS">The Image in the Glass</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_68">68</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#HER_PRAYER">Her Prayer</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_70">70</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_MESSAGE_OF_THE_LILIES">The Message of the Lilies</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_71">71</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_LEGEND_OF_THE_LILY">A Legend of the Lily</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_72">72</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_END_OF_THE_CENTURY">The End of the Century</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_74">74</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_ISLE_OF_VOICES">The Isle of Voices</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_77">77</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#AD_NINETEEN_HUNDRED">A. D. Nineteen Hundred</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_81">81</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#CAVERNS">Caverns</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_81">81</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#OF_THE_SLUMS">Of the Slums</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_82">82</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_WINDS">The Winds</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_82">82</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#PROTOTYPES">Prototypes</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_83">83</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#TOUCHES">Touches</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_83">83</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_WOMAN_SPEAKS">The Woman Speaks</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_84">84</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#LOVE_THE_INTERPRETER">Love, the Interpreter</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_84">84</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#UNANSWERED">Unanswered</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_85">85</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#EARTH_AND_MOON">Earth and Moon</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_85">85</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#PEARLS">Pearls</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_86">86</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#IN_THE_FOREST">In the Forest</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_86">86</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#ENCHANTMENT">Enchantment</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_87">87</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#DUSK">Dusk</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_87">87</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_BLUE_BIRD">The Blue Bird</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_88">88</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#CAN_SUCH_THINGS_BE">Can Such Things Be?</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_88">88</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_PASSING_GLORY">The Passing Glory</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_89">89</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#SEPTEMBER">September</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_89">89</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#HOODOO">Hoodoo</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_90">90</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#THE_OTHER_WOMAN">The Other Woman</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_91">91</SPAN></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><SPAN href="#A_SONG_FOR_LABOR">A Song for Labor</SPAN></td>
<td align="right"><SPAN href="#Page_92">92</SPAN></td>
</tr>
</table>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>FOREWORD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>In the first rare spring of song,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>In my heart's young hours,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>In my youth 't was thus I sang,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Choosing 'mid the flowers:—</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>"Fair the Dandelion is,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>But for me too lowly;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>And the winsome Violet</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Is, forsooth, too holy.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>'But the Touchmenot?' Go to!</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>What! a face that's speckled</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Like a common milking-maid's,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Whom the sun hath freckled.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Then the Wild-Rose is a flirt;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>And the trillium Lily,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>In her spotless gown, 's a prude,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Sanctified and silly.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>By her cap the Columbine,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>To my mind, 's too merry;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Gossips, I would sooner wed</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Some plebeian Berry.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>And the shy Anemone—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Well, her face shows sorrow;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Pale, goodsooth! alive to-day,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Dead and gone to-morrow.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Then that bold-eyed, buxom wench,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Big and blond and lazy,—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>She's been chosen overmuch!—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Sirs, I mean the Daisy.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Pleasant persons are they all,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>And their virtues many;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Faith I know but good of each,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>And naught ill of any.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>But I choose a May-apple;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>She shall be my Lady;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Blooming, hidden and refined,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Sweet in places shady."</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>In my youth 'twas thus I sang,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>In my heart's young hours,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>In the first rare spring of song,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Choosing 'mid the flowers.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>So I hesitated when</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Time alone was reckoned</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>By the hours that Fancy smiled,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Love and Beauty beckoned.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hard it was for me to choose</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>From the flowers that flattered;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>And the blossom that I chose</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Soon lay dead and scattered.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Hard I found it then, ah, me!</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Hard I found the choosing;</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Harder, harder since I've found,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Ah, too hard the losing.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Haply had I chosen then</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>From the weeds that tangle</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Wayside, woodland and the wall</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Of my garden's angle,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>I had chosen better, yea,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>For these later hours—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Longer last the weeds, and oft</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Sweeter are than flowers.</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</SPAN></span></p>
<h1><span class="smcap">Weeds by the Wall.</span></h1>
<h2><SPAN name="A_WILD_IRIS" id="A_WILD_IRIS"></SPAN>A WILD IRIS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">That day we wandered 'mid the hills,—so lone<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Clouds are not lonelier,—the forest lay<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In emerald darkness 'round us. Many a stone<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And gnarly root, gray-mossed, made wild our way;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And many a bird the glimmering light along<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Showered the golden bubbles of its song.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then in the valley, where the brook went by,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Silvering the ledges that it rippled from,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">An isolated slip of fallen sky,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Epitomizing heaven in its sum,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">An iris bloomed—blue, as if, flower-disguised,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The gaze of Spring had there materialized.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I have forgotten many things since then—<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Much beauty and much happiness and grief;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And toiled and dreamed among my fellow-men,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Rejoicing in the knowledge life is brief.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"'T is winter now," so says each barren bough;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And face and hair proclaim 't is winter now.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I would forget the gladness of that spring!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">I would forget that day when she and I,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Between the bird-song and the blossoming,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Went hand in hand beneath the soft spring sky!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Much is forgotten, yea—and yet, and yet,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The things we would we never can forget.—<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Nor I how May then minted treasuries<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Of crowfoot gold; and molded out of light<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sorrel's cups, whose elfin chalices<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Of limpid spar were streaked with rosy white.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Nor all the stars of twinkling spiderwort,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And mandrake moons with which her brows were girt.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">But most of all, yea, it were well for me,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Me and my heart, that I forget that flower,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The wild blue iris, azure fleur-de-lis,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">That she and I together found that hour.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its recollection can but emphasize<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The pain of loss, remindful of her eyes.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_PATH_BY_THE_CREEK" id="THE_PATH_BY_THE_CREEK"></SPAN>THE PATH BY THE CREEK.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There is a path that leads<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through purple iron-weeds,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">By button-bush and mallow<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Along a creek;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A path that wildflowers hallow,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">That wild birds seek;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Roofed thick with eglantine<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And grape and trumpet-vine.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">This side, blackberries sweet<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Glow cobalt in the heat;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That side, a creamy yellow,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">In summertime<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The pawpaws slowly mellow;<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And autumn's prime<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Strews red the Chickasaw,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Persimmon brown and haw.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The glittering dragon-fly,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A wingéd flash, goes by;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And tawny wasp and hornet<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Seem gleams that drone;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The beetle, like a garnet,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Slips from the stone;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And butterflies float there,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Spangling with gold the air.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Here the brown thrashers hide,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The chat and cat-bird chide;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The blue kingfisher houses<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Above the stream,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And here the heron drowses<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Lost in his dream;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The vireo's flitting note<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Haunts all the wild remote.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And now a cow's slow bell<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tinkles along the dell;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where breeze-dropped petals winnow<br/></span>
<span class="i2">From blossomy limbs<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On waters, where the minnow,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Faint-twinkling, swims;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where, in the root-arched shade,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Slim prisms of light are laid.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When in the tangled thorn<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The new-moon hangs a horn,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or, 'mid the sunset's islands,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Guides a canoe,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The brown owl in the silence<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Calls, and the dew<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beads here its orbs of damp,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each one a firefly lamp.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then when the night is still<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Here sings the whippoorwill;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And stealthy sounds of crickets,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And winds that pass,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whispering, through bramble thickets<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Along the grass,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Faint with far scents of hay,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Seem feet of dreams astray.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And where the water shines<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dark through tree-twisted vines,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Some water-spirit, dreaming,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Braids in her hair<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A star's reflection; seeming<br/></span>
<span class="i2">A jewel there;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While all the sweet night long<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ripples her quiet song....<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Would I could imitate,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O path, thy happy state!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Making my life all beauty,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">All bloom and beam;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Knowing no other duty<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Than just to dream,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And far from pain and woe<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lead feet that come and go.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Leading to calm content,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O'er ways the Master went,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through lowly things and humble,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To peace and love;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Teaching the lives that stumble<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To look above,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Forget the world of toil<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And all its sad turmoil.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_ROAD_HOME" id="THE_ROAD_HOME"></SPAN>THE ROAD HOME.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Over the hills, as the pewee flies,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Under the blue of the Southern skies;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Over the hills, where the red-bird wings<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like a scarlet blossom, or sits and sings:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Under the shadow of rock and tree,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the warm wind drones with the honey-bee;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the tall wild-carrots around you sway<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Their lace-like flowers of cloudy gray:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">By the black-cohosh with its pearly plume<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A nod in the woodland's odorous gloom;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">By the old rail-fence, in the elder's shade,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That the myriad hosts of the weeds invade:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where the butterfly-weed, like a coal of fire,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Blurs orange-red through bush and brier;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the pennyroyal and mint smell sweet,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And blackberries tangle the summer heat,<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The old road leads; then crosses the creek,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the minnow dartles, a silvery streak;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the cows wade deep through the blue-eyed grass,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the flickering dragonflies gleaming pass.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">That road is easy, however long,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Which wends with beauty as toil with song;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the road we follow shall lead us straight<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Past creek and wood to a farmhouse gate.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Past hill and hollow, whence scents are blown<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of dew-wet clover that scythes have mown;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To a house that stands with porches wide<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And gray low roof on the green hill-side.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Colonial, stately; 'mid shade and shine<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of the locust-tree and the Southern pine;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With its orchard acres and meadowlands<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Stretched out before it like welcoming hands.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And gardens, where, in the myrrh-sweet June,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Magnolias blossom with many a moon<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of fragrance; and, in the feldspar light<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of August, roses bloom red and white.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In a woodbine arbor, a perfumed place,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A slim girl sits with a happy face;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her bonnet by her, a sunbeam lies<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On her lovely hair, in her earnest eyes.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Her eyes, as blue as the distant deeps<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of the heavens above where the high hawk sleeps;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A book beside her, wherein she read<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Till she saw <i>him</i> coming, she heard <i>his</i> tread.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Come home at last; come back from the war;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In his eyes a smile, on his brow a scar;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To the South come back—who wakes from her dream<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To the love and peace of a new regime.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_TWILIGHT_MOTH" id="A_TWILIGHT_MOTH"></SPAN>A TWILIGHT MOTH.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dusk is thy dawn; when Eve puts on her state<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of gold and purple in the marbled west,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thou comest forth like some embodied trait,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or dim conceit, a lily-bud confessed;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or, of a rose, the visible wish; that, white,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Goes softly messengering through the night,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Whom each expectant flower makes its guest.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All day the primroses have thought of thee,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their golden heads close-haremed from the heat;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All day the mystic moonflowers silkenly<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Veiled snowy faces,—that no bee might greet<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or butterfly that, weighed with pollen, passed;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Keeping Sultana charms for thee, at last,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their lord, who comest to salute each sweet.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Cool-throated flowers that avoid the day's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Too fervid kisses; every bud that drinks<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The tipsy dew and to the starlight plays<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Nocturnes of fragrance, thy winged shadow links<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In bonds of secret brotherhood and faith;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O bearer of their order's shibboleth,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some pale symbol fluttering o'er these pinks.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What dost thou whisper in the balsam's ear<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That sets it blushing, or the hollyhock's,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A syllabled silence that no man may hear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As dreamily upon its stem it rocks?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What spell dost bear from listening plant to plant,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some white witch, some ghostly ministrant,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Some spectre of some perished flower of phlox?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O voyager of that universe which lies<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Between the four walls of this garden fair,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose constellations are the fireflies<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That wheel their instant courses everywhere,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">'Mid fairy firmaments wherein one sees<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Mimic Boötes and the Pleiades,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Thou steerest like some fairy ship-of-air.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Gnome-wrought of moonbeam fluff and gossamer,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Silent as scent, perhaps thou chariotest<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Mab or king Oberon; or, haply, her<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</SPAN></span>
<span class="i1">His queen, Titania, on some midnight quest.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O for the herb, the magic euphrasy,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That should unmask thee to mine eyes, ah, me!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And all that world at which my soul hath guessed!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="ALONG_THE_STREAM" id="ALONG_THE_STREAM"></SPAN>ALONG THE STREAM.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where the violet shadows brood<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Under cottonwoods and beeches,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Through whose leaves the restless reaches<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of the river glance, I've stood,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">While the red-bird and the thrush<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Set to song the morning hush.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There,—when woodland hills encroach<br/></span>
<span class="i1">On the shadowy winding waters,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And the bluets, April's daughters,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">At the darling Spring's approach,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Star their myriads through the trees,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All the land is one with peace.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Under some imposing cliff,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That, with bush and tree and boulder,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Thrusts a gray, gigantic shoulder<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O'er the stream, I've oared a skiff,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">While great clouds of berg-white hue<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lounged along the noonday blue.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There,—when harvest heights impend<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Over shores of rippling summer,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And to greet the fair new-comer,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">June,—the wildrose thickets bend<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In a million blossoms dressed,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All the land is one with rest.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">On some rock, where gaunt the oak<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Reddens and the sombre cedar<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Darkens, like a sachem leader,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I have lain and watched the smoke<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of the steamboat, far away,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Trailed athwart the dying day.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There,—when margin waves reflect<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Autumn colors, gay and sober,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And the Indian-girl, October,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Wampum-like in berries decked,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sits beside the leaf-strewn streams,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All the land is one with dreams.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Through the bottoms where,—out-tossed<br/></span>
<span class="i1">By the wind's wild hands,—ashiver<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lean the willows o'er the river,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I have walked in sleet and frost,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">While beneath the cold round moon,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Frozen, gleamed the long lagoon.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There,—when leafless woods uplift<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Spectral arms the storm-blasts splinter,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And the hoary trapper, Winter,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Builds his camp of ice and drift,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With his snow-pelts furred and shod,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All the land is one with God.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_CRICKET" id="THE_CRICKET"></SPAN>THE CRICKET.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">First of the insect choir, in the spring<br/></span>
<span class="i1">We hear his faint voice fluttering in the grass,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beneath some blossom's rosy covering<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or frond of fern upon a wildwood pass.<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</SPAN></span>
<span class="i0">When in the marsh, in clamorous orchestras,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The shrill hylodes pipe; when, in the haw's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bee-swarming blooms, or tasseling sassafras,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sweet threads of silvery song the sparrow draws,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bow-like, athwart the vibrant atmosphere,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some dim dream low-breathed in slumber's ear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All summer through the mellowing meadows thrill<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To his blithe music. Be it day or night,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Close gossip of the grass, on field and hill<br/></span>
<span class="i1">He serenades the silence with delight:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Silence, that hears the melon slowly split<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With ripeness; and the plump peach, hornet-bit,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Loosen and fall; and everywhere the white,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Warm, silk-like stir of leafy lights that flit<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As breezes blow; above which, loudly clear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like joy who sings of life and has no fear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then in the autumn, by the waterside,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Leaf-huddled; or along the weed-grown walks,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He dirges low the flowers that have died,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or with their ghosts holds solitary talks.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lover of warmth, all day above the click<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And crunching of the sorghum-press, through thick<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sweet steam of juice; all night when, white as chalk,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The hunter's-moon hangs o'er the rustling rick,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within the barn 'mid munching cow and steer,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Soft as a memory the heart holds dear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>IV.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Kinsman and cousin of the Faëry Race,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All winter long he sets his sober mirth,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That brings good-luck to many a fire-place,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To folk-lore song and story of the hearth.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Between the back-log's bluster and the slim<br/></span>
<span class="i0">High twittering of the kettle,—sounds that hymn<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Home-comforts,—when, outside, the starless Earth<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is icicled in every laden limb,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Defying frost and all the sad and sear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like love that dies not and is always near,—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">We hear his "Cheer, cheer, cheer."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="VOICES" id="VOICES"></SPAN>VOICES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When blood-root blooms and trillium flowers<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Unclasp their stars to sun and rain,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">My heart strikes hands with winds and showers<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And wanders in the woods again.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O urging impulse, born of spring,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That makes glad April of my soul,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No bird, however wild of wing,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Is more impatient of control.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Impetuous of pulse it beats<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within my blood and bears me hence;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Above the housetops and the streets<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I hear its happy eloquence.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It tells me all that I would know,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of birds and buds, of blooms and bees;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I seem to <i>hear</i> the blossoms blow,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And leaves unfolding on the trees.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I seem to hear the blue-bells ring<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Faint purple peals of fragrance; and<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The honey-throated poppies fling<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their golden laughter o'er the land.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It calls to me; it sings to me;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I hear its far voice night and day;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I can not choose but go when tree<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And flower clamor, "Come, away!"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_GRASSHOPPER" id="THE_GRASSHOPPER"></SPAN>THE GRASSHOPPER.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What joy you take in making hotness hotter,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In emphasizing dullness with your buzz,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Making monotony more monotonous!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When Summer comes, and drouth hath dried the water<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In all the creeks, we hear your ragged rasp<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Filing the stillness. Or,—as urchins beat<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A stagnant pond whereon the bubbles gasp,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Your switch-like music whips the midday heat.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O bur of sound caught in the Summer's hair,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">We hear you everywhere!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">We hear you in the vines and berry-brambles,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Along the unkempt lanes, among the weeds,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Amid the shadeless meadows, gray with seeds,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And by the wood 'round which the rail-fence rambles,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sawing the sunlight with your sultry saw.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or,—like to tomboy truants, at their play<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With noisy mirth among the barn's deep straw,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">You sing away the careless summer-day.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O brier-like voice that clings in idleness<br/></span>
<span class="i6">To Summer's drowsy dress!<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You tramp of insects, vagrant and unheeding,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Improvident, who of the summer make<br/></span>
<span class="i1">One long green mealtime, and for winter take<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No care, aye singing or just merely feeding!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Happy-go-lucky vagabond,—'though frost<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shall pierce, ere long, your green coat or your brown,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And pinch your body,—let no song be lost,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">But as you lived into your grave go down—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some small poet with his little rhyme,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Forgotten of all time.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_TREE_TOAD" id="THE_TREE_TOAD"></SPAN>THE TREE TOAD.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Secluded, solitary on some underbough,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or cradled in a leaf, 'mid glimmering light,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like Puck thou crouchest: Haply watching how<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The slow toad-stool comes bulging, moony white,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Through loosening loam; or how, against the night,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The glow-worm gathers silver to endow<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The darkness with; or how the dew conspires<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To hang at dusk with lamps of chilly fires<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Each blade that shrivels now.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O vague confederate of the whippoorwill,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of owl and cricket and the katydid!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thou gatherest up the silence in one shrill<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Vibrating note and send'st it where, half hid<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In cedars, twilight sleeps—each azure lid<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Drooping a line of golden eyeball still.—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Afar, yet near, I hear thy dewy voice<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within the Garden of the Hours apoise<br/></span>
<span class="i3">On dusk's deep daffodil.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Minstrel of moisture! silent when high noon<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shows her tanned face among the thirsting clover<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And parching meadows, thy tenebrious tune<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wakes with the dew or when the rain is over.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Thou troubadour of wetness and damp lover<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of all cool things! admitted comrade boon<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of twilight's hush, and little intimate<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of eve's first fluttering star and delicate<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Round rim of rainy moon!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>IV.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Art trumpeter of Dwarfland? does thy horn<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Inform the gnomes and goblins of the hour<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When they may gambol under haw and thorn,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Straddling each winking web and twinkling flower?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or bell-ringer of Elfland? whose tall tower<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The liriodendron is? from whence is borne<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The elfin music of thy bell's deep bass,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To summon fairies to their starlit maze,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">To summon them or warn.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_SCREECH-OWL" id="THE_SCREECH-OWL"></SPAN>THE SCREECH-OWL.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When, one by one, the stars have trembled through<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Eve's shadowy hues of violet, rose, and fire—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As on a pansy-bloom the limpid dew<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Orbs its bright beads;—and, one by one, the choir<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of insects wakes on nodding bush and brier:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then through the woods—where wandering winds pursue<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A ceaseless whisper—like an eery lyre<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Struck in the Erl-king's halls, where ghosts and dreams<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hold revelry, your goblin music screams,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shivering and strange as some strange thought come true.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Brown as the agaric that frills dead trees,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or those fantastic fungi of the woods<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That crowd the dampness—are you kin to these<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In some mysterious way that still eludes<br/></span>
<span class="i1">My fancy? you, who haunt the solitudes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With witch-like wailings? voice, that seems to freeze<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Out of the darkness,—like the scent which broods,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Rank and rain-sodden, over autumn nooks,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That, to the mind, might well suggest such looks,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Ghastly and gray, as pale clairvoyance sees.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You people night with weirdness: lone and drear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beneath the stars, you cry your wizard runes;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the haggard silence, filled with fear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Your shuddering hoot seems some bleak grief that croons<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Mockery and terror; or,—beneath the moon's<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Cloud-hurrying glimmer,—to the startled ear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Crazed, madman snatches of old, perished tunes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The witless wit of outcast Edgar there<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In the wild night; or, wan with all despair,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The mirthless laughter of the Fool in Lear.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_CHIPMUNK" id="THE_CHIPMUNK"></SPAN>THE CHIPMUNK.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He makes a roadway of the crumbling fence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or on the fallen tree,—brown as a leaf<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Fall stripes with russet,—gambols down the dense<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Green twilight of the woods. We see not whence<br/></span>
<span class="i1">He comes, nor whither—'tis a time too brief!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He vanishes;—swift carrier of some Fay,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Some pixy steed that haunts our child-belief—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A goblin glimpse from woodland way to way.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What harlequin mood of nature qualified<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Him so with happiness? and limbed him with<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Such young activity as winds, that ride<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The ripples, have, that dance on every side?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As sunbeams know, that urge the sap and pith<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through hearts of trees? yet made him to delight,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gnome-like, in darkness,—like a moonlight myth,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lairing in labyrinths of the under night.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Here, by a rock, beneath the moss, a hole<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Leads to his home, the den wherein he sleeps;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lulled by near noises of the cautious mole<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tunnelling its mine—like some ungainly Troll—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or by the tireless cricket there that keeps<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Picking its drowsy and monotonous lute;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or slower sounds of grass that creeps and creeps,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And trees unrolling mighty root on root.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Such is the music of his sleeping hours.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Day hath another—'tis a melody<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He trips to, made by the assembled flowers,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And light and fragrance laughing 'mid the bowers,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And ripeness busy with the acorn-tree.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Such strains, perhaps, as filled with mute amaze—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The silent music of Earth's ecstasy—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Satyr's soul, the Faun of classic days.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="LOVE_AND_A_DAY" id="LOVE_AND_A_DAY"></SPAN>LOVE AND A DAY.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In girandoles of gladioles<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The day had kindled flame;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And Heaven a door of gold and pearl<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Unclosed when Morning,—like a girl,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A red rose twisted in a curl,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Down sapphire stairways came.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What shall I do? what can I do?"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All on a summer's morning."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Said Love to me: "Go woo.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">If she be milking, follow, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the clover hollow, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While through the dew the bells clang clear,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Just whisper it into her ear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All on a summer's morning."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Of honey and heat and weed and wheat<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The day had made perfume;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And Heaven a tower of turquoise raised,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whence Noon, like some wan woman, gazed—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A sunflower withering at her waist—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within a crystal room.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What shall I do? what can I do?"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All in the summer nooning?"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Said Love to me: "Go woo.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">If she be 'mid the rakers, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Among the harvest acres, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While every breeze brings scents of hay,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Just hold her hand and not take 'nay,'<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All in the summer nooning."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">With song and sigh and cricket cry<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The day had mingled rest;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And Heaven a casement opened wide<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of opal, whence, like some young bride,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Twilight leaned, all starry-eyed,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A moonflower on her breast.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What shall I do? what can I do?"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Said I to Love: "What must I do,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All in the summer gloaming?"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Said Love to me: "Go woo, go woo."<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Said Love to me: "Go woo.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Go meet her at the trysting, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And, 'spite of her resisting, O!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beneath the stars and afterglow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Just clasp her close and kiss her so,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All in the summer gloaming."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="DROUTH" id="DROUTH"></SPAN>DROUTH.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The hot sunflowers by the glaring pike<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lift shields of sultry brass; the teasel tops,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Pink-thorned, advance with bristling spike on spike<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Against the furious sunlight. Field and copse<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are sick with summer: now, with breathless stops,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The locusts cymbal; now grasshoppers beat<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their castanets: and rolled in dust, a team,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some mean life wrapped in its sorry dream,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">An empty wagon rattles through the heat.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where now the blue, blue flags? the flow'rs whose mouths<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are moist and musky? Where the sweet-breathed mint,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That made the brook-bank herby? Where the South's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wild morning-glories, rich in hues, that hint<br/></span>
<span class="i1">At coming showers that the rainbows tint?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where all the blossoms that the wildwood knows?—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The frail oxalis hidden in its leaves;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The Indian-pipe, pale as a soul that grieves;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The freckled touch-me-not and forest-rose.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dead! dead! all dead besides the drouth-burnt brook,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shrouded in moss or in the shriveled grass.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where waved their bells,—from which the wild-bee shook<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The dew-drop once,—gaunt, in a nightmare mass,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The rank weeds crowd; through which the cattle pass,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thirsty and lean, seeking some meagre spring,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Closed in with thorns, on which stray bits of wool<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The panting sheep have left, that sought the cool,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">From morn till evening wearily wandering.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>IV.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">No bird is heard; no throat to whistle awake<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The sleepy hush; to let its music leak<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Fresh, bubble-like, through bloom-roofs of the brake:<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Only the green-blue heron, famine weak,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Searching the stale pools of the minnowless creek,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Utters its call; and then the rain-crow, too,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">False prophet now, croaks to the stagnant air;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">While overhead,—still as if painted there,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A buzzard hangs, black on the burning blue.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="BEFORE_THE_RAIN" id="BEFORE_THE_RAIN"></SPAN>BEFORE THE RAIN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Before the rain, low in the obscure east,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Weak and morose the moon hung, sickly gray;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Around its disc the storm mists, cracked and creased,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wove an enormous web, wherein it lay<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some white spider hungry for its prey.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Vindictive looked the scowling firmament,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In which each star, that flashed a dagger ray,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Seemed filled with malice of some dark intent.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The marsh-frog croaked; and underneath the stone<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The peevish cricket raised a creaking cry.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the world these sounds were heard alone,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Save when the ruffian wind swept from the sky,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Making each tree like some sad spirit sigh;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or shook the clumsy beetle from its weed,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That, in the drowsy darkness, bungling by,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sharded the silence with its feverish speed.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Slowly the tempest gathered. Hours passed<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Before was heard the thunder's sullen drum<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Rumbling night's hollow; and the Earth at last,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Restless with waiting,—like a woman, dumb<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With doubting of the love that should have clomb<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her casement hours ago,—avowed again,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">'Mid protestations, joy that he had come.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And all night long I heard the Heavens explain.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_BROKEN_DROUTH" id="THE_BROKEN_DROUTH"></SPAN>THE BROKEN DROUTH.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It seemed the listening forest held its breath<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Before some vague and unapparent form<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of fear, approaching with the wings of death,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">On the impending storm.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Above the hills, big, bellying clouds loomed, black<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And ominous, yet silent as the blue<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That pools calm heights of heaven, deepening back<br/></span>
<span class="i3">'Twixt clouds of snowdrift hue.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then instantly, as when a multitude<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shout riot and war through some tumultuous town,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Innumerable voices swept the wood<br/></span>
<span class="i3">As wild the wind rushed down.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And fierce and few, as when a strong man weeps,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Great rain-drops dashed the dust; and, overhead,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ponderous and vast down the prodigious deeps,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Went slow the thunder's tread.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And swift and furious, as when giants fence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The lightning foils of tempest went insane;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then far and near sonorous Earth grew dense<br/></span>
<span class="i3">With long sweet sweep of rain.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="FEUD" id="FEUD"></SPAN>FEUD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A mile of lane,—hedged high with iron-weeds<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And dying daisies,—white with sun, that leads<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Downward into a wood; through which a stream<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Steals like a shadow; over which is laid<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A bridge of logs, worn deep by many a team,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sunk in the tangled shade.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Far off a wood-dove lifts its lonely cry;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the sleepy silver of the sky<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A gray hawk wheels scarce larger than a hand.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">From point to point the road grows worse and worse,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Until that place is reached where all the land<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Seems burdened with some curse.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A ragged fence of pickets, warped and sprung,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On which the fragments of a gate are hung,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Divides a hill, the fox and ground-hog haunt,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A wilderness of briers; o'er whose tops<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A battered barn is seen, low-roofed and gaunt,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">'Mid fields that know no crops.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Fields over which a path, o'erwhelmed with burs<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And ragweeds, noisy with the grasshoppers,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Leads,—lost, irresolute as paths the cows<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wear through the woods,—unto a woodshed; then,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With wrecks of windows, to a huddled house,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where men have murdered men.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A house, whose tottering chimney, clay and rock,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is seamed and crannied; whose lame door and lock<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are bullet-bored; around which, there and here,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are sinister stains.—One dreads to look around.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The place seems thinking of that time of fear<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And dares not breathe a sound.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Within is emptiness: the sunlight falls<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On faded journals papering its walls;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On advertisement chromos, torn with time,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Around a hearth where wasps and spiders build.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The house is dead; meseems that night of crime<br/></span>
<span class="i1">It, too, was shot and killed.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="UNANOINTED" id="UNANOINTED"></SPAN>UNANOINTED.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Upon the Siren-haunted seas, between Fate's mythic shores,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within a world of moon and mist, where dusk and daylight wed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I see a phantom galley and its hull is banked with oars,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With ghostly oars that move to song, a song of dreams long dead:<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">"Oh, we are sick of rowing here!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">With toil our arms are numb;<br/></span>
<span class="i5">With smiting year on weary year<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Salt-furrows of the foam:<br/></span>
<span class="i5">Our journey's end is never near,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">And will no nearer come—<br/></span>
<span class="i5">Beyond our reach the shores appear<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Of far Elysium."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Within a land of cataracts and mountains old and sand,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beneath whose heavens ruins rise, o'er which the stars burn red,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I see a spectral cavalcade with crucifix in hand<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And shadowy armor march and sing, a song of dreams long dead:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">"Oh, we are weary marching on!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Our limbs are travel-worn;<br/></span>
<span class="i5">With cross and sword from dawn to dawn<br/></span>
<span class="i6">We wend with raiment torn:<br/></span>
<span class="i5">The leagues to go, the leagues we've gone<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Are sand and rock and thorn—<br/></span>
<span class="i5">The way is long to Avalon<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Beyond the deeps of morn."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">They are the curs'd! the souls who yearn and evermore pursue<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The vision of a vain desire, a splendor far ahead;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To whom God gives the poet's dream without the grasp to do,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The artist's hope without the scope between the quick and dead:<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">I, too, am weary toiling where<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The winds and waters beat;<br/></span>
<span class="i5">When shall I ease the oar I bear<br/></span>
<span class="i6">And rest my tired feet?<br/></span>
<span class="i5">When will the white moons cease to glare,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The red suns veil their heat?<br/></span>
<span class="i5">And from the heights blow sweet the air<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Of Love's divine retreat?<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_END_OF_ALL" id="THE_END_OF_ALL"></SPAN>THE END OF ALL.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">I do not love you now,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O narrow heart, that had no heights but pride!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You, whom mine fed; to whom yours still denied<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Food when mine hungered, and of which love died—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">I do not love you now.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">I do not love you now,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O shallow soul, with depths but to deceive!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You, whom mine watered; to whom yours did give<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No drop to drink to help my love to live—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">I do not love you now.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">I do not love you now!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But did I love you in the old, old way,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And knew you loved me—'though the words should slay<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Me and your love forever, I would say,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">"I do not love you now!<br/></span>
<span class="i4">I do not love you now!"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="SUNSET_AND_STORM" id="SUNSET_AND_STORM"></SPAN>SUNSET AND STORM.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Deep with divine tautology,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sunset's mighty mystery<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Again has traced the scroll-like West<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With hieroglyphs of burning gold:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Forever new, forever old,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its miracle is manifest.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Time lays the scroll away. And now<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Above the hills a giant brow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Night lifts of cloud; and from her arm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Barbaric black, upon the world,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With thunder, wind and fire, is hurled<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her awful argument of storm.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What part, O man, is yours in such?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose awe and wonder are in touch<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With Nature,—speaking rapture to<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Your soul,—yet leaving in your reach<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No human word of thought or speech<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Expressive of the thing you view.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="BEECH_BLOOMS" id="BEECH_BLOOMS"></SPAN>BEECH BLOOMS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The wild oxalis<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Among the valleys<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lifts up its chalice<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of pink and pearl;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And, balsam-breathing,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">From out their sheathing,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The myriad wreathing<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Green leaves uncurl.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The whole world brightens<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With spring, that lightens<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The foot that frightens<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The building thrush;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where water tosses<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On ferns and mosses<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The squirrel crosses<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The beechen hush.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And vision on vision,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like ships elysian<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On some white mission,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sails cloud on cloud;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With scents of clover<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The winds brim over,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the cover<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The stream is loud.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">'Twixt bloom that blanches<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The orchard branches<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Old farms and ranches<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gleam in the gloam;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">'Mid blossoms blowing,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through fields for sowing,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The cows come lowing,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The cows come home.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where ways are narrow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A vesper-sparrow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Flits like an arrow<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of living rhyme;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The red sun poises,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And farmyard noises<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Mix with glad voices<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of milking-time.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When dusk disposes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of all its roses,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And darkness closes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And work is done,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A moon's white feather<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In starry weather<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And two together<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Whose hearts are one.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="WORSHIP" id="WORSHIP"></SPAN>WORSHIP.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">The mornings raise<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Voices of gold in the Almighty's praise;<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The sunsets soar<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In choral crimson from far shore to shore:<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Each is a blast,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Reverberant, of color,—seen as vast<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Concussions,—that the vocal firmament<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In worship sounds o'er every continent.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Not for our ears<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The cosmic music of the rolling spheres,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">That sweeps the skies!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Music we hear, but only with our eyes.<br/></span>
<span class="i6">For all too weak<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Our mortal frames to bear the words these speak,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Those detonations that we name the dawn<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And sunset—hues Earth's harmony puts on.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="UNHEARD" id="UNHEARD"></SPAN>UNHEARD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All things are wrought of melody,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Unheard, yet full of speaking spells;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the rock, within the tree,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">A soul of music dwells.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A mute symphonic sense that thrills<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The silent frame of mortal things;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its heart beats in the ancient hills,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">In every flower sings.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To harmony all growth is set—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Each seed is but a music mote,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">From which each plant, each violet,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Evolves its purple note.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Compact of melody, the rose<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Woos the soft wind with strain on strain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of crimson; and the lily blows<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Its white bars to the rain.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The trees are pæans; and the grass<br/></span>
<span class="i1">One long green fugue beneath the sun—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Song is their life; and all shall pass,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Shall cease, when song is done.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="REINCARNATION" id="REINCARNATION"></SPAN>REINCARNATION.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">High in the place of outraged liberty,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He ruled the world, an emperor and god<br/></span>
<span class="i0">His iron armies swept the land and sea,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And conquered nations trembled at his nod.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">By him the love that fills man's soul with light,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And makes a Heaven of Earth, was crucified;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lust-crowned he lived, yea, lived in God's despite,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And old in infamies, a king he died.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Justice begins now.—Many centuries<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In some vile body must his soul atone<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As slave, as beggar, loathsome with disease,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Less than the dog at which we fling a stone.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="ON_CHENOWETHS_RUN" id="ON_CHENOWETHS_RUN"></SPAN>ON CHENOWETH'S RUN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I thought of the road through the glen,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With its hawk's nest high in the pine;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With its rock, where the fox had his den,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">'Mid tangles of sumach and vine,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Where she swore to be mine.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I thought of the creek and its banks,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Now glooming, now gleaming with sun;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The rustic bridge builded of planks,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The bridge over Chenoweth's Run,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Where I wooed her and won.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I thought of the house in the lane,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With its pinks and its sweet mignonette;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its fence and the gate with the chain,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Its porch where the roses hung wet,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Where I kissed her and met.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then I thought of the family graves,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Walled rudely with stone, in the West,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the sorrowful cedar-tree waves,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And the wind is a spirit distressed,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Where they laid her to rest.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And my soul, overwhelmed with despair,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Cried out on the city and mart!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">How I longed, how I longed to be there,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Away from the struggle and smart,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">By her and my heart!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">By her and my heart in the West,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Laid sadly together as one;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On her grave for a moment to rest,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Far away from the noise and the sun,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">On Chenoweth's Run.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="HOME_AGAIN" id="HOME_AGAIN"></SPAN>HOME AGAIN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Far down the lane<br/></span>
<span class="i4">A window pane<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Gleams 'mid the trees through night and rain.<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The weeds are dense<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Through which a fence<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of pickets rambles, none sees whence,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Before a porch, all indistinct of line,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O'er-grown and matted with wistaria-vine.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">No thing is heard,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">No beast or bird,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Only the rain by which are stirred<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The draining leaves,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">And trickling eaves<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of crib and barn one scarce perceives;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And garden-beds where old-time flow'rs hang wet<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The phlox, the candytuft, and mignonette.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">The hour is late—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">At any rate<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She has not heard him at the gate:<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Upon the roof<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</SPAN></span>
<span class="i4">The rain was proof<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Against his horse's galloping hoof:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And when the old gate with its weight and chain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Creaked, she imagined 'twas the wind and rain.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Along he steals<br/></span>
<span class="i4">With cautious heels,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And by the lamplit window kneels:<br/></span>
<span class="i4">And there she sits,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">And rocks and knits<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the shadowy light that flits<br/></span>
<span class="i0">On face and hair, so sweetly sad and gray,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dreaming of him she thinks is far away.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Upon his cheeks—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Is it the streaks<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of rain, as now the old porch creaks<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Beneath his stride?<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Then, warm and wide,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The door flings and she's at his side—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"Mother!"—and he, back from the war, her boy,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Kisses her face all streaming wet with joy.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_STREET_OF_GHOSTS" id="A_STREET_OF_GHOSTS"></SPAN>A STREET OF GHOSTS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The drowsy day, with half-closed eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dreams in this quaint forgotten street,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That, like some old-world wreckage, lies,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Left by the sea's receding beat,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Far from the city's restless feet.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Abandoned pavements, that the trees'<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Huge roots have wrecked, whose flagstones feel<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No more the sweep of draperies;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And sunken curbs, whereon no wheel<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Grinds, nor the gallant's spur-bound heel.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Old houses, walled with rotting brick,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thick-creepered, dormered, weather-vaned,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like withered faces, sad and sick,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Stare from each side, all broken paned,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With battered doors the rain has stained.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And though the day be white with heat,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Their ancient yards are dim and cold;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where now the toad makes its retreat,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">'Mid flower-pots green-caked with mold,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And naught but noisome weeds unfold.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The slow gray slug and snail have trailed<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Their slimy silver up and down<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The beds where once the moss-rose veiled<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Rich beauty; and the mushroom brown<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Swells where the lily tossed its crown.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The shadowy scents, that haunt and flit<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Along the walks, beneath the boughs,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Seem ghosts of sweethearts here who sit,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or wander 'round each empty house,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Wrapped in the silence of dead vows.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And, haply, when the evening droops<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her amber eyelids in the west,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Here one might hear the swish of hoops,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or catch the glint of hat or vest,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As two dim lovers past him pressed.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And, instant as some star's slant flame,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That scores the swarthy cheek of night,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Perhaps behold Colonial dame<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And gentleman in stately white<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Go glimmering down the pale moonlight.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In powder, patch, and furbelow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Cocked-hat and sword; and every one,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tory and whig of long ago,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As real as in the days long done,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The courtly days of Washington.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="IN_THE_SHADOW_OF_THE_BEECHES" id="IN_THE_SHADOW_OF_THE_BEECHES"></SPAN>IN THE SHADOW OF THE BEECHES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the shadow of the beeches,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where the fragile wildflowers bloom;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the pensive silence pleaches<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Green a roof of cool perfume,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you felt an awe imperious<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As when, in a church, mysterious<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Windows paint with God the gloom?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the shadow of the beeches,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where the rock-ledged waters flow;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the sun's sloped splendor bleaches<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Every wave to foaming snow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you felt a music solemn<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As when minster arch and column<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Echo organ-worship low?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the shadow of the beeches,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where the light and shade are blent;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the forest-bird beseeches,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And the breeze is brimmed with scent,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is it joy or melancholy<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That o'erwhelms us partly, wholly,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To our spirit's betterment?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the shadow of the beeches<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lay me where no eye perceives;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where,—like some great arm that reaches<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gently as a love that grieves,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">One gnarled root may clasp me kindly<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While the long years, working blindly,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Slowly change my dust to leaves.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="REQUIESCAT" id="REQUIESCAT"></SPAN>REQUIESCAT.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The roses mourn for her who sleeps<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Within the tomb;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For her each lily-flower weeps<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Dew and perfume.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In each neglected flower-bed<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each blossom droops its lovely head,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">They miss her touch, they miss her tread,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Her face of bloom,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Of happy bloom.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The very breezes grieve for her,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">A lonely grief;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For her each tree is sorrower,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Each blade and leaf.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The foliage rocks itself and sighs,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And to its woe the wind replies,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">They miss her girlish laugh and cries,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Whose life was brief,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Was very brief.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The sunlight, too, seems pale with care,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Or sick with woe;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The memory haunts it of her hair,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Its golden glow.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No more within the bramble-brake<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sleepy bloom is kissed awake—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sun is sad for her dear sake,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Whose head lies low,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Lies dim and low.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The bird, that sang so sweet, is still<br/></span>
<span class="i3">At dusk and dawn;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No more it makes the silence thrill<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Of wood and lawn.<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</SPAN></span>
<span class="i0">In vain the buds, when it is near,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Open each pink and perfumed ear,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The song it sings she will not hear<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Who now is gone,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Is dead and gone.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ah, well she sleeps who loved them well,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">The birds and bowers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The fair, the young, the lovable,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Who once was ours.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Alas! that loveliness must pass!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Must come to lie beneath the grass!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That youth and joy must fade, alas!<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And die like flowers,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Earth's sweetest flowers!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_QUEST" id="THE_QUEST"></SPAN>THE QUEST.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">First I asked the honey-bee,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Busy in the balmy bowers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Saying, "Sweetheart, tell it me:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you seen her, honey-bee?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She is cousin to the flowers—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Wild-rose face and wild-rose mouth,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the sweetness of the south."—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">But it passed me silently.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then I asked the forest-bird,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Warbling to the woodland waters;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Saying, "Dearest, have you heard,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you heard her, forest-bird?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She is one of Music's daughters—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Music is her happy laugh;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Never song so sweet by half."—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">But it answered not a word.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Next I asked the evening sky,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Hanging out its lamps of fire;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Saying, "Loved one, passed she by?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tell me, tell me, evening sky!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She, the star of my desire—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Planet-eyed and hair moon-glossed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sister whom the Pleiads lost."—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">But it never made reply.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>IV.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Where is she? ah, where is she?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She to whom both love and duty<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bind me, yea, immortally.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where is she? ah, where is she?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Symbol of the Earth-soul's beauty.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I have lost her. Help my heart<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Find her, nevermore to part.—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Woe is me! ah, woe is me!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="MEETING_AND_PARTING" id="MEETING_AND_PARTING"></SPAN>MEETING AND PARTING.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When from the tower, like some sweet flower,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The bell drops petals of the hour,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That says the world is homing,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">My heart puts off its garb of care<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And clothes itself in gold and vair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And hurries forth to meet her there<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within the purple gloaming.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">It's—Oh! how slow the hours go,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">How dull the moments move!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Till soft and clear the bells I hear,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">That say, like music, in my ear,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">"Go meet the one you love."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When curved and white, a bugle bright,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The moon blows glamour through the night,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That sets the world a-dreaming,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">My heart, where gladness late was guest,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Puts off its joy, as to my breast<br/></span>
<span class="i0">At parting her dear form is pressed,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within the moon's faint gleaming.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">It's—Oh! how fast the hours passed!—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">They were not slow enough!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Too soon, too soon, the sinking moon<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Says to my soul, like some sad tune,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">"Come! part from her you love."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="LOVE_IN_A_GARDEN" id="LOVE_IN_A_GARDEN"></SPAN>LOVE IN A GARDEN.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Between the rose's and the canna's crimson,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beneath her window in the night I stand;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The jeweled dew hangs little stars, in rims, on<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The white moonflowers—each a spirit hand<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That points the path to mystic shadowland.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">Awaken, sweet and fair!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">And add to night thy grace!<br/></span>
<span class="i5">Suffer its loveliness to share<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The white moon of thy face,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">The darkness of thy hair.<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Awaken, sweet and fair!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A moth, like down, swings on th' althæa's pistil,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Ghost of a tone that haunts its bell's deep dome;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the August-lily's cone of crystal<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A firefly blurs, the lantern of a gnome,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Green as a gem that gleams through hollow foam.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">Approach! the moment flies!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Thou sweetheart of the South!<br/></span>
<span class="i5">Come! mingle with night's mysteries<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The red rose of thy mouth,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">The starlight of thine eyes.—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Approach! the moment flies!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dim through the dusk, like some unearthly presence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bubbles the Slumber-song of some wild bird;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And with it borne, faint on a breeze-sweet essence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The rainy murmur of a fountain's heard—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As if young lips had breathed a perfumed word.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i5">How long, my love, my bliss!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">How long must I await<br/></span>
<span class="i5">With night,—that all impatience is,—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Thy greeting at the gate,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">And at the gate thy kiss?<br/></span>
<span class="i6">How long, my love, my bliss!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="FLORIDIAN" id="FLORIDIAN"></SPAN>FLORIDIAN.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The cactus and the aloe bloom<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beneath the window of your room;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Your window where, at evenfall,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beneath the twilight's first pale star,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You linger, tall and spiritual,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">And hearken my guitar.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i3">It is the hour<br/></span>
<span class="i3">When every flower<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Is wooed by moth or bee—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Would, would you were the flower, dear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And I the moth to draw you near,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To draw you near to me,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">My dear,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To draw you near to me.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The jasmine and bignonia spill<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Their balm around your windowsill;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sill where, when magnolia-white,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In foliage mists, the moon hangs far,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You lean with bright deep eyes of night<br/></span>
<span class="i4">And hearken my guitar.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i3">It is the hour<br/></span>
<span class="i3">When from each flower<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The wind woos fragrances—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Would, would you were the flower, love,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And I the wind to breathe above,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To breathe above and kiss,<br/></span>
<span class="i5">My love,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">To breathe above and kiss.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_GOLDEN_HOUR" id="THE_GOLDEN_HOUR"></SPAN>THE GOLDEN HOUR.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She comes,—the dreamy daughter<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of day and night,—a girl,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who o'er the western water<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lifts up her moon of pearl:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some Rebecca at the well,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who fills her jar of crystal shell,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Down ways of dew, o'er dale and dell,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with dreams of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with dreams of you.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She comes, the serious sister<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of all the stars that strew<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The deeps of God, and glister<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bright on the darkling blue:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some loved Ruth, who heaps her arm<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With golden gleanings of the farm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Down fields of stars, where shadows swarm,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with thoughts of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with thoughts of you.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She comes, and soft winds greet her,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And whispering odors woo;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She is the words and meter<br/></span>
<span class="i1">They set their music to:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like Israfel, a spirit fair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose heart's a silvery dulcimer,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Down listening slopes of earth and air<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with love of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Of you,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dusk comes with love of you.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="REED_CALL_FOR_APRIL" id="REED_CALL_FOR_APRIL"></SPAN>REED CALL FOR APRIL.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When April comes, and pelts with buds<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And apple-blooms each orchard space,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And takes the dog-wood-whitened woods<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With rain and sunshine of her moods,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like your fair face, like your fair face:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">It's honey for the bloom and dew,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And honey for the heart!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And, oh, to be away with you<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Beyond the town and mart.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When April comes, and tints the hills<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With gold and beryl that rejoice,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And from her airy apron spills<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The laughter of the winds and rills,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like your young voice, like your young voice:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">It's gladness for God's bending blue,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And gladness for the heart!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And, oh, to be away with you<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Beyond the town and mart.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When April comes, and binds and girds<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The world with warmth that breathes above,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And to the breeze flings all her birds,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose songs are welcome as the words<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of you I love, of you I love:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i2">It's music for all things that woo,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And music for the heart!<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And, oh, to be away with you<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Beyond the town and mart.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_YEARS_WHEREIN_I_NEVER_KNEW" id="THE_YEARS_WHEREIN_I_NEVER_KNEW"></SPAN>"THE YEARS WHEREIN I NEVER KNEW."</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The years, wherein I never knew<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Such beauty as is yours,—so fraught<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With truth and kindness looking through<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Your loveliness,—I count them naught,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O girl, so like a lily wrought!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The years wherein I knew not you.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ah, let me see you always so!—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A dream that haunts my memory's sight—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Your hair of moonlight, face of snow,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And eyes, blue stars of laughing light,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O girl, so like a lily white!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through all the years that come and go.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">True to you only, in my heart<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I wear your spirit miniature,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sincere in simpleness of art,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That makes my love to still endure,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O girl, so like a lily pure!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through years that keep us still apart.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="MIGNON" id="MIGNON"></SPAN>MIGNON.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh, Mignon's mouth is like a rose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A red, red rose, that half uncurls<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sweet petals o'er a crimson bee:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or like a shell, that, opening, shows<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within its rosy curve white pearls,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">White rows of pearls,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is Mignon's mouth that smiles at me.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh, Mignon's eyes are like blue gems,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Two azure gems, that gleam and glow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Soft sapphires set in ivory:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or like twin violets, whose stems<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bloom blue beneath the covering snow,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">The lidded snow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are Mignon's eyes that laugh at me.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O mouth of Mignon, Mignon's eyes!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O eyes of violet, mouth of fire!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within which lies all ecstasy<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of tears and kisses and of sighs:—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">O mouth, O eyes, and O desire,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">O love's desire,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have mercy on the soul of me!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="QUI_DOCET_DISCIT" id="QUI_DOCET_DISCIT"></SPAN>QUI DOCET, DISCIT.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When all the world was white with flowers,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And Summer, in her sun-built towers,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Stood smiling 'mid her handmaid Hours,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Who robed her limbs for bridal;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Somewhere between the golden sands<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And purple hills of Folly's lands,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Love, with a laugh, let go our hands,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">And left our sides to idle.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Now all the world is red with doom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And Autumn, in her frost-carved room,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bends darkly o'er the gipsy loom<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Of memories she weaves there;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who knocks at night upon the door,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All travel-worn and pale and poor?—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Open! and let him in once more,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">The Love that stands and grieves there.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="TRANSUBSTANTIATION" id="TRANSUBSTANTIATION"></SPAN>TRANSUBSTANTIATION.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A sunbeam and a drop of dew<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lay on a red rose in the South:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">God took the three and made her mouth,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Her sweet, sweet mouth,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">So red of hue,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The burning baptism of His kiss<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Still fills my heart with heavenly bliss.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A dream of truth and love come true<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Slept on a star in daybreak skies:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">God mingled these and made her eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">Her dear, dear eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i2">So gray of hue,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The high communion of His gaze<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Still fills my soul with deep amaze.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="HELEN" id="HELEN"></SPAN>HELEN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Heaped in raven loops and masses<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Over temples smooth and fair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you marked it, as she passes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gleam and shadow mingled there,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Braided strands of midnight air,—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Helen's hair?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Deep with dreams and starry mazes<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of the thought that in them lies,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you seen them, as she raises<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Them in gladness or surprise,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Helen's eyes?<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Moist with dew and honied wafters<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of a music sweet that slips,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Song and sunshine to their tips,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Rose-buds whence the fragrance drips,—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Helen's lips?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He who sees her needs must love her:<br/></span>
<span class="i1">But, beware! avoid love's dart!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He who loves her must discover<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Nature overlooked one part,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In this masterpiece of art—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Helen's heart.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_CAMEO" id="A_CAMEO"></SPAN>A CAMEO.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why speak of Giamschid rubies<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Whence rosy starlight drips?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I know a richer crimson,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The ruby of her lips.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why speak of pearls of Oman<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That shells of ocean sheathe?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I know a purer nacre,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The white pearls of her teeth.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why tell me of the sapphires<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That Kings and Khalifs prize?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I know a lovelier azure,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The sapphires of her eyes.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Go search the far Earth over,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Go search the farthest sea,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You will not find a cameo<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like her God carved for me.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="LA_JEUNESSE_ET_LA_MORT" id="LA_JEUNESSE_ET_LA_MORT"></SPAN>LA JEUNESSE ET LA MORT.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Unto her fragrant face and hair,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As some wild bee unto a rose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That blooms in splendid beauty there<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within the South,—my longing goes:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">My longing, that is over fain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To call her mine, but all in vain;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Since jealous Death, as each one knows,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is guardian of La belle Heléne;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of her whose face is very fair—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">To my despair,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Sweet belle Heléne.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The sweetness of her face suggests<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The sensuous scented Jacqueminots;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Magnolia blooms her throat and breasts;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Her hands long lilies in repose:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Fair flowers all without a stain,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That grow for Death to pluck again,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within that garden's radiant close,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The body of La belle Heléne;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The garden glad that she suggests,—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">That Death invests.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Sweet belle Heléne.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">God had been kinder to me,—when<br/></span>
<span class="i1">He dipped His hands in fires and snows<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And made you like a flow'r to ken,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A flow'r that in Earth's garden grows,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Had He, for pleasure or for pain,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Instead of Death in that demesne,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Made Love the gardener to that rose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Your loveliness, O belle Heléne;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">God had been kinder to me then—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And to all men,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Sweet belle Heléne.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="LOVE_AND_LOSS" id="LOVE_AND_LOSS"></SPAN>LOVE AND LOSS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Loss molds our lives in many ways,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And fills our souls with guesses;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Upon our hearts sad hands it lays<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some grave priest that blesses.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Far better than the love we win,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That earthly passions leaven,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is love we lose, that knows no sin,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That points the path to Heaven.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Love, whose soft shadow brightens Earth,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Through whom our dreams are nearest;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And loss, through whom we see the worth<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of all that we held dearest.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Not joy it is, but misery<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That chastens us, and sorrow;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Perhaps to make us all that we<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Expect beyond To-morrow.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Within that life where time and fate<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are not; that knows no seeming:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That world to which death keeps the gate<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where love and loss sit dreaming.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="SUNSET_CLOUDS" id="SUNSET_CLOUDS"></SPAN>SUNSET CLOUDS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Low clouds, the lightning veins and cleaves,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Torn from the forest of the storm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sweep westward like enormous leaves<br/></span>
<span class="i4">O'er field and farm.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And in the west, on burning skies,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their wrath is quenched, their hate is hushed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And deep their drifted thunder lies<br/></span>
<span class="i4">With splendor flushed.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The black turns gray, the gray turns gold;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And, seaed in deeps of radiant rose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Summits of fire, manifold<br/></span>
<span class="i4">They now repose.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What dreams they bring! what thoughts reveal!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That have their source in loveliness,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through which the doubts I often feel<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Grow less and less.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Through which I see that other night,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That cloud called Death, transformed of Love<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To flame, and pointing with its light<br/></span>
<span class="i4">To life above.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="MASKED" id="MASKED"></SPAN>MASKED.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Lying alone I dreamed a dream last night:<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Methought that Joy had come to comfort me<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For all the past, its suffering and slight,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Yet in my heart I felt this could not be.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All that he said unreal seemed and strange,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Too beautiful to last beyond to-morrow;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then suddenly his features seemed to change,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The mask of joy dropped from the face of Sorrow.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="OUT_OF_THE_DEPTHS" id="OUT_OF_THE_DEPTHS"></SPAN>OUT OF THE DEPTHS.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Let me forget her face!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">So fresh, so lovely! the abiding place<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of tears and smiles that won my heart to her;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of dreams and moods that moved my soul's dim deeps,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">As strong winds stir<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dark waters where the starlight glimmering sleeps.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In every lineament the mind can trace,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Let me forget her face!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Let me forget her form!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Soft and seductive, that contained each charm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each grace the sweet word maidenhood implies;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And all the sensuous youth of line and curve,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">That makes men's eyes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bondsmen of beauty eager still to serve.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In every part that memory can warm,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Let me forget her form!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Let me forget her, God!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her who made honeyed love a bitter rod<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To scourge my heart with, barren with despair;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To tear my soul with, sick with vain desire!—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Oh, hear my prayer!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Out of the hell of love's unquenchable fire<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I cry to thee, with face against the sod,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Let me forget her, God!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="RICHES" id="RICHES"></SPAN>RICHES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What mines the morning heavens unfold!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What far Alaskas of the skies!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That, veined with elemental gold,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sierra on Sierra rise.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Heap up the gold of all the world,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The ore that makes men fools and slaves;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What is it to the gold, cloud-curled,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That rivers through the sunset's caves!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Search Earth for riches all who will,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The gold that soils, that turns to dust—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Be mine the wealth no thief can steal,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The gold of God that can not rust.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="BEAUTY_AND_ART" id="BEAUTY_AND_ART"></SPAN>BEAUTY AND ART.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The gods are dead; but still for me<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lives on in wildwood brook and tree<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each myth, each old divinity.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">For me still laughs among her rocks<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The Naiad; and the Dryad's locks<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Drop perfume on the wild-flower flocks.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The Satyr hoof still prints the loam;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And, whiter than the wind-blown foam,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Oread haunts her mountain home.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To him, whose mind is fain to dwell<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With loveliness no time can quell,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All things are real, imperishable.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To him—whatever facts may say—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who sees the soul beneath the clay,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is proof of a diviner day.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The very stars and flowers preach<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A gospel old as God, and teach<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Philosophy a child may reach;<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">That can not die, that shall not cease,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That lives through idealities<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of beauty, ev'n as Rome and Greece;<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">That lift the soul above the clod,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And, working out some period<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of art, are part and proof of God.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_AGE_OF_GOLD" id="THE_AGE_OF_GOLD"></SPAN>THE AGE OF GOLD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The clouds, that tower in storm, that beat<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Arterial thunder in their veins;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The wildflowers lifting, shyly sweet,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their perfect faces from the plains,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All high, all lowly things of Earth<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For no vague end have had their birth.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Low strips of mist, that mesh the moon<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Above the foaming waterfall;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And mountains that God's hand hath hewn,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And forests where the great winds call,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the grasp of such as see<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are parts of a conspiracy;<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To seize the soul with beauty; hold<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The heart with love, and so fulfill<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within ourselves the Age of Gold,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That never died, and never will,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">So long as one true nature feels<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The wonders that the world reveals.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_LOVE_OF_LOVES" id="THE_LOVE_OF_LOVES"></SPAN>THE LOVE OF LOVES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I have not seen her face, and yet<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She is more sweet than any thing<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of Earth—than rose or violet<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That Mayday winds and sunbeams bring.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of all we know, past or to come,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That beauty holds within its net,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She is the high compendium:<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And yet—<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I have not touched her robe, and still<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She is more dear than lyric words<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And music; or than strains that fill<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The throbbing throats of forest birds.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of all we mean by poetry,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That rules the soul and charms the will,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She is the deep epitome:<br/></span>
<span class="i3">And still—<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She is my world; ah, pity me!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A dream that flies whom I pursue;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whom all pursue, whoe'er they be,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who toil for art and dare and do.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The shadow-love for whom they sigh,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The far ideal affinity,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For whom they live and gladly die—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Ah, me!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THREE_THINGS" id="THREE_THINGS"></SPAN>THREE THINGS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There are three things of Earth<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That help us more<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Than those of heavenly birth<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That all implore—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Than Love or Faith or Hope,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For which we strive and grope.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The first one is Desire,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who takes our hand<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And fills our hearts with fire<br/></span>
<span class="i1">None may withstand;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through whom we're lifted far<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Above both moon and star.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The second one is Dream,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who leads our feet<br/></span>
<span class="i0">By an immortal gleam<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To visions sweet;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through whom our forms put on<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dim attributes of dawn.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The last of these is Toil,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who maketh true,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the world's turmoil<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The other two;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through whom we may behold<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ourselves with kings enrolled.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="IMMORTELLES" id="IMMORTELLES"></SPAN>IMMORTELLES.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">As some warm moment of repose<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In one rich rose<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sums all the summer's lovely bloom<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And pure perfume—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">So did her soul epitomize<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All hopes that make life wise,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who lies before us now with lidded eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Faith's amaranth of truth<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Crowning her youth.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">As some melodious note or strain<br/></span>
<span class="i1">May so contain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All of sweet music in one chord,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or lyric word—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">So did her loving heart suggest<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All dreams that make life blest,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who lies before us now with pulseless breast,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Love's asphodel of duty<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Crowning her beauty.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_LULLABY" id="A_LULLABY"></SPAN>A LULLABY.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In her wimple of wind and her slippers of sleep<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The twilight comes like a little goose-girl,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Herding her owls with many "tu-whoos,"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her little brown owls in the woodland deep,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where dimly she walks in her whispering shoes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And gown of glimmering pearl.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i3">Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">This is the road to Rockaby Town.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Rockaby, lullaby, where dreams are cheap;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Here you can buy any dream for a crown.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;<br/></span>
<span class="i3">The cradle you lie in is soft and is deep,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The wagon that takes you to Rockaby Town.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Now you go up, sweet, now you go down,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Rockaby, lullaby, now you go down.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And after the twilight comes midnight, who wears<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A mantle of purple so old, so old!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who stables the lily-white moon, it is said,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In a wonderful chamber with violet stairs,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Up which you can see her come, silent of tread,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">On hoofs of pale silver and gold.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i3">Dream, dream, little one, dream;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">This is the way to Lullaby Land.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Lullaby, rockaby, where, white as cream,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Sugar-plum bowers drop sweets in your hand.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Dream, dream, little one, dream;<br/></span>
<span class="i3">The cradle you lie in is tight at each seam,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The boat that goes sailing to Lullaby Land.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Over the sea, sweet, over the sand,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Lullaby, rockaby, over the sand.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The twilight and midnight are lovers, you know,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And each to the other is true, is true!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And there on the moon through the heavens they ride,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With the little brown owls all huddled arow,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through meadows of heaven where, every side,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Blossom the stars and the dew.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i3">Rest, rest, little one, rest;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Rockaby Town is in Lullaby Isle.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Rockaby, lullaby, set like a nest<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Deep in the heart of a song and a smile.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Rest, rest, little one, rest;<br/></span>
<span class="i3">The cradle you lie in is warm as my breast,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">The white bird that bears you to Lullaby Isle.<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Out of the East, sweet, into the West,<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Rockaby, lullaby, into the West.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="DUM_VIVIMUS" id="DUM_VIVIMUS"></SPAN>DUM VIVIMUS.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Now with the marriage of the lip and beaker<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Let Joy be born! and in the rosy shine,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The slanting starlight of the lifted liquor,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Let Care, the hag, be drowned! No more repine<br/></span>
<span class="i1">At all life's ills! Come, bury them in wine!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Room for great guests! Yea, let us usher in<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Philosophies of old Anacreon<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And Omar, that, from dawn to glorious dawn,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Shall lesson us in love and song and sin.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Some lives need less than others.—Who can ever<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Say truly "Thou art mine," of Happiness?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Death comes to all. And one, to-day, is never<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sure of to-morrow, that may ban or bless;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And what's beyond is but a shadowy guess.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"All, all is vanity," the preacher sighs;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And in this world what has more right than Wrong?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Come! let us hush remembrance with a song,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And learn with folly to be glad and wise.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There was a poet of the East named Hafiz,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who sang of wine and beauty. Let us go<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Praising them too. And where good wine to quaff is<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And maids to kiss, doff life's gray garb of woe;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">For soon that tavern's reached, that inn, you know,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where wine and love are not, where, sans disguise,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Each one must lie in his strait bed apart,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The thorn of sleep deep-driven in his heart,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And dust and darkness in his mouth and eyes.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="FAILURE" id="FAILURE"></SPAN>FAILURE.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There are some souls<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose lot it is to set their hearts on goals<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That adverse Fate controls.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">While others win<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With little labor through life's dust and din,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And lord-like enter in<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Immortal gates;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And, of Success the high-born intimates,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Inherit Fame's estates....<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why is 't the lot<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of merit oft to struggle and yet not<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Attain? to toil—for what?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Simply to know<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The disappointment, the despair and woe<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of effort here below?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ambitious still to reach<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Those lofty peaks, which men aspiring preach,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For which their souls beseech:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Those heights that swell<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Remote, removed, and unattainable,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Pinnacle on pinnacle:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Still yearning to attain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Their far repose, above life's stress and strain,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But all in vain, in vain!...<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why hath God put<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Great longings in some souls and straightway shut<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All doors of their clay hut?<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The clay accurst<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That holds achievement back; from which, immersed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The spirit may not burst.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Were it, at least,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Not better to have sat at Circe's feast,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">If afterwards a beast?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Than aye to bleed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To strain and strive, to toil in thought and deed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And nevermore succeed?<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_CUP_OF_JOY" id="THE_CUP_OF_JOY"></SPAN>THE CUP OF JOY.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Let us mix a cup of Joy<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That the wretched may employ,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whom the Fates have made their toy.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Who have given brain and heart<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To the thankless world of Art,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And from Fame have won no part.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Who have labored long at thought;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Starved and toiled and all for naught;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sought and found not what they sought....<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Let our goblet be the skull<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of a fool; made beautiful<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With a gold nor base nor dull:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Gold of madcap fancies, once<br/></span>
<span class="i0">It contained, that,—sage or dunce,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each can read whoever runs.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">First we pour the liquid light<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of our dreams in; then the bright<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beauty that makes day of night.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Let this be the must wherefrom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In due time, the mettlesome<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Care-destroying drink shall come.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Folly next: with which mix in<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Laughter of a child of sin,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the red of mouth and chin.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">These shall give the tang thereto,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Effervescence and rich hue<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Which to all good wine are due.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then into our cup we press<br/></span>
<span class="i0">One wild kiss of wantonness,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And a glance that says not less.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Sparkles both that give a fine<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lustre to the drink divine,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Necessary to good wine.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Lastly in the goblet goes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sweet a love-song, then a rose<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Warmed upon <i>her</i> breast's repose.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">These bouquet our drink.—Now measure<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With your arm the waist you treasure—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lift the cup and, "Here's to Pleasure!"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="PESTILENCE" id="PESTILENCE"></SPAN>PESTILENCE.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">High on a throne of noisome ooze and heat,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">'Mid rotting trees of bayou and lagoon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ghastly she sits beneath the skeleton moon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A tawny horror coiling at her feet—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Fever, whose eyes keep watching, serpent-like,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Until <i>her</i> eyes shall bid him rise and strike.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="MUSINGS" id="MUSINGS"></SPAN>MUSINGS.</h2>
<h4>INSPIRATION.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All who have toiled for Art, who've won or lost,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sat equal priests at her high Pentecost;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Only the chrism and sacrament of flame,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Anointing all, inspired not all the same.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>APPORTIONMENT.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How often in our search for joy below<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hoping for happiness we chance on woe.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>VICTORY.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">They who take courage from their own defeat<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are victors too, no matter how much beat.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>PREPARATION.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How often hope's fair flower blooms richest where<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The soul was fertilized with black despair.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>DISILLUSION.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Those unrequited in their love who die<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have never drained life's chief illusion dry.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>SUCCESS.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Success allures us in the earth and skies:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">We seek to win her, but, too amorous,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Mocking, she flees us.—Haply, were we wise,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">We would not strive and she would come to us.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>SCIENCE.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Miranda-like, above the world she waves<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The wand of Prospero; and, beautiful,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ariel the airy, Caliban the dull,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lightning and steam,—are her unwilling slaves.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>ECHO.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Dweller in hollow places, hills and rocks,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Daughter of Silence and old Solitude,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tip-toe she stands within her cave or wood,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her only life the noises that she mocks.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>THE UNIVERSAL WIND.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Wild son of Heav'n, with laughter and alarm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Now East, now West, now North, now South he goes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bearing in one harsh hand dark death and storm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the other, sunshine and a rose.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>COMPENSATION.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Yea, whom He loves the Lord God chasteneth<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With disappointments, so that this side death,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Through suffering and failure, they know Hell<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To make them worthy in that Heaven to dwell<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of Love's attainment, where they come to be<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Parts of its beauty and divinity.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>POPPIES.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Summer met Sleep at sunset,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dreaming within the south,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Drugged with his soul's deep slumber,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Red with her heart's hot drouth,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">These are the drowsy kisses<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She pressed upon his mouth.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>HER EYES AND MOUTH.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There is no Paradise like that which lies<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Deep in the heavens of her azure eyes:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">There is no Eden here on Earth that glows<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like that which smiles rich in her mouth's red rose.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>HER SOUL.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">To me not only does her soul suggest<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Palms and the peace of tropic shore and wood,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But, oceaned far beyond the golden West,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Fortunate Islands of true Womanhood.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>HER FACE.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The gladness of our Southern spring; the grace<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of summer; and the dreaminess of fall<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are parts of her sweet nature.—Such a face<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Was Ruth's, methinks, divinely spiritual.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SKULL" id="AT_THE_SIGN_OF_THE_SKULL"></SPAN>AT THE SIGN OF THE SKULL.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>With every man in this life below—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>But the things of this world are a fleeting show.</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The postchaise Time that all must take<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Is old with clay and dust;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Two horses strain its rusty brake<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Named Pleasure and Disgust.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Our baggage totters on its roof,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of Vanity and Care,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As Hope, the postboy, spurs each hoof,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or heavy-eyed Despair.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And now a comrade with us rides,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Love, haply, or Remorse;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And that dim traveler besides,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gaunt Memory on a horse.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And be we king or be we kern<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who ride the roads of Sin,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">No matter how the roads may turn<br/></span>
<span class="i1">They lead us to that Inn.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Unto that Inn within that land<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of silence and of gloom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose ghastly landlord takes our hand<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And leads us to our room.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>It's "Gallop and go!" and "Slow, now, slow!"</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>With every man in this life below—</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>But the things of this world are a fleeting show.</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_CAVALIERS_TOAST" id="A_CAVALIERS_TOAST"></SPAN>A CAVALIER'S TOAST.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Some drink to Friendship, some to Love,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Through whom the world is fair, perdie!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But I to one these others prove,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Who leaps 'mid lions for a glove,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or dies to set another free—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">I drink to Loyalty.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">No dagger his, no cloak and mask,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Free-faced he stands so all may see;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Let Friendship set him any task,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or Love—reward he does not ask,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The deed is done whate'er it be—<br/></span>
<span class="i3">So here's to Loyalty.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="SLEEP_IS_A_SPIRIT" id="SLEEP_IS_A_SPIRIT"></SPAN>SLEEP IS A SPIRIT.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Sleep is a spirit, who beside us sits,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or through our frames like some dim glamour flits;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">From out her form a pearly light is shed,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As from a lily, in a lily-bed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A firefly's gleam. Her face is pale as stone,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And languid as a cloud that drifts alone<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In starry heav'n. And her diaphanous feet<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are easy as the dew or opaline heat<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of summer.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i6">Lo! with ears—aurora pink<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As Dawn's—she leans and listens on the brink<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of being, dark with dreadfulness and doubt,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wherein vague lights and shadows move about,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And palpitations beat—like some huge heart<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of Earth—the surging pulse of which we're part.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">One hand, that hollows her divining eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Glows like the curved moon over twilight skies;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And with her gaze she fathoms life and death—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gulfs, where man's conscience, like a restless breath<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of wind, goes wand'ring; whispering low of things,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The irremediable, where sorrow clings.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Around her limbs a veil of woven mist<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wavers, and turns from fibered amethyst<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To textured crystal; through which symboled bars<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of silver burn, and cabalistic stars<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of nebulous gold.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i8">Shrouding her feet and hair,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within this woof, fantastic, everywhere,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dreams come and go; the instant images<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of things she sees and thinks; realities,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Shadows, with which her heart and fancy swarm<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That in the veil take momentary form:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Now picturing heaven in celestial fire,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And now the hell of every soul's desire;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hinting at worlds, God wraps in mystery,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beyond the world we know and touch and see.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="KENNST_DU_DAS_LAND" id="KENNST_DU_DAS_LAND"></SPAN>KENNST DU DAS LAND.</h2>
<h4>FROM THE GERMAN OF GOETHE.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Know'st thou the land where the lemon-tree flowers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The orange glows gold in the darkness of bowers,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Out of blue heaven a softer zephyr blows,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And still the myrtle, tall the laurel grows?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Know'st it indeed?<br/></span>
<span class="i10">Thither, ah, me! ah, me!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Would I with thee, O my belovéd, flee.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Know'st thou the house? Columns support its beams,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its long hall glitters and its gallery gleams;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And sculpture glows and asks, in marble mild,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"What have they done to thee, thou poor, poor child?"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Know'st it indeed?<br/></span>
<span class="i10">Thither, ah, me! ah, me!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Would I with thee, O my protector, flee.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Know'st thou the mountain and its cloud-built bridge?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In mist the mule treads cautiously its ridge;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The dragon's ancient brood still haunts its caves;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Down the loud crag the plunging torrent raves.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Know'st it indeed?<br/></span>
<span class="i10">Thither, ah, me! ah, me!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Our pathway leads! O father, let us flee!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="AT_MIDNIGHT" id="AT_MIDNIGHT"></SPAN>AT MIDNIGHT.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">At midnight in the trysting wood<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I wandered by the waterside,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When, soft as mist, before me stood<br/></span>
<span class="i1">My sweetheart who had died.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">But so unchanged was she, meseemed<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That I had only dreamed her dead;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Glad in her eyes the love-light gleamed;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Her lips were warm and red.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What though the stars shone shadowy through<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Her form as by my side she went,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And by her feet no drop of dew<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Was stirred, no blade was bent!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What though through her white loveliness<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The wildflower dimmed, the moonlight paled,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Real to my touch she was; no less<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Than when the earth prevailed.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She took my hand. My heart beat wild.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She kissed my mouth. I bowed my head.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then gazing in my eyes, she smiled:<br/></span>
<span class="i1">"When did'st thou die?" she said.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_MAN_IN_GRAY" id="THE_MAN_IN_GRAY"></SPAN>THE MAN IN GRAY.</h2>
<h4><i>Written for the Reunion of the Confederate Veterans at
Louisville, Ky., May and June, 1900.</i></h4>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Again, in dreams, the veteran hears<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The bugle and the drum;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Again the boom of battle nears,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Again the bullets hum:<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Again he mounts, again he cheers,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Again his charge speeds home—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">O memories of those long gone years!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">O years that are to come!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">We live in dreams as well as deeds, in thoughts as well as acts;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And life through things we feel, not know, is realized the most;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The conquered are the conquerors, despite the face of facts,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">If they still feel their cause was just who fought for it and lost.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Again, in thought, he hears at dawn<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The far reveille die;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Again he marches stern and wan<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Beneath a burning sky:<br/></span>
<span class="i4">He bivouacs; the night comes on;<br/></span>
<span class="i6">His comrades 'round him lie—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">O memories of the years long gone!<br/></span>
<span class="i6">O years that now go by!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The vintager of Earth is War, is War whose grapes are men;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Into his wine-vats armies go, his wine-vats steaming red:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The crimson vats of battle where he stalks, as in a den,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Drunk with the must of Hell that spurts beneath his iron tread.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i4">Again, in mind, he's lying where<br/></span>
<span class="i6">The trenches slay with heat;<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Again his flag floats o'er him, fair<br/></span>
<span class="i6">In charge or fierce retreat:<br/></span>
<span class="i4">Again all's lost; again despair<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Makes death seem three times sweet—<br/></span>
<span class="i4">O years of tears that crowned his hair<br/></span>
<span class="i6">With laurels of defeat!<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There is reward for those who dare, for those who dare and do:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who face the dark inevitable, who fall and know no shame;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Upon their banner triumph sits and in the horn they blew,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Naught's lost if honor be not lost, defeat is but a name.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="HALLOWEEN" id="HALLOWEEN"></SPAN>HALLOWE'EN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It was down in the woodland on last Hallowe'en,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where silence and darkness had built them a lair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That I felt the dim presence of her, the unseen,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And heard her still step on the ghost-haunted air.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It was last Hallowe'en in the glimmer and swoon<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of mist and of moonlight that thickened and thinned,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That I saw the gray gleam of her eyes in the moon,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And hair, like a raven, blown wild in the wind.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It was last Hallowe'en where starlight and dew<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Made mystical marriage on flower and leaf,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That she led me with looks of a love that I knew,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And lured with the voice of a heart-buried grief.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It was last Hallowe'en in the forest of dreams,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where trees are eidolons and shadows have eyes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That I saw her pale face like the foam of far streams,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And heard, like the leaf-lisp, her tears and her sighs.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It was last Hallowe'en, the haunted, the dread,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In the wind-tattered wood by the storm-twisted pine,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That I, who am living, kept tryst with the dead,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And clasped her a moment and dreamed she was mine.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_IMAGE_IN_THE_GLASS" id="THE_IMAGE_IN_THE_GLASS"></SPAN>THE IMAGE IN THE GLASS.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The slow reflection of a woman's face<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Grew, as by witchcraft, in the oval space<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of that strange glass on which the moon looked in:—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As cruel as death beneath the auburn hair<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The dark eyes burned; and, o'er the faultless chin,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Evil as night yet as the daybreak fair,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Rose-red and sensual smiled the mouth of sin.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The glorious throat and shoulders and, twin crests<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of snow, the splendid beauty of the breasts,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Filled soul and body with the old desire.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Daughter of darkness! how could this thing be?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You, whom I loathed! for whom my heart's fierce fire<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Had burnt to ashes of satiety!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You, who had sunk my soul in all that's dire!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How came your image there? and in that room!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where she, the all adored, my life's sweet bloom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Died poisoned! She, my scarcely one week's bride—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Yea, poisoned by a gift you sent to her,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Thinking her death would win me to your side.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And so it did! but ... well, it made some stir—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">By your own hand, I think, they said you died.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>IV.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Time passed. And then—was it the curse of crime,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That night of nights, which forced my feet to climb<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To that locked bridal-room?—'Twas midnight when<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A longing, like to madness, mastered me,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Compelled me to that chamber, which for ten<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sad years was sealed; a dark necessity<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To gaze upon—I knew not what again.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>V.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Love's ghost, perhaps. Or, in the curvature<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of that strange mirror, something that might cure<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The ache in me—some message, said perchance<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of her dead loveliness, which once it glassed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That might repeat again my lost romance<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In momentary pictures of the past,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While in its depths her image swam in trance.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>VI.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I did not dream to see the soulless eyes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of you I hated; nor the lips where lies<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And kisses curled; your features,—that were tuned<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To all demonic,—smiling up as might<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Some deep damnation! while.... my God! I swooned!...<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Oozed slowly out, between the breast's dead white,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The ghastly red of that wide dagger-wound.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="HER_PRAYER" id="HER_PRAYER"></SPAN>HER PRAYER.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She kneels with haggard eyes and hair<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Unto the Christ upon the Cross:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her gown is torn; her feet are bare.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">What is this thing she begs of him,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The gentle Christ upon the Cross?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her hands are clasped; her face is dim.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Is it forgiveness for her sin,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She asks of Christ upon the Cross?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And mercy for the soul within?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">With anguished face, so sad and sweet,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">She kneels to Christ upon the Cross:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her arms embrace his nail-pierced feet.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Her tears run slowly down her face,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O piteous Christ upon the Cross!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And through her tears she sighs and says:—<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"The thing that I would crave of Thee,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O Christ upon the cruel Cross,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is not a thing to comfort me.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Thou, who hast taught us to forgive,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O tender Christ upon the Cross,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Help Thou my love for <i>him</i> to live.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"Oh, let the love that was my fall,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O loving Christ upon the Cross,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Still to my life be all in all.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"With love for him who loves no more,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O patient Christ upon the Cross,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Make Thou my punishment full sore."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She kneels with haggard eyes and hair<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Unto the Christ upon the Cross:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her gown is torn; her feet are bare.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_MESSAGE_OF_THE_LILIES" id="THE_MESSAGE_OF_THE_LILIES"></SPAN>THE MESSAGE OF THE LILIES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">My soul and I went walking<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beneath the moon of Spring;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The lilies pale were talking,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Were faintly murmuring.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From dimly moonlit places<br/></span>
<span class="i1">They thrust long throats of white,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And lovely lifted faces<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of fragrant snow and light.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Their language was an essence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Yet clearer than a bird's;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And from it grew a presence<br/></span>
<span class="i1">As music grows from words.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A spirit born of silence<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And chastity and dew<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Among Elysian islands<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Were not more white to view.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">A spirit born of fire<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And holiness and snow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within the Heavens' desire,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Were not more pure to know.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He smiled amid them lifting<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Pale hands of prayer and peace—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And through the moonlight, drifting,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Came words to me like these:<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">"We are His lilies, lilies,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Whose praises aye we sing!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">We are the lilies, lilies<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of Christ our Lord and King!"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="A_LEGEND_OF_THE_LILY" id="A_LEGEND_OF_THE_LILY"></SPAN>A LEGEND OF THE LILY.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Pale as a star that shines through rain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her face was seen at the window-pane,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her sad, frail face that watched in vain.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The face of a girl whose brow was wan,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To whom the kind sun spoke at dawn,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And a star and the moon when the day was gone.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And oft and often the sun had said—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"O fair, white face, O sweet, fair head,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Come talk with me of the love that's dead."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And she would sit in the sun awhile,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Down in the garth by the old stone-dial,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where never again would he make her smile.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And often the first bright star o'erhead<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Had whispered, "Sweet, where the rose blooms red,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Come look with me for the love that's dead."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And she would wait with the star she knew,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the fountain splashed and the roses blew,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where never again would he come to woo.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And oft the moon, when she lay in bed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Had sighed, "Dear heart, in the orchardstead.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Come, dream with me of the love that's dead."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And she would stand in the moon, the dim,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the fruit made heavy the apple limb,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where never again would she dream with him.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">So summer passed and the autumn came;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the wind-torn boughs were touched with flame;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But her life and her sorrow remained the same.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Or, if she changed, as it comes about<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A life may change through trouble and doubt,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As a candle flickers and then goes out,—<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">'Twas only to grow more quiet and wan,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sadly waiting at dusk and at dawn<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For the coming of love forever gone.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And so, one night, when the star looked in,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">It kissed her face that was white and thin,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And murmured, "Come! thou free of sin!"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And when the moon, on another night,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beheld her lying still and white,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">It sighed, "'Tis well! now all is right."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And when one morning the sun arose,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And they bore her bier down the garden-close,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">It touched her, saying, "At last, repose."<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And they laid her down, so young and fair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where the grass was withered, the bough was bare,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All wrapped in the light of her golden hair....<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">So autumn passed and the winter went;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And spring, like a blue-eyed penitent,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Came, telling her beads of blossom and scent.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And, lo! to the grave of the beautiful<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The strong sun cried, "Why art thou dull?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Awake! awake! Forget thy skull!"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And the evening star and the moon above<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Called out, "O dust, now speak thereof!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Proclaim thyself! Arise, O love!"<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And the skull and the dust in the darkness beard.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each icy germ in its cerements stirred,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As Lazarus moved at the Lord's loud word.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And a flower arose on the mound of green,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">White as the robe of the Nazarene;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To testify of the life unseen.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And I paused by the grave; then went my way:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And it seemed that I heard the lily say—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"Here was a miracle wrought to-day."<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_END_OF_THE_CENTURY" id="THE_END_OF_THE_CENTURY"></SPAN>THE END OF THE CENTURY.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There are moments when, as missions,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">God reveals to us strange visions;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When, within their separate stations,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">We may see the Centuries,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like revolving constellations<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Shaping out Earth's destinies.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I have gazed in Time's abysses,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where no smallest thing Earth misses<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That was hers once. 'Mid her chattels,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">There the Past's gigantic ghost<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Sits and dreams of thrones and battles<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In the night of ages lost.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Far before her eyes, unholy<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Mist was spread; that darkly, slowly<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Rolled aside,—like some huge curtain<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Hung above the land and sea;—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And beneath it, wild, uncertain,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Rose the wraiths of memory.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">First I saw colossal spectres<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of dead cities: Troy—once Hector's<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Pride; then Babylon and Tyre;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Karnac, Carthage, and the gray<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Walls of Thebes,—Apollo's lyre<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Built;—and Rome and Nineveh.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Empires followed: first, in seeming,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Old Chaldea lost in dreaming;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Egypt next, a bulk Memnonian<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Staring from her pyramids;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then Assyria, Babylonian<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Night beneath her hell-lit lids.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Greece, in classic white, sidereal<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Armored; Rome, in dark, imperial<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Purple, crowned with blood and fire,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Down the deeps barbaric strode;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Gaul and Britain stalking by her,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Skin-clad and tattooed with woad.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">All around them, rent and scattered,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lay their gods with features battered,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Brute and human, stone and iron,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Caked with gems and gnarled with gold;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Temples, that did once environ<br/></span>
<span class="i1">These, in wreck around them rolled.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">While I stood and gazed and waited,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Slowly night obliterated<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All; and other phantoms drifted<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Out of darkness pale as stars;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Shapes that tyrant faces lifted,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sultans, kings, and emperors.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Man and steed in ponderous metal<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Panoplied, they seemed to settle,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Condors gaunt of devastation,<br/></span>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</SPAN></span>
<span class="i1">On the world: behind their march—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Desolation; conflagration<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Loomed before them with her torch.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Helmets flamed like fearful flowers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Chariots rose and moving towers;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Captains passed; each fierce commander<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With his gauntlet on his sword:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Agamemnon, Alexander,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Cæsar, each led on his horde.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Huns and Vandals; wild invaders:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Goths and Arabs; stern Crusaders:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each, like some terrific torrent,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Rolled above a ruined world;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Till a cataract abhorrent<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Seemed the swarming spears uphurled.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Banners and escutcheons, kindled<br/></span>
<span class="i0">By the light of slaughter, dwindled—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">in darkness;—the chimera<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of the Past was laid at last.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But, behold, another era<br/></span>
<span class="i1">From her corpse rose, vague and vast.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Demogorgon of the Present!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who in one hand raised a Crescent,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In the other, with submissive<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Fingers, lifted up a Cross;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Reverent and yet derisive<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Seemed she, robed in gold and dross.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In her skeptic eyes professions<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of great faith I saw; expressions,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Christian and humanitarian,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Played around her cynic lip;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Still I knew her a barbarian<br/></span>
<span class="i1">By the sword upon her hip.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And she cherished strange eidolons,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Pagan shadows—Platos, Solons—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">From whose teachings she indentured<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Forms of law and sophistry;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Seeking still for truth she ventured<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Just so far as these could see.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">When she vanished, I—uplifting<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Eyes to where the dawn was rifting<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Darkness,—lo! beheld a shadow<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Towering on Earth's utmost peaks;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">'Round whom morning's eldorado<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Rivered gold in blinding streaks.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">On her brow I saw the stigma<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Still of death; and life's enigma<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Filled her eyes: around her shimmered<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Folds of silence; and afar,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Faint above her forehead, glimmered<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Lone the light of one pale star.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then a voice,—above or under<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Earth,—against her seemed to thunder<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Questions, wherein was repeated,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">"Christ or Cain?" and "God or beast?"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the Future, shadowy-sheeted,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Turning, pointed towards the East.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_ISLE_OF_VOICES" id="THE_ISLE_OF_VOICES"></SPAN>THE ISLE OF VOICES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The wind blew free that morn that we,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">High-hearted, sailed away;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bound for Favonian islands blest,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Remote within the utmost West,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beyond the golden day.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There, we were told, each dream of old,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Each deed and dream of youth,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each myth of life's divinest prime,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And every romance, dear to time,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Put on immortal truth.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The love undone, the aim unwon,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The hope that turned despair;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The thought unborn; the dream that died;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The unattained, unsatisfied,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Should be accomplished there.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">So we believed. And, undeceived,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A little crew set sail;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A little crew with hearts as stout<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As any yet that faced a doubt<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And tore away its veil.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And time went by; and sea and sky<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Had worn our masts and decks;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">When, lo! one morn with canvas torn,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A phantom ship, we came forlorn<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Into the Sea of Wrecks.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">There, day and night, the mist lay white,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And pale stars shone at noon;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The sea around was foam and fire,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And overhead hung wan a wire,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A will-o'-wisp of moon.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And through the mist, all white and whist,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gaunt ships, with sea-weed wound,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With rotting masts, upon whose spars<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The corposants lit spectre stars,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Sailed by without a sound.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And all about,—now in, now out,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Their ancient hulls was shed<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The worm-like glow of green decay,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That writhed and glimmered in the gray<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of canvas overhead.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And each that passed, in hull and mast,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Seemed that wild ship that flees<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Before the tempest—seamen tell—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Deep-cargoed with the curse of Hell,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Through roaring night and seas.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Ay! many a craft we left abaft<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Upon that haunted sea;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But never a hulk that clewed a sail,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or waved a hand, or answered hail,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And never a man saw we.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">At last we came where—pouring flame—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In darkness and in storm,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A vast volcano westward reared<br/></span>
<span class="i0">An awful summit, lava-seared,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some terrific arm.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And we could feel beneath our keel<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The ocean throb and swell,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As if the Earthquake there uncoiled<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Its monster bulk, or Titans toiled<br/></span>
<span class="i1">At the red heart of Hell.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Like madmen now we turned our prow<br/></span>
<span class="i1">North, towards an ocean weird<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of Northern Lights and icy blasts;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And for ten moons with reeling masts<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And leaking hold we steered.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Then black as blood through streaming scud<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Land loomed above our boom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A land of iron gulfs and crags<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And cataracts, like wind-tossed rags,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And caverns lost in gloom.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And burning white on every height,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And white in every cave,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A naked spirit, with a flame,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Now gleamed, now vanished; went and came<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Above the whining wave.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">No mortal thing of foot or wing<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Made glad its steep and strand;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">But voices, voices seemingly—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Vague voices of the sky and sea—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Peopled the demon land.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Yea, everywhere, in earth and air,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A lamentation wept;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That, gathering strength above, below,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Now like a mighty wind of woe,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Around the island swept.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And in that sound, it seemed, was bound<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All life's despair of art;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The bitterness of joy that died;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The anguish of faith's crucified;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And love that broke its heart.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The ghost it seemed of all we'd dreamed,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of all we had desired;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That—turned a curse, an empty cry—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With wailing words went trailing by<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In hope's dead robes attired.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">And could this be the land that we<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Had sought for soon and late?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Those Islands of the Blest, the fair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where we had hoped to ease our care<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And end the fight with fate?<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">O lie that lured! O pain endured!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O years of toil and thirst!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where we had looked for blesséd ground<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Islands of the Damned we found,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And in the end—were curst!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="AD_NINETEEN_HUNDRED" id="AD_NINETEEN_HUNDRED"></SPAN>A. D. NINETEEN HUNDRED.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">War and Disaster, Famine and Pestilence,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Vaunt-couriers of the Century that comes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Behold them shaking their tremendous plumes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Above the world! where all the air grows dense<br/></span>
<span class="i0">With rumors of destruction and a sense,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Cadaverous, of corpses and of tombs<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Predestined; while,—like monsters in the glooms,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bristling with battle, shadowy and immense,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Nations rise in wild apocalypse.—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where now the boast Earth makes of civilization?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Its brag of Christianity?—In vain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">We seek to see them in the dread eclipse<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of hell and horror, all the devastation<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of Death triumphant on his hills of slain.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="CAVERNS" id="CAVERNS"></SPAN>CAVERNS.</h2>
<h4><i>Written of Colossal Cave, Kentucky.</i></h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Aisles and abysses; leagues no man explores,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of rock that labyrinths and night that drips;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Where everlasting silence broods, with lips<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of adamant, o'er earthquake-builded floors.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where forms, such as the Demon-World adores,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Laborious water carves; whence echo ships<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wild-tongued o'er pools where petrifaction strips<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her breasts of crystal from which crystal pours.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Here where primordial fear, the Gorgon, sits<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Staring all life to stone in ghastly mirth,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I seem to tread, with awe no tongue can tell,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beneath vast domes, by torrent-tortured pits,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">'Mid wrecks terrific of the ruined Earth,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">An ancient causeway of forgotten Hell.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="OF_THE_SLUMS" id="OF_THE_SLUMS"></SPAN>OF THE SLUMS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Red-faced as old carousal, and with eyes<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A hard, hot blue; her hair a frowsy flame,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bold, dowdy-bosomed, from her widow-frame<br/></span>
<span class="i0">She leans, her mouth all insult and all lies.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or slattern-slippered and in sluttish gown,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With ribald mirth and words too vile to name,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A new Doll Tearsheet, glorying in her shame,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Armed with her Falstaff now she takes the town.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The flaring lights of alley-way saloons,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The reek of hideous gutters and black oaths<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of drunkenness from vice-infested dens,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are to her senses what the silvery moon's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Chaste splendor is, and what the blossoming growths<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of earth and bird-song are to innocence.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_WINDS" id="THE_WINDS"></SPAN>THE WINDS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Those hewers of the clouds, the winds,—that lair<br/></span>
<span class="i1">At the four compass-points,—are out to-night;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I hear their sandals trample on the height,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">I hear their voices trumpet through the air.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Builders of Storm, God's workmen, now they bear,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Up the steep stair of sky, on backs of might,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Huge tempest bulks, while,—sweat that blinds their sight,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The rain is shaken from tumultuous hair:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Now, sweepers of the firmament, they broom,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like gathered dust, the rolling mists along<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Heaven's floors of sapphire; all the beautiful blue<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of skyey corridor and aëry room<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Preparing, with large laughter and loud song,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">For the white moon and stars to wander through.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="PROTOTYPES" id="PROTOTYPES"></SPAN>PROTOTYPES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Whether it be that we in letters trace<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The pure exactness of a woodbird's strain,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And name it song; or with the brush attain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The high perfection of a wildflower's face;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or mold in difficult marble all the grace<br/></span>
<span class="i1">We know as man; or from the wind and rain<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Catch elemental rapture of refrain<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And mark in music to due time and place:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The aim of art is nature; to unfold<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Her truth and beauty to the souls of men<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In close suggestions; in whose forms is cast<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Nothing so new but 'tis long eons old;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Nothing so old but 'tis as young as when<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The mind conceived it in the ages past.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="TOUCHES" id="TOUCHES"></SPAN>TOUCHES.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In heavens of rivered blue, that sunset dyes<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With glaucous flame, deep in the west the Day<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Stands Midas-like; or, wading on his way,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Touches with splendor all the twilight skies.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Each cloud that, like a stepping-stone, he tries<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With rosy foot, transforms its sober gray<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To burning gold; while, ray on crystal ray,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Within his wake the stars like bubbles rise.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">So should the artist in his work accord<br/></span>
<span class="i1">All things with beauty, and communicate<br/></span>
<span class="i1">His soul's high magic and divinity<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To all he does; and, hoping no reward,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Toil onward, making darkness aureate<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With light of worlds that are and worlds to be.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_WOMAN_SPEAKS" id="THE_WOMAN_SPEAKS"></SPAN>THE WOMAN SPEAKS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Why have you come? to see me in my shame?<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A thing to spit on, to despise and scorn?—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And then to ask me! You, by whom was torn<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And then cast by, like some vile rag, my name!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">What shelter could you give me, now, that blame<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And loathing would not share? that wolves of vice<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Would not besiege with eyes of glaring ice?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Wherein Sin sat not with her face of flame?<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"You love me"?—God!—If yours be love, for lust<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Hell must invent another synonym!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">If yours be love, then hatred is the way<br/></span>
<span class="i0">To Heaven and God! and not with soul but dust<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Must burn the faces of the Cherubim,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O lie of lies, if yours be love, I say!<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="LOVE_THE_INTERPRETER" id="LOVE_THE_INTERPRETER"></SPAN>LOVE, THE INTERPRETER.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Thou art the music that I hear in sleep,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The poetry that lures me on in dreams;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The magic, thou, that holds my thought with themes<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of young romance in revery's mystic keep.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The lily's aura, and the damask deep<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That clothes the rose; the whispering soul that seems<br/></span>
<span class="i1">To haunt the wind; the rainbow light that streams,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some wild spirit, 'thwart the cataract's leap—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are glimmerings of thee and thy loveliness,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Pervading all my world; interpreting<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The marvel and the wonder these disclose:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">For, lacking thee, to me were meaningless<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Life, love and hope, the joy of every thing,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And all the beauty that the wide world knows.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="UNANSWERED" id="UNANSWERED"></SPAN>UNANSWERED.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">How long ago it is since we went Maying!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Since she and I went Maying long ago!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The years have left my forehead lined, I know,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Have thinned my hair around the temples graying.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Ah, time will change us; yea, I hear it saying,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">"She, too, grows old: the face of rose and snow<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Has lost its freshness: in the hair's brown glow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Some strands of silver sadly, too, are straying.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The form you knew, whose beauty so enspelled,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Has lost the litheness of its loveliness:<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And all the gladness that her blue eyes held<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Tears and the world have hardened with distress."—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">"True! true!" I answer, "O ye years that part!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">These things are changed, but is her heart, her heart?"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="EARTH_AND_MOON" id="EARTH_AND_MOON"></SPAN>EARTH AND MOON.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">I saw the day like some great monarch die,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Gold-couched, behind the clouds' rich tapestries.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Then, purple-sandaled, clad in silences<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of sleep, through halls of skyey lazuli.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The twilight, like a mourning queen, trailed by,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dim-paged of dreams and shadowy mysteries;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And now the night, the star-robed child of these,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In meditative loveliness draws nigh.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Earth,—like to Romeo,—deep in dew and scent,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Beneath Heaven's window, watching till a light,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some white blossom, in its square be set,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Lifts a faint face unto the firmament,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That, with the moon, grows gradually bright,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bidding him climb and clasp his Juliet.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="PEARLS" id="PEARLS"></SPAN>PEARLS.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Baroque, but beautiful, between the lanes,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The valves of nacre of a mussel-shell,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Behold, a pearl! shaped like the burnished bell<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of some strange blossom that long afternoons<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of summer coax to open: all the moon's<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Chaste lustre in it; hues that only dwell<br/></span>
<span class="i1">With purity.... It takes me, like a spell,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Back to a day when, whistling truant tunes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A barefoot boy I waded 'mid the rocks,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Searching for shells deep in the creek's slow swirl,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Unconscious of the pearls that 'round me lay:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While, 'mid wild-roses,—all her tomboy locks<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Blond-blowing,—stood, unnoticed then, a girl,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">My sweetheart once, the pearl I flung away.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="IN_THE_FOREST" id="IN_THE_FOREST"></SPAN>IN THE FOREST.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">One well might deem, among these miles of woods,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Such were the Forests of the Holy Grail,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Broceliand and Dean; where, clothed in mail,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The Knights of Arthur rode, and all the broods<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of legend laired.—And, where no sound intrudes<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Upon the ear, except the glimmering wail<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of some far bird; or, in some flowery swale,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A brook that murmurs to the solitudes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Might think he hears the laugh of Vivien<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Blent with the moan of Merlin, muttering bound<br/></span>
<span class="i1">By his own magic to one stony spot;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And in the cloud, that looms above the glen,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In which the sun burns like the Table Round,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Might dream he sees the towers of Camelot.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="ENCHANTMENT" id="ENCHANTMENT"></SPAN>ENCHANTMENT.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The deep seclusion of this forest path,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">O'er which the green boughs weave a canopy,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Along which bluet and anemone<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Spread a dim carpet; where the twilight hath<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her dark abode; and, sweet as aftermath.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wood-fragrance breathes,—has so enchanted me,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That yonder blossoming bramble seems to be<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Some sylvan resting, rosy from her bath:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Has so enspelled me with tradition's dreams,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">That every foam-white stream that twinkling flows,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And every bird that flutters wings of tan,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Or warbles hidden, to my fancy seems<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A Naiad dancing to a Faun who blows<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Wild woodland music on the pipes of Pan.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="DUSK" id="DUSK"></SPAN>DUSK.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And 'mid their sheaves,—where, like a daisy bloom<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The star of twilight flames,—as Ruth, 'tis told,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume<br/></span>
<span class="i1">From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Stumbling the stone, its foam like some white foot:<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And in my heart <i>her</i> name,—like some sweet bee<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Within a flow'r,—blowing a fairy flute.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_BLUE_BIRD" id="THE_BLUE_BIRD"></SPAN>THE BLUE BIRD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">From morn till noon upon the window-pane<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The tempest tapped with rainy finger-nails,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And all the afternoon the blustering gales<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Beat at the door with furious feet of rain.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The rose, near which the lily bloom lay slain,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Like some red wound dripped by the garden rails,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">On which the sullen slug left slimy trails—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Meseemed the sun would never shine again.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Then in the drench, long, loud and full of cheer,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A skyey herald tabarded in blue,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A bluebird bugled ... and at once a bow<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Was bent in heaven, and I seemed to hear<br/></span>
<span class="i1">God's sapphire spaces crystallizing through<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The strata'd clouds in azure tremolo.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="CAN_SUCH_THINGS_BE" id="CAN_SUCH_THINGS_BE"></SPAN>CAN SUCH THINGS BE?</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Meseemed that while she played, while lightly yet<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Her fingers fell, as roses bloom by bloom,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">I listened—dead within a mighty room<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of some old palace where great casements let<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Gaunt moonlight in, that glimpsed a parapet<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of statued marble: in the arrased gloom<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Majestic pictures towered, dim as doom,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The dreams of Titian and of Tintoret.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And then, it seemed, along a corridor,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">A mile of oak, a stricken footstep came.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Hurrying, yet slow ... I thought long centuries<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Passed ere she entered—she, I loved of yore,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">For whom I died, who wildly wailed my name<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And bent and kissed me on the mouth and eyes.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="THE_PASSING_GLORY" id="THE_PASSING_GLORY"></SPAN>THE PASSING GLORY.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Slow sinks the sun,—a great carbuncle ball<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Red in the cavern of a sombre cloud,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And in her garden, where the dense weeds crowd.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Among her dying asters stands the Fall,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Like some lone woman in a ruined hall,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Dreaming of desolation and the shroud;<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or through decaying woodlands goes, down-bowed,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Hugging the tatters of her gipsy shawl.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The gaunt wind rises, like an angry hand,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And sweeps the sprawling spider from its web,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Smites frantic music in the twilight's ear;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And all around, like melancholy sand,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Rains dead leaves down—wild leaves, that mark the ebb,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">In Earth's dark hour-glass, of another year.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="SEPTEMBER" id="SEPTEMBER"></SPAN>SEPTEMBER.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The bubbled blue of morning-glory spires,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Balloon-blown foam of moonflowers, and sweet snows<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of clematis, through which September goes,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Song-hearted, rich in realized desires,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Are flanked by hotter hues: by tawny fires<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of acrid marigolds,—that light long rows<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of lamps,—and salvias, red as day's red close,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That torches seem,—by which the Month attires<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Barbaric beauty; like some Asian queen,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Towering imperial in her two-fold crown<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Of harvest and of vintage; all her form<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Majestic gold and purple: in her mien<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The might of motherhood; her baby brown,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Abundance, high on one exultant arm.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2><SPAN name="HOODOO" id="HOODOO"></SPAN>HOODOO.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She mutters and stoops by the lone bayou—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The little green leaves are hushed on the trees—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">An owl in an oak cries "Who-oh-who,"<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And a fox barks back where the moon slants through<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The moss that sways to a sudden breeze ...<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Or <i>That</i> she sees.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose eyes are coals in the light o' the moon—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">"<i>Soon, oh, soon</i>," hear her croon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!</i>"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She mutters and kneels and her bosom is bare—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The little green leaves are stirred on the trees—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">A black bat brushes her unkempt hair,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And the hiss of a snake glides 'round her there ...<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or is it the voice of the ghostly breeze,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Or <i>That</i> she sees,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Whose mouth is flame in the light o' the moon?—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">"<i>Soon, oh, soon</i>," hear her croon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!</i>"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">She mutters and digs and buries it deep—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The little green leaves are wild on the trees—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And nearer and nearer the noises creep,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">That gibber and maunder and whine and weep ...<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Or is it the wave and the weariless breeze,<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Or <i>That</i> she sees,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Which hobbles away in the light o' the moon?—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">"<i>Soon, oh, soon</i>," hear her croon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!</i>"<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</SPAN></span><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">In the hut where the other girl sits with him—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The little green leaves hang limp on the trees—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">All on a sudden the moon grows dim ...<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Is it the shadow of cloud or of limb,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Cast in the door by the moaning breeze?<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Or <i>That</i> she sees,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Which limps and leers in the light o' the moon?—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">"<i>Soon, oh, soon</i>," hear it croon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!</i>"<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">It has entered in at the open door—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">The little green leaves fall dead from the trees—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And she in the cabin lies stark on the floor,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">And she in the woods has her lover once more ...<br/></span>
<span class="i1">And—is it the hoot of the dying breeze?<br/></span>
<span class="i6">Or <i>him</i> who sees,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Who mocks and laughs in the light o' the moon:—<br/></span>
<span class="i6">"<i>Soon, oh, soon</i>," hear him croon,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">"<i>Woe, oh, woe to the octoroon!</i>"<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="THE_OTHER_WOMAN" id="THE_OTHER_WOMAN"></SPAN>THE OTHER WOMAN.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">You have shut me out from your tears and grief<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Over the man laid low and hoary.<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Listen to me now: I am no thief!—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">You have shut me out from your tears and grief,—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Listen to me, I will tell my story.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The love of a man is transitory.—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">What do you know of his past? the years<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He gave to another his manhood's glory?—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The love of a man is transitory.<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Listen to me now: open your ears.<br/></span></div>
<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</SPAN></span>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Over the dead have done with tears!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Over the man who loved to madness<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Me the woman you met with sneers,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Over the dead have done with tears!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Me the woman so sunk in badness.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">He loved me ever, and that is gladness!—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">There by the dead now tell <i>her</i> so;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">There by the dead where she bows in sadness.—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">He loved me ever, and that is gladness!—<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Mine the gladness and hers the woe.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">The best of his life was mine. Now go,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Tell her this that her pride may perish,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Her with his name, his wife, you know!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The best of his life was mine. Now go,<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Tell her this so she cease to cherish.<br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Bury him then with pomp and flourish!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bury him now without my kiss!<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Here is a thing for your hearts to nourish,—<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Bury him then with pomp and flourish!<br/></span>
<span class="i1">Bury him now I have told you this.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2><SPAN name="A_SONG_FOR_LABOR" id="A_SONG_FOR_LABOR"></SPAN>A SONG FOR LABOR.</h2>
<h4>I.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh, the morning meads, the dewy meads,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where he ploughs and harrows and sows the seeds,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Singing a song of manly deeds,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">In the blossoming springtime weather;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The heart in his bosom as high as the word<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Said to the sky by the mating bird,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While the beat of an answering heart is heard,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">His heart and love's together.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</SPAN></span></p>
<h4>II.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh, the noonday heights, the sunny heights,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where he stoops to the harvest his keen scythe smites,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Singing a song of the work that requites,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">In the ripening summer weather;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">The soul in his body as light as the sigh<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Of the little cloud-breeze that cools the sky,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While he bears an answering soul reply,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">His soul and love's together.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<h4>III.</h4>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0">Oh, the evening vales, the twilight vales,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Where he labors and sweats to the thud of flails,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">Singing a song of the toil that avails,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">In the fruitful autumn weather;<br/></span>
<span class="i0">In heart and in soul as free from fears<br/></span>
<span class="i0">As the first white star in the sky that clears,<br/></span>
<span class="i0">While the music of life and of love he hears,<br/></span>
<span class="i3">Of life and of love together.<br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<p><span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</SPAN></span></p>
<h2>AFTERWORD.</h2>
<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>What vague traditions do the golden eves.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>What legends do the dawns</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Inscribe in fire on Heaven's azure leaves,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>The red sun colophons?</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>What ancient Stories do the waters verse?</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>What tales of war and love</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>Do winds within the Earth's vast house rehearse,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>God's stars stand guard above?—</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>Would I could know them as they are expressed</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>In hue and melody!</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>And say, in words, the beauties they suggest.</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>Language their mystery!</i><br/></span></div>
<div class="stanza">
<span class="i0"><i>And in one song magnificently rise,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>The music of the spheres,</i><br/></span>
<span class="i0"><i>That more than marble should immortalize</i><br/></span>
<span class="i1"><i>My name in after years.</i><br/></span></div>
</div>
<hr style="width: 65%;" />
<h2>TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES</h2>
<div class="blockquot"><p>1. The original text incorrectly listed "The Path by the Creek" as
beginning on page 3 in the Contents. The poem actually starts on page 2
and this printer error has been corrected in the Contents section.<br/><br/>
2. The listing "Sunset and Song" in Contents has been changed to
"Sunset and Storm" in accordance with the title above the poem.<br/><br/>
3. The original indentation for "Poppies" stanza has been ignored for
consistency with other stanzas' indentation in the "Musings" section.<br/><br/>
4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained.</p>
</div>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
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