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Cornell University Library 
 PS 1102.B8A6 1908 
 
 James Vila Blake as 
 
 being a brief a 
 
 1924 021 973 411 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021973411 
 
JAMES VILA BLAKE 
 AS POET 
 
 BEING A BRIEF APPRECIATION OF HIS WORK 
 
 WITH REPRESENTATIVE SELECTIONS FROM HIS 
 
 VARIOUS BOOKS OF VERSE 
 
 BY 
 
 AMELIA HUGHES 
 
 THOS. P. HALPIN & CO., PUBLISHERS 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 
s^'^r 
 
 Copyright 1908 
 
 BY 
 
 C. A. Hughes 
 
JAMES VILA BLAKE AS POET. 
 
 Sanity and breadth of philosophy is as fundamental to 
 the highest plane of j)oetry as to that of prose. It will 
 be found to be as fundamental to any art at its highest ex- 
 pression. Philosophy, wedded to Life, is the centrality of 
 power which pours its light through Life's many-faced re- 
 flectors, the arts. Its quality, therefore, must determine 
 largely the plane of individual achievement in art. It is 
 true that the media of the reflection must be Art. The 
 acme of beauty and truth is found where the purest light of 
 Philosophy inwrought with Life flows through the finest 
 art medium. Hence our first concern with any artist is 
 with the quality of his thought. 
 
 James Vila Blake, poet, preacher, theologian, litterateur, 
 is a master-mind in sweep of prophetic vision, in vital and 
 forceful grasp of the large elementals of thought, and in 
 simple, sweet, clear sanity of co-ordination of perceptions. 
 Founding upon a basis purely natural and rational in its 
 best sense, be has become endowed with a lucid, perfectly 
 rounded philosophy and poise of thought which has nothing 
 to fear from, but is companionable to, the developments of 
 scientific law. The effect of this philosophy upon his literary 
 work, whether in prose or poetry, is felt there like under- 
 
 —5 
 
pinnings of granite pillars. In the ultimate consideration of 
 Mr. Blake as a poet a study of his full literary work is 
 perhaps a legitimate exaction, by the same reasoning that 
 we may hold Life to be requisite for complete interpretation 
 of a sunset, or recognize any of the countless necessary de- 
 pendencies of interwoven natural phenomena. Of his pub- 
 lished works a list is given below.* To this must be added 
 much uncollected work in prose and verse. In "An Anchor 
 of the Soul" the leading tenets of his religious thought 
 are fully, clearly and logically presented. The "Essays" 
 and "Sermons" show the quality and range of his co-or- 
 dination of values. "Saint Solifer" and "More than Kin" 
 are creations of a quaint and tender romantic fancy. 
 
 As to note agreement with universalities imports a finer 
 dignity than to mark even wholly admirable dissonance with 
 temporalities, in this critique of Mr. Blake as a poet a 
 purely expository mode of consideration will be followed. 
 Yet to point the difference from the prevailing fashion in 
 verse may be helpful to a swifter comprehension of his 
 individuality. Mr. Blake's work stands in strongly marked 
 contrast to the literary vogue of today; (and if the literary 
 
 ♦Manual Training- in Education, 1886. 
 Essays, 1887. 
 Poems, 1887. 
 
 Iveg-ends from Story-I^and, 1888. 
 A Grateful Spirit; and Other Sermons, 18<10. 
 Happiness from Thougrhts; and Other Sermons, 1891. 
 St. Solifer, with Other Worthies and Unworthies, 1891. 
 Natural Relig-ion, in Sermons, 1892. 
 More than Kin, 1893. 
 
 An Anchor of the Soul: A study of the nature of faith, 1894. 
 Sonnets, 1898. 
 Songs, 1902. 
 Discoveries, 1904. 
 The Months, 1907. 
 
 6— 
 
supply and public taste may not be included together in 
 the term, the latter must answer to it). Wordsworth did 
 not differ more from his contemporaries than does Mr. 
 Blake from the accepted writers of today. Two palpable 
 features of present-day verse may be characterized as 
 "lusciousness," and a lack of simple responsible sincerity. 
 As regards the first, by contrast Mr. Blake appears over- 
 terse and clear-cut. His flavor is that of an apple as against 
 the cloying sweetness of a persimmon. His difference from 
 the vogue is equally marked as regards the other charge. 
 With a pivot in a philosophy that is large, rounded, sane, 
 ample, his work is carved from responsibility, and his "firm 
 and cheerful tone" is invariably buoyant and absolutely 
 sincere. Each least song-burst has iti raison d'etre, and 
 holds a responsible relation to the findings of his philosophy. 
 Moods and their dalliance are notably lacking, vanishing 
 in the crucible of a mind adjusted to large and happy is- 
 sues. Of "whimpering poets," et id omne genus, he says, 
 "Broods I'd hem like bats in rosy fogs, nor seeing nor 
 seen." v. Sonnet, p. 97. It has been charged that his work 
 is singularly lacking in a reflection of the passionate de- 
 spairs, fears, failures, of a struggling soul. Reading deeply 
 enough one may discern the answer in the quiet bosom of 
 the still waters of his tenets, for therein is seen the cure of 
 fter and despair. Sorrow has its natural place in his feeling 
 and expression, not as the fine frenzy of a mood, but as the 
 reflection of a sanely sympathetic nature. 
 
 In considering the poetry of Mr. Blake analytically, we 
 
may direct our attention first to its substance or matter, 
 then to its form or manner. It is work that is characterized 
 by a marked individuality. One critic has said of it, with 
 partial insight, "Mr. Blake has made an island for himself, 
 and the result is something very strange and very beautiful." 
 If such work mean indeed an island, it is at least one which 
 Withers, Herbert, Vaughn, even such unlike singers as 
 Longfellow, Bryant, and Emerson, and all simply-sincere 
 poet-souls would feel to be not strange and unfamiliar. But 
 it is work from no model. In style Mr. Blake has been 
 swayed away by no one and he has copied no one. Echoes 
 of other poets there are of course, — that is as inevitable to 
 any reader and lover of poets as are sound-echoes to hill- 
 sides — and it is here we detect Mr. Blake's special love 
 for the older poets. His own individuality is shaped by 
 the cast of his thought and by his artistic taste. The mold 
 of thought is not of the past, though with large tenderness 
 for and due valuation of the past; it is not of the present, 
 though with a sym.pathetic understanding of the present 
 in its valid thought-simplicities in religion, in politics, in 
 trade, in sociology ; it is not a forecast of the idealities of 
 the future merely, though it is indeed strongly prophetic 
 and consonant with the future. It is not of an age, but 
 tents on the wide plains under the constant stars of time. 
 Therefore his work contains few traces of the ephemeral 
 in choice or development of theme. A new truth or an old 
 truth may have equal value to him, but for both the line 
 of vision is always his own, freshly adjusted and far re- 
 
moved from any shade of triteness. The remarkable scope 
 and variety of the seed-thoughts in his verse is one of the 
 most strongly marked traits of his work. In the 150 Son- 
 nets of his book of "Sonnets" are nearly double the num- 
 ber of distinct thoughts, i e., separate independent ideas 
 apart from mere images or figures or fancies, to be found 
 in Shakespeare's 154 Sonnets. His artistic taste is toward 
 the tenderly reverential, but logical, clearly-cut and sanely 
 simple in poetic utterance. The remarkable conciseness of 
 his style does not preclude a surprising fullness and richness 
 of imagery, a richness that makes no demands on artificial 
 aids for its enhancement. Often a single verse will startle 
 by its sudden galaxy of lights. His exactions upon the 
 thought of his reader together with his concise style are 
 opposed to an "easy" reading, and usually accord him a 
 slowly acquired but steadily augmenting valuation. It may 
 be questioned whether his extremely compressed and com- 
 pact expression does not result sometimes in a certain clarity 
 of outline that lacks atmospheric toning. Yet the clear dry 
 view is a legitimate nature-effect, and to a lover of that kind 
 of sight the blue rondure of the whole poetic nature is ever 
 present. Questions of "poetic mist" or of "the seer seeing 
 further than he thinks; the singer singing more than he 
 knows,"* etc., etc., have their delusions and their snares 
 for poet and poet-lover. The unresolved, lost-in-a-fog type 
 of poetry has no more place with Mr. Blake than has the 
 "luscious," or the merely ornate. 
 *See Skipsey's " Poems of William Blake." 
 
 —9 
 
A criticism in detail of the form in Mr. Blake's poetry 
 is not in the province of this article, the aim of which is to 
 be, if happily it may, merely a guide or aid to the swifter 
 perception of the leading characteristics of his work. But 
 it is difficult to set limits to the consideration here. With 
 Mr. Blake poetic form has been a passionate study, and pon- 
 dered deeply both in its principles and in its practice by 
 poets. He is wont to say that in literature it is the thought 
 that makes anything worthy to live and the form that 
 makes it able to live. Poetic lawlessness of all sorts, from 
 "free song" to "barbaric yawp," commands little respect 
 from him. Yet within the bounds of form he might be 
 termed a radical, for law and liberty are equally dear to 
 him. To a deep reverence for well-founded law and for 
 poetic traditions he adds a courageous spirit for resource- 
 ful and careful development. In verbal choice, in freedom 
 of style, and in constructive genius his dictum is similar 
 to Lowell's "be bold, and again be bold, but not too bold." 
 Balance, proportion, and integrity of construction have a 
 great and special charm for him, and he holds they are 
 determined with certainty by the nature of the thought. His 
 own range in form is through the Ode, Hymn, Lyric, Son- 
 net, Blank verse, Spencerian stanza. Ballad, Rondel, and 
 minor forms, including two charming bits of his own in- 
 vention, the "Cameo" and the "Lectel," for examples of 
 which see pp. 72-75 and pp. 68-70. 
 
 The selections taken as a whole will be found to be an 
 excellent comment on his wide variety of stanzaic form. 
 
 10 
 
As a prosodist Mr. Blake accepts the metrical laws as 
 prophetically indicated by Sidney Lanier in his "Science of 
 English Verse." It is probable that no other living poet 
 is so well qualified to take up the exposition of those laws 
 where Lanier left it. It may be well to state here that Mr. 
 Blake holds that the figuration of the typical measure of the 
 verse is limited only by the possibilities of the reading voice, 
 and that unskillful reading does not disqualify a verse that 
 can be read smoothly in accordance with the metrical in- 
 tention. His book of "Songs" contains illuminating notes 
 on this subject. 
 
 In both style and diction his work has been likened va- 
 riously and vaguely to the Elizabethan writers, to Herbert, 
 More, Cowley. In point of fact he resembles them in 
 nothing save a direct sincerity of purpose and in a love 
 for pure and noble English word-forms too rarely found in 
 current writing. Attention is asked to the quality, range 
 and flexibility of the splendid diction of the Sonnets. His 
 melody of verse is intrinsic. To a fine and careful ear for 
 "sweet vocables, fine-voiced harmonies" he adds a just taste 
 for the relativity of thought and song values. He says 
 that a rhythm or theme of melody may precede in time and 
 take unto itself a mate in thought, but he insists that the 
 mating thought be an adequate one. If he admits as 
 legitimate such verbal melody unrelated to the thought as 
 is found in Swinburne, at least he does not practice it. In 
 his lyrics especially the harmonious adaptation of sound and 
 movement to the sense should be noted. A line by line study 
 
 —11 
 
reveals his quick sensibility to the niceties of consonantal 
 and vowel agreements. An instance is seen in his dis- 
 countenance of an assimilating vowel sound between the 
 different rhyme-sets of the Sonnet ; e, g. "e" and "o" rhymes 
 are preferred to "e" and "i" rhymes, "a" and "i" to "a" 
 and "e," etc. He holds that in the English Sonnet a 
 marked contrast between the rhyme-sets of the three 
 quatrains gives a strength and beauty of sound-color. Im- 
 perfect rhymes, commended by Mrs. Browning, utterly con- 
 demned by Lanier, abounding in Pope, and frequent in most 
 of the poets, seldom, practically never, are found in Mr. 
 Blake's verse. Especially does he bar imperfections in 
 rhyme-consonantals. Never, for example, does he rhyme 
 s with z as in this and his, a usage very common in the 
 poets. Of identical rhyme, for which he has a fondness, 
 he makes facile and not infrequent use. A sensitive ear 
 alert for line coloring leads him to an extremity of structural 
 care. Yet, withal, Mr. Blake is no purist, and to the much 
 suffering "exigencies of verse" he admits a duly restricted 
 place. 
 
 The marked control of phrase and of general structure 
 to be found in his poems may be pointed best by a few 
 examples. In the English Sonnet, p. 88, note the corres- 
 pondence in phrasing of the three quatrains. In the Italian 
 Sonnet, p. 42, note the uniformity of the advancing phras- 
 ing of the two quatrains. In the Song, p. 57, note how 
 "Light" in each alternate line retreats a step toward final 
 complete disappearance. The structural control shown in 
 
 12— 
 
these examples might be called extreme, yet they have no 
 unpleasantly obtrusive effect and do reveal themselves in 
 fact only to study. Examples of various other kinds of 
 structural effect might be given, such as the contrast of 
 force and smoothness gained by the alternating lines of the 
 third quatrain of the English Sonnet, p. 37, and the gen- 
 eral effect of the run-over lines of the Miltonic form as ap- 
 plied to the English Sonnet, p. 40; but such a citation is 
 very partial at best, and only a careful study of Mr. Blake's 
 complete verse can lead to any adequate estimate of his 
 power and practice of internal structural control in verse. 
 
 The advance in poetic art from the "Poems" to the "Son- 
 nets" and later work is very marked. The earlier work has 
 the Spring's expectancy of the tilled fields, and always is 
 noble in thought and pure in style, but the later gain in 
 richness of diction, in poetic amplitude, and in control of 
 form is very great. "John Atheling," a noble p>oem, shows 
 the earlier work in its clarity, its elevation, and its promise. 
 The Sonnet, p. 91, is a flower of perfected genius. 
 
 Our ultimate estimate of a poet must concern itself 
 with the totality of his song. In Mr. Blake's poetry that 
 totality is at least a constancy of clear songs of hope, cheer, 
 faith, brotherhood, love of man, faith in men, sung with 
 pure ideals of the poetic art. It is reflection in song of a 
 vision wherein life seen clearly and seen whole comprehends 
 the all-pervasiveness of faith and piety. A claim of flaw- 
 lessness even within his own kind or domain of poetic work 
 were short and poor sight. What poet of any marked wide- 
 
 13 
 
ness of range shows not lapses from his accredited taste? 
 Mr. Blake has, too, the faults of his virtues. Constant 
 luminous clarity of idea is an offense to a lover of the humid 
 or mystical, continued simplicity becomes a sufferance to a 
 taste craving profuse ornament, conciseness carves a certain 
 severity of grace; but nobility of thought, force, range, 
 dignity, tenderness, originality, no student of Mr. Blake's 
 poetry will deny. 
 
 For touches of his unique and tender humor read the 
 Sonnets, p. 90, p. 91, p. 97. For glimpses of his quiet 
 tenderness read the Sonnets, p. 41, p. 89, and the Songs, 
 p. 46, p. 64. 
 
 What the place and rank of James Vila Blake is in poetic 
 literature may be a matter of greater or less interest to 
 classifiers ; but there is a more vital issue. For those who 
 hold that poetry, "this heart-ravishing knowledge," as Philip 
 Sidney calls it, is a responsible reporter of life and truth, 
 coming "that ye may have life, and have it more abundant- 
 ly," jMr. Blake's work must have an appeal direct, deep, 
 lasting ; and this, crowned or uncrowned by fame, is of the 
 essence of immortality. 
 
 It is but fair to state that Mr. Blake has had no part in 
 the issuance of this pamphlet of Selections from his verse 
 save that with difficulty his consent was gained not to dis- 
 countenance its friendly purpose. The foregoing letter of 
 comment will reach his eye first from the printed page, and 
 it is hoped that the sincerity of its intent may retrieve for 
 him any gaucheries of an inhabile and unaided pen. Having 
 
 14- 
 
enjoyed a close literary acquaintance with Mr. Blake for 
 some twelve years, with exceptional opportunities for a 
 careful study of his work, I have now undertaken to ask 
 this special consideration of his work, being impelled there- 
 to by the knowledge that from its marked individuality Mr. 
 Blake's work must obtain its recognition in a place apart 
 from the markets of current verse. If in my manner of 
 presentation of Mr. Blake's verse I have failed to touch the 
 springs of interest I ask that his work receive its full in- 
 dependence of consideration apart from that failure. Deem- 
 ing an ample and illustrative selection of the poems the best 
 possible comment on the range and quality of Mr. Blake's 
 work, I have given main place to the cullings from his 
 verse, and 1 trust my extracts from his five books of poetry 
 will be found to be an adequate and representative one. 
 
 —15 
 
THE SELECTIONS 
 
PROEM 
 
 worlds if thou must ask 
 Sweet melodies of sound, 
 
 1 am not given the holy task 
 To sing for thee. But round 
 
 Thou turnest silently 
 To make the nights and days. 
 Inlaid with starry praise. 
 And round thou goest silently 
 
 To roll along 
 
 The seasons' song. 
 What if my verse as silently 
 
 Its way may go. 
 Commingling with thy meaning, blent 
 With nights and days and seasons ! O, 
 So thus my song and earth agree, — 
 
 T am content. 
 
 — From ^'Poems.' 
 
 -19 
 
E POD OS 
 
 Awaiting a birth. 
 For the light athirst. 
 The seed in its shell 
 Is sown in the earth 
 With the Jjre of the dew. 
 Till it stir, till it swell. 
 Till it break, till it burst 
 Into view. 
 
 And song is pent 
 In verse, till blent 
 With the heat, with the tears. 
 With thejires and the fears. 
 With the Joy, with the pain 
 Of a heart, and lain 
 In that sacred earth 
 Till it stir, till it spring. 
 Till it break, till it wing 
 Into birth. 
 
 The song — it will stay. 
 Though seed-coat of verse 
 Dissolve and disperse, — 
 // will bide, it ivill stay. 
 It will grow alway, 
 Where first it did start, — 
 In a heart. 
 
 -From "Poem-- 
 
 20— 
 
JOHN ATHELING 
 
 I. 
 
 John Athkling — I wager thou know'st him not, 
 With all thy knowledge : little more know I. 
 'Twas singing in the street that he was found, 
 Like the great Wittenbergian, singing, wandering. 
 Picking up pittances thrown him from the win- 
 dows 
 Of folk who oped them wide to hear, delighted, 
 The marvellous voice. Yet so the pittance fed him 
 And gave him strength to sing, 'twas all his care : 
 The song his life was ; the scant food it purchased 
 Was but the fuel of force to sing again. 
 Older he than the German lad, no child — 
 Though young, a man ; and a man's great baritone 
 His voice was, noble, grand, glorious, humane, — ■ 
 That not alone the idlers in the houses, 
 Or the easy and sheltered busy, threw up shutter 
 And sash to catch the tones, but in the streets 
 Throngs stopped, of busy men and laborers. 
 Of all the grades of labor, from the scholar. 
 From busy merchant, to the carrier of the hod. 
 Yea, to the rag-picker, and round him close 
 All gathered, tarrying, forgetting, forgotten, fused 
 In human nature reduced from many ores 
 And molten to one ingot by that voice. 
 
 -21 
 
yohn Alheling 
 
 And so he sang, and sang to live, they said ; 
 But 'twas not so ; he sang, but lived to sing. 
 
 It chanced one day he passed a master's door, 
 Passed singing, and the master sat inside. 
 In the grand state of art rapt with delight 
 In harmonies that from his mind to fingers, 
 And through the fingers to the strings, and then 
 Through trembling strings, escaped to the atmos- 
 phere. 
 Till, in the air fallen and folded, they swept 
 Again into another brain entranced, 
 Like his from whom they sprang, with holy pleas- 
 ure. 
 
 Athwart this harmony burst the young man's song, 
 And through the pure delight a keener joy 
 Pierced like a blade of light the master's heart. 
 And through the rich sweet sounds the richer 
 
 sound 
 Ran mingling, yet unmingled. As a stream 
 Of fragrances from the wild turf may rise 
 And float, still individual, through the air. 
 Then kiss tVie utmost leaves, and in them merge, 
 In living veins, — so swelled, so rose the sound. 
 The master started from his instrument 
 At tones from heaven's own instrument more rich 
 Than aught of human make, though these be rich 
 With heaven's descended powers, and straightway 
 
 22— 
 
John Atheling 
 
 No leap of the sound to lose, eager for all ; 
 
 Then quickly, as joy moves, or, quicker, wonder. 
 
 Flew to the door and hailed the lad, and called 
 
 And bade him come, and quicker still in-drew him 
 
 From marveling crowds and listening wanderers. 
 
 And asked from him again the wondrous sound 
 
 Of that deep voice, which in its depth was light 
 
 And in its highest reach majestic depth. 
 
 From the which hour they never parted, the twain, 
 
 But lived together, master and pupil : the one 
 
 A king of power, of masterful lore of art, 
 
 And full of fervent love ; the other, a prince, 
 
 The king's own son by spiritual getting. 
 
 Who for the king-father's love a filial gave 
 
 And took his lessons with a rich affection. 
 
 And so within the mind as well as heart. 
 
 And so in skillful body eke as well, 
 
 The lessons nursed a still more glorious music. 
 
 Began he now to sing as he had never 
 
 Of singing dreamed, or learned that any throat 
 
 Could utter such divinity of sound. 
 
 But all in tone — by arduous exercises. 
 
 Rich rising grades. No daisied meads of tunes 
 
 Did he, the severe moraler in music. 
 
 Permit his precious charge to tread in dalliance : 
 
 Nay, nay, but stern gymnastic day by day 
 
 And many hours each day. And murmured not 
 
 John Atheling, but toiled and wrought his best 
 
 For double love, — love of his master's art 
 
 And of his master: nay, a triple love, — 
 
 —23 
 
jfohn Atheling 
 
 For precious to him were his glorious tones 
 Out-pouring, daily more engendered, strong 
 From breast strong growing, and from tuneful 
 
 throat 
 Unfeigned first, then refining, like fine gold 
 Refined, till what seemed perfect grew perfection. 
 And so, I say, they lived, master and lad 
 Growing together, and in daily happiness, 
 The master growing in pride and joyfulness, 
 The pupil in his art, and both in love. 
 
 II. 
 
 So five bright years together. Then one day 
 The lad came running (for, though man full 
 
 grown, 
 Simple he was at heart, and boyish too, 
 As pure and holy music keeps its votaries), — 
 Came running, as I said, with glee uncommon, 
 And cried, " Dear master, pray thee, let me sing 
 What now is ravishing my heart. For early 
 This morn, full early, yea, in the very dawn, 
 I heard sweet sounds, and I could sleep no more: 
 Sweet sounds, I say, as in imagination 
 Woke me my voice as thou would'st have it be ; 
 And I could almost see the tones, they thrilled 
 So in the air, as thou wouldst have them be. 
 So I arose, voice-waked, voice-led, and thus 
 By thee led, master, for thou hast led the voice. 
 And forth into the park (thou knowest the place) 
 I hastened, following the sounds, nay, running 
 
 24— 
 
yohn Atheling 
 
 To come up with the voice which seemed thy soul, 
 Thy tutoring spirit, heart and mind together, 
 Drawing me on, as I a stranger were 
 To both, yet knowing both and owning them. 
 And there I heard, O master, other sounds 
 That were diviner than my voice, thy dreams, 
 Our mingled dreams and toils ; for all the trees, 
 The tips of trees, the tender nodding reeds 
 Above the waters, yea, the breasts of flowers. 
 And all the weaving of the ecstasies 
 Of soft green branches tossing in the morning, 
 Were vocal with bird-songs. O how they sang ! 
 And how their pinions whirred and quivered, 
 
 clipped 
 By the sharp light — harmlessly, for still they flew ! 
 What multitudes ! as there they came, not gath- 
 ered 
 In any ranks, but sprinkled like the dew 
 Wherever a green place could hold a foot 
 Of a sweet singer, all pouring forth in one 
 Their glorious matins to the rising sun. 
 And, as I thought, to One above the sun. 
 Then as I listened, I could catch, my master, — 
 Not in one strain, not in one songster's notes, 
 But in them all, and laying each by each, 
 As down they fluttered, perching in my sense 
 From different heights, yea, up from coverts low. 
 Till the whole air a habitation seemed 
 Whence carols — gentle guests — crowded my ear, — 
 A melody, voice pieced by note and note 
 
 —25 
 
John Atheling 
 
 From out their marvelous throats, with tones so 
 
 high 
 They pierced the ether, and so heavy-sweet 
 They sank like weight into my soul; — I pieced 
 A melody, which brought me then to thee, 
 As every path to the horizon leads; 
 For thou art always in my skies. And sky-like 
 This music is ; dear master, let me sing it." 
 But said the master, as one might chide a child 
 For some brave fault, a fault, yet still most precious, 
 " Nay, nay, my boy, I tell thee nay ; 'tis naught. 
 Thou hast been ravished by the birds' shrill throats. 
 'Tis well ; they are pretty singers, I love them 
 
 well, 
 Yea, and myself do hear them with delight, — 
 Howbeit, old to suck the dawn's dank humors 
 And let its nipping shrewdness to this arm 
 That hath rheumatic murmurs in the elbow, 
 To hear the birds complain of dew's excess 
 Unto the princely sun. But speak not thou 
 Of melodies to sing ; come, tame thy heart ; 
 This is the hour of task ; take thou thy stand ; 
 Here is thy exercise ; so, now begin." 
 
 'Twas not long after this when came the youth 
 One golden noon, and with noon in his cheeks. 
 There so was harvested meridian joy. 
 " Master," he said, " O wonderful, and then 
 More wonderful, and still most heavenly strange ! 
 
 26- 
 
John Aiheling 
 
 How can I tell thee what hath happened to me ? 
 
 I have such splendor for thee in my soul, 
 
 To leap like fairies' dances — nay, not so. 
 
 But like religious chant — into thine ear. 
 
 'Twas but an hour ago, that at high noon 
 
 I stood upon the bridge that clasps the river. 
 
 Round which, thou knowest, the great factories 
 
 gather 
 That pour their mingling black and white, like 
 
 vestures 
 Of spiritual nuns, through the adjacent isles 
 Of the silent grove. And it was noon, just noon, 
 When from the labors o!f the morn the workers 
 Had stopped for rest and bodily food. First sprang 
 The vocal breath from one great whistle; answered 
 Another then, and then a third ; then others. 
 Each following each, and hastening, clustering. 
 So that the slow first tones seemed weaving 
 
 rhythms 
 For figures after, as on thy instrument 
 Oft thou hast shown me ; and therewith sweet 
 
 tune 
 Flowed forth, note following note, symmetrical. 
 Till voice and glorious melody I heard, 
 Made of the whistles' tones ; first solemn, slow, 
 Then gradually, as one ran on another, 
 Adding to the mighty melody new figures 
 Of rapid notes and curving runs of notes. 
 Till what began so serious and grand 
 Took flight for very joy into the heavens, — 
 
 —27 
 
John Atheling 
 
 But not less grand nor serious for the joy, 
 
 The quivering throngs of notes Hfting it up 
 
 Like wings. Master, it seized me ! Bid me, I 
 
 pray thee, 
 I priiy thee bid me, for I can sing it thee." 
 This time the master frowned, and answered 
 
 shortly, 
 " Dost see the hour ? Chatter no more, but come. 
 Take thou thy lesson ; sing this minor scale, 
 And see thou blur not these clipped intervals 
 Where I have marked them in, strangers to thee. 
 
 So 'twas, that erst at morn when Atheling's soul 
 Was ravished with the bird-songs, and at noon. 
 When the strange shrieks of steam pipes in his 
 
 heart 
 To music grew, first did the master speak 
 To him as to a child from a wrong caressed ; 
 Then frown on him and bid him to his task. 
 But all the same (for what's in soul will out) 
 He came one evening, later by a month, 
 Looking like one in whom experience 
 Had bloomed into a fervor, and thus spake : 
 "A strange thing, master, a moving, mighty thing! 
 Know that this evening I had wandered early, 
 Till I had found me at a crossing street 
 Where throngs of men were sweeping by me, 
 
 busy 
 Returning from more business ; and women too, 
 
 28- 
 
yohn Atheling 
 
 Yea, even girls and boys, all tired, all glaa 
 
 To be let out into the air from labor. 
 
 Voices, released, rang loud on every side ; 
 
 On pavements the crowds rattled, and thronging 
 
 teams 
 Jostled each other to the driver's call 
 And crack of whip, — sometimes a wrathful scream, 
 Though soon engulfed in the great roar that rose, 
 Like wind and wave commingled on the coast. 
 Around me. And the sharp, shrill tread of feet 
 On pavement, multitudinous, came up 
 To top the roar, shot with sheen gleams of voices. 
 I heard a distant bell, clanging before, 
 Now rolling with the rest, so that all seemed 
 An instant as if all were bells, different. 
 But ringing with one thought in many parts. 
 Ah, master, it was grand, this symphony. 
 Of hurrying men and rustling dress of women, 
 The boy's hallo, the laugh of girls (what wed- 
 dings !), 
 And prattle of toddling babes, led by their hands, 
 The rattling crowds, the teamster's shout, dogs 
 
 barking. 
 The clangor of great doors opening and shutting, 
 All mingled in one vast reverberation 
 Which to my sense was wondrous harmony. 
 I lost myself, I was at home with thee ; 
 I heard thee playing, I beheld thy hands 
 Calling these peals tumultuous of sound 
 From out a vast sublimity of pipes 
 
 —29 
 
John Atheling 
 
 Towering in an organ with ten thousand pedals 
 Of base that roared like flame, and piped with 
 
 notes 
 Of reeds and flutes that shot aloft like sparks. 
 I tell thee I could play that harmony ; 
 It hath lived in me while I have run to thee 
 And floating a-top of it a melody 
 Which played the flutes and reeds unto the base. 
 O let me play ; for though my fingers skill not 
 To gather all these ecstasies, like thine, 
 Yet I can beacon thine imagination. 
 Till thou canst play the whole, and I can sing thee 
 The splendid melody that ran above, 
 Can sing it perfectly : — dear master, bid me." 
 Now rose the man in wrath, assuaged no longer, 
 And from his eyeshot menace ; his voice trembled; 
 "Silence !" he cried, "What shall I call thee ? 
 
 Ingrate .'' 
 Apostate ? Disobedient ? Or only foolish ? 
 What art thou, what ? A boy, a silly boy ! 
 Ignorant thou art, ay, nothing ; thou art nothing. 
 Wouldst thou teach me, or rather I teach thee ? 
 Wilt thou come to me with thy silly tunes, 
 Begging to sing what I have set thee not. 
 And will not set, for I know well thy need. 
 And the right tasks to bring thee to the end ! 
 Be done, I say ; thou shalt not sing one tune, 
 Nor dream of one to put it into sound. 
 Until I bid thee. Get thee to thy task. 
 In all thy silly dreams upon the streets, 
 
 30- 
 
'jfohn Atheling 
 
 Standing a-gawk, I doubt not, on a corner, 
 Amid tlie hurrying tlirongs that stared at thee 
 To see the silly flush burn in thy face, 
 I warrant me thou thought'st not of thy lesson 
 And of the exercise awaiting thee. 
 Stand to it now, and do thy task, I say." 
 Then, the while Atheling obeyed and sang 
 With sweet implicitness of faith obediently. 
 And the voice august that grander grew each day. 
 And more a mountain like, rooted past depth 
 In the central earth and towering to the skies, 
 Clad in all colors, in all lights and shadows, 
 From snowy white through glints of green and 
 
 brown 
 Down to the mountain's foot that stood on night. 
 So deep the valley of its rest, — swelled like a tide 
 That would o'erflow the horizon, ran the master 
 Away, and by himself fell on his knees. 
 And wept with joy, and prayed thanksgivingly, 
 Even for the very things that he had chided, 
 And gave God thanks for his great pupil's gifts. 
 
 At last 'twas ended ; thus the master spoke : 
 
 " My lad, my son, my more than son, go now, 
 
 I bid thee, for I have done all I can. 
 
 Thou hast done well, toiled manfully, and now 
 
 I send thee hence, though 'tis as if my heart 
 
 I took from out my breast and sent away. 
 
 But listen : since first I took thee from the street 
 
 —31 
 
John Atheling 
 
 No tune hast sung, not one, but only tasks, 
 To work like grim smiths at the splendid metal 
 Of thy grand voice, and hammer it to shape. 
 Now thou shalt go to foreign land, my son, 
 The home of song itself, where thou shalt bathe 
 In melodies, as the East bathes in the Ocean 
 When in the West the far beholder sees 
 Dawn lift his head from the horizon's pillow. 
 Yes, thou shalt feed on music, for thou has wrought 
 
 it; 
 
 And great heaven-cleaving songs shall lift thee, 
 
 teaching 
 Thy voice to fly as wings on either side 
 To bear thee to God's grace. And thou shalt find 
 There masters to thy mind, who shall reveal thee 
 These songs magnificent, and pour around thee 
 Such streams, yea, rivers, oceans, yea, of tune 
 As never birds had done, nor noon-tide pipes 
 Nor all the city's jar had stirred in thee. 
 This shall thy masters do ; and now I give thee 
 To them for love of thee, and of thy voice, 
 Which is heaven's gift to thee, and the world 
 
 through thee. 
 But when by them thou art to glory led, 
 I charge thee, forget not me, but bend thy love 
 In memory over me, a richer crown 
 Even than these gray hairs. Farewell, ray son." 
 So went John Atheling, mournfully, yet glad, 
 Though very glad, yet mournfully, to leave 
 His masterful, kind-stern and stern-kind teacher 
 
 32- 
 
yohn Atheling 
 
 Who him had taken for love and taught for love, 
 And bound for love to stern tasks day by day, 
 For love of him, of music, and of God, — 
 All one to him, for God lives in his gifts. 
 So virent the youth, and on the high sea soon 
 Beneath his bounding heart the ship was bound- 
 ing 
 On crests of waves that to him singing seemed 
 And saying severally, " Speed on, speed on ! 
 We are the figures of the melodies 
 Which thou art hastening to, and thou shalt meet 
 Us there again, and in the rising tones, 
 The rising, tossing tones of jubilant tunes, 
 Or the great roll of solemn hymns of praise. 
 Thou shalt again float on us on a sea." 
 So sped the days, with ecstasies of sound. 
 With dreams of songs, with the sweet plashes 
 
 breaking 
 Upon his ear of melodies far off. 
 As when a tide just setting toward the flood 
 First ripples gently on the farthest reef. 
 So sped the days ; until the clouds grew black. 
 And the wind roared, and then drew breath, drew 
 
 breath 
 And louder roared, with dreadful clamor, tearing 
 Down through mute striving clouds. The waters 
 
 rose 
 To meet the roar of the wind, and joined in fury 
 And larum of ungovernable tempest. 
 What wind and waters lacked the thunders forged, 
 
 —33 
 
yohn Atheling 
 
 And where the clouds were rent, the lightnings 
 
 laced them 
 In deeper seams of blackness. Under the vessel 
 Raged one storm and above another whirled ; 
 Between them rolling it lay, crushed and ground. 
 Out-bruising the aroma of hearts, cries, prayers, 
 Like maize between the mill stones. It was 
 
 doomed. 
 It could not float, — wrecked, torn, rent, Droken, 
 
 gaping ; 
 Waters poured in and gained on laboring men 
 Till they forsook the work, foreswore it, crouch- 
 ing 
 To die. But this the singer saw not, heard not; 
 Or if he saw, he thought not life was going 
 But song was come. The elements in storm 
 Sang to him harmonies, and over them 
 Forth from his memory leaped melodies 
 Fitting the scene terrific, the awful moment. 
 So there upon the prow he stood, and sang. 
 While the wrecked vessel settled inch by inch 
 At the broken stern from which the rudder, twisted, 
 Was hurled by the curling wave into the sea. 
 He stood and sang; and rose the great grand 
 
 voice 
 Heaven-high above the roar of elements, — 
 So high and full, it seemed as though they quailed, 
 And stopped to listen to the greater sound 
 Than they knew how to lift to heaven's ear. 
 He sang great requiems, and passion-music. 
 
 34- 
 
John Atheling 
 
 And a world's hope-music, which, Messiah-filled, 
 Broke o'er the earth as now the sea the vessel. 
 Now, now he could sing! Now melodies could 
 
 mount 
 From memory's heart to voice, from voice to 
 
 heaven; 
 And as he sang, thinking of naught but singing 
 And joyfulness that he was free to sing 
 With none forbiding, neither his master's frown 
 Nor conscience stern therewith, the people trem- 
 bled; 
 They heard, they looked, they looked and heard, 
 
 and then 
 Fell low on their knees, bent, crawled, crept, 
 
 pressed around him, 
 Together clinging close and pressing closer, 
 All on their knees, with hands clasped and uplifted. 
 And with their uplifted hands their faces lifted 
 Toward him and toward the sky, the singer, and 
 
 heaven 
 Whither flew the song. He sang, and hearts were 
 
 stilled 
 Wilder than waters, lifted above the storm 
 As the ship sank below it: and at the highest, 
 When highest rose the song, down from the pin- 
 nacle 
 Of music rushed the vessel into the waters 
 That beat about its feet, and so was gone. 
 
 — From ^'Poetns." 
 
 -35 
 
The poet discovereth that in all things he hath both cause 
 and need of song. 
 
 If joyed I be, conjured am I to sing 
 And round my glee a merry music fling : 
 If I be grieved, like Philomel I sing, 
 Consoling with sweet plaints my nighted wing: 
 If I do love, what possible but sing 
 Memorial madrigals that round me ring: 
 If I do hate (which God forefend), I sing 
 To quell the clamor where the discords ding. 
 At morn, by noon, at eve, by night, which way 
 I look or walk or rest or run all day, 
 Naught can outhaste the angel bids me sing: 
 Need matters naught, song parleys not : or play. 
 Or work or loss or gain or flight or stay. 
 Pursuing raptures drive me till I sing. 
 
 — From ^^Dxscoveries.^^ 
 
 36- 
 
The poet discovereth the "melodies of morn'' at a neigh- 
 boring tarn, and observeth with what glistening beauty water 
 decorateth the earth. 
 
 Awake ! Away ! Out into the middle o' the mere ! 
 Shy Day dips in, theui maiden-mannered spyeth ; 
 And Night, swart lover, following aye in fear. 
 Now from her streamy form and dripping beauties flyeth. 
 The birds hold showery matins, hailing the light 
 With warbling tribes. From bosky tops to rushes. 
 No sleepy bud i' the mass nor lazy bight 
 r the stem but lacquered is by misty brushes. 
 Each trunk or branch or twig or leaf or thorn 
 A silver sheeny pearly vapor f ameth ; 
 From fern or grass or reed or rose or corn 
 Fall twinkling jewels crimson morning flameth. 
 
 Who drowseth late doth waste the flood of day; 
 
 O, out into the middle o' the mere! Awake! Away! 
 
 — From "DiscoTjeries. 
 
 37 
 
The poet discovereth again as never before "what a thought 
 of God it was when he conceived a tree." 
 
 O, what a breathing creature ! How he doth drink 
 The wind ! With what a rapture ilings his arms, 
 And races on the air ! — the while he charms 
 The earth in which his foot doth grapple and sink ! 
 'Tis sure he looks to heaven, sure he doth think 
 O' the sun, sure doth mark to fend alarms 
 From busy-singing friends, and ward from harms 
 Them all on whom his flowery eyelids wink. 
 O, come to me, strong thing! For well I know 
 I go but part to thee, and thou dost move 
 From thy firm tread to meet me in the way : 
 Come to me, mighty being ! Yet wait, that so 
 I run and kiss thy foot, as doth behoove, 
 Under thine arms to hark and love and pray. 
 
 — From ^^Discoveries." 
 
 38- 
 
The poet discovereth that there is naught so real, or of so 
 great might, as the ideal which he dreameth in his soul. 
 
 I dream : Whate'er doth hap or seem, 
 Whate'er I do or not — 'tis one : 
 I never did what I would fain have done ; 
 And when it falleth short — I dream. 
 I love : it lifts me not above ; 
 The heart o' me is halt ; — 'tis vain : 
 To think or sing or pray or preach I strain, 
 But only come to this — to love. 
 Hope, sight, deeds, away they fly, 
 Far fly, — I can not follow so : 
 Strive, run, leap, or launch me high, 
 All's fault, — I still am left below. 
 
 Yet naught doth vanish from me, only seem : 
 
 For this in full 's my real, what I dream. 
 
 — Prom ^^ Discoveries.^' 
 
 -39 
 
The poet discovereth that he is not to be pardoned if he 
 liveth not evermore with great company. 
 
 Up! where the majesties go, where thoughts assemble 
 Ermined in honor o' the levy, where 's glorious stately 
 Presence of gentle nobility, and heart a-tremble 
 Feeling the weight o' the world ; where richly and greatly 
 Shine souls devout i' the love that ne'er will brook 
 A bourne to love, but from religious height 
 Surveys the world, nor ever yet forsook 
 A nobly needy cause fallen in fight, 
 
 Down, and scornfully trampled; where mighty mortals 
 Pitch a heroical siege, till the eastward brilliance 
 Forces the gate o' the darkness, and wicked portals. 
 Beaded with the dank o' the night, burst at the radiance. 
 
 O, up ! where these glories be and heaven rings ! 
 
 Up to them and live with them — leave small things. 
 
 — From ^^Discoveries." 
 
 40— 
 
The poet, walking in the city by night, discovereth a child 
 sleeping in a basket-cradle on the curb of a common ill-pur- 
 lieued street; and he discovereth how "evil-entreated" the child 
 is. 
 
 O, thou 'rt out of place, thou 'rt out of place, 
 Sweet cherub, and thy "honey-heavy" eyes 
 With "slumber's dew" seem to refuse the skies 
 That lower and reek on thine abused face. 
 Where smut and smoke begrime the firm space 
 O' the most true heavens, and rank vapors rise 
 From stews and shambles and foul human sties, 
 Is 't room for thy most pure and slumberous grace ? 
 Thou shouldst be sleeping in sweet country air. 
 Beneath skies unconfused, white daisies round thee. 
 Birds from low willows peeping at thy fair, 
 Vieing with gales to make dream-music sound thee; 
 And chanting brooks thy sleeping sigh should bear. 
 To tell pursuing angels they have found thee. 
 
 — From "Discoveries*' 
 
 -41 
 
The poet discovereth once again, and passionately, the power 
 and dignity of continuing to wish ardently the thing no longer 
 to be hoped, forasmuch as to wish grandly is to live grandly, 
 and little it matters what one obtaineth. 
 
 I think I 'd give my hand to have this thing, 
 Ay, and the one lop off his fellow if 't could buy 
 This prize : or bid them pluck out my right eye, 
 Grub out my ears, or crack them till they ring 
 With stale unmeaning noise ; or let them bring 
 The roots of my tongue to the stringy shambles, or try 
 Unmortal cuts around my heart how nigh, — 
 If so I could attain this longed for thing. 
 Well — and I cannot get it, 'tis denied me. 
 And ambling Fortune spites me with her jeers; 
 Yet is she but befooled if she deride me. 
 She weareth motley by her idle leers : 
 The best in things unhad God doth provide me. 
 To wit, th' unhoped great wish unwaned with years. 
 
 — From '^Discoveries.^' 
 
 42- 
 
The poet discovereth, by reverence of his Comrade, that the 
 main joy is to behold that good things are on the earth. 
 
 Now have I the main thing, and can be glad ! 
 Till I beheld thee love, thy pity fall, 
 I knew not such things were on earth withal : 
 That is the main, — henceforth I shall be glad. 
 What matter that by me such are not had ? 
 Main is, earth hath them, doth them large install ; 
 And I can wait — "naught 's long that ends at all :" 
 Small matter what by me forsooth is had. 
 O, rich — so preach I back thy sweet tuition — 
 Am I, or any one, when what we miss 
 We thank for its abundance in the earth : 
 And he is wealthy with a star's condition 
 Who happily the world doth lightsome kiss. 
 And love it, though it give not back his worth. 
 
 — From ^^Discoi^ertes" 
 
 -43 
 
The poet discovereth that "man doth not yield himself to 
 the angels, nor unto death utterly, save only through the weak- 
 ness of his feeble" song. 
 
 My earthly end can not be far, a bare 
 Seventh, perhaps, of the dear years now run, 
 Or if by reason of strength still more, a spare 
 Three score and ten, I think, will see me done. 
 What then? I'll swifter sing, as shrewd as child 
 That eats his supper fast to eat the more, 
 Against his comely nurse, howbeit mild, 
 Doth timely snatch him to his sleeping door. 
 Methinks it were full rich, when I must wend, 
 A song to be a-making as I go, 
 And fall asleep here with th' unfinished end. 
 To wake there still composing it a-glow. 
 
 Dear Song 's a friend to die with or to live. 
 
 That joy in either and for aye doth give. 
 
 — From '^Discoveries." 
 
 44- 
 
The poet discovereth anew the text, "Enter thou into the 
 joy of thy Lord." 
 
 O, what a streaming glory of the earth, 
 What freshet, this exuberance of joy! 
 'Tis torrents, and doth every thing destroy 
 That can be swept away and is no worth. 
 Bliss hath no question of its place or birth, 
 Nor chooseth, — 'tis at home with girl or boy. 
 With women, nor with doughty men is coy ; 
 Free of all presences this orient mirth. 
 Hold ! Hark ! The glorious battle of bliss 
 That tops the musical frolic — how it rang! 
 Soft! Hush! Th' imperial jubilant kiss 
 O' the love-discoursing zephyr— how it sang ! 
 Go to ! Go to ! The earth makes full of this, 
 Since the orb trembled and the first morning sprang. 
 
 — From "Discoveries," 
 
 -45 
 
Ah yes ! come back, dear one, come back, 
 
 Come back to me ! 
 Thou 'rt gone so far that for the lack 
 
 I grieve of thee : 
 
 O, thou dost stay 
 
 So far away. 
 
 So very far away, 
 
 Darkened is day : 
 And yet — never hast thou gone from me, 
 
 And canst not. 
 
 Ah yes ! I look, dear one, I look, 
 
 I look for thee, 
 And think perhaps in some dear nook 
 
 Thou hid'st from me : 
 
 But no ; afar. 
 
 And like a star, 
 
 A disappearing star, 
 
 Thy graces are : 
 And yet — never hast thou gone from me, 
 
 And canst not. 
 
 Ah yes! the time, dear one, the time, 
 
 The time is long 
 While thou art far in other clime; 
 
 Fails my lone song. 
 
 46- 
 
Hope hard doth hold, 
 But I grow old, 
 I grow most swiftly old. 
 And life grows cold: 
 And yet — never hast thou gone from me, 
 
 And canst not. 
 
 For O 1 I wait, dear one, I wait, 
 
 I wait thee here ; 
 All day, all night I watch, till late 
 
 Stars reappear: 
 
 So lifts thy light 
 
 Above the night. 
 
 But thou beyond the night 
 
 Art gone from sight: 
 And yet — never hast thou gone from me, 
 
 And canst not. 
 
 And O ! thy heart, dear one, thy heart, 
 
 Thy heart is held ; 
 Thy feet must journey, must depart, — 
 
 Heart 's not compelled. 
 
 Around earth's vast 
 
 Thy form hath passed 
 
 Awhile ; thy heart, not passed, 
 
 In mine is fast : 
 For O ! — never hast thou gone from me. 
 
 And canst not. 
 
 -From ^^Songs. 
 
 —47 
 
When April's changeable sweet face doth show 
 An early peeping light, 
 I love full oft 
 Betimes at morning from the house to go 
 With quick delight: 
 The sun and flowery thrift 
 Again within my twice-waked eye do blow. 
 
 And the dulled ear of all my sleepy stay 
 The livelong night within, 
 Opens alert 
 In woods where meet the voices of the day 
 In charming din : 
 The sweet and musical art 
 Of winds and birds concerting mark my way. 
 
 Then under eye and ear the merry Spring 
 Doth fancy-fill my feet, 
 And swift I run 
 To follow soft and brown woods-paths that bring 
 Me odors sweet : 
 The forest rounds an urn 
 More redolent than rose-jars of a king. 
 
 48- 
 
Nor eye nor ear nor foot nor delicate sense 
 Of freshening fragrancies — 
 Not these alone 
 Bedew the time's sweet wandering expense 
 With ecstacies : 
 In arborous valley-lane 
 The flavorous runnels pour me wine intense. 
 
 Sweet sights and sounds and gusts, and mossy mould 
 That flatters idle foot, 
 Now these are seasoned 
 With racy relishes such as to hold 
 In heart are put : 
 My happy love is opened 
 To the sweet things my senses do enfold. 
 
 — From ^*Songs." 
 
 -49 
 
SONG 
 
 Awake, my boy! 
 
 Thy cheek hath kissed 
 
 Its twin rose, Dawn! 
 
 Awake for joy ! 
 
 A day is born. 
 
 And earth is blest ! 
 For under tufts of grass lies the lark's nest, 
 And sparkle beads of dew on the earth's breast. 
 Far overhead the white clouds are sailing, 
 And on the hills soft shadows are trailing. 
 
 Now sleep, boy bright! 
 Sweet, go to sleep! 
 With eider-down 
 Of dreams, brown Night 
 Shall weight thee down, 
 And fold thee deep. 
 
 The water-gate is shut and the mill stops; 
 
 The evening star climbs over the hill tops; 
 
 White fleece, like wool, descends on the meadow, 
 
 And on the owl's nest deepens the shadow. 
 
 — From '^Pi'ims." 
 
 SO- 
 
Up to the top o' the trees, 
 
 Where sway the bird and breeze. 
 
 And Song's wild eyes 
 
 Look to the skies: 
 
 Up to the top o' the trees ! 
 
 Up to the peaks o' the cloud, 
 Where Echo's suburbs crowd 
 The lightning's flash 
 And thunderous crash : 
 Up to the peaks o' the cloud ! 
 
 Nay, I will walk on the earth ; 
 
 My love them all is worth : 
 
 In Love I see 
 
 All of them be, 
 
 And more — I will walk on the earth ! 
 
 -From ^^ Songs.' 
 
 —51 
 
THE FRINGED GENTIAN. 
 
 Now tell me if in all the earth 
 There be a flower more beautiful, 
 
 More exquisite, 
 
 More praises-fit, 
 
 More plentiful 
 
 In every lovely grace 
 That can endue and fill its little space with worth. 
 
 So tender-blue and modest 'tis. 
 So simple and so temperate, — 
 
 No coy distress, 
 
 Yet forward less, — 
 
 So sweet frank state 
 
 That never man can sigh 
 For fairer thing when looks that fringed eye to his. 
 
 It bloometh when the months are late, 
 When other sweets are fugitive, 
 
 Or when the yellow 
 
 Of fields all mellow 
 
 A glow doth give 
 
 That frights that tender hue 
 Till curling fringe conceals the sweet-eyed blue sedate. 
 
 52— 
 
How dear the angled goblet seems 
 Of calix-cup's pale verdancy, 
 
 What creature-look 
 
 Each feature took, 
 
 Whose modesty 
 
 Met the all-charmed light 
 As if the lashes opened unto sight from dreams! 
 
 I love the beautiful sweet being: 
 My heart is full and innocent, 
 
 All rapturous. 
 
 Impetuous 
 
 And opulent. 
 
 When I make trembling-bold 
 To gather that dear soul for closer hold and seeing. 
 
 — From "Songs, 
 
 -53 
 
In the morning let me face the east! 
 
 There sits the Hght : 
 
 All morn, mid-morn, noon, after-da}', forsooth. 
 
 Are in that dawn : Ay, let me face my youth. 
 
 Where birds wake up and bees and blossoms feast 
 
 On honeys bright. 
 
 In the evening let me face the west ! 
 
 There sits the light: 
 
 Eve, mid-night, moon, stars, and new days, engage 
 
 In that red sky: Ay, let me face my age. 
 
 Where shades tent nightingales ; and for the rest, 
 
 The sky is bright. 
 
 — From *^Songs.' 
 
 54- 
 
Life seemeth all one song: 
 If joyed, 'tis song; 
 If sad, still it doth belong 
 To the one calendar of song. 
 
 Life seemeth all one time: 
 If old, much time; 
 If young, 'tis but at the prime 
 O' the one eternity of time. 
 
 Life seemeth all one love : 
 
 If thronged, full love; 
 
 If lone, still it hath above 
 
 The solitude heart's own sweet love. 
 
 — From ^^ Songs,* 
 
 -55 
 
There be two ranges of strange hills, 
 One is the breeding of thy youth, 
 And one of mine ; and from their rills 
 This river where we plight our truth. 
 
 I ken my hills, thou markest thine, 
 But neither doth the other's know ; 
 And now conjoined in river's shine. 
 We can not tell to what they flow. 
 
 The hills are sad that were unshared. 
 The unlearned ocean shall be known : 
 The sorrow can not be repaired. 
 But now and on is love's, my own. 
 
 — From "Songs.*' 
 
 56- 
 
The Light, that was full waked at merry morn, 
 Had climbed up eager to the ridge of day; 
 There Love met Light, whereat surprised each, 
 They fell to admiration both straightway. 
 
 But soon this Love and Light, as often haps 
 Twixt those too suddenly that friendly be, 
 Embraced no more like Love and Light, but set 
 Themselves full roundly on to disagree. 
 
 Now this the conflict was twixt Love and Light,— 
 To grant the other brighter each was loth: 
 And sooth by day they might dispute ; but Love 
 Illumined midnight bright enough for both. 
 
 — From *^Songs." 
 
 —57 
 
I waked — 'twas bright; I rose — 'twas fair; 
 
 I went forth in the bonny air ; 
 
 The breeze blew on my cheek, my brow, my eyes. 
 
 And waked an image in my eyes. 
 
 I walked — how fresh I I breathed — how sweet ! 
 The sun shone with a beaming heat: 
 The heat unbound the lockers of my heart, 
 And warmed an image in my heart. 
 
 I stand — all 's blithe ; I look — all 's blest ; 
 I said, "Kind Air, tell me love's rest." 
 "Love's rest" saith Air, — " 'tis to be true, devout, 
 Reverent in love, tender, devout." 
 
 I stay — for joy; I sing — for praise: 
 
 Devout of love shall be my days, — 
 
 All days; — "But O, warm Light, when shall love end?" 
 
 "Love lives," said Light, "worlds without end." 
 
 — From ^'So7iffS." 
 
 58- 
 
I fell in pits of discontent, 
 
 And looked upon myself with eyes 
 
 Of disapproving, sad surprise, 
 
 To mark how ill was all my bent; 
 
 For I could gather in me little good. 
 
 And e'en that little in a shadow stood. 
 
 I found me wasteful, indolent, 
 Capricious, fitful, full of cries, 
 Most often foolish, never wise, 
 Morose to genial merriment. 
 And darksome-empty as a hollow grot 
 That on a sunny hill-side inks a blot. 
 
 So to myself malevolent. 
 
 My poor best deeds I did despise. 
 
 And nothing in me did assize 
 
 Of import to be excellent : 
 
 But then I read my heart, that it was true, 
 
 "And loved myself because myself loved you." 
 
 — From ^^ Songs.' 
 
 -59 
 
As one self-entered in a lion's den, 
 Waits savagery, 
 
 Not knowing how or whence or when, 
 How stung from bog or starved from fen. 
 The beasts may be, — 
 
 So I have trolled me to this lair of trade, 
 This wretchedness. 
 Where cruelty is scaled and paid, 
 And villain coarsened clamor made 
 A horridness. 
 
 I know not why this growling rabble rip 
 With bitter tooth. 
 
 And snarl their fangs from upper lip, 
 As it were pride to rend and strip, 
 And love no sooth. 
 
 This now I note, but now 'tis scrolled and fled, 
 
 Like witchery ; 
 
 Song cometh — first 'tis hush o'ershed. 
 
 Then murmurs, wherein noise is dead 
 
 By poesy. 
 
 Ah ! Freedom of my versing ! Vision ! Bliss ! 
 
 The wranglers lie : 
 
 They think me kept with howl and hiss ; 
 
 But Song disturbs me with a kiss — 
 
 Away I fly. 
 
 — From ^'Songs.'* 
 
 60- 
 
Thrifty Tom makes a call far out o' town, 
 
 Where a little meadow lark wears a quaint gown, — 
 
 O ho ho ho, ho ho ho, wears a quaint gown. 
 
 Sayeth Tom, prayeth Tom, "Ah, pretty thing. 
 Be a little cosy bird, — while I hark, sing: 
 Ay ay ay ay, ay ay ay, while I hark, sing." 
 
 But the bird cocks her head, roguish and coy, 
 
 "What will ye be giving now ? — tell me that, boy : 
 
 Chee chee chee chee, chee chee chee, — tell me that, boy." 
 
 Thrifty Tom saith he '11 give love very fine : 
 
 "Ye should not be vaunting yours, but should woo mine, — 
 
 Ah ha ha ha, ha ha ha, — ye should woo mine." 
 
 — From **Songs." 
 
 -61 
 
I do defy ye, crabbed age ! 
 
 I 've seen ye, ne'er did feel ye : 
 
 Go, for another turn a page ; 
 
 But I, a flip I deal ye. 
 
 Where'er I go, 'tis antic youth I bring. 
 
 No matter what I do, 'tis then I sing — Hillo and 
 
 nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 I 've seen ye catch a-many legs, 
 I can not e'en deny ye. 
 And make them worse than wooden pegs ; 
 My nimble limbs belie ye : 
 Where'er I go, 'tis prancing feet I bring. 
 And what I skip to do, 'tis so I sing — Hillo and 
 nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 I 've see ye get into a head. 
 And make it dull or cranky; 
 But not with me so have ye sped, 
 And ye may try and thank 'e: 
 Where'er I go, 'tis tricksy wits I bring, 
 And if some wit 's to do, 'tis then I sing — Hillo 
 and nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 62— 
 
I 've seen ye get into a heart, 
 And make it sick and peevish; 
 But try your all, ye get no part 
 In mine, ye minion thievish: 
 For where I go, a hearty heart I bring, 
 If there be joys to do, 'tis I can sing — Hillo and 
 nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 My love, my bonny, tell me now, 
 Didst ever know us aged, 
 Or count what years upon the brow 
 Had made us cynic-saged? 
 Where'er we go, 'tis April's self we bring, 
 Give this or that to do, 'tis then we sing — Hillo 
 and nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 Come, I will kiss thee here and here, 
 Thou sunny side of twenty. 
 And tumble up our youth, my dear. 
 With follies wise and plenty: 
 Where'er I go, 'tis love and love I bring, — 
 If wooing is to do, 'tis I can sing — Hillo and 
 nonny, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, and tra la la, 
 
 Hillo, hillo, my bonny. 
 
 — From ^^Songs." 
 
 -63 
 
MY CHILD 
 
 The little feet 
 
 Came flying to me down the skies, 
 Down the round stairway of the skies, 
 The dear, dear feet. 
 
 With what surprise 
 To him, to me, he trod the air. 
 The steps made only out of air, — 
 What sweet surprise ! 
 
 And O, how fair! 
 With what a tenderness of grace, 
 What tender helplessness of grace. 
 The child was fair ! 
 
 He stayed a space. 
 
 And filled with light my small-house room, 
 
 With light celestial all my room, 
 
 A little space. 
 
 Then a dear doom 
 
 Bade him bethink him whence he came ; 
 So bright the white gates whence he came 
 'Twas no hard doom. 
 
 64- 
 
He felt a flame 
 
 Fill all the sky and blind the sun — 
 Beams of the home beyond the sun 
 Around him flame. 
 
 Now hath he run 
 
 Back up the stairway and the height, — 
 So late ran down he knew the height, 
 How up to run ; 
 
 But left his Hght ! 
 
 O, left it here to wane no more ; 
 
 And from my house, to wane no more, 
 
 Spreadeth the light — 
 
 It drowns my shore, 
 The sea and shore. 
 
 — From ^^ Disco-ueries ,^^ 
 
 —65 
 
SONG'S FREEDOM 
 
 I can not tell with what a joy I sing! 
 But, quotha, Song continueth me poor? 
 Yea, but what 's poverty with heart a-spring? 
 
 But, quotha, it hath pent me up obscure — 
 Men pass me ? Yea, but not more than I boast 
 That I pass too. The sun's eye is my cure. 
 
 But, quotha, it hath drowned me on lone coast, 
 Or stabbed me to a phantom in a crowd? 
 Yea, but I am a very seeing ghost. 
 
 But, quotha, many berate me long and loud. 
 
 And mar my music? Yea, poor things! Bad ears — 
 
 Clogged with a vogue. Some hear. They keep me proud. 
 
 But, quotha, — Nay, I prythee, drop thy drears : 
 What misseth mark it is not well to fling. 
 Nor quarrel with what gaily perseveres : 
 
 I can not tell thee with what joy I sing. 
 
 — From ^* Discoveries.^'' 
 
 66— 
 
RAPTURES 
 
 Methinks all natural things are ecstacies : 
 Or if forerun of pain, yet bliss at last, 
 And lavish of their golden treasuries. 
 
 Hence equal, living or dying, is reason cast 
 Among the sweets that make a fate a choice, 
 And we are quiet, howso things go fast. 
 
 Attend ! With what a sweetness every voice 
 Singeth the swift days of his present state, 
 And still while journey speeds doth much rejoice. 
 
 Mere breath is jocund at no common rate. 
 And life 's true sport, — the sun-fish love to leap ; 
 And insect choirs the terse night elate. 
 
 Hence death, meseems, must be a sport more deep, 
 The pearliest plunge reserved for the ending. 
 Whose lights their glories for that diver keep. 
 
 What a profuse estate may wait for spending 
 
 On the new heir its heaping treasuries, 
 
 And dying's self be like bright billows blending! 
 
 For still, methinks. Nature is ecstacies. 
 
 — From '^Discoveries,^ 
 
 —67 
 
SONG'S PIETY 
 
 If I could tell once how m}^ carols pour, 
 All pour like silvery rushing torrents in, 
 And in will rush and never will give o'er — 
 
 If I could tell this, should I sing the better, 
 Chant more harmonioushr by a letter. 
 Ride fancy's rosy wings without a fetter? 
 
 Give o'er this inquest, this vain, absent lore. 
 And lore that is impiety ; let din, 
 Let din of doubts, make room for God's Sing more. 
 
 —From "Discoveries,'' 
 
 68— 
 
LOVE'S ONE 
 
 The heavens be full of stars, but one is mine, 
 Is mine because I am too leal, too small, 
 Too small and leal to note the hosts that shine. 
 
 My heart is like a little pool i' the grass ; 
 The heavens of stars look down and round me pass, 
 But I hold only one beam of the mass. 
 
 That shine the many round me I divine. 
 Divine, but I reflect but thee of all, — 
 Of all that bring their company to thine. 
 
 — From ^^Discoveries'''' 
 
 -69 
 
CONJUGATION 
 
 Prythee, loved lovely lover, echo me. 
 O me ! I will intone thee so sweet song, 
 Sweet song o' heart, constrained thou wilt be. 
 
 Then will I echo thy dear echo, love, 
 Till all the air around us and above 
 Voice as the mourning of a mated dove. 
 
 'Twill be that to dear echoes of me and thee, 
 And thee and me, love-unisons belong, 
 Belong like light to a brook, birds to a tree. 
 
 — From ^^Discoveriesy 
 
 70- 
 
SPRING. 
 
 The softened mould is brown and warm, 
 
 The early blossoms break, 
 And loosened streams along their banks 
 
 A mossy verdure make. 
 
 A dewy light broods o'er the earth, 
 
 A sweetness new and rare, 
 And tumults of brook, bird and breeze 
 
 With music wake the air. 
 
 Awake, O Heart, awake and learn 
 
 The secret of the Spring! 
 From winter-sleep it comes like light. 
 
 Or as a bird on wing. 
 
 And if I shall be winter-locked, 
 
 As sometimes I may be ; 
 If bitter storms and freezing snows 
 
 Come whirling down on me — 
 
 Let me lie patient, like the earth, 
 
 And say, "This shall be rest;" 
 And then, O Lord, at th)-^ dear call. 
 
 Arise renewed and blest. 
 
 — From ^^ Unity Hymns and Chorals.'' 
 
 -71 
 
CAMEO XIX. 
 
 What 's fame, sweet verse? 'Tis only this, 
 That others know with what a bliss 
 Thou wardest me, and what a kiss. 
 But if thou choose a secret love, 
 I would not show thee for the world 
 To foreign eyes, but keep thee pearled 
 In one hid gem my heart above. 
 'Tis so I love thee all submiss ; 
 The which subdues fell care, I wis. 
 
 — From ^^Sonnets.'' 
 
 ■72- 
 
CAMEO XXIX. 
 
 R. & R. 
 
 A lovely summer together, girls ! 
 'Tis done ; this silken flag Time furls — 
 The fire o' the season spent up-whirls. 
 Now one hath gone, the other stays ; 
 And what shall my poor old fond heart do, 
 Since naught is whole without my two ! 
 Ah me ! the sad, the sad half-days ! 
 The song o' my heart like a brook out-purls; 
 But where are your rosy feet, my girls? 
 
 — From '*Sonnets,^ 
 
 —73 
 
CAAIEO X\'. 
 
 I do defy thee, daily Sun, 
 
 In braver sky thine arc to run 
 
 Or in more quiet west be done 
 
 Than in my heart. What though a grief 
 
 Invade me fiercely? So doth spot 
 
 Mix with thy disk ; it matters not. 
 
 Who sees it in thy mighty sheaf 
 
 Of golden darts? I will be one 
 
 Whose woe 's light-lost like thine, great Sun. 
 
 — From "Sonnets,"' 
 
 74- 
 
CAMEO LI. 
 
 When flieth forth a carrier dove — 
 Phnnes preened close as velvet glove — 
 And like swift skiff doth onward shove 
 His air-wave way, he minds me, dear, 
 Of thee who, far by space apart, 
 Dost find straight air-way to my heart, 
 Nor leav'st rac lone, nor fail'st me near 
 By that sweet light about, above, — 
 My book's last word — thy love. 
 
 — From ^^Sonneis,^ 
 
 -75 
 
LOVE AND LAW. 
 
 "//(? healeth the broken in hearty and bindeth up their wounds. He telleth the 
 number of the stars; he calleth them all by their names.'* Psalm 147: 3, 4. 
 
 Hebrew, who taught thee side by side to set 
 
 These brave thoughts? For by thy words, 
 
 If standing on the earth we watch the sky, 
 
 We see thee to a constellation toss 
 
 This heavy world; but if adown 
 
 About our feet we look, heaven falls to earth, 
 
 And such bright mercies throng the way, in numbers 
 
 Like sea-shore sands, that we wade deep in skies. 
 
 One Lord the same Lord is who healeth me 
 
 And tells the numerous stars ! Bethink thee, — 
 
 This vast of peopled space of burning suns ! 
 
 If with the pinions of terrific wind, 
 
 Potent to rend strong oaks, to tear down towers, 
 
 Tossing their guns like playthings in the air, 
 
 And twisting huge wrought-iron beams to curls, 
 
 If with this wind thou shouldst be borne, past moon. 
 
 Past sun, to catch a star, — how long 
 
 Thy dizzy journey? A hundred years? 
 
 Yea, a hundred hundred, that 
 
 By a thousand, that twice told — yea, more — 
 
 Riding on the back of a hurricane, to catch 
 
 76- 
 
The nearest camping of the populous heavens, 
 Whose watch-fires kindle in the plains of space. 
 And from that star new firmaments of stars 
 Thou wouldst behold, worlds on worlds. 
 Rolling on thy vision,' — invisible here, — 
 Constellations strange of shining creatures 
 Sketching their mythic pictures on new skies ; 
 Red orbs and fiery nebulae, weird planets 
 Stranger than Saturn, and fierce, hairy comets. 
 And if upon that star thou shouldst outsingle 
 The faintest gleam of light, and to it leap. 
 Another firmament would rise before thee. 
 With worlds piled to the zenith. So following. 
 Forever, and forever, and forever, 
 And still forever multiplied forever. 
 
 No orb stands by itself, or sails or sings 
 
 Alone ; each hath a lovely tune 
 
 Which it goes singing for itself, itself, 
 
 While all the melodies, agreeing, sound 
 
 In one, none marred, wrought to one vast 
 
 Of harmony. These round great lights a thread 
 
 Runs through, which strings them, like to burning gems. 
 
 Into a chain of evening-lighting stones 
 
 Hung round the neck of Righteousness : one thought. 
 
 One form, one Lord, one infinite creation, 
 
 Down to this little earth, where lovers' lamps 
 
 Are naught but little burning suns on tables, 
 
 -77 
 
And a tear, spilled, falls in a little sphere 
 
 Through space, in scrupulous curve, like rolling planet. 
 
 There is no great, no small, nor aught appraise 
 
 Can we, saying. This is the more important. 
 
 Or, This is but a mean and trifling part : 
 
 For all is great in the Eternal Purpose 
 
 That holds it, and the whole is naught beside 
 
 Eternal Life. What is this earth 
 
 Where men wage wars and build themselves high towers? 
 
 What are the planets moving concentric in curves 
 
 With earth, and what the stupendous sun 
 
 Tying unto itself these whirling worlds? 
 
 This system of huge worlds, their moons, 
 
 The monstrous sun binding them all together, 
 
 Are but as fine dust, by a man's hand 
 
 Cast to the sky. The mollusk and polyp, 
 
 The diatoms, whose thin silicious skins 
 
 Subside to beds of white and shining sand 
 
 And hosts of living little creatures in water. 
 
 In earth, or air, — these are the dust's dust. 
 
 Yea, on this imperious rolling ball, 
 
 What is man's body but a grain or mote? 
 
 And yet how spins the earth unhazarded, 
 
 And singing on its wa}- serenely roves 
 
 Around the sun ; how prompt the seasons are. 
 
 How full of luscious juices and sweet waters! 
 
 How lordly planets make their grave obeisance 
 
 Unto the king, revolve and glow, not hidden 
 
 7S- 
 
Even by the sun's prodigious beam ! How softly 
 
 And faithfully the moons attend their worlds, 
 
 Reflecting the sun's smile over the shoulder 
 
 Of night, when that brown nurse bids day begone, 
 
 And frowns upon the too indulgent light ! 
 
 How man's body thrives, and little insects, 
 
 And zoophytes rooted like plants — how all 
 
 Flourish and swarm, momentous unto the Power 
 
 That throws a comet, sets a sun aflame. 
 
 And out of nebulae expresses worlds. 
 
 Before Almightiness, the whole is naught; 
 
 But unto All-lovingness the polyp's hunger 
 
 Cries, and the beast's pangs in his barren den. 
 
 If human minds look out into the darkness 
 
 And gather rays of truth, 'tis His sight sees ; 
 
 If human hearts do love, 'tis His love loves ; 
 
 'Tis His joy joys, when joyful hearts rejoice; 
 
 He is eye's eye, heart's heart and being's being. 
 
 It can not be but grief and pain will come: 
 
 We know not how to strive and never fail ; 
 
 We know not how to have and not to lose ; 
 
 There is no way to love and not to fear ; 
 
 There is no way to love and not to feel 
 
 The pangs of parting when seas roll between. 
 
 Or when in vain we seek a faithless love. 
 
 Or when — less loss — the sky-pits yawn, and friends 
 
 Fall out of sight iijto their blue_abyss. 
 
 Then the One Lord takes up our weary woes 
 
 -79 
 
As he takes up the isles, or steers a star. 
 So wonderful his laws that he hath ways 
 To cope with our great pain. 
 
 God hath two temples — 
 The infinite of starry heavens, one, 
 Where shining ranks of servants throng and move 
 In unimaginable multitudes 
 At his command : the lowly soul 
 The other, where he hath made his mercy-seat. 
 One Life and Love he is through all that vast. 
 From star to heart. Swifter than light 
 Or thought he comes from some great sun convulsed, 
 To hold a heart that it break not too far. 
 He weighs it in his hand against a world ; 
 It is as heavy to the Lord as all 
 His suns if it the more hath need of healing. 
 Praise ! Praise ! Thanksgiving ! Praise ! Amen ! 
 
 — From ^'Pocins." 
 
 80- 
 
WAIT ON THE LORD. 
 
 " tVait on the Lordl Be of good courage and he shall strengthen thy heart. JVatt, 
 I say, on the Lord," Psalra 27: 14. 
 
 On Psalmist's word 
 
 A Rabbin's voice is heard 
 
 Commenting, saying 
 
 To souls praying, 
 
 "Ora, 
 
 Et iterum ora; 
 
 Veniet hora 
 
 Qua tibi dabitur." 
 
 I heard a Master's speech 
 
 The same faith teach — 
 
 A Master dear to heart. 
 
 Standing far apart, 
 
 So great, so high above, 
 
 And yet with lowly men 
 
 Living, in toil and pain. 
 
 In meekness and in love. 
 
 He saith, "Ask, it shall be given ; 
 
 Seek, ye shall find in heaven; 
 
 Knock, it shall opened be." 
 
 But not so sweet to know 
 
 The Master's lips have spoken so, 
 
 -81 
 
As my soul leaps to see 
 
 He speaketh like to all the holy men: 
 
 And softly comes again, 
 
 Like an echo in my ear, 
 
 The song of Hebrew seer, 
 
 "Ora, 
 
 Et iterum ora; 
 
 Veniet hora 
 
 Qua tibi dabitur." 
 
 O when the soul is faint. 
 
 When visions die, 
 
 When life is wrecked upon complaint, 
 
 And scattered lie 
 
 Hope's arrows — years long, 
 
 With purpose strong. 
 
 Kept bound within one sheaf — 
 
 When pain and loss and grief 
 
 Prey on us. 
 
 When thought and doubt and love 
 
 Weigh on us, 
 
 Then hear, all sounds above, 
 
 "Ora, 
 
 Et itcriim ora; 
 
 Veniet hora 
 
 Qua tibi dabitur.'' 
 
 — From "Poems.^ 
 
 82— 
 
AMORIS AVARITIA. 
 
 I heard a voice moan in the dark, 
 A smothered voice, as if a heart 
 Sorrowed and pleaded from the ark 
 
 Of a lone breast. 
 Then carefully I drew apart. 
 And listened, when I had come near. 
 To catch the words, if I might hear 
 
 What so distressed. 
 
 Anon the sorrowful low moan 
 My sense translated to a tone. 
 Wherein the sounds took shape and made 
 
 Words to my ear. 
 And thus they said : "So slight my need. 
 So very little I do need 
 To make me glad, how strange, how sad 
 
 It is not here!" 
 
 With pity spake I : "Nay, sad heart. 
 Sad moaning voice, if 'tis so small 
 A thing will make thee glad for all, 
 
 Now tell it me. 
 I have some power, perhaps an art 
 To compass this small thing that will 
 Endue with joy and blissful fill 
 
 Thy path for thee." 
 
 —83 
 
Answered the mournful voice and said, 
 "Oh, give it me, this one small shred 
 Of virealth of earth, seas, heaven above — 
 
 'Tis only this : 
 A great whole love, a tender love. 
 Thought, care and love to compass me 
 And live around me. This would be 
 
 My all for bliss." 
 
 "All, all!" I cried. "I thought that just 
 Thou didst bemoan thee for some dust. 
 Some little scattering of the wind 
 
 To make thy ease! 
 Ask this, beg 'wealth of Orm and Ind,' 
 Beseech the treasures over-decked 
 In all the vessels ever wrecked 
 
 In all the seas ; 
 
 "Ask me rocs' eggs to wheel thy car, 
 Or eagle's beak to bring a star. 
 Or griffin-guarded books that wake 
 
 Arabian wiles ; 
 Ask Hecla's fire or Kashmir snow. 
 To make thee ear-drops that shall glow 
 With flame around clear pearls, and shake 
 
 Upon thy smiles; 
 
 "A mountain, ocean, iceberg ask. 
 And all the furs that swim or bask; 
 
 84- 
 
Call mammoths from their fossil pales 
 
 For ivory bone; 
 Ask birds of paradise, and scrolled 
 Orchids that fly like birds, and gold, 
 Bronze, ruby, green ophidian scales 
 
 From Amazon 1 
 
 "Why these are dust, not hard to give, 
 Little to ask. If thou wilt live 
 But long enough, around thy feet 
 
 I'll heap these things. 
 But love! a heart! a true heart's heat! 
 Love living round thee, and love's lone 
 Thoughts ever trembling on thine own 
 
 Like sound on strings, — 
 
 "Like sound on strings, where each to each 
 
 Belongs, nor e'er dissever may 
 
 When either wakes ! — 'tis heaven ! Dost know 
 
 Thou askest heaven? 
 Oh, fall upon thy knees ; beseech 
 Forgiveness for thine avarice. Pray 
 To offer up thy pain, and go 
 
 Confessed and shriven." 
 
 — From ''Poems" 
 
 —85 
 
IMMORTAL 
 
 If awful throes should shake the world 
 
 Level, and on me Alps were hurled, 
 
 I should not be crushed : 
 
 If heaven crumbled and stars fell like rain. 
 
 Making seas mist and melting the rocky plain, 
 
 My voice would not be hushed: 
 
 If the inner firmament, which makes the dome 
 
 Of the human head an infinite sky. Reason's high 
 
 home, 
 Should grow opaque with nimbus-clouds and 
 
 horrid storms 
 Of wild, discordant thoughts and insane forms. 
 Still in the jarring mind some light would linger, 
 
 by His ways, 
 Who in babes' mouths wakes praise : 
 But if my love were gone, if I felt not the pang 
 Of tenderness, nor ever in me rang 
 The peals of human sorrow, — I were dead where 
 
 life doth start. 
 Come, Friend, I'll hold thee closer to my heart! 
 My love of thee 
 Is life in me. 
 
 — From ^'Poems" 
 
 86— 
 
Dreams are the glow of the day's embers. The flame 
 Hath all forsaken the living deeds, and lo! 
 Their shapes that now lie sembling slumber, glow 
 In the still witching time with natural aim. 
 Voices aloud by day that praise or blame 
 Whisper ghostly by night: and as none show 
 Themselves to self save stript, so I do know 
 Me stript in dreams, unbraced by fear or fame. 
 Now of those visions let my soul be still, 
 Still, thankful, and fearful; and let no mind 
 In mire that wallows look for phantoms clean. 
 For I can call me angels when I will, 
 And never imps by night to me inclined 
 But whom by day my soul hath sought and seen. 
 
 — From **Sonnets." 
 
 -87 
 
If I be poor, what of 't? There be the rich: 
 If I be lone, fine companies do sit: 
 If I be in the shade, there is a niche 
 That up for bards and sages hath been Ht. 
 If I be sad, 'tis so ; but some are bliss'd : 
 If I be low, some foot the tops above : 
 If I be loveless still, I see some kiss'd 
 And warm entwined round with arms of love. 
 If I be penned, I stand ; but powers outspread : 
 What I have small, I see doth more abound : 
 If I have little lore, riseth some head 
 Marveled with gift that doth the spheres expound. 
 When 'mong these thronging things I sing my way, 
 I lose me in them, then am rich as they. 
 
 — From "Sonnets,'''' 
 
 88- 
 
Brother, thee I beheld entomb thy dead, 
 And weep therewith. Well, tears are upland springs; 
 Let flow; but listen to them. Over bed 
 Filled from the hills thy sorrow flows and sings. 
 Did ever fall the rain or river flow 
 But it rolled down from an aerial place? 
 So is thy love an altitude, below 
 From whose sublimity tears run apace. 
 Follow thy freshet of grief, climb up its course 
 Far to thy tops of love, where wilt thou be 
 When thou shalt sit with sorrow at its source? 
 On heights wilt stand, the sky engulfing thee. 
 
 So tears run down, love up, but not in strife ; 
 
 They mean one heaven, both font and port of life. 
 
 — From ^* Sonnets.'''' 
 
 -89 
 
Sit ye, children : I'll tell ye a fairy tale : 
 What? because ye are sprites and play me tricks 
 Yourselves, and with your waggish frolics mix 
 My poor old pate that grows totty and frail? 
 Not so ! The Elfin Chronicles I hail 
 For love of airy Ariel, antic nix. 
 On such blithe fancies I my soul do fix 
 Against the nipping o' the world's chill gale. 
 Ah ! little ones, in regions wonderful 
 Keep ye your souls enchanted, from the din 
 Where common clamors and mean maxims pass ; 
 So shall ye live in parleys beautiful — 
 Nay, what? The tale? Ah! yes; I will begin: 
 "Once on a time, and a very good time it was" — 
 
 — Front "Sonneis.^ 
 
 90- 
 
"Where be your gibes now," thou chalked mock, 
 And thy heart-sick gags? Art gone of thine own staleness? 
 And all the melancholy players, over whose paleness 
 Were dabbed the lies of smiles and ruby stock 
 Of health? Yon old ring, like a ghost, doth knock 
 At my heart strangely, with vehement love, and the frailness 
 Of our mortal state stares from the painted haleness 
 On the tan where dizzy phantom-riders flock. 
 Have ye died, worn out? Or doth poverty pinch ye? 
 Or have ye fallen and become no better 
 Than your luxurious betters that beheld ye? 
 Whate'er you do or be or suffer, "inch ye 
 Along," dear souls ; I would not spend a letter 
 But to love ye and moan the strange woes that compelled ye. 
 
 — From "Sonnets.^^ 
 
 Note: For some weeks I passed often by a field where was 
 an old circus ring. 
 
 -91 
 
The furious potter! What if in the span 
 Of his fantastic fury he had died 
 Reviled for will perverse, before the pride 
 Of his accomplishment undid the ban? 
 And ah! what souls have lived that close up ran 
 To some fine verge — of art, letters, or tide 
 Of wealth, or love — full potent, and just this side 
 O' the vantage stopped, of man unknown^ — of man I 
 For them who persevere, being given to live. 
 And by a leap surpass the difficult bar. 
 All men have love, and flood their fame abroad; 
 But who to them that drop and die doth give 
 Love and reversion, and uplift them far? 
 For this they have no one but God. But God ! 
 
 — From ^^Sonnetsy 
 
 Palissy. 
 
 92' 
 
The day no end to earth's sweet beauty shows, 
 But night no bounds of worlds where beauty springs : 
 If round this earth, this sun, such fairness clings. 
 What beauteous wealth those numerous fires compose. 
 This glory and grace, that doth no end disclose, 
 Cometh of endless love; to Him it sings 
 Who "taketh up the isles as httle things," 
 In Whom the sparrows feed, the lily blows. 
 What can I with these beauties made of Love, 
 These boundless glories? What but cleave to sky, 
 To earth, loving Love's creatures joyfully ! 
 O this doth lift me time and breath above: 
 Perforce I am one soul with what I cry 
 In love unto, — of one eternity. 
 
 — From "Sonnets.^"' 
 
 —93 
 
What matters who they be that greatness mold 
 In their own hands, so be it the greatness thrive? 
 First place hath this, that glorious beauties hive 
 In the blest earth ; second, whose fortunes hold 
 Fair and fine things : and first, that worlds enfold 
 Amazing loves, that do from Heavens arrive 
 Like precious freights ; but second, who contrive 
 That happy they shall wear the cloth of gold. 
 If thou of thine own coffers be so glad. 
 Have I not larger wit to lend me joy, 
 That know t' exult in wealth without an end 
 Harbored in earth? And shall I not be clad 
 In natural relish, though one hard by employ 
 More of some stuffs ? Go to ! Thou 'rt churlish, friend. 
 
 — From ^^Sonnets.' 
 
 94— 
 
Round me the waters roar in raging train: 
 Far as eye sees they push like wild herds past 
 And stream their manes, the boat a pannier vast 
 That many broad and vaulting backs sustain. 
 Yet them I ride as still as the deep plain 
 On which they prance, because the watery blast 
 Uncalms not love, that moots no fear, but fast 
 Holds like still skies, though earth may heave and strain. 
 Therefore, ho ! for ye, steeds and spirits wild ! 
 On with ye ! rush, and let your breathing blow, 
 And bear me with you at your furious will. 
 I shall sit on you quiet as a child ; 
 And ye, like storms flung against heaven, but show 
 Heights out of reach, and heart of love how still. 
 
 — Prom ^'Sojmets." 
 
 95 
 
I beseech thee, soul, learn to know the heroic. 
 Mistake not : 'tis not flames of poetic fire 
 Scattering sparks, e'en though these fly up higher 
 Than air to be fixed stars ; nor is 't heroic 
 To dare wounds — cowards do so ; nay, nor heroic 
 To be adventurous, unlawful, to tire 
 The world's ear with fame of war, desire. 
 Art, magnificence : these be not heroic. 
 That love and truth are strength the hero believeth ; 
 Extremity endureth, yet not grieveth ; 
 And what his lot is, as from God receiveth. 
 And this I see— the mighty Lord forsaketh 
 Wit, wealth and power — He made them ; but He taketh 
 The hero in ward the while himself he maketh. 
 
 — From "Sonnets.''^ 
 
 96- 
 
I know not what my soul hates more and worse 
 Than the pale brows of whimpering poets — they 
 Who not e'en love but must go "faint," "fall," say 
 "We sicken," "pine" and "die" in weeping verse. 
 O fine-voiced harmonies, must ye rehearse 
 These feeble folk, who swim or swamp in whey 
 Like meagre curds, more thin than ghosts by day. 
 Or evening scud that caps of wind disperse? 
 What ! must sweet words, fine vocables, and song, 
 That link all men and mark mankind, serve them 
 Who suck a jaundice from th' inveterate green? 
 Out wi ' the pack ! I love bards firm and strong : 
 My soul doth void the pulers — broods I'd hem 
 Like bats in rosy fogs, nor seeing nor seen. 
 
 — From "Sonneis.^^ 
 
 -97 
 
I should know well that many a time and over 
 I trample on the face of heavenly dooms ; 
 Yet this I know not; but amid the glooms 
 Of my dull folly plod, a daftie rover. 
 I huddle precious things like yokel drover 
 That markets lambs through lanes of flowery plumes. 
 Missing the modesties where lily blooms, 
 And crests of perfumes on mead-seas of clover. 
 'Tis mournful to smell flowers with swinish snout. 
 Sniffing the lovely beings for provender, 
 The while they fling their fragrances about : 
 Divine to know the divine, so to confer 
 With God in his least things by heart devout, 
 And solemnize each heavenly messenger. 
 
 — From "Sonnets.^^ 
 
 98— 
 
Dear being, my love 's alive to thee, thou lookest 
 So sorry. In all my life I never met 
 An eye more humbly wistful, nor brow beset 
 With more of patient pain. Insult thou brookest 
 In plenty; blows, harsh voices, sneers thou tookest 
 Yestreen, nor thinkest other things to get 
 This sunny noon. Thou art too sore to fret, — 
 As thou like a sad nun the world forsookest 
 Heartbroken. If I did give thee but a nod. 
 Thy starving heart would leap, thou 'Idst come, and think 
 A bone riches, chill corners luxury. 
 'Tis strange and sad how little thou ask'st of God, 
 Or of the world ; yet wander till thou sink, 
 Thou find'st that little nowhere left for thee. 
 
 ■ — From '■'Sonnetsy 
 
 Note: To a vagrant dog. 
 
 -99 
 
Why give I not the nod would make thee leap 
 And thy heart throb, eyes glow and body all 
 Tremble with foreign promise? To some befall 
 Such fortune as on thee my beck would heap. 
 Poor friend, sad distance grade by grade doth creep 
 'Twixt us, both poor; eke now my sole lone stall 
 Shelters a stray o' thy kind, whom I did call 
 From street for pity, for pity and love do keep. 
 If I could give thee, sad, unspeaking one, 
 A meed of rescue, better than compassion, 
 What could I with yon next awaiting me? 
 Turn off thine eyes from me, that look be done. 
 That I may go. I shrive me in this fashion — 
 Thou canst forget me, as I cannot thee. 
 
 — Front ^^Sonnets.'' 
 
 Note: See foregoing sonnet. 
 
 100- 
 
To what 's changeable, Death is colleague loving and 
 warm: 
 All grow but in degrees, since creatures be 
 Imperfect and, how suave soe'er we see 
 The pretty things, do lack their righteous norm. 
 Death is no fellow of perfectness. The storm 
 May ply all havoc, destruction be set free — 
 What change needeth the finished thing to flee 
 Or fear? Death hath no office to perform. 
 Therefore, kind Death, thou art the superscript 
 Of the incomplete, on their foreheads written. 
 Like water, now ice, but charactered to flow. 
 Thou signifiest that things unfinished, stript 
 For a new race unto perfectness, fiery smitten. 
 Now to a new degree do onward go. 
 
 — From "Sonnets,^'' 
 
 101 
 
If I be questioned whether 't be the day 
 Doth follow night around the flowery world, 
 Or whether night, with sandals dewy pearled, 
 Pursue the morn, that wooed will not delay, — 
 I answer thus : First tell me which makes way, 
 My love to me, or I to her, when furled 
 The camping light's gold streamers be, and curled 
 With spiral vapors falleth twilight ray? 
 If 'tis my part to woo with will, hath erst 
 Her beauty not pursued me, will or no, 
 And natural the more as 'tis not willed? 
 Like day and night, a twain without a first, 
 True lovers know not either follows so, 
 Or either leads — whom both one love hath filled. 
 
 -From ^^Sonnets. 
 
 102- 
 
'Tis very dark: keep close to me, my True, — 
 For love, not pity, that we go together 
 Where now 'tis dark: but darkness only nether, 
 Whence "fiery oes engild" the sunless blue. 
 I am as with a lamp I did pursue 
 Deep forest aisles in foul and pitchy weather 
 At night, eye strained, like a wild thing at tether. 
 To pierce the glooms that do the path imbrue. 
 But when I pause afraid, what next unknowing. 
 Around me then the lantern in my hand 
 Like to a little sky illumes a view : 
 I linger central in the circle glowing. 
 And its soft fringes : but when from off that stand 
 I must move on, keep close to me, my True. 
 
 — From ^^Sonnets,'' 
 
 —103 
 
O love, let us amass large memories 
 Of enterprises, for these be true love's wealth ; 
 To mix in brave things and fine pleasantries, 
 Adventures, thoughts, great works, is lovers' health ; 
 Whereby, when Age creeps on us craftily. 
 He findeth open doors and no forbiddance, 
 But he may feed at his will, so happily 
 Our stores keep Age and us with Youth's fair riddance. 
 What though with age sweet vagabondage cease, — 
 We can not dance so, climb so, as we did. 
 Yet love 's life-wealthy if with life 's decrease 
 Youth leave us fortune in twain memories hid. 
 
 Therefore, dear love, pile up occasions, spare not ; 
 
 In these married forever, more we care not. 
 
 — From "Sonnets,^ 
 
 104- 
 
Listening the parlance of dewy leaves that spill 
 Their syllables at morning dripping words 
 To one another, or lulling lapse of rill, 
 Or fall and filter of rain, or hidden birds 
 Of night with their soft notes, or brooding thrill 
 Of hush 'fore dawn, or twilight low of herds 
 Homeward, and village hum becoming still, 
 Or watery hush that copse of willow girds, — ■ 
 With these a stillness doth my spirit hold 
 Submiss to silence hallowed and old ; 
 For here I am not wont to speak, nor bold 
 Unto the muteness that doth all enfold ; 
 But, O beloved, 'tis then I am most near 
 Fit voice of love for thee when silent here. 
 
 — From "Sonnets,^ 
 
 -105 
 
"Put out the light, and then put out the light!" 
 He takes my eyes who takes the sun away : 
 These many years thou art my golden day, 
 And going now thou blindest all my sight. 
 No more in this imperial verse I write, 
 And am too newly darkened yet to stray 
 To other song: the more for thee I pray, 
 From love's lone cell enwalled in my night. 
 In this sweet master-form thou wert my form, 
 And hast enriched my every measure writ — • 
 Thou wert my heart, thought, dream, my music all. 
 How can I with no heart a verse make warm, 
 Or see to follow dark what thy love lit? — 
 Lest I do fear, halt, grope, go ill and fall. 
 
 — Front ^^Sonnets" 
 
 106— 
 
MARCH SONG. 
 
 I say, bluff March, 
 
 You 're not so rough a fellow 
 
 As you look. 
 
 Here 's a brook 
 
 Will show the sunny yellow 
 
 Of heaven's bright arch, 
 
 And the leaping little billows 
 
 Laugh at pussies on the willows, 
 
 Very soon, very soon, — 
 
 I say, bluff March! 
 
 I say, bright birds, 
 
 Ye prophesy a singing 
 
 Wide a-field, 
 
 And a yield 
 
 Of verdure that is springing 
 
 To feed blithe herds, 
 
 When your wavy shadow passes 
 
 Over wavy-wavy grasses. 
 
 Very soon, very soon, — 
 
 I say, bright birds ! 
 
 I say, brown buds, 
 
 Your greening and your swelling 
 
 -107 
 
On the limb, 
 
 Set the slim 
 
 And misty twigs a-telling 
 
 Of sweet rich floods 
 
 Up imbibing roots a-pouring, 
 
 To the topmost leaf a-soaring, 
 
 Yei-y soon, very soon, — ■ 
 
 I say, brown buds ! 
 
 I say, stout heart. 
 Go out into the weather, 
 Things of bluflness, 
 Things of roughness, — 
 That natheless croon together 
 O' the earth's new start, 
 Giving noted sign and reason 
 Of a coming gentle season. 
 Very soon, very soon, — 
 I say, stout heart ! 
 
 —From "T/ie Months.' 
 
 108- 
 
NOVEMBER SONG. 
 
 The bright procession of the blossoms hath passed by; 
 
 The gold and purple rear 
 
 Doth vanishing appear — 
 
 Sparse stragglers from th' October flanks 
 
 Of Summer's army, where in ranks 
 They sang to the winds as never carnivals nor symphonies 
 outvie. 
 
 Now fields are yellow-hillocked with golden fruits : 
 
 The mighty succulent gourd, 
 
 With rich, ripe round matured, 
 
 Shineth twixt many a saffron shock 
 
 Where husks are soon stripped to unfrock 
 The ear whose ruddy-orange color wi' glow o' the lordly 
 pompion suits. 
 
 Then comes mid-month the lovely Indian Summer new. 
 
 Whose melting golden haze 
 
 Copies the fruity blaze 
 
 O' the field, and the bland airs and sky 
 
 Retune the heart wi' old singer's cry: 
 " Hath the rain a father, or who hath begotten the drops 
 of dew?" 
 
 -109 
 
O th' bounty and the beaut}, 
 
 The grain and vine ! 
 The harvest is ingathered, 
 
 Corn, oil and wine ; 
 And it hath all been fathered 
 
 With love divine ! 
 The ice-wind will be weathered, 
 
 Where hearth-fires shine 
 Upon the bounty and beauty, 
 
 The grain and vine ! 
 
 'Tis a short and speedy way from field to house and home ; 
 
 Crops seem to skip to table 
 
 As in a fairy fable. 
 
 And in the winking of an eye 
 
 The flushing pompion in a pie 
 Sets many a heart a-flame, and to the homestead bringeth 
 feet that roam. 
 
 Eke fruits and frosts together usher us indoors. 
 
 And fiery hearths foretell 
 
 Still ruddier wintry spell — ■ 
 
 Both a sounding and a shining note 
 
 r the chimney's hospitable throat. 
 That crimsons all the mirthful company wi' its bonny 
 blazing roars. 
 
 110- 
 
Thus back November looks to comfortable sun, 
 
 And forward with desires 
 
 To f rost-becharming fires : 
 
 And passeth cider cups about 
 
 In loving harvest-merry rout: 
 And aye this thrice-bedowered season singeth thus when it 
 is done: 
 
 O th' bounty and the beauty, 
 
 The grain and vine ! 
 The harvest is ingathered, 
 
 Corn, oil and wine; 
 And it hath all been fathered 
 
 With love divine! 
 The ice-wind will be weathered, 
 
 Where hearth-fires shine 
 Upon the bounty and beauty. 
 
 The grain and vine! 
 
 — From '^The Months." 
 
 —Ill 
 
ODE TO SEPTEMBER. 
 
 September, warm memory of March, 
 
 When, as in that month of winter's gruff or gusty cheer 
 
 In its last lustiness, and for the seco^- . ame i ' the year. 
 
 The day and night are equal round the sphere. 
 
 And from the same, then chill, now fiery arch. 
 
 The rondure of th' all-heavenly arch. 
 
 Blew th ' early blasts icy and bluff. 
 
 Hearty, athletic, rampant, rough, 
 
 And now the cloudy famous gales 
 
 That toss the hull and tear the sails 
 
 Of hapless ship again that rocks 
 
 r the arms of mighty Equinox, 
 
 And yet in mists like wool 
 
 The sun becalmed burns full. 
 And when th' mists rise 
 Into the skies. 
 Then doth the gray-green verdure parch — 
 
 September, I love thee well ! 
 
 Thy double majesty to tell 
 
 The sun descendeth golden hot 
 
 On flowery mead or garden spot, 
 
 And thy great tempests, furious, 
 
 Blazing, glorious, perilous, 
 
 112- 
 
Fall on the billowy main 
 
 Where rolling vessels strain. 
 
 Seas go up and seas go down, 
 
 And wild September gales, 
 
 That thresh the ships like flails, 
 
 Take no thought o' men that drown ; 
 Yet ho ! for the winds o' the roaring sea, 
 That shake the air to purity 
 
 Fror, ,^,ae to other pole. 
 The while beneath them roll 
 
 The billows that be shaken too 
 
 To keep all clean creation's brew ! 
 
 And though the mighty features 
 
 Of tempests mind not creatures, 
 
 'Tis man's great part — no greater other — 
 
 To Providence his coming brother, 
 
 And learn to weather the fierce storms, 
 
 Building ships in sturdier forms ; 
 By every man that lieth drowned below. 
 Another on the waves shall safely go. 
 Meanwhile, like ripples skimmed from a Summer sea 
 
 And painted into flowers, 
 September on the land 
 
 Flingelh her sunny hours 
 
 With warm, prodigal hand. 
 Transmuting windy scud to bloom o' the lea. 
 
 Many a mead shines mellow 
 
 With harvest-ready yellow. 
 
 And by a brook or nook yet stay 
 
 -113 
 
Blossoms lasting e'en from May. 
 Here is still the Pickerel Weed, 
 That two months gone began its seed ; 
 The woods are flecked with Yellow Sorrel, 
 Sabbatia, Cress, Herb Robert, Laurel ; 
 The Spurry Sandwort by the way 
 Rose-purple at our feet doth lay 
 In little stars; Impatiens yet 
 O'erhangs a stream or places wet; 
 Vervain, Swamp Mallow, Pale Violet, 
 The Water-Lily, Honeysuckle, 
 Starwort, Lobelia Cardinal, 
 The Potentilla's golden eye, 
 Polygala's purple nestling by. 
 The Raspberry bush, the Blackberry vine. 
 And Phytolacca's crimson shine — 
 These fill the mead, these light the wood 
 Where eye hath looked or feet have stood 
 With love, with love, with love, with love. 
 Knowing that from above 
 For dear creation's gain 
 Descend the flower and hurricane! 
 September, September, September, ho! 
 
 Come with thy flowers. 
 
 And battling powers — 
 
 Thy merry hours 
 Emblossomed, and furious gales that blow 1 
 
 — From ^^The Months," 
 
 114- 
 
JANUARY SONG. 
 
 And O, if I shall tell, my dear, 
 If I shall tell the time o' year. 
 The time that giveth most o' cheer. 
 And most 's our own. 
 And most by love is known. 
 What shall it be? 
 
 And O, shall it be Spring, my dear. 
 
 Shall it be Spring when first a-clear. 
 
 When first it shineth far and near, 
 
 And far doth glow, 
 
 And far the zephyrs blow — 
 
 This shall it be? 
 
 And O, shall it be June, my dear, 
 Shall it be June when roses peer, 
 When roses blooming bright are here 
 With bright gay heads 
 And bright and various reds — 
 This shall it be? 
 
 —lis 
 
And O, shall it be Fall, my dear, 
 Shall it be Fall, when gold the spear. 
 When gold and brown and ripe the ear, 
 And ripe the fruits. 
 That ripened Winter suits — 
 This shall it be? 
 
 Ah no ! Not one nor all, my dear. 
 Not one nor all, but wintry cheer, 
 The wintry primal glad New Year, 
 When glad the heart 
 Doth glad each other's part — 
 This shall it be. 
 
 For O, th' angelic snow, my dear, 
 Th' angelic snow, and ice how sheer, 
 The ice that tinkles frosty clear, 
 
 And frosty fills 
 
 With frosted light the sills 
 
 O' the opening year. 
 
 And O, the troops of nuns, my dear. 
 The troops of nuns that white appear 
 Where white the picket rows up-rear, 
 In rows where snow 
 The rows doth now o'er-blow. 
 And hood them here. 
 
 116— 
 
And O, the evergreens, my dear, 
 The evergreens that mock and fleer, 
 That mock at storms, and shine in gear 
 
 Of shining ice. 
 
 That shining in a trice 
 
 Berobes them sheer. 
 
 And O, the bare-bough trees, my dear, 
 The bare-bough trees that are not drear. 
 But are a shape of grace severe. 
 
 Of grace that sky 
 
 More graces with a dry. 
 
 Bright emerald clear. 
 
 And O, the yellow flames, my dear. 
 The yellow flames on hearth that veer. 
 On hearth domestic where is cheer. 
 And where a kiss 
 And where all human bliss 
 Hath naught to fear. 
 
 Then O, how festal fair, my dear. 
 How festal fair this time o' year. 
 This time when hearts o' love sincere 
 
 New love employ. 
 
 With love say. Here be joy, — 
 
 "Happy New Year!" 
 
 — From ^'■The Months,'" 
 
 —117 
 
SONNET. 
 
 Full often have I seen a glorious robe 
 Apparel the earth with perfect endless white, 
 Making each bush a velvet stud or lobe, 
 Wi' the same stuff covered as the raiment bright. 
 Methought th' immaculate splendor were enough ; 
 But when the hours opened the ward o' the west, 
 There hung th' horizon of soft green and buff, 
 A spangled girdle for the snowy vest. 
 O, heart o' me, how hath the dear bard spoken 
 O' "the light that never was on sea or land?" 
 Here 's the white-shining seamless robe unbroken, 
 Which God hath hasped with yon gold emerald band. 
 If there be light more precious than here seen, 
 'Tis better light than Lxive is, as I ween. 
 
 —From "The Months." 
 
 118- 
 
CHRISTMAS CAROL. 
 
 Behold how fall at Christmastide 
 
 Divers things together : 
 The heart is warm to love and pray, 
 Though 'tis wintry weather. 
 
 Lo, the earth 's a-cold, 
 
 Winds he rough and bold, 
 
 When this story 's told — 
 
 Hearts nor chill nor old ! 
 O, up with the ivy, the ivy and holly, the holly and bay, 
 And lovingly, joyously, merrily sing, 'tis Christmas day I 
 
 Behold the persons of the poor 
 
 Round the little stranger. 
 The while the rich bring spice and myrrh 
 To the lowly manger. 
 
 Poor and rich are one, 
 
 Strife is hushed and done. 
 
 Peace on earth begun, 
 
 Naught to hate or shun! 
 O, up with the ivy, the ivy and holly, the holly and bay, 
 And joyfully, mirthfully, gratefully sing, 'tis Christmas day ! 
 
 And lo, the wise together come 
 
 With the rough and wild, 
 The magi with the silly swains 
 
 Kneel before the child. 
 
 —119 
 
'Tis not wit or art, 
 
 Nor the dull or smart, 
 
 But the child-like heart 
 
 Finds the heavenly part ! 
 O, up with the iv}', the ivy and holly, the holly and bay, 
 And heartfully, faithfully, praisefully sing, 'tis Christmas 
 day! 
 
 Now happy light and happy dark 
 
 Mingle over them ; 
 At night 's the birth, but shines the bright 
 Star of Bethlehem. 
 
 Ever hold thy station 
 
 In us, bright creation, 
 
 Star of Revelation, 
 
 Star of sweet Salvation ! 
 O, up with the ivy, the ivy and holly, the holly and bay, 
 And happily, blissfully, fervently sing, 'tis Christmas day- 
 
 And see, together come the earth 
 
 And the heavens lighted. 
 The angels and their heavenly beams 
 Flood the plains benighted. 
 Joy, that high and low 
 Seek the Qirist-child so ! 
 Earth and heaven go, 
 All the loving know ! 
 O, up with the ivy, the ivy and holly, the holly and bay, 
 Forever and ever and ever to sing, 'tis Christmas day ! 
 
 — From ^^The Months.'''' 
 
 120- 
 
EASTER SONGS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Every year the Spring, 
 
 Every year the Fall: 
 First the Spring when earth doth sing, 
 Then the Fall when passeth all — 
 
 Every, every year. 
 
 Every day the morn, 
 
 Every day the night : 
 First the morn when light is born, 
 Then the night when fadeth sight — 
 
 Every, every day. 
 
 Every soul hath breath. 
 
 Every soul hath death : 
 First the breath that pleasureth. 
 Then the death that gathereth — 
 
 Every, every soul. 
 
 Every life hath love, 
 
 Every life hath loss : 
 First the love that looks above. 
 Then the loss that sweeps across 
 
 Every, every life. 
 
 -121 
 
God 's in Spring and Fall, 
 God 's in morn and night — 
 Spring and Fall that come to all, 
 Morn and night the double-bright, — 
 Always, always God. 
 
 God 's in death and breath, 
 
 God 's in loss and love : 
 Death or breath him witnesseth. 
 Loss and love both point above — 
 
 Always, always God. 
 
 God 's the all of all, 
 
 I 'm his and he 's mine : 
 If all, what recks what may befall? 
 If mine, all 's love and light divine : — 
 
 Always, always God. 
 
 Every love he loves. 
 
 And he makes it life — 
 Life with never end nor stint, 
 Life that hath th' immortal in 't, — 
 
 Every, every love. 
 
 Every year the Spring ! 
 
 Every day the light! 
 Comes the Spring new life to bring, 
 Comes the light of Easter-sight, — 
 
 Every, every year! 
 
 Every, every day ! 
 
 122— 
 
II. 
 
 "Where are they?" 
 Why, here: 
 Where should they be, I pray, 
 My own beloved? Away? 
 Forever and a day 
 Heart-near 
 They walk with me and stay. 
 "Where are they," indeed! 
 
 "But vanished?" 
 O, yea. 
 Just from the sight of eyes. 
 "Tear-blinded?" Well, surprise 
 Caught me sorrow-wise : 
 
 But nay, 
 Opake are not the skies. 
 "But vanished," indeed ! 
 
 "But silent?" 
 
 Why, yes, 
 Just to the sense of ears. 
 Or when beclogged with fears 
 I have no soul that hears 
 
 Express : 
 Heaven to their voices dears. 
 "But silent," indeed! 
 
 -123 
 
"Where are they? But vanished? 
 But silent?" What queries! 
 Well, well- 
 Hast thou naught better to do, 
 Or hast thou nothing in view. 
 Or is naught given to you 
 
 To tell? 
 Or hath love nothing new ? 
 What queries, indeed ! 
 
 III. 
 
 How simple on its stem a flower 
 Doth bloom above the dew, 
 
 Looking to heaven every hour 
 With native eyes of blue. 
 
 Native unto the skies' own hue ! 
 
 How simply do the creatures plan 
 Who spin themselves a grave, 
 
 And hide therein a little span, 
 
 Then flutter forth full brave, — 
 
 Flutter, and gilded pinions wave. 
 
 How simple 'tis a man to be. 
 
 To live, to love, to think. 
 Who looks forth from his eyes to see. 
 
 And standeth on the brink, 
 Standeth whence soul soars, ne'er to sink! 
 
 124- 
 
O, life is thrice simplicity, 
 
 Plain as the blooming things, 
 As spinning cocoon-creatures be. 
 
 And simple as new wings, 
 Simple as soul that prays and sings : 
 
 O, life is simple fellowship 
 
 With thing, and man, and beast. 
 
 And death is naught, that cannot nip 
 What shineth, large or least — • 
 
 Shineth with one light, west or east: 
 
 O, life is earth-wide fellowship, 
 
 And death has naught to say ; 
 
 Saith naught but it to life doth slip 
 As roundeth night to day 
 
 Around the rounded world alway. 
 
 Wherefore, awake me, orient life, 
 
 Or lull me, Occident ; 
 With east or west I have no strife. 
 
 But follow with one bent, 
 Follow with Easter merriment. 
 
 IV 
 
 O' blessed Voice of Love and Faith, 
 That life immortal witnesseth, 
 And to the waiting spirit saith, 
 "In my Father's house are many mansions 1" 
 
 -125 
 
Now Spring doth sing and waters leap ; 
 Earth's times a deathless vigil keep, 
 And life returns from hidings deep: 
 "In the Father's house are many mansions!" 
 
 My soul, let earth one mansion be; 
 The heavens then hear that call to thee. 
 With all the stars in company, 
 "In the Father's house are many mansions!" 
 
 And mansions more for aye have been 
 Beyond this round of stars serene, 
 Eternal built in heavens unseen : 
 "In the Father's house are many mansions !" 
 
 Dear Master, Voice of Love and Faith, 
 Thy word doth live, and in me saith — 
 And all my spirit answereth — 
 "In my Father's house are many mansions !" 
 
 O blest and dear is mortal breath, 
 And blest is life and love, — and death. 
 Because the soul within me saith, 
 "In my Father's house are many mansions !" 
 
 —From "The Months.'^'' 
 
 126— 
 
AFTERWORD. 
 
 There s a chill in the air, a chill and a chill. 
 And my heart, my heart I can not hold still, 
 But it shivers aloof, and cower it will. 
 In the misty morning gray. 
 
 From my heart, my heart, I turn not away, 
 E'en though with its darkness it darken the day, 
 But I question, and hearken the things it will say, 
 And it tells me the simple truth: 
 
 I am weary, it saith, and I miss my youth. 
 And eke in the world I find little ruth; 
 I am weary and wish to die, good sooth. 
 If God will set the time. 
 
 But my heart, my heart, I say, 'tis the prime 
 Of honor to bide in the ranks, 'tis a crime 
 To run from thy post in dew or in rime, 
 Till thou be mustered out; 
 
 And what 'tis a wrong to set thee about 
 'Tis a wrong to wish, and undevout: 
 Who wishes to run is himself a rout. 
 Though an army hold him in. 
 
 —127 
 
I spake, and my whole heart knew its sin, 
 And Hfted its brow, and breathed deep in, 
 And cried, There is something to do and win, 
 Wherever, whenever the same. 
 
 If a thousand years betide my name, 
 Or only this breath, or failure or fame. 
 One thing is true glory and one is true shame, 
 Howbeit I live or die : 
 
 The part that is low, or the part that is high, 
 Is to run from the thing that I ought to stand by, 
 Or to face either heaven or hell and defy 
 Them to draw me or drive or abate. 
 
 For God 's in the little and eke in the great, 
 Nay, naught is a big or a little estate ; 
 Who faceth th' Eterne is nor early nor late ; — 
 To hasten, or faint, 'tis one ill. 
 
 Is there chill in the air, a chill and a chill. 
 And my heart, my heart I can not hold still? 
 But mighty it shall be, and glory it will 
 r som.e noon, and go its way ! 
 
 God, my God ! I thank thee ! T pray ! 
 
 1 bless thee that noon of the night or the day 
 Is thy noon still — I can not awav ! 
 
 Here 's home, my home ! I stay ! 
 
 —From "The Months." 
 
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