PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE
AND OTHER POEMS
by
SARAH T BOLTON
Edited by JOHN clark RIDPATH
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY GENERAL LEW WALLACE AND
A PROEM BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY
Indianapolis and Kansas City
THE BOWEN-MERRILL COMPANY
1897
Copyright, 1897,
BY The bowen-Merrill Co.
SONGS of a Life-Time—with the Singefs head
A silvery glory shining midst the green
Of laurel-leaves that hind a brow serene
And godlike as was ever garlanded.—
So seems HER glory who herein hath wed
Melodious Beauty to the strong of mien
And ktngly Speech—made kinglier by this queen
In lilied cadence voiced and raimented.
Songs of a Life-Time: by your own sweet stress
Of singing were ye loved of by-gone years—
As through our day ye are., and shall be hence,
Till FAME DIVINE marks your melodiousness.
And on the SingeVs lips, with smiles and tears.
Seals there the kiss of love and reverence.
JAMES WHITCOMB RlLEY.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTORY
PROEM
Sketch of Mes. Saeah t. Bolton.
Paddle Youe Own Canoe
The Singee
Old and New
Ye Sons of Toil
The Minee's Stoey
An Incident of the Flood
Castle of Waetbdeg
Adieu to Switzeeland
When it Rains Let it Rain
The Epic of John Caee .
Cheistmas Stoey
Diodati
Millennial
City of Heeodias
oue ploneees
a ploneee geandmothee
Edgae a. Poe
Ne Doemiat Deus
Evicted
Aftee Foety Yeaes
Madison
a Teuce to all Sighing .
Two Scenes
(V)
Lew Wallace
James Whitcomb Riley
vii
1
3
6
9
13
16
20
24
26
28
35
38
41
43
47
52
56
60
63
66
68
70
71
vi
CONTENTS.
To Be gr Not to Be .
Charles George Gordon
Sorrow
Last Supper op the Girondists
In Geneva
Spring
The Wentworths
The Doomed Anarchists
Burdette
Drowned .
In Death They Were not Divided .
If We Could Know
She Went to Die .
Switzerland
Indiana
Legend op Chateau Chene
A Winter Day
An Indian Legend op an Indiana Waterfall .
When Life is not Worth Living .
To the Arve .
What We do not Know
Good-Bye, Old Jula
A Stormy Day
Veterans op Mexico
Nothing New
Song
Lelia
A Tale op Chamouni
John Howard Payne
Found Dead
The Tenement House
7S
75
77
79
82
84
86
91
93
95
97
99
102
104
107
110
114
116
119
121
125
127
129
131
138
141
143
147
154
156
158
SKETCH OF MRS. SARAH T BOLTON.
One of Indiana's most famous writers of verse has
passed away at the advanced age of eighty-one years.
While Mrs. Bolton was a native of Kentucky, she spent
most of her long life in Indiana. Her father moved to
the state when she was quite a small child.
She has written many poems that have been recited at
home and at school by the young people, and yet they
never knew that she was the author. She wrote several
songs that were very popular, yet they never brought her
one dollar of profit One of the most popular was " Pad¬
dle Your Own Canoe." It is known all over the world.
It has been translated into several different languages.
When we read of famous people we often wonder what
they did when they were children and how they regarded
young people when they became old. We have been fortu¬
nate in learning something of her childhood and also of
how she regarded young folks after she became famous.
Her father settled in Jennings county, Indiana, when Sarah
was a little, toddling baby. This was long before any
railroads were made. There were not even wagon roads.
His cabin was surrounded with great forest trees and in
the forests were howling wolves and other wild animals.
The father, not liking the loneliness of his forest home,
moved to Madison, Indiana. Here Sarah T. Barrett grew
to womanhood She went to school and received the best
education the place afforded. It is said that she was an
unusually bright girl in school, and always had a tend¬
ency to write poetry. The first poem of hers that was
(vil)
viii SKETCH OF MRS. SARÀH T BOLTON.
published appeared in the Madison Banner, in 1826. The
editor called attention to the poem, and added, "Our fair
contributor is not yet fourteen years old."
At the age of sixteen she wrote a novel which was an
outgrowth of much thought upon the war in Hayti; but
it was never published. The fact that she gave much
thought to this war shows that she had a tendency to
study current events even when a girl. The following
from George S. Cottman, an Indiana writer, shows how
Mrs. Bolton regarded young people after she became fa¬
mous :
" I became acquainted with Mrs. Bolton many years
ago, as it now seems to me, when I was little more than
a boy. At that time I lived a mile or so from ' Beech-
bank,' the country residence where she lived after her re¬
turn from Europe, and, having literary tastes and ambi¬
tions of my own, in a small way, with few companions
to share them, I was naturally drawn to her. Thus began
a friendship which lasted till her death, and which had
in it many pleasant recollections. Her nature was, I think,
the most sympathetic I have ever known. I used fre¬
quently to read to her manuscripts of my own authorship,
all of which, as I have since found, were badly written
and had very little in them, but with her the aspiration
that produced them seemed to outweigh everything else,
and her interest in it was sincere and unflagging. Had
she been critical and pointed out my youthful errors, it
might, in one sense, have been a better service, since
it was unsafe to feed the vanity of a young writer with
ill-judged praise; yet after all, the spirit of kindliness
which shrank from such service is remembered much
longer than any criticism would have been.
" In those days we occasionally had evenings of rare
enjoyment, when her grandson, another friend and my¬
self, who formed a congenial trio, would remain with her
SKETCH OF MRS. SARAH T BOLTON.
ix
to Sunday tea. At such times the table was furnished
with heavy linen, carefully treasured from earlier days,
and with rare old china on which had been inscribed and
burned verses of poetry in her own handwriting. The
house was stored with bric-a-brac and souvenirs of her
European travels, and amid these surroundings we would
sip our tea and keep up a running discussion on all possi¬
ble subjects, three young men with very learned ideas
which we called 'advanced,' pitted against one-old lady,
whose ideas were not as 'advanced,' but who managed
to hold her own pretty well, nevertheless, and to deal
some pretty smart raps now and then. Once, I remem¬
ber, she said, good-naturedly: 'Young men, it's to be
hoped you won't die soon, because all wisdom will die
with you.'
" Mrs. Bolton was an excellent talker in the best sense.
She not only talked most interestingly herself, but contin¬
ually drew one on to share the conversation by friendly
questions and a cordial interest in what he might have
to say. As to her own talking, her experience had been
a wide one—she had seen a good bit of the world, had
met many people, had a retentive memory and a gift of
mind by which she ever followed some sparkling flow of
thought, and with these advantages could entertain a lis¬
tener for almost any length of time. I once heard it said
by a lady who had known her in Washington society,
that in the brilliant assemblages there Mrs. Bolton had
never failed to be a conspicuous figure, because of her
conversational powers.
"Among the stories of her early life I remember her
relation of her bridal-trip to Indianapolis, a-horseback
through mud and mire, with her entire trousseau in a pair
of saddle-bags. When she. got there the home was a little
log cabin, which served for her husband's printing office,
as well as for domestic purposes. The story of the writ-
X
SKETCH OF MRS. SARAH T. BOLTON.
ing of ' Paddle Your Own Canoe,' which is, perhaps, her
most famous poem, has been in print before, but never,
that I have read, with the circumstances just as the au¬
thor has told them to me. It devolved upon her once to
have certain rooms in the state-house carpeted, and, as
help could not be procured, she attempted the task alone.
At the same time came a demand from a Cincinnati
magazine for an original poem, which task she also at '
tempted, and with carpet on her lap and paper and pencil
beside her she sewed away, jotting down the verse as
inspirations came. The theme she took from the diffi¬
culties of her position.
" Mrs. Bolton's warmth of feeling, her attachment to
her friends and to life showed strikingly at the last. Her
mind seemed to continually dwell upon pleasant memories.
When I last saw her her first first words were : ' Do you
remember those suppers we used to have together.?' and
so, while ready and anxious to go, she still clung as with
a fond regret to that life which, despite its share of sor¬
rows and toils, had been full of brightness and of the joy
which belongs to such a spirit as hers."—\ReprinUd from
Indiana Young PeopU.I
INTRODUCTION.
There have been wonderful changes in literary con¬
ditions since Mrs. Bolton began singing. Within her
recollection, the English critics smiled the unutterable at
all American versification. Yet our poets sang on ; and
to-day Longfellow in blue and gold has place on the same
shelf in Milord's library with Tennyson; and when Ox¬
ford hastened to lay its hoary honors at the feet of Lowell,
sneering ended forever.
More extraordinary still, the era of British contempt
for American effort, whatever its line, was identical with
the period when our own East laughed without listening
often as the West essayed a song. Now—praised be the
law of change, though it does sometimes evoke the worse !
—now the Fountain of Pirene, erstwhile an exclusive of
New England, is extending itself westwardly. Some of
us, be it frankly admitted, are looking for its next appear¬
ance in Indiana, and we have something more than the
promises of daisies, and golden-rods, and new moons,
prophets though they be, on which to rest our faith. The
Bellerophons, or Chimera hunters, of the present are mag¬
azines and newspapers ; and how common the sight of
(xi)
xii
INTRODUCTION.
them waiting watchfully here, bridle in hand, for the chary
steed with wings ! And what the meaning of the grow¬
ing audiences attentive when Whitcomb Riley, Maurice
Thompson, Meredith Nicholson and Evaieen Stein regale
us with their music of such rich sweetness it is easy to
fancy Arcadian Pan alive, and that he did invent flutes
with seven reeds, and occasionally lends them to his
chosen friends.
Now, if ever this faith is realized, if Indiana does be¬
come the Pirenean State, the new Provence of minstrelsy,
center of song, home of the later lyrists, we may be sure
there will be enquiry and much delving to know who was
its first singer of clear note, mother of the glory. And it
is to lay disputation, and give the chaplet to its rightful
owner, that this book is published.
"Nathless, she kept singing still,
Numbers wild and free.
Singing like a nameless rill.
Wandering at its vagrant will,
To an unknown sea.
■JV * * *
" Many listened, and a few
Said : ' She singeth well,
But, to-day, her songs are new ;
Whether they be false or true.
Only time can tell.' "
LEW WALLACE
PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE
PADDLE YOUR OWN CANOE.
VOYAGER upon life's sea,
T0 yourself be true,
And where'er your lot may be.
Paddle your own canoe.
Never, though the winds may rave,
Falter nor look back.
But upon the darkest wave
Leave a shining track.
Nobly dare the wildest storm
Stem the hardest gale ;
Brave of heart and strong of arm,
You will never fail.
When the world is cold and dark,
Keep an aim in view.
And toward the beacon mark
Paddle your own canoe.
Every wave that bears you on
To the silent shore,
From its sunny course has gone
To return no more.
Then let not an hour's delay
Cheat you of your due ;
But, while it is called to-day,
Paddle your own canoe.
2
PADDLE YOUR OIVN CANOE.
If your birth denied you wealth,
Lofty state and power,
Honest fame and hardy health
Are a better dower ;
But if these will not suffice,
Golden gain pursue ;
And, to w'n the glittering prize.
Paddle your own canoe.
Would you wrest the wreath of fame
From the hand of fate?
Would you write a deathless name
With the good and great?
Would you bless your fellow-man?
Heart and soul imbue
With th. holy task, and then
Paddle your own canoe.
Would you crush the tyrant wrong
In the world's free fight ?
With a spirit brave and strong,
Battle for the right ;
And to break the chains that bind
The many to the few,
To enfranchise slavish mind—
Paddle your own canoe.
Nothing great is lightly won.
Nothing won is lost;
Every good deed nobly done
Will repay the cost.
Leave to heaven in humble trust
All you will to do ;
But if you succeed you must
Paddle your own canoe.
THE SINGER.
ONE went singing down the years,
Through the sun and rain,
Setting all life's April tears.
Lights and shadows, hopes and fears
To a simple strain.
Many heard her, and a few
Listened to her lay,
Said, " Her mission might be true.
We have sterner work to do."
And they went their way.
Nathless, she kept singing, still.
Numbers wild and free.
Singing like a nameless rill
Wandering at its vagrant will,
To an unknown sea.
Hope still whispered to her heart,
"Work, the day is long ;
Glean the fertile fields of art ;
Seek what science may impart
To enrich thy song.
(3)
4
THE SINGER.
Work ! the diamond stone, though bright
In its native soil,
Yields its full and perfect light
Only to the skill and might
Of persistent toil."
So, she went her way and wrought.
Suffered and grew strong ;
Weaving every shade of thought
Busy Fancy coined or caught.
Every lesson Nature taught,
Into earnest song.
Many listened, and a few
Said : " She singeth well,
But, to-day, her songs are new ;
Whether they be false or true.
Only time can tell."
"AIM earn," the singer said,
" Time will justly give :
I shall sleep, as sleep the dead.
Ere its verdict shall be read.
But my songs shall live."
Knowing she must work and wait.
For her work's reward.
Late and early, at the gate
That the iron hand of fate
Triple bound and barred.
Still, she sung of all things fair,
All things good and true.
Soothing grief, beguiling care.
Helping fainting hearts to bear.
Faltering hand to do.
THE SINGER.
5
Summer's bloom and beauty sped ;
Still the poet sung :
Threads of silver bound her head,
Lip and cheek had lost their red,
But her heart was young
Till her sky was overcast,
God, He knoweth why.
Standing in the bitter blast.
Where the withered leaves are cast.
She reviewed the fruitless past,
Faint and fain to die.
"All is lost for me," she said;
"All my work in vain !
Rest, O weary heart and head—
Toil, O hands, for daily bread,
That were better gain."
Then she put away her lyre.
All its chords unstrung.
And essayed to quench the fire
Of her hope—her soul's desire—
To accomplish something higher
Than the songs she sung.
Still, the unforgotten strain.
Like a ghostly chime.
Thrills the fibers of her brain,
And her heart, despite its pain,
Trembles to the faint refrain
Of the Olden Time.
OLD AND NEW
ÏHERE are who say, " all human thought
Has been recoined, reclothed and wrought
In prose and rhyme-
That no ideal, false or true,
Which stirs the modern brain, is new.
In this our time.
" That songs we sing have all been sung
By minstrels, since the world was young.
Somewhere, somewhen—
That tales we tell have all been told.
In summer's heat and winter's cold,
By tongue or pen ;
" That all emotions, hopes and fears.
Endeavors, failures, laughter, tears,
Which now betide—
All shades of passion, pain and strife.
Have been the warp and woof of life.
Since Adam died."
No doubt we reap the harvest grown
From seed that others' hands have sown,
Long done to dust.
Their names forgotten, and their lives
Known only as their work survives
Time's rack and rust.
(6)
OLD AND NEIV
7
That every thought that stirs our brain,
Is but the old re-born again
Of nature's laws—
A linklet in the chain that binds,
The kinship of ail human minds
To life's first cause.
The lore philosophy enshrines.
That scientific law defines.
Was known of yore
To some savant, or sage recluse
Who dreamed and reaped the world's abuse.
And nothing more.
The brightest gems of modern art.
That charm, enchant the brain and heart.
Are copies done
From models, where the masters wrought
Embodiment of passion, thought.
In marble stone.
So goes the changeful world around,
But all things earthly find their bound.
And pass away ;
For what we build, tho' strong and high
As Eiffel's stairway to the sky.
Must know decay.
******
Death holds the hand of life, yet we
Shall live in some bright world to be—
Nor far before—
Where time is powerless to destroy.
And things of beauty are a joy.
Forever-more—
8
OLD ÄND NEIV
Some world where being is intense,
Beyond the reach of human sense
To feel or know,
Where every soul for seif alone
Shall reap the harvest it has sown
In life below.
YE SONS OF TOIL.
nEN, rally to the cause of right !
The morning breaks and golden light
Dispels the brooding gloom of night
On Freedom's towers ;
The goal we seek is just in sight—
The day is ours.
Come, from the farm house, field and fane ;
Come, from the anvil, plough and plane
To break the links of slavery's chain
That gall mankind ;
To wipe from Labor's brow the stain,
As God designed.
Come forth from hamlet, hill and vale ;
Our cause is just, it can not fail.
The cry for help, the toiler's wail
Rings 'round the earth.
" Put down the old misrule and hail
The new world's birth."
Come, ye who till the rich man's land
With patient toil and hard, brown hand.
Whose lives are written on the sand.
Souls bought and sold,
Like chattels at your Lord's command.
For yellow gold.
(9)
lO
YE SONS OF TOIL.
Come, swart-browned toilers of the mines,
Whose labor buys the rich, red wines,
The silver plate on which he dines.
Who never toils,
The silken couch where he reclines,
Who wins the spoils.
His hands are white, his raiment fair.
His palace fine, his pictures rare,
His table groans with sumptuous fare ;
You get instead,
The right to toil, coarse clothes to wear,
And scanty bread.
He counts his millions o'er and o'er.
Five, ten, fifteen, and grasps for more,
Y ou see the gaunt wolf at your door,
But make no sign—
You only dig the shining ore—
He owns the mine.
Come, workers, in the realm of art.
From sea and land, from mine to mart ;
No man can do another's part,
In word and deed ;
Each traveler, on the wide world's chart.
Must sow some seed.
Come all, but not with sword and shield,
Ours is no blood-stained battle field ;
Truth is the only brand we wield—
And truth is strong—
But come, resolving ne'er to yield
To hoary wrong.
YE SONS OF TOIL.
II
The days are dead, when lawless might
And azure blood usurped the right
To have and hold, to ban and blight
The souls of men.
The days are dead and better light
Shines now than then.
'Tis ours to ring the harvest home
For generations yet to come.
When lips that speak to-day are dumb,
Beneath the sod.
The goodly seed we sow shall bloom
For man and God.
The glorious day of Jubilee
Is dawning now o'er land and sea,
In which the soil shall be as free
As sun and air.
And title deeds fee-simple be
Old relics rare.
Then, free-born tillers of free soil.
And all the honest sons of toil
Beyond the reach of want and moil,
Shall cringe to none,
Nor big drones batten on the spoil
Hard labor won.
No more shall mother, sister, wife
Toil on, where poverty is rife,
T0 keep alight the lamp of life.
Like shackled slaves.
And pass from haggard want and strife
To nameless graves.
12
YE SONS OF TOIL.
Nor children work with cold, blue hands,
Distorted spines and swollen glands,
Amongst the factory's wheels and bands
From morn till night;
But, from the harvest of free lands.
Reap nature's right.
THE MINER'S STORY
nE sat in the station waiting room,
A big, strong man in a miner's guise.
Shading his face in the friendly gloom
Of a hat slouched over his tear swollen eyes.
" Friend," I said, as I took my seat.
Where the motley crowd went to and fro.
Making a rhythm with its restless feet,
" The train's behind—Have you far to go? "
"A matter, mayhap, of a hundred mile,—
Not fur, I reckon, to what I 've come,"
And, lifting his face, with a dreary smile.
He added—" Stranger, I'm going home ! "
"Ah, that is the pleasantest thing in life.
From lonely journeying going home,
To meet, perhaps, a loving wife.
And children shouting, ' Papa's come ! '
" Been absent long? " " Too long," he said.
And his brown hand dashed away a tear—
" The dear old mother I left is dead ;
I hev not been home for ten long year.
(13)
THE MINER'S STORY.
" I lagged, you see, at the hardest work
With the older boys ; I wasn't as strong,
But they called me a lazy, idle shirk—
And harped on the same old string so long
" That it riz my grit—1 slammed the door
And made a rumpus, for 1 was mad,
And left my mother a-crying sore—
Don't judge me hard, 1 was only a lad—
"The youngest of five—my mother's pet,
A sort of finiky, good-for-naught—
But 1 went to the diggin's and there, you bet,
I worked like a beaver, with but one thought—
"To make my pile with an honest hand.
Thro' summer's heat and winter's cold.
And then go back to the Hoosier land.
And care for mother when she was old.
" The lovin' letters she sent I read
Over and over—I have 'em here—
I reckon she thought her boy was dead.
For, stranger, I never answered her.
" I always intended to write, but then,
1 'd hed no schoolin' and sca'ce knowed how
With my horny fingers, to guide a pen ;
1 never will—it's no use now.
" She didn't hold it ag'in me, pard.
The words I said, but her letters show
She grieved for me, and it hurts me hard
To think she's gone and '11 never know
THE MINER'S STORY
15
"That I was a delvin' day by day,
Early and late, in storm and clear.
Never riskin' a cent at play.
And doin' it all for love of her.
" I made my pile, you may well believe,
'And now 1 am off for home,' 1 said—
But just as 1 was about to leave,
1 got the word that mother was dead !
" I'm strong, but that was a heavy stroke!
1 'd run my race and lost the prize—
Your pardon, stranger, the dust and smoke
Of the keers, 1 s'pose, has hurt my eyes.
"I'm going home to her funeral now!
Going to see her cold and dead—
Never to hear me say, as how,
1 'm sorry and shamed for what 1 said.
" 1 'd give my pile and work for more.
With pan and pick in the same old place.
To meet her again, at the old home door.
With livin' light on her dear old face.
" But if ever we meet—you understand—
Up yonder, where she is an angel bright.
Before them all, in the happy land,
1 '11 beg her pardon and make it right."
AN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD.
w
HEN day was done with its duties,
Its wearisome toil and care,
They knelt by the bright home hearthstone
And offered their evening prayer ;
Only the father and mother
And baby with silken hair.
They heard the. roar of the river,
The sough and wail of the storm.
But went to their rest not dreaming
Of coming danger or harm ;
The baby asleep in the cradle,
The wife on the husband's arm.
They slept the sleep of the weary,
But woke with a sense of dread—
" The flood—the flood ! O, husband !
We are lost ! " the young wife said,
" It is pouring in at the windows ;
It is floating baby's bed."
But even while she was speaking.
The brave, strong father prest
The dear little form, still sleeping,
To his wildly throbbing breast.
"To the roof," he said, "wife, follow—
To God we will leave the rest."
(i6)
/ÎN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD.
17
Then, holding aloft the baby,
In its cushions wrapped with care.
Through the rising, rushing water.
They groped to the little stair
And climbed to the tottering roof-tree.
Alas, for the prospect there !
They looked on a world of waters,
As far as their sight could go,
Sweeping away all barriers
From the path of its maddened flow-
Rushing and seething and roaring,
In its terrible might below.
Where the house of their nearest neighbor
Was standing but yester e'en,
With its garden plot and door yard.
Where the grasses still were green,
Was nothing but floating driftwood.
With the shivering trees between.
Crouched on the roof, in the darkness
Of clouds like a funeral pall,
While the house with wind and surges
Seemed tottering to its fall,
They tried to console each other.
Trusting the Father of all.
But the dripping rain was dreary.
The breath of the night wind cold ;
The little one wept and shivered
Under its blanket's fold.
And hope in their hearts grew fainter
As the hours were slowly told.
i8
ÀN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD.
They heard the howl of a watch-dog,
In a house that floated by,
And pitied the faithful creature—
Imprisoned and doomed to die ;
And far away, in a tree top.
They heard a human cry !
O, how they longed and listened
For the dip of a coming oar—
O, how they watched and waited
For a sign of life on shore-
Would the night stretch on for ever?
Would the day dawn never more?
The wind grew fiercer and wilder.
And seemed to laugh in glee
The mocking laugh of a demon
O'er the flood's mad revelry—
And the house swung off its moorings—
Adrift on the mimic sea.
Then a voice went up to Heaven,
In an agony of prayer,
For patience and strength to suffer.
For dying grace to bear
The death they were surely meeting
In the depths of their despair.
The wind made a sound of sobbing—
The clouds trailed weeping by.
And a pallid light crept slowly
Over the rim of the sky,
As they covered their ghostly faces,
Clasped hands and said "Good-by."
AN INCIDENT OF THE FLOOD. 19
Hark ! Was the murmur of voices
Borne to the deafening ear?
Or only the wind that mocked them'
With a hope of succor near?
Nay, over the roar of the waters
They heard the boatmen's cheer.
" Ho, there! look out—we are coming."
And a boat bore down on the lee.
Well manned and strong for the rescue
Of the suffering, desolate three.
Beginning to sink like Peter
On the waters of Galilee.
CASTLE OF WARTBURG.*
Through the fair Thurlnglan forest with its purple-
shadowed reaches,
Where of old the Minne-singers sung of love and valor
long,
And the minstrel wind, still harping, in the lofty pines
and beeches,
Makes a murmurous sound of music, like the echo of
their song—
We came to ancient Eisenach, one day I well remember.
In the good year of our era eighteen hundred-fifty-seven.
When the lingering summer sunshine crowned the gray-
brow of November,
And hung its crimson tapestry around the gates of even.
*As Luther was returning to Eisenach from the "Diet of
Worms, ' after nightfall, he was surrounded by masked men in
the Thuringian forest, blindfolded and bound in silence, his horse
was led by a bridle path around the little town and up a mountain.
The reformer, quietly submitting to the fate his friends had
predicted, had no doubt he was being conveyed to the deep dun-"
geon of some stronghold from which he should be led to the stake,
and only learned when they crossed the draw-bridge of the fine
old castle of the Wartburg that he had been captured by his
friends to save him from his enemies. In a room of this castle he
remained a year under the name of "Junker Yorg," and during
this time he translated the bible. When I visited this storied
room some forty years ago, its one window was curtained with
cobwebs ; cobwebs trailed along the time-stained walls from the
(20)
CASTLE OF WARTBURG.
21
Thence we climbed the rugged Wartburg to its time-worn,
crowning castle—
Crossed the useless moat and drawbridge to the shadow
of its towers,
Where many a lord and lady, gallant knight and feudal
vassal
Had paced life's little measure to the limit of its hours.
In its halls the air seemed vocal with traditionary story-
Painted face and empty armor seemed to whisper deep
and low.
Of the regal pomp and splendor, of the pageantry and
glory
That ruthless time had buried in the grave of long ago.
But we staid not for the armor used on battle-field and
tourney.
Nor to see the stately portraits of a long ancestral line—
Nay, we made with reverend footsteps that memorable
journey.
Thro' the fair land of Thuringia to its sacred pilgrim
shrine.
broken ceiling to th.e broken floor. It contained only the white
pine table on which he wrote and the bible he translated.
The stain of the ink he is said to have thrown at the tempter
was still there, though a large space of the plaster containing it
had been carried away by vandal curio hunters. It is all gone
now, I have heard, but the room has been repaired and refur¬
nished as Luther left it some three hundred and sixty-seven years
ago.
22
CASTLE OF IVARTBURG.
We but sought the small apartment where the Mighty
Man abided,
To behold its time-worn rooftree and to tread the floor
he trod
Thro' the fire of persecution hunted, hated and derided ;
Clinging to his soul's convictions—leaning on the arm
of God.
He had answered his accusers in their panoply of power ;
In the face of fire and faggot, his decision proudly hurled.
Unmoved by threatening danger, as some storm-belea¬
guered tower
While the lightning and the thunder of his words went
'round the world.
Here, alone with God and conscience, he had pondered,
watched and waited—
Forgetting self and sacrifice—not counting gain or loss.
Till the fury and the madness of the storm without abated
Trusting God to give him daily strength to bear his
daily cross.
Here the Prince of Outer-darkness, in the semblance of an
angel,
Sought to tempt his human weakness as he tempted
Christ our Lord,
But he cowered before the aspect and rebuke of God's
evangel
And vanished with the logic of his falsehood and regard.
CASTLE OF IVARTBURG.
2^
In that room there seemed a presence, something felt be¬
yond our seeing,
As if ghosts of things departed filled the dimly-lighted
space,
But of that severest battle, ever fought by human being,
With the powers of outer darkness, there was neither
track nor trace,
Save the Bible he translated with his quaintly-lettered
pages,
Whence shone the bright effulgence of eternal truth
abroad—
Lifted up the brooding shadows from the brow of dark¬
ened ages.
Revealing to humanity the word and will of God.
Of that castle on the Wartburg, with its legendary story
Of the noble men and women that trod its regal halls—
That little, dim apartment is the chiefest pride and glory
With its one unpainted window and dilapidated walls.
ADIEU TO SWITZERLAND.
I LEAVE thee, Switzerland, with many tears.
And many blessings from my inmost heart;
For thou hast been to me, some happy years,
A pleasant home, and evermore thou art
The shrine of hopes and joys which were a part
Of my soul's life ; hopes, joys, not all in vain ;
And so God bless thee ! E'en these tears that stai
At leaving thee are born of a sweet pain
For that which was so bright, but may not be again.
I have found many friends in thee, fair land—
Friends whom I love and may not soon forget ;
And I shall turn e'en from the old home-band
To those I leave behind with fond regret.
Oh, shall we meet again as once we met?
Will he be with us whose sweet smile did make
Sunshine in every heart? My soul awake;
Thou must be brave and strong for his belovéd sake.
God gives me light sufficient for to-day ;
Then let me trust His mercy and be still ;
If death and darkness wait along my way.
Shall He not give me strength and grace to fill
The measure of my task—to do His will ?
If my life's cup should mantle to the brim
With bitterest drops that sorrow can distill ;
(24)
ADIEU TO SmrZERLAND.
25
If my appointed path grow cold and dim,
Shall it not lead my heart, my wayworn feet to Him?
Our pathway lies across the broad, deep sea.
Whose angry waves no timid soul may dare ;
Help us to put our trust, O God, in Thee ;
For wildest winds may rave if Thou art there
With thine almighty power and sleepless care ;
And if to Thee, All-Father, it seem best
To call us hence, help us with faith and prayer
To fold our earthly robes and take our rest.
Waiting for Thee far down in ocean's silent breast.
Adieu, sweet friends ; adieu, Alps, lakes and streams !
1 bear your image in my heart's deep core ;
And 1 shall often see ye in my dreams.
Shall hear the rushing torrents and the roar
Of the wild avalanche, till life is o'er.
One last, long look, Mont Blanc ; my tearful eyes
May see thy glorious beauty nevermore.
Adieu, ye snow-clad towers and domes, that rise
Like some white city, built against the opal skies.
Land of Stauffacher, Melcthal, Fürst and Tell,
My young hope's whilom idol and its goal,
There is a spirit in thine air, a speli
Upon thine Alps, to waken and control
The aspirations of the human soul
To higher life. Thank Heaven, my pathway led
Among thy shrines, where every nook and knoll
Is hallowed by some noble heart that bled
For human liberty. Peace to thy glorious dead 1
WHEN IT RAINS LET IT RAIN.
IT IS wicked to worry and fret,
To live in the dark and complain—
Let's be glad when the sun shines and, yet.
When it rains, let it rain.
Though our paths may be rugged and rough.
The longest is not very long.
And, though dim, there is still light enough
To perceive right and wrong.
Each soul is allotted to do.
What no other soul can achieve,
And he who is faithful and true.
His reward shall receive.
We are here, by no will of our own,
And most of us wish to remain,—
If life lose its flavor and tone.
And it rains, let it rain.
We are builders, whose labors extend
Beyond the dim shadows of time.
To the cycle etern, without end,
To the true, the sublime.
Let us follow the Architect's plan—
No effort for good is in vain.
And doing the utmost we can.
When it rains, let it rain.
(26)
IVHEN IT RAim LET IT RAIN.
The yesterday lived, but is dead—
Our to-morrow may never be born,
If words we unwittingly said
Left the sting of a thorn,
If a wrong, we can never requite.
Have left on our conscience a stain.
Let's determine to-day to do right.
And repent not in vain.
In each soul, be it never so dark—
Like a diamond concealed in a mine—
Gleams the seal of the Maker, a spark
Of the good, the divine.
Let us strive, with wise culture and care,
T0 restore to the waifs of our race
The image of God m.an should wear
In his life and his face.
Let us lighten the burdens men bear.
Of poverty, sorrow and moil—
As we freely receive, let us share
With the hard hand of toil.
No path is all sunshine ; no day
But may darken with storm ere it wane.
And happy is he that can say,
When it rains, let it rain.
Every hour, in its flight, bears away
A record of deeds, good or ill ;
To be read in the light of the day
Preordained, by God's will.
We have no time to worry and fret-
No time to repine and complain ;
Let us live in the sunshine, and, yet,
When it rains, let it rain.
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
They married for love, as all men knew,
For the twain had little more ;
But the morning of life was bright with dew.
And the world was all before.
" Dear wife," said John, " it would suit me best.
If to you it is the same.
To take our chattels and go out west,
And make a pre-emption claim."
" You 're right," said Ann, " let us go this fall,
We can ride our two good nags.
And take our chattels, clothes and all.
In two pairs of saddlebags."
They bought a mule to carry the packs
Of things to subserve their need.
Cups, kettle and pans, hoe, ploughshare and ax.
Food, blankets and grain for seed.
And they started, strong of heart and hand.
By an old, familiar road ;
And traveled on to the border-land.
Where the red-man yet abode.
Still they traveled on tirro' marsh and mire.
Thro' forests lonely and deep.
And slept at night by a huge camp-fire,
As the young and weary sleep.
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
Up and away, at the peep of dawn,
They followed an Indian trail ;
And, warily watching, still rode on,
O'er river and hill and dale.
And pitched their camp in a scrub-oak grove,
When the autumn sun was low ;
Where the grapevines made a roof above.
The grass a carpet below.
They rode with a slackened rein, next day.
O'er a prairie's unbroken sod.
With only a compass to point the way.
Where a white man never trod.
The way was long—the world seemed wide,
But their brave hearts did not fail ;
And, one fair day, at the eventide,
They came to a beautiful vale.
They made their camp by a murmuring stream.
That flowed from a sparkling spring ;
Where tall trees, crowned with a golden gleam.
Made a purple shadowing.
"Dear wife," said John, " 1 like this land.
It will not be hard to clear ;
The water is good—the timber grand,
We will set our stakes right here."
Ann spread the lunch with a smiling face,
As she hummed a sweet, old song,
And thanked the Lord they had found the place
They had sought so far and long.
They built a half-faced camp next day.
Covered it in with boughs.
And lived therein, till they found a way
And time to build a house.
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
Then, John, with his wife and gun, strolled 'round.
To the points of hill and plain.
As proud as a monarch newly crowned,
Of his fertile, fair domain.
They built a cabin, on four great rocks,
Of saplings round and green ;
With tempered clay and wedge-shaped blocks,
They filled the chinks between.
The roof was of clapboards weighted tight,
Of clapboards and bars the door ;
And broad ash puncheons smooth and white
Served well for the cabin floor.
The hearth was laid, of a single block,
Of limestone grained and gray ;
The jambs built up of the same good rock.
The chimney of cat-and-clay.
Good oaken hinges the door supplied.
The latch was made of the same ;
And the string was never found inside.
When a friendly Indian came.
Ann filled the bed-tick, she wove and spun.
With leaves, for she foresaw
A year must pass ere the farm begun
Would afford her shucks or straw.
"And now," she said, "that our house is done.
We must see what we can do,
To make a dresser and table, John ;
We need a bedstead, too."
" That's true, dear wife, I '11 begin right soon.
To-morrow—these jobs are light—
I can have a table done by noon.
And the bedstead done by night."
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
31
He fashioned a table firm and good,
With four round hickory legs ;
And a broad, smooth slab of white ash wood,
Secured by oaken pegs.
And with young wild turkey roasted brown.
Venison and nature's wine,
Berries and nuts, the twain sat down
At the new-made board to dine.
And never among the rich and grand
Were happier folks, I ween.
Than John Carr, king of broad, fair land.
And Ann, his beloved queen.
That night, by the hearthstone's ruddy glow.
She made up the leaf-filled bed.
With sheets and blankets as white as snow,
On the new-made hickory stead.
And placed on a dresser fair bedight,
Her service of pewter and tin,
That always shown so clear and bright
You could see your face therein.
John seasoned stuff, by the cabin fire.
And mounted a hoe and plough ;
He had learned the art from his good old sire,
And it came right handy now.
He made two hickory rocking chairs.
And more than it needs to tell
Of all convenient wooden wares.
Till the cabin was furnished well.
But he did all this, on rainy days.
Or beside the hearth at night ;
Where he kept dry hickory bark ablaze.
And worked away by its light.
32
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
And his ax rung out a rhythmic sound,
While the waning autumn sped,
As he pulled the trees and cleared the ground,
To make their next year's bread.
And he laid the forest's giants low.
From the peep of wintry dawn :
Thro' storm and sun, thro' gloom and glow.
Till the wintry days were gone.
Then burnt the logs with the good wife's aid.
And piled the brush around ;
For a sort of fence, or barricade.
To protect the house and ground.
They planted the seeds of the garden stuff.
And the corn they brought with care.
And, at harvest time, had food enough
For a year and some to spare.
The years gave tribute for what they took,
And the squatter, untaught and poor,
Learned golden lessons from nature's book,
Of the highest and holiest lore.
He hunted game in the boundless range.
And added field to field ;
Built a better house, a larger grange.
To garner his rich land's yield.
But the wise old world stretched out her hands.
Toward the sunset sea, so far.
That the hum and whir of her wheels and bands
Reached the home of brave John Carr.
For the railway ran thro' his land, one day,
Where a blazed track was before ;
And the shriek that scared the game away
Brought a market to his door.
THE EPIC OF JOHN CÂRR.
33
And crowds of adventurous settlers came,
Brave women and stalwart men,
For the land, so long unknown to fame,
Had a market value then.
And where the half-faced camp was made.
The tall, green trees chopped down.
The brush piled round for a barricade.
Sprang up a flourishing town.
And he who came to the far, wild woods,
With his ax and strong brown hands.
When a packhorse bore his worldly goods.
Grew rich, in houses and lands ;
But richer in the esteem and trust
Of the men who knew him well ;
For he was generous, wise and just.
And so, when a chance befell—
John Carr was named for the highest place.
In his newly erected State ;
And he filled it long, with benignant grace.
Revered by the good and great.
And his faithful wife, with her brow serene
Encrowned with the snows of time.
Though lovelier far than the bride had been
In the bloom of her youthful prime.
Never forgot, in the glare and glow
Of fashion's toggery and tags.
The day she packed her bridal trousseau,
In a pair of saddlebags.
3
THE EPIC OF JOHN CARR.
The tale I have told is only one
Of a thousand tales as true ;
It shows what a brave, true man has done,
What brave, true men may do.
* * * * * *
Those noble hearts have ceased to beat.
But they left a light sublime.
To illume the way for other feet
To the farthest shore of time.
And every soul by word or deed.
In the vast New World to-day,
Is writing a page that men will read
When the rest have gone their way.
CHRISTMAS STORY
The nightly shadows, dark and cold,
Fell round a hovel low and old ;
The wind came through the broken door
And scattered snowflakes on the floor.
And whispered in an elfm tone
From shattered thatch to cold hearthstone,
Whereon a woman sat and prest
A hungry baby to her breast.
And drew the rags, in closer fold.
Around a little five-year-old
That crouched and shivered at her feet.
"Mamma," he lisped, in accents sweet,
As lip, and cheek, and eye grew bright :
"Will Trismas turn to-morrow night?"
"Yes, Benny, dear," the mother sighed.
And turned her pallid face aside,
As if she strove to hide the tears
That came with thoughts of brighter years.
"Mamma, I wist," said little Ben,
" 'At we tould go to seep till den ;
We'd find a 'ittle jag of wood
To make a fire, and somesing dood
To eat for break'ast, dest because
I writed to Old Santa Caus
(35)
CHRISTMAS STORY.
A letter, dest my very best,
And hided it in Robin's nest.
Away up in the cedar tree,
Where 'ittle birdies used to be."
The mother, as her eyes grew dim,
Asked : " What, dear, did you write to him ?
" I writed : ' Santa : Papa's dead.
I's hungry ; pease to bring some bread,
And dest a 'ittle wood and tea
For mamma, and some boots for me ;
My feet is freezin' told,' and den
I writed : ' I is 'ittle Ben.' "
As dawned the light of Christmas day,
O'er mount and moorland, cold and gray.
O'er frozen stream and leafless wold.
O'er stately hall and hovel old,
A little tawny, frowsy head
Was lifted from a tattered bed.
And two large, shining, childish eyes.
Brim full of wonder and surprise.
Beheld a hearthstone warm and bright.
Where frost was woven yesternight.
And saw a little table spread
With golden butter, snowy bread
And ruddy apples. Could it be?
Yes, there was mamma, making teal
It was no dream, and such a shout
Of boyish joy and glee rang out.
As startled with its merry din
The little snow-birds peeping ¡o.
CHRISTMAS STORY
Or gayly hopping here and there,
As if they waited for a share
Of that delicious Christmas fare.
Then Benny, kneeling by his bed.
Folded his little hands and said
His morning prayer : "Amen "—a pause,
"And pease, dood Lord, bress Santa Caus."
Soon Benny spied a basket hid
Behind the door ; he raised the lid
And found a woman's dress and shawl,
Warm woolen hood, and—last of all—
O joy! a boy's full suit of clothes,
Nice mittens, bran new boots and hose.
And on the collar of the coat
Was pinned the letter Benny wrote ;
But where that little waifTiad blown.
Or who replied, was never known.
Perhaps some tender heart and hand
Had picked it up in Fairyland.
How Benny looked when he was drest
In boots and breeches, coat and vest,
And how he stirred the crackling fire,
To see the ruddy flames leap higher,
And how the baby crowed and cooed,
As if it fully understood.
While mamma put the things away,
And softly sung a Christmas lay,
Is more than I have words to say.
DIODATI.*
I HAVE seen thee, Diodati ;
I have wandered in thy bowers ;
I have mused in the cool shadows
Of thy venerable pines ;
Have inhaled in starry twilight
The sweet fragrance of thy flowers,
And listened to thy voices,
O most beautiful of shrines !
In a fair and fertile valley.
Cradled in by snow-capped mountains.
Thou art sleeping in the sunshine
Of a cloudless summer sky ;
While the gallant, graceful Leman,
Gathering up thy sparkling fountains,
Kneeleth at thy feet and worships.
With his glorious minstrelsy.
I have revelled in thy beauty
Till my very soul is laden ;
But grander, higher interests
To thee and tliine belong ;
*Tlie residence of Lord Byron in 1816, where he wrote "Man¬
fred," and the third canto of " Childe Harold."
(38)
DIODATI.
For thou wert the home of genius,
Thou hast been a poet's Aidenn,
And thy groves to me seem vocal
With the glory of his song.
He has dreamed sweet dreams of beauty
'Neath these summer-garnished arches ;
He has seen the radiant visions
Which poetic fancy weaves ;
He has heard the night-wind singing
In the green glooms of these larches,
And caught the soft responses
Of the trembling, low-voiced leaves.
He beheld, from this same terrace.
Clouds and darkness, lake and mountains.
Lightnings, winds and waters reveling,
With a fierce, terrific mirth ;
Heard the voices of the thunder.
And the laughter of the fountains,
Pealing out as if rejoicing
Over " a young earthquake's birth."
He could see the giant Jura,
With his head so high and hoary.
Wrapped away in folded shadows
On the bosom of the night ;
Or encircled with far flashes
Of a wild and ghostly glory.
As the watchfires of the storm-king
Blazed aloft, from crag and height.
Clouds and tempest, winds and waters,
Ere the morning's dawn ceased raging,
DI OD AT I.
And the lovely face of nature
Was unsullied by a scar;
But the mad, ungoverned passions
In that poet's heart kept waging
With life and with humanity
A longer, wilder war.
Thou hast seen him, Diodati,
With his cold and haughty bearing ;
With his nobly gifted spirit.
Tortured by its self-made strife.
Worshiping some earth-born idol.
Of the good and true despairing.
Till he mingled deadly poison
In his bitter cup of life.
Yet he loved, and sought the praises
Of the world he shunned and hated.
And his soul, though all perverted,
Was aglow with starry thought;
With strong feeling, power and passion,
He adorned and he created.
And beautified life's pathway
With the gems his genius wrought.
He has left no trace, no footprints.
In thy paths so often threaded ;
There is neither shrine nor tablet
Here, engraven with his name ;
But the least of thy surroundings
To the world's great heart is wedded,
And thy marble walls will perish
Long before his glorious fame.
MILLENNIAL.
■IAT of a thousand years to come?
No answer—every tongue is dumb—
No eye can see
Bey-ond the breakers on life's stream,
Nor can imagination dream
What, then, will be.
The peoples of another race
May occupy our land, our place.
And vassals groan
Beneath a Czar's tyrannic sway.
Where liberty holds court to-day
And rules her own.
The lore and literature we boast,
Thro' war and discord may be lost
Beyond recall —
Our proudest cities lie as low
As Nineveh and Troy do now,
In ruin's thrall.
Perchance, the sin that underlies
The power of wealth, we over-prize,
God may confound,
(41)
MILLENNIAL.
And our fair realm be overthrown,
Dismembered, wrecked and only known
By records in some corner-stone,
Deep under ground.
The Juggernaut that we adore,
That grinds the helpless, hungry poor-
Drinks blood and tears—
And battens on the sweat of toil,
Will hardly reap his wonted spoil
A thousand years.
CITY OF HERODIAS.
O TIBERIAS, once so queenly, how desolate thou art!
Weeds and briers choke thy gateways and thy long
forgotten mart ;
And the story of thy greatness never stirs a human heart.
Where thy stately mansions towered with their walls of
fretted stone,
Are but fragments of old arches, or a column overthrown.
Where the ghostly wind, at midnight, makes a low sepul¬
chral moan.
Where the royal parks and gardens stretched away with
groves and bowers.
And the spray of marble fountains fell in many colored
showers.
While the sweet winds waved the censers of a thousand
odorous flowers.
Are unsightly heaps of débris, stagnant pools and broken
walls.
Dank clumps of mildewed sedges, where the poisonous
night-mist falls—
The adder rears her younglings, and the slimy lizard
crawls.
(43)
44 CITY OF HERODÎÀS.
Squalid Arab huts and hovels line thy grandest thorough¬
fare ;
Tents of Bedouins from the desert dot thy slopes and val¬
leys fair,
And their camels crop the thistles where thy stately palm
trees were.
Only God's inspired prophet, in the old time, could fore¬
see
The utter wreck and ruin that has fall'n on thine and
thee—
O fairest, proudest city, on the shores of Galilee !
Here was Herod's royal palace, so magnificent of old.
With its tessellated pavements and its cornices of gold.
And its rich Damascus hangings, starred with gems of
price untold ;
With its arched and pillared throne-room, and its dais of
glittering sheen.
Where the king, in radiant raiment, with a proud, imperial
mien.
Before the assembled courtiers, proclaimed HERODIAS
queen.
She, the fairest, worst of women who have won undying
fame
By the greatness of their sinning, by their crimes without
a name,
That the ages have recorded on the chronicles of shame.
For a while she reigned in splendor in the place of one be¬
trayed ;
CITY OF HERODIAS. 45
Proudest nobles fawned before her, and her lightest wish
obeyed—
Was her heinous crime forgotten while its punishment de¬
layed ?
Nay, there came a day of reckoning with its pain and sor¬
row dire,
When her heart consumed to ashes in the furnace and the
fire
Of unsanctified ambition and unsatisfied desire ;
When from all their regal splendor of palace, power and
throne,
The unhappy twain were banished, banned, unpitied and
alone,
Thence to reap, in life-long exile, the dishonor they had
sown.
From the summit of a greatness that, it seemed, no fate
could mar,
Where she flashed with sudden shining, she had fallen
like a star
Lost, extinguished in the darkness of unmeasured deeps
afar.
Did she read aright the lesson God's good Providence
made plain?
Was the loss of earthly honors to her soul eternal gain ?
Did her slumbering conscience waken in her loneliness
and pain?
No man knoweth what she suffered, what tormenting
doubts and fears,
46 CITY OF HERODIAS.
What remorse, repentance, anguish in the stranger's land
were hers.
For the triple crime committed in the glory of her years.
Perchance she walked at noonday, with a sense of name¬
less dread.
And beheld, at silent midnight, by her silken-cushioned
bed.
That crimson-reeking charger and that gory, ghastly head !
Only God can sit in judgment on a soul by passion tost ;
Who knoweth the might of madness when compass and
chart are lost.
He, alone, can mete and measure her temptation and its
cost.
Tho' the old world has grown older by some centuries
since then.
And the ages have recorded with a free and fearless pen,
Rise and fall of many nations, lives and deeds of many
men.
Yet, beyond, above all others, since the shadowy birth of
Time,
For its strange unique conception, its barbarity sublime.
Stands out the olden story of that one fair woman's crime.
OUR PIONEERS.
ONCE more, O friends, in life we meet
Where Oakland's forest cool and green
Spreads summer grass beneath our feet.
Above our heads a leafy screen.
And bright-winged wild birds all day long
Pour out their happiness in song.
We meet for interchange of thought.
Not with grand words and foreign phrase.
But in the mother language, taught
In log-house schools, in other days.
When brave, true hearts and hard, brown hands,
Kindled home fires in these new lands.
It is our privilege to tell
The history of eventful years.
And what of good and ill befell
Fair Indiana's pioneers—
The self-denying, good and great
Fathers and mothers of our state.
To tell of sacrifices made.
Of trials, hardships suffered when
The broad foundation stones were laid!
In wild and wold, o'er hill and glen.
Whereon, in peace and lawful sway,
Two million people build to-day.
(47)
OUR PIONEERS.
Those royal-hearted sons of toil,
Brave to endure and strong to do,
Who won their bread from virgin soil,
Were to each other kind and true,
With heart and hand, in word and deed
To aid a neighbor in his need.
The selfishness, the greed of gain
That grasps what it may call its own.
Despite a brother's loss and pain.
Was to their generous souls unknown—
Their gains were light, possessions small.
But good to one was gain to all.
Through sympathy right nobly born,
They helped to build the poor man's roof.
Lent him a horse to plough his corn,
A loom to weave his warp and woof.
And filled with meal his empty bin.
Until the promised crop came in.
And when a preacher came their way,
They gathered in the forest green.
To hear the word, to sing and pray.
With hearts and consciences serene,
Uplifted by that holy Faith
That lights the shadowy vale of death.
And soon they built, on some green knoll,
A school-house and a church in one.
Wherein some dominie's control,
The simple elements were won.
Of that which is beyond all dower
Of birth or wealth, man's chiefest power.
OUR PIONEERS.
49
And some of those who used to meet,
With tattered spelling-book and slate,
In piebald jackets, bare brown feet.
Now hold the helm that guides the state,
And look with pride from where they rule
To cabin-home and cabin-school.
In such, a Jackson, Lincoln, Clay
First caught a glimmer of that light
Which brightened to the perfect day,
And guided them to the proud height
Whereon they stood, each like a star
Sending its dazzling beams afar.
Life in the wilderness went slow,—
There were no famous lectures then.
No circus with its royal show
Of tinseled women, juggling men ;
No acrobats, no grand trapeze.
In these wild woods, in those old days.
But, now and then, as chance befell,
Our fathers took a holiday
To hunt the game o'er hill and dell.
And there was profit in their play,
For the award of common luck
Was some fine doe or antlered buck.
Sometimes the women gathered in
In home-made gowns, with blithesome tread.
To card a neighbor's wool, and spin,
Or frame and quilt a patch-work spread—
And busy hands and tongues kept time,
Like echoes of some Norseland rhyme.
OUR PIONEERS.
Meanwhile, the men with hand-spikes, teams,
Rolled huge, green logs and fired the pile.
Or fashioned sleepers, rafters, beams.
And raised the barn in olden style ;
Husked corn, or threshed the golden wheat
With many a flail in rhythmic beat.
And then a sumptuous feast was set
Of venison, turkey, pone and pies.
And merrier people never met
With truer hearts or brighter eyes,
Than graced that board beneath the trees.
Amidst the songs of bird and breeze.
Then boys and girls put by the chairs.
The quiIting-frame and spinning-wheel,
Swept up the floor, and ranged in pairs,
To dance the old Virginia reel.
And, as the fiddler touched the string.
Some youngster cut the pigeon-wing.
And far away o'er sweep and swell
The echoes wakened to repeat
The merry sounds that rose and fell.
As up and down, with flying feet.
And cheeks like roses blown in June,
They chased some old familiar tune.
Ah, never in a palace hall,
Where lofty lords and ladies met,
In silken sheen and jewels all,
To dance the stately minuet.
Was found such free and full delight
As stirred the dancers' hearts that night.
OUR PIONEERS.
Those olden times have passed away,—
And in the clearing by the wood,
Fair architecture builds, to-day.
Proud mansions where the cabins stood.
And cities lift their domes and spires
Where hunters struck their lone camp-fires.
Of men and women brave and true.
Who bore the heat and burden there.
We find among us still a few
With faltering feet and thin, white hair,—
In holy faith and patient hope.
Walking adown life's western slope.
God bless the pilgrims, one and all.
And lead them gently by the hand.
As where the lengthening shadows fall.
They journey through the evening land ;
And guide them by the eternal light.
That shines beyond the shores of night.
A PIONEER GRANDMOTHER.
nLADY sat in a boudoir,
In a costly easy chair,
With many a fold of dainty lace
Falling around her aged face.
And shading her snow-white hair.
Over the Gobelin carpet.
The pictures and mirrors bright.
Tables with mother-of-pearl inlaid,
And amber curtains of rare brocade.
Trembled a golden light.
A bird, in a gilded network.
Was singing a plaintive strain.
Of murmuring brooks and whispering breeze.
Learned far away, in the plantain trees
It never should see again.
But the lady sat as dreaming.
Or watching the embers' glow.
While her thoughts went back through many years,
To the loves and labors, the hopes and fears.
Of a home in the long ago.
And again she lulled her baby
To sleep at the close of day ;
(52)
A PIONEER GRANDMOTHER.
Prepared her husband's evening meal,
Then filled her distaff and turned her wheel
Till the evening stole away.
^
' Grandmother," said little Cora,
"Grandmother, why do you sigh?"
And then, as she stroked the wrinkled face
With her dimpled hands and childish grace,
" Were you ever as small as I ?
'And were you obliged to study
Hard lessons the livelong day ?
And did your governess scold and frown
Because you happened to tear your gown.
Or soil your hands at play ?
'And if you ran in the garden.
Chasing a bird or bee.
Was she sure to say, ' O naughty girl !
Y ou have tossed your hair quite out of curl ;
You shall not go down to tea?
Come, sit you down, little Cora,
And I '11 tell you something new.
I was seventy-five years old last May,
Yet I remember, as yesterday.
When I was as small as you.
We lived in a wild, new country.
In a settlement just begun ;
My best was a linsey-woolsey gown.
And my hands and face were cherry brown,
With working in wind and sun.
A PIONEER GRANDMOTHER.
' Our home was a rude log cabin,
With many a crack and patch ;
A loft and a poplar puncheon floor,
An earthen hearth and a clapboard door.
With a string and a white-oak latch.
' Our one little oblong window.
Where the wind and the sun could pass,
Was opened and shut with a sliding board ;
For a pioneer could ill afford
A sash frame, putty and glass.
' Without, through the livelong winter.
Went ringing my father's ax ;
Within, the cards and warping-reel.
The flying shuttle and spinning-wheel
Sung songs to the wool and flax.
We children worked in the clearing.
As busy as bees, all day.
Piling and burning the chips and brush—
But after our supper of milk and mush.
Had time to study and play
'A game of ' Puss wants a corner.
In the shellbark hickory light.
And we huddled down in the chimney nook.
With our one old slate and spelling book.
And learned to read and to write.
Then in the beautiful springtime.
Up with the birds at morn ;
We fed the chickens and milked the cows,
Prepared the dinner or followed the plows,
Dropping and covering corn.
A PIONEER GRANDMOTHER.
But O, in the plenteous harvest,
In the summer's golden prime ;
When we bound the sheaves or raked the hay,
And hauled it home at the close of day,
We had the merriest time.
I married a brave, young farmer.
With neither land nor gold.
And carded my fleeces, spun and wove,
In my humble home, a-light with love;.
Till your father was five years old.
Since then, by chances and changes
No thought of mine had planned,
I floated up, on the tide of fate.
To the plane of those who live in state,
And rule with a golden wand.
But my heart, with a weary longing.
Turned from palace, hearth and hall.
To the cabin home, with its simple ways,*
And the honest love of the dear old days—
The happiest days of all.
For the world we live in, darling,
Like the beautiful world of art.
Has faultless coloring, taste and tone—
And faultless forms in marble stone,
But rarely a human heart."
EDGAR A. POE.
They have laid thee down to slumber, where the sorrows
that encumber
Such a wild and wayward heart as thine can never reach
thee more ;
From the weariness and sadness, from the fever and the
madness,
Of a life that knew no gladness, to a bright and blessed
shore—
To the wondrous joy and beauty of the distant Aidenn
shore,
Thou art gone forevermore.
Thou wert like a meteor glancing through a starry sky,
entrancing.
Thrilling, awing rapt beholder with the wondrous light it
wore ;
But the meteor has descended, and the " Nightly" shad¬
ows blended ;
For the fever-dream is ended, and the fearful crisis o'er—
Yes, the wild, unresting fever-dream of human life is o'er;
Thou art sleeping evermore.
Ocean, earth and air could utter words that made thy
spirit flutter,
(56)
EDGAR A. POE.
57
Words that stirred the hidden fountain welling in thy
bosom's core ;
Stirred it till its wavelets sighing, wakened to a wild re¬
plying,
And in numbers never dying sung the heart's unwritten
lore—
Sung in wild, bewitching numbers, thy sad heart's un¬
written lore,
Row unwritten nevermore.
There was something sad and lonely in thy mystic songs
that only
Could have trembled from a spirit weary of the life it bore ;
Something like the plaintive toning of a hidden streamlet
moaning.
In its prisoned darkness moaning, for the light it knew
before—
For the fragrance and the sunlight that had gladdened it
before.
Sighing, sighing evermore.
To thy gifted spirit dreaming came a strange effulgence
beaming.
Beaming, flashing from a region mortals never may ex¬
plore ;
Spirits led thee in thy trances through a realm of gloomy
fancies.
Giving specters to thy glances man had never seen before ;
Wondrous specters, such as human eye had never seen
before,
Were around thee evermore.
Thou didst see the starlight quiver over many a fabled
river ;
58 EDGAR A. POE.
Thou didst wander with the shadows of the mighty dead
of yore ;
And thy songs to us came ringing like the wild, unearthly
singing
Of the viewless spirits winging o'er "the night's Pluto¬
nian shore "—
Of the weary spirits wandering by the gloomy Stygian
shore,
Singing dirges evermore.
Thou didst seem like one benighted, one whose hopes were
crushed and blighted,
Mourning for the lost and lovely that the world could not
restore ;
But an endless rest is given to thy heart so wrecked and
riven.
Thou has met again in heaven with the " lost" and loved
" Lenore"—
With the "rare and radiant maiden whom the angels call
Lenore ; "
She will leave thee nevermore.
From the earth a star has faded, and the shrine of song is
shaded.
And the Muses veil their faces, weeping sorrowful and
sore ;
But the harp all rent and broken left us many a thrilling
token—
We shall hear its numbers spoken, and repeated o'er and
o'er ;
Till our hearts shall cease to tremble, we shall hear tliem
sounding o'er.
Sounding ever, evermore.
EDGAR A. POE. 59
We shall hear them like a fountain tinkling down a rug¬
ged mountain,
Like the wailing of the tempest mingling with the ocean's
roar,
Like the winds of autumn sighing when the summer
flowers are dying,
Like a spirit voice replying from a dim and distant shore—
Like a wild, mysterious echo, from a distant, shadowy
shore.
We shall hear them evermore.
Never more wilt thou undaunted wander through "the
Palace haunted,"
Or the "cypress vales Titanic" which thy spirit did ex¬
plore ;
Never hear the " Ghoul " king dwelling in the ancient
steeple telling,
With a slow and solemn knelling, losses human hearts
deplore—
Telling " in a sort of Rhunic rhyme " the losses we deplore ;
Tolling, tolling evermore.
If a " living human being " ever had the gift of " seeing "
The "grim and ghastly " countenance his "evil " genius
wore.
It was thou, " unhappy master, whom unmerciful disaster
Followed fast, and followed faster, till " thy " songs one
burden bore—
Till the dirges of " thy " hope one melancholy burden bore.
Of never, nevermore,"
NE DORMIAT DEUS.
BOVE us the clouds are wild and black,
The winds are howling on our track,
The shivering trees are bare and bleak,
My heart is sick, and my limbs are weak.
Wandering wearily, wearily.
They turned me away from the rich man's door.
Haggard and hungry, cold and poor.
There was feasting, laughter and song within;
But they turned me away, in my tatters thin.
With thee, thou pledge of my shame and sin—
Away, where the wind sobs drearily.
My heart was cold, and the demons came.
With their livid lips and tlieir eyes of flame ;
They told me to murder thee, child of shame.
And laughed till my brain whirled dizzily.
They followed my path through the drifted snow.
Taunting, and mocking, and gibbering low:
" There is peace and rest where the cold waves flow
Far down o'er the white sands busily."
I felt their breath on my tortured brain ;
They tore my heart and I shrieked in vain ;
(60)
NE DORMI AT DE US.
They whispered : " Death is the end of pain ;
Fly, fly to the grave's security.
The world will turn from the hideous stain
That mars thy womanly purity."
They bade me remember the bright old time,
My cottage home in a foreign clime.
The friends I lost by my love and crime.
Till, smothering my soul's humanity,
I grasped, in the strength of my deep despair.
Thy neck, my babe—it was soft and fair :
But the warm blood cui;dled and blackened there,
To witness my wild insanity.
How quiet, rigid and cold thou art !
I lay thy head on my fainting heart.
And kiss thy lips, with a quivering start!
My hand—God ! let me not think of it !
I have seen thee smile, I have felt thy breath ;
Can I feel it now? O Death, pale Death !
Thy lethean cup, let me drink of it !
We '11 make us a bed in the snow so deep ;
The frost with a shroud will cover us ;
The winds will lull us to dreamless sleep.
And the stars in their far-off homes will keep
Their beautiful night-watch over us.
•it **■}{• -K- *
Where is the father of that dead child.
That sleeps where the winds wail mournfully?
He left the woman his love beguiled—
Is the monster loathed, contemned, reviled ?
Does the world regard him scornfully?
NE DORM I AT DE US.
He is reveling now where the lamps are bright,
Where the hours go by in a festive flight,
And the gleeful song rings merrily.
They wish him joy on his bridal night,
And warm, young hearts beat cheerily.
The bride is a creature of love and youth,
With an eye of light and a lip of truth,
And a fair form molded slenderly ;
Her heart is a fountain of kindly ruth,
That flows for the suffering tenderly.
Oh, little she dreams that a wretch defamed.
Deceived, dishonored, betrayed, ashamed.
By the strength of the bridegroom's oath, once claimed
The love she is fondly cherishing.
For he is a model of manly grace,
With the sounding name of a noble race ;
He has power, and fame, and fair, broad lands.
And there is no blood on his jewelled hands
To tell of the lost one perishing.
Where censers breathe and jewels shine,
They pledge him now in the rich, red wine ;
But never by token, or word, or sign.
Allude to his victim's history.
They fill the cup to the sparkling brim.
With life and pleasure and fame for him,
The future is bright ; let the past be dim,
And wrapped in a fearful mystery.
EVICTED.
IS potato crop had failed that year—
The flax and the rye were blighted sear,
And his heart was sad with boding fear.
But, still, he hoped in his landlord's grace,
To keep his lease on the dear home place ;
He had labored early, long and late,
But could not conquer untoward fate ;
Had sold his cow, but the money went
To pay the arrears of last year's rent—
And not a penny remained to pay
The current rental due that day.
And still he hoped thro' his landlord's grace.
To keep his hold on the dear old place.
Till the sheriff came with a legal writ,
And posse that cared no jot or whit
For the wreck and ruin that must befall—
They knew their duty and that was all.
What was the use of resistence then ?
One man opposed to a score of men.
Armed to the teeth with club and gun,
Quickly their pitiless work was done.
And the autumn night fell dark and cold
On the empty house and the dreary wold,
On parents, children and household store,
Out on the shelterless, friendless moor.
There, on a pile of flaxen straw,
(63)
EVICTED.
That chanced to evade the grasping law,
Wrapped in a tattered blanket's fold
Were three little children, pale and cold.
Who had prayed the Lord their souls to keep.
And forgotten hunger in childhood's sleep.
But the darling baby fondly pressed
With shivering arms to the mother's breast—
The prattling pet of the home, so dear.
That had only lived in the world one year,
Would never open its sweet, blue eyes
To see the light of the morning skies.
But the wind bore on with sob and sigh.
The unconscious mother's lullaby—
" Sleep, baby, sleep ; the day will dawn—
Sleep, baby, sleep ; the soldiers are gone."
The husband and father made no moan.
But sat like a statue of marble stone.
With his brown hands clenched and steadfast gaze
Fixed on the home of happier days.
Only a hovel, of little worth-
But to him the dearest spot on earth.
He thought of the day he bound the thatch.
And hung the door, with its wooden latch ;
Glazed the one little window pane.
Laid the hearthstone and hung the crane—
And brought to the place, with joy and pride,
Kathleen McDowd, his winsome bride.
Then wiled away in a waking dream.
He sat in the peat-fire's ruddy gleam.
And heard, or seemed to hear, once more,
Wee, pattering feet, on the earthen floor,
And the rhythmic rune of the roundelay,
His children sung in their frolic play.
EVICTED.
He woke, alas, in the drizzling rain,
To a sense of horror that dazed his brain.
' What shall I do, O God ! " he cried,
' Cast out in the storm, on the country side,
No hope, no friend, no sheltering shed,
No penny to buy my children bread.
Ah, woe is me—would I were dead ! "
But morning follows the longest night.
And neighbors came with the dawning light,
Took the dead babe from the mother's breast.
And tenderly laid it away to rest.
And gave the homeless a generous share.
Of the little they had to spend or spare.
For the Irish heart is warm and true.
And the Irish hand is swift to do
At kindly sympathy's behest.
The utmost for the sore oppressed.
AFTER FORTY YEARS.
WE parted, when the world was new,
And seemed to hold no grief or care.
With heart and hope to dare and do.
And youthful sinews strong to bear
The burdens that we knew not, then.
Are 'lotted to all living men.
We met, once more, a little while,
After the lapse of forty years,
And though our faces wore a smile.
It did not hide the trace of tears
That disappointment, pain and care.
With iron pen had written there.
Again, the Past resumed its power.
And led us back, through shade and sheen,
To where our life was in its flower.
And all the years that lie between
Were swept away from heart and mind.
Like withered leaves before the wind.
And, once again, we seemed to see.
By fancy's fitful glow and gleam.
The little world that used to be
As in the mazes of a dream,
Fair, in the soft, uncertain light.
As when it faded from our sight.
(66)
AFTER FORTY YEARS.
And old, familiar friends were there,
In all the beauty of their prime,
With hearts as warm and brows as fair
As in the pleasant olden-time—
And memory whispered many a name
That, once, was not unknown to fame.
But as we fondly followed back
The path whereon our feet were led.
We lingered by the devious track.
Beside the green graves of our dead,—
The graves wherein we laid to rest
Life's fairest treasures and its best.
Some left us in the time of flowers.
Some, in the autumn's chili and blight.
And some, in summer's golden hours.
Went heavenward, far beyond our sight,
And left us weeping on the shore
Where the waves murmur, nevermore !
Thus, after forty years, we met,—
It seemed to us, a little while,
A summer sun that rose and set ;
A tear, a shadow and a smile,—
A light that passed away at noon,
A winter-frost that came too soon.
Well might the singer sing : " O Death,
O Life, O Time, the gifts ye gave
Are but a little space, a breath,
A cross, a cradle and a grave !
If there were naught save what we see,
It had been better not to be."
MADISON,
OME of my long-gone childhood, still thou art
Of living memory, love and life a part—
No classic city in a classic land,
However stately, beautiful and grand.
Could ever in my fond affection be
What thou hast been, what still thou art to me.
1 never hear thy name but thought goes back.
Along the path that bore my childhood's track.
Again I climb the summit of thy hills—
Hear the sweet rhythmic music of thy rills.
And learn the story that the passing breeze
Tells, of its wanderings, to the ancient trees.
I find the rock-ribbed gorge, the mossy dell.
Where hairbells ring and fairy people dwell ;
And, when a beechen bough is rudely stirred,
1 hear a dryad whispering some fond word.
Of tender warning, to the trembling leaves,
That answer, murmuring, like a heart that grieves.
******
Thy winding paths and once familiar ways,
That led to field and forest in old days ;
The grassy common, where we used to play
With rag doll babies, every holiday.
Have passed to other uses, I opine.
But, as they were, love seals them witli a sign,
(68)
MADISON.
69
Forever sacred to the blithesome feet
Of friends who, nevermore, on earth shall meet.
In form and features thou art not the same,
But still thou bearest thy beloved name—
And still thy hills like ancient warders meet ;
Thy river sings Te Deums at thy feet
Alike in summer's heat and winter's cold,
Now in the sunshine, like a flood of gold—
Then with the nightly purple on its face,
Holding a myriad stars in its embrace.
And still thou hearest, in its ebb and flow,
The Undines singing in the depths below.
******
With noble women, and as good true men,
As history ever named with golden pen—
Rich in all gifts kind nature can bestow.
The brightest skies, the sweetest winds that blow,
Thou hast no rival, and, long years ago,
Thou wert the foremost city in the land :
Not for great wealth, nor architecture grand,
But in refinement, learning, mind and mien,
Of all this goodly land, thou wert the queen.
Aye, foster mother of the good and great.
Whose sons have graced the highest halls of state,
Far in the lapse of ages yet to be,
Thy children's children will be proud of thee.
"A TRUCE TO ALL SIGHING."
ñ TRUCE to all sighing,
Our moments are flying—
Let's speed them with laughter away,
The waves of life's river
Return again never;
Then let us enjoy what we may ;
Nor dim the light shining.
By foolish repining.
Because it will not always stay.
It may be to-morrow
Will bring us some sorrow.
Then let us be happy to-day.
We all have our crosses.
Our trials and losses ;
The best and the wisest are they
Who humbly thank Heaven
For what it has given,
And gather life's bloom by the way.
The heart's fairest flowers
Are nursed by the showers
We weep on life's dubious way;
And Hope's brightest rainbows
Are born of our pain-throes :
So, let us be glad while we may.
(70)
TWO SCENES.
IN A PALACE.
OVER the moorland the wind shrleketh drearily,
Ice-jewels glitter on heather and thorn ;
Pale is the sunlight that flashes out fitfully
Over a dome where an infant is born.
Fold silken robes round the little one carefully ;
Lay him to rest on his pillows of down ;
Watch o'er the sleep of that scion of royalty,
Born to inherit a scepter and crown.
Shut out the light, that the room may be shadowy ;
Fold silken curtains around the proud bed ;
Ladies in waiting, step softly and silently ;
Let not a word in a whisper be said.
Joy in the palaces lighted so brilliantly ;
Beauty and bravery are reveling there;
Wine, in the jewel-v/rought goblets, foams daintily—
All things proclaim that the king has an heir.
Joy in the villages—church bells ring merrily.
Rockets are lighting the sky with their glare.
Bonfires are crackling, cannon are thundering,
Children are shouting, " Long life to the heir."
(71)
TIVO SCENES.
Down-trodden millions, go join in the revelry ;
Go, in despite of the fetters you wear.
Vassals and beggars and paupers, right joyfully
Flutter your tatters—the throne has an heir.
IN A HOVEL.
Over the moorland the wind waileth mournfully ;
Ice-jewels glitter on heather and thorn ;
Pale is the sunlight that trembles out fitfully
Over a hut where an infant is born.
None heeds his wailing, although it sounds pitiful ;
None shields his form from the wind, cold and wild
Heir to privation, scorn, ignorance, poverty—
Dark is thy destiny, plebeian child.
Child, in the pitiless ranks of humanity,
Fatherless, friendless and homeless art thou;
Even the bread that is dealt to thee scantily.
Thrice must be earned by the sweat of thy brow.
Cold is the hovel—the hearthstone is emberless ;
Creaks the old door as it moves too and fro ;
O'er the poor bed, where the mother lies shivering.
Busily flutters the white-fmgered snow.
Pale is the cheek of the famishing sufferer.
Passing from poverty's vale to the grave ;
Better by far had she died in her infancy.
Ere to the millions she added a slave.
TO BE OR NOT TO BE,
Life were not worth the toil and care
It takes to keep its lamp alight,
If after all the waste and wear
Of what we suffer, do and bear.
Its flame is quenched in endless night.
We come, not of our choice or will,
To tread a dangerous path unknown ;
We grind our grist at fortune's mill,
As best we may through good and ill,
Yet nothing win to call our own.
For whatsoever we achieve.
Thro' earnest effort, small or great ;
The barns we build, the webs we weave.
The harvests sown we needs must leave.
At death's sure summons, soon or late.
And standing where the shadows fall
At even, from the sunset West,
Who can, from all his past, recall
One day, full free from sorrow's thrall ;
One day of perfect peace and rest ?
(73)
70 BE OR NOT TO BE.
Ah, few would trace life's path again,
Defenseless in the storm and sun.
For all the hollow gauds and gain
That men have sought with strife and strain
Of heart and hand since time begun.
What wonder, if the spirit cries,
" O life, thy cup is filled with gall !
Is there no end of sacrifice?
O mother earth, O listening skies,
Is this the sum—the end of all?"
Nay, by the hope inborn, intense.
That crowns all human doubts and fears.
Reaches beyond all human sense.
There is a future recompense.
Unmeasured by the lapse of years.
This realm of sorrow, death and dust,
Of disappointment, pain and strife,
Is not the end—there is—there must
Be something more, as God is just.
Beyond the limit of this life.
Aye, this small world is but a part.
The fragment of a perfect whole ;
By every landmark on its chart.
By every pulse that stirs its heart,
Life has a higher, holier goal.
CHARLES GEORGE GORDON.
O DAUNTLESS spirit! O colossal soul !
Where art thou in the boundless realms of space?
No thought can track thee to the utmost goal,
Nor holiest seer divine thy dwelling place.
The wandering winds are burdened with thy name,
And wheresoever human thought may reach,
Men tell each other of thy deeds, thy fame.
In every land, in every form of speech.
Yet, not for this, O Gordon, didst thou strive
In heathen China, in misruled Soudan ;
Not for the name and glory that survive.
But for the love of God, the good of man.
Dead ! It is well ; life had no goodly gift
To tempt thy longer stay ; no future bright
With promised happiness ; no charm to lift
From off thy heart the shadow and the blight
Of disappointment—sorrow deep and dire.
That found no utterance in word or moan.
But inly smoldered a consuming fire,
That left thy pathway desolate and lone.
The joy of youth—the dream of happy love,
Passion, desire, ambition, hope and fear—
(75)
76
CHARLES GEORGE GORDON.
All, that to self-aggrandizement could move,
Died and were buried in that nameless year.
And, on the sealéd grave of thy dead hope.
Thou didst resolve to dedicate thy days.
Mind, manhood, might, to help of those who grope
In outer darkness, down life's lonely ways.
And thou hast kept the pledge, thro' stress and strain.
Thro' doubt and danger, weariness and strife—
Doing what man may do, with hand and brain.
Forgetting self to the last hour of life.
The nations saw thee, helpless at Khartoom,
Besieged by savage hordes and doomed to death—
Saw thee go bravely to thy martyrdom,
Yet stood with idle hands and bated breath.
So much, and single-handed, thou hadst done
To lift the darkness where misrule was rife ;
So much imperiled and so grandly won.
Men deemed that thou didst bear a charméd life.
We can not estimate thy work ; it lies
Beyond the range and reach of human ken.
But never man made greater sacrifice
To help the lowliest of his fellow men.
SORROW
I S AID : " O Sorrow, shall we never part?
Thy face is gruesome and thy hand is strong,
And, when thy shadow lies upon my heart.
Life is too long.
" I met thee, sometimes, when my step was light.
Ere time had writ a legend on my brow ;
Then thou didst tarry only for a night—
Why linger now? "
The Holy One declared in Galilee,
" Blessed are they that mourn "—but all in vain
Thy bitter ministries have been to me.
Or little gain.
Nay, thou art not an angel, in disguise.
Whose sable garb conceals celestial wings.
But born of sin, in man's lost paradise.
With poison stings.
In thy fell presence, human love, distraught.
Casts down its whilom idol and the brain
Coins broken linklets of distempered thought.
In reason's chain.
(77)
SORROlVr
Since Eden's gates were closed with bar and ban,
Against the hapless exiles doomed to death,
Thy steps have followed every mortal man
To life's last breath.
No day in all the ages marked by time.
Passed from thy gloomy presence far and free—
No peopled spot on earth—no land, no clime,
But knoweth thee.
And thou wilt leave, thro' all tlie years to come,
in forest-wild, in city, fane and mart—
In royal palace hall and hovel home,
Some wounded heart.
Nathless, O Sorrow, we rejoice to know.
How ever human hearts are wrecked and riven,
Thy mission hath its limit, end, below
The gate of heaven.
Thou canst not follow the immortal soul.
That day, of all life's days, the last and best ;
Nor cast thy shadow on the glorious goal
Of endless rest.
LAST SUPPER OP THE GIRONDISTS.
From many a costly lamp the red light shone
Upon the massive vaults of cold, gray stone,
Chasing the shadows from the prison hall,
Where doomed ones met, at life's last festival.
Menials, with pallid faces, dressed the board
In gorgeous splendor ; sparkling wine was poured
From jeweled goblets ; viands rich and rare,
Prepared by skillful hands, with dainty care,
Sent up delicious odors ; radiant flowers.
Gathered by gentle hands, in summer bowers,
Exhaled from crystal vases rich perfume.
Like spring's sweet breath throughout that living tomb.
The young, the gifted and the brave were there ;
The loving and the loved, nerved to endure and dare
The morrow's fearful doom. No quailing eye
Revealed the struggling spirit's agony !
No pallid cheek, no darkly knitted brow
Betrayed what stoic lips would disavow
In those last trial hours. Did they forget
The sweet homes, far away, where once they met
The gentle and the beautiful? Apart,
In the still chambers of the inner heart,
Was there no shrinking from death's gloomy dower?
Had human love no talisman, no power,
To stir the fount of feeling, till bright tears
Flowed to the starry dreams of other years?
Were the sweet names of mother, sister, wife,
Erased from out the tablet-leaves of life ?
(79)
8o
LÀST SUPPER OF THE GIRONDISTS.
Or, did the pure, effulgent star of faith
Light up the valley and the shades of death ;
Revealing, far beyond, the blessed shore.
Where weary ones find rest fore'^'^er more?
Alas ! they had no hope of future bliss ;
No vision of a brighter world than this ;
No trust in Him, whose arm is strong to save ;
No dream of Heaven ; no light beyond the grave.
Cold, false philosophy had schooled and crushed
Their noblest aspirations. It had hushed
The still, small voice of conscience; graven deep
Upon the spirit's shrine, "Death is eternal sleep."
Y et, as the last few hours of life went by,
From that strange scene of mimic revelry.
Thought vaguely trembled out upon the broad.
Wild chaos of conjecture, seeking God;
Or, striving on weak pinion to explore,
By reason's light, some dim and shadowy shore
Beyond the grave. O, none may ever know
The height, the depth of that unuttered woe.
That made the heart all desolate the while
Stern stoicism taught the lips to smile.
Swift o'er the revel passed the night away.
And feeble glimmerings of their final day
Stole through the reeking prison ; even then.
The iron hearts of those misguided men
Bowed not before their Maker ; pealing high
A hymn to freedom, they went out to die !
Beside the murderous guillotine they gave
Their last farewell to friends, sky, earth and wave.
And passed, together, to one common grave.
Twenty-two Girondists, by birth, talents and culture the flower
of France, imprisoned in the dungeons of the Conciergerie, were
LAST SUPPER OF THE GIRONDISTS. 8i
condemned at midnight, on the 30th of October, 1793, to die by the
guillotine, at sunrise the next morning.
They marched back from the tribunal to the prison singing the
"Marseillaise," which was the signal agreed on to announce to
their fellow-prisoners their doom. As the dirge-like wailings of
the song pealed through the dismal corridors and penetrated to
the remotest cell, white, haggard faces were pressed to the iron
gratings, and tearful voices bade the singers farewell.
A wealthy friend, who had escaped proscription, had promised
them a sumptuous banquet the night after their trial, whatever
the result might be. He kept his word, and preparations were
made for their last supper. Servants entered, bearing brilliant
lamps, covered the long oaken table with a splendid cloth, and
placed on it the richest viands, the most delicious fruits, the
choicest wines and the fairest flowers. It was a strange scene.
The radiant light, the reeking vaults, the splendid supper, sur¬
rounded by condemned men—wasted, unshorn and tattered from
long confinement. Still they kept up their courage. Toasts were
offered, speeches made and songs sung, till the light of their last
day glimmered through their grated windows.
6
IN GENEVA.
1855.
I SAT on the Isle of Rousseau,
With the dear ones by my side,
When life was bright with the promise
Of its pleasant summer-tide.
The sunshine gleamed on the terrace.
And the ramparts gray and old.
And cast on the stately statue*
A shimmer of paly gold.
The lake, like a silver mirror
With pictured boats asail.
Reflected the sheen of the valleys green,
And the mountains high and pale.
The south wind sung in the poplars.
And the glad waves sung below.
But that beautiful day is far away
In the years of long ago.
1875.
I sit on the Isle of Rousseau,
And the lights and shadows fall
On the same old stately statue.
On the same old gray-grown wall.
'•'The statue of Jean Jacques Rousseau.
(82)
IN GENEVA.
The dead leaves patter around me,
But never a sail goes by,
And the troubled lake lies sobbing
Beneath a frowning sky.
The mists hang low on the mountains ;
The bloom of the vales is sped.
Alas, for the days so far away !
Alas, for the dear ones dead !
The north wind wails in the poplars ;
The waves below make moan.
I can but weep, for the tryst 1 keep.
In the stranger's land, alone.
SPRING.
The young queen is coming,
With piping and drumming,
ÎS coming this way in her kingdom again ;
With laughter and singing.
And fairy bells ringing.
And all the gay courtiers that follow her train.
The lowlands and highlands.
The sea-coasts and islands
Are donning their jewels and mantles of green ;
And bright waters meeting.
Advancing, retreating.
Are gladly repeating, "Ail hail to the queen ! "
The blue sky is smiling,
The warm sun beguiling
The spirit of life from the chambers of gloom ;
And timid young flowers.
In hedges and bowers,
Respond to his kisses with fragrance and bloom.
Wee, brown buds peep over
Their winter-time cover,
To find themselves wrapt in a soft, golden sheen.
And tenderly flushing.
Unfolding andblushing.
Lay all their sweet wealth at the feet of the queen.
(84)
SPRING.
85
Bright cloudlets are sailing,
Like fairy boats trailing
White banners, afar, over woodland and wold ;
While sunshine and shadow.
On hillside and meadow,
Are making mosaics. In purple and gold.
Sweet south winds are straying,
Like children a-Maylng,
Where wild reeds and rushes are waving their plumes.
And gleaning from edges
Of streamlets and sedges.
From thickets and ledges, a thousand perfumes.
The ring-dove Is cooing.
The red robin wooing.
Or building his nest with a business-like mien ;
Araignee beginning.
Her summer-long spinning.
And myriads of voices proclaiming the queen.
THE WENTWORTHS.
This is my birthday ! " little Willie cried.
" How old was I, mamma, when father died?
Was he like Uncle Fred, or Uncle Joe?
Who was he like? 1 'd give the world to know !
1 've asked you often, but you always say
'Wait, child, 1 '11 tell you all some other day,'
Now I'm almost as large as some small men—
And recollect, mamma, to-day I'm ten."
" Willie, your father was about the size
Of Uncle Fred, with darker hair and eyes.
Your Uncle Joe resembles him—but then,
He never looked to me like other men.
I never thought to note his shape or height :
He was my husband—perfect in my sight.
On all the earth there was for me but one—
And he is not! Father, Thy will be done.
" Seven years ago, the twenty-third of June,
The ship Elysia sailed from port at noon ;
Sailed richly freighted for an eastern land,
With Captain Harry Wentworth in command.
" That day, before we parted by the sea,
He took me in his arms, and said to me,
' Lelia, we never kuow what is to be,
(86)
THE IVENTIVORTHS.
87
But if God prosper, and preserve my life,
I will return next spring—good-bye, dear wife,
God bless you both '—And so we parted—he
To find his dangerous pathway on the sea.
And 1 to dream of him, and count the hours.
Till spring should bring me more than birds and
flowers.
The summer days were lonesome, but they died
Into the beauty of the autumn tide—
And then, a long, sweet letter came to me.
Freighted with love and hope, from some far sea.
Yes, you shall read it, my belovéd boy,—
It was a white-winged messenger of joy.
Now it is worn, and stained with bitter tears ;
1 have not dared to open it for years.
The dreary winter glided into spring.
And with the birds 1 too began to sing
The old home songs, your father liked to hear ;
For his sweet sake, the simple things were dear.
"Through tearful April, through the sunny May,
I waited for his coming—day by day,
I made the little home-nest bright and fair ;
Placed gown and slippers near his easy-chair—
Prepared a little feast, and every night
Trimmed on the window ledge a beacon light.
Alas, he never came ; and months rolled on
Into the weary years, till hope was gone.
The underwriters said the ship is lost—
Then coolly conned and counted up the cost—
But whispering to my aching heart, 1 said,
'O, woe is me—my love, my life is dead.'
THE IVEHTWORTHS.
" Hark, Willie, hark—did you not hear a tread?
What? Does the ravenous sea give up its dead?
It is thy father, boy ; Harry ! O love,
Hast thou come down from thy bright home above?
Nay, there is human life in thy dear face—
O, darling, once again in thine embrace."
In all the world there was no home so bright
As Captain Wentworth's home that autumn night—
And when the feast so long deferred was spread,
Honored by Uncle Joe, and Uncle Fred,
The captain told his story. " To begin,"
He said, " one roughish night I had turned in
Two hours belike, when, ' Ho, A sail—a sail '—
Then, ' ship ahoy '—rang sharply down the gale.
' Ho, ship ahoy,' again ; no answer came.
Save from a score of port-holes shot, and flame.
I tried to make the stranger out—and then
Mustered to arms my half bewildered men.
The rakish craft bore down upon us fast ;
Death's head and cross-bones, waving at the mast.
Now made her errand and her purpose plain.
Another flash, and fail of iron rain
Sent spars and yards in splinters to the deck ;
Mizzen and main-masts followed, and the wreck
Of our Elysia staggered on, as she
Were some poor wounded thing in agony.
I quieted the first bold buccaneer
That threw the grappling irons and boarded her.
But others followed—followed fierce and fast.
Long such unequal contest could not last.
My seamen fought like tigers held at bay—
I never knew if one survived the fray.
THE WEHTIVORTHS.
" They bore me bound and bleeding to their hold,
And there, amidst the poisonous damp and moid
1 wakened aii alone, and ail too soon.
From the deep quiet of a deathlike swoon.
How long 1 languished there I can not say—
They brought me bread and water once a day,
And 1 grew better, stronger by degrees.
Till I could slowly crawl on hands and knees.
Around my dungeon, seeking if I might
From crack or crevice win one ray of light.
My fingers traced, along the oaken wall.
Foul mildew, rotten mold, and that was all.
I did not wish, or care to live, or die.
But, O, I pined to see the earth and sky.
The remnant of my life, 1 fain had given,
For one full breath of the free air of heaven.
At length, the boatswain came to me, and said,
' The mate is sick, the captain lying dead—
Mayhap you'd like to serve us in their stead ?
It is a trust you would not dare abuse ;
An honor, it were dangerous to refuse.'
" Believing this, in some uncertain shape.
Promised a chance of rescue, or escape,
I did not stop to parley, or delay.
But took the reckoning of their ship that day.
I served them well, and never seemed to see
The fierce, suspicious eyes that followed'ine.
And never lost me from their threatening sight.
Sleeping, or waking, morning, noon, or night.
"But I must hasten—in the torrid zone,
God, in His mercy, sent a wild cyclone.
Along our path, at midnight, and we met
The giant tempest with our sails all set.
THE JVENTÎVORTHS.
It came with hiss and howl, with shriek and roar,
Starboard, abaft, aloft, alee, afore.
And, with a crash, as heaven were rent in twain.
And all its fragments falling in the main.
It caught the ship and spun her round and round
In the huge malestrom, where the waves were bound.
Till like a courser maddened with affright.
She reared her prow, and plunged from human sight.
' I recollect a wild terrific cry,
A sudden darkness, and a glimpse of sky,
As clinging to a hatch, I rose and fell ;
Up to the heights of heaven, down to the depths of
hell.
And then I lost my bearings—how or when
I floated to the reach of savage men,
I never knew—they made me prisoner, slave,
But this was better than an ocean grave.
With pirates rotting round me—and alway
I felt that God would bring me home some day.
Now, blessed be His name, whose mighty hand
Held me, through perils on the sea and land,
Strengthened my soul to sulfer and to bear.
And in my sorrow saved me from despair."
THE DOOMED ANARCHISTS.
CONDEMNED for a high and heinous crime,
They are counting the hours with bated breath,
Between them and the appointed time
Of doom—an ignominious death.
No hope for them in the bending sky-
No pity for them on the wide, green earth ;
Nothing to do but to wait and die ;
But what to us will their death be worth ?
Will it revive and restore the slain ?
Will it wipe the blot from our land and time?
What will result of good and of gain
From adding to theirs another crime?
Have we abolished the Law of God,
Written on stone by His sovereign will?
Is it not now as binding and broad
As when He commanded " Thou shalt not kill ? "
Have we forgot that the Crucified,
Nailed to the cross by a-murderous crew.
Prayed, " Father, forgive them," as he died—
" Forgive them, they know not what they do? "
(91)
92 THE DOOMED AhlÀRCHlSTS.
How, then, can we in this latter day.
Professing to teach what he taught then,
Presume in His sight to take away
The life He gave to these wretched men ?
Nay ; fetter with gyves each blood-stained hand ;
Load them with shackles, but let them live.
Sear their brows with the murderer's brand.
But take not the life no man can give.
Hide them away from the sun and stars.
To count the sum of their loss and gain—
Never to pass from their prison-bars
Till their latest hours of life shall wane.
Bereft of all that a man should prize—
Banned, condemned to perpetual thrall.
Torn by the vulture that never dies.
Let them drain the cup they filled with gall.
There, face to face with their deadly sin,
Haunted by horrors asleep and awake.
Leave them to gather the harvest in
Their hands have sown, for the dear Lord's sake.
BURDETTE.
READ, one day, when my work was done,
The advice you gave the Prince, your son,
In regard to the boy that carries a gun.
And what he '11 get—
And said, as the racy, riant fun
Over my heart's strings rippling run,
' In the whole wide world there is but one
' Hawkeye' Burdette."
For, as 1 read, an electric thrill
Set in motion old Momus's mill.
And 1 laughed as the wheels went round, until
My eyes were wet—
Laughed in my sleep and am laughing still ;
O, rare Burdette !
It was held by some, in days of old.
Who kept the flock in the Puritan fold,
' That mirth was a trap," we were gravely told,
" By the devil set.
To lure the elect to his tropic hold ; "
But, ah—Burdette,—
With all respect for the days of yore,
And the creed of those who went before
To their due reward, on the better shore—
None can regret,
(93)
BURDETTE.
That in eighteen hundred and eighty-four,
Some things have lost the shape they wore,
And the world has learned a better lore :
N'est pas—Burdette.
The path of life is rugged and rough.
In its devious course o'er brier and bluff.
And its every day hath pain enough.
We would forget—
Your sparkling elixir is just the stuff
We need, Burdette.
Far better than lotion, powder, pill.
For the heartache, or incipient chill.
Is the wine of mirth that bubbles till
The nerves forget
To carry a sense of ache or ill.
To the brain, Burdette.
I thank you, then, for a soulful laugh.
That shook from my brain a cloud of chaff.
And, eke, I thank you, in their behalf,
Who toil and fret—
Or blindly worship the golden calf ;
Or feebly lean on a broken staff ;
For gems you drop in the cup they quaff :
O, rare Burdette,
DROWNED.'^
" C UPPOSED to be drowned at night Sad fate ! '
J Thus briefly the pitiful tale was told ;
They mentioned the place of his birth—a date,
No need to repeat it—he was not old.
Not old as the calendar measures times,
But disappointment, sorrow and care
Had blighted the beauty of manhood's prime
And bleached some threads of his rich, brown hair.
He cherished a few bright hopes in vain ;
He loved a maiden that loved not him ;
No matter, his heart has forgotten its pain.
The eyes that worshiped her long are dim.
Far down in the arms of the sunless wave.
He is folded away to his rest alone
With never a shroud and never a grave.
And never a storied memorial stone.
He had gained the heights where the gifted stand
But for treacherous lures where the two paths meet :
The guerdon was won by a feebler hand.
The heights are trodden by feebler feet.
♦George P. Buell, a soldier of the Union Army.
(95)
DROIVNED.
Yet some one, perchance, in a coming day,
Forgetting his burden of toil and care.
May turn aside on the great highway
And pluck some blossom he planted there.
The world is too busy to miss him now.
It has filled his place in the dusty mart ;
Adieu, old friend with the sunny brow,
Adieu, adieu, warm, genial heart.
IN DEATH THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.
TO THE MEMORY OF GOVERNOR WILLIAMS.
Though the cold, stlll form in its white array
Was nothing, alas ! but insensate day.
Since the beautiful soul had passed away,
She had been his center of love and life ;
His haven of rest from storm and strife—
His helper, his Mentor, his faithful wife.
And watching alone, in the midnight drear.
From the depths of his sorrow, he spoke to her
Last, loving words that she did not hear.
And, holding the links of the broken chain.
His thoughts went back and lived over again
Their battle of life, with its stress and strain.
The joys and the sorrows, the hopes and fears.
The gains and the losses, the smiles and tears
They had shared together for fifty years.
" It is over, at last, dear wife," he said.
" The hands that toiled and the heart that bled
Have found their rest, and the past is dead."
7 (97)
98 IN DEATH THEY IVERE NOT DIVIDED.
Then he kissed the forehead so white and chill,
And the lips that gave no answering thrill,
And with all the strength of a strong man's will.
In spite of his loss and the pitiless pain.
That tortured each fiber of heart and brain.
He took up the duties of life again—
And faithfully filled his appointed place ;
But the weary look on his thin white face
Was an earnest that life had lost its grace.
And he wrought, thro' the days that went and came,
Like one regardless of praise or blame ;
Like one who had suddenly lost life's aim.
He had learned to suffer and make no moan.
Whilst love and hope on his pathway shone.
Now love had perished and hope had flown !
But brave to the last to endure and bear.
As he was at first to achieve and dare.
Sorrow might conquer, but never despair.
At length, to his desolate heart and ken
The world was too lonely—they missed him then
From the paths of life, from the homes of men.
He had fought life's battle as few men can—
From the rearmost ranks he had reached the van ;
Write where he sleepeth, "An honest man."
IF WE COULD KNOW-
IF we could know at twenty-five,
What we shall know if we survive
To three score ten,
But few would care to toil and strive
From thence till then.
If we could see, by magic light,
The land that lies to left and right
Along our way,
Begloomed by many a starless night
And stormy day—
Could see the lions we must meet ;
The thorns that wait to wound our feet.
In sheen and shade.
The siren lures that charm to cheat—
The trust betrayed ;
If we could realize the strain.
The anxious care, the efforts vain.
The bitter tears.
The disappointment and the pain
Of coming years,
(99)
ÍF IVE COULD KmiV-
Ambition would not prompt to climb
The rugged mountain heights sublime
And lead the van
From lowly parallels of time,
Where life began.
Young Hope would douse his torch and cry,
' The mountain is too far, too high—
Too small the gain—
It were not worth the toil to try,
Perchance, in vain."
Gay Pleasure, crowned with poppy-flowers,
Would lead her friends to summer bowers.
And whisper, "Sooth,
We should enjoy the halcyon hours
Of fleeting youth."
Poor Sloth would fold his hands, and say,
' I am for rest, let toil who may
As years go by-
Let's eat, and drink, and sleep to-day-
To-morrow die."
So, it is well, we can not read
The page, in which our lot decreed,
Is sealed away—
Yet God will help us, in our need,
From day to day.
If we could trust Him and believe
All things are best that we receive
From His dear hand,
We might work bravely and achieve
What He has planned.
IF WE COULD KNOWr
loi
If we, thro' faith, could put aside
Our self-sufficiency and pride
To gain our quest.
Though good, in seeming, were denied.
We might find rest.
For, whispering to the soul and sense,
A voice inaudible, intense.
Forever thrills,
" There is reward of recompense
For earthly ills."
And, looking back thro' evening haze.
Upon the scenes of bygone days—
The path we trod—
For guidance thro' life's wildering maze
We should thank God.
SHE WENT TO DIE.*
nEATHEN women have died to prove
Their love and loss, by the dire sutee,
But never a martyr to wifely love
As calmly went to her death as she
Who was slain, to-day, by a husband's hand.
In the broad, fair light of a Christian land.
All night she laid with her baby pressed
To her aching heart, and, one by one,
Counted the hours, that brought no rest.
Till the tardy rise of the winter sun.
And ever anon, as the night went by.
She whispered, " To-morrow, I must die !"
She dressed her baby with tender care,
Laid it, asleep, in its cradle-bed.
Kissed dimpled feet and silken hair.
And, " O my baby ! " she sobbing said,
"How can I leave you, darling, alone?
Who will care for you, when I am gone? "
*Froia the newspaper account of the late " St. Louis Tragedy"
Mrs. Parker had consented, at the request of her husband, to die
by his hand on the next day when he should be brought into
court to he put on trial for murder. She kept her word,
(102)
SHE WENT TO DIE.
She turned and opened the chamber-door—
Alas, poor heart, for the bitter pain !
Love's yearning cry to look, once more.
On tlie face she should never see again ;
But she only murmured, " Baby, good-bye!
it is hard to leave you, but 1 must die."
Then, wiping the tears from her troubled face,
Grief worn and wan, though her years were few
She went her way from the dwelling place.
To keep her promise faithful and true ;
The promise she made at the prisoner's cell—
"Was it right or wrong? Nay, she could not tell."
It was all for him, who wooed and won
The priceless love of her maiden heart.
And vowed to shield her in storm and sun.
And cherish till death should life depart ;
Her pledge to him she could not gainsay—
And hard as it was she must die to-day !
With strangely misguided love and faith.
She calmly took her appointed seat.
And patiently waited the stroke of death—
If her young heart throbbed with quicker beat.
No visible movement of lip or eye
Gave token that she was waiting to die.
Her courage, devotion and strength of will,
By better knowledge informed, refined.
Had kept her among the living still
And made her a blessing to her kind.
God pity the people that sit in night
And say to the darkness, " Let there be light."
SWITZERLAND.
Thanks, dear lady, warm and true,
For this most unique bijou ;
Pranked by flowers that will not fade.
And dainty telescope inlaid,
That, not vainly, aims to show
A rocky gorge with ice and snow ;
Lovely in its quaint design—
Lovelier as the seal and sign
That a friendly thought of me
Stirred your heart beyond the sea.
As I hold it in my hand
All the Switzer's wonder-land
Lies before me, in the gleam
Of a well remembered dream.
I can hear the blue Rhone sing
With a sweet, low murmuring ;
As she lifts her dimpled face
From Lake Leman's long embrace,
And goes, flowing far and free.
To her bridal with the sea.
I can see Alps rank on rank,
Outpost guards of old Mont Blanc.
As the summer sunset's glow
Decorates their crowns of snow
And the Mer de Glace below,
(104)
SWITZERLAm.
Can see Mont Rosa, star bedight,
Like a priestess robed in white
In the solemn hush of night,
While the moonlight cold and pale
Drapes the Jung Frau with a veil.
I can hear the swift winds call '
From the Jura's granite wall
To the Staubach's waterfall.
Can hear the bright waves laugh and leap
'Round old Chillon's dungeon keep—
Waving as they rise and fall
Lichen banners on the wall.
As if glad those hoary stones
Hear no more a prisoner's moans.
I can see the fine chateau—
As 1 saw it long ago—
Where, exiled from home and kin.
For no cause of crime or sin.
Dwelt the author of " Corinne,"
Can see the towers of " Ferney " where
Abode the infidel Voltaire,
With such gifts as few could claim
He achieved a world-wide fame ;
But he left a path behind,
Rife with pitfalls for the blind
And dangerous for all mankind.
Fair and bright the pathways seem
In my waking daylight dream,
'Round the mountains high and hoar,
Dear familiar paths of yore
That my feet shall thread no more.
SIVITZERLÂND.
As I lay this gift of thine
In my precious treasure shrine
Fancy's wand dissolves the spell
And the lovely land of Tell
Fades away in empty air
Like a mirage wondrous fair.
With a joy akin to pain,
I have followed back life's chain
And lived a happy little while
Through fond memories that beguile
With the loved ones who are gone
From the shadows to the dawn.
INDIANA.
Though many laud Italia's clime,
And call Helvetia's land sublime,
Tell Gallia's praise in prose and rhyme.
And worship old Hispania ;
The winds of Heaven never fanned.
The circling sunlight never spanned
The borders of a better land
Than our own Indiana.
Encrowned with forests grand and old,
Enthroned on mineral wealth untold.
Coining her soil to yellow gold.
Through labor's great arcana.
She fosters commerce, science, art,
With willing hands and generous heart.
And sends to many a foreign mart.
Riches of Indiana.
Where late the birchen wigwam stood.
Or Indian braves their game pursued.
And Indian maids were won and wooed.
By light of soft Diana,
Fair cities as by magic rise.
With church towers pointing to the skies
And schools that charm the world's wide eyes.
To fair young Indiana.
(107)
INDUNÂ.
And where some fifty years ago
The settler's wagon lumbered slow
Through mud, and mire, and frozen snow.
O'er hillside and savannah.
The engine, with his fiery eyes.
Like some mad demon pants and flies,
Startling the echoes with his cries
Throughout all Indiana.
Not to old realms, with palace piles
And crownéd kings—nor sea-girt isles,
Wherein perpetual summer smiles
On bread-fruit and banana.
Could we in word or thought compare.
The free domain, the balmy air.
The silver streams and valleys fair.
Of genial Indiana.
With kindly word and friendly hand
She welcomes sons of every land,
From Hammerfest to Samarcand,
From India to Britannia;
And many a toiler, sore opprest
In olden lands, has found his quest—
A happy homestead—on the breast
Of fruitful Indiana.
Her gentle mothers, pure and good,
In stately homes or cabins rude.
Are types of noble womanhood ;
Her girls are sweet and cannie ;
Her sons, among the bravest, brave,
Call no man master, no man slave—
Holding the heritage God gave
In fee to Indiana.
imiÂNA.
But even while our hearts rejoice
In the dear home-land of our choice,
We should, with one united voice,
Give thanks, and sing Hosanna
To Him whose love and bounteous grace
Gave to the people of our race
A freehold, an abiding place,
In glorious Indiana.
LEGEND OF CHATEAU CHENE.
The Lady Loline was wond'rous fair,
With a golden gleam in her rippling hair,
And eyes of the deepest, darkest blue
That ever a beautiful soul shone through.
And the sweetest mouth
The wind from the south
Ever kissed to a dainty rose-leaf hue.
And she had a lover true and brave,
But lowly of birth and therefore banned
And sent, men said, to an early grave
In a foreign land.
Living or dead, he was out of the way
Of the long pursuit of the Baron Bray
For the lady's hand.
The Baron was bent, wrinkled and gray—
The Baron was querulous, crabbed and old,
But the Baron was rich—broad lands had he
From his castle gate clear down to the sea;
Had hounds, and horses, and hoards of gold,
And, at last, the lady's consent is given
To wed the Baron to-night at seven.
The day had died in a drizzling rain,
And the purple glooms of twilight fall—
(no)
LEGEND OF CHATEAU CHENE. m
It will soon be dark in the grand old park,
And down by the moat and rampart wall,
But radiant light
Will stream to-night
From every casement of Chateau Chene.
The bride is arrayed in silken sheen.
With snowy buds and flowers between
The cloud-like folds of her costly lace.
With diamonds rare
In her gold-bronze hair ;
Y et the eye could trace
A fitful shadow of anxious care
On her gentle face.
The clock in the turret-tower strikes eight—
But where is the groom
That he does not come ?
The guests and the minstrels wondering wait.
And the wind cries wild,
Like a homeless child.
In the shivering elms of the castle gate.
The yule fire burns with a ruddy glow,
And the minstrel plays as the hours go by.
But the garlands fade and the guests speak low.
As if afraid of impending woe.
The bride looks out from her lattice pane,
But she only hears the soughing rain,
And the sobbing wind in the turrets high.
The clock tolls twelve in the ancient tower.
And the night wind shrieks in eldritch glee ;
112 LEGEND OF CHATEAU CHENE.
The lights grow dim in hall and bower,
And fair cheeks pale, for ghosts have power
In this weird hour
To walk the green earth free.
Hark ! " Comes the bridegroom ? " Nay, not he.
As a mail-clad form with a raven plume
Comes slowly out of the nightly gloom ;
He makes no pause, he speaks no word,
Scarcely the fall of his tread is heard ;
But the pale lights flare
In the sulphurous air
As he threads his way and mounts the stair
To the bride's own room.
There was a pause in the wind and rain,
But the chateau shook, and tremors ran
From dungeon keep to bartizan.
The guests and the minstrels held their breath.
As if they had looked on the face of death,
And fled away in pale affright
Into the dark and dismal night
From the horror-haunted Chateau Chene.
The morning sunshine softly stole
Over the scene of last night's dole.
Burnished the board where the feast was spread ;
Kissed the garlands pale and dead,
And trembled into the purple gloom
That hung its folds in my lady's room.
But the lovely bride in silken sheen
Was not where they crowned her yestere'en.
They sought her east and they sought her west,
Afar and near, by land and sea ;
LEGEND OF CHATEAU CHENE.
But all in vain was their anxious quest :
Where could the lady be?
When and how had she met her doom ?
And the phantom knight with the raven plume,
From whence, and what was he?
The wonder died, but the story ran
That the Seneschal, an aged man.
Avowed he had seen the phantom knight
Bearing away the fair young bride
In her robes of white.
Over the moat and through the park.
On a coal black steed, in the storm and dark,
As never a mortal man could ride.
A WINTER DAY
From Arctic land and Arctic sea
The wind, as in demoniac glee,
Comes shouting, shrieking, far and free.
In furious chase ;
The hills, arrayed in coats-of-mail.
Look grandly on the lowly dale
Where snow has spread a thin, white veil
On earth's dead face.
The sycamores stand white and bare,
Like giant specters in the air,
Lifting their arms as if to dare
The frost-god's power—
The beeches, shorn of crest and crown,
In ragged mantles russet brown,
Trailing their wind-swept tatters down
Like slaves that cower.
The willow-clumps, with dainty grace,
Holding the snow in their embrace,
Seem dressed in folds of costly lace
With pearls thereon ;
The lichen sprays and tufts of moss
Are woven 'round, about, across
With shining threads, as silken floss.
By fairies spun.
(114)
A IVINTER DAY.
"5
The summer rills, that sung all day,
Like children, in their frolic play.
Are bound with icy chains away
Beneath dead leaves.
No fleecy sheep nor spotted cow
Feeds on the frozen meadow now ;
No sweet bird sings on branch or bough.
Or 'round the eaves.
But still, the fierce, North wind goes by,
Wailing along the dismal sky—
Or chanting, in the tree-tops high,
A dreary rune.
Till 'neath the clouds, like ramparts gray,
Around the western gates of day,
The sun goes down and leaves no ray
Of star or moon.
AN INDIAN LEGEND OF AN INDIANA
WATERFALL.
IN the buried years of long ago,
When this fair land was the Red man's home,
And he was as free to come and go
As the light that shines, or the winds that blow,
Wherever he wished to roam,
A notable chief, called Komokee,
Dwelt with his tribe, in a bark tepee.
Below the hills, in the vale you see.
Where the river seems like a silver band.
Girt with a border of milk-white sand.
This chief had a daughter fair of face,
And lithe of form as a fabled grace—
With raven hair, and eyes of light,
That made the dreariest wigwam bright.
And lips that summer suns had kissed
To the richest hue of the amethyst;
A beautiful creature glad and wild.
Was Coochee, the chieftain's only child.
And, for love of her, the proudest brave,
That followed the fortunes bf her sire.
And made harangues at the council fire,
Had been for many a moon her slave.
He dressed and tinted the finest skins
To fashion her dainty moccasins.
For her he rifled the forest bowers
Of the richest fruits, the fairest flowers,
(ii6)
AN INDIAN LEGEND.
But alas ! his love was all in vain,
For the maiden's cheek grew ashen pale
And her heart stood still with sudden pain
When he whispered the tender tale.
But the Eagle's love was fierce and strong,
And he fondly dreamed it would not be long,
Till Coochee, the cooing wildwood dove.
Would give him a measure of love for love.
Aud so he waited as best he might,
Allured by hope's deceitful light,
Till faring along his homeward way.
Bearing a scalp he had won that day
From a hostile tribe in a border fray.
He heard in the gloom of yonder dell
The tones of a voice he knew full well.
He paused—again that silvery tone !
It was Coochee's voice—was she there alone?
Nay, nay, he saw in the moon's full glow
The painted face of his deadly foe,
With the beautiful maiden fondly pressed
By a brawny arm, to his broad, brown breast.
Like a statue carved in marble stone.
With lips compressed that breathed no tone.
He stood and gazed till his eyes grew dim.
On his one fair love, now dead to him !
Then murmured low, as in reply
To his tortured soul, " The Wolf shall die ! "
And a poisoned pointed arrow flew
Through the purple gloom—its aim was true.
The maiden saw her beloved fall.
Heard one long death gasp—that was all !
Tossing her arms in the startled air.
She shrieked and fled, in her wild affright,
Into the heart of the pitiless night,
AN INDIAN LEGEND.
All alone, with her soul's despair !
On, on, and away through gloom and gleam ;
By yawning gorge and brawling stream.
Through brush and brier and bramble thrall.
She sped to the brink of the waterfall ;
There, wavered a moment to and fro.
Then lept to the seething pool below.
The black bats flew with a frightening cry
From their gloomy eaves as the form swept by—
The waves made a music low and deep.
Lulling the maid in their arms asleep.
Asleep, but never again to dream
Of star or flower, of hill or stream—
Gone to the beautiful hunting ground,
Where the dead are alive, the lost are found.
The moon went down and the morning breeze
Told the tale to the ancient trees—
The wild birds chanted their matin hymn
Tenderly over the cascade's rim.
And the weeping leaves on hill and dell
Murmured together a long farewell !
They made her a grave on yonder hill,
Where the wild flowers bloom, the wild birds trill ;
On a certain night, when the wind is still
And the moon hangs low in the midnight sky.
The watcher may see her floating by—
A shadowy form with a pale, mute face
From the dell below—love's trysting place—
Like a cold, white mist o'er the circling wall
To the dizzy verge of the waterfall ;
She seems to waver a moment there,
Then fades away into empty air.
WHEN LIFE IS NOT WORTH LIVING.
ÍF ever you moved from a country place
To the city in wintry weather,
You will never forget that day of grace
When, with goods and chattels together,
You followed the wake of the moving van,
And a storm wind followed after,
Shrieking, as only old Boreas can,
With bursts of demoniac laughter.
And when you arrived, it is safe to say.
Half frozen to death as you flitted.
The rooms were as cold as the great highway
And never a stove-pipe fitted.
Arranging your heaters, as best you could.
With the help of a handy tinner,
You thawed a bite of your frozen food,
For, alas ! you had had no dinner.
Then opened your boxes and sought in vain
For the kettles and pans you wanted.
While the wind, without, and the sobbing rain,
In a dolorous measure chanted.
You resolved to be to your fate resigned.
But discovered, by many a token.
That the things you needed were left behind
And the best of the others were broken.
IVHEN LIFE IS NOT IVORTH LIVING.
The furniture brought from your country home
Seemed poverty-stricken and shabby—
Never a carpet befitted a room,
And your curtains looked faded and flabby,
Every ottoman, table and chair
Had lost, in transition, its graces ;
Your pictures looked down with a horrid glare,
When you hung them up in new places.
Your poor antiques, on their new-found shelves—
Where the sunshine ranges and rifles—
Seemed, all forlorn, as ashamed of themselves.
For being such meaningless trifles.
Your dear, old books were disordered and stark,
When they came from the storm's embraces.
As if they had sailed in the deluge ark.
With the stains of the flood on their faces.
Perchance, you had threaded the path of time.
By many a doubtful, devious turning.
Through storm and sunshine, wreck and grime,
By the taper of Hope dimly burning—
But, there, in the midst of disorder rife.
Beset and oppressed with misgiving.
You pondered and settled the question, that life
Was not, for the nonce, worth living.
TO THE ARVE, AT ITS JUNCTION WITH
THE RHONE.
WHERE a glacier weeps forever, like the fabled Niobe,
At the feet of monarch mountains in the vale of
Chamouni,
Thou wert born, O rapid river ! nursed by torrents wild
and strong.
And the thunder of the avalanche was thy first cradle-
song.
Through a fair and fertile valley, with its purple-laden
vines,
Terraced gardens, groves of linden, Druid oaks and an¬
cient pines,
Where the summer sunshine golden crowns the Bas Alps
far above ;
Where the butterflies and breezes woo the rhododendron's
love ;
Where the Ranz des Vaches comes ringing down from
many a green plateau,
While the vesper bells are chiming in the quiet vales be¬
low;
By lordly parks and palaces, by homesteads quaint and
low,
Where the peasants live as peasants lived five hundred
years ago ;
(I2l)
122 TO THE ARVE.
Thou hast wandered on for ages, like a pilgrim cowled
and gray—
Like a pilgrim sometimes kneeling on the shining sands
to pray,
Heedless of the bloom and beauty, of the shadow or the
shine.
Counting beads and Ave Maria's on his way to Palestine.
Thou hast hoarded in thy bosom many a rare and radiant
gem
That adorned Mount Bernard's girdle, or Argentier's dia¬
dem ;
Thou hast stolen perfumed dew-drops from the fairest
Alpine flowers.
And filled thy curious scallop-shell from brightest summer
showers.
At thy feet the merry cascades fondly fold their snowy
wings.
And thee worship with libations from a thousand spark¬
ling springs ;
Summer sunshine gaily binds thee with its wealth of
golden bars ;
Purple twilights clasp and crown thee with a coronal of
stars.
Yet thy spirit is as restless, and thy brow as dark and cold,
As if thy life were weary with a trouble never told ;
And the murmur of thy voices is like a wail of woe.
Or a miserere chanted in some hopeless world below.
By lordly parks and palaces, by mountains weird and grand.
By ruins where the barons lived who whilom ruled the
land,
TO THE ARVE.
123
By peasant's hut and hovel, by hamlets quaint and gray,
To the city of Geneva thou hast made thy winding way.
Where that queen of old Helvetia from her ancient hill
looks down,
With the church of sainted Peter wearing still its triple
crown,
We have learned, O Arve, thy secret, learned the meaning
of thy moan—
For tlie lady of thy worship is the graceful, blue-eyed
Rhone.
Never, surely, came a lover in such strange disguise be¬
fore ;
Never ancient Minnesinger, palmer knight nor trouba¬
dour.
Offered life and love's devotion at so beautiful a shrine.
With a brow so dark and solemn and a voice so sad as
thine.
But she scorns thy first advances, and, with most disdain¬
ful pride.
Strives to keep her robes unsullied by the darkness of thy
tide ;
Turns offended from thy presence, spurns thee, shudders
and recoils ;
Flies, and flings her white arms wildly to unloose them
from thy toils.
Then ye journey on together, sad and silent, side by side ;
But despair not, bold knight-errant, thou shalt win her for
thy bride ;
For a love so true is potent, in its passion and its power.
To compel love's sweet responses in some gay, unguarded
hour.
124
TO THE ARVE.
Ah, now she turns coquettishly to thee her sunny face,
And all her radiant loveliness is lost in thine embrace ;
And forever ye are wedded, wheresoe'er your path may be.
Through the shadow and the sunshine in your journey to
the sea.
WHAT WE DO NOT KNOW
WE boast of our knowledge, our science, the lore we are
wooing and winning.
Of the light we have cast on the darkness that shrouded
the world's far beginning.
We have probed the old earth and deciphered the hiero-
glyphical pages.
Where the finger of nature has graven the footprints of
numberless ages.
We have sounded the seas to their center and counted the
stars on their courses,
Have measured the speed of the tempest and reckoned the
sum of its forces,
Have fettered the wing of the lightning, controlling its
might and its motion.
And taught it to go, at our bidding, and serve us in earth,
air and ocean.
We have noted the comet's appearing, and recorded its
time of returning.
But know not what nebulous fuel contributes the light of
its burning.
Nay, back of all these and their substance, and back of
their movements and shining
A secret lies hid that forever illudes our research and di¬
vining.
(125)
126 IVHÀT WE DO NOT KNOW-
From their mold-covered realm and its darkness, where
brown roots are living and growing,
And pulsing, like sentient beings, with life fluids ebbing
and flowing.
The young shoot comes forth to the sunshine, as knowing
its time and its season.
But the mode of its life-giving forces surpasses the reach
of our reason ;
We see the green leaves, bud and blossom, as ordered, in
nature's completeness.
But know not the laws of their being, the source of their
beauty and sweetness.
And we, in the state we call living, adrift on the tide of
the ages.
Know not what we are, nor what changes await us, in
life's future stages.
Know not whence we came into being, nor whither our
footsteps are tending,
Forecast not the length of our journey nor the where, nor
the when of its ending.
But trusting to Him who appointed their life to the lilies
and daisies—
Whose wisdom allotted our pathway, we can walk, by
His light, thro' its mazes.
And hope, in the infinite fullness of life that endureth for¬
ever,
To solve the mysterious problems that illuded our human
endeavor.
GOOD-BYE, OLD JULA.
^OOD-BYE, old Jula—thou art gone
VJ From burn and brake, from lane and lawn,
Beyond the dusk, beyond the dawn—
Old patient plodder.
No more to browse around the hill,
Or crop the grass along the rill.
Or come, at call, with right good will.
To corn and fodder.
Art gone from draught and heavy load ;
From dusty pike and miry road—
From threatening word and stinging goad
To urge thee faster—
From summer's heat and winter's rain ;
From harness-band and halter-chain ;
From thirst and hunger, ache and pain.
And all disaster.
No more the children, all elate.
Shall pat and praise thee, at the gate.
Where thou wert wont to stand and wait.
With gentle bearing.
Till every merry household pet.
In wrap and hood, was duly set
Behind thee in the wagonette.
To take an airing.
(127)
GOOD-BYE, OLD JULA.
We miss thee when at daylight's close
The stock comes home for night's repose
Pet, Kate and Molly, Lill and Rose,
And ruby Cherry.
We miss thee, in thine empty stall.
Where curious shapes and shadows fall
From roof and mow, on floor and wall.
So cold and dreary.
In sooth, thou wert a goodly steed—
Not famous for thy blood and breed,
Nor celebrated for thy speed.
Nor for thy beauty ;
An honest, uncomplaining slave.
That meekly took whate'er we gave ;
Strong, self-reliant, true and brave
To do thy duty.
No human knowledge can deny
Thy right to immortality
In undiscovered worlds, that lie
Beyond our vision.
And so, good-bye ; some brighter day.
Perchance, we '11 meet thee—who can say
In some fair country far away—
Some Field Elysian.
A STORMY DAY
nNOTHER dreary, dismal day,
In cloak and cowl of hodden gray,
Is making marches on our way—
Would it were gone ;
It looks as if it came to stay
Till doomsday dawn.
Out where its tattered fringes fall.
Along the dim horizon's wall.
The winds each other seem to call,
And, lo ! they come.
Like furies holding carnival
With shout and drum.
Meanwhile, the driving rain and sleet.
Keep time with tinkling bound and beat,
As of a myriad fairy feet.
Adorned with bells.
Dancing a measure wild and fleet,
O'er hills and dells.
The stream—a rivulet before—
Sweeps onward, with a deafening roar,
Gathering its tribute from the shore
With greedy hands.
Till, every barrier leaping o'er,
It floods the lands.
9 (129)
A STORMY DAY,
No voice of insect, beast or bird
In meadowland or grange is heard—
No sound of wain or teamster's word,
Along the way—
It is as if all life deferred
To this wild day.
Grim clouds in ragged rack and fold
Trail slowly over wood and wold ;
Stanch beeches shiver with the cold ;
Draped cedars sigh—
The world looks wrinkled, haggard, old
And fit to die.
Within, we gather 'round the fire.
And pile the blazing faggots higher.
Right glad that all our needs require.
We have in store ;
While wind and rain, with menace dire,
Besiege the door.
Thus housed, our thoughts go far and free
To hapless sailors on the sea,
And we devoutly pray that He,
Whose word and will
Calmed wind and wave on Galilee,
Will succor still ;
That those whose dangerous lot is cast
On icy spar and tottering mast.
Where billows rise like mountains vast,
And mad winds rave.
May prove when other hope is past
God's power to save.
VETERANS OF MEXICO.
TOU meet again—but not as once you met,
When life was new and young ambition strong,
When noble aims on lofty heights were set.
And far above life's turmoil and its fret
You heard hope's syren song.
Y ou meet to-day to follow back the past.
By memory's record, to an age sublime.
In thrilling scenes, in interests vital, vast.
Heroic actions, and results that cast
A glory on all time.
You meet, survivors of the gallant bands
That bore our banners forty years ago.
Apart from faction's feuds and creed's demands—
The east and west, and north and south strike hands
As when you met the foe.
As when you saw the " Lone Star " in the sky
Mutely appealing from tyrannic might,
And heard a kindred people's pleading cry
On every southern wind that flitted by.
For help against unright.
As when the call "To Arms ! " sent its refrain
To every home—on valley, hill and glen—
And rallied from the forum, plough and plane,
From factory, college hall, and sacred fane,
The bravest of brave men.
(131)
132
VETERAI^S OF MEXICO.
You volunteered to meet that clarion call,
Knowing our quarrel had sufficient cause,
Since Mexico had robbed us—held in thrall
Our free-born citizens—and so, withal,
Defied our arms and laws.
You pledged your time, your talents, strength and life,
Nor stopped nor stayed to count the loss or gain ;
Left father, mother, sister, children, wife.
Ease for discomfort, peace for peril, strife.
On the red battle plain.
Ah, well do you remember that sad day.
When, with your weapons, knapsacks and canteens.
You bid home, friends, farewell, and marched away.
Followed by all the prayers white lips could say—
By all that sorrow means.
You followed Taylor—be his name revered.
Who " never deigned surrender " to the foe—
By ways unknown, thro' scenery wild and weird.
Beset with dangers dire that no man feared.
That no man could forego.
You learned the meaning of self-sacrifice.
In rude encampments, in the pelting rain.
On weary marches 'neath those tropic skies—
You saw it in your dying comrade's eyes.
Pining for home, in vain.
You learned the lore of patience—learned to bear
Hunger and thirst, fatigue and gnawing pain ;
To throw the gauntlet down to dumb despair—
To hold a truce with weariness and wear
Of aching heart and brain.
VETERAhlS OF MEXICO.
133
But self forgot its own, where shot and shell
Shrieked thro' the loud-mouthed cannon's fiery breath,
And where dear friends and comrades fighting fell.
In the red melee of the battle's hell.
It knew no fear of death.
The proud Hidalgo dwelt at set of sun.
In seeming safety, in his halls and towers.
You came, and ere that spring-time day was done
A gallant battle and a victory won
Made Palo Alto ours.
Resaca de la Palma fell beneath
Your rain of fire, and hauled her ensign down,
And Matamoros conquered, held her breath
When ball and bomb unbarred her gates to death.
Despite her old renown.
Leaving the vanquished in their sore dismay.
You journeyed northward, making little pause,
Till time evolved that memorable day.
When victory crowned your arms, at Monte Rey,
With glory and applause.
Meanwhile, brave Fremont, on his peaceful way,
Meeting resistance from the dastard foe.
Collected, armed a force, without delay.
Conquered Sonoma ; one auspicious day
Routed and spoiled Castro.
When, with his force and Stockton's Naval Band,
He took Los Angeles, and won such fame
By the achievements that his genius planned.
That, in mere justice, California's land
Should bear his honored name.
134
VETERANS OF MEXICO.
You did not tarry where great deeds were done ;
On ! was the watchword—on, thro' stress and strain-
Thro' weariness and peril, storm and sun,
To meet the foe in battle, fought and won.
On Buena Vista's plain.
And one was there whom you would greet with cheers
Of warmest welcome, as in " auld lang syne ; "
But to the hero, crowned in higher spheres
We can but give the tribute of our tears
On Memor's holy shrine.
No worthier name is writ on glory's scroll
With the immortals, in Valhalla's fane—■
No warmer, truer heart, or nobler soul
Has gone to life's reward from death and dole
Than thine, O brave Joe Lane.
Thence to the famous strongholds by the sea
Your little army took its conquering way ;
Outnumbered by the foemen, three times three.
But you were children of the brave and free
That always won the day.
Proud Vera Cruz, defiant when you came.
Yet sat in sackcloth in her marble halls.
When strong San Juan d' Ulloa bowed in shame
Amidst the shot and shell, the fire and flame
That scathed her fortress walls.
The foeman from his "dream of peace" awoke
At Cerro Gordo, found you at his gate.
And summoned all his bands, but, in the smoke
And fire of battle, passed beneath the yoke.
Submitting to his fate.
VETERAm OF MEXICO.
You took Perote—Bastile of olden time—
Where human anguish vexed the sobbing sea,
And from its dungeons fetid, foul with grime.
And rife with suffering, cruelty and crime,
You set the prisoners free.
Then in old Puebla's wall you took your stand :
No arm was raised your entrance to dispute ;
Its eighty thousand knew your little band
Was able to compel, maintain, command,
And every tongue was mute.
But still the Capital before you lay.
In pride of wealth and power serene, supine,
Guarded by San Antonio, grim and gray.
And Churubusco's heights and proud array
Of grinning guns in line.
But San Antonio fell from her estate
Before your guns, mute, as the conquered falls ;
Naught could the sword of Destiny rebate.
Your batteries were the oracles of Fate
To her embattled walls.
And on that day you met the foe again.
Where Churubusco was compelled to yield ;
But when the earth was red with battle stain
Chief Santa Anna left the field amain ;
Alas ! not on his shield.
♦
Molino claimed our Scott's attention, then.
And there he set the battle in array-
Beat with four thousand, fourteen thousand men.
Not one to three—had it been ten to one
He still had gained the day.
136
VETERANS OF MEXICO.
Fortress Chapultepec, that strongest hold,
Gave to your little band a welcome warm
Of desperate battle, then the tale was told
That should be written out in lines of gold,
You took the fort by storm.
But Sibyl's tongue, nor poet's song could tell
Your joy, triumphant, gallant sons of Mars,
When Mexico's proud city conquered fell,
And victory planted on her citadel,
Columbia's stripes and stars.
The world beheld your victory, and applause
Sent its refrain from lands beyond the sea ;
Our country said ; " God helps a righteous cause."
But older countries wondered how it was
You gained the victory.
Your glorious triumph was our country's gain.
By leagues of territory rich and grand.
By every silver lode and golden vein
That slumbers in the heart of hill and plain
Of California's land ;
By miles of Arizona broad and fair,
With mines of treasure in her bosom's fold.
With rivers, mountains, plains, salubrious air.
And soil that will repay the tiller's care
With gifts of yellow gold ;
By fair New Mexico, that even vies
With olden Eden, in its fruits and flowers,
Its odorous winds and opalescent skies.
In sooth, your valor won a royal prize
For this broad land of ours.
VETERAm OF MEXICO.
But thousands left, as you, the old home door
To serve our country In that far-off land.
Endured privation, pain, and peril sore.
And battled bravely, but returned no more
To the dear household band.
They fell asleep, and He who knoweth best—
Who kept you safely in the fiery fray—
Knew every gallant man that found life's quest.
And He will keep their dust in perfect rest
Until the Judgment Day.
*******
When war was done you laid your weapons down.
Or fashioned ploughshares of the idle sword.
The world has set its seal to your renown.
But for the gems you placed in Freedom's crown
She gives you small reward.
Does she ignore your services, or hold
The debt she owes you canceled by delay ?
Owes you for suffering, sacrifice untold ;
Owes you for benefits received, that gold
Can never all repay?
There will not be, a few more years to come,
A man to say, " I fought in Mexico ; "
The ears will all be deaf, the white lips dumb.
The limbs at rest that followed fife and drum
Some forty years ago.
Many survivors of the war are dead—
Crippled, impoverished, ill, they made no moan ;
Beyond the human need of daily bread
Perchance, our Government will give instead
A monumental stone.
NOTHING NEW
They say no mind evolves a thought
That has not stored some other brain ;
That every flitting fancy caught
Is but the shadow or refrain
Of what some ancient dreamer wrought,
In hours of pleasure or of pain ;
That every story of the heart
The pen has traced, or lip has told.
Hath left its perfect counterpart
Somewhere along the ages old.
Engraven on life's blotted chart
By lovers, done to death and mold.
That all we do, in storm or sun,
That all we feel, in weal or woe,
When gauds are lost, or guerdons won
In fate or fortune's ebb or flow,
By countless men was felt and done.
Unknown, unnumbered years ago.
I doubt not that this world of ours
Is full as aged as it seems ;
Though 'round its birth a shadow lowers,
Through which we catch but feeble beams
Of truth, that only mocks our powers.
Like unrealities in dreams.
(138)
NOTHING NEIV.
Perchance a nobler, better race
Lived, loved and died, when time was young,
Leaving behind no track nor trace—
No word of all they said or sung—
To let us know their time and place,
And something of their mother tongue.
That time the world was all aglow
With belts of fire around its zones ;
Perchance those tribes of long ago
Incinerated all their bones.
To keep their fossil forms from show
When men should read historic stones.
What moral status they attained,
What intellectual culture won ;
What ruler ruled, or monarch reigned ;
What they accomplished or begun ;
From whence they were, how long remained
Upon the earth, is known to none.
Perchance they had the telegraph,
The steam cars and the telephone ;
The grave geologist may laugh-
He knows—but much remains unknown
If primal history is but half
Recorded on primeval stone.
Who knows what was before the flood
That cleansed the earth of sin and stain ?
When righteous Noah, wise and good.
Preached to the wicked crowds in vain,
And did, thro' all, the best he could
To set the world agög again.
NOTHING NEIV-
Maybe the people of that time
Had grown as vain and worldly wise,
As prone to every form of crime,
Of peculation, fraud and lies,
As soul-befouled with moral slime
As we are now, in Heaven's pure eyes.
This being so, 1 come, at last
T0 hold the apothegm as true,
" That everything is but recast
In some old mold, and nothing new."
That men, in countless ages past.
Have thought and acted as we do.
And yet, withal, I must believe
The world is broader now ; that men
Are stronger, abler to achieve
With hand and brain, with plough and pen
That even poesy can weave
Diviner lays than she wove then.
SONG-
(Tune " Star Spangled Banner.")
The old time is dead and the dark days are told,
When the body and soul of the plebeian vassal
Was reckoned a chattel to have and to hold
By the lord with his land and baronial castle.
The thralls, so called, then, scarcely knew they were men;
The broadsword was mightier far than the pen ;
They served as their fathers and cared but to know
That a slave was a slave, and that God made him so.
The world still goes round with its creeds and its crimes,
Y et slowly and surely grows wiser and better,
But might rules to-day, as in old Feudal times,
And poverty still drags the length of its fetter.
The many still toil and the few reap the spoil
That the brown-handed laborer coins from the soil.
But medieval darkness is lost in the dawn.
And the Ark of God's Covenant safely moves on.
Let him who will delve, that the lord of the land
May recline at his ease in his marble-wrought palace,
A rich, costly gem on his dainty-white hand.
As he sips rare, old wine from a jewel-rimmed chalice ;
While weeping and wail tells a pitiful tale
Of the hungry and homeless whose hearts faint and fail,
And the pale mother flies from the life of a slave.
With her babe on her breast to a suicide's grave.
(14O
142
SONG.
Speed on, O evangels, prepared and assigned
To teach as the Christ taught, that aii men are brothers;
To open the eyes of the morally blind.
Who hoard useless wealth that impoverishes others.
For red blood or blue from a stock old or new.
No one is to blame, in the All Father's view—
And, lofty or lowly of station or birth.
All men are akin and co-heirs of the earth.
LELIA.
The boy, her lover, never loved before,
But she—a queenly woman—thirty-three,
Could count her by-gone conquests by the score.
For she was fair to see.
The summer stars looked down from summer skies.
The tawny sea-waves kisßed the yellow beach.
While he sat'gazing in her glorious eyes.
Entranced beyond all speech.
She sighed, " I go to-morrow, and perchance
We shall not meet again 'neath sun or moon,
But I shall not forget our sweet romance
That needs must end so soon."
" Nay, Lelia, call it by a fonder name ;
This foretaste of the joys of paradise—
This benison, that all unbidden came.
Is life's supremest prize.
"Lelia—for me, there is no good, no gain,
Nothing, in all the earth, nor heaven above.
But disappointment, ruin, wreck and pain.
Without your precious love.
"O Lelia, darling, by love's right divine—
By all that makes or mars a human life,
I do beseech you for some word or sign
That you will be my wife."
(143)
LELIA.
She raised the silken curtains of her eyes,
But turned her conscious face toward the sea,
And said in accents of well-feigned surprise,
"Nay, that can never be.
' Have you not heard what busy gossip said?
I should have told you, but I did suppose
You knew. I am aifianced soon to wed
His Grace of Burgenrose."
'And do you love this man to whom you give
The precious treasure I would die to win?
Look you for happiness? Will Gpd forgive
This more than mortal sin ? "
' Love him ? Ah, no, his Grace is old and gray ;
His Grace is gouty, crochety and cold—
It will be bleak December joined to May
With chains of glittering gold.
Why do you smile, dear Arton ? Is it strange.
That I should give my empty heart and hand
To my decrepit lover, in exchange
For title—castle—land ? "
Lelia, you knew I loved—nay worshiped you,
As man may worship some pure saint in heaven.
While yet, your troth—O say it is not true—
To this old man was given.
If one so good, in seeming could deceive
The heart that loved her more than its own life.
Where shall one find the truth ? I will not live
To see you this man's wife."
LEUy4.
145
She answered not, but turned toward the sea,
Where still the tawny waves went singing on ;
And when she murmured—" But if I were free,"
He heard not—he was gone.
"And so," she sighed, "this long, sweet dream is told ;
Heaven knows 1 love him—but I must forget;
Life is not worth the living without gold—
Would we had never met."
******
A hundred bonfires blazed on lawn and lea,
For there was revel on my lord's estate,
And peasants, happy as their hearts could be.
Made merry loud and late.
"Long live the Baron and his lovely bride—"
Shouted gray grown retainers blithe and gay ;
" Long live the Baron," little children cried,
And strewed with flowers the way.
******
But wherefore is that tumult by the sea.?
What are they bearing thence with solemn tread?
It is a human form—ah, can it be
Some reveler is dead ?
Slowly the bearers wind along the lea,
Followed by women weeping and dismayed.
To where the stately bridal companie
Sat in the linden shade.
And there, with pallid lips and faltering speech,
They told the startled listeners all they knew,
" How they had found the dead man on the beach
And wote not what to do."
146
LELIÂ.
Meanwhile, the bride, as moved by some strange spell,
Approached with ghastly face the rustic bier—
Clasped the cold form and cried, " O Arton Fell,
I am thy murderer ! "
They bore her senseless to the castle hall,
And many learnéd doctors strove in vain,
To heal her wasting illness and recall
Lost reason to her brain.
For years she wandered by the sobbing sea
Singing from dawn till dark a piteous stave
And weaving wreaths of sea-weed tenderly
To deck one lonely grave.
A TALE OF CHAMOUNl.
QRANDMA, I have hung up the curtains,
And tacked the new carpet down.
Made fruit cake white as a snow-drift.
Sweet crullers and crumpets brown-
Enough, at least, for the Christmas feast.
When the dear ones come from town.
There's golden cream in the pantry,
And a score of tarts and pies,
And every limb of the Christmas tree
Is hung with a tempting prize ;
I can almost see the joy and glee
In the happy children's eyes.
Now, grandma, tell me a story—
A story, weird and wild.
Of the olden days when you were young,
And mother a little child.
With her voice so low and her face aglow,
So angel-sweet and mild.
"Ah, Bettina, I was dreaming
That I heard the North wind blow
Over my native mountains,
Over the fields of snow,
As I heard it once at the Christmas-tide,
Full many a year ago.
(147)
A TALE OF CHAMOUNL
" There lived in a little chalet,
At the foot of a mountain sheer,
A hale young man and blithesome wife,
Not older than you, my dear.
Ah, that was a notable Christmas-tide ;
That was a notable year.
"Through all the days of November,
Never a shower of snow
Crowned the brow of the lower Alps,
And, down in the vales below,
The grass was as green, in shade and sheen.
As summer grass may grow.
'"Wife,"Heinrich said, one morning.
As cheery and bright as May,
' I promised to hunt the chamois
With Conrad and Carl to-day.
Take precious care of the baby dear,
I shall not be long away."
" He belted his blouse around him,
Took his hunting-horn and gun.
And said : ' We can go to the Jardin
And back, ere the day is done.'
Then bent his head o'er the cradle-bed,
And kissed his little one.
'"Nay, love, his good wife pleaded,
' It is late to hunt, you know.
And all night long I was dreaming
A dream that betokened woe.
Put up your gun and hunting-horn.
And say you will not go.'
A TALE OF CHAMOUNI.
' ' Not go ? The boys are waiting,
And, for shame, I could not say :
My wife has dreamed of trouble.
And I can not go to-day.
Now, give me, dear, a good-luck cheer ;
I shall not be long away.
' ' Take care of my little Minnie.
Adieu,' and he was gone.
The light from her blue eyes faded.
And her face grew gray and wan ;
She knew full well why the shadow fell,
Ere the weary day was gone.
' She waited and watched the mountains,
Waited and watched the sun,
And when the clock, on the mantle-piece
Rung out the hour of one,
The sky and the air were as bright and fair
As when the day begun.
' ' Oh, why, she sighed, ' am I troubled?
Whence cometh this nameless fear?
Is it a token of sorrow—
A warning of danger near?
Nay ; all is bright, and with sunset light
My Heinrich will be here.'
'And then she sung to the baby
That prattled upon her knee,
A quaint, old song, of a sailor
That sailed away to sea;
Sailed far away from his love one day.
And never back came he.
A TALE OF CHAMOUm.
' But before the song was ended,
The wind went shrieking by ;
A shadow fell on the hearthstone,
Fell over the mountains high,
And a cloud went forth from the dreary North
And swept the light from the sky.
* ' The storm ! ' she cried, ' O heaven !
Ah, this is my dream of woe.
It is dark on the brow of the F legere.
Dark in the vale below.
O God ! provide, protect and guide
My Heinrich to-night in the snow.'
' Wilder the wind went wailing,
Deeper the snowdrifts fell,
Heaping the heights and hollows.
Leveling dike and dell ;
When the day was done, or the night begun.
No human soul could tell.
"And when the cold, gray morning
Looked down on the dreary scene.
You could scarcely see a landmark.
Or tell where one had been.
For trackless snow was above and below,
And trackless snow between.
' But what of the brave young hunters.
Who merrily went their way,
By the Mauvais-Pas to the Jardin,
That sunny yesterday?
There was warmth and light in their homes that
night.
But the hunters—where were they ?
A TALE OF CHAMOUNI.
"A wail was heard in the village—
A piteous wail, and then
The hardy sons of the mountains
Went forth from hill and glenn,
With their hunting horns and alpenstocks,
To seek the missing men.
" Up and away by the Boissons,
Over the Mere de Glace,
Down in the dismal gorges.
Wherever a man might pass.
You could hear the beat of their mail-clad feet—-
But they found them not, alas !
"All through the night and the darkness.
With many a torch aflame.
They wound their horns and shouted.
But only the echoes came
From hollow and hill and frozen rill,
Repeating an empty name.
"At length they returned to the village
With slow, uncertain tread.
And the bravest man among them.
In trembling accents said ;
' ' We have done our best. God give them rest—
For surely our friends are dead ! '
sH , * * * * >l<
"The days keep coming and going.
However we joy or grieve.
And sometimes what they take away
Is less than what they leave ;
So twice seven days went on their ways.
And brought the Christmas eve.
A TALÉ OF CHAMOUm.
And Gretchen, alone in her cottage,
Was sorrowing, sad and sore,
For the dear one under the snowdrift.
For the step that came no more.
'Alas,' she sighed, ' no Christmas-tide
Was ever so sad before ! '
Just then she heard in the roadway
The fail of a weii-known tread.
And a voice, that failed and faltered.
Out of the darkness said :
' Gretchen ! Gretchen ! Gretchen ! '
Was it the voice of the dead ?
Nay, nay ; when the house-door opened,
She uttered a joyful cry,
For Heinrich, pallid and ghostly.
Whispered, ' Dear wife, it is I.
In the land of death, God gave me breatli ;
In the grave I did not die.'
■ She drew him in from the darkness,
T0 the hearthstone warm and bright ;
She chafed his cold, blue fingers.
Kissed his brow and lips so white ;
And the happiest three in Chamouni
Were in Heinrich's home that night.
******
' He said : ' 1 had killed a chamois.
And was on my homeward way.
When the swift, black wing of the tempest
Obscured the hght of day ;
I thought of my life, of child and wife,
And, dying, tried to pray.
A TALE OF CHAMOUNI.
" ' I was swept down, down from the glacier—
How far I can never know ;
I found myself in a cavern
Bounded and barred with snow,
And heard the roar, as the storm went o'er,
Like thunder above and below.
" ' Stunned, dizzy and all bewildered.
As one might wake from the dead,
I felt the smart and the throbbing
Of many a wound that bled.
The snow and the air had a lurid glare,
And the rocks seemed burning red.
" 'And then, I lapsed into slumber
That soothed away my pain.
And woke with a sense of hunger
That did not come in vain,
For by my side, securely tied.
Was the chamois I had slain.
" 'And this was food for the hunter—
A precious, priceless store.
I slaked my thirst from the snowdrift,
And needed but little more,
Until, at length, God gave me strength
To open my prison door.'
" Bettina, shall 1 tell you
Who these happy people were ?
In all their joys and sorrows.
Thy grandma had a share.
And, darling, that is Heinrich,
Asleep in his easy chair."
JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.*
nAY, let him sleep on in the storied land,
Where the friends of the friendless laid him ;
Nor disturb with a sacrilegious hand
The peace of the grave they made him.
If never a friend weeps over the dust
Where the silent singer is sleeping,
God's angel of peace, by the holy trust,
Love's vigil is faithfully keeping.
The grasses have woven with tender care
Their mystical robe above him.
And the wild birds carol their matins there,
For the children of nature love him.
There, the starlight comes with its silver feet,—
There, the night-dew weeping lingers.
And the south wind maketh a music sweet
With the touch of its viewless fingers.
*Reineinbering that the greatest English poet pronounced a
curse on him who should disturb his bones, I think the prop¬
osition to remove the remains of the author of "Sweet Home " is
wholly wrong. One grows weary of the prurient generosity that
refuses bread to the living poet and contributes a stone to his
senseless dust.
(154)
JOHh! HOJVARD PAYNE.
155
But the beautiful soul that wandered long,
Still singing of home and its sweetness,
Is chanting a higher and holier song.
Where sweet home" is found, in completeness.
The world well knoweth from whence he came ;
It has conned his sorrowful story.
And lovingly written his deathless name
On the shrine of his country's glory.
Then, let him sleep on, in the storied land,
Where the friends of the friendless laid him ;
Nor disturb, with a sacrilegious hand.
The peace of the grave they made him.
FOUND DEAD.
" pOUND dead, by the roadside, Augustus Hall,
1 With a bottle clasped to his frozen breast ;
He died from drink, where he chanced to fall—"
Ran the coroner's verdict—and this was all,
God only knows the rest.
Where was the soul, once brave and strong,
As he staggered along the broad highway ?
Where was the mentor of right and wrong.
As he babbled a stave of the drinking song,
Heard in a den that day?
"Vive la vie! " as the maudlin swell
Went trembling out on the startled air,
And echo mocked, from the frozen dell,
"La vie—la vie! " he reeled and fell
Where to, he did not care.
The wind, in the leafless tree tops, beat
The onward march of a wintry storm.
But the snow came down with silent feet
And tenderly spread a winding sheet
Over the human form.
(156)
FOUND DEAD.
I
They found him there, when the morning light
Shone over the woodland far and free,
Still and stark, in the shimmering white,
Witli his lips apart as, yesternight.
He sung, la vie!''
This human wreck in his rags and grime,
The lowest and least of his fellow men,—
Had never committed a penal crime—
Was followed and flattered, in manhood's prime,
For eloquent tongue and pen.
He had led the van for truth and right.
But, alas, he fell, where thousands yield ;
Fell, with the goal of his hope in sight,
Fell, in the strength of his mind and might—
And sleeps in Potter's Field.
The terrible sin, may God forefend,
Of the man who never stops to think
He may dig a pit, and shape the end
Of a ruined life, when he asks a friend
To take a social drink.
THE TENEMENT HOUSE.
THREADED my way, through wind and snow
One winter night, to a tenement row.
The place seemed under the ban and blight
Of a ghastly spell, that stormy night.
Unearthly footsteps seemed to fall
In the dismal darkness down the hall.
Unearthly voices, deep and low,
Seemed to whisper a tale of woe
From reeking angle and rotten stair,
As through the foul and fetid air
I groped along to the broken door
Of a certain room—or, rather, den—
Such as some wealthy, prosperous men
Build, and rent to the homeless poor.
The door was ajar, within all dark ;
Never an ember, never a spark
Glowed or glimmered athwart the gloom
That hung, like a pall, in that wretched room.
But I heard the patter of children's feet.
And the sound of voices sad and sweet ;
And one—he was only three years old—
Said, " Tissy, ot makes mamma so told ;
Pease et me ake her ? " the sweet voice plead,—
H is so hungry ; 1 onts some bed—
(158)
THE TENEMENT HOUSE. '' 159
Only ze littlest piece ill do,
And Denny I '11 dive a bite to 00."
"Hush, Johnny, hush," the sister said,
" There is not a single crust of bread.
Do n't wake poor mamma ; she's sick, you know—
So sick and weak that she can not sew.
Do n't you remember how she cried,
When she bade me put the work aside?
And how she kissed us when she said,
'The Father in Heaven will give us bread?'
"All day long, through the snow and sleet,
I 've wandered up and down the street ;
And, Johnny, I held my freezing hand
To crowds of ladies, rich and grand,
But they did not hear me, when 1 said,
' Please give me a penny to buy some bread.'
One beautiful lady turned and smiled.
But she only said, ' Do n't touch me, child."
In their splendid clothes, they all swept by,
And I was so cold—but I did not cry.
O, Johnny, I never begged before ;
But I went to-day from door to door,
Till my very heart grew faint and weal-c.
And I shivered so I could hardly speak.
But when 1 remembered that mamma said,
' The Father in Heaven will give us bread,'
1 quite forgot the shame and the pain.
And went on asking, and asking in vain.
Till I scarce could move my freezing feet.
And when they lighted the lamps in the street,
I came away, through the mud and the mire,
With nothing to eat or to make a fire ;
THE TENEMENT HOUSE.
But as 1 was passing Denny's shop,
Some one called out, ' Stop, Katy, stop ! '
And out came little Sammy Dole,
And filled my basket with wood and coal.
So now we can have a fire, you see.
And, O ! how nice and warm it will be.
And, Johnny, if you '11 be still and good,
I '11 tell you Little Red Riding Hood."
' No, no ; lis hungy," the wee one said,
' Tant 00 dive me a tumb of bed?
Dest a tumb ? I sink oo tould—
And Donny '11 go to seep, and be dood."
' There is not a crumb of bread—don't cry ;
Soon in the morning Sissy will try
To get poor mamma a bit of meat.
And some nice, white bread for Johnny to eat."
By this time the little, cold blue hands
Had heaped together some half-charred brands
And kindled a fire. Oh ! surely the light
Never revealed a sadder sight
Than greeted my eyes that winter night.
Walls damp and broken, a window bare,
A rickety table, a bottomless chair,
A floor discolored by soil and stain ;
Snow driving in through a missing pane ;
Wee, womanly Katy, scarce nine years old.
Pinched and shrunken with hunger and cold ;
Sweet baby Johnny, with dimpled feet,
Sobbing, pleading for something to eat;
A tattered bed, where the eye could trace
A human form, with a thin, white face—
A thin, white face, that had once been fair,
Framed in a tangle of light-brown hair ;
THE TENEMENT HOUSE.
i6i
The sad eyes closed, the lips apart,
The pale hands crossed on a quiet heart.
Softly Katy approached it now.
And pressed a kiss on the marble brow ;
Then; with a smothered cry, she said :
"Johnny, O Johnny!—mamma is dead !
Speak to me, mamma—one word ! " she cried ;
" Oh, speak to Katy !" No voice replied ;
But Johnny crept to the pulseless breast
Where his golden head was wont to rest.
And, nestling close to the icy form.
Said, " 1 tan teep sweet mamma orm."
But the mother, outworn with the struggle and strife.
From the madness and toil of the battle of life.
Had silently gone to that beautiful shore
Where the rich man hath need of his gold nevermore.