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 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
DRIFTWOOD 
 
 And Other Poems 
 
 BY 
 
 FLORENCE E. DE CERKEZ 
 
 M 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 RICHARD G. BADGER 
 
 THE GORHAM PRESS 
 I9IO 
 
Copyright 1910 by Florence E. de Cerkez 
 
 All Rights Reserved 
 
 t^ 
 
 
 (jORHAm Press, Boston, U. S. A. 
 
 ©CU273ai4 
 
ci 
 
 r 
 
 TO MY MOTHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Driftwood 9 
 
 R-0-S-E-M-A-R-Y 
 
 My Song 13 
 
 The Rose 14 
 
 Broken Harpstrings , 14 
 
 Night in Africa 14 
 
 Now 15 
 
 Her Knight , 15 
 
 A Prayer 16 
 
 Ragatz . 17 
 
 Solitude 18 
 
 Promontogno 19 
 
 A Storm in Lucerne 19 
 
 Marechal Neil 20 
 
 A Song Not to be Put to Music. 2i 
 
 The Ruins of Ebenburg 22 
 
 Clarens 24 
 
 The Two Languages 25 
 
 Insomnia 26 
 
 To the Hudson 26 
 
 / Would Forget 28 
 
 Foreboding 28 
 
 Sonnet 29 
 
 To My Muse 30 
 
 Whoso Giveth a Cup of Water 31 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 / Love Thee 31 
 
 Caritas 32 
 
 In the Pines 32 
 
 Sa7id of the Hour-Glass October 33 
 
 To Emma 34 
 
 To Carmen Sylva 34 
 
 Lines 35 
 
 Dinantj Ardennes 35 
 
 Friendship 36 
 
 Whyf 36 
 
 A Sketch 37 
 
 A Letter {to M. D.) 37 
 
 A Rainy Evening 38 
 
 Requiescat 38 
 
 Love 39 
 
 Mountain Breeze 40 
 
 To One Envied by His Friends 41 
 
 Sintram 41 
 
 In After Years 41 
 
 Konig Tolv 42 
 
 Epithalamium 43 
 
 Ausable Chasm 44 
 
 In the Clover 45 
 
 When the Leaves Fall 45 
 
 ''Suffering Before You Sing" . . 46. 
 
 Autumn Wind 47 
 
 New Year 47 
 
 Holly-Wreath 48 
 
 Henceforth {to S. B. C.) 50 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 In Memoriam 52 
 
 The Song of the Dial 53 
 
 Night in the Garden 55 
 
 Niente 56 
 
 To a Poet 57 
 
 Snow 58 
 
 At a Concert 58 
 
 On a Reading of Omar Khayyain 59 
 
 UNDER THE ROYAL BANNERS 
 
 Requiem 63 
 
 Recessional 64 
 
 In Memoriaju 64 
 
 Sonnet 65 
 
 Easter Flowers 65 
 
 While these Hunger 68 
 
 Saul of Tarsus 68 
 
 The Little Christ Child 70 
 
 A Christmas Hymn 71 
 
 Vespers 74 
 
 Fiat 76 
 
 Siloam 77 
 
 Hand and Brain 78 
 
 Christian Belief 80 
 
 Confession 82 
 
 Meditation 83 
 
 In the Wilderness 86 
 
 The Prophet 90 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 PARNASSIA PALUSTRIS 
 
 Parnassia Palustris 97 
 
 Grass of Parnassus 97 
 
 Wild Swan 98 
 
 Song 99 
 
 Lurelei 100 
 
 Engine 72 lOO 
 
 The Secret of the Shell lOi 
 
 Song 103 
 
 Tribute to a Friend 104 
 
 Vision 104 
 
 Edith of Tynewold 104 
 
 On the Atlantic 109 
 
 Where Others Shall Tread ill 
 
 The Spirit of the Storrn 114 
 
 Souvenir — A Song . . . 116 
 
 Letters to My Alice 117 
 
 In Answer 1 19 
 
 Alice of the Woods I20 
 
 The Ermine of Brittany I2l 
 
DRIFTWOOD 
 
 Life's ocean casts up many a drifting spar, 
 Flotsam of wrecks long since without a name, 
 
 That lends the hearth a variable flame, 
 
 And glitters like the Cross whose rays afar 
 Shine on the seas beyond the coral bar. 
 
 It keeps its tale of glory or of shame 
 
 And will not ever tell us whence it came 
 Nor of what forest growth its fibers are. 
 
 Clear fire of driftwood, burning on the shore, 
 
 Cast forth your changing hues across the main 
 And light a phantom vessel on the waves, 
 
 It bears the forms we never shall see more. 
 Those whom the watchers waited for in vain, 
 The Dreams that sleep in unforgotten graves. 
 
R-O-S-E-M-A-R-Y 
 
MY SONG 
 
 Many a broken heart on earth 
 
 Hath eased itself with song 
 For the rough road to death from birth 
 
 Is wearisome and long. 
 Though kindly voices cheer us, yet 
 
 Something upon the way 
 Is lost, and we cannot forget 
 
 The glory of the day. 
 Yes, all have had their hour of pain, 
 
 But few, as I have done, 
 Will try to match their loss with gain 
 
 By counting one by one 
 Their falling tears as if to string 
 
 With them a rosary, 
 And few their open heart will fling 
 
 At every passer by. 
 This have I done, or seemed to do. 
 
 For singing to the wind 
 I have allowed men through and through 
 
 To penetrate my mind. 
 So seems it. Aye, but God's above 
 
 And peace be to the rest! — 
 Deeper than death, for deep as love 
 
 Lies that within my breast 
 Which idly I appear to trail 
 
 Before a careless throng; 
 To me as to the corn a flail 
 
 Is my loud burst of song. 
 And yet the effort is in vain, 
 
 The brimming vase is set 
 In ice that settles round again 
 
 Upon a deep regret. 
 
 13 
 
THE ROSE 
 
 There Is a rose that decks the paths of men 
 With trailing beauty and a scent divine: 
 It blossoms where no mortal could divine, 
 But when once plucked, it never blooms again. 
 Where it hath been uprooted from the soil, 
 With bleeding hearts we watch the lonely spot; 
 None find it, save by chance, howe'er they toil, 
 Yet pity on the soul that find it not. 
 
 BROKEN HARPSTRINGS 
 
 There are some feelings words portray. 
 That waken, like a penciled head, 
 Some darkling image of the dead. 
 So there are griefs that we may say ; 
 
 But there are agonies of mind 
 That snap the heart strings, like a harp 
 Where some unskilful hand a sharp 
 Fierce chord has struck, and left behind 
 
 A shattered thing unfit for song; 
 So conquered by the storm we lie 
 Borne on the wind that whirls us by. 
 Pitiless as it rides along. 
 
 NIGHT IN AFRICA 
 
 Thou pale young moon, tell me, how does my love ? 
 Thinks she of me, now on this April night? 
 Sees she in slumber one who, though he rove 
 All the world over, still has her in sight; 
 Still has her eyes, her violet eyes on his, 
 With this sky of Africa above him. 
 
Were yonder desert fiercer than it is, 
 
 It were a paradise so she did love him. 
 
 Thou pale young moon, let me be sure : 
 
 Glint through her lattice ; — on her little hand, — 
 
 Now bless mine own. There, now I can endure, 
 
 Though all the world were a desert of sand ! 
 
 Say, doth she sleep, or waketh she, or dreams. 
 
 Ah not of me, but of the latest face 
 
 Her open eyes have lit on? — Let thy beams 
 
 Flash on my soul a response, let them trace 
 
 A picture of my love, that I may see 
 
 If she doth watch or dream, perchance, of me. 
 
 NOW 
 
 We know we live, we know we die, 
 
 We do not know the goal. 
 
 We cannot tell or whence, or why 
 
 Or whither. In the soul 
 
 Arises doubt we shame to stem. 
 
 And hope we fear to scorn ; 
 
 We weep the lost and follow them; 
 
 Say, is it death, or dawn? 
 
 Shall we not love each other now, 
 
 Since this is all we know? 
 
 Time is so swift, we watch not how 
 
 The summers come and go. 
 
 Yet still I dream thy love some eve 
 
 Will close upon my breast. 
 
 And I shall touch thy lips, and leave 
 
 The rest, and leave the rest. 
 
 15 
 
HER KNIGHT 
 
 How were the knight whom you should stoop to 
 wed ? 
 
 Apart we sat 
 In the wide window seat. She bent her head 
 
 And laughed at that, 
 Half coy and half defiant; "Thus", she said: 
 
 "If I should choose a knight to be my love, 
 
 He should be fair, 
 His very voice and gesture made to move, 
 
 His talents rare, 
 If I should choose a knight to be my love. 
 
 If I should choose a knight to be my lord, 
 
 He should be great, 
 Feared of his peers, and by the low adored 
 
 In princely state. 
 If I should choose a knight to be my lord. 
 
 If I should choose a knight to be my own, 
 
 He should be strong, 
 And by his native fearlessness, have grown 
 
 Scornful of wrong, 
 So should he be whom I should call my own." 
 
 A PRAYER 
 
 At night, when darkness closes 
 
 And all reposes. 
 
 In the still air 
 
 Rises my prayer 
 
 God keep thee in His care. 
 
 i6 
 
At morn, when day begins, 
 
 And sunlight wins 
 
 The hill-top gray, 
 
 For thee I pray, 
 
 "God bless thee love today." 
 
 At noontide, when a hush 
 
 Falls on the rush 
 
 Of busy feet 
 
 In the close street, 
 
 I pray: "God shield thee sweet." 
 
 And in the holy light 
 Of God's pure sight, 
 Whene'er I may, 
 The livelong day, 
 "Love her O Lord" I say. 
 
 RAGATZ 
 
 Thou art alone. No rustle on the hills 
 Nor drowsy twitter in the fragrant w^ood. 
 Nature has gone to rest, and silence fills 
 The echoes with its harmony. Her brood 
 The eagle long has gathered in the nest 
 That overhangs yon distant purple crag 
 Shadowed against the crystal light. The rest 
 Sinks into deepening twilight, where the flag 
 Flutters its purple streamers o'er the marsh. 
 And the white mist rolls up the valley. Now 
 Thy soul can commune with itself. All harsh 
 Discordant sounds are hushed, and now the flow 
 Of solemn thought can freely drift, and bear 
 Thee like the Delphian winds a mystic word 
 To live upon hereafter. 
 
 Speak, I hear. 
 Majestic Silence! Often have I heard 
 
 17 
 
Ere now thy voice at close of dewy eve, 
 
 Falling like plumes cast down from twilight's wings ; 
 
 Or when the rising sun begins to cleave 
 
 In coloured shafts the cloud, and earthly things 
 
 With light of Eden blest, await the day: 
 
 The timid flowers with eyes half oped, the birds 
 
 Swaying to plume their wings, the glistening spray 
 
 That not a breeze stirs else, and the mild herds 
 
 Ranging the meadows; these, all these, have borne 
 
 Thy still mysterious voice, thy wordless song 
 
 Unruffled to mine ear. And I have gone 
 
 My daily journey though the way was long, 
 
 And wearisome the road. But scarce an hour 
 
 The charm of harmonies sublime can rest 
 
 In perfect peace, or battle with the power 
 
 Of earth's wild discords in the human breast. 
 
 Thus as I gaze on nature's placid beauty, 
 
 On this grey starlit plain, these rock-cleft skies, 
 
 Deep in my soul the clarion peal of duty 
 
 Starts self-evoked from nature's harmonies! 
 
 Canst thou no more then. Nature all-pervading. 
 
 Canst thou no more than stir within us fires 
 
 In their fierce course the very soul invading, 
 
 Consumed at last with their own vain desires ? 
 
 SOLITUDE 
 
 Thou canst not love like simple men 
 
 Who seek for pleasure. 
 
 Nor thy proud aspirations pen 
 
 Within their measure; 
 
 Thou canst not find a soul to share 
 
 Thine own unrest. 
 
 And so thy pain alone must bear 
 
 W^ithin thy breast. 
 
 i8 
 
PROMONTOGNO 
 
 Hail once again ye mountains! Thrice the year 
 Hath strewn your rocks with hairbells, thrice the 
 
 stream 
 Hath leapt from wintry snows into the lap 
 Of summer meadows, and the quiet herd 
 Have sought their scanty pasture on the height 
 Since I have trod this path, and In the shade 
 Of solitary pines have heard the wind, 
 And watched the brawling stream as I do now. 
 Rush on, rush on thou homeless stream, and ye 
 Sentinels of the mountain fastnesses. 
 Ye ancient pines, wave your dark spears. To me 
 The wandering stream, the voices of the wind 
 Have nought of strange or fearful ; kin am I, 
 Kin to you all, though loftier ye and pure. 
 Temples of God's eternal majesty. 
 
 A STORM IN LUCERNE 
 
 Dark lowers the cloud; a straggling sunbeam 
 
 throws 
 Its broken Shaft upon the Storm Fiend's shield. 
 His inky buckler with red lightning blazoned ; 
 Fled is all good, and nought resists the winds 
 That howling now assail yon noble oak, 
 Mad at resistance, with redoubled rage; 
 They laugh to hear his sturdy sinews crack 
 And whistle as he crashes to the earth. 
 So have I seen ignoble fury work 
 Its utmost on a great and vanquished head. 
 
 19 
 
MARECHAL NEIL 
 
 I wandered by the borders of the sea 
 
 That knows no tide, 
 Where the grey olive bloom of Italy 
 
 Spreads far and wide. 
 The sun upon the lea made silver sheets 
 
 Of all the waves 
 And shadowless were all the village streets 
 
 And still as graves, 
 While on the sultry air the orange flower 
 
 Threw languid scent, 
 And sharply through the cypress boughs a shower 
 
 Of sunlight bent. 
 It brimmed on all the orchid's tinted cups 
 
 In the tall grass 
 And shimmered on a thousand buttercups 
 
 Like fine spun glass; 
 It kissed the crimson kerchief of a maid 
 
 Upon the boulder 
 Bearing an earthen pitcher lightly laid 
 
 Across her shoulder, 
 While, by a wall screened with laburnum trees. 
 
 Their blossoms trailing 
 Against its warm white marble in the breeze, 
 
 Through an old railing 
 A yellow rose sheer on the bare sky flashed 
 
 Upon my sight, 
 The flesh of its sun-burnished petals dashed 
 
 With scent and light. 
 And oft since then its flame had cheered my eyes 
 
 And warmed my heart 
 Remembered under grey and gloomy skies 
 
 In foreign part; 
 When, O strange chance! as Springtime flowered 
 the wood 
 
 zo 
 
And cleared the snows, 
 You gave me — in the morning light you stood, — 
 A yellow rose. 
 
 A SONG NOT TO BE PUT TO MUSIC 
 
 I loved you as we love a land. 
 Though foreign, yet familiar grown, 
 And when I closely held your hand, 
 I knew that you were not my own. 
 
 Yet common sympathies had moved 
 Our kindred spirits toward each other; 
 I loved you truly, but I loved 
 With the strong fondness of a brother. 
 
 And if another feeling oft 
 Stirred me when gazing in your eyes, 
 I felt it drowned in tears arise. 
 And sink again, remote and soft. 
 
 Oh, tender as the distant ring 
 Of passing bells at eventide! 
 No chance of time or fate can bring 
 A truer being to my side. 
 
 No voice will ever sound so dear, 
 No heart will ever beat so close. 
 No step so gently wake mine ear 
 Forever! — ^Thou hast picked the rose, 
 
 Thou hast the secret of my breast, 
 And like a desecrated tomb. 
 My heart, though wrapt in cypress gloom 
 Hast lost its dear and sacred guest. 
 
 21 
 
THE RUINS OF EBENBURG 
 
 Oh what grief my heart o'erwhelms 
 As I see our meeting place! 
 And the shadows of the elms 
 That were playing on your face ! 
 
 In my fancy you are there, 
 Standing silent by my side, 
 So one sees the chamber bare 
 Where a friend has lived and died; 
 
 Yet such sorrow finds relief 
 In the thought that though unseen 
 Still the spirit shares our grief 
 With the love that once hath been; 
 
 Whereas I my pain must bear 
 In a solitary breast, 
 With your shadow everywhere 
 Haunting me, a stranger guest. 
 
 Yes a stranger In the halls 
 Where we welcomed you so oft, 
 Silently its footstep falls 
 Gentle is its voice and soft, 
 
 Pleading with the eloquence 
 Of the frank familiar eyes, 
 Pleading with the strength intense 
 Of a thousand memories: — 
 
 "Tell me, love, do you remember 
 How we culled the autumn flowers. 
 How we watched the dying ember 
 By the hearth in winter hours ; 
 
 22 
 
How a sadness 'twixt us crept 
 With the blooming of the heath, 
 While our love triumphant leapt, 
 Like a lily from its sheath? — 
 
 I remember in the woods 
 How the ashes crimson berry 
 In your hair I wove, your moods 
 Flitting, gusty, sad and merry; 
 
 How we climbed this ruined buttress 
 Crowned with grasses waving wide, 
 Stood alone, my gentle mistress, 
 For the first time side by side, 
 
 Heedless of the many voices 
 Ringing in the castle shade. 
 Heedless of the distant noises 
 That the world without us made, 
 
 And together closed our spirits, 
 Strangers but an hour before, 
 God forgive us, faults or merits 
 Weighed not! — Strangers evermore. 
 
 Strangers since we bowed in sorrow 
 To a stern necessity, 
 Strangers till the last tomorrow 
 Wastes into Eternity." . . . 
 
 Leave me, shadow from the distance 
 Of th' irrevocable past; 
 In a higher strung existence 
 Let us both find peace at last. 
 
 23 
 
And within, the sacred powef 
 That hath seemed to bear no fruit, 
 Strong in Charity shall flower 
 From its deep and mangled root. 
 
 Oftentimes the spirit weaves 
 Scented wreaths of its regret. 
 As upon the fallen leaves 
 Blooms the springtime violet; 
 
 So in after years perchance 
 You shall pass me by unmoved, 
 Meeting with a careless glance 
 The forgotten face you loved. 
 
 CLARENS 
 
 {To Byron) 
 
 Fall twilight on the lake, while yonder boat 
 Fleets homeward like a curlew on the wing, 
 And let my fancy now at random float 
 Like yon grey vapours slowly darkening. 
 How the white moonlight on the water burns 
 As with the blended fire of myriad stars, 
 And how the restless element returns 
 The flash reflected in a thousand bars! 
 Deep in its bosom plunge the fiery flakes 
 Through the dark leaves of the old sycamore. 
 While the light wave montonously breaks 
 On the smooth rolling pebbles of the shore. 
 Pause we awhile before the darkness closes. 
 Listen, O Byron, to the murmuring wave. 
 The stillness of the summer night disposes 
 The mind to silent meditation grave. 
 Yet gaze not inward. See the mountain chain 
 Rearing its snows into the changing sky. 
 The moonlight waters and the glimmering plain, 
 Let these attract, these hold thy wandering eye. 
 
 24 
 
But turn it not within, do not disturb 
 
 The peace of Nature and the sense of rest 
 
 With marsh-light thoughts, but bow thy head and 
 
 curb 
 The bitter musing of thy wayward breast. 
 Thou in whose soul of flame was written deep 
 The name of poet, rise above the storms 
 To regions worthy of thyself, and keep 
 The gods for thy companions, not those forms 
 Which jostle in thy brain with petty noise. 
 O child of Greece that to th' Ionian gale. 
 Harmonious in thy pure artistic poise. 
 Like some grand temple years in vain assail, 
 A pile of mouldering greatness, ivy-bound, 
 Opposest, — Bard of passion, quell thy heart! 
 Its voice still thrills the Jura, and the sound 
 Evokes thy wrath, hence never to depart. 
 
 THE TWO LANGUAGES 
 
 My mother tongue and that I spoke with you 
 
 In me contend. 
 So on the old affections dawned the new 
 
 To meet ajid blend 
 With all I had been, as the flowering vine 
 
 Around the oak, 
 Creeping along centennial boughs will twine 
 
 Its graceful cloak; 
 Yet closely clinging to the native bark 
 
 In silent strife, 
 The verdant tendrils, growing in the dark, 
 
 May sap its life. 
 
 25 
 
INSOMNIA 
 
 While all the household sleeps, 
 
 - I watch alone, 
 My sorrowing spirit keeps 
 
 Its vigil lone ; 
 As the white stars wheel by, 
 
 The lamp burns low, 
 Before my open eye, 
 
 Dreams come and go. 
 Soul of my dreams! thou Shade 
 
 So dearly loved, 
 The promise I had m.ade 
 
 Lo I have proved : 
 As creeps to light the dawn 
 
 Behind the roofs, 
 As start the cock's loud horn 
 
 The wheel and hoofs, 
 I feel the life I gave 
 
 To thee is thine; 
 This is an empty grave 
 
 This clay of mine. 
 
 TO THE HUDSON 
 
 Ere this I've wandered by thy reedy shores, 
 Along thy swelling broad majestic stream 
 Beneath the leaves of ancient sycamores 
 And in the twilight's green ethereal gleam. 
 When idle thoughts fled like a swallow's wing 
 'Mid shadows of the future through my breast. 
 As in these woods, by fountains murmuring, 
 I rocked my spirit, on thy waves, to rest. 
 But now how strange, O Hudson, are thy banks; 
 I hear no music in thy waters' roll. 
 Although the Palisades their rocky flanks 
 Rear proud as ever at the journey's goal. 
 
 26 
 
The pale familiar stream from the West 
 Upon the Point where science trains the sword, 
 And yet the lovely scene does not afford 
 My eye and heart a sense of joy or rest. 
 
 Fade O thou sunlight of Columbia's strand, 
 
 With softer glow fall in another clime 
 
 Where vineyards smile upon a mellow land 
 
 And breezes waft abroad the even chime; 
 
 Drop from your heights, ye frowning Palisades, 
 
 To rolling uplands crowned with ruined halls; 
 
 Break open quarries in the autumn glades, 
 
 And pearl the rills with many waterfalls; 
 
 Deck with a wreath of legend all the scene. 
 
 Bring down the glory of the sky above 
 
 Into my heart, and I shall walk between 
 
 The Rhineland vines, and once more learn to love. 
 
 Never again on earth. . . . That sun for me 
 
 Is set forever on a shoreless deep; 
 
 And my life dream wrapt in the ne'er to be. 
 
 As with myself a lonely watch I keep. 
 
 And why? Because an hour we walked in bliss? 
 
 Because we touched each other's hand, and knew 
 
 Tempests of passion that a living kiss 
 
 Hath never sealed ? My love, I lived for you. 
 
 Words are not deep enough; — My spirit's tide 
 
 Surges in silence at each passing hour. 
 
 Filled with a yearning that nought else beside. 
 
 Nought but thyself can fill, then In the power 
 
 Of lonely wretchedness receding leaves 
 
 My stranded thought. Thy eyes are on my eyes. 
 
 Bright Image, while my thristy longing greives 
 
 For the clear draught this desert world denies. 
 
 Where art thou ? — Yea, my life Is void and dark 
 
 And loveless since we parted. . . . Nevermore 
 
 Never on earth to own each other. Hark 
 
 27 
 
The Rhine is swollen and the rapids roar. 
 Would I were buried in his rocky bed, 
 Whilst thou in a fair-fitted barge shouldst pass 
 Above my forehead in the water grass 
 And sorrow. . . . Peaceful, peaceful arc the 
 dead. 
 
 I WOULD FORGET 
 
 I would forget thee as the swallows fly 
 On wings of steel when last the dying wood 
 Smiles in the golden leaf, not put thee by 
 As the mere vision of a lighter mood. 
 
 I would not have a course of slow decay 
 Wear out the passion that has stirred my breast 
 Doomed like a ruined stronghold, day by day 
 To lose the glory that I once possessed. 
 
 For I have done as Arthur's last true knight 
 With the true love which thou hadst given me 
 When he descended from the frosty height 
 And threw Excalibur into the sea. 
 
 FOREBODING 
 
 O let me live, I ask of ye no more 
 
 But let me live. 
 Not yet the storm, I scarce have left the shore, 
 
 Love left behind. 
 Not yet — my swelling sails but take the wind — 
 
 Some respite give. 
 
 Still on the port the lingering light of day 
 
 Sheds molten gold. 
 As to the verge I take my lonely way; 
 
 Night closes in. 
 
 28 
 
Then give me space the open sea to win, 
 Darkness withhold. 
 
 Yet wherefore should I fear the lowering cloud 
 
 That banks the West, 
 Though on the bright young moon a gloomy shroud 
 
 Be early thrown, 
 And though the sleeping sea begin to moan 
 
 Its deep unrest? 
 
 I do not fear, ye winds and threatening storm 
 
 Your utmost force; 
 As- yonder wave the worst ye can perform 
 
 Breaks on a rock, 
 I dash to foam the ineffectual shock 
 
 Would check my course. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 I read Evangeline's sad tale last night. 
 
 And by the short'ning candle watched the scene 
 
 Grow, and dissolve: Arcadia's meadows green. 
 
 The burning village and the exiles' flight; 
 
 The victory of tyranny o'er right; 
 
 The wandering lovers with a world between 
 
 Their sundered steps ; Two beings which unseen 
 
 Glowed in each other like a beacon light 
 
 Until the end ; and the last short embrace 
 
 In the still ward. "Peace, peace, for God is able," 
 
 And the book fell, when sudden burning tears 
 
 Dimmed all the room, and I beheld thy face. 
 
 Resting upon thy hand, sunk by the table 
 
 In reverie, and no older than thy years. 
 
 a9 
 
TO MY MUSE 
 
 Hast thou one only theme, O Muse, 
 Whene'er I call thee to my side, 
 Hast thou no word, whate'er betide. 
 Canst thou no consolation use, 
 
 But wake the accents of the lyre 
 To one melodious tuneful theme. 
 And are these ashes of a dream 
 All thou hast left of early fire? 
 
 Are these dead ashes all thou hast 
 To bless my sorrow with, my friend, 
 Thou who didst promise till the end 
 To be to me what once thou wast ? 
 
 What thou wert once, forever be; 
 When rising on a sunless morn. 
 The promise of a better dawn. 
 Thy lovely face bent over me. 
 
 With song or silence, hand in hand 
 Together we have walked since then, 
 And when among my fellowmen 
 I faltered, thou didst help me stand. 
 
 Then strike thy harp to that clear strain 
 Of yore, and leave our gay hopes lost 
 Leave our illusions tempest crossed 
 Sing thy forgotten songs again! 
 
 30 
 
WHOSO GIVETH A CUP OF WATER 
 
 Because I learnt of thee that love is not 
 A fruitless blossom to be left to rot 
 Upon life's highway, trifled with an hour 
 And cast into the dust; because the power 
 Of thy kind being, like the sunshine blessed 
 My dayspring, O my friend, I leave the rest. 
 All careless pleasure and all fancies vain : 
 I will not wish the past back once again 
 To make thee suffer, as thou surely didst. 
 From hour to hour, slow sorrow, in the midst 
 Of joys uncertain ; but we plucked the rose. 
 Then let its perfume, as the night breeze blows 
 Drop gently with its petals on the wind, 
 God bless the memory thou hast left behind. 
 
 I LOVE THEE 
 
 I love thee, yes I love thee now 
 More than when thou wert by my side, 
 For now my love is passion tried, 
 A crown of sorrows on its brow; 
 
 And all thou art is grown to me 
 Much closer, much more real and true. 
 The shadow of a gravestone yew 
 Has barred the light that was to be. 
 
 A shadow in the noonday sun, 
 A sadness in the twilight hour, 
 The suden drooping of a flower 
 Whose tender life had but begun. 
 
 And yet, another radiance beams, 
 A glory on the sleeping worlds, 
 As thy fair soul my soul enfolds. 
 Grown to one being in my dreams. 
 
 31 
 
I question not the will of God, 
 But O the joy that might have been, 
 If, without any bar between, 
 Life's road together we had trod. 
 
 CARITAS 
 
 I did not love my fellow creatures less 
 
 Because of the deep love I had for thee; 
 
 Weak souls shrink passion to their littleness, 
 
 But my strong heart swelled love to charity. 
 
 There are some fragrant things that blow in May 
 
 And all around 
 
 Strew flowers upon the ground : 
 
 Such was the love I bore thee one brief day, 
 
 But time can never take that love away. 
 
 IN THE PINES 
 
 If this be love, for thee to draw my breath, 
 
 Joy in thy joy alone to find, 
 
 To feel the chill dark misery of death, — 
 
 Believe I love thee! So the windy pines 
 
 Toss to the mountain shade their unheard song. 
 
 Yet still to thee my lonely soul inclines. 
 
 Yet still I love as I have loved thee long. 
 
 Were every sigh a breeze to waft me to thee 
 
 Were every thought a wing my soul to bear. 
 
 Then as the sunbeams woo the rose, I'd woo thee, 
 
 Radiant and tender as the golden air. 
 
 Soul of my soul that kneeling I adore, 
 
 Nought but my life's oblation can I give: 
 
 I will not die, but I will do much more, 
 
 For thee, O my beloved, I will live. 
 
 32 
 
SANDS OF THE HOUR-GLASS 
 
 OCTOBER 
 
 Another summer vanished, as the fall 
 
 Peers o'er the smoking hill-tops. Gone with all 
 
 The roses and the beauty of the dawn, 
 
 The song of field and wood and river, gone 
 
 Into the everlasting darkness of the past. 
 
 Another summer gone to join the last; 
 
 Another flower fallen from the wreath; 
 
 Another shower of red leaves dropt beneath 
 
 The old men's foot-fall and the children's tread ; 
 
 Another summer lying with the dead. 
 
 So with the hopes and glories of the spring. 
 
 Is this my dream? This cold and misty thing 
 
 That stands within the halo of the lamp, 
 
 And on my forehead lays a touch so damp; 
 
 That in the narrow ray thus darkly stands. 
 
 And lays a shrunken hand upon my hands ? — 
 
 '*I am thy dream of April, violet-crowned, 
 
 I am the song of thrush and robin, drowned 
 
 In whirling winds; the solitude that dwells 
 
 On harvest fields left bare, and naked fells. 
 
 I am the Past. I am the noble fire 
 
 That sparkled in thy torch, the vain desire. 
 
 The sheaf of error and the grain of truth; 
 
 I am thy running glass: I am thy youth." 
 
 Where dost thou point, O Shadow, with thy hand? 
 
 ''Unto the grave; a footstep on the sand 
 
 Washed by the coming wave ; to leafless trees 
 
 And wintry snows." "What comes to me with 
 
 these ? 
 What comes? O Shadow of the past, reply! 
 ''With these, there cometh that which doth not die: 
 The Star of Bethlehem, the Christmas hearth. 
 The light of Heaven shed upon thy path. 
 The garnered harvest of a life well spent; 
 
 33 
 
The Child upon the Mother's knee, the rent 
 
 In glowing skies, and angel choirs that fill 
 
 The heart with peace and blessings and good-will." 
 
 TO EMMA 
 
 I find no words, no words to speak to thee 
 But didst thou think of carelessness in me. 
 Of loving thought less constant than should be 
 When heart to heart have beaten answeringly? 
 
 Yes, heart to heart. For something knit a band 
 Between us while we wandered hand in hand, 
 And so, — until the glass have cast its sand, — 
 So linked, though parted, you and I shall stand. 
 
 If words be needed, O my friend, to say 
 "As then I loved thee, still I love today 
 And still shall ever," then these words I lay 
 Within the green leaves of the holly-spray. 
 
 TO CARMEN SYLVA 
 
 Is one who wears a jewel diadem 
 
 And noble mien. 
 
 Who leads the dance before admiring eyes 
 
 And lets men kneel to kiss her mantle's hem, 
 
 Shows she wherein the royal function lies, 
 
 The office of a queen? 
 
 Is she who rides beneath an arch of flowers 
 While scattered roses brush the horses' hoof. 
 Who dwells at ease in screened and scented bowers, 
 Beyond the reach of all, from all aloof. 
 Is such a one a queen? 
 
 Is this a queen, one on a tower alone. 
 Unheard, unseen, 
 
 34 
 
Watching the swell of human miseries 
 Surge to the footstool of her crimson throne, 
 Cold as a star and distant as the skies, 
 Answer, is this a queen? 
 
 No ! Thou hast taught us, Sovereign void of pride, 
 O Queen whose thoughts are high, whose hands are 
 
 clean, 
 Who hast been known to us in doing good. 
 That to become a woman glorified 
 Into a type of perfect womanhood. 
 This is to be a queen. 
 
 LINES 
 
 Wiesbaden 
 
 This is the place, the dappled sycamore, 
 The fan-leafed chestnut and the willow-tree. 
 That threw their fading leaves upon our path 
 As in these walks we idled long ago, — 
 How they remember thee, beloved friend. 
 
 DINANT, ARDENNES 
 
 So the still water runs by the still town 
 That glasses white-washed walls and leaden roofs 
 In the green wave, and towering boulders frown 
 Aloft in mid-air, and the sound of hoofs 
 Beats on the highway, while the patient mule 
 By the long dripping cable drags the weight 
 Of river craft. Against some future Yule 
 The huge heaped logs come floating down to wait 
 In lumber-yards for snow. The piles of coal 
 Creep to the bellowing furnace, and the foam 
 Caps the swift eddies that arise and roll 
 Behind the pleasure boat that steers towards home. 
 From time to time across the river breaks 
 A wierd fantastic chime. It flutes and shrieks 
 In mad refrain, with mediaeval freaks, 
 
 35 
 
And unexpected clang that cracks and shakes. 
 A broken litter of metallic chips 
 That scatter through the air with leaps and dips 
 Lost on the leads and on the passing ships. 
 
 FRIENDSHIP 
 
 High hearts are like the harp whose well tuned 
 
 string 
 Vibrates untouched if but another ring; 
 Responsive to the thought still undefined 
 They read it floating in each other's mind; 
 But hover round the one breath of distrust 
 And soon the silver chain would fall to rust 
 If they did not as quickly catch the strain 
 Of confidence and ring in tune again. 
 
 WHY? 
 
 Why do we sigh when the last red ray 
 
 Melts into pale green light; 
 Will not to-morrow bring back the day, 
 
 Will it not dawn as bright? 
 
 Why do we sigh when we close a book 
 
 We had not read before; 
 Why cast a sad regretful look, 
 
 Can we not read it o'er? 
 
 Why do we sigh when the eyelids close 
 
 Over the eyes we love, 
 Veiling the realms that no mortal knows, — 
 
 Shall we not meet above? 
 
 Question, question nature's voices 
 
 If an answer ye would find. 
 Or the low discordant noises 
 
 From the haunts of humankind. 
 
 36 
 
This the mournful muffled ring, 
 
 This the solemn hidden woe 
 You must know if you would sing, 
 
 You must suffer if you know. 
 
 A SKETCH 
 
 Footsteps on the rustling leaves 
 Through the forest stillness sound 
 Where the failing sunlight weaves 
 Golden lacework on the ground. 
 At the sound the squirrel starts 
 Curls its quivering bushy tail 
 Drops its nibbled nut and darts 
 Up a tree whose leaves all pale 
 Scatter at its bounding tread. 
 Not another sound is heard 
 In the grass or overhead ; 
 Not the soft note of a bird, 
 Not a wild note sad or gay, 
 To dispel the hazy charm 
 Of the mellow Autumn day 
 Or break its deep mysterious calm. 
 
 A LETTER (TO M. D.) 
 
 Long I watched and waited, my friend, for an an- 
 swer. 
 
 Much was I puzzled your silence to explain. 
 
 "Surely" thought I "the tender charms that enhance 
 her 
 
 Friendship to me can never be on the wane! 
 
 Her image clear — though she float down time's swift 
 river — 
 
 Fresh as it gleamed in the welcome of the hearth 
 
 Stands, a statue the winter frost cannot shiver. 
 
 In the wayside shrine of my wandering path. 
 
 37 
 
She remembers the bond of a passing moment 
 Pledged in the foaming bumper of golden ale. 
 And those blue eyes on the noble ideal so bent 
 In recognizing a friend will never fail." 
 Such the thought of my heart, and so I said it. 
 Then your message came, and I joyfully read it. 
 Glad was I to hear of your many delights. 
 Making your mock appearance before the lights. 
 And whatver be the piece that you play in. 
 You will be true to the life, be it light or sage; 
 And you will ever be sweet and wise or gay in 
 Any part you play on the world's great stage. 
 
 A RAINY EVENING 
 
 Gently sad Nature breathes a deep-drawn sigh 
 
 That rustles through the innumerable leaves 
 
 And dies before it meets the leaden sky. 
 
 So still it is, you hear the dripping leaves. 
 
 So sad the dullness of the landscape's tinge 
 
 You gladly turn to where the western light 
 
 Breaks faintly through the overhanging fringe 
 
 Of clouds that do not reach the mountain height: 
 
 Below, a single beam's reflected fire 
 
 Shines from the cross upon a distant spire. 
 
 REQUIESCAT 
 
 Weep not, for she at last has found her rest ; 
 Sigh not, for now that sad and weary breast 
 Has ceased to throb with fears and pains and woes; 
 Mourn not — her heart is still, with passion's throes 
 No longer tortured. Life is long and rough. 
 The haven gained. Peace. She has borne enough, 
 And bled, and burned, my friends, then let her lie. 
 O pity not those who have learned to die ! 
 Shall we caged birds pity our comrades flown 
 
 38 
 
With wide-spread wings into the wide unknown 
 That bounds our little space on every side? 
 The host of those of whom we say "They died" 
 Encamps about us, follows us through life. 
 The murmur of their voices o'er the strife 
 Of men arises, awful and sublime, 
 And makes us pause in silence while the chime 
 Of passing-bells that tells a parting breath 
 Tolls in each ear "The next may be thy death." 
 
 LOVE 
 
 There is a breath divine upon this earth, 
 
 Leave some to call it by what name they will, 
 
 I still shall call it love. In higher spheres 
 
 Whose light is pure, where mists do not arise 
 
 To cloud the sunshine and to dim the eyes, 
 
 Perhaps they have another truer name 
 
 For this mysterious and sacred thing: 
 
 A name wrought of the ruby's inmost fire 
 
 Or of the scent of half-awakened flowers 
 
 That trembles on the first Spring wind and lives 
 
 Forever in the bosom of the rose; 
 
 As guileless as an infant's wandering gaze. 
 
 And holy as the angel calm that breathe 
 
 The tapers pale, roses and lilies white 
 
 About the snowy death-bed of a maid. 
 
 Some word unnamed save on the lips of those 
 
 Whose hearts are altar-flames before their God; 
 
 Whose thoughts like incense float embalmed to 
 
 heaven. 
 To such alone the name of love is known. 
 And as to some the voices of the world 
 Weld into floods of rapturous harmony, 
 That whispering breeze and bursting cataract. 
 And wailing winds across the snow-clad fields. 
 The ringing hoof-beats on a dusty road, 
 
 39 
 
And ocean thunders on the rocky shore, 
 All blend into a universal song, 
 So the pure heart, chastened and passionless 
 Sheds upon all a warm enlightening ray, 
 A glowing hearth-fire in a happy home, 
 A beacon light upon a stormy sea. 
 
 MOUNTAIN BREEZE 
 
 When breezes blow, when breezes blow. 
 My spirit in me sings, 
 It flutters with the dancing leaves 
 And bubbles with the springs. 
 
 The valley then, the valley then, 
 Is far too low for me, 
 And to the summit of the hills 
 I climb alone and free. 
 
 Upon the hills the air is fresh 
 
 The air is fresh and sweet. 
 
 And rivers, meadows, hamlets, trees. 
 
 Lie spread beneath my feet; 
 
 Yet still, yet still unsatisfied, 
 
 I lift my head, and high 
 
 Above the snow-clad mountains rise 
 
 And kiss the sunny sky. 
 
 Then climbing on, and climbing on, 
 I reach the silent height 
 Where nothing smiles beneath the snows 
 And men are lost to sight, 
 With clouds beneath and sky above. 
 And all is ice and light. 
 But higher yet, and higher yet, 
 Had I the wings to fly. 
 Then I would soar beyond the birds 
 And plunge into the sky! 
 40 
 
TO ONE ENVIED BY HIS FRIENDS 
 
 Smile, happy man, thy fate is kind to thee 
 And flings but roses, roses on thy way. 
 What is't to them or thee if holding high 
 The sheaf of flowers before admiring eyes, 
 Unseen thy bleeding fingers grasp but thorns? 
 
 SINTRAM 
 
 It is a knell that strikes thine ear, 
 
 And cypress shades of churchyard drear 
 
 Hang over thee: beware! 
 
 But fouler than the phantom Death 
 
 Is thy dark Tempter's whispered breath: 
 
 Then, Christian, have a care! 
 
 IN AFTER YEARS 
 
 You answer not. But if, in after-years. 
 Through patient labor I should woo you still, 
 Until you heard my suit as one who hears 
 An idle song he learnt against his will ? 
 
 What if, in duty done, and battles fought, 
 And silence suffered uncomplainingly. 
 And living out the lessons that you taught 
 I prove at last what you have been to me ? 
 
 I leave you then, until the day we meet 
 With the dim years behind, when I shall lay 
 My life-work as a homage at your feet 
 And you shall answer me again that day. 
 
 41 
 
KONIG TOLV 
 
 When the moon its zenith reaches 
 Over larches, oaks and beeches, 
 And its beam in silver breaks 
 On the sleeping mountain lakes, 
 Lilies at the water brink 
 Watch the deer come down to drink, 
 Ferns and harebells dashed with dew 
 Fairy rounds and pageants view; 
 For the gates of Fairyland 
 Open at King Tolv's command. 
 Hidden deep among the rocks, 
 Closed with tiny fairy locks, 
 Fairyland's dim gateway lies 
 Guarded from all human eyes. 
 When the pansies nod and peep. 
 Where the heather grows knee-deep, 
 Where the mossy boulders piled 
 Wave in air their streamers wild ; 
 Where the bleating flocks are led. 
 Where the brawling brooks are fed 
 From the bosom of the hills, 
 Flowing in a thousand rills 
 To the meadows and the main. 
 Lie the gates of Tolv's domain. 
 But the hunter in the chase 
 Never finds their hiding-place 
 Though he track the bounding deer 
 To his stronghold high and sheer; 
 And the shepherd with his flock 
 Strolling on from rock to rock 
 Through the bracken and the gorse; 
 And the rider with his horse 
 Wandering in his idle mood 
 Through the mountain solitude. 
 Seeking early seeking late 
 Never spied the hidden gate. 
 42 
 
When the moon its zenith reaches 
 Over firs and elms and beeches, 
 And its light in silver breaks 
 On the ripples of the lakes, 
 Then the fairy bugles blow 
 And the heralds come and go 
 To proclaim King Tolv will ride 
 Through the world to seek a bride. 
 Wide they fling the portals then 
 And King Tolv with all his men, — 
 Tolv in hunting suit of green 
 Gorgeous in the silver sheen 
 Of the moonlight's beauty comes. 
 While the beetles sound their drums, — 
 With his men on steeds of white 
 Riding out into the night. 
 
 EPITHALAMIUM 
 
 {To Beatrice) 
 
 Ring out ye crystal wedding bells ! 
 
 Ring pure and true 
 
 Through heaven's blue. 
 Through clouds above and woods below; 
 
 Ring through the dells 
 
 Where frosty spells 
 Chill Autumn's red and purple glow 
 
 Ring through the light 
 While we deck out our bride in white. 
 
 Ring out ye silver wedding bells! 
 
 The harmony 
 
 Your souls let fly 
 At first is soft and very sweet, 
 
 Until it wells 
 
 And floods and swells 
 And in an anthem bursts, to greet 
 
 The bride in air! 
 Ring while the orange crowns her hair. 
 43 
 
Ring out ye golden wedding bells! 
 
 The maidens pale 
 
 Throw back the veil, 
 Ring, it is over, — nay begun: 
 
 The midst dispels, 
 
 The vision dwells, — 
 Two life-dreams melted into one. 
 
 Gold bells, prolong 
 Forevermore your morning song. 
 
 AUSABLE CHASM 
 
 Down where the wild cataract leaps, 
 
 Let us walk on the shelving shore. 
 
 By the pool where the eddy sleeps. 
 
 By the plunge and the foam and roar. 
 
 Tread cautiously here on the rock 
 
 That slants down to the fine smooth sands 
 
 And then rises high, block on block 
 
 As if reared by architect's hands. 
 
 How clear and fresh is the river. 
 
 As it bursts from its mountain home 
 
 With a smile and song and shiver, 
 
 Through the still dark ravine to roam! — 
 
 Flows over the broken sandstone, 
 
 Leaps down like a beast from its lair. 
 
 Sprays into diamond strands thrown 
 
 Aloft in the motionless air; 
 
 Creeps down through the gorge deep and dank. 
 
 Its thunder scarce reaching the verge; 
 
 In darkness a moment they sank, — 
 
 In light see the waters emerge. 
 
 Is not this our life, love? Behold 
 
 How it rolls to its sunset of gold. 
 
 44 
 
IN THE CLOVER 
 
 Humming in his heavy flight, 
 
 Soft as velvet in the light 
 
 See the bumble bee alight 
 
 On a blossom tipped with flame, — 
 
 Dragon-flower is its name, 
 
 Given in the children's game. 
 
 For they pinch its yellow jaw 
 
 And behold a dragon's maw. 
 
 See, he tilts it now to draw 
 
 Honey from its parted lip. 
 
 Hear him buzz, and watch him dip 
 
 Down into the cup to sip. 
 
 Rich his brown coat striped with gold. 
 
 Rich the petal's ruddy fold, 
 
 Rich the sunset on the wold. 
 
 Flower in the waving grass. 
 
 If the bumble bee should pass. 
 
 He will drain thy heart alas! 
 
 WHEN THE LEAVES FALL 
 
 From the pines the rooks' loud calling 
 Echoes through the clear still air 
 While the yellow leaves are falling, 
 Falling scattered ever5rwhere. 
 Down in showers of gold and flame 
 To the brown earth whence they came. 
 And when next the robins sing, 
 And the woods with gladness ring. 
 Over them the violets peeping. 
 In between the ivy creeping. 
 They will never see another spring. 
 
 See that fallen oak-tree lying. 
 Once the monarch of the wood, 
 
 45 
 
Now its withered trunk is dying, 
 Spans its grave where once it stood ; 
 He who fought the storm so well, 
 Bravely fought his last and fell. 
 And when next the robins sing 
 And the woods with gladness ring, 
 Over him the violets peeping 
 In between the ivy creeping, 
 He will never see another spring. 
 
 Not as to the oak-tree riven 
 
 By the angry Autumn blast, 
 
 Not as to the light leaves driven, — 
 
 But the Fall will come at last. 
 
 Darling, when the Summer's flown 
 
 Autumn comes to claim its own. 
 
 Then when next the robins sing 
 
 And the woods with gladness ring, — 
 
 On my grave the violets peeping. 
 
 In between the ivy creeping, 
 
 Shall I somewhere see another Spring? 
 
 "SUFFERING BEFORE YOU SING" 
 
 F. R. Haver gal 
 
 Do you ask if poets learn 
 All their songs in schools of woe 
 If with their own tears they earn 
 Their sweet verses' golden flow? 
 
 Ask the echoes, sadly dying 
 Why they answer not in song, 
 Ask the west wind softly sighing 
 Why it laughs not, loud and long. 
 
 46 
 
Questioner, ask thine own heart why it sighs, 
 Why we fly to the grave so fast, 
 Why gold on the Autumn and sunset lies, — 
 Ask why we cherish and weep o'er the past. 
 
 AUTUMN WIND 
 
 Tear on, thou Autumn wind, tear madly on, 
 Bear down the trembling year to a grave of snow ; 
 The blooms of yesterday long since are gone 
 
 Where these must go : 
 Mad wind, rush on, and sweep the yellow leaves 
 
 To heaps of rust. 
 
 And pile the dust 
 On Summer's head, the while a vapour weaves 
 A pall for glories of the ebbing day. 
 Oh ! give my thy wild wings or bear me too away ! 
 
 NEW YEAR 
 
 So, bear the rest away! 
 Let the dull year fret down into the grave. 
 
 The joy you gave, 
 O fleeting season, fling along the way 
 Like faded flowers; and let the waning ray 
 Break its red shaft upon the ebbing wave. 
 Let the last shaft break on the restless sea 
 
 And this sad day, 
 Sink into slumber. How the New Year laughed 
 When she was here ! Alas, our lips have quaffed 
 A bitter cup since first the morning gay 
 Jangled its bells. The snow is falling; may 
 Its winding sheet conceal the past from me. 
 
 So falls the snow upon the pointed spires 
 That throw into the air 
 
 47 
 
The Year's first welcome, waking everywhere 
 A hope, a sorrow or the smouldering fires 
 In ashes of unsatisfied desires. 
 
 So fall the flakes upon the frozen wolds 
 And fences of forsaken folds, 
 
 On silvered rills. 
 And dim and misty hills, 
 And ivied battlements of ruined holds. 
 
 So falls the level sheet upon the lane 
 
 Where first we wandered in the Autumn rain, 
 
 'Mid whirling showers of red and yellow leaves; 
 
 So its cold shroud the snowflake weaves 
 
 Upon the landscape that we loved ; so drops 
 
 The blessing of the snow upon the eaves 
 
 Of that wide roof beneath the naked tops 
 
 Of ancient elms, 
 
 This New Year morn, 
 
 Where, with another's hand and eye in yours. 
 
 You count the chime that pours 
 
 Like an echo from above, 
 
 Like the lips that whisper love, 
 
 Into your ears the joy that overwhelms 
 
 The future with the glory of the dawn. 
 
 A HOLLY-WREATH 
 
 Here's to the absent host 
 
 And hostess, a Christmas toast: 
 
 Good health and cheer 
 
 Through all the year 
 
 To those we love the most! 
 
 (Waits singing outside) 
 "While shepherds watched their flocks by night 
 All seated on the ground, 
 
 ,48 
 
The angel of the Lord came down 
 And glory shone around." 
 
 Foam on the goblet's brim 
 
 And green round the mirror's rim 
 
 Blaze on the grate, — 
 
 The hour is late 
 
 Ah„ listen, the Christmas hymn! 
 
 (Waits) 
 *'Fear not, said he, for mighty dread 
 Had seized their troubled mind, 
 Glad tidings of great joy I bring 
 To you and all mankind." 
 
 Often those notes arose 
 
 From younger voices, while those 
 
 Whose faces still 
 
 Our memory fill 
 
 Tramped out across the snows. 
 
 (Waits) 
 "To you in David's town this day 
 Is bom of David's line 
 A Saviour who is Christ the Lord 
 And this shall be the sign." 
 
 Some sleep and some are far, 
 
 And I know not where they are, 
 
 But far or near. 
 
 Their faces here 
 
 Shine like the Bethlehem Star. 
 
 (Waits) 
 
 "The heavenly Babe you there shall find 
 To human view displayed. 
 All meanly wrapp'd in swathing bands 
 And in a manger laid." 
 
 49 
 
Kindest of friends whose roof 
 
 In sheltering gave us proof 
 
 Of thoughtful love, 
 
 Would we could prove 
 
 Sound weave, through warp and woof. 
 
 (Waits) 
 
 "Thus spake the Seraph and forthwith 
 Appeared a shining throng 
 Of angels praising God, who thus 
 Addressed their joyful song." 
 
 Sound weave, without a tear, 
 
 Be a robe for you to wear, 
 
 Of love's own dye. 
 
 Would God on high 
 
 Should bless you through our prayer. 
 
 (Waits) 
 
 "All glory be to God on high 
 
 And on the earth be peace. 
 
 Good will henceforth from heaven to men 
 
 Begin and never cease." 
 
 Listen, the aged guest 
 
 By the fireside sings his best; 
 
 All swell the chord 
 
 Of the ivory board 
 
 And the bells are chiming the rest. 
 
 HENCEFORTH (TO S. B. C.) 
 On the death of William McKinley 
 
 The Nation's dirge prolongs its mournful note 
 For the loved chief, struck by a murderer's hand 
 The tide hath washed away the name she wrote 
 Upon the sand. 
 
 50 
 
But to the Nation's grief a solemn Shade 
 Speaks from the distance of a crystal star: 
 "Peace, for the lamentations thou hast made 
 
 My peace doth mar. 
 I love thee still as when a living man 
 In this mysterious radiance of the dawn, 
 And I must suffer as a spirit can 
 
 To see thee mourn. 
 For thee I lost to some the name of friend, 
 Grown deaf to any other but thy call, 
 And sternly fought the fight that hath an end 
 
 Beneath this pall. 
 For thee I had unlearned the name of home, 
 Content to dwell beneath a roof of thine. 
 And share the cup that gave my lips the foam, 
 
 Thy lips the wine. 
 I have maintained thy laws, upheld thy right, 
 Brought wisdom to thy counsels, drawn the sword 
 To shield thine honour, hung its shining light 
 
 Before the Lord. 
 For above all I held thine honour dear. 
 I trimmed, not lit the lamp; and when it burned, 
 To the Ordainer who had sent me here 
 
 Calmly returned. 
 Yet I as others loved the glorious world. 
 The glint and sheen of sunlight on the trees. 
 The white and crimson and the stars unfurled 
 
 Upon the breeze ; 
 The song of waking birds, the haunts of men, 
 The flowers of the Spring, and when they die. 
 When parting splendours flame upon the glen. 
 
 The swallow's cry. 
 I felt within my veins the tide of life, 
 The hearty throb that answers to the touch 
 Of all that makes life dear to us. The strife 
 
 With the death-clutch 
 Fell on me suddenly, while thine applause 
 
 51 
 
Rang in mine ear; — only a little while, — 
 And I who lived obedient to Heaven's laws 
 
 Died with a smile. 
 Henceforth there is a crown laid up for me 
 Which thine own hand shall place upon my tomb, 
 And to thy heart my memory shall be 
 
 Light in the gloom. 
 But here, where on my path to earthly view 
 The dark impenetrable portals close. 
 Tell all these little children not to strew 
 
 A fading rose; 
 Nay, bind a sheaf, ripe in the golden ear 
 Where ye shall lay me down beneath the sod. 
 To teach them that a good man's way is clear 
 
 Back to his God. 
 And that the labour which I have begun 
 Led on from man to man, shall reach the goal. 
 Led on from man to man, from sun to sun. 
 
 From soul to soul." 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 (On the anniversary of the death of William Mc- 
 
 Kinley.) 
 
 Come while a smile on the lip of September 
 Lights her farewell to the blossom-crowned days ; 
 Kindle the altar flame from its cold ember, 
 Scatter above him the roses and bays ; 
 
 Wind him a wreath that shall blazon his story, 
 Roses, love-scented, that fade in their bloom, 
 Bays that betoken the stateman's true glory 
 Shed from the Capitol onto the tomb. 
 
 Head of the State in a moment of peril. 
 His was a figure that looms in a land 
 
 52 
 
Till the great flood with its water of beryl 
 Sweeps victor and vanquished like shells on the sand. 
 
 Grave and intent at the helm of the nation 
 When a new world opened up on our sight, 
 Simple in life as exalted in station, 
 Faithful to duty and true to the right, 
 
 Forward, still forward he led, with his eyes on 
 Gleams of a future that rose in the West, 
 Guiding the Ship to a broader horizon, 
 Proving her worthy to vie with the rest. 
 
 Nothing is dead while these memories linger, 
 Star of an epoch though set in our sky: 
 History writes with unwavering finger 
 "Pause at this monument ye who pass by." 
 
 THE SONG OF THE DIAL 
 
 The sun-dial said to the rambler rose : 
 
 "With every bird that swings 
 You bend, and with every wind that blows 
 
 Your petals fly like wings. 
 Into your cup the gold bee will dart. 
 
 All pollen-splashed and dim. 
 What throbs in you when your inmost heart 
 
 You unfold unto him? 
 What sighs in the tale you often tell 
 
 When stars glow from the deep 
 Like pebbles down in a saphire well, 
 
 And the birds fall asleep? 
 There must be joy in a soul that pours 
 
 Such laughter on the day. 
 I wish that happiness like yours 
 
 Could chase my gloom away; 
 Could chase the shadow laid by time 
 
 Upon this iron face, 
 
 53 
 
Could there a merrier jingle rhyme 
 
 And brighter letters trace! 
 But I must watch till the dawn comes up, 
 
 Send laborers to their task, 
 Tell this one to doze and this to sup, 
 
 For that is all they ask. 
 The creeping line on my wide bronze disk 
 
 As inch by inch it moves 
 Is lonelier than an obelisk 
 
 In its centennial grooves. 
 What would I not give one glorious hour 
 
 To be a rose like you, 
 And dance with the passing breeze and shower 
 
 My petals in the dew. 
 To lift but a moment the hand of time, 
 
 Dull as a friar's hood, 
 And be a red-rambler in its prime 
 
 Till Autumn fires the wood!" 
 
 "Your mission", answered the rambler- rose, 
 
 '*Is higher far than mine. 
 I sorrow to see you one of those 
 
 Who grumble and repine. 
 For patient sages have bowed to learn 
 
 The lesson that you teach, 
 And what you bring round to all in turn 
 
 Is God's own gift to each. 
 God's gift in His wisdom and His time, 
 
 Measure of joy or grief. 
 The burial-toll, the wedding chime, 
 
 The budding and the leaf. 
 That shadow upon your disk of bronze 
 
 Has its majestic grace. 
 Not softer move the fern's light fronds 
 
 In their appointed place; 
 Nor deeper plunge on a summer noon 
 
 Into unfathomed blue 
 
 54 
 
The flight of clouds and the faded moon 
 
 Than drops a glance on you. 
 Records of ages your silence fill, 
 
 Like the boom of the shore, 
 Your motionless, hard-limned features thrill 
 
 With visions of yore, 
 And graven in iron with none but a shade 
 
 Ever stirring your soul, 
 You follow the law of the Worker, who made 
 
 Yonder stars as they roll." 
 
 NIGHT IN THE GARDEN 
 
 My walks are strange at night. The daisies stand 
 Transparent cups of fire, while hand in hand 
 Angels will sway them with their finger-tips, 
 And bend the round, white bowl to touch their lips. 
 The poppies scatter to the weary moon 
 Their petals, red and white and rose at noon. 
 Now burnt out with the day to drifting ashes. 
 That float like dreams with golden shoes and sashes 
 Along the aisles of slumber. Magic night 
 Lies in the garden. Wings that hide their flight 
 Beat the still air, and stars, sharp jewelled blooms. 
 Tip the black spruce that like a sexton looms. 
 Bearing his mace in hand, the moonlit shaft 
 Silvered with running sap. Just now they laughed 
 Among the shrubs ; I could not catch a sight 
 Of any there. They laughed. Mysterious night 
 Brushes the gravel with her garment's hem 
 And bows the stately fox-glove on its stem. 
 Is this the dial, this fretted pile of snow 
 Capped with a blinking disk? I hardly know. 
 What wizard finger laid a sparkling net 
 Of rays across it like a cobweb ? Yet 
 The style marks not the hours as soft they steal 
 Into the past. A distant mirror's gleam, 
 Or the reflection of a summer stream 
 
 55 
 
So seems the light, dim, fanciful, unreal. 
 Even the corn-field seems to melt and flow 
 And drip and ripple with the lambent glow; 
 While dark as death-plumes in the orchard lie 
 The shadows; and a rustle stirs the rye. 
 
 NIENTE 
 
 Nought hast thou done. What answer to the world, 
 
 What answer canst thou give? 
 Altho thy heart should bleed, the spear is hurled, — 
 
 What right hast thou to live? 
 
 Nought hast thou done. Though pride should swell 
 and break 
 
 The moorings of thy soul. 
 These are but eddies of a rock-bound lake 
 
 That restless fret and roll. 
 
 Nought hast thou done. The purpose of the day 
 
 Turned back and set at noon; 
 The butterfly was withered as it lay 
 
 Cradled in the cocoon. 
 
 Nought hast thou done. Thy fancies melt in air; 
 
 No work of beauty stands 
 To show the crowd how pure and lofty were 
 
 The labours of thy hands. 
 
 Nought hast thou done. No tablet shall proclaim 
 
 Thy merits from the dead. 
 No gilded lettering adorn thy name; 
 
 No laurel crown thy head. 
 
 Nought hast thou done. O lonely night forlorn. 
 
 Wasted with barren tears, ' 
 While thou awaitest an ungracious dawn 
 
 And unrewarded years. 
 
 56 
 
TO A POET 
 
 Will you speak as a fool in the ears of a listening 
 
 World? 
 Will you pipe to a reed that is dead when the gust is 
 
 still? 
 Or gather the blush of a dew-laden blossom unfurled, 
 Or like the Danaides, take a seive to hold the rill ? 
 
 Are there not birds in the cover that chirp to the 
 sun; 
 
 Breaths in the corn field, the sob and the rush of the 
 wind? 
 
 You who can sing, you have left your great duty un- 
 done ; 
 
 In your wasted hours and your idle songs, you have 
 sinned. 
 
 For shame! Are the fancies of pagans your favorite 
 
 theme ? 
 Is the silver front of Astarte your dream of the 
 
 moon ; 
 Does an Aphrodite's breast of stone cast a magic 
 
 gleam 
 Athwart the laurel shade where falter the roses of 
 
 June? 
 
 It is long since the strain of the Mantuan voiced a 
 feeling, 
 
 It is ages since Hercules span at Omphale's feet. 
 
 And since old Silenus, or the wild Bacchante's reel- 
 ing 
 
 Stood poised in the bronze as they flashed in the 
 scenes of the street. 
 
 Strike nearer home, for they say that the poets are dy- 
 ing, 
 
 57 
 
You trifle with words, and your calling abase to a 
 game. 
 
 Interpret the soul of the people, the sinning and buy- 
 ing 
 
 And selling and toiling, forever, forever the same. 
 
 SNOW 
 
 Over the marble stair, mantles the snow, chill as the 
 
 dying year, 
 Soft as the sunbom cloud, pale as the glow set on a 
 
 twilight mere. 
 Ermine royal and flecked ruthlessly soon, lilies and 
 
 foam no more 
 Here on the frozen steps vie with the moon, decking 
 
 a princely door. 
 Some one has trod and passed; footsteps will light, 
 
 some one has climbed the stair, 
 Laid little footprints up, all the long flight, into the 
 
 hallway glare. 
 Ermine royal and flecked ruthlessly soon, lilies and 
 
 foam no more 
 Here on the frozen steps vie with the moon, decking 
 
 a princely door. 
 
 AT A CONCERT 
 
 Sing you in English "Canzoni" of Florence? 
 Chill you their wings in your snow-laden air? 
 Glint of the olive and gloam of the torrents, 
 Ah! you profane them by all that is fair! 
 Out on the tenor who mangles our ballads, 
 Rips them to tatters like hail on the vine, 
 Harken when Beppo is weeding his salads, 
 Planting his artichokes out in a line. 
 Under the hills that look south of Fiesole 
 Threads of spun crystal slant down through the 
 trees, 
 
 58 
 
And a Madonna beams, placid and holy, 
 
 On the low terraces swept by the breeze; 
 
 Here Beppo sings when a delicate splendor 
 
 Flushes the Apennlne, paling the moon. 
 
 Here Beppo's voice goes up, thrilling and tender, 
 
 Light as the gondolas on the lagoon. 
 
 Laugh, and it laughs with you, nodding carnation, 
 
 Flame in the sunlight and spice in the air. 
 
 Weep, and it weeps with you, sob of a nation. 
 
 Bearing the weight if a wordless despair. 
 
 Sing you In English the ballads of Beppo, 
 
 Trick you them out in the tongue that you speak? 
 
 So might a beauty of Fez or Aleppo 
 
 Mince in high heels with a patch on her cheek. 
 
 ON A READING OF OMAR KHAYYAM 
 
 In what groves of oleander. 
 By what fountain's polished rim. 
 On the shores of what Meander 
 Did you learn that Persian hjnun? 
 Scent of orange, fragrant spices, 
 Breath of spikenard and of myrrh, 
 Beds of lilies, star devices 
 On the horizons of Ur; 
 Cup of the supreme libation, 
 Ruby legend of the grape. 
 Palm-girt cradle of the nation 
 That has given the world Its shape ; — 
 As you read the vision lingers, 
 Like a perl's crimson scarf, 
 Fluttering between her fingers, 
 Shaken by her wondrous laugh. 
 Morning touched the East and woke her 
 On the mountains of Iran, 
 And the desert's sea of ochre 
 Tossed about the caravan. 
 Westward then the wise men wander 
 59 
 
Till the rising of the Star. 
 Poet of the East, look yonder, 
 Leap the garden wall, Omar! 
 For your idle satisfaction 
 In the sunshine and the bowl 
 Is a deadening of action 
 And a missing of the goal. 
 There are odors in the roses 
 That are shaken by the rain, 
 There are glories life discloses 
 Only in an hour of pain. 
 Science of the disenchanted. 
 Broken pitcher of the dead, 
 Why uproot the rose you planted, 
 Why unsay the words you said ? 
 There is more, O Zoroaster, 
 Then the eternal light and shade. 
 The initials of the Master 
 Are upon the pots He made. 
 
 60 
 
UNDER THE ROYAL BANNERS 
 
REQUIEM 
 
 They twine the festive wreath 
 About the hearth and shrine, while he lies dead 
 
 In his fair prime, beneath 
 The sod, with hemlock on his lonely bed. 
 
 Thou whose Word called to him 
 And left us here bereft and sorrowing. 
 
 Father, receive our hymn. 
 And shield us with Thine everlasting wing. 
 
 •Rise, shine, behold Thy Star! 
 Pour in our hearts the love that is in heaven. 
 
 The faith that all things are 
 In tenderness bestowed, in mercy given. 
 
 We said : "Thy will be done," 
 Then shall we pause because it is Thy will 
 
 That early this Thy son 
 Should worship Thee upon Thy Holy Hill ? 
 
 Over his boyish brow 
 Has dawned a ray of the eternal light ; 
 
 Great Father, hear us now: 
 We joy that he is standing in Thy sight. 
 
 We prayed : "Keep him from ill," 
 And Thou hast deigned to take him by the hand 
 
 Across death's river, still 
 Hopeful, and strong, to join Thy glorious band. 
 
 O closer, closer yet 
 Earth's veils all riven he draws to us and Thee ; 
 
 Yea, holy Father, let 
 His spirit guide us to eternity. 
 
 63 
 
RECESSIONAL 
 
 The crimson and the green, a gariand maze 
 Still hang above the illumined Mother-Maid, 
 While rich wood perfumes mingle in the shade 
 And the clear hymn joins with the organ praise: 
 "From out the forest stealing," nun arrayed 
 "The night her mantle throws," — earth's visions 
 
 fade. 
 "O'er all our care and yearning," wails the phrase, 
 "Our bitter pains and woes" — The voices raise 
 Dim spirits from the pictures of stained glass. 
 In wintry twilight slowly darkening, 
 As the Recessional rolls on. Alas! 
 So moves the long march to the grave, a string 
 Of choristers. The organ fails. They pass 
 The vestry door, and still we hear them sing. 
 
 Church of the Incarnatiotij Jan. 12, 1908. 
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 All Saints Day, Nov. i, 1908 
 
 The organ voice restored now fills the vault 
 In grand memorial anthem to the souls 
 Enlisted in the armies of the Lord. 
 Saints, saints, whose lives have been a sacrifice 
 And on whose brows was graven "Holiness." 
 They stand in glory, radiant with the light 
 That issues from their Captain's eye serene, 
 And victory and joy is in their cry. 
 While harmony threads the hearts deep recess. 
 Our alleluias mingle with the strains 
 Of earthly music and of heavenly song. 
 Hear us in Thine eternal dwelling-place : 
 We dedicate ourselves to follow them 
 Whose steps have trod the impress of Thy feet. 
 
 64 
 
Oh call us each by name, and let us see 
 The glory of Thine open countenance. 
 
 On the restoration of the Organ of The House 
 of Prayer, In Memory of my brother. 
 
 SONNET 
 
 I scarcely now begin to sing again, 
 
 For when the sudden lightning of thy death 
 
 Silenced my voice, I gazed with bated breath 
 
 Upon the stormy skies and long in vain, 
 
 Or struck upon the lyre a feeble strain 
 
 As low in drought a river murmureth : 
 
 Failing the wrapt Elijah, Scripture saith 
 
 Cherith ran dry amid the parching grain; 
 
 Yet the despairing Prophet felt the thrill 
 
 Of angel touch that bade him rise and bless 
 
 His God for heavenly bread upon the coals 
 
 And brimming cruse. So did I suffer till 
 
 I saw the Vision in the wilderness 
 
 And heard the Voice not heard in thunder rolls. 
 
 EASTER FLOWERS 
 
 {To Rev. J. S. Miller) 
 
 The Angel of the Tomb, at dawn 
 
 Stood on the Altar steps, and blazed 
 
 In the dim twilight. To adorn 
 
 The sanctuary, the Angel gazed 
 
 With saddened eyes for vernal bloom 
 
 Such as should mark the holy Feast; 
 
 But none were there. Then through the gloom 
 
 Three women came with flowers. 
 
 ''Though least 
 Among the Lord's redeemed, we bring 
 These blossoms, watered with our tears 
 
 6s 
 
Meet for a Paschal offering 
 
 And cherished amid hopes and fears." 
 
 Through folds of a translucent vest 
 
 The Angel's form showed beautiful; 
 
 His sandalled foot, a star that blest 
 
 The floor's clear dyed mosaic. Full 
 
 Upon the speaker looked he. Low 
 
 He spoke, and closely scanned her face: 
 
 "Whence comes thy flower, that I may know 
 
 If it be worthy of this place?" 
 
 The woman answered: "Few will mark 
 
 My flower; it is a humble thing, 
 
 And yet the carol of a lark 
 
 Was sung to it on joyful wing. 
 
 Pearl of the meadow, daisy small, 
 
 So lowly, scarce it has to stoop 
 
 Beneath the tread, and blushed with all 
 
 The careless tramp of men that troop 
 
 Across the sod, immaculate 
 
 It keeps its alabaster crown 
 
 And heart of gold. I conquered late 
 
 A spirit proud and laid it down 
 
 Before the Cross these forty days. 
 
 Lo, where it lay, the blossom clove 
 
 The fostering soil, rayed with His praise 
 
 And meekly glowing with His love." 
 
 "At yonder gate of life. 
 
 The font, thy blossom lay, to blow 
 
 In peace," the Angel said, "Through strife 
 
 Of good and evil here below." 
 
 Lilies the second woman brought; 
 
 Their cup with brimming radiance white 
 
 Beamed like the Chalice richly wrought 
 
 That glows with Eucharistic light: 
 
 "Even as my heart within me burned, 
 
 A throbbing ruby, full of love 
 
 And full of pain, I bowed and turned 
 
 66 
 
To yonder Cross, and battling strove 
 
 To chasten mortal yearning, torn 
 
 With fitful passion, till I wrung 
 
 Renunciation, heaven-born, 
 
 From earthly pangs, and victor, strung 
 
 Upon His crown another gem." 
 
 Thus spoke she, "And where'er a tear 
 
 Had fallen; a lily diadem 
 
 Circled the Cross." "Such flowers are dear 
 
 To Him who knew temptation. See," 
 
 The Angel said, " 'mid incense smoke 
 
 They shall proclaim His purity 
 
 In sight of all." The last one spoke 
 
 In this wise: "Scarce I dare to bring 
 
 At the solemn close of Lent, 
 
 This my Easter offering. 
 
 On the Master's errands bent 
 
 Little could I pause to grow, 
 
 Hardly could I plough or sow, 
 
 For I tend the Master's sheep. 
 
 But the Master surely said, 
 
 Ere He hung upon the Tree: 
 
 *Ye who break a piece of bread 
 
 With the needy, break with Me.' 
 
 Flowers have I none to bring. 
 
 Yet my basket thus I lay 
 
 On the footstool of my King, 
 
 Broken bread He blest alway." 
 
 Lowly on the Altar stair 
 
 Knelt she, and a tender smile 
 
 Wreathed the Angel's features: where 
 
 Bread had been, no bread was there; 
 
 And a wondrous scent the while 
 
 From fresh violets was cast. 
 
 "Thee," saith he, "the Lord doth greet; 
 
 These shall bloom while Heaven doth last 
 
 From this hour, at Jesus' feet." 
 
 67 
 
WHILE THESE HUNGER 
 
 A loaf of bread from the baker's cart 
 
 Fell on the frozen ground: 
 It lay unnoticed and apart, 
 
 By not a beggar found. 
 
 On virgin snow free from mire and soot, 
 
 At the crossing it lay, 
 Till one trampled it underfoot 
 
 As he sped on his way. 
 
 And thus a sacred loaf of bread, 
 
 Christ's own mysterious token, 
 By which His poor might have been fed, 
 
 Was trod on and broken. 
 
 SAUL OF TARSUS 
 
 Down from the Temple heights and through the 
 
 streets 
 Which saw the daily ministry, he passed, 
 Breathing out threatenings against the Church. 
 He looked upon the Temple's goodly pile, 
 The graceful columns of the outer close, 
 The flights of stairs that led into the gate 
 And to the brazen altar, and beyond. 
 To the high porch before the sanctuary. 
 His heart was moved to fury as he thought 
 How but a few deluded fishermen 
 And publicans, and ploughmen from the fields 
 Had stirred a wind that blowing might subvert 
 The doctrine of Gamaliel — overthrow 
 Once more God's worship on His Holy Mount. 
 Thus should the veined and fretted wealth of stone, 
 The molten glory of the golden vine. 
 The glittering plate of that old ritual, 
 
 68 
 
Which Moses taught, fall into plunderers' hands ; 
 Offended God again would hide His Face, 
 The flames devour the gates and broken wall ; 
 Amid a growth of overrunning weeds 
 The fox should prowl about the Levite's court. . . 
 "Rather than this, I pray Thee, give me strength 
 And I will slay the men who undermine 
 Thy worship even as Samson fell of old 
 On the Philistines. Now, defend Thy Name, 
 Thou who didst lead Thy people through the sea!" 
 The noonday sun fell hot upon the road : 
 Damascus showed afar, with shady palms 
 And gardens crowned, and girded with her hills ; 
 But Saul would fain have spanned the interval 
 To seek the elders and display the scroll 
 That he might bind the followers of Christ. 
 For to the High Priest in Jerusalem, 
 Demented with his zeal, he had declared, 
 "Give me the letters granting power to slay; 
 I shall confound the fiercest, as the wolf 
 Pursues his prey, so shall I hunt them down." 
 Then while he walked, the sudden blinding light 
 That left him stunned and prostrate on the ground. 
 Converted in the lurid flash, called forth 
 To be in instrument of signal grace. 
 He has not lifted from the Holy Book 
 The veil that hid that sight from other eyes. 
 What had performed the wondrous miracle? 
 What apparition stayed his upraised arm? 
 It was the Face that martyred Stephen saw, 
 When kneeled he dying and besought, "Lay not 
 This sin unto their charge." It was the Face 
 That those three children in the furnace flame 
 Beheld, and walked unscathed. It was the Face 
 That radiant beamed above the Colosseum 
 When bleeding from the brutal Roman games 
 The Christians stood ringed with their murderers ; 
 
 69 
 
The Face that meets the soldier's failing eye 
 
 Upon lost battlefields where right is slain. 
 
 The Face that Francis in his chapel vowed 
 
 To stamp into his soul; that brush and chisel 
 
 Through later ages have essayed to trace, 
 
 And striving, have bequeathed from time to time 
 
 Fair distant semblance of divinity 
 
 On taper-lighted reredos and wall; 
 
 That gazing on Bar- Jonas contrite moaned, 
 
 '*! love Thee, and Thou knowest, Lord, I love;" 
 
 That Magdalen in the unfolding dawn 
 
 Knew and cried out, adoring, "Rabboni!" 
 
 He saw the Vision that has cheered, the dark 
 
 Of the death valley to devoted men, 
 
 And won the quivering brows of agony 
 
 To estacy in torture and despair. 
 
 Then taking up the banner of the Cross, 
 
 He bore it on to conquer all the world. 
 
 THE LITTLE CHRIST-CHILD 
 
 The little Christ-Child with bare feet 
 Walks through the winter snow. 
 
 Along the dark and chilly street; 
 Christ-Child, where dost thou go, 
 
 O Christ, where dost thou go? 
 
 "I go this blessed night to see 
 
 My people poor and sad, 
 And learn whose loving charity 
 
 Hath wrought to make them glad, 
 To cheer and make them glad." 
 
 Lo, as Thou passest, roses blow, 
 O Christ-Child, on the ground ; 
 
 Thus walking through the Christmas snow, 
 Say, Child, what hast Thou found, 
 
 What deeds of mercy found? 
 70 
 
"A woman sat beside a fire 
 
 That loving hands had lit, 
 And round about, mine angel choir 
 
 Left song to blow on it, 
 To blow and kindle it. 
 
 A table with good cheer was spread 
 Where cheer is seldom seen, 
 
 And the bright lamp that hung o'erhead 
 Was hung with holly green : 
 
 Love twined the holly green. 
 
 And once a child as frail as I 
 
 Lay on a bed of pain ; 
 The voice that bid it easy lie 
 
 Did sing a carol strain 
 A low sweet carol strain. 
 
 Yet find I sorrow want and woe 
 
 At each step on the way. 
 The burdens I have borne below 
 
 Share thou this Christmas Day, 
 This blessed Christmas Day." 
 
 A CHRISTMAS HYMN 
 
 {Christmas 1891) London 
 
 "Glory to God in the Highest 
 
 And on Earth peace, good will towards Men 
 
 Snow lies upon the moonlit mount 
 
 And ice upon the silent fount, 
 
 A smoky breath wreaths the cold oxen's stall ; 
 
 A distant call 
 
 Rings through the night 
 Where shepherds watch their flocks upon the height. 
 
 71 
 
Silence lies spread with angel wings 
 
 Upon the face of earthly things 
 
 On starry choirs and nature's voice sublime; 
 
 Their ordered chime 
 
 Hushed for a time 
 Waits the glad sound the Herald's message brings. 
 
 As in the tempest of Heaven's war 
 The fire-plumed Michael seen afar 
 Parted the many millioned ranks of light 
 
 To left and right, 
 
 A presence clove 
 The thronged skies, Behold the star of Love. 
 
 Oft the grey hills in evening wrapt 
 Or dreaming seas in silence lapt, 
 Wake to serener beauty, as the moon 
 
 Risen, looks down 
 
 From cloudy oceans pearled 
 And shedding streams of peace, transfigures the dark 
 
 world ; 
 
 Yet more than heart has holiest known 
 
 When gazing, pure and mighty grown. 
 
 On heaven's vast peace and earth's illumined sleep, 
 
 More vast, more deep 
 
 A hallowed spell 
 From the great Angel's wide spread pinions fell. 
 
 Silent, he steered his level flight 
 Till o'er an inn his beacon light 
 He lit, a cresset hanging in the sky: 
 
 Forthwith a signal cry. 
 
 To hell's confine, 
 Announced the birth of Mary's Son divine. 
 
 72 
 
Lo, at the sound a radiant throng 
 
 Dimming the moon, with triumph song 
 
 Sweeps the wide plain, from heaven's effulgent walls 
 
 A glory falls 
 
 In shafts of gold, 
 As sunlight streams from clouds where thunder 
 rolled. 
 
 And now the Seraph, earthward bound 
 Closed his six wings : with twain he crowned 
 His head, and twain a jewelled girdle lie 
 
 Upon his thigh. 
 
 And twain most fleet. 
 Gold sandals, shod with lightning speed his feet. 
 
 His mighty frame oi purest mold, 
 
 Flaming beneath his garment's fold 
 
 Through its translucent vest, with orient glow 
 
 Beams on the snow, 
 
 And as he passes, there 
 Fragrance of heavenly flowers fills the air: 
 
 Anon, with look and word benign. 
 
 He shows the wondering herds the sign 
 
 Where cherubs without number float unseen, 
 
 A tender screen 
 
 To shield the Child 
 From breath of earth and His young Mother mild : 
 
 ''Hail, Saviour born, for Thou alone 
 
 Art holy; Hail, for thou alone 
 
 O Thou Most High, art worthily adored 
 
 Thou only art the Lord." 
 
 Him thus the angel crowd 
 Proclaimed, in lowest adoration bowed. 
 
 73 
 
VESPERS 
 
 {Mentor, Ohio, 1905) 
 
 Many daisies have picked I in summer meadows, 
 When the yellow wealth of harvest filled the hollow 
 
 of the hill, 
 When the noonday light was checked with pleasant 
 
 shadows 
 Here and there upon the hay-field, and the woods 
 
 were hot and still. 
 
 And the summer of its beauty I have plundered 
 
 As I walked about the treasure house that opens to 
 
 us all, 
 Often joying, wrapt in silence, I have wondered 
 How the Hand that shaped these frail things wrote 
 
 upon Belshazzar's wall. 
 
 Once, as thus I mused, I fancied I was lifted 
 
 To the smokeless Alpine regions where the heavens 
 
 stand ajar. 
 And roses that appear when the mists are rifted. 
 Bright with spray dashed from the waterfall, root 
 
 in the crannied spar. 
 
 Far below a village lay, sunk in the gloaming, 
 Road and spire and inn had slipped away like gar- 
 ments dropt at night, 
 And the rumble of the torrent and its foaming 
 Were nothing more than a murmur and a phantom 
 from that height. 
 
 Rising damp that bathes the iris by the river 
 Threw a trailing scarf of greyest gauze about the 
 
 mountain base. 
 And I felt the lonely wonder with a shiver, 
 
 74 
 
Like the Israelites who shunned to look their leader 
 
 in the face, 
 When he bore the stone law down the path that he 
 
 trod, 
 And his countenance dazzled because he had spoken 
 
 with God. 
 
 For suddenly I saw with other eyes 
 The daisy in my hand. 
 Beautiful, strange, and full of memories, 
 As a pale shell upon the sand, 
 
 That will brim with a drop of the ocean, yet mirror 
 the skies. 
 
 It took me back to Grison's upland stretch 
 
 Where bees go humming through the scanty vetch; 
 
 This was no flower of the drowzy plain, 
 
 Was I not in the Engadine again? 
 
 The fragrant upland vale where every rill 
 
 That feeds the fresh hued grass is clear as air 
 
 In August noon. All things are sparkling there : 
 
 The pasture smells of lilies, and the hill 
 
 Tinkles with cow-bells, musical as chimes 
 
 From fretted steeples. Thus, to him who climbs 
 
 Albula once, a daisy may recall 
 
 The mountains, pine and crag and waterfall 
 
 And glacier. Never elsewhere have I seen 
 
 White petals with so wonderful a sheen. 
 
 The alabaster of the Engadine. 
 
 And thus you bear us upward to the height. 
 
 With simple words, to clearer, purer light. 
 
 While the old Tale, so old and so well known, 
 
 Grows young and new, for round it you have thrown 
 
 A life, a glow and a color of your own. 
 
 We see the desert. We see a caravan 
 
 In the wake of a star ; 
 
 Angels across the dark throw a silver span 
 
 Like the moonlit bar 
 
 75 
 
Upon a sleeping sea, when the sails are slack 
 
 And the low wave laps, 
 
 And the sailor's dream in his hammock wings far 
 
 back 
 To his home perhaps. . .' . 
 Behold the gifts of garden and mine piled up 
 In the lap of a stranger. 
 
 Who lays her child, a pearl in a monarch's cup, 
 On the straw of a manger; 
 We join in the strain of the angelic song 
 At Emmanuel's birth; 
 For a Leader has risen to right the wrong; 
 And, henceforth, "Peace on Earth"; 
 Peace, His peace : you pray, to men of honest will. 
 His peace be with you. Still, 
 As we disperse, there lingers throughout the air 
 The perfume of that prayer. 
 God bless you for painting the missal of old 
 With crimson and with gold. 
 
 FIAT 
 
 Thou hast allowed me half the mortal span, 
 The rest is thine. I do not strive or cry. 
 Nor shall my voice be heard ; I lived a man, 
 And as I lived, I do not fear to die. 
 A lonely grave e'en here will not hide all 
 Of what has breathed within this mortal form. 
 Where it has stood the oak bows to its fall ; 
 As it spread sail, the ship has met the storm. 
 Though shattered timbers and a floating spar 
 Wash to the shore before tomorrow's dawn, 
 My name is written where thy records are 
 And I am going where thy sons are gone. 
 I do not question where. It is enough. 
 Thy breath went forth to fashion me. Thy breath 
 Recalls and I obey. Through smooth or rough, 
 I tread the homeward wav that men call death. 
 
 76 
 
SILOAM 
 
 Our Lord was gracious and no bitterness 
 Mixed with His teaching. This hard punishment 
 You speak of from your pulpit, and still less 
 Your maudlin "expiation", never lent 
 Their color to His doctrine. Calm and clear 
 The mighty words dropt healing from His lips : 
 "I came to save and bless and banish fear." 
 
 He knew not of the scorpions and the whips 
 With which you arm his angels. 
 
 Rumor spread 
 Pilate had mingled with their sacrifice 
 The blood of Galileans. ( i ) Some were led 
 To think the sudden slaughter should suffice 
 As proof of sin deserving such a blow 
 At Heaven's hand. So judged they those eighteen 
 Whom with it's fall Siloam's tower laid low. 
 Siloam (Shiloah) also was the scene 
 Of Jesus' healing him who from his birth 
 Had not beheld the Sun. He said "I am", 
 Whereat in madness they took up from earth 
 Stones, but He passed them. Surging at the dam. 
 The swollen current of relentless hate 
 Circled and sank around Him. So he passed, 
 And noted one who by the Temple gate 
 With sightless eyes sat begging. (2) Jesus cast 
 A look of pity. Such He came to save. 
 "Behold, I am the light", He touched with clay 
 The beggar's eyes: "Wash in Siloam's wave". 
 The man obeyed, and he was whole straightway. 
 Thus the same word Shiloah brings to mind 
 
 (i) Luke xiii. 4. (2) John ix. 2. 
 
 "Siloam : Sent is an admissible interpretation ; but the 
 original meaning is rather sending. St. John sees in the 
 word nomen et omen. — Bishop Perowne. 
 
 77 
 
Delivered twice. They asked whose sin the rod 
 Deserved, the parent's or the child's that blind 
 He entered life: "Nor his nor theirs, but God 
 Willed through his lips here to be glorified. 
 Work, work while there is light. Seek not the sin 
 But God's own righteousness", the Lord replied. 
 "Judge not the judgment nor the life within, 
 Hidden from sight beyond your narrow ken, 
 Nor deem those evil beyond other men 
 On whom the tower fell and Pilate's sword. 
 Keep watch upon yourselves". Thus said the Lord. 
 
 HAND AND BRAIN 
 
 ''The Sons of Mary seldom bother ^ for they have in- 
 herited that good part J 
 
 But the Sons of Martha favor their Mother of the 
 careful soul and the troubled heart; 
 
 And because she lost her temper once, and because 
 she was rude to the Lord^ her Guest, 
 
 Her Sons must wait upon Mary's Sons — World 
 without end, reprieve, or rest,'' 
 
 {Rudyard Kipling.) 
 
 If you believe in the Gospel Story, and do not make 
 
 it a forceful myth. 
 Writing your verses for empty glory, robbing the 
 
 narrative of its pith; 
 If you believe in the Master's kindness, ready to see 
 
 as the Master sees. 
 And do not share in the High Priests' blindness, nor 
 
 in the pride of the Pharisees, 
 
 Burn no incense to any idol, open the Book at anoth- 
 er page. 
 
 The Lord never encouraged the idle and worked 
 hard in the strength of His age. 
 
 78 
 
Where the want was, His hand was ready, where 
 the work was awaiting His days were spent; 
 
 And the blow was never unsteady that He aimed in 
 His wrath at self-content. 
 
 Let not your large heart, Kipling, bewilder, but keep 
 
 your eye on the larger hope. 
 Let not the ship's captain scorn the builder, nor the 
 
 pilot the man at the rope. 
 To girder and derrick be honor given, to tunnel and 
 
 bridge their lawful place; 
 The factory may bring us nearer heaven, by teaching 
 
 the love of a brother's face. 
 
 Yet is there good but in hard labor? Friend, is there 
 
 use but in crow-bar and pike? 
 Had they skill but in fife and tabor, those who have 
 
 taught how the fighters should strike ? 
 Nay! Dignity comes of a task well done in tailor's 
 
 cloth or in overalls, 
 And the duty lies upon every one to trim his lamp 
 
 ere the Bridegroom calls. 
 
 Sons of Martha and Sons of Mary who honestly 
 
 work while you have the light. 
 Even in this world the Lord is not chary of his 
 
 rewards in your fellows' sight. 
 If carpeted ease be the goal to win, electric bulbs on 
 
 a paneled wall, 
 Those who have won have the greater sin, and earth 
 
 has no recompense at all. 
 
 Turn from the feast where Dives carouses, do not 
 
 stand staring at shaken reeds; 
 Men finely clad are in rich men's houses, not where 
 
 the foot-weary Saviour leads. 
 There's a better part, it is no fiction ; Jesus said these 
 
 words in solemn truth, 
 79 
 
When the shadow of the crucifixion loomed across 
 the visions of His youth. 
 
 Or if your cry be the disproportion between the task 
 of the hand and brain, 
 
 The idle thinker is an abortion — the brutal butcher a 
 thing as vain. 
 
 Jesus said not "Martha, lo you labor, and your ser- 
 vice counts to me for naught". 
 
 But, "You trouble, and behold your neighbour list- 
 ens to the word the wise have sought". 
 
 He condemned not Martha's sons in anger who for- 
 gave his murderers in death; 
 
 Laid no burden on their souls in rancour, He who 
 ministered while He had breath. 
 
 "Father", Said He, raising eyes to heaven, "All the 
 work Thou gavest me is done". 
 
 Shall the loved disciple be forgiven for neglecting 
 work laid on the Son? 
 
 CHRISTIAN BELIEF 
 
 Not mere lip-service, praises softly sung. 
 Altar-devotion, does God ask of ye, 
 Nor prayer from hearts that are too sharply wrung 
 To bear the weight of their infirmity. 
 
 He does not love the sacrifice of flowers 
 That he has given to deck the path ye tread, 
 He does not claim the measure of the hours 
 That He has writ in stars above your head. 
 
 All these are His; presumption flaws the gift 
 Of wealth returned that was in kindness given : 
 He does but ask you faithfully to lift 
 Your earth-bent eyes and erring wills to heaven. 
 
 80 
 
He saith: "I ask that ye should let the sun 
 Into your hearts, and bravely stand the light; 
 Wince not if it should pain; I have begun 
 To win my world more wholly from the night, 
 
 That love should flow from man to man, as I 
 Have let it freely flow to man from God, 
 That ye should follow in His purity 
 Him who most meekly man's sad journey trod." 
 
 The Galilean showed us once the road, 
 Can we not follow ? Washed with blood and tears 
 Behold His path, sin-free. The end He showed 
 To shameful death surrendering His years. 
 
 Then shall we falter? Tenderness divine 
 Bestowed in toil and pity every hour 
 He showed, through tasks to which the low incline 
 Weakly or w^earily. His was the power 
 
 Of infinite forgiveness, fortitude 
 
 To love through suffering, devoid alike 
 
 Of pride or passion, the similitude 
 
 Of God in man He was. Love Him, or strike 
 
 His Name with your contempt. Oh, choose your 
 
 part: 
 You must be with this Man, divine indeed, 
 Or else against Him. Brace a willing heart 
 Beneath the thorns that tears and make it bleed, 
 
 And raise it, mangled, chastened, ever higher, 
 To perfect virtue ( Expiation ? Nay 
 But truer justice, plucking out the briar 
 Though growing deep about the rose, I say) 
 
 8i 
 
Or come and tell Him : "Thou art not my friend ; 
 Thy way and mine are parted, we must go 
 Our several ways to God." But peace, I know 
 The pure in ^eart shall see Him in the end. 
 
 CONFESSION 
 
 I am ashamed to moan, though suffering. 
 
 The pain I bear is not a meed severe. 
 
 I am ashamed to weep. The tears I shed 
 
 Are not sufficient to wash out the stains 
 
 Thou knowest, and I. I am ashamed to pray, 
 
 As there is no petition I can make 
 
 But it convicts me of ingratitude 
 
 While importuning Thee for further grace. 
 
 What can I offer that is not Thy gift? 
 
 How can I labor, but sustained by Thee, 
 
 To use the strength Thou dost infuse in me? 
 
 Ah! through my inmost being courses shame. 
 
 And love still hotter than the searing shame 
 
 That bows me, humble, suppliant, at Thy feet. 
 
 I have been proud among my fellow men. 
 
 Borne high my brow, while Thine was crowned with 
 
 thorns. 
 I have been shaken with that earth-born ague 
 A sickened longing for a human love. 
 And struggled on my way only to feel 
 The cut and sting of brambles and of briars, 
 Impeding progress. Lo I come to Thee 
 Wounded and fallen. Wilt Thou raise me Lord ? 
 Once more forbearing Saviour wilt Thou deign ? 
 I now distrust myself, I dare not say 
 As once I did, "Help a last time, a last". 
 I know that I have fallen, still may fall, 
 And resolutions rosy in the dawn 
 Sink cold and lifeless in the dusk of eve. 
 I have dragged down the soul Thou gavest me, 
 
 82 
 
And soiled the silver-white baptismal vow 
 
 Upon my forehead : not with sins of sense, 
 
 But with the dail)^ sin of faithlessness. 
 
 I have not so much left of confidence 
 
 Or fortitude to say that I shall stand, 
 
 For I have measured the full stature now 
 
 Of mine own wretchedness; I find it huge 
 
 To overwhelming, and the truth is blazed 
 
 Upon my vision like a furnace glow : 
 
 There is no good in me, my God, my God! 
 
 Whence comes the power which thus can mar Thy 
 
 works ? 
 The issue is indeed most terrible 
 Which Thou hast challenged in creating man : 
 Thy image is defaced in all Thy sons. 
 We fight in darkness, and we sink and die: . 
 The torch is quenched, how easily — and then, 
 What then? Hast Thou no answer but to turn 
 Thy glorious Face away, Maker divine ? 
 Thou knowest the sharp struggles and the blows 
 I must sustain in fighting down myself. 
 And the unconquerable tendencies 
 That bring their curse. Better a thousandfold 
 The midnight theft and fierce marauder's sin 
 Or brutish crimes of wine-besotted fools. 
 Than sin like mine that circles round the dial 
 And faces me when e'er I face myself. 
 Thou clear coast beacon of life's driving sea, 
 Shine on the rocks oi our impending doom 
 And guide to haven those who trust in Thee. 
 
 MEDITATION 
 
 Through the wide window shone the Paschal moon, 
 Where in an upper chamber, gathered round 
 Their Master, sat the twelve apostles, soon 
 To lose Him. In the night a rustling sound 
 
 83 
 
Of boughs scarce flowered, and a tender scent 
 
 And soft wings by the casement brushing sped ; 
 
 While glinting sidelong the pure lustre lent 
 
 Its limpid glory to the Saviour's head. 
 
 The lamp upon the table flickered clear 
 
 And threw grouped shadows on the naked wall; 
 
 Or did celestial cohorts hover near 
 
 To draw a ready weapon at His call ? 
 
 A hush was spread upon Jerusalem 
 
 As Jesus sat with those He loved so well, 
 
 And broke the bread and drank the wine with them, 
 
 Then on the awed assembly silence fell. 
 
 O rapt communion, when the chalice borne 
 
 In His own hand with light suffused the gloom, 
 
 Not to be theirs again till Easter morn 
 
 Beheld the open sepulchre illume! 
 
 O fleeting space for strong devotion's plea. 
 
 Of full oblation offered to His love. 
 
 When each heart echoes, "I will die with Thee," 
 
 Pronouncing vows temptation shall disprove! 
 
 He did not dwell on His own suffering, 
 
 Nor upon Judah's dark o'erhanging doom, 
 
 Nor on His people's cry that was to bring 
 
 His radiant life in anguish to the tomb; 
 
 Sharper than nails and thorn, the pang of love 
 
 Rejected, pierced Him and He sought to save: 
 
 By martyr-prophecy He strove to win 
 
 Judas Iscariot from a traitor's grave. 
 
 He told of a deceiver's presence. Yea, — 
 
 Could Judas live and yet endure the smart? 
 
 He pointed out the hand that should betray. 
 
 And probed the foulness of a human heart. 
 
 He gazed upon the sheep which He had lost 
 
 Out of the fold that Scripture be fulfilled. 
 
 And as the swords of Christ and Satan crossed 
 
 Perchance the eyes of the Redeemer filled, 
 
 Granting the monstrous sin a final grace, 
 
 84 
 
The pity of a God about to die, 
 While Judas looked into that wondrous Face, 
 Questioning also: "Master is it I?" 
 Then Judas went into the deepening night, 
 And of his alien presence freed, great peace 
 Upon the Master brooded, for His sight 
 Embraced the sacrifice and the release. 
 He nevermore should taste with them the fruit 
 Of clustered vine. They marveled at the word, 
 i his was the last time Hell in fierce pursuit 
 Should challenge Him ere crowned ; the last they 
 
 heard 
 His prayer in breaking bread ; the mystic feast 
 No more He was to share ; thus He v/ould leave 
 An empty throne in Israel; the High Priest 
 Forsake their altar : theirs the hour to grieve. 
 But as the youngest leaned upon His breast, 
 Surely some whispered consolation given 
 Spoke to the loved disciple what the rest 
 Should learn when He had entered into Heaven. 
 "All be offended!" Untried faithfulness, 
 Simeon's — and like the rough-hewn block of stone 
 Waiting the chisel — cries out in distress: 
 "Though all shall fail, I follow Thee alone." 
 Sweet the familiar converse with Him seemed. 
 And vividly the past returned to mind : 
 The misery His mercy had redeemed, 
 The broken reed that He had stooped to bind. 
 And teachings listened to with idle ears, 
 While resting on the broad suspended oar, 
 And parables scarce marked in other years 
 Recurred with meaning never known before. 
 They thought of Him as He rebuked the storm, 
 The Christ so dimly comprehended yet, 
 Whose unrecorded utterances inform 
 The silent margin of Genesaret. 
 And three, the chosen, could recall the scene 
 
 85 
 
Upon the sacred mountain where they saw 
 His majesty, as praying He had been 
 Unveiled between the Prophets and the Law. 
 But now the words they barkened to with dread 
 Conveyed a strange sad warning from the Lord : 
 ''I send you not as once I did," He said, 
 "Provide you scrip and purse, and buy a sword." 
 Their souls aglow with His divine farewell 
 His charge, "Do this in memory of Me," 
 They followed Him across the broken dell 
 Where Kedron flowed below Gethsemane. - 
 None in the solitude shall pray with Him, 
 And none shall see the sweat upon His brow; 
 Beneath the Olive trees the moon is dim 
 Only one angel waits upon Him now. 
 When He is led into the judgment hall 
 Simon denies Him, others turn to fly: 
 Yet they rose consecrated from the fall — 
 That night had taught them faith in Calvary. 
 
 IN THE WILDERNESS 
 
 When Jesus went into the wilderness 
 At God's own word to meet the Tempter there. 
 He never yet had looked on Satan's face 
 With human eyes, and thus invisible 
 Satan addressed the Saviour of mankind. 
 "Thou whom I scarcely dare to name, but love 
 Since hovering near, I first descried thy home 
 Whose threshold I did never desecrate 
 With my unhallowed step. Thou whom I loved 
 A youth among thy comrades, full of grace 
 And full of power, so much thyself, in spite 
 Of shrouding, that I marvel still to see 
 Thy majesty unhonoured among men; 
 Thou virgin-born, who didst escape the stain 
 Of parent sin, thou never yet hast felt 
 Polluting touch of mine. In angel form 
 
 86 
 
Thine early days have often watched me pass 
 
 Upon the market place and on the road, — 
 
 Thou hast not ever seen me otherwise, 
 
 For I was not to meet thy boyhood's gaze. 
 
 My wing brushed not the lintel of thy house ; 
 
 But through the open doorway, like a wind 
 
 Hot from the East of Jordan, blew about 
 
 The fragrant shavings scattered from thy plane 
 
 And threw them whirling out into the air 
 
 As I have tossed the souls of evil men. 
 
 I mingled with the sun that through the roof 
 
 Beamed on thy mother from thy Father's eye ; 
 
 So watched thee on her lap, and wondering; 
 
 So heard her later teach thee word by word 
 
 The song she learned of angels, about thee. 
 
 Dost thou remember, at Capernaum, 
 
 One evening by the well-side came a maid 
 
 To draw, and thou didst stoop and lower down 
 
 Her earthen pitcher, 'mid the little stars 
 
 That laughed at heaven ? A moving in the leaves 
 
 Which thou didst take to be a dusky owl 
 
 Disturbed among the laurels, startled her, 
 
 And trembling she drew back. It was my shade 
 
 Unseen of thee, she saw across the well. 
 
 My love should not offend thee, since as much 
 
 As any of the loveliest things that breathe, 
 
 I claim thy workmanship, an instrument 
 
 Within thy hand, as surely as the tool 
 
 In Joseph's workshop, laying hold of which 
 
 Thy holy fingers wrought a thing of use. 
 
 I could not see thy manhood ripen out 
 
 Into its fullness like the rounded moon 
 
 Above yon barren desert, and not feel 
 
 Its beauty stir me as the solemn words 
 
 Men sometimes speak at death. I could not be 
 
 So miserable, even in the fall 
 
 That cast me from my state, as to forget 
 
 87 
 
Thy face, Jehovah, though I see It veiled. 
 
 My love shall not offend thee, though my hand 
 
 At thy decree v^^ithstand and seek to foil. 
 
 Here, gifted with the power to overthrow, 
 
 I worship thee and supplicate thee. Stand. 
 
 Conquer, and hasten on the end of days 
 
 Till this my work accomplished, and forgiven 
 
 Mine own offence, I be restored to sight 
 
 Of thy revealed effulgence. This is hell 
 
 To be withheld thy presence. This is hell 
 
 To be thy messenger of trial, the stone 
 
 Whereon the world must stumble. Death itself 
 
 Bears no such weight of terrible distress 
 
 As I, accursed and wandering the earth. 
 
 To watch the blush of shame rise In a cheek 
 
 That was as lily pure as those same flowers 
 
 Thou trod'st about the fields of Nazareth; 
 
 To whisper foul rebellion in an ear 
 
 That just has heard Its Maker's ordinance; 
 
 And when a man has risen from his knees, 
 
 To pluck good resolution from his grasp 
 
 Until he scorns himself — yea, this is hell. 
 
 Thou once didst see me drop, a levin bolt, 
 
 Into the void. Drive now the power from earth 
 
 That thwarts thine end." But Jesus here first spoke: 
 
 "It cannot thwart me but as I allow. 
 
 I will not yet drive evil from the earth. 
 
 Satan, the hour of peace is not yet come. 
 
 Son of destruction, I am come through thee 
 
 To feel the heaviest scourge that ever fell 
 
 Upon the shoulders of a criminal." 
 
 "If I obey" — thus Satan, — "I must strike 
 
 Thy manhood In its frailty till the flame 
 
 Flickers upon thy lamp and horror spreads 
 
 Within the darkened chambers of thy will. 
 
 So when the story of thy life is told 
 
 For future generations, words shall fail 
 
 88 
 
The writer to express thine agony. 
 
 Not iron driven through thy living flesh, 
 
 Nor public shame that w^ithers self esteem, 
 
 Nor the forsaking by thy bosom friend, 
 
 Nor deafness to thy prophesies, nor sight 
 
 Of the despairing woman by the Cross, 
 
 Not the withdrawal of thy God's support, 
 
 Nor yet thy awful meeting Death alone 
 
 Shall minister this cup of bitterness; 
 
 For know, the King of Terrors is not Death : 
 
 Omniscient save of evil in thyself. 
 
 Or of the stress brought on a human soul 
 
 When I approach and speak and stand revealed." 
 
 Then Jesus, with mild firmness answered him : 
 
 "That I shall conquer thee, I do believe. 
 
 Confiding in the strength He grants to men. 
 
 Who saith He will not suffer thee to tempt 
 
 Beyond endurance. I have laid aside 
 
 The power that hurled thee through the gates of 
 
 dawn. 
 Reveal thyself to me and I shall meet 
 Thine onset, and repel it as a man." 
 At this command, the wilderness, laid bare, 
 Concealed from Jesus' sight all loveliness. 
 A leopard glided to his feet and fixed 
 The desert's gaze upon his solitude; 
 Searing and still, the rocks strewd all about 
 Mock shapes of bread, to him alone thus given 
 A stone in lieu of daily sustenance. 
 And he could find no water for his lips. 
 Then Satan answered Jesus: ''To obey 
 I must again be what I was before 
 I rushed from Paradise, a hurricane, 
 Into the vales of Hell. A mighty Shape 
 Once more in this encounter I shall stand, 
 As when I routed all thy Seraphim 
 Upon the heavenly field. Arise! Prepare 
 
 89 
 
Thyself, O God in mortal guise. Fulfill 
 
 Thy wondrous thought. Lo ! darkness shall prevail 
 
 Upon thy soul of light when I take up 
 
 The spiritual weapons at thy word, 
 
 As seen through human eyes behold me then, 
 
 And gather all thy strength to look on me." 
 
 THE PROPHET 
 
 {To my Brother) 
 
 In the cool shade of Lebanon, at noon, 
 A young man trod the mountain path alone, 
 A skin about his loins, and his bare head 
 All unprotected from the beating sun 
 That glared upon the naked rocks above. 
 Where he was soon to walk. Beside him lay, 
 Bathed in the shimmering noonday heat, a stretch 
 Of grassy meadows where the bleating flocks 
 Nibbled, and brawling rills foamed on the stones 
 That lay about the mountain foot in piles 
 Strewn like the fragments of a ruined wall. 
 Yet work of human hands was none around : 
 Far as the eye could reach, the waving plain. 
 Colored with varying lights, spread out before, 
 And palm trees' feathered branches crowned the tops 
 Of broken hillocks, on a sky so blue, 
 So deep and shadowless, the dazzling light 
 Seemed to pour down in sheets of living flame 
 From the huge vaulting of a painted dome 
 Pillared upon the heights of Lebanon. 
 Fair from the plain, and fairer from the hill 
 Was the wide prospect, as the young man stood 
 And gazed upon it from beneath his hand. 
 But little pleasure seemed he to derive 
 From the long contemplation, for a sigh 
 Escaped him, and he turned upon his way. 
 And the pure light of his deep eyes appeared 
 To glow more strangely and to fix upon 
 
 90 
 
An inward vision as he climbed the hill; 
 
 Now struggling with the thorny shrubs that grow 
 
 In crannies of the rock, now breathing hard 
 
 And straining nerve and sinew to obtain 
 
 A foothold, as the earth beneath him yields 
 
 And loosened stones slide dizzily away. 
 
 Wild were the leap from such a height to fall 
 
 Down to the stream that twinkles there below! 
 
 And the bent cedar round whose ancient trunk 
 
 He clasps his arm, creaks with the weight unused, 
 
 Ready to totter. But the sailor's eye 
 
 Is not more steady than the mountaineer's, 
 
 And such the children of the soil are trained 
 
 Where the scant pasture of the valley leads 
 
 The herdsman to the heights his flocks to feed ; 
 
 Or simple huntsmen, armed with knife and bow 
 
 Track the wild beast unto his native lair 
 
 To furnish food and raiment. And the hand 
 
 That torn with briar and brushwood, such a grasp 
 
 Yet lays upon yon cedar-bough, the eye 
 
 That roams so fearlessly along the steep, 
 
 Have driven the knife into the panting quarry 
 
 And winged the errless arrow to the mark. 
 
 But other purpose far now brings him here. 
 
 For in his hand nor bow nor shepherd's staff 
 
 He holds, no wallet for the needs of life. 
 
 For food and water in this wilderness 
 
 He carries, — nothing; and his being seems 
 
 Within it one absorbing thought to bear. 
 
 And one alone. Now, as he wins the top, 
 
 He lays himself upon the ground, and rests 
 
 His head upon his hand, beneath a rock 
 
 That throws a clear-cut shadow on the grass 
 
 Against the sunlight reared. And the still shade 
 
 Slowly revolving, slowly died away. 
 
 The sunset lights sank from the flaming hills, 
 
 The distant snows flushed crimson and grew pale, 
 
 91 
 
As though the mountains kindled all to fire 
 And then to ashes turned, and twilight hushed 
 The cheerful sounds of wood and field and vale, 
 While in the fresh'ning sky a violet shade 
 Crept up and up, and all the stars appeared. 
 Yet still he lay, his head upon his hand. 
 Surely no idler would have toiled so hard 
 To climb this lonely height for pleasure's sake, 
 For lounging in the sunny grass all day! 
 And that strong frame was never bound and knit 
 Without the effort of an active will. 
 Nor does he seem in ecstacy to lie 
 Like some day-dreamer, weaving in his brain 
 Poetic fancies, for his eye is clear 
 And like a beacon still and steady burns 
 Beneath his waving hair. Some thought is there 
 And every sense is hushed as in his soul 
 He follows out his meditation high. 
 But wherefore in this desert? Is there not 
 Space for seclusion in the pleasant vale? 
 What theme pursues his thought, must needs com- 
 mand 
 This awful solitude ? Forbear to ask : 
 The ground whereon ye walk is holy ground, 
 Yea, put the shoes from off your feet and kneel. 
 As night invades the hills a rising wind 
 Rustles amid the sun-dried grass, a breath 
 That seems of some eternal spirit stirs 
 The soundless air. Then the young man arose. 
 Folded his arms upon his breast, and walked 
 Beneath the stars with bended head and words 
 He heeded not escaping from his lips: — 
 "I am unworthy of so high a task. 
 And young, and unexperienced, seek, I pray. 
 Another for this office. Lord, not. me." 
 But in the wind a voice was heard to say : 
 "It is for Me to make My choice, — ^not thee." 
 
 92 
 
"I am a child in years, a child in mind, 
 And in Thy sight, the wisest but a child, 
 Eternal Wisdom." And again the Voice: 
 "Wisdom is Mine and I will teach thee truth: 
 Do thou My will." At this, upon his knee 
 The young man fell, for he was overwhelmed 
 Before that Presence. Throbbing in his veins 
 The hot blood went and came, as if a blow 
 Had felled him to the ground, 
 While in his ear the solemn words still rang: 
 "Do thou My will." 
 
 • What struggle in his breast 
 Awakens at the sound ? For in his hands 
 His face he hides, and: "Spare me. Lord!" he cries, 
 With all his soul in keenest agony 
 And supplication straining, and his face 
 In its full manly vigor, stamped with pain 
 So sharp and deep that every line is wrung. 
 "Thou shrinkest from thy weakness, not the task, 
 But what the task must tear thee from." The Voice 
 Fell burning on his ear, and lower bent. 
 He bowed as in a storm the forest oak. 
 Bare to the lightning veils its top and bows 
 Before the storm. "The world has little joy. 
 And gladly would I leave the world," he said ; 
 Or rather, through his mind, the thought on wings 
 As swift as swallows flew, or as a bird, 
 Flu tt' ring to hide its treasure, to the view 
 Suddenly bared ; for as an open book 
 The thought is read by Him who knows the hearts 
 Of men, all naked in His sight exposed. 
 "Thou wouldst not leave the world until the face 
 Of one thou lovest fadeth from thy heart," 
 "Thou knowest all things, and Thou knowest this," 
 He answered. "Vain to hide, vain to deny, 
 (And that I would not if I could) the truth. 
 Thou knowest better far than I myself 
 
 93 
 
How much in me there is to train and teach, 
 
 How much to strengthen and to purify. 
 
 Weak in this inward battle, how should I 
 
 Preach to Thy people and declare Thy word ? 
 
 But if it must me so. Thy instrument 
 
 Is in Thy hand, Almighty, lift Thou me, 
 
 I cannot raise myself, but kneel to Thee, 
 
 And Thou Who gavest the will canst give the power 
 
 To reach to Thee." ''Nay, thou must choose alone 
 
 To stand or fall," the Voice in answer said. 
 
 And all was silence. Thus, throughout the night 
 
 The arching heavens silent looked upon 
 
 The kneeling man and on the starlit hills. 
 
 Then, with the dawn, he rose, the traces still 
 Of that night-struggle in his stern sad face. 
 But master of his will. No food had touched 
 His lips since yestermorn, and many a day 
 Upon the heights was to arise and set 
 Ere food should touch again the lips to prayer 
 Now consecrated. But the trial o'erpast, 
 One quiet eve he bent his steps once more 
 To that green valley whence he came, and there 
 He mingled with his fellow-men, but not 
 As erst he did ; while all in wonder gazed 
 Or spoke to him with awe; for in his eye 
 And on his brow was set the burning mark 
 Of Him Who said: "I will baptize with fire." 
 
 94 
 
PARNASSIA PALUSTRIS 
 
PARNASSIA PALUSTRIS 
 
 I oft have watched thee bend and toss 
 
 Where on a mountain's windy crest 
 The winged steed had stamped, the moss 
 
 With starry hoofs, to flight addrest. 
 And often as I roved among 
 
 The pastures of my Eastern land, 
 Thy pale white blossoms I have strung 
 
 In garlands with a childish hand. 
 Their loveliness unknown to fame 
 
 Still glimmers in the upland grass 
 And thus amid my verse thy name 
 
 Shall twinkle as the wind doth pass. 
 
 GRASS OF PARNASSUS 
 
 "The flower I speak of is a white cup, veined by 
 a delicate green tracery, upheld on a straight slen- 
 der almost grass-like stem and containing a circle of 
 peculiar velvety, pale green stamens . . . one of the 
 most exquisite of its kind and growing as it does in 
 . . . desert places, one of the most ethereal looking/' 
 
 London Spectator. 
 
 97 
 
WILD SWAN 
 
 He rocks to the waters' rythmic sound 
 
 And flashes a pearly gem 
 Upon Leman's brow of azure, bound 
 
 By the mountain's diadem. 
 Glorious in fullness of noonday hue, 
 
 When a dazzling radiance glows 
 Over the woodland, and dries the dew 
 
 On the warm lips of the rose. 
 
 Soft, in the reeds where the river glides 
 
 Into the arms, of the lake 
 Blows the wild wind, while the plover hides 
 
 Amid the cool, waving brake. 
 Amid the reeds, like a flame of white 
 
 Enclosed in a silver ring. 
 Rocks the swan in his cradle of light 
 
 To the breeze's whispering. 
 
 The fishers steer in the grey of the dawn 
 
 In the dusk of snow storm-driven. 
 I hear the roll of a chariot borne 
 
 On the mighty winds of heaven : 
 Billows break on the breast of the lake 
 
 And lash into yeasty foam, 
 The fishers reef and for harbor make, 
 
 For the swan is flying home. 
 
 Stretch forth thy sinews, O swan, O Love, 
 
 Thy flight o'er the water flings 
 A shadow below, to clouds above. 
 
 The deep whirring of thy wings. 
 Stretch forth thy sinews, then sink to rest 
 
 In thy nest of reeds and down, 
 As on the steel of the glacier's crest 
 
 Dawn sets her eglantine crown. 
 
 98 
 
Upon the lake Is a castle wierd ; 
 
 Its courts with splendour fill 
 When the moon's enchanted rim has cleared 
 
 The top of the nearest hill. 
 Tall pines like sentinels, stand straight 
 
 In lines all round about it, 
 And mounted horsemen silent wait 
 
 Within it and without it. 
 
 Washing the base of its terrace stair 
 
 Sough the waters of the lake. 
 A mist-robed maid is watching where 
 
 Waves upon the marble break. 
 To the feet of her who stands forlorn 
 
 With outstretched arms in the night 
 The form of a stately swan is borne 
 
 On the gem strewed waves of light. 
 
 When comes the dawn, are thy white wings furled 
 With the moonlight's wizard beams, 
 
 Mysterious guest of the wonder-world, 
 O Swan of the land of dreams! 
 
 SONG 
 
 Alas for the wind in the timothy field, 
 
 As it blew in those days, as it blew, 
 When the love of my heart, like a fountain unsealed, 
 
 Flowed for you dearest love, flowed for you. 
 
 Yet once more let the sun through the apple bough 
 shine, 
 
 As it gleamed at the dawn, as it gleamed. 
 Once again be your love to this old heart of mine 
 
 What it seemed at eighteen, what it seemed. 
 
 For an hour, let the clouds with a mantle of grey 
 
 Veil the barren horizon of truth, 
 And the dim purple hills fold the present away 
 
 Whilst I breathe in the air of my youth. 
 
 99 
 
LURELEI 
 
 Witch's fingers on the harp 
 
 Touch the light strings; 
 Witch's hand through woof and warp 
 
 The shuttle swings, 
 Magic in the swirling stream 
 
 In Rhine's dark pool: 
 Death in thy blood-curdling scream 
 
 Poor drowning fool! 
 
 Still the foam dances golden 
 
 Over the place; 
 None has ever beholden 
 
 The dead man's face. 
 Who shall give words to thy song, 
 
 Enchanted swirl, 
 Who watch for thee all night long, 
 
 O Fairy Girl? 
 
 Elf-light dances on her rock. 
 
 Dread Lurelei! 
 Spell-bound fishers hear her mock 
 
 Their lullaby. 
 Wild her yellow hair is tost, 
 
 Water sprites gloat 
 Over the fisherman lost. 
 
 Lost with his boat. 
 
 ENGINE 72 
 
 Fire! Fire! Fire! 
 Who are these that ride on the wings of the wind 
 
 To the clang of a brazen bell, 
 While the lurid light is vaulting higher: 
 
 Have the men or their fathers sinned 
 
 That they ride top speed into hell ? 
 
 100 
 
Fire! Fire! Fire! 
 The crimson curse hangs on a pillar of smoke. 
 
 The shrill call sounds ! These ^y to greet 
 Death and the hero's funeral pyre, 
 
 Where struggling titans hiss and choke 
 
 As the flames and the waters meet. 
 
 Fire! Fire! Fire! 
 Amid crashing beams and a sickly stench 
 
 They have battled with odds too great; 
 And through, falling bricks and pools of mire, 
 
 They leap to the grave and wrench 
 
 Living bays from the hand of Fate. 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE SHELL 
 
 Where grew the flowers that blossom here? 
 
 "In China-land," I hear them say. 
 Where bamboo towns bear names so queer. 
 
 And where the feldspar turned to clay. 
 
 Once on the strand was found a shell. 
 Its half-closed, silent, gleaming lip 
 
 Turned to the wave that rose and fell 
 And left it lustrous with the drip. 
 
 The foam of native Crine. A man 
 
 Whose years were spent in studious thought, 
 
 Whose eyes were bent to peer and scan 
 The nature marvels that he sought, 
 
 Had found the shell that owned no name. 
 
 Through days of patient toil he strove, 
 Before the stubborn furnace flame. 
 
 To twin that shell. A Vision clove 
 
 lOI 
 
Its folded curtains, where it lay 
 
 On the porch matting. Have I said 
 
 This happened in a by-gone day? 
 Dim splendour lit the Vision's head : 
 
 It spoke in this wise: "Fire, and glaze 
 And fire again. In deeps I grew. 
 
 Where sleep all hidden things." Amaze, 
 That stole away its proper hue 
 
 Spread on the Potter's yellow face. 
 
 I did not state his face was yellow; 
 It was the fashion of his race: 
 
 The hue was rich, antique and mellow. 
 
 He answered not, but promptly fell 
 
 To putting back into the oven 
 His rounded clay, and did full well; 
 
 Ere long the Kaolin had proven 
 
 A mimic sea shell, smooth and fair. 
 
 Such is the story as he told it. 
 " 'Tis brittle," quoth the Sprite, and rare, 
 
 Be careful as to how you hold it." 
 
 In fire the Potter dipped his brushes, 
 And with its wondrous hues arrayed 
 
 His pots, that on the floor of rushes 
 The scenes of China-land displayed. 
 
 So you can see them if you will, 
 The glories of the glaze and stain. 
 
 Whenever on your window-sill 
 You set a vase of porcelain. ( i ) 
 
 (i) Porcelain, from porcelana "a little pig", so 
 called by the Portuguese traders, from its resem- 
 blance to cowrie-shells, the shape of which is not unlike 
 a pig's back. The Chinese earthenware, being white 
 and glossy like the inside of the ' shells suggested the 
 application of the name, — Brewer Diet, of Phrase and 
 Fable. 
 
 I02 
 
Warriors in golden armour cross 
 
 Gem-hilted weapons, on a field 
 Pied with strange flowers and emerald moss, 
 
 And apple trees of onj^x yield 
 
 Their garnet fruit. A high-bred maiden. 
 Screening her smile from some gay lord. 
 
 With gorgeous vesture heavy laden. 
 Trips over an enamel sward. 
 
 Or cranes of huge dimensions scare 
 
 A brood of iridescent ducks. 
 And fish of unknown waters flare 
 
 And float beneath an amber ''flux." 
 
 Or turquoise bridges, on a ground 
 
 Of molten pearl, throw azure shades. 
 
 And brooks of indigo flow round 
 The twisted roots of violet glades. 
 
 In that dim land of long ago. 
 
 Amid its secrets long time hid. 
 Did those odd little flowers blow 
 
 To blossom on your tea pot lid. 
 
 SONG 
 
 This is Spring's hymen, where art thou 
 Thou whom I love ? Here she trails. 
 Trails with her scented robe touching, 
 Touching the stream and the fields ; 
 Fields where the primrose is peeping. 
 Peeping and calling for thee. 
 Thee O beloved of my young days. 
 Days that forever are flown. 
 
 103 
 
TRIBUTE TO A FRIEND 
 
 He shed a kindly light, still rich to give, 
 With lavish bounty unimpoverished. 
 For open to the heavens like a mount 
 That feeds the valleys with perennial streams, 
 He taught the kindness that he learned of God. 
 
 VISION 
 
 She walked by the sea in her robe of blue 
 
 And the waves ran in at her feet. 
 Her golden feet of the clifE's own hue 
 
 As it glows in the mid-day heat. 
 And her red hair flew to the east and west 
 
 Like the weeds of an ocean cave. 
 Wherever they float on a mermaid's breast 
 
 Or cover a sailor's grave. 
 
 EDITH OF TYNEWOLD 
 
 {Ballad) 
 
 Ho! light the hall, prepare the feast, 
 Lord Edgar's daughter weds to-night 
 
 With Malvern Grey who in the East 
 
 Hath won the spurs of Christian Knight. 
 
 Three years ago their secret troth 
 They plighted in the cedar grove. 
 
 But kept it from Earl Edgar, loth 
 To bring his curse upon their love. 
 
 For higher then could no man look 
 
 Than Tynewold Hall, throughout the land, 
 
 And ill would Lion Edgar brook 
 
 To grant a Squire his daughter's hand. 
 
 104 
 
The dial-shadow, day by day, 
 
 Still left unchanged the lovers' hearts; 
 She grew to womanhood, and Grey 
 
 Wandered and fought in distant parts. 
 
 Years come and go, the taper burns ; 
 
 At last the old Lord Edgar died. 
 To-night Sir Malvern Grey returns 
 
 To claim and wed his promised bride. 
 
 Now hark! the warder's bugle rings, 
 And hark! The sound of horses feet, 
 
 The window wide the lady flings 
 To be the first her lOiight to greet. 
 
 Thus standing in the clear torchlight 
 Some fairy vision Edith seems, 
 
 While out upon the snow^ night 
 
 The radiance from the window beams. 
 
 A rider leads two steeds apace, 
 With battle stains upon his dress 
 
 Full freshly flecked in eager chase. 
 The other horse is riderless. 
 
 "Across the bleak and desert wold 
 That sentinels the gusty plain," 
 
 Sir Malvern's Squire the story told, 
 "His charger flew with trailing rein. 
 
 We followed to the Devil's bowl 
 That gleams half hidden in the brake, 
 
 Secured and tracked him to the knoll 
 That shelves above that baleful lake. 
 
 The dawn confirmed our worst alarms; 
 Whinned the charger white with froth, 
 
 105 
 
Bearing the dragon coat of arms, 
 Embroidered on his saddle cloth." 
 
 Weep, Lady Edith, weep and pray, 
 They shall not ring thy wedding bell; 
 
 In crystal deep lies Malvern Grey, 
 And the pale Undines toll his knell. 
 
 Extinguished Is the nuptial torch, 
 And dirges chant the virgin train. 
 
 While standing in the chapel porch, 
 The friar leads the mournful strain. 
 
 "Now haste ye for the hour is late 
 My Father," Lady Edith cried, 
 
 "And open wide the convent gate 
 For thus I yet shall be a bride." 
 
 The meekest soul In nun array. 
 
 She toiled, resigned beneath the stroke. 
 
 Till once it chanced at close of day 
 
 The thread that she was spinning broke. 
 
 She circled round the outer close 
 Of what was once her father's hall; 
 
 Her white veil brushed a climbing rose 
 Festooned about the crumbling wall. 
 
 The vesper-bell was heard afar. 
 The trample of a straggling flock. 
 
 And from the lilac skies a star 
 Dropt to the forehead of a rock. 
 
 The wild flowers huddled In the damp 
 That falls at eve. Along the road 
 
 Flared here and there a glow-worm's lamp 
 Sprung from her path a frightened toad. 
 
 1 06 
 
A stir of cedars in the grove 
 
 Peopled the mountain air with sighs, 
 
 And listening, Edith vainly strove 
 To stem the rush of memories. 
 
 ''Forgive the thoughts that will intrude, 
 Short-comings of our idle hours, 
 
 Fancies that swarm in solitude 
 
 Like bats about the darkened towers ; 
 
 For wind-swept ivies words may find, 
 And where a sudden footstep falls, 
 
 In silent ruins of the mind 
 
 A wing may start from crannied walls." 
 
 So prayed she, for a figure stood 
 In saffron gloam, that sent a thrill 
 
 Through the parched channels of her blood. 
 As water from a cooling rill 
 
 To men long wounded in the fight. 
 
 Sir Malvern in the flesh had not 
 Looked prouder than this phantom knight 
 
 Nor walked with surer tread, God wot. 
 
 She prayed aloud, "Sweet Saints release 
 His soul from doom of death unshriven, 
 
 And may my tribulations cease 
 
 When he and I shall meet in heaven." 
 
 "Now by the rood, thou gentle nun, 
 
 An Ave shalt thou say for me, 
 But first I fain would hear of one 
 
 Who gave me this gold ring, pardee!" 
 
 Then in the failing light, the man 
 Held up a ruby studded gem 
 
 107 
 
Of cunning workmanship that rail 
 About a Countess' diadem. 
 
 "Ah! Maris Stella! Star of wrecks 
 Save or we perish!" So the cry 
 
 Starts from the washed and driven decks 
 Amid the storm that blanks the sky. 
 
 Thus Edith, in the wildering blast 
 
 That swept her, as that voice she heard ; 
 
 She scanned the bearded face aghast, 
 And fluttered like a stricken bird. 
 
 Lo, nobly stands the forest pine 
 
 Though winter weigh its boughs to earth, 
 And nobly does the red sun shine 
 
 Though bitter frost lie on the earth. 
 
 As nobly bore Sir Malvern Grey 
 His faithful brand and dragon crest, 
 
 Though hoar upon his temple lay. 
 Nor did he ween whom he addresst. 
 
 The distaff fell, the sable thread 
 She held between her fingers broke ; 
 
 " 'Twas Lady's Edith's ring," she said. 
 And scarcely knew the words she spoke. 
 
 Beneath the stroke from which she reeled. 
 Her thought was all of sparing him. 
 
 The flowing habit scarce revealed 
 Her figure in the twilight grim. 
 
 "Sister! Beshrew the cloister lore 
 
 That little recks of helm and lance," — 
 
 "The maid you seek. Sir, is no more," 
 She faltered, with averted glance. 
 
 io8 
 
"Edith of Tynewold could not die, 
 For Death had never dared to set 
 
 His mists upon her jewel eye, 
 Upon her eye of violet! 
 
 Edith of Tynewold is alive. 
 
 By all the hopes that in me swell 
 And I shall burn your thrifty hive 
 
 If she be hidden in a cell." 
 
 "Nay, Sir, beyond the close where lie, 
 Dry buried piles of dead nun's bones, 
 
 Her grave is hid in bryony. 
 
 And scattered with the mountain stones. 
 
 She sleeps beside a running brook. 
 But none shall ever know the spot, 
 
 For sinfully her life she took, 
 
 The maiden that you loved is not." 
 
 Sir Malvern gazed with dawning dread 
 On her set lips and quivering brow; 
 
 "Edith had heard that thou wast dead 
 And then endured what thou dost now." 
 
 A crimson tide flowed o'er his face 
 And left it whiter than the May, 
 
 "I loved thee girl, so help me Grace 
 And shall unto my dying day." 
 
 ON THE ATLANTIC 
 
 1894 
 
 I once saw a face in the crowd. 
 
 Eight long days, while the ship to and fro 
 Flung her weight on the billow, and ploughed 
 
 Her straight furrow of foam : 
 109 
 
Though all his companions, chance grown 
 To acquaintance, would wear out the slow 
 
 Creeping hours with dull mirth, he alone 
 Wandered back to his home. 
 
 To his home? Was the song of a wife, 
 
 Was the lisp of a child in his ears? . . . 
 Nay, methinks that the life of his life 
 
 Had flickered and died. 
 Early grey tinged a brow crossed and high, 
 
 And the softness of early shed tears 
 Like a mist dimmed the fire of an eye 
 
 That no woman had dried. 
 
 For he walked quite alone in the throng 
 
 With his spirit turned inward, or bowed 
 O'er a book while his eye lingered long 
 
 On the low fleeting verge. 
 And perchance in the distance he sought 
 
 For a dream that the foam like a shroud 
 Wrapt about, as the wind hissed and fought 
 
 The huge roll of the surge. 
 
 What his voice was, I know not. By choice 
 
 He spoke not, and none spoke to him. 
 So I heard not his speech, and the voice 
 
 Oft the nature reveals. 
 Was it mellow and deep as the sound 
 
 Of the bell that was cleft to the brim 
 And thus broken, yet pours to the ground 
 
 Such harmonious peals 
 
 That the roar of the great city street 
 Will be lulled for a moment to hear 
 
 As the dim air vibrates to the beat 
 Of its deep throated toll? 
 
 Or else was it muffled and low, 
 
 1 10 
 
Dull with sorrow, a leaf that is sear 
 In the prime of its summer? — I know 
 Grief can deaden the soul. 
 
 Or it may be an impulse short-sighted, 
 
 The fault that a man must redeem 
 By a life time dishonored, unknighted, 
 
 Set its brand on his brow, 
 Left an anguish too fierce to be borne 
 
 Without flinching: at times it would seem 
 To flash out in the bitter self-scorn 
 
 Of a strong soul laid low. 
 
 His were thews of a powerful race: 
 
 Though humbled his glance and though riven 
 His heart, there was force in his face, 
 
 In its glint and its gloam. 
 And I thought 'He is lonely and proud,' 
 
 As the vessel 'mid rain wind-driven 
 Cast her weight on the billow and ploughed 
 
 Her straight furrow of foam. 
 
 WHERE OTHERS SHALL TREAD 
 
 June,, 1894, Mountain Lake Park 
 
 He stands upon the deck, watching the waves 
 
 Ruflled with colder breezes from the Pole; 
 
 Far down the fleeting verge the point he craves 
 
 To reach lies hid his voyage's far goal 
 
 On this he bends a gaze with which he sends his soul. 
 
 Now o'er the greenish flood a shadow passed, 
 Flung from the gathering clouds that fled the gale. 
 Now stoops the headlight of the reeling mast, 
 Now in the dead mist droops the idle sail. 
 Where to avoid the ice lights are of no avail, 
 
 III 
 
As her lone course the faithful vessel steers 
 Shunning the crystal rocks on either side, 
 Or swift and free she bounds, or deftly veers, 
 To plough a stealthy passage through the tide, 
 Still in the bow he stands, careless whate'er betide. 
 
 Searching the blinding mist with eager eyes. 
 Wrapt in his dream though dim and distant far : 
 "I still shall see above my head" he cries, 
 "The wheeling circles of the Northern star, 
 In that vast sea beyond the frozen bar"! 
 
 And yet the moaning of the restless waters, 
 And yet the glitter of the wintry skies, 
 And yet the old chant of the Ocean's daughters, 
 Frought with the dirge of human destinies 
 Called up a moment's shadow in his eyes. 
 
 Sharp was the wind that froze the dripping ropes, 
 It chilled and numbed him to the very heart ; 
 So shall the future freeze my sunny hopes 
 He mused, when waking with a sudden start 
 He gave his men the signal to depart. 
 
 For 'mid the rush and wail of wind and water 
 Framed with the glamour of the pale lit ice, 
 Locked in among the crashing blocks that caught her, 
 The ship was held and ground as in a vice. 
 
 Ice bound! and lighted with the arctic glow 
 That dimly showed ridge, mound and vale of ice 
 And cast a ghastly radiance on the snow; 
 Fed with coarse food that hardly could suffice. 
 They toiled along. Fame, Science, what a price, 
 
 Ye cost ! and O how lightly weighs a life 
 Against ye! Yet your hope so very fair, 
 
 112 
 
Love, Duty, Honour, cannot cope with strife 
 Such as men face for you without despair 
 Such as you marineer is meeting there. 
 
 With sledge and axe he fleets across the snows. 
 Furrowing the track of dogs, the Arctic steeds ; 
 Cheering his men, while none among them knows 
 How much a heartening word himself he needs. 
 So with his life his young the pelican feeds. 
 
 Patience, and hope ! the' toil, the hardships borne 
 
 The twilight travel on a pathless way. 
 
 The cold, the sickness and the dread forlorn 
 
 Each entertains no more to see the day 
 
 Must end. But now "We care not how" they say. 
 
 Onward, still on they plod, and every camp 
 At leaving marks a sad and lonely grave 
 Without a name, locked in the unfriendly clamp 
 Of closing ice, far from the sounding wave 
 In everlasting silence. And the brave 
 
 Grow dull and careless : thought and hope and fear 
 Sink to one frozen level, like the sheet 
 Of countless snows around them. Does he hear 
 Their dying groans, or has it ceased to beat 
 With human feeling, that stout heart? Too fleet 
 
 Thy eager sledge O marineer! The sea 
 Thou gav'st thy life to find is not. Farewell. 
 The sun will never shine again for thee 
 And bitter silence tolls thy barren knell. 
 Thou loved'st thy wondrous dream too well too 
 well! 
 
 Searching the distant shore with failing eyes. 
 Sinking in death, yet gazing still afar: 
 
 113 
 
"Forever round my sleeping head," he cries 
 "Wheel thy pale circles, O thou northern star 
 In this vast vi^aste beyond the frozen bar". 
 
 SONG 
 
 If a man and a woman love 
 With all their heart, I say — ■ 
 
 With all their heart, 
 And one of them drift away, 
 What shall the life of the other prove, 
 After they part? 
 
 While the wanderer shall rove 
 From rose to gold and grey. 
 
 In church and mart 
 The other shall watch and pray. 
 At every step in the desert grove 
 Shall pale and start, 
 
 Shall say, "I valiantly strove. 
 But never could allay 
 The rankling smart, 
 For as the surf to the spray. 
 As the shade of the elms to the dove. 
 My life thou art." 
 
 THE SPIRIT OF THE STORM 
 
 {Mentor J Ohio) 
 
 He was clad like a thing 
 That a madman remembers. 
 In dreams: glowed with the sting 
 That crawls out of dead embers, 
 Worms its way through a drift 
 Of grey smothering ashes, 
 
 114 
 
Into nothingness whiffed 
 
 With a beat of the lashes. 
 
 And he sat on a bough 
 
 That was dead to the core, 
 
 Wrenched, I cannot tell how 
 
 For I do not know more. 
 
 Into hideous shape 
 
 As it pushed through the wall 
 
 That flung vines out, to drape 
 
 An old grave with a pall. 
 
 And he played on a lute 
 
 That shrieked out like the stones 
 
 Between Charles the Fifth's boot 
 
 And Imperial bones 
 
 In the chapel at Aix, 
 
 When raised one throne-step higher 
 
 Fair haired Carolus Rex 
 
 Doffed his crown to his sire. 
 
 Thus the Storm Spirit mocked 
 
 At the wreck and the spar 
 
 And the bell that is rocked 
 
 To the moan of the bar: 
 
 "Let the gurgle and rush 
 
 O'er the topgallant swirl. 
 
 Let the sailor's grave blush 
 
 With rose coral and pearl. 
 
 Let the "purple veil" float 
 
 Like a banner o'erhead, 
 
 And the jelly-fish gloat 
 
 On the feast that is spread." 
 
 Thus the Storm Spirit sang 
 
 As he swung in the bell 
 
 And the church steeple rang 
 
 With the sound of a knell. 
 
 Night gallops apace 
 
 With the storm and her hood 
 
 115 
 
Flies back in the race, 
 While the moon tears along 
 Atop of the trees; 
 And the Devil's own gong 
 Strikes in minor keys; 
 And the whippoorwill wails 
 On the edge of the pool, 
 And the hurricane rails 
 With the voice of a fool. 
 "What the storm shall destroy 
 I care not, Ha! not I! 
 The red flash is a joy 
 On the ricks or the rye; 
 Where the thunderbolt falls 
 Let the highest oak be. 
 There are calls, there are calls 
 In the tempest for me!" 
 
 SOUVENIR— A SONG 
 
 {December J 1895) 
 
 I seek in vain the flames of dawn 
 Upon a noon day sky. 
 
 The dews have left the rose, the corn 
 And bearded barley lie 
 
 In silent sheaves that gaily swung 
 At morning in the wind. 
 
 The robin's early songs are sung, 
 Dayspring is left behind, 
 Dayspring is left behind. 
 
 And other footsteps tread the grass 
 Across the daisied lawn. 
 
 And other voices as they pass 
 Upon the wind are borne. 
 Upon the wind are borne. 
 
 116 
 
And others sing the songs you sung, 
 And others say the words you said, 
 
 But O my love my heart is wrung 
 Because its love is dead, 
 Because its love is dead. 
 
 And memory lives but to deride 
 
 Bygone realities, 
 For when we stood, love, side by side. 
 We each stood singly in our pride, 
 Nor sought each other's eyes, — 
 Nor sought each other's eyes. 
 
 LETTERS TO MY ALICE 
 
 After the manner of great poets of several ages. 
 
 Letter i (Elizabethan) 
 
 {After the style of Philip Sidney^ Knight) 
 
 Why droops my Alice in the leafy dells 
 That silence mantles with a hood of green. 
 Nor ever answers me, nor ever tells 
 How she hath fared since here she last was seen? 
 How she hath fared, and what her lightest look 
 That the great city's pavement daily meets, 
 Whilst I am pining in my dingy nook 
 And envy every cloud that southward fleets? 
 
 Letter 2 (Classic) 
 
 {After the style of John Dry den) 
 
 Fair Alice brooks no importunity 
 To mar the even tenor of her way. 
 
 117 
 
And still no angel opportunity 
 Brings me the news shall wipe my care away. 
 Thus swift Diana, she of woodland fame, 
 With foot as light as moonbeam on the fern, 
 Heedless of men, pursued her sylvan game, 
 And wandered free as ripples on the kern. 
 
 Letter 3 (Victorian) 
 
 {After the style of Alfred TennysoUjPoet Laureate) 
 
 Now April on the willow flames, 
 A bluebird in the lilac bush 
 To all the listening hedge proclaims 
 His bursting joy. Now falls the hush 
 
 Earth to inspired music yields, 
 Upon the pregnant meadow-land, 
 Until I long to take your hand 
 And walk in silence through the fields. 
 
 Letter 4 (Quintessential) 
 
 {After the manner of A. C. Swinburne) 
 
 How glide the days? Write me a line, whisper the 
 
 swallow, friend, 
 Swallow fly north; glow of the wine, ray in the 
 
 mists that rend. 
 Blush of the bloom, song of the soul, heart of my 
 
 heart's ideal, 
 Spin out my dream, leave not the wool idly wound 
 
 round the wheel. 
 For I am numb, scarcely alive, like a forsaken close, 
 Circled with briars ; make me revive, rains that 
 
 splash on the rose; 
 
 118 
 
Oh for the sound of a loved voice, warm as the gold- 
 en Spring, 
 
 Oh how I long, friend of my choice, long but to hear 
 it ring. 
 
 Letter 5 (Undefinable) 
 
 {After the style of Robert Browning) 
 
 What is your reason for not answering me ? 
 I do not care ; Stars wheel their constant course 
 Not fretted by the glow-worm, and the sea 
 Leaps on dumb crags in scorn — ^A word of course 
 Would cheer, — yet I can do without it, Madam. 
 I do not reckon up my paltry gain 
 With gold ingot, nor think of unfelt pain. 
 Nor of unwritten notes as if I had 'em. 
 
 IN ANSWER 
 {To Emma) 
 
 "What is friendship ?" you ask, 
 
 What shall I say? 
 
 Oh I know, but the task, 
 
 Do what I may. 
 
 Seems like wearing a mask 
 
 In a Greek play. 
 
 What I say is a word 
 
 Not my true self, 
 
 An odd fancy, absurd 
 
 As a carved elf: 
 
 Dumb is the lute you heard 
 
 Back on the shelf. 
 
 Lo a breath at the ear, 
 
 Gleam of a dirk. 
 
 Painful, relentless, clear: 
 
 119 
 
''Take up your work, 
 
 Knowing, feeling me near. 
 
 Tremble nor shirk ; 
 
 Longing to be and do 
 
 All that you can, 
 
 All I expect of you, 
 
 Proving the man. 
 
 Proving the woman too. 
 
 Living your span." 
 
 Grand incentive to rise, 
 
 Noble and pure. 
 
 In your censor's calm eyes. 
 
 And to endure 
 
 Stings and buzzings of flies 
 
 Since one is sure. 
 
 This is friendship, my friend, 
 
 Second to love, 
 
 More unblamed in the end, 
 
 Rising above 
 
 Storms of passion that rend 
 
 Love's altar grove. 
 
 ALICE OF THE WOODS 
 
 Do you know of a roof that is hidden with boughs 
 In the heart of the innermost wood. 
 Where a lattice of leaves makes a frame for the face 
 That is sweet as the sun and as good? 
 
 Do you know of a song that is sung on the bough 
 When the brooks will be hushed with delight, 
 And the voice of the mountains and angels and stars 
 Sink at last in the voice of the night ? 
 
 Do you know of a friend who stands there at the 
 
 door, 
 With a welcome half-spoken for me, 
 
 1 20 
 
And a burden of blossoms that fade in her hand, 
 The dear friend I am longing to see? 
 
 Wind and sail, cloud and wing, take me then to the 
 
 place 
 Where the dawn on the hills shall awake, 
 And the touch of a hand shall bring gladness to me, 
 As the purple gleams over the lake. 
 
 THE ERMINE OF BRITTANY 
 
 "Potius mori quam foedari" — So the ermine of 
 King Conan, 
 
 White as snow upon the carvings of the great cathe- 
 dral door. 
 
 Still she led him on to battle and victorious he fol- 
 lowed, 
 
 While the ermine's coat remained immaculate and 
 pure. 
 
 "Potius mori quam foedari," welcome death be- 
 fore pollution, 
 
 So Armorica's fair motto from the spotless ermine 
 came, 
 
 And King Conan was victorious till the ermine's 
 coat was sullied. 
 
 By the foe who cast defilement on our Guen of Brit- 
 tainy. 
 
 Warriors, in the van our standard glitters with a 
 silver splendor. 
 
 Older than the golden lilies, or the Flame of Saint 
 Denis. 
 
 121 
 
OCT 
 
 « fe*ift. 
 
One copy del. to Cat. Div. 
 
 dtrr ^ 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 015 906 530 3