r*^^. .V \)0 '^^^'^' .>^^^^ 'V^ ^ 4 O -o**^5\o^ "^.'>^^^-\^^^^ -. .^^'V 'V^ ^ '0^<=,- ■"?>' -1 POEMS THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS AND OTHER POEMS BY S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D., LL.D. jff NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1910 Copyright, 1910, by The Century Co. Published February, iqio THE DE VINNE PRE88 (g'Ci.A256015 •ffn ^cmoriam SARAH BUTIERWISTER CONTENTS PAGE The Comfort of the Hills .... 3 Ode on a Lycian Tomb 18 An Ode of Battles 27 The Song of the Captured Confeder- ate Battle-flags 35 The Pure of Heart 39 Lines Given to M. at Christmas . . 49 To THE Forget-me-nots 51 Prayer 54 The Angels of Prayer 55 Lullaby 56 Friendship 57 Love 58 Innogen . 60 Indian Summer 61 vu CONTENTS PAGE The Sea-gull .... 65 To A Magnolla. Flower 70 Jekyl Island . . . 76 Storm-waves and Fog on Dorr's Point, Bar Harbor 77 The Birthday of Washington . . . .79 Florence 82 Which? S^ Books and the Man 84 To Abraham Jacobi, M.D 92 In Memory of William Henry Drummond 96 PREFACE In the year 1882 I printed the first of six small volumes of verse. The editions of each were limited to two or three hundred copies, with an average sale of about fifty- copies. Having generously given away the rest, I am amused to find that these volumes are now sought for by the col- lector of first editions and are occasionally bringing absurd prices. This present collection is the only one I have not paid for outright and is a ven- ture of my publishers which speaks well for their courage. The three poems at the beginning of this volume lay for many years in my port- folios. "The Comfort of the Hills" is now publicly printed for the first time. PREFACE The two odes have appeared in The Cen- tury Magazine; "On a Lycian Tomb" was first printed in the selection of my poems pubHshed at my expense by Macmillan in London. This volume had a still more brilliant success than its predecessors in America. In all, eighteen copies sold in the first year and, so far as I know, none since. Two years later I was asked to say w^hat was to be done with the remaining volumes. Un- fortunately, the English publishers had placed in them a statement that the book was copyrighted in America. This was true only as to a part of its contents, but it absolutely prevented the exportation to this country. Accordingly, I desired Mr. Macmillan to burn the rest of the vol- umes or to consign them afresh to the paper-mill to serve for reincarnation of the poems in some more fortunate form. I asked also that fifty bound copies be PREFACE sent to America. They were promptly stopped in the New York Custom-House. A book said to be copyrighted in America, printed in England, returned to America, the law forbids to enter. I asked what should be done with them. Might I buy them? I could not. I believe it was finally concluded to cremate them. This history of the freaks of the copyright and the adventures of a book may not be with- out interest. S. Weir Mitchell. December lo, 1909. POEMS THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS Blessed of the Lord be his land, for the chief things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious things of the lasting hills. Here have I wandered oft these many years Far from the world's restraint, my heart at ease, With equal liberty of joy or tears To welcome Nature's generosities, Where these gray summits give the unburdened mind To clearer thought, in freedom unconfined. What made this wide estate of hill and plain So surely mine to-day? Of God, the law That gave to joy the right of ampler reign— 4 THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS For in love's title none may find a flaw, And mine the equities of tribute brought From vassal lands no earthly gold has bought. As flit gray gulls, with silver flash of wings, Leap and are lost the whitecaps of the sea When swoops the norther o'er the deep and sings Mad music in the hemlocks, and for me A litany of joy and hope and praise, Sweet to the man who knows laborious days. The wild hawk here is playmate of my thought. Like him I soar, upon as eager wings. And something of his liberty have caught, The simple pleasure in material things, THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS 5 Unvexed, in thoughtless joy a child to be, The moment's friend of all the eye can see. Kind to the dreamer is this solitude. Fair courtesies of silence wait to know What hopes are flattering a poet mood, Stirred by frail ecstasies that come and go. Like birds that let the quivering leaves prolong The broken music of their passing song. Here may we choose what company shall be ours ; Here bend before one fair divinity To whose dear feet we bring the spirit-flowers, Fragments of song, stray waifs of poetry. The orphans of dead dreams, more sweet than aught Won by decisive days of sober thought. THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS Day-dreams that feed the folly of the fool, The wisdom of the wise, the hour endears; Despite the discipline of life's stern school. And the gray quiet of monastic years, I sit, companioned by life's young desires, And warm my fancies at yon sunset fires. For 't is the children's hour, and I, the child, Self-credulous, am pleased myself to tell Stories that have no ending, ventures wild O'er chartless oceans to glad isles where dwell Loves that no bitter debt to time shall pay. Loves that to-morrow shall be as to-day. Ay, 't is enchantment's hour. A herald star Marshals the silent armies of the night. THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS J The eastward scarlet frets the waves. Afar Fades in the pallid west a violet light, And murmurs of the tide rise up to me, Huge breathing of the sea's immensity. Among the hills I know a dreaming lake No wind disturbs, and drowsily it seems The pictured stillness to itself to take. All day it sleeps, and then at evening dreams Brown twilight shadows,— till it dreams at dark A silver dream, the pale moon's crescent bark. * * * There is a hill-crest where the dwarfish forms Of crippled pines a scant subsistence win : 8 THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS Gnarled by long battle with the winter storms, Scarred cousins of their stately forest kin, Whence came the force that waged victorious strife For the mere hold upon their meagre life? Companionable folk are they ; at ease Upon the rocks their wooden elbows rest. Something they hint of ancient pleasantries; Grim burgher soldiers they, who take with zest Their pension of the sunshine, half aware Of one with right their lazing life to share. As wearily the mountain crest I gain. Mysterious vigor feels the freshened mind, THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS 9 And wide horizons gladden eye and brain. Serenely confident I wait to find Thoughts that no clouded hours knew to guess Float upward to the light of consciousness. « Here truth the certainty of instinct feels, When joy akin to awe the soul acquires, . And beauty, God's interpreter, reveals Something of Him no meaner hour inspires. Help Thou my unbelief, that I may be By Nature's mother-hand led near to Thee. » Once, all there was of beauty on the earth Became religion. Love was but a prayer To gentle deities, whose sylvan mirth Heard man or maid, at dusk of eve, aware lO THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS Of gods who shared love's piety, and of faint Sweet whispers from some pagan flower saint. If these were dreams, I envy those who dreamed Into the world long dramas of belief, This joyous passion-play of gods who seemed To be so near to human joy and grief ; Or were they tender yearnings willed by Him Whose creed left lonely all the wood ways dim ? If I have lost this heritage divine, Some Pentecostal hour may give to me The tongues earth's childhood knew, and it be mine To read beyond what seems reality. Grant me this gift of wisdom's fullest flower, O fair Egeria of the evening hour. THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS II Lo, in the twilight's dim confessional Come aged voices from this ice-scarred rock ; I hear the avalanche in thunder fall, The glacier's many voices, and the shock When from these granite shoulders, seaward hurled. Fell the white ruin of an elder world. * * * My summer friends, the maples, slowly shed Their red and gold, are bare and gaunt and gray. In changeless quiet, towering overhead. Hemlock and pine defy the autumn's sway. The wintry winds. To them the birds shall bring A gracious autumn at the call of spring. 12 THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS If time might hold for us no sad surprise Of autumn's mournful change, what joy it were, Earth- fed, deep-rooted, year by year to rise Where thought uplifted breathes serener air. And at life's ripest, of a summer day To feel the lightning fall and pass away. * * * Among these rifted rocks creep stealthily Faint dusking shadows, and the forest air Stirs when the topmost leaves, uneasily, A moment shiver in the winds that bear Hoarse murmurs from the unrepentant deep ; Like one who mutters of far deaths in sleep. A strange supremacy of quietness Awaits the thoughtful where, in wreckage vast, THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS 1 3 These riven rocks old agonies confess, The half-told story of a dateless past; Prophetic dooms of change the soul oppress, And some chill sense of ancient loneliness. Why in this scene my truant footsteps found Should come to me the urgent thought of death ? For when this ruin fell, the barren ground Knew naught of life, nor any mortal breath. Yet generous of color are to-day These moss-clad rocks, with fern and lichen gay. Alas, vain thought ! Death's royal loneliness Still bids the voice of love its silence share. Where, in that land of grief companionless. Familiar things a far remoteness wear. 14 THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS And futile thoughts, Hke yearning tendrils, find No hold secure, and hope and faith are blind. Yet Nature stands, a finger on her lips. Glad mother of mysterious sympathy. Sure as the light that through the greenery slips, Far-winged at eve with loving certainty, To gild these glooming rocks, by glaciers worn. With constant promise of another morn. If Nature, soulless, knows not how to weep, Take that she has for thee. Wilt know how much? Bring here thy cares, and find upon the steep Some kingly healing in the wild wind's touch. THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS 1 5 The best of love and life is mystery,— Take thou the pine-trees' benedicite ! * * * The years that come as friend and leave as foe, The years that come as foes, and friends depart, Leave for remembrance more of joy than woe. All memory sifting with Time's gentle art. Till He who guides the swallow's wintry wing Gives to our grief- winged love as sure a spring. The mountain summit brings no bitter thought ; And in my glad surrender to its power, Familiar spirits come to me unsought. But unto thee, my child, the twilight hour. When level sun-shafts of the waning day Their girdling gold upon the forest lay. l6 THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS Here, long ago, we talked or silent knew The woodland awe of things about to be. And, as the nearing shadows round us drew, Some growing sense of unreality, Ancestral pagan moods of far descent That thronged the peopled woods with wonderment. Art with me now, and this thy gentle hand ? Or is it that love's yearning love deceives. And in too real a solitude I stand. Hearing no footfall in the rustling leaves. Sole comrade of far sorrows, left alone The awakened memory of a dream to own ? Slow fades the light of day's most solemn hour. The autumn leaves are drifting overhead. THE COMFORT OF THE HILLS 1/ In vain I yearn for some compelling power To keep for me these ever-living dead. Peace, peace, sad heart ; for thee a gentle breeze, God's angelus, is sighing in the trees. Bar Harbor, September, 1906. ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB^ What gracious nunnery of grief is here ! One woman garbed in sorrow's every mood ; Each sad presentment celled apart, in fear Lest that herself upon herself intrude And break some tender dream of sorrow's day, Here cloistered lonely, set in marble gray. O pale procession of immortal love, Forever married to immortal grief ! 1 On this famous monument, known as " Les Pleureuses," and now in the museum at Constantinople, one and the same woman is carved in many attitudes of grief. These eighteen figures stand niched be- tween Ionic columns. On the sarcophagus, above and below, are scenes of battle and the chase in bas-relief. i8 ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB IQ All of life's childlike sorrow far above, Past help of time's compassionate relief : These changeless stones are treasuries of regret, And mock the term by time for sorrow set. Ah me ! what tired hearts have hither come To weep with thee, and give thy grief a voice! And such as have not added to life's sum The count of loss, they who do still rejoice In love which time yet leaveth unassailed. Here tremble, by prophetic sadness paled. Thou who hast wept for many, weep for me. For surely I, who deepest grief have known. Share thy stilled sadness, which must ever be 20 ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB Too changeless, and unending like my own, Since thine is woe that knows not time's release. And sorrow that can never compass peace. He, too, who wrought this antique poetry, Which wakes sad rhythms in the mourning heart. Must oft with thee have wondered silently, Touched by the strange revealments of his art. When at thy side he watched his chisel's grace Foretell what time would carve upon thy face. If to thy yearning silence, which in vain Suggests its speechless plea in marbles old. We add' the anguish of an equal pain, Shall not the sorrow of these statues cold ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB 21 Inherit memories of our tears, and keep Record of dear ones long in death asleep? Ah me! in death asleep; how pitiful, If in that timeless time the soul should wake. To wander heart-blind where no years may dull Remembrance, with a heart forbid to break. — Dove of my home, that fled life's stranded ark, The sea of death is shelterless and dark. Cold mourner set in stone so long ago. Too much my thoughts have dwelt with thee apart. Again my grief is young ; full well I know The pang reborn, that mocked my feeble art With that too human wail in pain expressed — The parent cry above the empty nest ! 22 ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB II Fair worshiper of many gods, whom I In one God worship, very surely He Will for thy tears and mine have some reply When death assumes the trust of life, and we Hear once again the voices of our dead, And on a newer earth contented tread. Doubtless for thee thy Lycian fields were sweet. Thy dream of heaven no wiser than my own ; Nature and love, the sound of children's feet, Home, husband, friends— what better hast thou known ? What of the gods could ask thy longing prayer Except again this earth and love to share ? ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB 2^ For all in vain, with vexed imaginings, We build of dreams another earth than ours. And high in thought's thinned atmosphere, with wings That helpless beat, and mock our futile powers, Falter and flutter, seeing naught above. And naught below except the earth we love. Enough it were to find our own old earth With death's dark riddle answered, and unspoiled By fear, or sin, or pain ; where joy and mirth Have no sad shadows, and love is not foiled. And where, companioned by the mighty dead, The dateless books of time and fate are read. 24 ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB m What stately melancholy doth possess This innocent marble with eternal doom ! What most imperious grief doth here oppress The one sad soul which haunts this peopled tomb In many forms that all these years have worn One thought, for time's long comment more forlorn ! Lo ! grief, through love instinct with silentness, Reluctant, in these marbles eloquent. The ancient tale of loss doth here confess. The first confusing, mad bewilderment. Life's unbelief in death, in love forespent. Thought without issue, childlike discontent. ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB 2$ Time, that for thee awhile did moveless seem, Again his glass hath turned : I see thee stand Thought-netted, or like one who in a dream Self-wildered, in some alien forest land Lone-wandering, in endless mazes lost, Wearily stumbles over tracks recrossed. Oft didst thou come in after days to leave Roses and laurel on thy warrior's grave, And with thy marble self again to grieve, Glad of what genius unto sorrow gave, Interpreting what had been and would be, Love, tears, despair, attained serenity. There are whom sorrow leaves full-wrecked. The great Grow in the urgent anguish of defeat, 26 ODE ON A LYCIAN TOMB And with mysterious confidence await The silent coming of the bearer's feet ; Wherefore this quiet face so proudly set To front life's duties, but naught to forget. For life is but a tender instrument Whereon the master hand of grief doth fall, Leaving love's vibrant tissue resonant With echoes, ever waking at the call Of every kindred tone : so grief doth change The instrument o'er which his fateful fingers range. Bar Harbor, 1900. AN ODE OF BATTLES 1 Long ages past The slow ice sledges bore These alien rocks from some far other shore ; Gray witnesses of power In some prophetic hour Dropped on the glacier's bed, Strange burial-stones, to find at last Their long-awaited dead. Here, as if to mock regret, Has careless nature set The wild rose and the violet ; 1 Gettysburg and Santiago. 27 28 AN ODE OF BATTLES For what to her is battle's iron lot? She has no memory of a day When man had ceased to slay, And by her strife his war is infant play; Yet here the frail forget-me-not Entreats remembrance of what death may gain: For not in vain Upon this lone hillside Uncounted hopes have died ; And not in vain The lordship of the soul In that wild strife Asked an heroic dole, The tribute gift of life, While homes long held in bondage of their fears AN ODE OF BATTLES 29 Heard what they too had spent and wailed in tears, — The loss of youth's young love and manhood's remnant years. Weep for thy many dead, O Northland, weep ! Even for thy triumph weep ! Here too our brothers sleep ; Not we alone have bled. Tears ! tears for those who lost ! For bitter was the cost When that ripe manhood at its flood Ebbed away in blood. Yet who beneath the shrouded sun Upon yon battle-wearied plain 30 AN ODE OF BATTLES Could know they too had won, And had not died in vain ? Gone the days of Ungering hate ! Came at last a happier fate That welded state to state, When along the island shore We together stood once more, And the levin blight and thunder Were strange echoes of a day When Spain's galleons went under. Or, death-hunted, fled away. While the sturdy gales that keep Guard o'er England, beach and steep. Sped the billows from afar. Leaping hounds of the sea's wild war. AN ODE OF BATTLES 3 1 And set them on the track Where, o'er ruin and o'er wrack, Shrouding all Fell the fog's gray funeral pall, And the sea-greed took its toll Of the pride of Philip's soul. Hark and hear, ye admirals dead ! Comrades of the burly deep. Whatsoever decks ye tread, Wheresoever watch ye keep, — Hark ! the channel surges still Roll o'er wrecks ye left to bide The master might of the sea's stern will, Scourge of storm and stress of tide : When upon the Spaniard's flight 32 AN ODE OF BATTLES Closed in shame the northern night, Not yours alone the count of sorrow Ye left to some avenging morrow : Far-sown islands west and east, Thro' one long revel of misrule, Reign of tyrant, knave, or fool, — Cursed too the bigot and the priest. From their days of bitter need, From the sea-lords of our breed. To the patience of the strong Fell that heritage of wrong. Rest in peace, ye captains bold : When the tide of battle rolled Thunderous on the island shore, To thy children's hand the Lord Gave for judgment doom the sword. AN ODE OF BATTLES 33 And at last forevermore On those haunted Cuban coasts That long-gathering debt was paid And the sad and silent ghosts Of unnumbered wrongs were laid. Awake, sad Island Sister ! Wake to be The glad young child of liberty. The storm of battle wholesomely Has swept thy borders free. Ringed with the azure of the Carib Sea, No more the joy of thy abounding waves Shall mock a land of slaves. And lo ! the matchless prize. Great kingdoms craved with eager eyes, 34 AN ODE OF BATTLES Was ours blood-bought. With no base afterthought We left unransomed and complete Earth's richest jewel at fair Freedom's feet; Her dream of hope a glad reality; Our share a memory ! Ah, never since the lightning of gray war In other lands afar Dismembered nations smote, and justice slept While greed her plunder kept, Has conquest left no shame Upon the victor's name ; But here at last from war's sad field Proud honor bore a stainless shield, And o'er our silent dead the air Throbbed with Freedom's answered prayer. THE SONG OF THE CAPTURED CON- FEDERATE BATTLE-FLAGS BY A UNANIMOUS VOTE OF CONGRESS RETURNED TO THE STATES OF THE CONFEDERACY We loved the wild clamor of battle, The crash of the musketry's rattle, The bugle and drum. We have drooped in the dust, long and lonely ; The blades that flashed joy are rust only, The far-rolling war music dumb. God rest the true souls in death lying. For whom overhead proudly flying We challenged the foe. The storm of the charge we have breasted. 36 CONFEDERATE BATTLE-FLAGS On the hearts of our dead we have rested. In the pride of a day long ago. Ah, surely the good of God's making Shall answer both those past awaking And life's cry of pain; But we nevermore shall be tossing On surges of battle where crossing The swift-flying death-bearers rain. Again in the wind we are streaming, Again with the war lust are dreaming The call of the shell. What gray heads look up at us sadly ? Are these the stern troopers who madly Rode straight at the battery's hell ? CONFEDERATE BATTLE-FLAGS 37 Nay, more than the Hving have found us, Pale spectres of battle surround us; The gray line is dressed. Ye hear not, but they who are bringing Your symbols of honor are singing The song of death's bivouac rest. Blow forth on the south wind to greet us, O star flag, once eager to meet us When war lines were set. Go carry to far fields of glory The soul-stirring thrill of the story Of days when in anger we met. Ah, well that we hung in the churches In quiet, where God the heart searches ; 38 CONFEDERATE BATTLE-FLAGS That, under us met, Men heard through the murmur of praying The voice of the torn banners saying, "Forgive, but ah ! never forget !'* THE PURE OF HEART GENNESARET O'er my head the starry legions marched upon their trackless way ; Far below, Gennesaret's waters, silent, in the moonlight lay, And the Orient, brooding mother of all creeds that men hold dear. Cast her mystic spell upon me, and I murmured, "Was it here?" 39 40 THE PURE OF HEART Was it here a man, a peasant, strange ambassador of God, Called to hear His stately message those sad children of the sod ; Sowed for them hope's boundless harvest, lavished for those shepherds rude All that wonder-wealth of promise, each divine beatitude ? Marveling, my thought I carried into sleep, and if the earth Breathed some memory of the legend, or in dreams it had its birth, Who may say ? I tell the story as it came to me at night, From the underworld of slumber, from the inner world of light. THE PURE OF HEART 4I On the hilltop, in the twilight, grave and still the Master lay, While the westward summits crimsoned, lustrous in the dying day. What had I to learn, a rabbi, schooled and lessoned in the law ? Half in doubt and half in wonder, there apart I stood, and saw How some gentle impulse moved Him, and there came upon His face, With the final gold of sunset, other light, of joy and grace. While the mountains cast their shadows, slowly cloaking all the hill Where the multitude in silence waited on the Master^s will; 42 THE PURE OF HEART For His features stirred, uplifted as with thought upon the wing, Stirred as stirs the great earth-mother when she feels her child the spring. Wistfully men bided, longing for the voice their eyes entreat, Forward bent, hands locked, and quiet, till He rose upon His feet. And He gave as none has given through the long and weary years. Blessings that have lightened labor, promises that answer tears. When at last the white-clad peasants slowly from the hill withdrew. Long I lingered, why I knew not, till at last I surely knew THE PURE OF HEART 43 That my soul some yearning counseled, bidding me remain. I stayed, Bolder for the dark, then heard Him : "Rabbi, ask. Be not afraid." Low I questioned: "Lord and Master, who most surely are the pure ? Is it they who, born and dying, have no sorrow to endure. Like the snow that melts at morning, from the soil of earth secure? Who is it shall see . . . ?" But spoke not that one word is left unsaid When the priest intones the psalmist, and the sacred scrolls are read. "Who is it shall dare behold Him, and the Nameless One abide, 44 THE PURE OF HEART When the seraphs' wings are folded, and the angel hosts divide ?" Then I felt how great my daring, and my forehead flushed with shame ; Like a child in fear I waited, waited for the word of blame. But He said, "Draw near, O Rabbi," and those strange eyes fell on mine, And I knew that not in folly I had sought what none divine. Touching heart and lips and forehead, as when one salutes a friend. Low I bent, assured and silent, waiting what His heart would send. "See, O Rabbi," and a gesture summoned with the lifted hand; THE PURE OF HEART 45 Lo, a mighty wind, arising, drave across the wakened land. Swept Gennesaret's startled waters, beat across the billowed grain, Waking from its evening quiet, far below, the dreaming plain, While the gnarled and aged olives wildly- swayed above my head, Heavy with the summer fruitage wherewithal a man is fed. Rich with oil that feeds the lamps that keep remembrance of the dead. And, behold, the wind He summoned for His parable, at will. Gone as flies a bird, and stillness fell upon the lonely hill. 46 THE PURE OF HEART ''Thou art learned in all our learning. Once at Nazareth I saw How men listened to Thy teaching, 'Come and read My higher law/ " "Rabbi, Rabbi, sweet at evening are the lilies bending low ; Was it prayer they breathed, when rising from their dewy overflow ?" Wondering, I answered : "Master, who may know? But pure and sweet Are they to the desert weary, freshness to the sand-hot feet/' For I guessed where now He led me, and with thought that swift forewent. As if spirit spake to spirit, glad at heart, I stood intent. THE PURE OF HEART 47 "Lo/' He said, ''behold the oHves failing with the summer heat, Guarding still their precious harvest, though the mad wind on them beat." "Yea," I cried. "Oh, surely, Master, strong are they, yet pure and sweet." For I guessed the fuller meaning of His speech, as one foreknows When on Lebanon the rose-light prophet of the dawning glows. And I said : "Not they are purest who, in hermit trance of prayer. Bide untempted in the desert, sinless as Thy lilies were ; More there be who share Thy promise, more for whom this hope has smiled : 48 THE PURE OF HEART They the burdened, they the weary, they who ever, unbeguiled. Through the home, the street, the market, bear the white heart of the child." Lingering, I heard His answer : "Go in peace." I moved away, While afar the westward summits slowly turned from gold to gray. Bar Harbor, October, 1904. LINES GIVEN TO M. AT CHRISTMAS WITH A GIFT OF THE VIRGIN OF LUINI What shall I give thee, dear, to-day, Upon this sacred Christmas morn, That tells us of the gift of love God gave when Christ was born, And hope became a seraph winged With timeless dreams, and love elate Saw with young eyes another world Where love's lost angels wait ? 4 49 50 LINES GIVEN TO M. Ah, small were any richest gift Without such love as thro' the years Was sweeter for the hour of joy And nobler for the day of tears. Take, then, with love this gentle face That had a more than human share Of joy and grief, and haply, too. Through the long years of sorrow bore In that gray village of the hills The sense of some diviner loss Than death deals out, and evermore The anguish of the lifted cross. 1905. TO THE FORGET-ME-NOTS ON THE PASS OF THE MAIDEN^ JAPAN Lo ! Fujiyama's snowy cone The green horizon bounds, And Miajimi's sacred isle, And Buddha's temple grounds. Ah, once again thy voice is heard ; Again we keep our tryst. As when upon the Switzer's hill I stood amid the mist. 52 TO THE FORGET-ME-NOTS Within the garden's ordered walks Thy name alone I hear, And miss the gentle voice that calls When none but I am near. But where the mountain summits rise Is ever sacred sod, And here thy timid counsel breathes A deep appeal to God. Ah, least of all the many flowers That on my path are set, Read me thy Sermon on the Mount : What should I not forget? "Forget me not." How simple seems The counsel shyly given ! TO THE FORGET-ME-NOTS 53 Let each interpret for himself This voice of earth and heaven. Ah ! once on Albula's gray pass I prayed that I might get, With foresight of a darker day, The sad leave to forget ; Nor knew, alas ! how soon would come Sore need to urge my prayer. Ah, tender maidens of the hill That constant sorrow share. Forget ? Ah, yes ! the living fade From memory, not the dead. Thine are their voices as to-day These alien hills I tread. Tokio. PRAYER When the day is growing old And the stars their vigils keep, Lo, a gentle voice v^ithin Calling to the fold of sleep. Whither, thither, know I not : His the silence, His the care, When my soul is called to rest, Shepherded by quiet prayer. 54 THE ANGELS OF PRAYER Ye to whom my prayer is given, Gentle couriers of heaven, Sailing through the world of space 'Neath the sun of Mary's face. To the joy of Mary's grace, Let it seem a little child, Such as came when Jesu smiled. LULLABY Holy Mother ! Holy Mother ! In the dark I fear. Light me with thy shining eyes, Be thou ever near. Holy Mother ! Holy Mother ! Call thy little Son, Bid Him bring me praying dreams Ere the night be done. Call the angels, call them early, Bid them fly to thee, One to call the little birds, One to waken me. FRIENDSHIP No wail of grief can equal answer win : Love's faltering echo may but ill express The grief for grief, nor more than faintly mock The primal cry of some too vast distress. Or is it for fair company of joy We ask an equal echo from the heart? A certain loneliness is ever ours, And friendship mourns her still imperfect art. 1908. 57 LOVE " For I have always loved you for many reasons and in many ways." — P. B. The daily tribute of the sun Lives on, in tree, and fruit, and flower ; Lives on, with subtle change of power, When the last hour of day is done. And what the kindly sun has given, Reborn in many a varied form, Is in the wind, the sea, the storm, And when the lightning flames through heaven, LOVE 59 And is itself again; and so Through many ways of diverse change Has love equality of range, And back again as love may flow ; For deathless, as God's sunlight still. Its tender ministry renewed In each divine beatitude, Shall love its purposes fulfil. INNOGEN A stage direction in the old copies of " Much Ado about Nothing" is: *' Enter Leonato, Govemour of Messina, Innogen his wife, Hero his daughter, and Beatrice his niece, and a messenger." As the wife of Leonato takes no part in the action, and neither speaks nor is spoken to throughout the play, she was probably no more than a character the poet had designed in his first sketch of the plot, and which he found reason to omit afterward. Immortal shadow, faint and ever fair, Dear for unspoken words that might have been, Compelled to silent sorrow none may share, A ghost of Shakespeare's world, unheard, unseen, How many more like thee have voiceless stood Uncalled upon the threshold of his mind. The speechless children of a mighty brood Who were and are not ! Never shall they find The happier comrades unto whom he gave Thought, speech, and action— they who shall not know The end of our realities, the grave. Nor what is sadder, life, nor any human woe. INDIAN SUMMER The stillness that doth wait on change is here, Some pause of expectation owns the hour; And faint and far I hear the sea complain Where gray and answerless the headlands tower. Slow fails the evening of the dying year, Misty and dim the waiting forests lie, Chill ocean winds the wasted woodland grieve, And earthward loitering the leaves go by. 6i 62 INDIAN SUMMER Behold how nature answers death ! O'erhead The memoried splendor of her summer eves Lavished and lost, her wealth of sun and sky, Scarlet and gold, are in her drifting leaves. Vain pageantry ! for this, alas, is death. Nor may the seasons' ripe fulfilment cheat My thronging memories of those who died With life's young summer promise incomplete. The dead leaves rustle 'neath my lingering tread. Low murmuring ever to the spirit ear : We were, and yet again shall be once more. In the sure circuits of the rolling year. INDIAN SUMMER 63 Trust thou the craft of nature. Lo ! for thee A comrade wise she moves, serenely sweet, With wilful prescience mocking sense of loss For us who mourn love's unreturning feet. Trust thou her wisdom, she will reconcile The faltering spirit to eternal change When, in her fading woodways, thou shalt touch Dear hands long dead and know them not as strange. For thee a golden parable she breathes Where in the mystery of this repose, While death is dreaming life, the waning wood With far-caught light of heaven divinely glows. 64 INDIAN SUMMER Thou, when the final loneHness draws near, And earth to earth recalls her tired child, In the sweet constancy of nature strong Shalt dream again — how dying nature smiled. Bar Harbor, 190a THE SEA-GULL The woods are full of merry minstrelsy; Glad are the hedges with the notes of spring; But o'er the sad and uncompanioned sea No love-born voices ring. II Gray mariner of every ocean clime, If I could wander on as sure a wing, Or beat with yellow web thy pathless sea, I too might cease to sing. 5 65 66 THE SEA-GULL III Would I could share thy silver-flashing swoop, Thy steady poise above the bounding deep, Or buoyant float with thine instinctive trust, Rocked in a dreamless sleep. IV Thine is the heritage of simple things. The untasked liberty of sea and air, Some tender yearning for the peopled nest, Thy only freight of care. Thou hast no forecast of the morrow's need. No bitter memory of yesterdays; THE SEA-GULL 67 Nor stirs thy thought that airy sea o'erhead, Nor ocean's soundless ways. VI Thou silent raider of the abounding sea, Intent and resolute, ah, who may guess What primal notes of gladness thou hast lost In this vast loneliness ! VII Where bides thy mate ? On some lorn ocean rock Seaward she watches. Hark ! the one shrill cry, Strident and harsh, across the wave shall be Her welcome — thy reply. 68 THE SEA-GULL VIII When first thy sires, with joy-discovered flight. High on exultant pinions sped afar. Had they no cry of gladness or of love. No bugle note of war? IX What gallant song their happy treasury held, Such as the pleasant woodland folk employ, The lone sea thunder quelled. Thou hast one note For love, for hate, for joy. Yet who that hears this stormy ocean voice Would not, like them, at last be hushed and stilled, THE SEA-GULL 69 Were all his days through endless ages past With this stern music filled ? XI What matters it ? Ah ! not alone are loved Leaf-cloistered poets who can love in song. Home to the wild-eyed ! Home ! She will not miss The music lost so long. XII Home ! for the night wind signals, "Get thee home'' ; Home, hardy admiral of the rolling deep ; Home from the foray ! Home ! That silenced song Love's endless echoes keep. Bar Harbor, 1897. TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER IN THE GARDEN OF THE ARMENIAN CONVENT AT VENICE I SAW thy beauty in its high estate Of perfect empire, where at set of sun In the cool twihght of thy lucent leaves The dewy freshness told that day was done. Hast thou no gift beyond thine ivory cone's Surpassing loveliness? Art thou not near— More near than we— to nature's silentness: Is it not voice ful to thy finer ear? TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER 7I Thy folded secrecy doth hke a charm Compel to thought. What spring-born yearning lies Within the quiet of thy stainless breast, That doth with languorous passion seem to rise ? The soul doth truant angels entertain Who with reluctant joy their thoughts confess : Low-breathing, to these sister spirits give The virgin mysteries of thy heart to guess. What whispers hast thou from yon childlike sea That sobs all night beside these garden walls ? Canst thou interpret what the lark hath sung When from the choir of heaven her music falls? ^2 TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER If for companionship of purity The equal pallor of the risen moon Disturb thy dreams, dost know to read aright Her silver tracery on the dark lagoon ? The mischief-making fruitfulness of May Stirs all the garden folk with vague desires. Doth there not reach thine apprehensive ear The faded longing of these dark-robed friars^ When, in the evening hour to memories given, Some gray-haired man amid the gathering gloom For one delirious moment sees again The gleam of eyes and white- walled Erzeroum ? TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER 73 Hast thou not loved him for this human dream ? Or sighed with him who yester-evening sat Upon the low sea-wall, and saw through tears His ruined home and snow-clad Ararat? If thou art dowered with some refined sense That shares the counsels of the nesting bird, Canst hear the mighty laughter of the earth, And all that ear of man hath never heard ? If the abysmal stillness of the night Be eloquent for thee, if thou canst read The glowing rubric of the morning song. Doth each new day no gentle warning breed ? 74 TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER Shall not the gossip of the maudlin bee, The fragrant history of the fallen rose, Unto the prescience of instinctive love Some humbler prophecy of joy disclose? Cold vestal of the leafy convent-cell, The traitor days have thy calm trust betrayed ; The sea-wind boldly parts thy shining leaves To let the angel in. Be not afraid ! The gold-winged sun, divinely penetrant, The pure annunciation of the morn Breathes o'er thy chastity, and to thy soul The tender thrill of motherhood is borne. TO A MAGNOLIA FLOWER 75 Set wide the glory of thy radiant bloom ! Call every wind to share thy scented breaths ! No life is brief that doth perfection win. To-day is thine — to-morrow thou art death's ! Cortina d'Ampezzo, July, 1897. JEKYL ISLAND EBB-TIDE Fading light on a lonely beach, A slow out-creeping tide That leaves to me on sea-etched sands The ocean's cryptic speech. Adown the ever broadening strand Moon-witched waters steal, And over the dunes a wild wind swoops And frets the silted sand. STORM-WAVES AND FOG ON DORR'S POINT, BAR HARBOR The fog's gray curtain round me draws, And leaves no world to me Save this swift drama of the stirred And restless sea. Forth of the shrouding fog they roll. As from a viewless world, Leap spectral white, and, pausing, break, In thunder hurled. 77 78 STORM-WAVES AND FOG ON DORR's POINT Ever they climb and cling anew, Slide from the smooth rock wall, With thin white fingers grip the weeds And seaward crawl. In rhythmic rote o'er shivering sands They glide adown the shore With murmurous whispering of *'Hush !' And then no more. 1907. THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON 1900 Remembering him we praise to-day, Hushed is the mighty roar of trade, And, pausing on its ardent way, A nation's homage here is paid. Upon the great Virginian's grave Look down the new-born century's eyes. Where by his loved Potomac wave In God's long rest His soldier lies. A hundred years have naught revealed To blot this manhood's record high. That blazoned duty's stainless shield And set a star in honor's sky/ So THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON In self -approval firm, his life Serenely passed through darkest days ; In calm or storm, in peace or strife, Unmoved by blame, unstirred by praise. No warrior pride disturbed his peace, Nor place nor gain. He loved his fields. His home, the chase, his land's increase, The simple life that nature yields. And yet for us" all man could give He gave, with that which never dies, The gift through which great nations live. The lifelong gift of sacrifice. With true humility he learned The game of war, the art of rule ; THE BIRTHDAY OF WASHINGTON 8 1 And, calmly patient, slowly earned His competence in life's large school. Well may we honor him who sought To live with one unfailing aim, And found at last, unasked, unsought, In duty's path, the jewel, fame! And He who girded him with power. And gave him strength to do the right, Will ask of us, in some stern hour, "How have ye used the gift of might?'* Since, till this harried earth shall gain The heaven of Thy peace, O Lord ! Freedom and Law will need to reign Beneath the shadow of the sword. FLORENCE 1 APRIL FIRST Come, let us be the willing fools Of April's earliest day, And dream we own all pleasant things The years have reft away. 'T is but to take the poet's wand, A touch or here or there, And I have lost that ancient stoop, And you are young and fair. Ah, no! The years that gave and took Have left with you and me The wisdom of the widening stream ; Trust we the larger sea. 1 Except the last two lines, which I failed to capture, the rest of these verses I composed while asleep. I have many times seemed to make verses in sleep ; only thrice could I recall them on waking. The four lines called "Which" were also made in sleep. The psychological interest of this sleep product may excuse this personal statement. 82 WHICH? Birth-day or Earth-day, Which the true mirth-day? Earth-day or birth-day, Which the well-worth day? February 15, 1909. 83 BOOKS AND THE MAN^ When the years gather round us like stern foes That give no quarter, and the ranks of love Break here and there, untouched there still abide Friends whom no adverse fate can wound or move: A deathless heritage, for these are they Who neither fail nor falter ; we, alas ! Can hope no more of friendship than to fill The mortal hour of earth and, mortal, pass. 1 William Osier. Read to the Charaka Club, March 4, 1905. 84 BOOKS AND THE MAN 85 Steadfast and generous, they greet us still Through every fortune with unchanging looks, Unasked no counsel give, are silent folk ; The careless-minded lightly call them books. Of the proud peerage of the mind are they, Fair, courteous gentlemen who wait our will When come the lonely hours the scholar loves. And glows the hearth and all the house is still. Wilt choose for guest the good old doctor knight, Quaint, learned and odd, or very wisely shrewd. Or with Dan Chaucer win a quiet hour Far from our noisy century's alien mood? 86 BOOKS AND THE MAN Wilt sail great seas on rhythmic lyrics borne, In the high company of gallant souls, Where, ringed with stately death, proud Grenville lies. Or the far thunder of the Armada rolls ? Wilt call that English lad Fabricius taught And Padua knew, and that heroic soul — Our brave Vesalius? Long the list of friends, Far through the ages runs that shining roll. How happy he who, native to their tongue, A mystic language reads between the lines : Gay, gallant fancies, songs unheard before. Ripe with the worldle.ss wisdom love divines ; BOOKS AND THE MAN 8/ Rich with dumb records of long centuries past, The viewless dreams of poet, scholar, sage ; What marginalia of unwritten thought With glowing rubrics deck the splendid page ! Some ghostly presence haunts the lucid phrase Where Bacon pondered o'er the words we scan. Here grave Montaigne with cynic wisdom played, And lo, the book becomes for us a man ! Shall we not find more dear the happy page Where Lamb, forgetting sorrow, loved to dwell, Or that which won from Thackeray's face a smile. Or lit the gloom of Raleigh's prison cell ? 88 BOOKS AND THE MAN And if this gentle company has made The comrade heart to pain an easier prey, They, too, were heirs of sorrow ; well they know With what brave thoughts to charm thy cares away. And shouldst thou crave an hour's glad reprieve From mortal cares that mock the mind's control. For thee Cervantes laughs the world away ! What priest is wiser than our Shakespeare's soul? Show me his friends and I the man shall know ; This wiser turn a larger wisdom lends : Show me the books he loves and I shall know The man far better than through mortal friends. BOOKS AND THE MAN 89 Do you perchance recall when first we met, And gaily winged with thought the flying night, And won with ease the friendship of the mind? — I like to call it friendship at first sight. And then you found with us a second home, And, in the practice of life's happiest art, You little guessed how readily you won The added friendship of the open heart. And now a score of years has fled away In noble service of life's highest ends, And my glad capture of a London night Disputes with me a continent of friends. 6* 90 BOOKS AND THE MAN But you and I may claim an older date, The fruitful amity of forty years, — A score for me, a score for you, and so How simple that arithmetic appears ! But are old friends the best ? What age, I ask, Must friendships own to earn the title old ? Shall none seem old save he who won or lost When fists were up or ill-kept wickets bowled ? Are none old friends who never blacked your eyes? Or with a shinny whacked the youthful shin? Or knew the misery of the pliant birch? Or, apple-tempted, shared in Adam's sin ? BOOKS AND THE MAN 9I Grave Selden saith, and quotes the pedant King, Old friends are best, and, like to well-worn shoes. The oldest are the easiest. Not for me ! The easy friend is not the friend I choose. But if the oldest friends are best indeed, I 'd have the proverb otherwise expressed — Friends are not best because they 're merely old. But only old because they proved the best. TO ABRAHAM JACOBI, M.D. AT THE DINNER GIVEN TO CELEBRATE HIS SEVENTIETH BIRTHDAY No honors hath the State for you whose life From youth to age has known one single end. Take from our lips two w^ell-won titles now, Magister et Amicus— Master, Friend. Here on the summit of attainment's peak, Far from the rugged path you knew to climb, Take, with our thanks for high example set. The palm of honor in this festal time. 92 TO ABRAHAM JACOBI, M.D. 93 Constant and brave, in no ignoble cause The hopes of freedom armed thy sturdy youth ; As true and brave in these maturer years Thy ardent struggle in the cause of truth. Nor prison bars, nor yet the lonely cell. Could break thy vigor of unconquered will ; And the gray years which build as cruel walls Have found and left thee ever victor still. Ave Magister ! Take from us to-night The well-earned praise of all who love our art For this long season of unending work. For strength of brain, and precious wealth of heart. 94 TO ABRAHAM JACOBI, M.D. Much gave your busy hand ; but, ah, far more, The gallant life that taught men how to meet Unfriended exile, sorrow, want, and all That crush the weak with failure and defeat. We gave you here a home ; you well have paid With many gifts proud freedom's generous hand That bade you largely breathe a freer air. And made you welcome to a freer land. Ave Amice ! If around this board Are they who watched you thro' laborious years. Beyond these walls, in many a grateful home, Your step dismissed a thousand pallid fears. TO ABRAHAM JACOBI, M.D. 95 That kindly face, that gravely tender look, Thro' darkened hours how many a mother knew! And in that look won sweet reprieve of hope, Sure that all earth could give was there with you. Ave Magister ! Many be the years That lie before thee, thronged with busy hours ! Ave Amice ! Take our earnest prayer That all their ways fair fortune strew with flowers. IN MEMORY OF WILLIAM HENRY DRUMMOND THE CANADIAN POET Peace to his poet soul. Full well he knew To sing for those who know not how to praise The woodsman's life, the farmer's patient toil, The peaceful drama of laborious days. He made his own the thoughts of simple men, And with the touch that makes the world akin, A welcome guest of lonely cabin homes, Found, too, no heart he could not enter in. 96 IN MEMORY OF W. H. DRUMMOND 9/ The toil-worn doctor, women, children, men, The humble heroes of the lumber drives. Love, laugh, or weep along his peopled verse. Blithe 'mid the pathos of their meagre lives. While thus the poet-love interpreted. He left us pictures no one may forget — Courteau, Baptiste, Camille mon frere, and, best. The good, brave cure, he of Calumette. With nature as with man at home, he loved The silent forest and the birches' flight Down the white peril of the rapids' rush, And the cold glamour of the Northern night. 98 IN MEMORY OF W. H. DRUMMOND Some mystery of genius haunts his page, Some wonder-secret of the poet's spell Died with this master of the peasant thought. Peace to this Northland singer, and farewell ! \> y .,. -^-p '-■■' ^<^ V^ G^ / •i^ MANCHESTER / . .^/ '^'^^\ ■'•^^^.'' .,9^ ^0^, .* .^^ MBRARY OF CONGRESS 015 971 576 Jl J < 1 ♦ > ^ ^?J -^i 1% tH} m nm\ lU t fili 'in :i