3$os ho Class Book > J ■» i J ) J Copyright 1903 by Richard G. Badger All Rights Reser'vcd THt LlbF:AK - . 65 Death and the Sculptor - - - 65 Folio ----- 65 In the Vineyard - - - - 66 Disaster - - - - - 66 Music ----- 66 A Guest of Omar - - - 67 8 A FIELD OF FOLK Piers Plowman, hermit-robed, one May of yore, Stood on the hills, his soul at gaze to see Round Holy Church, fair Malvern's priory, Outlying counties spread, his eyes before. And when the vision passed, his waking spoke Of a fair woman and a field of folk. My hermit heart wins Malvern's hills to-day And, looking far afield on human life, Sees the same toil, still the same timeless strife. And a fair woman stands midmost the way. — Who has so climbed can scarce look out in vain A summer season on the busy plain. THE HERALD The brook^s a March-sped messenger With tidings of the victory of spring, And all the eager wood-folk are astir To hear betimes what message he may bring ; With fan-fare and exultant shout And boast in passing as they silent stare, He greets the peasant fields about. But when he nears his destination, there At the wide entrance of the lake's demesne, Where willows hold their court beneath the hill. Breathless from haste and awed before the queen. He kneels and gives his tidings and is still. THE COMING OF SPRING White flames of foam consume the meadow's strand, Red waves of fire toss ebbing on its sand, Spring floods and fires that, interfused, prevail. And golden smoke along a sunlit trail Where willows are as arras by the throne That level rivers kneel before to own Young April, consort of the sunlit morn, Dafiodil-sceptred of the crocus born, Transforming youth's delirious early hours To joyous metamorphosis of flowers. And down the narrow and expectant street The city casements open. Spring to greet. Trade's wheels vibrate the slower, as, in dreams, The tenement looks out on Arno's gleams. And from far woodland glades the waters bring The sweet and low compelling of the Spring. 10 APPLE-BLOSSOMS Sunshine A moving dome of fragrance, choired by the' boom of the bee, Glow of the white and glow of the pink, soul of the apple-tree ; Sunshine a-riot without and the flicker of shade be- low. Overhead in the blue doth God the fall of the petals know. IN THE RAIN Not sunshine and not summer, but the morning of a day When the grass is yet drenched and the sun to seek ; Firm to the touch and wet to the cheek, Half-opened blossoms in a March-like May : To yield such sweetness sunshine strives in vain As apple petals chilled by early rain. 1 1 MIGRATION I would hearken and pass in May, When the polish of leaves is new, And the white clouds ride in the blue, When the breeze is a song — a roundelay Bidding me open the casement-frame, Whispering an old and dreaded name And blowing its fears away. DESTINY Slow-plodding horse-hoofs are the tramp of fate To clovers, when the days of June are late And a child's patter on the yielding soil May crush a score of little lives that toil. Yet gladly do I breathe the new-mov/n hay And gladly listen to the child at play; Here is no tragedy ! — So does God smile And watches you, your little busy while. 12 COMPENSATION My little flower the wheel has crushed, The wing of fate too strongly brushed Your unresisting white, to-day And thou wert plucked but to be thrown away — But I have held you in my hand this hour A human heart has looked on yeu, a flower, And has been made content. Is not that worth The longer life of untouched flowers of earth ? ^eo<^ JJoif/r?/^ When God writes sonnets for mankind to read. The sky His octave is ; the answering sea Is the sextette : When God of lyrics findeth need. He makes the wind's white touch upon the lakes, And all the shifting hollows of the tide Beneath the west. Rhyme with the sunset or the daw^n that wakes, And with the hills that linger, glorified. Man's speech at best Is colorless and set in black and white ; God speaks in hills and rivers, stars and showers. In rainbow type, Star-capitaled upon the page of night. His folio is set. Yet 'tis of ours The prototype. AFTERNOON O hill of sunlit hollows, And long blue mists of shade,- Like the low flight of swallows Into dim substance made, — My heart your beauty follows ; Forgets to be afraid. THE TREE I covet not to wander Who hold far lands in fee. For where I stand, unmoving, The broad world comes to me Wide wanderers the breezes, And storms from over sea, Tell me their errant stories And set me fancy-free. The birds that haunt my leisure Bring North and South anear, And all man's purest thinking Is done where I can hear; Below the earth my fibres Drink sea-hints, crystal clear. And, white amidst my branches New worlds of stars appear. 14 ADVENTURE Ah, my strange morning — think ! I have witnessed a duel of warrior-birds An unavailing second, and seen sink To earth too small a combatant and brave For death to single out and thus defy. And I have knelt, with pitying words, Human-incompetent to save, At the passing of a butterfly. The struggle of whose soft-hued wings Grief to Elysium brings — Have I returned enriched or bereaved ? For I have greatly joyed and greatly grieved. REMONSTRANCE You whose estates Philistine Show a broad stretch of lawn, Whose ostentatious crescents Are on the blue prints drawn. Have you turned the soil of a garden ? Ached when the day was done ? Cherished the gleaming color Of beet-leaves in the sun ? — I venture that you do not know The hearts of plants that for you grow. 15 AWAKENING When daylight nears and darkness falls away, Its dreams and imagery, too far and gray For four near walls, are gradual-merged in light And the room's objects enter into sight. Bookshelves and curtains and soft-cushioned chair^ Statue and mirror and the like are there ; And Andrea^s Madonna meets your search — As when the sacristan of some old church Dravv^s slowly back the curtain and, in whole, Our lady of the sorrows greets the soul. Soft-couched in heather in my outdoor room, Its walls emerge four-square from out the gloom — Book-shelves of boulders, mantel of the hills, Mirrors of lakes, low chiming clock of rills. The elm-tree's beauty, statued, nude and rich Like the Apollo, glimmering in its niche : And lo ! there comes the angel of the sun, Dawn's master-piece of Mary is begun ; White-clustered sunbeams in the east display A new annunciation — one more day. MOONRISE Upon the star-set canvas of the night That takes its values from a scale of dreams. The moon above the hill rests, at the height Madonna's head might reach — its circle seems, The Tuscan halo of some spirit nigh, Herself invisible — queen of the sky. i6 PRECIOUS STONES Do you sing of the diamond and pearl That are bought for the whim of a girl And whose light the world-wise Deem their uttermost prize? I would sing of earth's pride ; of the rock, Of man's vaunted jewels the mock, — That adorns nature's breast And whose shadow gives rest To man, weary, alone, — This is my precious stone. ON THE RIVER Thy siren-song is sweet, my tree, I know thee for my Lorelei ; Thy hair is blowing soft and free. Its brown cones gleam amidst it high. Here, have my soul ! I fling it thee Nor would desire to venture by. No sharper rocks can shipwreck me Than headlands of a sunset sky. 17 UNDER THE VINE The garden has its square of sky, Its line of hedge, its narrow walk, Its shadow on the dial, late And early long, and gone at noon; There in its arbor linger I To overhear its flower-talk. Its young day-dreams inviolate, No longer lived than month of June And question of the stately yew Have other hearts such gardens, too? SOLUTION In eager zeal I went about, Anxious to work my problem out. Neighbors were full of ready speech, I learned a different remedy from each. And therefore was the more in doubt. At last I met your silence, O my Tree, And it divined my need unerringly. i8 ELEGY White chips are scattered on the ground Where a king of trees has bled, And, above the prostrate dead. Ye hear the forest's funeral sound. *^ Under man's hand powerless laid Of our chief we are bereaved, He the death blow hath received From the cleavage of the blade. " Firmly veined his limbs, and white, Sinewed as befits a king, Careful he of nests where sing Now no more the plumaged-bright. " Strong of branch and rich of leaf, Clear of sap and deep of bark. — Underwoods, we bid you hark To our eulogy and grief. " Others yet, of royal seed. Bear even now the fatal scar ; Mute the heavens above and far, In our helpless hour of need. ** Housing man, we shall be trod Under feet of pigmy folk. — Better were the withering stroke Of the lightning-blast of God." 19 TREASON Ensnared and over-bold, In domino of black and gold His intrigue masks; He answers all his mistress asks, Ah, the red lily's wiles ! I hear his whispers, see her smiles, Ho! herald bee, here's treachery. Affairs of state he clumsily To his last chosen tells. — Nov/ yuccas, ring your bells ! Soon will the garden be alive With the court secrets of the hive. IN MOTLEY The months its jester-guise adorn In green, in gold, in flame, V/ith bauble of the ready thorn It plays a tricky gam.e; The ever-blundering courtier-bee That, tired of nectar-lust, Desires its pungent remedy. It chokes with golden dust : Thus seems the barberry to be, 'Midst retinue of flowers. Court-jester of the revelry That whiles away the hours 20 THE HIVE Above the meadow city Elave prelates made their home Rich-costumed and sonorous, They throng a mimic Rome : The sunlit air, their Corso, Their Vatican, the dome. MICA As by a rock I chanced to pass Lo! a tiny looking-glass Dropped, perchance, in flight and fear When my footstep sounded near. Have I made my heavy way On the folk of the ballet Dressing for the Vaudeville ? Hark ! Is that their laughter shrill ? Ah ! that I had eyes to see All their hidden revelry ! 21 METAMORPHOSIS Tangible flush, Audible hush, Dreams incarnate, Vermillion zest, Pearls, magnified Past estimate, The clouds consort in the West. In rapid change Their fancies ride, As manifold. As metamorphosis of old, An Alpine range. Sleuth-hounds that track the failing sun Till in full cry the pack's away ! Strange creatures and gigantic men Wizard-faced, that shift again. In some new, delirious scheme. Till, the mystic sequence done, Ashes of day Burn low, night comes supreme. 22 AN APOSTLE OF THE OAK I believe in the mighty oak Conceived by God, Born of the virgin sod, Suffered the woodman's stroke, Whose leaves were crucified By the frost's sting, And rose again in spring, Toward Easter heavens wide. At the right hand of Nature spread It heals the sick, Restores the quick. And broods above the dead. And in thy spirit mine believes, In temples of the catholic wood, Communion of the good. Made audient in the leaves. Then since new life thou hast in ken And pardon for who need, I face the east, repeat the creed, And standing cry Amen, 23 YELLOW JESSAMINE . What the flower tells to me I cannot show ; Nor can North-dwellers know How in the South, where hearts are free, How in the South, where jessamines blow, The air is loud with music, ear-unheard ; Whose echoes reach me here and now. And, whispering of flower and bird, Do all the South repeat. — Sounds to my distance bitter-sweet, Exiles know how. PSYCHE What stands between us, thou and I, Butterfly, floating by ? Thou hast earth's joy ; and I, earth's pain ; Thou hast freedom ; I, a chain ; Withal, thou lackest the divine, Yet have men made thee of their souls the sign, 24 PRELUDE Oh, sun-bright lad, why didst thou hearken death ? Thy hope was young, thine arm successful strong Hadst thou but once forseen how now to-day What lack of thee thy hearth-side undergoes And how the world was waiting for thy song! So might the song-bird on his northward way Mistake white orchards for the drifts of snows, And turn again in sudden, swift alarm. And they whose acres heard his lyric breath Bear now the hush on the bereaven farm. INTIMATIONS Oh strong October, and oh gentle-souled. Like some Norse hero on thy bare, brown arm Thou wearest death's wide bracelet-band of gold Red set in light of rubies; pledge and charm Of immortality, an heirloom old Thy talisman against life's old alarm. ST. LUKE'S SUMMER The mist that fills the hollows Dims with its silvery haze The willow's gleam, where swallows Built low in summer days. — A brooding curve that follows The brook's leaf-dappled maze. Above gray slabs it hovers, Where man his dead enrolls ; The tryst of parted lovers. Leaf-whirlwinds its patrols. And mystic writing covers Its monolith of souls. HARVEST In my October garden I go to solemn mass, As blithe and early risen As any kitchen lass. Dew-sparkles light the altars In many a leafy shrine. And to the glowing eastward The rererdos of vine. Before the bending corn sheaves That take the virgin's shape I taste in exaltation. The eucharist of grape. 26 BETROTHAL November is a sovereign, who weds his beggar-maid He leaves his throne of autumn gold, to greet her trembling there And though she is in russet garb so shabbily ar- rayed, He loves her for her gentleness and the sunshine on her hair. NUPTIALS A slow processional of hills Moves down the aisle of sky, The church is filled with stirring trees That watch the bride go by. Her wedding veiFs a haze of cloud ; The breeze, her Lohengrin : November is the groom whose charm Can Indian Summer win. 27 IN THE ARENA The maiden, Indian summer, Barbarian-fond of death, Rules Nature's coliseum And stands with bated breath While forests don their death-robes, But hide their Spartan grief And dress as for a pageant Each timid, faltering leaf. To them October's hemlock, No sombre death-draught yields, Where reds and yellows gleam within The stirrup-cup of fields. INDIAN SUMMER Like a girl's soft-blowing hair Is this golden-glinting air ; Like the sweet line of her face Are these dreamy mystic days. Like the soft touch of her hand Is the stillness on the land. 28 URN-BURIAL October keeps the passing of her dead, And all of kin are there ; — the autumn days Sigh for the summer at her funeral pyre. The flames creep out and up — first little tongues Dart red and yellow of forked maple twigs, And the notched sumac — here a flame of green, Amid the brands adds its pale driftwood lights. Until the winds set all the woods afire, And hillsides and the rivers catch the glow. — And when 'tis past, November's care shall place The ashes in the silver urn of frost. MATINS Little transient on the bough Joyous in November Wherefore singest thou ? Summer's fled. Leaves are dead Long ago ere now. Springtide's dreams, Summer's gleams How cans't thou remember? Bird-soul, teach me how. BLUE.HILL An ocean wave the mountain seems That leaps against the sky, And on its slopes are all the gleams Of breakers, running high : — Dark blue, clear green, the myriad lights Sea-tints and late leaves know. And as the sea-foam, curving white, I see its crest of snow, That when the low sun shines its way, Flushes and glows as sunset spray. THE FIRST SNOWFALL A white-robed line, the birches To first communion go ; One prostrate, ritual hour Young celebrants of snow. 30 EVENSONG A square tower set against the West, x\nd slender firs near by Make the low crescent brighter To the arrested eye. God's best and man's together Peace to the spirit show, While sunset winds are blowing The white dust of the snow. SCOTCH INVOCATION Thou of the sunlight, Thou of the starlight, God of the seasons Teach me to know How best to serve Thee Morning and evening Whether the hills wear Heather or snow. APOLLO AND THE CEDAR Soft is your cheek, my Dryad, Whose blush of rosy snow, Greets the young sun's appearing Above horizons low. Ah, who can guess the wonder That trees at sunrise know ? 31 THE GLACIER 'Mid earth's white pyramids steadfastly set, I, nature's Sphinx, superior to time's stings, Am prison of creation's hidden things That cannot forth to light for ages yet. Man's day shall pass as a quick-closing door, Whose forty centuries are to me no more Than is his own ephemeral violet. God's methods only I can know, Who saw earth's mighty embryo ; A silent keeper who cannot forget. Great forces battle, heart-deep in my breast. Where are within me chained the souls of streams That struggle sunward with prismatic gleams Of captive colors yet by man unguessed ; My deep ice-molecules, bound each to each, Whose myriad passions strain for speech, Hold all the sun-fiames of the east and west, And these are kin to that day, centuries-slow, When God spoke mightily, and it was so, And the world moved from chaos into rest. 32 Into earth-anarchy these yearn again But only sunshine can unlock the gates Where the ice-torrent, ever baffled, waits In April's leash, and frets his straining chain. Down in the vale the peasants care to know Not if the sun be shining high or low, But tell the hour by the stream's wax or wane And, seeing me, whose presence does not fail, — Their great, stained, eastern glory of the vale, — They praise God's house for such a window-pane. Who deems man's fashion can supremely hate? Quick-sinewed, time-untaught to harbor harms, His deed must out, for fear his passion calms I, ice-enduring, centuries can wait In hate's white essence, though I seem to smile Or love, unurgently, an aeon's while. I could teach man to be all-passionate. And it may be, when the sun's heat burns low, That men shall warm them at my deep-set glow, Of ice fires that shall not, like suns, abate. 33 A TRUCE OF GOD Gone is the time at last, and the encounter done ; — Since the foe is outcast, since now my soul is won, Was it that years went past, or was it one ? Ask of the sun. After the storm at sea ride waves to shore. Until old landmarks be beacons no more, Can the 'longshoreman see life as before. When wreck is o'er ? They who recruit not cry, *^Self is immune, Sea-depths are unstirred by winds from the dune." — So might the lark deny earthquakes, rock-hewn ; Mid-winter, June. Yes, 'tis the inner shock teacheth man God, How of the veined rock knoweth the sod ? Miracle laughs at mock. At the priest's nod Wakens the rod. Yield Thou some countersign lest mortals fail To know the true divine. What can avail If he asks dregs for wine, tinsel for mail ? Thy face unveil ! 34 God, Thou art far to seek; answer the human ! Is the man strong or weak that yearns to woman ? Must the soul hush or speak, shun or court no man ? Prize friend or foeman ? Ah, but Thou, too, wast lone — sought out the earth. If then in heaven was known infinite dearth ? God one with man has grown, all his faith worth, Since the Christ's birth. After the siege is o'er, white shines the truce. Saved from a reef-bound shore, hark to the crews Setting the sail once more. Who could refuse This, the Christ-news ? — ISOLATION There is one ultimate word. One inmost sense of life In each unconscious human soul ; Its sense of self, its unknown name divine, Such words make up the wondrous whole Of God's great speech, but none have heard, Self, nor intimate, nor wife. One such soul-name, yours or mine. 35 '^I HAVE CALLED THEE BY NAME" In his all-comprehending hall of fame For each of us God has a separate name ; A strange, true summing of the all in each. Not as we would to men another teach By saying "He is honest, he is wise," Or, " He is selfish; him you may despise " Naming thereby one trait, and in our screed Miscalling that the man himself indeed. In God's rich speech a syllable can show More than the learning of our folio. Or sum a life in all its strength or ill, Its poverty or riches of the will. That will be all our judgment on that day When we have put aside earth's speech and way. — So live that when the roll is read above It shall be some derivative of love That thou dost hear the while He looks on thee From the great muster call of deity, And for thy new soul name there shall be shown Some welcome patronymic of his own. 36 TO MY HORSE, "CHEVALIBR" Chevalier, that speedest well, Quick of instinct to foretell How my thoughts would bid thee go, Or if faster, or if slow Sure some soul in thee must dwell ! When fear casts its sudden spell. And white rocks to monsters swell, I will cheer thee, speaking low, '^Chevalier ! " Ah, within thy rider dwell Fears he, too, cannot dispel. Sudden things that shadows throw On a path he does not know ; Can he hope thee to excel, Chevalier ? SMOKE I am the scroll of history for every land and age, And mark the progress of the race throughout its pilgrimage ; The camp-fire of the savage ; the tribal signal light ; The city's conflagration that rides the winds of night ; The industry of river-towns ; the onrush of the train ; The massacre of battle; — and the hearth-light once again. 37 FOREBODING Oh musing child without a city wall, Dost thou of thine own future dream at all? And from these bright-hued flowers turn thine eyes To witness what on yon green hill shall rise And what the way thy feet shall then have trod? — Ah little, lonely, waiting Son of God! INSULAR In a vast aether sea the planet swings, Inhabited by idlers, slow to rouse, Who dream they are the only race of men; Yet are they dotted on the map of worlds As but an uncouth, late-discovered folk, Unnoteworthy, since, systems yet beyond, There loom the proudly-peopled continents. 38 ELEMENTS Who would have dreamed the world? Thus intricate from chaos hurled. — Mountain and sea and berry, Man and woman and city; A smile to show one is merry, And a tear to offer one's pity, Yet is our human progress slow Since heaven on earth we do not know. IN FLORENCE Above St. Mary Flower The Campanile's grace Achieves the vision tower That lit Giotto's face. All dreams find incarnation That shirk no sacrifice, — Man's, of self-exaltation; Jehovah's, of the Christ 39 SONG AGAINST LOVE Love, I'll have no more of thee, Since thou canst unworthy be ! Fair words, unfair deeds are thine, I'll no longer at thy shrine I'll to service, right the wrong I'll to duty, with a song. — What is this? Love, art thou here? Then thy name I will not fear. HOMESPUN I sit within my oaken loom. And homely is the web I weave. I press the treadle. To and fro The high cross beam swings. Even so Our heavy fates move, I believe. At our own touch our joy or doom Nears, stays and passes. God must know- Who bids the useful colors grow. 40 COUNTERPOINT Songs of men are clarion ? women sing in minor ? Turn the music of their lives the truth of this to see: Man's birth is of earth's soil ? woman's is diviner ? In the fragrant, sunlit fields of life's anthology Float her moth-desires, in quest of nectar ever finer, u^ther-sprung, above his bloom spread unaspiring- '^ LIMITATION Not those that are bird-throated Yearn most of all for song, The weak are cognizant of strength As never are the strong. Refusal may be best of gifts To who divinely long. 4T SONG Rocks and sands and a shining sea, Dashing surf and a sheltered lea, Ebb and flow, Sails that go. What is the chorus ye sing to me? Masts in the harbor, beneath the down. Fisher-faces, rough and brown, Sunset red. Hill of the dead, Fateful heavens that smile and frown. OFFERTORY Too tarnished is the ostentatious weight Bestowed by him who harbors pride and hate; The while the child's coin from a pure heart given Becomes a very argent gate of Heaven. THE CITY ON THE HILLSIDE Straight and slim the headstones stand ; The clustered chimneys of the underland. And, as from city dwellings men descry The thin white smoke stream upward to the sky, So souls, like smoke from fires just begun Perhaps rise from this city, one by one. 42 THE FACE OF MAN The face of man I watch in light and shade, Its changeful features in the balance weighed With here their heaviness and here their grace. And as its ancestry perforce I trace I am made glad at heart or shrink dismayed. What wildwood joys these curving lips invade? What city wrongs have made these eyes afraid? I read as very history of the race The face of man. Pre-human life its early part has played, — Fauna and flora mystically arrayed In ordered sequence up to latter days, — Working for aeons in untiring ways God hath not yet into His likeness made The face of man. HORIZON Ah world, thou art fair, sang the lark, who kne^x- The breath of a dome of spreading blue. Oh world, thou art fair, the lover cries To the firmament of his lady's eyes. 43 SLEEP Along the sinuous shore of dreams The tide is passionate, And on its crest my being seems To ride elate ; Tossed and blown where its surges go No more the bounds of earth to know. The passion of sleep is spent, Torn is its web, Like seaweed drifting sent On tides at ebb, My ken of self recaptures me And the dawn upwakes from the sea. THE KING IS DEAD His majesty has bowed before A greater majesty. For death, the king has come to bring The King of king's decree. 44 INSPIRATION Man shall not live by bread alone nay, but so as by fire, Without such he were breadless and chilled his life's desire Lit by the human hand-touch, whose hidden fires astart Can set the flames at ravage in the bracken of the heart And though time bid them smoulder in anthracite control Mined of the silent ages, red hot shall glow the coal. Yet the heat of the red is as nothing beside the heat of the white. And the holocaust of the spirit flames in the zenith's height. Blow, winds of heaven, upon such and scatter it afar Till the fire-brands of its burning make dull the solar star It needeth the other fires as the fuel for its flame And, walking unhurt amidst it, the prophets know its name. 45 VIGIL The mind its hilt, the heart its blade, My sword of life hangs strong, hangs bright* It flashes in sunlight, gleams in shade ; Above the altar there stirs a light As I kneel and pray to the Holy Maid — Oh teach me, Mary, to wield it right ! I stretch and bare thee my sword-arm Be it sure, be it strong to light, I breathe, And when is past the scathe and harm, Be it wise again the steel to sheathe, And gently to soothe the souFs alarm As I march the banner of peace beneath. KNIGHTED Her love-filled life, held up By a form, spirit-pale. Is to his heart its altar-cup Its vision-Grail. 46 FROM THE GHETTO He treasures the darkness of days gone by For the only light of his inner eye Set between dark and dark he stands, Forever placed in alien lands ; And they who have his birthright so despised How shall their daily insults teach him Christ ? He clings the closer to an outworn creed Within his Ghetto walls of scorn and need. CIRCUMSTANCE Beneath the dull eaves of a tenement My window crouches ; your commanding towers Look out on fields aglow with sun and flowers If thou on deeds of light ; I, of the dark am bent Let God be judge, who chose our firmament ; Yours, sunlit ; mine beset with smiting showers ; Mine hid with roofs and yours, star-evident: To judge alike such alien lives as ours No creed persuades me can be God's intent. 47 THE CITY STREET The city street is sprung as wrong from right How came this thing from God's, "Let there be light ?" Whose rays, that yet we see each morn unfold, Once from the new-set planets aureoled Looked on a world unpeopled, pure of night. Four-footed life learned how to stand upright And climbed up nature's stair to manhood's height Nor knew as yet the evil power of gold, — The city street. Narrow and dark where God's are broad and bright Man's thoroughfares flush red and shrink from sight. Is this our boast ; this tale too plainly told ? 'Tis tarnish on our glitter and foul mold On our first fruits, who for green fields behold The city street 48 THE TENEMENT I was God's cube of light and air Wandered of breezes through, Euilded by Him foursquare And roofed by a bound of blue. And the echoes said when the work was done **Thou art made that man might behold the sun*^' Ye have bound me with fetters of brick, And pierced my heart with a stair And the clamor of crime and the unwatched sick That starve for the gain of your pride are there, "We have need,*' ye said, **of this empty space To be the home of our serving-race.'' I reck no ill ye have done me here. But to your poor and the God of such, Take heed less the contract cost you dear Who count your gains yet lose overmuch Ye that have walled away the light Must marvel not if there falleth night. 49 DWELLINGS The hillside bears its burden No less than city street, And yet old stony pastures Are softer to the feet Than heated city pavements, — Could this tall tenement Speak some remote old homestead, Then back and forth were sent What ken of human nature ! Home were in either one And yet how life grows fevered With lack of air and sun ! TOWN AND COUNTRY Squalor of city alleys Makes human life seem mean, Yet are not upland pastures Where cattle graze, unclean ; Man may be worse than bestial, Farmyard more pure than town, And the great eyes of oxen Might look a monarch down. 50 WHERE CHILDREN PLAY I rode one day in my carriage Down a street where children play, And the horses sped, for the hour had fled And I feared to be late, since on the grass, Long shadow lines began to pass And the gothic elms were gold with the sun That gleams in their aisles when the day is done And the children's eyes alight with its strength As they hushed their shouts for a moment's length Till the echoes died from the hills away, Down the street where children play. I rode one day in my carriage Down a street where children play, And the horses sped as those that fled When fear and evil and ill gave chase — And I turned away; I could not face Their noisy sport for the sudden shame Of the evil things we dare not name. Yet they watch, wide-eyed, in the sordid streets, — Children, whose every playtime greets The squalid fates that make their way, Down the street where children play. S^ THE FABRIC OF THE FIELDS The whole white of the prism-edged clouds, the whole blue of the sky, I would they were mine to merchant, that you had the power to buy, I would I could purchase for you the murmur of forest trees. Then would I station my booth at a city's kerb and cry,— "Ye that can boast at best but a withered square of blue Lo, here is a dome of it, free, for the coin of a plea from you, Ye whose despair crieth faintly, Water, water, I thirst, Come to my sunset acres, drink of their cooling dew." Ah, could I weave you the meadows, could I but deal in June, Vender of leisure and quiet, crier of river and dune, How would you, stifling and pallid, crowd from your alleys to see. How would I offer my wares without price in a sordid noon. Oh bodies, too bestially herded, oh souls that look out as through bars. How can the squalor of pavements guess of the glory of stars ? Come and recapture your birthright ; learn from your blatant streets. It is only God that maketh and only man that mars. 52 SIDNEY LANIER'S FLUTE Wrought by man's hand, beyond my power of choice. A master's fingers made my music whole; Lanier's life-breath granted me a soul; I have constrained an audience to rejoice What days he smiled at laughter of his boys, Or taught it tears, when into me there stole, His wife's unspoken sigh, her dear control Of tears, by love witheld from eyes and voice. Striving to comfort, I have known his touch The oftener for too poignant need of bread In early, urgent days in Baltimore; And yet again been plaintive overmuch. My music from a vision-haunted bed. The prescience of a surely-closing door. PINE-WOODS You ask me to portray the forest pines, That were to undertake the human heart, So does it of their murmurings seem a part, So well the wood the need of man divines. That were to limn the mountain range that shines And all the glories of the surf impart. You ask a master-touch, unerring art, — No better theme had ever sonnet's lines. Oh songful glooms, where glints the low red gold, — Hem of the mantle of the passing Lord, — Oh peace that ever here is manifold. Oh slender needle-notes, in minor chord Upon earth's score close-written for an old And many-manualed infinite keyboard. 53 WACHUSETT Wachusett, I am home when at thy door That opens outward to the land and sea, And bids me scan years that are yet to be, That opens inward on what is no more And shows my fathers in their days of yore. Their southward-facing homesteads, field and tree, Whose toil, decreeing that their sons be free Gave liberally from out a hard-earned store. Thy far, free foliage, or sky-touched snow Beyond our cities takes a cloud-drawn breath. Teaching our dun-color to know thy blue, God's touchstone, keeping our faint struggle true. Amid our share of pain, our hint of death Whose eyes must watch the old time generation go. NEW ENGLAND A scanty income from the hills is thine. In stubborn conquest of unyielding sod; The wage of men that went rough-clad, hard-shod Yet are to-day a corner stone and sign. They who saw massive roots of trees entwine Dividing bowlders fast beneath the sod. And thereby gathered patience talked with God, Unconscious-yearning towards things divine Fitly from prophet and from patriarch They named their sons, however grown uncouth And, as relentless as the plow-share's mark. Furrowed the discipline of work in youth. And now, with fibre of the trunk and bark, A race staads heir to God's wide-acred truth. 54 THE ORGANIST The music surges outward from the keys, To my desire my fingers speed seems slow For I would teach the dim-lit church to know The soul of winds that bend the forest trees And hollow out God's open palm of seas, Whose errant listings wander to and fro Upon the earth and blend, majestic slow, In chords that echo matchless harmonies. The music stills — the audience stirs and sighs In mute response, as from a single heart Though myriad heard the songs that were it sung For one has journeyed other lands among. One has in his own future played his part, And one has looked in his dead sweetheart's eyes. THE CHAMBEH OF LIFE Pervading dark, with points of lesser dark. And objects dim, well-known in light of day, An open window wherein finds its way. The gleam of stars, a hush that bids me hark, While on my hearth there glows a fading spark; I watch its pulsing till my senses sway And sleep enfolds me until dawn of day Recalls me with the early singing lark. My room of life encircles me obscure, Suggesting forms known in some earlier light, I wait the day that shall my eyes assure Yet meanwhile rest and am content with night So it prepare me better to endure The morning call to come, the sunrise sight. L.ofC. SS THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS OVER A SUNKEN SEABOARD As in old days we skirted thy shore, Now that the waters cover thee Yet we fly over thee, Faithful as aeons before. Far out beneath the breakers roar Does a shadow of our flight Penetrate thy ocean night Who art sea-depth that once with snow wast hoar? We follow the vanished curve Of thy coast where the savage played Like a child among thy sands. Tradition-led, we dare not swerve And from our course have watchers made Their maps of prehistoric lands. A SEA-CHANGE The sea's a master-dramatist of life And writes its plays upon old vellum sands; Its language one for however alien lands — Derelict spars with tales of shipwreck rife, The melodrama of the fisher-wife. Then, siudden smiling, on its stage of strands It turns to comedies, joins lovers' hands; Yet most it sings of human grief and strife. Untiringly it toils, this Shakspere sea, Tho' never one were there to weep or smile Its audient horizons circle breathlessly Its shifting scenes of continent or isle Yet though it boasteth immortality ^*There shall be no more sea,'' it hath been said, ere while. 56 THE CITY Since man hath had of God green fields for home, He hath made haste to stain them with his towns, Since God's free air hath blown across the downs It hath been tainted with the mono-chrome Of trade's black breath that vilifies the dome Even of the minster that but vainly crowns The river-height, nor with its chiming drowns The cruel wheels, the epileptic foam. Not all Christ's centuries have set us free, God's census comes that here shall, as of old Find peradventure but its righteous few, — And ye whose power is wrought of infamy, — For those old cities, less defiled by gold. More tolerable it shall be than for you. TO INK SPILLED ON MY DESK Ugly disfigurement and useless blot. Had I indeed a ready writer's pen. Thou mightest have been words to move all men; I fancy thee perhaps some mystic plot Once overlooked by Marlowe, or forgot Within the Mermaid tavern, dear of ken. And now in later fashion here again Too human-hearted to have come to naught. These are my dreams; thou merely art instead Emblem of blunder, once more sent to shame Me into better action when I think That we, descendant from the fluent dead, Potential immortality may claim ^ In each dumb soul, — as in each blot of ink. 57 WHAT FLUSH MIGHT HAVE SAID Have other dogs such mistresses as mine? White-handed, gentle-voiced, so kind of touch That I, who love the outdoor world so much. Where nothing seeks my freedom to confine, Would rather crouch within, nor think to pine, If I can make a smile hunt down a tear, Or, true in vigil offer my dumb cheer As a dog may, before a human shrine. But while I kept her door,- a stranger's hand Beckoned its sudden mandate, hard to dare; I did my best, but could not understand. And yet I think — if dogs man's joy can share — That as I listened for her word's command. So did she wait the footstep on the stair. THE ARNO Lovers of noontide did the Arno christen The golden river of the Tuscan vale, A ring whose flashing gem could all else pale, — Florence, whose lights upon arts finger glisten In lover's troth. Yet when the moon has risen When Ponte Vecchio feels not yet its light And Santa Trinita is newly bright. Lung' Arno's windows whisper, if you listen, Of azure-silver. Day's dull, tawny gold Falls off as raiment from a nymph put by ; The stream from which the lilies whitely rise Flashes and softens as the hours unfold: Gold is less precious from a full supply And here old silver is the rarer prize. 58 NAUSICAA A boy, at task beneath his tutor^s frowns, Aside would fain have his dull lessons thrown. Scornful of classics, his eyes eager grown For the broad window's glimpse of clamorous towns When from the tangled web of verbs and nouns A sudden comprehension came; there shone White-armed Nausicaa, her robes wind-blown. Upon the sea-girt margin of the downs. I made my daily tasks of no avail And all their teachings truant-wise defied When sudden sprang from the else-idle tale Thou my Nausicaa, by the full flood tide Of my mid-morning's durance and the veil Blew from my sight, and love stood defied. ENDYMION He walketh open-handed, open-eyed. And by the door of the world's needs and woes Keeps sleepless vigil. Therefore no one knows That in a valley by a river-side In dreamful sleep his soul to earth has died Where to all evil things his senses close, — He from the gods has won a sweet repose. For they have loved him all men else beside* You who amid earth's cities take your way Yet pass the quiet valley where he lies, — A youthful form amid the flowers and grass, — - Step lisjhtly lest you wake him as you pass, And see fear darken in his startled eyes. In whose still soul Endymion sleeps to-day. 59 IN OMAR'S TENT A little cup my life ; a beaker, thine, Hold them aloft, behold them as they shine, Each with its gleam, each with its mantling foam. — Knowest thou which holds the better-vintaged wine? THE HEAT OF THE DAY He followed in his youth a radiant star But now the years have set those days afar Eor confidence to disillusion grew, And he who glowed to make is happy not to mar. 1/ BROTHERHOOD Hast thou of God endured one bitter year? Then look abroad upon the far and near. And thou shalt not lament the destiny That has to thee the human heart made clear. 60 A DREAMER OF THE GHETTO I sing of morning stars and opening flowers, God knows my life has kept the darker hours, Yet even the shelterless in dreams may see Against the east the sky-line of his towers. ANNIVERSARIES Events of years gone our hearts celebrate With smiles or tears. Mayhap from Heaven's gate, Angels look forward on the deeds of men And these betimes in song anticipate. TREASURES OF THE EAST Monarchs their gems on crown and sceptre prize Ladies, their silks of myriad lavish dyes. I, the poor sailor of a stubborn sea, And clothed and crowned with each supreme sun- rise. 6i RAIMENT Look to the burnished moths, the autumn trees, The wardrobes of the flowers and birds and bees. Not all your factories of haggard men Have wrought a fabric like to one of these. RESTORED My down-filled pillow will not bring me rest Yet soft are tree-trunks .and the earth's rock- breast. Dear mother nature, singing in the pines, Teach tired towns to know thine arms are best. IMMUNE Out-doors, I know, there is no empty chair To mock you with its endless "why?'' or "where?" Seek then those mates who only never die Whose gossip is more prayerful than your prayer. PARADOX In prayer of God his happiness he sought Urging whereof he deemed it must be wrought, — Ah, the conflicting prayers of wayward men That to be answered must be set at naught! FAINT-HEART There are who boldly woo and boldly win And those who falter, as in conscious sin. Ah, ladies, trust not to the outward show, But rather look the faithful heart within. CRISIS By the electric hand of God drawn out. From customary scabbard, lest it rust, Into the thick of action and of rout, A naked, quivering blade the soul is thrust. 63 ACTION With some the sword of life hangs sheathed still Some use it as a foil to show their skill ; Grasp thou its hilt and forth to civil war, To prove its temper at thy captain's will. THE KISS A pretty passion of our infancy, And mark of other lands' formality, Thou art a master-linguist of all speech, — And once wert man's worst deed of infamy. CHARACTER XapdKro<^ Oh furrow in the useful field of God, With thy uprooted daisies in the sod Cometh a harvest month which compensates For ploughshares and rough horse-hoofs, iron-shod. 64 LEASE Within four walls each life is resident Wherein, my friend, shall thine and mine be spent? For fate gives every tenant-soul its choice Of prison cell or four-square firmament. DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR [DANIEL CHESTER FRENCH] Absorbed, upon the Sphinx we labor all, Deeming success within our early call — Unconscious that the angel waiting stands With signal that shall unexpected fall. FOLIO Oh book, bound in morocco, edged in gilt, With man's short-comings, God's compassion filled. The index thou of yet increasing works. Upon the shelf of life that God has built. 65 IN THE VINEYARD Art weak ? A little weight shalt tire thy hand. Art strong ? A grievous thing shalt crush thee not; Art weak and strong ? Then shalt thou understand And lend thy shoulder where the noon is hot. DISASTER Hooded, inert, and heavy on the wrist The falcon broods, till an iinblinded hour Flashes a summons he cannot resist And shows the frightened prey within his power. MUSIC Call me away from my labor, dear notes of the vibrating strings, Lending oblivion, granting to me of a bird the wings, Then my dream-poised spirit sing into strength again. Send me forth, never so eager, into the heart of things. 66 A GUEST OF OMAR All things of men and nature Omar felt, Yet sang a mocking song the while he knelt, A master of his craft, he wrought his tents, And I awhile in one of them have dwelt. 67 Notable New Poetry Cloud, Virginia Woodward A REED BY THE RIVER. 12 mo. cloth, ornamental, gi.oo. A volume of poems ** characterized by- uncommon melody, grace of diction, imaginative povv^er, and passion." — Globe, Toronto. Lanier^ Clifford APOLLO AND KEATS on Browning, A Fantasy and other poems. 12 mo. antique boards, gi.50. ** This book has an interest aside from the exquisite verses themselves. The author is the only brother of the lamented Sidney Lanier. His verses have the same exquisite lightness and delicacy, and the same devotion to the music of thought as vs^ell as language. ' ' — The Constitution y Atlanta. Thomas^ Edith M. THE DANCERS, and other Legends and Lyrics. 12 mo. cloth ornamental ^1.50. '' There is something about the whole collection v^hich sticks to one's memory and challenges again the charge that w^e have no poets like the old ones." — The Times, Minneapolis. Trask, Katrina SONNETS AND LYRICS. 12 mo. antique boards, ^1.25. A new edition of this delightful and popular volume of poems, presented in a much more attractive form than originally. Wetherald^ Ethelwyn TANGLED IN STARS, 12 mo. antique boards gi.oo. **It may be said without carping or qualification, that Miss Wetherald has added something of unquestionable grace to the store of Canadian Poetry . . Miss Wetherald is par excel- lence a nature poet. Her technique, within the range of her special purpose and materials, is faultless." — Saturday Night, Toronto. Richard G. Badger^ Boston The Gorham Press ijUH 5 ' LIBRARY OF ■nil 016 215