EBE 
 
Class : 
 
 Book_ _ 
 
 Copyright^ . 
 
 \ °i \ b 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
KENNEBEC 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 LOUISE HELEN COBURN 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SHERMAN, FRENCH & COMPANY 
 
 1916 
 
v \« v 
 
 
 Copyright, 1916 
 Sherman, French <y Company 
 
 DEC 20 1916 
 
 ^)GI.A453171 
 
TO THE MEMORY OF 
 MY BROTHER 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Kennebec 1 
 
 A Song to Maine 5 
 
 Maine's Jewels 7 
 
 Grandmother's Grandmother 9 
 
 Values 12 
 
 The Jungfrau from Berne 17 
 
 Afterglow on the Jungfrau 18 
 
 Come Home 19 
 
 Great and Small 20 
 
 Life Calls to Life 22 
 
 Baby Fingers 23 
 
 Hope 24 
 
 League on League the Moist White Spaces 25 
 
 East and West 26 
 
 Promise 27 
 
 Frailty 28 
 
 Sunset and Midnight 29 
 
 Attean 30 
 
 The Sunset Sky 32 
 
 A Four-leafed Clover 33 
 
 April 34 
 
 The Ideal 35 
 
 L'Angelus 37 
 
 The Secret of Color 39 
 
 A Song 41 
 
 Sappho 43 
 
 Ariel 45 
 
 Walther von der Vogelweide 46 
 
 The Crows at Arlington 49 
 
 The Mockingbird 51 
 
 'Tis All in the Point of View 52 
 
PAGE 
 
 With the Birds 54 
 
 Sea-Gulls 55 
 
 On the Shore 57 
 
 No More Sea 59 
 
 On the Height 61 
 
 The Optimist 64 
 
 Flowers of May 65 
 
 Calypso 69 
 
 Somnus Plantarum 71 
 
 Violets 73 
 
 A Garden of Eoses 74 
 
 A Day in June 75 
 
 Evening 77 
 
 A Hint of Autumn 78 
 
 May and November 80 
 
 Evening on the Saint Lawrence .... 82 
 
 A Charge Account 84 
 
 Indian Monument on Oldtown Island . . 86 
 
 The Decennial 88 
 
 The Golden Wedding 91 
 
 A Song of Friendship 93 
 
 The Pastor 96 
 
 Dedication Hymn 100 
 
 Knitters in the Shadow 101 
 
 New Vision 103 
 
 A Lowly Part 104 
 
 Follow Thou Me 107 
 
 The Mountain Way 109 
 
 In His Time 112 
 
 My Confidence 115 
 
 Samuel 117 
 
 Lovest Thou Me? 120 
 
PAGE 
 
 Eest Awhile 123 
 
 In Her Heart 125 
 
 Christmas Joy 127 
 
 Cosmos .130 
 
 Fables of Eld . ' 132 
 
 The Oriole 135 
 
 October 136 
 
 The Bermudas 137 
 
 Mount Washington 138 
 
 Dear Ones Gone 139 
 
KENNEBEC 
 
 Do you mind one evening, brother, 
 Of a far away July, 
 How we glided, up the river, 
 Talking low to one another, 
 While our eyes were watching ever 
 Every hue upon the river, 
 Every tint upon the sky? 
 
 Spread upon the western sky 
 Sunset glow had left its splendor, 
 And the east each changing dye 
 Caught with emulation tender, 
 While with either vied the river. 
 Thus through every hue they ranged 
 East or west or river may, 
 Till the pink to purple changed 
 And the blue was turned to gray, 
 And we saw the brightness ever 
 Fading, dying in the river, 
 Waning, dying in the sky. 
 
 Then we saw the evening star 
 Floating from its haven far 
 In the shadows of the west; 
 Waxing fuller, brighter, clearer, 
 Coming nearer, ever nearer, 
 Smiling like a radiant guest 
 In the dull and darkening sky; 
 And the evening star below 
 In the tide began to glow 
 
 [1] 
 
Like some luminous white jewel, 
 Holding fire within its breast 
 That consumes its heart as fuel, 
 And its track adown the river 
 In a broken line did quiver 
 With a constant fine unrest, — 
 While we glided up the river 
 In that long ago July. 
 
 Then as gloaming into night 
 Settled slowly, slowly turning 
 Sped we swiftly down the river; 
 And the moon came up to meet us, 
 In her beauty rose to greet us, 
 From the southward threw a burning 
 Bridge of gold across the river, 
 Elfish bridge whose beams did shiver 
 With a weird, fantastic light. 
 
 With the moon the southern bank 
 In its flight strange antics played; 
 Now behind the trees that ever 
 Fringe the margin of the river, 
 Hemlocks dun and birches hoary, 
 Hid the sinking moon her face, 
 Made each tiny twig appear 
 Like a mesh of silver lace 
 In the veil that screens the glory 
 Of the awful prophet's brow; 
 Now, as birch and hemlock sank, 
 Rising from the sinking bank, 
 Shone the moon a silver sphere; 
 [2] 
 
And her double in the river 
 Now looked forth in beauty, now- 
 Modest slipped within the shade. 
 
 So we floated down the river, 
 Past the stately elms dissembling 
 That they are not vain, but ever 
 Looking, leaning, watching only 
 For their faces in the river; 
 Past the poplar grove a-trembling 
 With the kisses of the moon ; — 
 Floated down until the lonely 
 Pine upon the point we rounded, 
 And the rapids nearer sounded, 
 Till the misty bank grew clearer, 
 And the lights of home came nearer, 
 Nearer, clearer, all too soon. 
 
 Under sun or star or moon, 
 Dusk of eve or glow of noon; 
 When the swallow dips his wing 
 In the glassy wave that renders 
 Tint for tint the hues of spring ; 
 When the summer-time its splendors 
 Views repeated in the river, 
 Field and hillside, crag and tree, 
 Blended, brightened, yet the same; 
 Or when autumn colors mellow, 
 Maple's red and poplar's yellow, 
 Touch its liquid depths with flame ; - 
 Beautiful, my brother, ever 
 Is our shining, winding river, 
 Onward flowing to the sea. 
 [3] 
 
In the fastness of the north, 
 Silently it issues forth 
 From the bosom of the lake, 
 From the stillness of the woods 
 And the shadow of the hills; 
 Wends its winding journey down, 
 Fed by rippling forest rills 
 Creeping through the solitudes; 
 Winds its way by tangled brake, 
 Sunny slope and shaded dale, 
 Farms whose grateful harvests smile, 
 Whirring mill and busy town; 
 Narrows in the deep defile, 
 Broadens on the intervale, 
 Whispers to the grassy shore, 
 Loudens with the rapids' roar ; — 
 Till at last with lingering motion 
 Deep and broad it meets the ocean, 
 River merges into ocean, 
 Bearing on its tranquil bosom 
 Snowy-petaled ships that blossom 
 Into beauty on the sea. — 
 my brother, fairest ever 
 Of all rivers is this river, 
 Loveliest to you and me, 
 From its cradle in the lake 
 To its grave within the sea ! 
 
 [4] 
 
A SONG TO MAINE 
 
 A song to Maine we sing who stand 
 On the sunrise outpost of the land, 
 For we love our State with a love as great 
 
 As her forests wide and grand. 
 Earliest flees the night in Maine; 
 Earliest dawns the light in Maine: 
 At the gate of the East, as morning's priest, 
 
 Vigil forever keeps Maine. 
 
 The pines of Katahdin call to the sea, 
 And the waves make answer faithfully; 
 Freedom and rest they promise our guest, 
 
 And the healing of turf and tree. 
 Fair are the rivers and rills of Maine; 
 Kind are the woods and the hills of Maine, 
 And the crystal lakes and the surge that breaks 
 
 On the rock-bound shores of Maine. 
 
 Granite and ice are our ore from the mine; 
 Eosy-cheeked apples our fruit of the vine; 
 We envy no wealth but we drink to the health 
 
 Of the world in the oldest wine. 
 Sparkling clear cold water of Maine — 
 To grateful son and daughter of Maine 
 The sweetest draught that was ever quaffed 
 
 Is the pure cold water of Maine. 
 
 As flowers in fragrant gardens, so 
 In modest homes fair children grow, 
 
 [5] 
 
Beared in the love of the Father above 
 
 For the blessing of earth below. 
 Wealthy in forest and stream is Maine, 
 Eich in the hope of her dream is Maine, — 
 But dearest far of her treasures are 
 
 The hearts and the homes of Maine. 
 
 Woodsmen and farmers and fishers are we, 
 We follow the trail and the plow and the sea ; 
 But we turn from all at our country's call 
 
 To follow the flag of the free. 
 Loyal and brave and true is Maine; 
 Ready to dare and to do is Maine; 
 In the van of the fight for the cause that is right 
 
 Are ever the sons of Maine. 
 
 We have drained our homes at the world's demand, 
 Our youth have poured to the farthest strand ; 
 We have given our best to the thirsty West, — 
 
 Our life to the life of the land. 
 Builders of states are the men from Maine; 
 Makers of cities the men from Maine ; 
 On the frontier's walls, in the nation's halls, 
 
 First are the men from Maine. 
 
 The Pine Tree State — may she lead the way 
 Through twilight shades to a brighter day ! 
 With God as guide, whate'er betide, 
 
 Maine leads — may she lead alway ! 
 Fair are the rivers and rills of Maine, 
 Kind are the woods and the hills of Maine, — 
 So we'll sing as long as we breathe our song 
 
 To the dear old State of Maine. 
 [6] 
 
MAINE'S JEWELS 
 
 When Maine salutes the opening spring, 
 
 Bright hues awake like birds in the nest, 
 A glint of sky in the bluebird's wing, 
 
 A flash of sun on the oriole's breast. 
 Young green of the budding year is blent 
 
 With the willow's gold and the apple's rose, 
 And to blossom and bud and bird is lent 
 
 Such light as the opal's bosom shows — 
 An opal is spring in Maine. 
 
 Hotly, in Maine's brief summer-time, 
 
 The sweet air swims over meadows lush, 
 And billows of hurrying verdure climb 
 
 Valleys where crystal rivers rush. 
 Blue is the sky and black by turns, 
 
 When lightning leaps from the clouds uphurled ; 
 And after noise green silence burns 
 
 With dazzle of sun on a wet green world — 
 An emerald is summer in Maine. 
 
 When autumn touches the hills of Maine, 
 
 Then nature mixes a palette bold, 
 With chrome and madder her woods to stain, 
 
 To paint her rivers vermilion and gold. 
 There are purple and umber and ochre to choose, 
 
 With silver of hoar-frost and yellow of sheaf, 
 A gamut of colors, a chorus of hues, 
 
 And the key is a crimson maple leaf — 
 A ruby is autumn in Maine. 
 
 [7] 
 
When arctic winter comes to Maine, 
 
 From the gates of morning the storm-winds blow, 
 And drape each scar and seam and stain 
 
 With a radiant robe of the driven snow. 
 Life flies to cover before the cold, 
 
 Heat is discrowned in the kingdom of light ; 
 And flush of dawn and noonday gold 
 
 Are frozen fires in a world of white — 
 A diamond is winter in Maine. 
 
 Maine wears a regal diadem, 
 
 With jewels set of the seasons four, 
 And would not miss from her crown one gem 
 
 For the palm and the vine of a softer shore; 
 And would not a lesser octave sing 
 
 For the tune and the croon of a languid land 
 Which dreads not winter nor dreams of spring, 
 
 By the breath of endless summer fanned — 
 Queen of the year is Maine. 
 
 [8] 
 
GRANDMOTHER'S GRANDMOTHER 
 
 Grandmother's grandmother, through the woods 
 Moose and red man were wont to roam, 
 
 Brought her babes and her household goods 
 To make in the wilderness a home. 
 
 The Kennebec rippled beside her door, 
 
 Or laid a crystal roadway there; 
 The shadow of pines on her cabin floor 
 
 Took shape of Indian and bear. 
 
 No woman for feminine service made, 
 
 Shut from the work of the world was she ; — 
 
 Home was a factory, life a trade, 
 And Mother a captain of industry. 
 
 She was tailor, milliner, mantua-maker, 
 Upholsterer, weaver of carpet and rug, 
 
 Chandler, soapmaker, dairy-maid, baker, 
 Knitter of hose and mittens snug. 
 
 Weaver of wool for blanket and gown, 
 Weaver of linen for bed and table, 
 
 Dyer of crimson and purple and brown, 
 Spinner and broiderer as she was able. 
 
 Twenty trades were hers to command, 
 A dozen professions were hers to fill; 
 
 Doctor and dentist always at hand, 
 
 Trained nurse and kindergartner at will. 
 [9] 
 
Grandmother's grandmother's sons were bold, 
 
 Steady of arm and keen of eye, 
 Skilled to fell the white pine old, 
 
 Taught to fear God and to scorn a lie. 
 
 Grandmother's grandmother's girls were fair, 
 
 Patient to take up her task again, 
 Swift to labor and strong to bear, 
 
 Makers of homes and mothers of men. 
 
 Peacefully by the river side 
 
 Grandmother's grandmother lies at rest; 
 The tall pines whisper to the tide, 
 
 And drop their needles upon her breast. 
 
 Where cities welcome or deserts wait, 
 Or prairies their yellow bounty tell, — 
 
 Where the new West looks through the Golden Gate, 
 Grandmother's grandmother's children dwell. 
 
 Where commerce wheels his dizzy round, 
 Where glitters the gold in mountain mine, 
 
 Where orange orchards smile, are found 
 The sons and daughters of her line. 
 
 Their names are writ on the honor roll 
 Of every battle for freedom and right; 
 
 Their feet have been swift in the race whose goal 
 Is the wider look from the fairer height. 
 
 The torch of truth and the flag of the free 
 They have borne from ocean tide to tide; 
 
 They have planted homes from sea to sea, 
 Whose fruitage ripe is the nation's pride. 
 [10] 
 
Poorer the world were, you may know, — 
 Poorer and leaner and sadder the land,— 
 
 Had grandmother's grandmother, long ago, 
 To lover and husband denied her hand. 
 
 [11] 
 
VALUES 
 
 The artist at his easel dreams, 
 And, like a butterfly, flutters to birth 
 His vision of the loveliness of earth, 
 Bodied in color, feathered in dusks and gleams; 
 That lives again which never lived before; 
 What hath no being 
 Is imaged for our seeing, 
 And Beauty enters by another door. 
 
 The painter's hand his eye obeys; 
 
 His eye discerns, compares and weighs 
 The values just, of balanced sheen and shade, 
 That beat the tuneful measures of his trade. 
 
 In Venice's splendid prime so Titian wrought, 
 
 Wove out of shadow and sun his thought; 
 
 And pilgrims from a colder land, 
 Who with glad eyes before the Assumption stand, 
 Confess the master's brush has followed true 
 
 The invisible latitudes of hue, 
 
 Circled the day from dawn to even, 
 And climbed a color stair from earth to heaven. 
 
 Art is of life a type and part, 
 And life its values hath, as art. 
 Petty and vast are met 
 In fair equation for our solving set. 
 
 The Artist's hand that limned the plan 
 Of frost and flame hath made, 
 Of rhythmic light and shade, 
 The chiaroscuro of the life of man. 
 [12] 
 
The song is dearer than the bird, 
 It higher soars on swifter wings; 
 More potent than the breath the word, 
 And thoughts are regnant over things: 
 Fadeth the body of. life, the spirit 
 The life of Heaven's life shall inherit. 
 
 Forgotten by the centuries, in that green 
 Corner of England where the mountains lean 
 To listen to the whisper of the sea, 
 
 What once was Furness Abbey waits; 
 
 Hushed are the matins in its gates, 
 Where thrush and blackbird chant their litany. 
 Verdant the pavement, azure springs the vault; 
 
 The mullioned window frames the sky; 
 
 Cornice and architrave at fault 
 
 In mute contrition sundered lie; 
 And nought upon the headless column rests, 
 And nought is girded by the shattered wall; 
 In the rift of the cloven arch the sparrow nests, 
 And ivy hangs a tracery over all. 
 A fragment, but alive; a broken bit 
 Of a bygone age that age has spared to kill, 
 It keeps the trick of the artist, vital still 
 With the creative thought that fashioned it. 
 For dreams endure, though systems pass away, 
 
 And beauty lives while stones decay. 
 
 Beauty from beauty differs far 
 As height from height, as star from star. 
 There is life's vesture of the real, 
 [13] 
 
There is life's crown of the ideal. 
 A chosen day upon a chosen spot 
 
 In the white Alps I stood, aware 
 Of glacier, slope and summit circling fair — 
 
 Yet missed I knew not what. 
 Flocks of bright peaks like sheep at pasture lay, 
 Letting the sunlight in their fleeces play. 
 
 Too perfect ! Only in Heaven shall we 
 
 Be satisfied with what we see. 
 
 What nowhere fails will always fail; 
 
 Something we crave behind the veil, 
 
 And would not have all edges lit, 
 
 Nor nature's runes too plainly writ. 
 
 Lo ! as I looked, a mist unseen 
 
 Stirred not, but was not, and between 
 
 The hills and heaven, remote, alone, 
 
 As neither sky nor mountain, shone 
 The haloed brow of Monte Rosa, white 
 With gathered glory of the upper light. 
 
 A moment, and the invisible mist 
 From my rapt gaze has reft 
 
 The spectral summit, glory-kissed, — 
 Only the smiling lesser peaks are left. 
 
 So, on the heights of life, the haze 
 
 That shrouds unguessed our meaner days 
 
 Lifts, and a glimpse of higher height 
 
 Is granted to our happy sight. 
 
 The vision fades, — the knowledge stays, 
 The secret joy of unillumined days. 
 
 If beauty is life's flower of youth, 
 Thought is the leafage of its prime; 
 [14] 
 
Fact is the ladder up to truth; 
 
 Truth is the vital spark of time. 
 Great thoughts in which the heart of history lies 
 Are strung like pearls upon the centuries. 
 
 'Twas Moses' thought and God's that, like a hand, 
 
 Pointed the host of Israel to the land 
 
 Of hope and promise ; 'twas the thought of Paul 
 
 That spoke to Luther like a bugle call 
 
 On Pilate's knee-worn stair; and Luther's thought 
 
 An era ended and an era brought. 
 
 'Twas a boy's dream upon the crescent shore, 
 
 Where Genoa bids the wandering billows rest, 
 
 That led Columbus the far spaces o'er 
 
 Into the waiting haven of the west. 
 
 'Twas an idea too big for England drove 
 
 The venturous pilgrims o'er the hostile sea ; 
 
 And the high thought of Washington was wove 
 
 Into the starry banner of the free. 
 
 A king is thought, and like a king imparts 
 
 Even to his mantle majesty; 
 
 And of the works of man is nought 
 
 That brain has curiously devised, 
 
 Or hand has fashioned cunningly, 
 So proud, so rich, no heritage so fair, 
 No art so kingly as the art of arts, 
 
 Language, the robe and tool of thought. 
 
 Earth's keenest weapon is a word, 
 And weightier Homer's verse than Hector's sword. 
 
 [15] 
 
Greater than God's world is his thought 
 That is its heart. Fairest his word 
 Of all his works, that made them fair, 
 Its echoes in their beauty caught. 
 That word primordial darkness heard, 
 And light out of the darkness drew, 
 And order out of chaos grew, — 
 That name the Son of God hath deigned to wear. 
 
 As fades the flower of grass, 
 What hath been framed shall pass; 
 Like a deserted hearth, 
 Ashes for fire the sun shall render; earth 
 Her pace shall slacken, held by the retarding tides,- 
 The thought of God is sure, his word abides. 
 
 So may we mount on spirit wings 
 Above the ebb and flood of things, 
 And finding what in part we sought 
 Eequickened in the eternal whole, 
 May learn the primacy of thought, 
 And own the sovereignty of soul. 
 
 Sweet perfume in that garden grows 
 Of lily and asphodel and rose, 
 Drought cannot kill nor wither death; 
 
 And heavenly music sings 
 
 In that thin air above 
 The hurt breast and the broken wings, — 
 The fadeless flowers are hope and faith, 
 The deathless birds are peace and joy and love. 
 
 [16] 
 
THE JUNGFBAU FKOM BEENE 
 
 Lo ! like a phantom of dawn, cloud-white, cloud-frail, 
 
 cloud-high, 
 Faintly out of the mist she floats, mist-maid of the 
 
 sky. 
 Long have I known her in vision, and loved with the 
 
 love of faith — 
 She answers my dream by a dream, and mocks my 
 
 desire with a wraith. 
 
 [17] 
 
AFTERGLOW ON THE JUNGFRAU 
 
 The sun, whose going left but now 
 A shadow on his sweetheart's brow, 
 Relenting, back a love-kiss throws, 
 And straight the lily maid turns rose. 
 
 [18] 
 
COME HOME 
 
 Soft breezes blow, 
 Green waters flow; 
 Too long you roam, 
 Come home, come home ! 
 
 Day follows night 
 In sure swift flight; 
 O'er flying foam, 
 Swift boat, come home ! 
 
 Swift boat, trace back 
 Your silver track; 
 O'er surge and foam 
 Bear true hearts home ! 
 
 The long, long way 
 Of coursing day, 
 Through fog and foam 
 Bring glad hearts home ! 
 
 Soft breezes blow, 
 Green waters flow; 
 No longer roam, 
 Dear hearts, come home ! 
 
 [19] 
 
GKEAT AND SMALL 
 
 The firebird's aglow on the elm, 
 
 The frog glimmers green in the pool ; 
 Athwart the mackerel school 
 
 The fisherman swerves his helm. 
 
 The barnacle shackles the oak, 
 The dodder throttles the flax; 
 The honey-bee shapes her wax 
 
 With delicate, dexterous stroke. 
 
 The comet steers for the sun, 
 The sun heeds the Pleiad afar, 
 The nebula whirls to a star, 
 
 The stars their courses run. 
 
 In a raindrop's crystal ball 
 
 Armies with armies close ; 
 
 An emerald forest grows 
 On the wet and moldering wall. 
 
 I soar on the wings of my thought 
 To immensities past compute; 
 Down the ladder of the minute 
 
 I reach for what God has wrought. 
 
 Thou, who balanced the spheres, 
 Who modeled the buttercup, 
 Whose power draws the seedling up 
 
 Till the giant pine appears, 
 [20] 
 
All creatures, great and small, 
 All things, minute and vast, 
 In thy fashioning hand thou hast, 
 
 Thou keepest and leadest all. 
 
 [21] 
 
LIFE CALLS TO LIFE 
 
 Life calls to life in the shadow 
 Betwixt the dark and the morn ; 
 
 Life's agony is voiced by a cry, 
 And a little child is born. 
 
 Another body for anguish, 
 
 For toil and vigil and strain; 
 Another soul to learn the dole 
 
 Of the world's immortal pain. 
 
 But when earth wakes with morning, 
 With stir of field and of mart, 
 
 One mother keeps, while her infant sleeps, 
 Life's Christmas in her heart. 
 
 Though the world be spent with sorrow, 
 Pain-racked and terror-driven, 
 
 Hope springs on earth with each new birth, 
 And love to love is given. 
 
 [22] 
 
BABY FINGERS 
 
 Wee pink fingers that clasp and cling, 
 My heart like my finger you enring 
 As tendrils circle a trellis string. 
 
 Links of love that nothing can break, 
 Tightly our hearts you bind, and make 
 The old earth new for a baby's sake. 
 
 Tender fingers that feel and grope 
 
 In an unknown world for space and scope, 
 
 Are you reaching for love and life and hope ? 
 
 The future waits — who can understand ? 
 The hope of earth and the life of the land 
 Lie in the palm of a rose-leaf hand. 
 
 We, while the future waits its king, 
 Kisses and comfort and worship bring 
 To the baby fingers that twine and cling. 
 
 [23] 
 
HOPE 
 
 Like a plant frost-bound 
 That longs for the spring, 
 
 My heart underground 
 Buds for blossoming. 
 
 Hope sings to my heart, — 
 After winter comes spring, 
 Gold and green to bring, 
 Perfume and song and wing. 
 
 Like a grub in the earth, 
 Digging through the night, 
 
 My heart waits for birth 
 Into beauty and light. 
 
 Hope sings to my heart, — 
 After night comes light, 
 After blindness sight, 
 After the depth the height. 
 
 Like a bird wind-driven 
 O'er the ocean, my heart 
 
 Hath with salt waves striven, 
 Hath in life had part. 
 
 To my heart sings hope, — 
 After storm comes calm, 
 After the wound the balm, 
 After the strife the palm. 
 [24] 
 
LEAGUE ON LEAGUE THE MOIST WHITE 
 SPACES 
 
 League on league the moist white spaces 
 Spread tonight 'twixt me and thee; 
 
 Dreary distance veils our faces, 
 Hides the love we may not see. 
 
 Love the veil that blinds her rendeth, 
 
 Gazing outward far and free; 
 Thought her flying feelers sendeth 
 
 Through the ether unto thee. 
 
 Love the wintry world disguises, 
 Bridging space from me to thee; 
 
 Prayer outreaches and uprises, 
 Linking Heaven and thee and me. 
 
 As the mystic wave the message 
 
 Bears of peril on the sea, — 
 As, obeying nature's presage, 
 
 Speeds to hive the laden bee, — 
 
 So my loving thought goes leaping 
 Through the distance swift and free, 
 
 Tryst with thine divinely keeping, 
 And I sleep to dream of thee. 
 
 [25] 
 
EAST AND WEST 
 
 When first Columbus sailed across the seas, 
 An old world seeking, but to find a new, 
 
 Watching at bow he deemed the western breeze 
 Sweet in his face from orient gardens blew. 
 
 The world's far west to eastward slipped astern; 
 
 Westward he passed, of ancient east in quest; 
 Soon to a waiting east he should return 
 
 The royal gift of a discovered west. 
 
 So was the west made east, the east made west, 
 The severing seas linked fast the sundered lands ; 
 
 Earth's myriad rushing life yet westward pressed, 
 Till newest west with oldest east clasped hands. 
 
 [26] 
 
PEOMISE 
 
 A crocus snow-girdled, a violet wind-driven, — 
 Then burgeons and blossoms the beauty of May. 
 
 A trill in the darkness, a quaver faint-given, — 
 Then join in full chorus the song-birds of day. 
 
 The calyx that opens to April's first wooing 
 The secret of summer embosomed reveals, 
 
 And the singer whose carol is darkness' undoing 
 The promise of morning with ecstasy feels. 
 
 [27] 
 
FKAILTY 
 
 I know a flower with azure wings, 
 That smiles at sun and smiles at shade, 
 
 While every breeze sweet perfume brings 
 And passes, sweeter made. 
 
 I know a happy heart that stays 
 Content with folded wings to bide 
 
 Through fragrant, lingering summer days 
 Another heart beside. 
 
 Ah me ! when chill succeedeth sun, 
 
 When sighs the breeze and weeps the sky, 
 
 What wilt thou do when June is done, 
 Frail flower, but fade and die? 
 
 Frail heart, whose tendrils clasp and twine, 
 When fails the heart for whose dear sake 
 
 June zephyrs fan, June roses shine, 
 What canst thou do but break ? 
 
 [28] 
 
SUNSET AND MIDNIGHT 
 
 Violet and gold, the buds unfold 
 
 In the garden of the West; 
 And a splendid star is poised afar, 
 
 Like a bird above its nest. 
 glory, stay ! night, delay ! 
 
 Color and joy are best! 
 But the splendor goes, and the shadows close, 
 
 Nor heed my heart's behest. 
 
 The shadows cover the mountains over, 
 
 And darkness wraps the land; 
 Midnight enfolds, as a mother holds, 
 
 The weary of heart and hand. 
 Thy gift is best, bringer of rest ! 
 
 helper and healer, stay ! 
 Nor haste nor wait, at morning's gate, 
 
 The feet of the new day. 
 
 [29] 
 
ATTEAN 
 
 The twisted pines of Attean 
 
 Old agonies express; 
 The poplars swing their copper curls 
 
 With a glint in every tress; 
 The birches' gilded finger-tips 
 
 The cool of the lake caress. 
 
 The sun goes down on Attean, 
 
 But tosses when he flies 
 A shower of gems to be scrambled for 
 
 As they tumble down the skies, 
 An island, cloud, and agile wave 
 
 Do combat for the prize. 
 
 The velvet mountain darkens 
 
 Against the lustrous west, 
 Like a purple plum with the bloom on 
 
 In a peach and apricot nest, — 
 And peach and plum and apricot 
 
 Eefresh the thirsty guest. 
 
 The moon comes up on Attean, 
 
 Like a lady in a dream, 
 And pours from her silver pitcher 
 
 The sliding, shining cream, 
 That brims the goblet of the lake 
 
 With its lambent, bubbling stream. 
 
 Then all is still on Attean, 
 Under the smile of the moon, 
 [30] 
 
Save the low laugh of the ripple, 
 And the poplars' tender croon, 
 
 And shrill and sweet in the distance 
 The wild cry of the loon. 
 
 [31] 
 
THE SUNSET SKY 
 
 The sunset sky that eve was bright 
 With flooding tides of changeful light; 
 Like white fires in the opal's breast, 
 They ebbed, and flowed, and found no rest, 
 But throbbed with splendors infinite. 
 
 We stood together on the height, 
 And queried still with new delight 
 
 Which new tint touched with glory best 
 The sunset sky. 
 
 Then, as we looked, the brooding night 
 From the far shadowy East took flight, 
 
 Came like a swift bird to her nest, 
 
 Covered the palpitating West 
 With purple wings that hid from sight 
 The sunset sky. 
 
 [32] 
 
A FOUR-LEAFED CLOVER 
 
 A four-leafed clover ? Oh, despair ! 
 For never yet could I discover 
 In the soft grasses anywhere 
 A four-leafed clover. 
 
 Cruel to bid a pleading lover 
 
 Work out the answer to his prayer 
 
 By such a task ! Will nothing move her? 
 
 A quick thought trembled on the air; 
 I caught and turned her fingers over, 
 And found — ah, joy ! close hidden there 
 A four-leafed clover. 
 
 [33] 
 
APRIL 
 
 April smiles amid her tears, 
 Harking to the foot of May. 
 
 Autumn blights and winter sears; 
 
 April smiles amid her tears; 
 
 Budding hope succeedeth fears; 
 After night-time springeth day; 
 
 April smiles amid her tears, 
 Harking to the foot of May. 
 
 [34] 
 
THE IDEAL 
 
 The artist said : — " My youth is fled, 
 
 But the hope of youth is mine; 
 My spirit's best, still unexpressed, 
 
 Leads like a star divine. 
 
 " Beauty and truth hear the vows of youth 
 
 In life's peristyle, the Beal; 
 But shrined apart in her Naos, my heart 
 
 Owns its goddess — the Ideal. 
 
 " What eyes can see of sky or tree 
 
 Is the veil that hides her face ; 
 Its edge shows bright to the acolyte 
 
 Who waits in the holy place. 
 
 " In the breath of dawn she sighs and is gone ; 
 
 She creeps with the twilight near; 
 In the moment's flame of vision, her name 
 
 She whispers in my ear. 
 
 " My fingers bold would pluck and hold 
 
 The perfume wafted by; 
 My falcon thought has climbed and caught 
 
 The song-bird of the sky. 
 
 " But for odor grasped, in the hand unclasped 
 
 Are wilted petals found; 
 And the singer caught on the wing is nought 
 
 But a dead bird on the ground. 
 [35] 
 
" Not the palm but the strife is the prize of life,- 
 
 Not the finish but the start; 
 And to follow fast a thought so vast 
 
 That to miss is to win — is Art. 
 
 " There is no rest in the artist's quest, 
 
 No bourn to his pilgrimage; 
 The vision smiled on the dreaming child, 
 
 It quickens the pulse of age. 
 
 " My head is gray with the ebbing day, 
 
 But I follow, follow still 
 Where the mists descend to the rainbow's end, 
 
 Just over the eastern hill." 
 
 [36] 
 
L'ANGELUS 
 
 They stand with shadowed faces, 
 
 Against the evening glow, 
 Tired hands a moment quiet, 
 
 And reverent heads bowed low. 
 
 The long brown ground out-stretches; 
 
 The long night shadows fall ; 
 But the light of an autumn sunset 
 
 Throws a glory over all. 
 
 And hark ! from the golden distance, 
 
 The vesper hour to tell, 
 Comes borne on the western zephyrs 
 
 The note of a sweet-voiced bell. 
 
 Beautiful in the gloaming 
 
 Are the maiden and the youth ; 
 
 Hers is the heart of worship, — 
 His is the soul of truth. 
 
 Forgotten the long day's labor, — 
 Its weary burden of care, — 
 
 Their souls have mounted to Heaven 
 On the angel wings of prayer. 
 
 Only two old-world peasants, 
 Brown-handed children of toil, 
 
 Who wrest with each day's anguish 
 Their life from the niggard soil ! 
 [37] 
 
Only a picture of peasants, 
 On the sunset-lighted sod, 
 
 With faces bowed in the gloaming, 
 And hearts up-raised to God! 
 
 But the hand of the poet-painter 
 Has caught and fixed them there, 
 
 To be for a generation 
 
 The symbol and type of prayer. 
 
 [38] 
 
THE SECEET OF COLOR 
 
 Nature used color before painters did; 
 The trick of her art is still a secret hid. 
 
 Rose of an Alpine dawn, 
 
 Blue of Bermuda seas, 
 
 Gold on Florida trees, 
 
 Green in an English lawn, — 
 From the beginning Nature knew 
 The use and the place of every hue. 
 
 Yellow the goldfinch swings; 
 
 Scarlet the tanager 's dressed ; 
 
 Fire lights the oriole's breast, 
 
 Azure the bluebird's wings. 
 Glory of color and joy of song 
 Were gifts of God to the feathered throng. 
 
 Madder tinges the rose, 
 
 Carmine the tulip's veins; 
 
 Purple the pansy stains; 
 
 Chrome in the daffodil glows. 
 A hundred tints of a hundred flowers 
 Gladden the garden in summer hours. 
 
 Jewels like clouds are bright 
 With the hues of Iris at play; 
 Beauty follows the day 
 In harmonies of light. 
 
 [39] 
 
God might have made the earth all gray, 
 Instead gave color, light, and day. 
 
 Nature knew color before artists did, — 
 The key of her palette stays a mystery hid. 
 
 [40] 
 
A SONG 
 
 Through a meadow 
 
 Where the shadow 
 Lieth soft, a streamlet floweth, 
 
 Floweth, goeth, 
 With a tender motion, slowly, 
 
 On its lowly 
 Bed among the swaying rushes, 
 
 While it hushes 
 Every ripple of its breast 
 
 Into rest ; — 
 As the streamlet loves the meadow, 
 
 Love I thee ! 
 
 Low a willow bends above it, 
 
 Leans to love it, 
 Giving of her golden treasure 
 
 Lavish measure, 
 Floating down in gleaming shower, 
 As to Danae came Jove, her 
 
 Kingly lover, 
 With a yellow rain of power, 
 In a self-renouncing dream ; — 
 As the willow loves the stream, 
 
 Love I thee ! 
 
 To the willow, 
 
 Ere the billow 
 Of his rushing tide of splendor 
 
 Drives the shadow 
 Of the dusk from off the meadow, 
 [41] 
 
Gives the sun his greeting tender; 
 Layeth on her yellow tresses 
 
 His caresses 
 
 When he leaves her 
 To the darkness that receives her ; — 
 First he greets her, latest leaves her; 
 As the sunshine loves the willow, 
 
 Love I thee ! 
 
 [42] 
 
SAPPHO 
 
 When Sappho touched her Grecian lyre 
 And sang an ode to Lesbos' daughters, 
 
 There ran a spark of quickening fire 
 Across the wheeling azure waters. 
 
 A note so sweet had never met 
 The bending sentient empyrean; 
 
 A flame so splendid never yet 
 Lit the glad waves of the JEgean. 
 
 Snow-templed Sunium caught the strain, 
 And sunny Hellas leaned to listen, 
 
 And all the circling isles were fain 
 
 With answering light to gleam and glisten. 
 
 iEolian maids at Sappho's feet 
 
 Bright tribute laid of bloom and beauty, 
 
 And bards of Hellas vied to greet 
 The queen of song with loyal duty. 
 
 Doubting to envy or rejoice, 
 
 Phoebus his favorite daughter singled, 
 For never in his Delphic voice 
 
 Were God and mortal so commingled. 
 
 Under the lilies Sappho lies, 
 
 But age to age her fame rehearses, 
 
 And lingers down the centuries 
 The echo of her lovely verses. 
 [43] 
 
Never again shall poesy 
 
 Link with such flame divine and human 
 Until again the singer be 
 
 A Greek, a poet, and a woman. 
 
 [44] 
 
AEIEL 
 
 Who calleth, calleth, 
 Sweet as glancing water falleth, 
 Clear as sings a crystal bell? 
 
 'Tis Ariel! 
 
 Come ! ah, come ! 
 To Ariel's Elysian home! 
 Eare odors linger on the breeze; 
 Bright bird-wings flutter mid the trees ; 
 The sunlight falls aslant the plain ; 
 The trailing sweetbriar scents the lane ; 
 The streamlet murmurs ; on the hill 
 Blossoms the laughing daffodil. 
 'Tis Beauty's haunt ! 'Tis Ariel's home ! 
 
 Come! ah, come! 
 
 Ariel ! Ariel ! 
 Thy call to hearken were it well? 
 Along Life's dust-worn track we go, 
 Our way is toilsome, long and slow; 
 We hasten ! Were it well to linger, 
 Led by thy ruddy, beckoning finger, 
 In glens where pleasant flowers rejoice? 
 Thou callest, callest, and thy voice 
 Is passing sweet. Ah, were it well, 
 
 Ariel? 
 
 [45] 
 
WALTHER VON" DER VOGELWEIDE 
 
 Walther, the minnesinger, 
 
 Beyond all tell of words 
 Loved and was loved by Nature 
 
 And her little ones, the birds. 
 
 For Nature, the faithful-hearted, 
 
 Is ever a bit of a prude, 
 She will not for poet's uses 
 
 Or artisf s vaunt be wooed. 
 
 She is coy to such as seek her 
 
 For name or fashion or pelf, 
 But she gives her heart to the lover 
 
 Who loves her for herself. 
 
 So, because Walther loved her 
 
 With a pure heart, heartily, 
 She made him her knight and minstrel, 
 
 True poet of birds to be. 
 
 Then every bird of the moorland 
 
 And every bird of the grove 
 Gave a note of its song to the poet, 
 
 As a pledge of true bird-love. 
 
 The linnet taught him the carol 
 
 That chimes with the rivulet's run; 
 
 The sky-lark the cry ecstatic 
 He lifts to the midday sun. 
 [46] 
 
The throstle gave him the love-note 
 
 He sings to his mate in May; 
 And the chaffinch the lyric of gladness 
 
 That heralds the break of day. 
 
 The nightingale lent him the rapture 
 That thrills in his swelling breast, 
 
 And the swallow the tune she murmurs 
 To the birdlings in her nest. 
 
 So all the delight of summer, 
 
 And all the music of May, 
 The little birds taught their minstrel 
 
 To mix in his roundelay. 
 
 He sang of youth like May-time, 
 
 And of love divinely strong, 
 And he drew the hearts of the people 
 
 By the power of love and song. 
 
 His was the sweetest singing 
 
 That the sad world had heard, 
 For it came from the heart of the spring-time, 
 
 Like the carol of a bird. 
 
 Walther, the minnesinger, 
 
 With hands calm folded lay, 
 And a great gray stone above him 
 
 Waited the judgment day. 
 
 Upon his grave each noontide, 
 By his will and last behest, 
 [47] 
 
In the hollows of his grave-stone 
 Was spread for the birds a feast. 
 
 And with nutter of wing they hurried 
 From hill and meadow and wood, 
 
 On the grave of the poet who loved them 
 To gather their daily food. 
 
 The tide of life sweeps onward, 
 Wave followed by higher wave; 
 
 The feast of the birds no longer 
 Is spread on the minstrel's grave. 
 
 But sweet is still bird-singing, 
 And sweet are poet's words, — 
 
 The birds love still the poet, 
 And the poet loves the birds. 
 
 [48] 
 
THE CKOWS AT ARLINGTON 
 
 From the shore of the broad Potomac, 
 
 Against the southern skies, 
 The wooded heights of Arlington 
 
 With slow ascension rise. 
 
 At its foot the river lingers 
 
 In its rapid journey by, 
 And beyond, the dome of the Capitol 
 
 Keeps watch between earth and sky. 
 
 Where the winding paths of Arlington 
 By the shade of its groves are crossed, 
 
 Nightly the crows assemble, 
 A vast, unnumbered host. 
 
 They deepen the dusk of night-fall, 
 They shadow the evening breeze, 
 
 They settle down like the darkness 
 Into the branching trees. 
 
 When the earliest bird of morning 
 
 His matin carol sings, 
 They rise from their bosky coverts, 
 
 And poise on their glossy wings; 
 
 And across the wide Potomac, 
 
 And past the snowy dome, 
 O'er the fertile fields of Maryland 
 
 The sable thousands roam. 
 [49] 
 
But when sunset gilds the tree-tops 
 
 With the smile of closing day, 
 To the sheltering groves of Arlington 
 
 They wing their homeward way. 
 
 Still are the woods of Arlington; 
 
 There broods a nameless hush 
 Over its solemn avenues, 
 
 Where the winds forbear to rush. 
 
 Green are the fields of Arlington; 
 
 The long grass gently waves, 
 When the south wind sighs above it, 
 
 On twenty thousand graves. 
 
 Light lie the snows of winter, 
 
 Soft fall the summer rains 
 O'er the dead who died for liberty 
 
 On the fair Virginia plains. 
 
 The children strew spring flowers 
 On the soldier's grass-grown bed, 
 
 And the black-winged birds keep nightly guard 
 O'er the city of the dead. 
 
 [50] 
 
THE MOCKINGBIRD 
 
 A mockingbird on an orange bough 
 
 Of waking morn was ware; 
 The fragrance of the orange bloom 
 
 Was wafted on the air; 
 And scent of blossom and song of bird 
 
 Were sweet beyond compare. 
 
 The singer sang his heart out 
 
 To meet the heart of day ; 
 The rapture of his lyric note 
 
 Held waiting breath in sway; 
 One heard, and a sombre thought took wing, 
 
 And a shadow sped away. 
 
 His matin carol ended, 
 
 Afar the singer flew; 
 And what sweet comfort from the tune 
 
 Had dropped like dropping dew, 
 Only God who taught the mockingbird 
 
 And one that listened knew. 
 
 [51] 
 
'TIS ALL IN THE POINT OF VIEW 
 
 Under a spreading basswood leaf 
 
 A young fly, fluttering, hung; 
 Dizzily up, by circles brief, 
 
 And giddily down he swung. 
 
 On the topmost bough of the basswood tree 
 
 A bobolink swayed and sang; 
 Into clear sky-deeps, floating free, 
 
 His jubilant flute-notes rang. 
 
 " I am glad," sang he, " that the sky is blue ; 
 
 I am glad that the world is wide; 
 And higher than ever bobolink flew 
 
 Heaven's unwinged spaces bide." 
 
 " Friend bobolink," buzzed the giddy fly, 
 
 " 'Tis nonsense that you sing ; 
 The sky is so low that if I try 
 
 I can touch it with my wing. 
 
 " The world is green to its farthest rim 
 
 With the greenness of the sky, 
 And I hope to reach its outmost limb. 
 
 With my buzzing ere I die." 
 
 " Friend fly," cried the bobolink, " I'll agree, 
 With the basswood leaf between, 
 
 Your world is as wide as the basswood tree, 
 And your sky is near and green. 
 [52] 
 
" But to my gaze Heaven's arches raise 
 Unmeasured heights of blue, 
 
 And I lift my song in rejoicing praise, 
 'Tis all in the point of view." 
 
 [53] 
 
WITH THE BIRDS 
 
 Sweetly at dawn the sparrow sings 
 His rapture for the gift of wings; 
 I wake to join the sparrow's lay, 
 And thank the Giver for the day. 
 
 And sweetly in the twilight still 
 His vespers chants the whippoorwill ; 
 I hear, and breathe from grateful breast 
 A prayer to Him who giveth rest. 
 
 So daily with the birds I raise 
 My evening prayer and morning praise, 
 For, sun or shadow, joy or rest, 
 The gift God giveth is the best. 
 
 [54] 
 
SEA-GULLS 
 
 When the sun on a silver sea 
 
 Makes the ripples laugh with glee, 
 
 And tender breezes play 
 
 With the long surf's jeweled spray; 
 
 From where dim islands sleep 
 
 On the bosom of the deep, 
 From the meeting of wave and sky, 
 
 The white gulls fly. 
 
 Now sunward dark as night, 
 
 And now toward the shadow bright, 
 They circle, and wheel, and rise 
 
 To the heart of the azure skies. 
 
 With upward curve and swing, 
 And downward sweep of wing, 
 
 They trace on the ether plain 
 
 The waves of the wind-swept main. 
 
 The white sails fleck the sea, 
 
 Like a daisy-studded lea; 
 The white wings dot the air, 
 
 As the sea were mirrored there. 
 
 When a darkening veil of clouds 
 The face of ocean shrouds ; 
 
 When shrieks the angry blast, 
 And the fog is driving fast; 
 [55] 
 
When faintly looms afar 
 
 A boat with a naked spar; — 
 
 With trailing wings and low 
 The white gulls go. 
 
 Like phantoms, huge and dim, 
 The hurrying waves they skim, 
 
 And dip each glossy breast 
 In the foaming breaker's crest. 
 
 On the edge of an ocean rock, 
 
 Where the seas with surge and shock 
 
 Beat forever in mad unrest, 
 The white gulls nest. 
 
 When the blind night mist spreads wide, 
 With the roar of the rising tide, 
 
 The young ones listen and peer 
 
 For the rushing of white wings near. 
 
 Wherever are mist and foam, 
 
 Here is the sea-gull's home ; 
 The bound of the venturous tide 
 
 His wandering wing has tried. 
 
 Offspring of cloud and wave, 
 
 A dual bliss ye have, 
 With a double freedom free, 
 
 Of the sky and of the sea! 
 
 [56] 
 
ON THE SHORE 
 
 Two lovers stood on the shore, 
 And watched the bright waves dance ; 
 The sea with blue of the sky was blue, 
 And the lovers' eyes saw heaven's own hue, 
 
 Each in the other's glance. 
 The waves made laughter in their ears, 
 And they saw the shining of happy years 
 In the smile of the sea. 
 
 A widow stood on the shore; 
 
 The gray sea sobbed and sighed; 
 Darkly it lay under darkling sky, 
 Its moan was deep, and its wail rose high 
 
 With the ebb-turn of the tide; 
 And the widow heard the anguish of life, 
 The pang of its loss, and the throe of its strife, 
 In the moan of the sea. 
 
 An artist stood on the shore ; 
 
 The sea stretched level and pale, 
 With a pearl-tipped crest, and an opal sheen 
 In the curve of the ripple that turned between, 
 
 And the gleam of a silver sail; 
 And the artist saw, as a vision faint, 
 The light of a picture he might paint, 
 In the light of the sea. 
 
 A poet stood on the shore; 
 The spray on his cheek fell wet; 
 
 [57] 
 
White was the foam that edged the waves, 
 And loud the voice through the ocean caves 
 
 Of surges shoreward set; 
 And the poet heard with kindling eyes 
 The rhythm of unsung melodies 
 In the song of the sea. 
 
 Death has severed the lovers twain, 
 
 But the waves on other lovers smile; 
 The years have brought their balm to pain, 
 
 The ocean moans as moaned erewhile. 
 The lovely picture is still unlimned, 
 
 But the light that shone meets other eyes 
 The magic numbers are yet unhymned, — 
 
 The surge repeateth its melodies. 
 Other the feet upon the shore — 
 The sea abideth evermore. 
 
 [58] 
 
NO MORE SEA 
 
 Sitting beside the ocean, looking on 
 
 Its broad expanse of watery waste, now lit 
 
 Into full glory by the setting sun, 
 
 I read new meaning in the line once writ 
 
 By him who saw the holy vision, John, 
 " And there was no more sea." 
 
 Symbol of grief ! The stricken heart alway 
 Has found communion with its mournful swell, 
 
 The while its solemn surges for a day 
 Make happy faces sad. 'Tis written well 
 
 That when all tears by God are wiped away 
 There shall be no more sea. 
 
 Symbol of mystery ! It lies alone, 
 
 Its secrets yet unread by eager eye, 
 Its hills unleveled, and its fields unsown; 
 
 But when there is an end of mystery, 
 And we shall know even as we are known, 
 There shall be no more sea. 
 
 Type of eternity! Its hither shore 
 
 Looks on no bounding wall ; the eye in vain 
 
 To seek a limit roams its reaches o'er ; 
 
 But when the things eternal we shall gain, 
 
 Their earthly symbol we shall need no more, — 
 There shall be no more sea. 
 
 Ah, summer sea! I cannot bear to leave 
 Thy passion and thy wonder and thy vast 
 [59] 
 
Hint of a vaster somewhat ; but when eve 
 
 Shall break into eternal morn at last, 
 I know I shall not miss thy voice, nor grieve 
 That there is no more sea. 
 
 [60] 
 
ON THE HEIGHT 
 
 Our feet at last have gained the mountain height, 
 
 Kest on its lichened soil, 
 And lo ! the world is spread beneath our sight, 
 
 The guerdon of our toil. 
 
 We feel the peace and stillness of the place 
 
 Creep over heart and brain, 
 As the calm summer in its soft embrace 
 
 Has wrapt the tranquil plain. 
 
 Adown the mountain side descend the woods, 
 
 Hemlock and beech and pine, 
 Across whose dark and tangled solitudes 
 
 The slanting sunbeams shine. 
 
 Sinking and swelling like the ebbing sea 
 
 The nearer distance lies, 
 While toward the far horizon, rolling free, 
 
 Hills above hills arise. 
 
 White, fleecy clouds in the blue ether rest, 
 
 Or with faint motion float, 
 Shadowed on hills, and mirrored in the breast 
 
 Of lakes near and remote. 
 
 From nestling hamlets, by whose clustered fires 
 
 Pale, circling mists are given, 
 The pointed fingers of a hundred spires 
 
 Direct our eyes to heaven. 
 
 [61] 
 
Each object unto each its tint has lent; 
 
 No outline stands alone, 
 But each is softened, and all discords blent 
 
 In true harmonious tone. 
 
 Our worrying cares, like a forgotten dream, 
 
 Have slipped so far away, 
 The mountain blossoms at our feet do seem 
 
 Of more account than they. 
 
 White, star-like flowers, unnoticed, by the still 
 
 Cool rocks they live and die, 
 And without care or question so fulfil 
 
 Their simple destiny. 
 
 The throbbing pulses of the fevered earth, 
 
 Its passion and its pain, 
 Dimmed by the purple distance, seem less worth 
 
 Than the wood-bird's refrain. 
 
 'Tis well sometimes to climb to such a spot, 
 
 And from our broadened view 
 To learn the world is wider than we thought, 
 
 And smaller than we knew. 
 
 The world is very wide; we cannot bear 
 
 Even to guess its pain; 
 If we could know its grief, its wrong, its care, 
 
 We scarce could breathe again. 
 
 We have but, like the mountain flowers, to live 
 
 Our simple lives alone, 
 And trustfully unto our Father give 
 
 The charge over his own. 
 [63] 
 
The world is very small; its passions cease, 
 
 Its throbbing pulses die, 
 Its woes are silent in the eternal peace 
 
 Of God's infinity. 
 
 [63] 
 
THE OPTIMIST 
 
 " God's Good," I said, " spoke at creation's morn 
 Was a red rosebud laid on Earth's young breast, 
 Which the long day will, spite of worm and thorn, 
 Uncurl to Better, open wide to Best." 
 
 [64] 
 
FLOWEKS OF MAY 
 
 What, into the woods, my darling, while Winter's 
 
 breath is chill? 
 While the north wind and the whirling snow hold 
 
 revel on the hill? 
 Do you think the fleeting Summer may for you have 
 
 left behind 
 Some treasure hid too tenderly for snow and ice to 
 
 find? 
 And never yet in all the wood could bud or blossom 
 
 hide, 
 Under leaf or moss or waving fern that shades the 
 
 streamlet's side, 
 So deeply or so darkly that its dim and sheltered 
 
 nook 
 Could escape your tireless feet, my dear, or evade 
 
 your loving look. 
 But today the wintry gale is moaning through the 
 
 branches bare; 
 The patient feet and eager eyes could find no flowers 
 
 there, 
 When the biting wind was braved and the billowy 
 
 drifts were crossed, 
 Nothing but buds of ice, and pallid blossoms of frost. 
 
 Does the May seem long in coming with its blessed 
 
 gift of flowers ? 
 Does Winter drag with lagging step a frozen chain 
 
 of hours? 
 Wait yet a little, darling, and the days will not be 
 
 long 
 
 [65] 
 
Before we feel the breath of Spring and hear the 
 robin's song. 
 
 Then hand in hand we'll hasten to the sunny south- 
 ern slope 
 
 Where lifts the brave Hepatica its lilac buds of hope ; 
 
 And we'll hunt the wide wood over for the sweet and 
 secret place 
 
 Where beside the melting snow-drift we shall spy the 
 Mayflower's face. 
 
 But when the shadiest spot in all the woods has lost 
 
 its snow, 
 And when the softly greening fields with Dandelions 
 
 glow, 
 Then we'll seek the grassy hollow where the hooded 
 
 Violet dwells, 
 And Wild Oats swing to every breeze their dainty 
 
 waxen bells; 
 And the bank where Wood Anemones' uncounted 
 
 fragile heads 
 Droop over tufted Innocence, thick set in snowy beds ; 
 Or where the bright Marsh Marigold by the sluggish 
 
 meadow rill 
 Makes the Bloodroot's pure, pale petals seem paler, 
 
 purer still. 
 And we'll wander by the river where beside the 
 
 water's edge 
 Grow the White Thorn's milky clusters and the Early 
 
 Saxifrage. 
 Then we'll find a hill I know and climb its dry and 
 
 shady side, 
 
 [66] 
 
Where the Twistfoot's tiny lilies under spreading 
 leaflets hide; 
 
 Where Pepperroot and Bishop's Cap in white pro- 
 fusion flock, 
 
 And the red and yellow Columbine leaps gaily from 
 the rock; 
 
 Where the buried Seal of Solomon its banner waves 
 in air, 
 
 And Clintonia and Starflower smile about us every- 
 where. 
 
 Then we'll find the deep secluded vale where never 
 sunbeam goes, 
 
 Through which the tortuous brook with slow and 
 stealthy motion flows, 
 
 Where the scent of crushed White Violets makes 
 redolent our tracks, 
 
 And from half a hundred Pulpits hold forth as 
 many Jacks; 
 
 Where Mitrewort and Goldthread over oozing mosses 
 run, 
 
 And Ferns uncoiling climb after the spectre of a sun. 
 
 And when the way is roughest for the tender patient 
 feet, 
 
 Lo! the pink-veined Smiling Wakerobin, a vision 
 bright, we greet! 
 
 flowers of May, that meet in field or wood the soft 
 
 Spring air, 
 What has earth that she can offer us more beautiful 
 
 or rare? 
 Though the flowers of June blush redder than ever 
 
 those of May, 
 
 [67] 
 
And the flowers of ripe September are gladder and 
 
 more gay, 
 Yet Spring is always lovelier than Summer or than 
 
 Fall, 
 And to me the flowers of May are the sweetest flowers 
 
 of all. 
 
 So wait a little, darling, till we hear the robins sing, 
 
 And the fields put on their green to greet the coming 
 of the Spring, — 
 
 Then the flowers that make forest or field or river- 
 bank their home 
 
 Shall be ours to love and wonder at as through their 
 haunts we roam. 
 
 [68] 
 
CALYPSO 
 
 Where the tiny brooklet slowly 
 Trickles over mosses lowly, 
 Where the tall columnar beeches 
 Thickly spread their verdant reaches, 
 From the black earth lightly rising, 
 Springs a flower of grace surprising. 
 
 'Tis a butterfly, whose shaded 
 Purples in the dusk have faded, 
 And that droops her wings sedately; 
 Or a lady, shy and stately, 
 Standing coy with head a-tip so, — 
 That's my dainty maid Calypso ! 
 
 Palest purple, faint and tender, 
 Are the wavy petals slender; 
 Gold and crimson-flecked the staining 
 Of the lip's translucent veining; 
 Bird-like poises on her laden 
 Taper stem my woodland maiden. 
 
 None but eyes of eager lover 
 Can her hiding-place discover; 
 May by May, unsought and lonely, 
 She unfolds, displaying only 
 To the leaning ferns her sweetness, 
 And her delicate completeness. 
 
 you crowd of gaudy, flaunting 
 Roadside weeds, your beauty vaunting, 
 [69] 
 
Modesty is gone, with blushing, 
 Out of fashion, but no pushing 
 Blowzy girl, with hand on hip so, 
 Can compare with my Calypso! 
 
 [70] 
 
SOMNUS PLANTARUM 
 
 Linn.eus, studying at Upsala, went 
 One night among his flowers, 
 To find a rare exotic sent 
 From the far Orient's untraversed bowers. 
 Alas ! the blossom had been plucked away ; 
 " Strange," quoth the sage, " it opened but today." 
 
 But when at dawn of day he happened by, 
 The flower at evening missed 
 Lifted to his its answering eye, 
 Bedimmed with dew, by morning sunbeams kissed, 
 The fairest gem that decked the garden bed; 
 " My eyes are growing dull," Linnaeus said. 
 
 When next again the shadowy night came on, 
 Again he sought its side, 
 And lo ! once more the flower was gone ; 
 But searching soon its hiding-place he spied, — 
 The star-like blossom to a bud had closed, 
 And underneath a spreading leaf reposed. 
 
 With lamp in hand, adown the garden beds, 
 Linnaeus hastened now, 
 And saw in long and wavering threads 
 The limp leaves hang from the Acacia bough; 
 The thorny Locust, drooped in languid rest; 
 The Trefoil's hands were folded on its breast. 
 
 The white Datura's trumpet slaokly fell, 
 The Bindweed's border pink 
 [71] 
 
Was coiled into a fluted shell, 
 The Iris' eye under the stars did blink, 
 The Poppy's face beneath its hood was hid, 
 The Tulip's cup became a pyramid. 
 
 Each drooping leaf seemed locked in slumber deep; 
 Wrapt in the sheltering gloom, 
 Each folded floweret seemed to sleep; 
 The man of science gained his lonely room, 
 And pondering long in the still morning hours, 
 Composed a treatise on the Sleep of Flowers. 
 
 [72] 
 
VIOLETS 
 
 It was a bunch of violets, 
 
 In purple, proud array, 
 That on a lady's Easter hat 
 
 Came gaily down Broadway. 
 
 It was a tuft of violets, 
 
 Deep in a forest nook, 
 That lifted up shy, dewy heads 
 
 Beside a pebbled brook. 
 
 Now if the lady's violets 
 
 Were planted in the glen, 
 How soon would fade the tawdry things, 
 
 Under the mist and rain! 
 
 And on Broadway wild violets 
 Would quickly wilt and die; 
 
 One kind was made for the city street, — 
 The other for God's eye. 
 
 [73] 
 
A GARDEN OF ROSES 
 
 Where is a prettier sight to see 
 
 Than Kate in a garden of roses? 
 From flower to lovelier flower she runs 
 With twinkling feet, as yet fairer ones 
 
 Each turn of the path discloses. 
 
 Gleefully laughs the little maid 
 
 As into her apron she tosses 
 Roses red and yellow and white, 
 Buds and blossoms wide-blown to the light, 
 
 Little sweet-briers and mosses. 
 
 Here, where a worm lies coiled in the bud, 
 
 With pitiful sigh she lingers; 
 Now springs to catch the brightest of all, 
 But ugly thorns bid the swift tears fall, 
 
 Stinging the tender fingers. 
 
 May you pick the roses of life, dear Kate, 
 
 In the garden of the years ; 
 May they give to your hand their sweet perfume, 
 With no worm in the bud to blight their bloom, 
 
 Nor thorns to be drenched with tears ! 
 
 May you gather the rare red rose of love, 
 
 And the golden buds of laughter, 
 And the white rose of peace that shall not fade — 
 May the roses of life be yours, little maid, 
 
 And the roses of heaven come after! 
 
 [74] 
 
A DAY IN JUNE 
 
 The sun shines down and the river shines up, 
 And there's not a cloud in the sky ; 
 
 On the wilted tulip's belated cup 
 Hangs a languid butterfly. 
 
 The elm-leaves float on the motionless air; 
 
 Not a ripple stirs the grass; 
 Not a ruffle touches the river's glare 
 
 As it crawls like a snake of brass. 
 
 No sound save the murmur of the falls 
 Breaks the stillness ; the note of a bird, 
 
 Answering as one to the other calls, 
 Since daybreak I have not heard. 
 
 The sparrow pants on her heated nest 
 
 And lifts her beak to the sky; 
 Slowly the sun drops toward the west, 
 
 And the shadows easterly lie. 
 
 To east, to west, like the seeking dove, 
 
 My longing glances go; 
 There is nought but the flame of the sun above, 
 
 And the blaze of the river below. 
 
 The breath of nature is still in the trees ; 
 
 The voice of nature is dumb; 
 Will night when it comes bring a cooling breeze ? 
 
 Ah, the night, will it ever come? 
 [75] 
 
The river shines up and the sun shines down, 
 And the glare and the glittering 
 
 Are heavy and hard as a jeweled crown 
 On the brow of a weary king. 
 
 [76] 
 
EVENING 
 
 If it were never even, 
 
 If the time were always day, 
 If the blazing sun in heaven 
 
 Never sank from sight away; 
 
 How we should miss the gloaming, 
 With its purple shadowy light, 
 
 Miss the slow and solemn coming 
 Of the darkness and the night ! 
 
 Like breezes from the river 
 To a still and sultry town; 
 
 As on fields that thirst and quiver 
 The reviving rain comes do\/n; 
 
 Like fleecy snow that covers 
 All the bare and rugged ground ; 
 
 Like the hush intense that hovers 
 After harmonies of sound. 
 
 Like the delight that lingers 
 When we lay the poem by; 
 
 Like the touch of cooling fingers 
 Upon eyelids hot and dry; 
 
 So come the shades of even, 
 And the restful dark of night, 
 
 As a gracious gift of Heaven 
 To the tired and dazzled sight. 
 [77] 
 
A HINT OF AUTUMN 
 
 The sun upon the terrace 
 
 With summer radiance smiles, 
 
 But a breath of autumn in the air 
 Belies his friendly wiles. 
 
 There come two yellow elm-leaves 
 Down dropping from the trees, 
 
 And a dandelion's parachute 
 Is lifted by the breeze. 
 
 White thistle seeds are wafted 
 To and fro on plumy wings, 
 
 And each light-driven messenger 
 A hint of autumn brings. 
 
 A flock of idle, fancies 
 Flit in and out my head, 
 
 Like snowy, floating thistle-down 
 By autumn zephyrs led. 
 
 The thistle's wings grow weary, 
 
 And the dandelion light 
 Sinks deep into the ripened grass, 
 
 And both are lost to sight. 
 
 But as the seasons circle 
 
 There will rise from out the mold 
 The beauty of the thistle's flame, 
 
 And the dandelion's gold. 
 [78] 
 
So perhaps my floating fancies 
 May be seeds from which shall spring 
 
 In sunny summers Nature's crown 
 Of gracious blossoming. 
 
 [79] 
 
MAY AND NOVEMBEK 
 
 A moment stands in musing mood 
 A young and winsome maiden; 
 
 With fragrant trophies of the wood 
 Her glowing arms are laden. 
 
 The robins in the maple trees 
 Their happy loves are telling; 
 
 Beneath their rusty coats she sees 
 The cherry blossoms swelling. 
 
 The sky is blue above; the ground 
 Its vernal green is showing; 
 
 The river sings with murmurous sound, 
 In new-found freedom flowing. 
 
 'Tis spring! The founts of nature start 
 To greet the welcome comer; 
 
 The springtime in the maiden's heart 
 Goes forth to meet the summer. 
 
 Amid the wreck of summer stands 
 A slender drooping maiden; 
 
 Her heart with vanished joys, her hands 
 With faded flowers are laden. 
 
 Struck by the arrows of the frost, 
 The blasted flowers are dying; 
 
 Above the sere leaves, torn and tossed, 
 November winds are sighing. 
 [80] 
 
With soughing of the pines is blent 
 The moaning of the river; 
 
 Touched by a chill presentiment, 
 The sombre meadows shiver. 
 
 The light of spring has died away 
 In autumn's ashen ember; 
 
 The hopes that budded in the May 
 Are blighted in November. 
 
 But still shall ruin feel the power 
 Of time's restoring fingers; 
 
 Not ever stays the midnight hour, 
 Nor always autumn lingers. 
 
 And soon shall kindly nature fling 
 Her blessed snow-flakes over, 
 
 The desolation of the spring 
 With tender veil to cover. 
 
 [81] 
 
EVENING ON THE SAINT LAWRENCE 
 
 As azure day to iridescent eve 
 
 Turns on the tranquil tide, 
 The reaches of the mighty stream we leave, 
 
 And with quick oar-dip glide 
 Into a shallow inlet, over-laced 
 With riotous greenery, and with lilies graced. 
 
 Before us serried rushes sway, and spring 
 
 Astern alert and high; 
 And blue and yellow pond-flowers clustered swing 
 
 Their merry splendors nigh; 
 And spiral water-weeds with slimy coil 
 Hug the tired oar, and make each stroke a toil. 
 
 Along the close-laid pads we peer in vain 
 
 For blossoming loveliness; 
 In fruitless quest we scan the verdurous plain — 
 
 Till lo ! our hopes to bless, 
 Like a white star between the gathering glooms, 
 One golden-hearted water-lily blooms. 
 
 Through curling, clinging weeds, with laboring oar, 
 
 By many a twist and turn, 
 Out of the sluggish bay we slide once more 
 
 Where on the open burn 
 Westward the torches of the passing day, 
 To light in shining track our homeward way. 
 
 Canadian meadows follow near and green, 
 And faint hills southward smile; 
 [82] 
 
Soft skies to softer waters smile between, 
 
 And isle to violet isle; 
 And east and west bright narrowing vistas make 
 Two climbing purple paths to sea and lake. 
 
 So, slipping o'er the pliant wave, we come, 
 
 Under the paling skies, 
 Into that twilight water-world which dumb 
 
 Of all earth's voices lies, 
 Still of all sound, save that the air be stirred 
 By whirring wing of startled river bird. 
 
 Amid the shadowy isles, athwart our bow, 
 
 One shadowy isle grows clear, — 
 Its slim horizon line in welcome, now, 
 
 With gracious curve draws near, — 
 Its pines and birches darkly against the sky, 
 And darkly doubled in the river lie. 
 
 One fragrant water-lily is the prize 
 
 Our sunset voyage has brought; 
 A summer's night its sweetness lives, and dies, 
 
 Leaving a lily thought, 
 A fragrant thought that winter-long shall stay, 
 A star-like memory for a distant day. 
 
 [83] 
 
A CHAEGE ACCOUNT 
 
 (April 19, 1775) 
 
 In the still o' the night the British crept 
 
 Across the river from Boston town; 
 The little birds in the treetops slept, 
 
 And the undimmed stars looked calmly down. 
 
 Sombre and gray was the early light 
 
 As they wound their way through Cambridge street, 
 And the officers grumbled, as well they might, 
 
 For the breakfast they had failed to eat. 
 
 " Here is a house," one Captain said, 
 " And an ancient dame in the door I see ; 
 
 Come, goodwife, bring us meat and bread, 
 And pour thy choicest wine and tea ! " 
 
 " The harbor waves are over the tea, 
 But in the larder are bread and wine; 
 
 Help yourselves to what pleaseth ye, 
 
 But ask no service from hand o' mine ! " 
 
 They ate and they drank, and with song and jest 
 Made blithe the hour, till the rising sun 
 
 Sent them its warning from the east 
 To follow the men to Lexington. 
 
 " Thanks, old dame, for thy rebel cheer," 
 Quoth the Captain when the feast was done, 
 
 " We will pay thee next time we breakfast here," 
 And they galloped away to Lexington. 
 [84] 
 
Alack ! but how the regulars fled 
 
 When they met the yeomen at Concord bridge, 
 How the Middlesex farmers after them sped, 
 
 Over the highway, along the ridge. 
 
 Oh, back they came with unseemly speed 
 
 Through Cambridge street, and with head adown ! 
 
 For bread and for wine they had no need 
 
 As they hurried their way toward Boston town. 
 
 [85] 
 
INDIAN MONUMENT ON OLDTOWN ISLAND 
 
 (Erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution of 
 Maine ) 
 
 When of old our fathers fought 
 
 Precious liberty to gain, 
 Friendship, help and guidance brought 
 
 Indians of the tribes of Maine. 
 
 Foot to foot, o'er forest trail, 
 
 Trod the white man and the red; 
 
 Hand to hand did neither fail; 
 Brow to brow oft lay the dead. 
 
 Marsh and maze and mountain through, 
 Lake and stream and river o'er, 
 
 Stealthy foot or swift canoe 
 Safe the soldier's message bore. 
 
 When the pathless wintry wild 
 Freemen dared with valor fine, 
 
 Through the snows the forest child 
 Led the spent and broken line. 
 
 Loyal to a cause not theirs, 
 
 Faithful to an alien race, 
 Writ in bronze, their story bears 
 
 Something of ideal grace. 
 
 We, the daughters of the brave, 
 Children's children of the free, 
 
 Now beside Penobscot's wave 
 Bear this stone of memory. 
 [86] 
 
On this islet in the tide, 
 Eefuge of a remnant race, 
 
 Long as brass and stone abide 
 Passers shall the legend trace, — 
 
 How the children grateful own 
 Loyalty their grandsires knew, 
 
 Graving on memorial stone, 
 
 " These were to our fathers true." 
 
 Age to age and shore to shore, 
 While the rivers seek the sea, 
 
 Faith is lovely evermore, 
 Beautiful is loyalty. 
 
 God, who of one blood hast made 
 All the nations, honor now 
 
 Ancient friendship, unbetrayed, 
 Brothers they, our Father thou ! 
 
 [87] 
 
THE DECENNIAL 
 
 As in some eddy of the river where 
 
 The wave lies calm and water lilies blow 
 
 The traveler lingers, rests his oar-dip there, 
 
 So we a moment stay to pluck the fair 
 Lilies of memory that in stillness grow. 
 
 As on some rock that overlooks the lea 
 
 The climber waits to catch with joy the broad 
 Vista of widening wood and lake, so we 
 Waiting the plain in widening round may see, 
 And mark the devious paths our feet have trod. 
 
 From east and west, the borders of the land, 
 
 Once more we come together for a day; 
 Beneath the shade of College walls we stand, 
 And hold each other by the friendly hand, 
 And look the greeting words may weakly say. 
 
 Ah, what vicissitudes of hope and fear, 
 
 Pleasure and pain the fleeting years have brought ! 
 Have the alluring dreams of youth drawn near 
 In visible form, or fled before the drear 
 
 Advancing day? Has life been as we thought? 
 
 To each has life unrolled as He has planned 
 Who all directs. Surely his guiding eye 
 Has still with kindness watched us and his hand 
 In mercy led, — our names unbroken stand, 
 The dark death angel's wing has passed us by. 
 
 [88] 
 
But, speaking thus, my words a moment stay, 
 
 With thought of one in girlhood's early bloom 
 Who from us faded as a flower away, — 
 My heart would pause a little, so to lay 
 One lily of remembrance on her tomb. 
 
 How close the memories crowd ! summer days 
 
 Of long, long sunshine, winter days of calm, 
 When still unburdened by life's cares the ways 
 Of student lore we followed, strong to raise 
 Against all obstacle victorious arm! 
 
 Aught that athwart that sky a shade might bring 
 We have forgotten; only pleasantness 
 
 Stands forth today for our remembering. 
 
 Those college years, that sped with rapid wing, 
 We will recall henceforward but to bless. 
 
 How strangely with familiar faces seen 
 Familiar habits reassert their power! 
 So we forget the years that lie between, 
 And once again upon the College green 
 As students linger, dreaming for an hour. 
 
 Is it a dream ? The Campus elms still wear 
 The summer's crown of glory as they wore ; 
 The bell in wonted tone to morning prayer 
 Yet summons ; brick and stone unchanged are there,- 
 We too are students, classmates as of yore. 
 
 Let no one break the spell by which we meet 
 As classmates still on this memorial day. 
 [89] 
 
In happy phrase will each the other greet, 
 Linking anew the bond of friendship sweet, 
 And parting " Till we meet again " will say. 
 
 [90] 
 
THE GOLDEN WEDDING 
 
 C. M. AND S. D. M. 
 
 Golden the rivers run, 
 
 And golden is the light that fills 
 
 The circling heavens, when the sun 
 
 Of a fair day leans toward the western hills. 
 
 Golden the ripened maize, 
 
 And crowned with gold the woods appear, 
 
 When come the lovely autumn days 
 
 That consummate the promise of the year. 
 
 This sunset bright with gold, 
 This gracious golden fall have they, 
 Whose hands their children's children hold 
 To greet them on their fiftieth wedding day. 
 
 There were two threads that met 
 The Weaver, spun in different lands, 
 And in the warp of life were set 
 Beside each other by his careful hands. 
 
 For half a hundred years, 
 
 Unbroke in dangers manifold, 
 
 Together kept in joys and fears, 
 
 The threads have changed today to gleaming gold. 
 
 Long may the slender threads 
 Their course along the web pursue ! 
 Heaven's choicest blessings on their heads, 
 Whose lives have been so earnest and so true ! 
 [91] 
 
May golden splendor fill 
 
 The beauty of the eventide, 
 
 And sunset brighter grow until 
 
 It turns to sunrise on the other side ! 
 
 [92] 
 
A SONG OF FRIENDSHIP 
 c. a. w. 
 
 Like birds that wait upon the wing 
 
 Their joy and love in song to expend, 
 We busy women pause to bring 
 Tribute of love and praise and song 
 To her who has been our leader long, 
 And long our friend. 
 
 Her friends are many, for she doth 
 Her friendliness to all extend; 
 
 Her heart is like the hurrying moth, 
 
 It gathers toll from many fields; 
 
 So many a flower its perfume yields, 
 And many a friend. 
 
 For she has seen how each is bound 
 To all, and all on each depend, — 
 
 Life linked with life in mystic round, — 
 
 Sister with sister women she 
 
 In love's fair solidarity, 
 And each a friend. 
 
 She loves all causes high and good; 
 
 Eager is she herself to spend, 
 To give to suffering womanhood, 
 Pitiful childhood, youth oppressed, 
 Or tempted manhood of her best — 
 
 To all a friend. 
 
 And they who toil, with burdened heart, 
 The ragged scars of earth to mend, 
 [93] 
 
Who in the conflict's van have part, 
 Whose spirits are brave, whose hands are strong, 
 To battle against ancient wrong, 
 Find her a friend. 
 
 Not she of those whose timid souls 
 
 Before antique conventions bend ; 
 A fairer age to faith unrolls, 
 Too new for her no liberty, — 
 Her the young twentieth century 
 
 Owns as a friend. 
 
 The voices of God's out-of-doors 
 
 For her in friendly music blend; 
 The river murmuring to its shores, 
 The minstrel birds, the whispering trees, 
 The chattering rain, — she is to these 
 Lover and friend. 
 
 The earliest bud that pricks the mold 
 Is hers to love and watch and tend ; 
 
 Lily and rose for her unfold; 
 
 Rose and lily and daffodil 
 
 Bloom sweetest in her garden still — 
 They know their friend. 
 
 The heart that loves the human yearns 
 The all-loving Heart to apprehend; 
 
 She, who loves all his creatures, turns 
 
 Her heart to the Highest, meek yet bold, 
 
 And is, like Abraham of old, 
 Of God the friend. 
 
 [94] 
 
He, whom his friends' uplifted gaze 
 
 Beheld from Olivet ascend, 
 Whose promise holds through all the days, 
 Whose life was love, — to men he saith, 
 " Who doeth my commands in faith, 
 
 I call my friend." 
 
 Sweet friend, Christ's peace for thee we pray, 
 His love be thine, world without end; 
 
 His grace support thee on thy way; 
 
 His heavenly welcome, when the gate 
 
 Shall swing that swingeth soon or late, 
 Be thine, dear friend. 
 
 Our loving thoughts, like pearls to wear 
 
 Star-like upon the breast, we send; 
 Our hearts' desires, like blossoms fair, 
 Into bright garlands have we wound 
 For her the gentle years have crowned, 
 Our gentle friend. 
 
 [95] 
 
THE PASTOR 
 C. V. H. 
 
 God heard the prayer of his people, 
 In heaven his dwelling-place; 
 
 His messenger he sent to bear 
 The evangel of his grace. 
 
 For witness and for service 
 
 Commissioned from above, 
 Obedient came, in Jesus' name, 
 
 The herald of God's love. 
 
 The armor of the kingdom, 
 
 Soldier of Christ, he wore; 
 With peace of God his feet were shod; 
 
 The shield of faith he bore. 
 
 He spoke the words of Jesus, — 
 
 Repent, believe, obey ! 
 Hands, do his will ! Feet, follow still ! 
 
 Heart, love, and love alway! 
 
 blessed words of Jesus! 
 
 They die not with the hour; 
 Like living things, like seeds with wings, 
 
 They carry germs of power. 
 
 living words of Jesus ! 
 
 Still life from life shall spring; 
 In distant days, by unknown ways, 
 
 New fruitage shall they bring. 
 [96] 
 
So day by day God's herald 
 
 His pure evangel brought; 
 The faithful word of the risen Lord 
 
 Line upon line he taught. 
 
 In a cloudy world God's sunshine 
 
 He garnered from the sky; 
 In the shadow of death he showed to faith 
 
 The dayspring from on high. 
 
 Into the homes of the people 
 
 He walked with happy word; 
 Incense of prayer ascended there, 
 
 Sweet savor to the Lord. 
 
 On the joy of life God's blessing 
 
 He asked at the festal hour; 
 For the heart oppressed he prayed God's rest, 
 
 For the helpless one God's power. 
 
 The tender lambs he guided 
 
 To the good shepherd's fold; 
 In Jesus' stead, beside the dead 
 
 Of deathless life he told. 
 
 Suddenly to the workman, 
 
 At the mid hour of the day, 
 The Lord's command came, — Hold thy hand, 
 
 Serve me another way ! 
 
 Waiting is hardest service; 
 Silence is bravest song; 
 [97] 
 
Sweet sermons come, when lips are dumb, 
 From the patient heart and strong. 
 
 Meekly in life's Gethsemane 
 
 He bowed the cup to drain, 
 Full to the brim, God offered him, 
 
 The sacrament of pain. 
 
 And when the days were ended, 
 And when the hours were told, 
 
 By the shining portal of the city immortal 
 He entered the streets of gold. 
 
 On earth the turbid river! 
 
 In heaven the crystal sea ! 
 Our thought may climb the stair of time 
 
 And find eternity. 
 
 Our hearts may keep the lesson 
 
 He taught in life and death, 
 May apprehend, world without end, 
 
 The victory of faith. 
 
 In the city of many mansions, 
 Where Christ hath gone before, 
 
 Where is no night, for God is light, 
 He dwelleth evermore. 
 
 There is surcease of sorrow; 
 
 There death his pang doth stay; 
 The unwept tears of mortal years 
 
 God's hand shall wipe away. 
 [98] 
 
The nations to Emmanuel 
 Their hymn of glory sing, 
 
 And night and day they serve alway 
 Who stand before the King. 
 
 [99] 
 
DEDICATION HYMN 
 
 God may be worshiped where the praying heart 
 With faith looks up in solitude apart, 
 But 'tis his pleasure that his people raise 
 To Heaven the voice of their united praise. 
 
 Our Lord has promised that where two or three 
 Meet in his name, himself shall with them be ; 
 From age to age his promise holds the same, 
 And we this house have reared unto his name. 
 
 Without the fire, unblessed the altar were; 
 Without the Presence, void the house of prayer; 
 Now may God's love upon his church descend, 
 And Christ meet here his people, friend with friend ! 
 
 Here may the Lord a wonted guest abide, 
 As erst within the home on Olive's side; 
 And here may they that call upon his name 
 Believing wait, nor want the tongues of flame ! 
 
 Unceasing from these altars to the skies 
 May incense of sincere petition rise; 
 To hungry souls may bread of life be given, 
 And wayward feet learn here the road to Heaven ! 
 
 May children's lips the love of Jesus sing, 
 And sorrow-laden hearts find comforting! 
 So from these courts shall a great host ascend 
 To raise in Heaven worship that knows no end. 
 
 [100] 
 
KNITTERS IN THE SHADOW 
 
 On the train, by the fireside, in the street 
 
 We are knitting, knitting; 
 Our thoughts, in tune with our needles fleet, 
 
 Afar are flitting. 
 
 They fly to trenches over the sea, 
 
 Where battles stay,- — 
 Surely our yarn should scarlet be 
 
 Instead of gray. 
 
 The little lad waits at the knee 
 
 For a smile and a kiss, — 
 We sigh for mothers over the sea 
 
 Who dear ones miss. 
 
 Mothers are mothers the world around, 
 
 In hut and on throne; 
 These for the love of sacred ground 
 
 Have offered their own. 
 
 Boys in the trenches their land have brought 
 
 The ultimate gift, 
 What they might have been, what they might have 
 wrought, 
 
 When shadows lift, — 
 
 The joy of youth, and the strength of age, 
 
 And the fruit of time, 
 And high endeavor, and counsel sage, 
 
 And art sublime. 
 
 [101] 
 
Life have they given, and we — could we give 
 
 Gift so complete, 
 Life of our life that the land might live, 
 
 Life fair and sweet? 
 
 God, today make America strong, 
 
 In vision clear, 
 True and kind, and wise, and pure of wrong, 
 
 High above fear ! 
 
 So our own shall be rendered to the State 
 
 For life, not death, 
 To serve America clean and great 
 
 In act and faith. 
 
 We kiss the little lad at the knee 
 
 With a prayer and a tear, — 
 Are not the children over the sea 
 
 As sweet and dear? 
 
 God in his mercy bring the hour 
 
 When wars shall cease, 
 And around the earth shall march with power 
 
 The Prince of Peace! 
 
 [102] 
 
NEW VISION 
 
 While Europe counts her dead — - 
 
 Kachel weeping her own — 
 
 Not to be comforted, 
 
 Shall we, aloof, alone, 
 Walk lightly down the casual ways of life, 
 Deaf to the storm, oblivious to the strife? 
 
 Nay, rather we with these 
 
 In spirit would hand in hand 
 
 Venture the fiery seas, 
 
 Traverse the quaking land, 
 So, looking upward from the war-torn sod, 
 Behold anew, as they, the face of God. 
 
 Nations that walk in flame 
 
 Shall a new vision know; 
 
 Out of the pit the same 
 
 Never their souls shall go, 
 But in the valley of the shadow find 
 That Father's hand they lost when they were blind. 
 
 [103] 
 
A LOWLY PART 
 
 I saw a flower in the wood; 
 It was a scentless thing and pale; 
 It had no fruit that could avail 
 For human food. 
 
 " Poor flower," I said, " you are so small, 
 You have not beauty like the rose, 
 You are the slightest thing that grows, — 
 Why grow at all ? " 
 
 The flower replied, " I do not know 
 Why I so small and pale should be; 
 I know that life is given me, 
 And so I grow." 
 
 I saw an insect in the light 
 Of a slant sunbeam fluttering; 
 It rose and fell on gauzy wing 
 From morn till night. 
 
 I asked it, " Why attempt to fly ? 
 You are the creature of a day; 
 You cannot, as the eagle may, 
 Approach the sky." 
 
 The fly replied, " For such as I 
 Too subtle are your questionings; 
 I know that God has given me wings, 
 And so I fly." 
 [104] 
 
I heard a bird, at break of light, 
 Singing again and yet again 
 His one unmusical refrain. 
 With all his might. 
 
 I said, " Poor bird, you cannot vie 
 With one of all this warbling throng, 
 With robin, wren or thrush in song, — 
 Why do you try ? " 
 
 " I know I am a humble thing," 
 The bird said, " with my one weak note, 
 But God has given me a throat, 
 And so I sing." 
 
 I looked within, and lo ! my heart 
 Sat idly in her home and sighed, 
 Because she could not brook for pride 
 A lowly part. 
 
 " Sad heart," I whispered, " have you heard, 
 And will you take, proud heart, for dower 
 The simple reasoning of flower, 
 And fly and bird? 
 
 " Whether your life be pale, or glow 
 With brilliant color, rainbow-dyed, 
 He, the Life-giver, shall decide, — 
 'Tis yours to grow. 
 
 " Whether you soaring win the sky, 
 Or low in earthly region stay, 
 'Tis His who gave you wings to say, — 
 'Tis yours to fly. 
 [105] 
 
" Whether your tones be weak, or ring 
 With music passionate and strong, 
 'Tis His to choose, who gave you song, — 
 'Tis yours to sing." 
 
 [106] 
 
FOLLOW THOU ME 
 
 As unto Peter on the sea, 
 
 Plying his father's trade, with thought 
 Beyond his daily toil for nought, 
 
 So came the voice of Christ to me, 
 " Follow thou me ! 
 
 " Come, leave thy nets upon the sea, 
 And leave thy boat upon the shore, 
 And over mountain, marsh, and moor, 
 
 From Galilee to Calvary, 
 
 Come, follow me ! " 
 
 When up the mount my way I take, 
 A solemn watch with him to keep, 
 And sink o'ercome in shameful sleep, 
 
 His patient voice I hear, " Awake, 
 And follow me ! " 
 
 When at the trial hour I fall, 
 
 Afraid to own my stricken Lord, 
 His swift look pierces like a sword; 
 
 "Repent, repent," I hear him call, 
 " And follow me ! " 
 
 Or when my restless heart would see 
 The cross another has to bear, 
 The task another does, I hear 
 
 The gentle, " What is that to thee ? 
 Follow thou me ! " 
 
 [107] 
 
Christ, my Lord, I come to thee; 
 
 Give me thy strength upon my way; 
 
 Help me to take the cross each day, 
 Heavy or light, thou givest me, 
 And follow thee. 
 
 Across tempestuous Galilee, 
 
 Or up Mount Hermon's rapturous height, 
 Or climbing in the depths of night 
 
 The thorny side of Calvary, 
 I'd follow thee. 
 
 I'd follow thee in life, in death, 
 
 Thou suffering, sad, triumphant one, 
 And wait to hear thine own " Well done ; 
 
 As thou hast overcome by faith, 
 So rest in me." 
 
 [108] 
 
THE MOUNTAIN WAY 
 
 thou, who standest doubting 
 
 At the parting of the ways, 
 Young traveler, whose years are told 
 
 In happy summer days, — 
 
 Choose in thy life's bright morning 
 
 To walk the paths of truth, 
 And give unto thy waiting Lord 
 
 The ardor of thy youth. 
 
 Turn from the smiling valley, 
 
 And take the mountain way, 
 Which leads through darkness, storm, and cloud 
 
 To heights of endless day. 
 
 The mountain side is shrouded; 
 
 Thou canst not see how steep 
 The path, beside what precipice, 
 
 Or through what torrent deep. 
 
 But at its untried dangers 
 
 Shrink not nor be afraid; 
 Though hard the road for tender feet, 
 
 Yet be not thou dismayed. 
 
 For where the beetling cliff-side 
 
 With its black shadow lowers, 
 Of hope's own hue, to comfort thee, 
 
 Shall spring the Bluebell's flowers. 
 [109] 
 
And where thy way is roughest, 
 
 Across the broken ice, 
 Shall bloom for thee the flower of faith, 
 
 The snowy Edelweiss. 
 
 And where the shifting torrent 
 
 Has left its stony sands, 
 Above the stones God's messengers 
 
 Shall bear thee in their hands. 
 
 And if through fiery trial 
 
 Thine upward pathway lie, 
 One like unto the Son of God 
 
 Shall keep thee company. 
 
 There is no part so dreary 
 
 But One has gone before; 
 There is no desolating flood 
 
 But One has crossed it o'er. 
 
 There is no spot where fiercely 
 The mountain tempests beat, 
 
 But thou mayst trace upon the rock 
 The prints of bleeding feet. 
 
 There is no place where terror 
 With brooding blackness lies, 
 
 But One has pierced its loneliness 
 With the anguish of his eyes. 
 
 Fear not but he is with thee, 
 
 Doubt not that it is he, 
 Although the rolling mist shall hide 
 
 The face thou fain wouldst see. 
 [110] 
 
Wait till thine upward journey, 
 Thy long life-task, is done; 
 
 Wait till the highest mountain peak 
 Thy steadfast feet have won. 
 
 Then, on the mountain summit, 
 
 The heavy valley mist, 
 Parting, shall to thine unsealed eyes 
 
 Reveal the risen Christ! 
 
 [Ill] 
 
IN HIS TIME 
 
 When Israel clamored for a king, 
 
 And would not heed the prophet's word, 
 And would not hearken to the Lord, 
 
 Nor wait the blessing he would bring 
 In his own time, 
 
 Then God, the King they had denied, 
 
 Gave at their word their wilful prayer, 
 Grieved that the people of his care 
 
 Should from his leading turn aside 
 Time after time. 
 
 Ah, Israel ! faithless, slow to see, 
 Forgetful of the guiding Hand 
 That brought thee to the promised land, 
 
 That every gift hath given thee 
 
 In God's own time! 
 
 Lo ! distant from the clamoring horde, 
 
 Where Bethlehem's fair homesteads lie, 
 In sweet unconscious infancy, 
 
 Sleeps David, chosen of the Lord 
 For his own time. 
 
 How oft, like Israel, petulant, 
 
 With quick hot pulses which refuse 
 To wait God's purposes, we choose 
 
 Ourselves the good we dream we want, 
 Ourselves the time ! 
 
 [112] 
 
The black and heavy-hanging gate 
 
 Which shutteth out futurity 
 
 We may not lift; we cannot see 
 Where, just beyond, our Davids wait 
 The Lord's own time. 
 
 The tender is the Hand and kind 
 
 Which granteth not the prayer we plead, 
 The Voice that saith to hearts that bleed, 
 
 " The balm that healeth thou shalt find 
 In God's own time." 
 
 Our feet, that fain would step on flowers, 
 The desert sands tread wearily; 
 Fainting, " How long, Lord ? " we cry, — 
 
 But not as ours, oh, not as ours 
 Is the Lord's time ! 
 
 The thing we crave is still the thing 
 
 To which his gracious " No " he saith ; 
 But patient eyes, that wait in faith, 
 
 Shall in his beauty see the King 
 In God's own time. 
 
 Then let us not too clamorous 
 
 Upon our selfish wishes dwell, 
 
 Lest, as rebellious Israel, 
 The Lord in anger answer us 
 In our own time. 
 
 Perhaps our prayer is for a stone, 
 
 When he with bread would heap our board ; 
 [113] 
 
Then rather, like our suffering Lord, 
 Pray we, " God, thy will be done, 
 In thine own time ! " 
 
 He knoweth life, he knoweth death, 
 
 Our knowledge knoweth but in part; 
 Be still, be still, impatient heart, 
 
 Labor in hope and pray in faith, 
 
 And wait God's time ! 
 
 When, yearning for the victory won, 
 With importunity we pray, 
 " Thy kingdom come," yet let us say 
 
 With the same breath, " Thy will be done, 
 We wait thy time." 
 
 He that hath promised it shall bless; 
 
 What hath been spoken shall be done; 
 
 It shall not fail that David's Son 
 Shall rule the world in righteousness 
 In God's own time. 
 
 [114] 
 
MY CONFIDENCE 
 
 I know not what to pray for as I ought; 
 
 I know not how to pray; for when I try 
 To lift to Heaven my heart, my errant thought 
 
 Roves earthward still. But while I wait and sigh, 
 Within the veil the High Priest intercedes, 
 And ere I ask the Father knows my needs. 
 
 My sins are numberless, and nought my worth ; 
 
 Over my head are mine iniquities. 
 Too heavy were the burden ; held to earth 
 
 Beneath its load, I could not lift mine eyes. 
 But One there is hath borne my sins for me, 
 Himself, in his own body on the tree. 
 
 I cannot ever in my heart obey 
 
 The pure commandment of the Lord, nor keep 
 Perfect his perfect law a single day ; 
 
 The stain of earth on my torn robe lies deep. 
 But One hath clothed me in a spotless dress; 
 On his obedience rests my righteousness. 
 
 I know but darkly and in part my Lord, 
 With many a doubt, and many a wavering ; 
 
 But dully hears the sheep the Shepherd's word; 
 But dimly sees my soul her thorn-crowned King. 
 
 Yet standeth strong the sure foundation stone, 
 
 Having this seal, The Lord doth know his own. 
 
 Faulty and frail the love I bear to him 
 Who first with everlasting love loved me; 
 [115] 
 
Who quaffed the cup of sorrow, filled to brim, 
 
 For his love's sake, in dark Gethsemane. 
 But he who loved so much hath called me friend, 
 And having loved he loveth to the end. 
 
 No merit of my own, Christ, I plead ; 
 
 Not conquering faith, and not prevailing prayer ; 
 My soul hath utter emptiness and need, 
 
 I look to thee, and find my fulness there. 
 Thy word I trust, thy intercession claim, 
 Lean on thy strength, and speak to Heaven thy name. 
 
 [116] 
 
SAMUEL 
 
 (From the German of Karl Gerok) 
 
 Thrice at midnight did the Lord 
 
 Call to Samuel as he slept, 
 While at Shiloh faithful ward 
 
 O'er the holy ark he kept; 
 Thrice the boy to Eli hurried, 
 
 Asking, "What is thy behest?" 
 " Dreams the child ? " the old man murmured, 
 
 " Go and lay thee down to rest." 
 
 But when for the third time woke 
 
 Eli, and young Samuel saw, 
 Then, as by a lightning stroke, 
 
 Felt his soul a sudden awe. 
 " Go, my child, lie down and listen, 
 
 'Tis the Lord to thee appears, 
 List, and comes again the summons, 
 
 Cry, ' Lord, thy servant hears ! ' " 
 
 Then he goes to meet the Lord, 
 
 And he hears with wondering 
 From Jehovah's mouth a word, 
 
 Which in Israel's ears shall ring; 
 And the light of heaven's morning 
 
 Dawns in Samuel's childish breast, 
 He himself, as judge and prophet, 
 
 Israel's leader stands confessed. 
 
 Friends, to me it once befell, 
 When from sleep of soul I woke, 
 [117] 
 
As of old to Samuel, 
 
 So to me Jehovah spoke. 
 In a place of quiet, sudden, 
 
 On my heart in silence broke 
 Words of strange, unwonted meaning, 
 
 And I did not know who spoke. 
 
 Hastened I, and sought alone 
 
 How I might their meaning find, 
 Bowed at earthly wisdom's throne, 
 
 But she was like Eli blind, 
 Lay like Eli half in slumber, 
 
 Hardly heard my question through, 
 Said, " Thou makest idle clamor, 
 
 Thou wert dreaming, sleep anew." 
 
 Then I threw me down again, 
 
 Dreamed with mind and soul as well, 
 But the voice rang ever plain 
 
 Through the darkness, " Samuel ! " 
 At that silent hour of midnight 
 
 Flashed it like the lightning clear, 
 Man, it is the Lord who calls thee, 
 
 And I answered, " Lord, I hear ! " 
 
 And I asked no longer word 
 
 Said by man, but trembling then 
 Bowed I down before the Lord, 
 
 Dreamed I not nor slept again. 
 In the solemn hour of midnight, 
 
 God the Lord talked to his child, 
 Talked with words of heavenly kindness, 
 Tones unutterably mild. 
 [118] 
 
Dreadful words of warning spoke, 
 
 Which no mortal ruler might, — 
 Blessed words of promise broke 
 
 Through the clouds of earthly night. 
 What no human mouth has uttered, 
 
 What no human mind has thought, 
 Heard the heart whom God, Jehovah, 
 
 In the silent midnight sought. 
 
 [119] 
 
LOVEST THOU ME? 
 
 (From the German of Karl Gerok) 
 
 Lovest thou me? Simon, dost thou listen? 
 Thy Savior talks with thee beside the sea. 
 Lovest thou me ? The sunlit waters glisten — 
 Bethink thee well the word he asks of thee. 
 His gracious lips are questioning so sweetly, 
 His holy eye looks through thy soul completely, — 
 What is it, son of Jonas, troubles thee? 
 Lovest thou me? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? How bold wast thou declaring, — 
 Though all shall faithless be, yet will not I ; 
 And yet — and yet — hast thou forgot thy swearing, 
 When shamelessly thou didst thy Lord deny? 
 Is this the rock on which my church is founded, 
 The Peter whose profession loudest sounded, 
 Who would unto the death my follower be? 
 Lovest thou me ? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? I seek no loud profession ; 
 I only ask, — does love within thee live ? 
 Come, dry thy tears, poor child, and make confession, 
 Give me thy hand, thy heart repentant give. 
 bruised reed, no touch shall ruthless break thee, 
 smoking flax, no breath shall lightly shake thee, 
 If yet one glimmering spark of flame there be — 
 Lovest thou me? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? I have deserved it truly, 
 My yoke is easy and my burden light; 
 [120] 
 
Have not green pastures waited for thee duly, 
 When thou hast trusted to my guiding might? 
 Thy Shepherd, on the precipice that stayed thee, 
 Upon his shoulder tenderly that laid thee, 
 Who unto death went forth for love of thee — 
 Lovest thou me ? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? With patient hand and tender, 
 Give to my sheep the food I gave to thee ; 
 grateful penance for the heart to render, 
 That glows with love and gratitude to me. 
 Thyself hast erred, go forth to seek the erring, 
 Guide them unto the Heaven thyself art nearing, 
 Protect my flock from their arch-enemy. 
 Lovest thou me? 
 
 Lovest thou me? Then keep my lambs from stray- 
 ing; 
 My little ones I bind upon thy heart, 
 Still in the dubious land of twilight staying, — 
 Lead them unto the sun with patient art. 
 If thou dost love me, to my own be loving, 
 By service done unto my weak ones proving 
 The love thou bearest him who strengthens thee. 
 Lovest thou me? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? A hand shall gird thee rougher 
 Than thou hast known, and lead against thy will; 
 That which the Shepherd bore the sheep must suf- 
 fer, — 
 son of Jonas, wilt thou love me still ? 
 Love yet is love although the tempests lower, 
 [121] 
 
Love yet is love although the flames devour, 
 Love sings its praises on the cruel tree — 
 Lovest thou me ? 
 
 Lovest thou me ? — Thou knowest all, my Master, 
 My craven cowardice, my feeble zeal; 
 let thy heavenly fire burn brighter, faster, 
 Until my frozen heart its warmth shall feel ! 
 Write thou upon my soul the word thou speakest, 
 And I, of all who love thee, Lord, the weakest, 
 Will say, — I have denied, yet pardon me — 
 Still love I thee ! 
 
 [122] 
 
EEST AWHILE 
 
 With weak yet willing hand, dear Lord, I thought 
 To serve thy kingdom; when in heart I prayed, — 
 Thy kingdom come, full eagerly I sought 
 
 With hand to help. Alas ! my hand is stayed. 
 Stayed is thy hand and helpless, child of mine, — 
 Yet shall my light upon the nations shine, 
 My kingdom rule, my name from sea to sea 
 Among the heathen shall exalted be. 
 
 The world is out of joint and suffering, — 
 
 I thought to help to mend it. Ah, dear Lord ! 
 It was thy world I longed to help and bring 
 
 Into obedience to thy righteous word. 
 The world is mine, my child, I made it — I 
 Will help and that right early. Cease to sigh ! 
 Leave in thy Father's heart its suffering, 
 And hide under the shadow of my wing. 
 
 I wished to solace those who sit apart, 
 The little ones of earth, the poor, the sad, 
 
 To lay my heart beside another's heart, 
 And just a little moment make it glad. 
 
 Mine, mine the charge, my child, over my own ; 
 
 Their angels do behold me on my throne. 
 
 Withdraw thine anxious thought, and let thy heart 
 
 Dwell in the secret place of God apart. 
 
 So leave the kingdom to the King who knows, 
 
 And leave the world unto the God who cares, 
 The little ones to him who seeking goes, 
 [123] 
 
And tender lambs upon his bosom bears. 
 Come thou apart with me a little space 
 Into a lonely place, a quiet place, 
 Content to rest awhile, and for my sake 
 A happy spot for those who love thee make. 
 
 For I have other hands that stoutly bear 
 
 The weapons of my warfare, others who 
 In the world's battle front shall stand and dare, 
 
 And lovingly the world's hard service do. 
 But thou shalt sacrifice to me thy will, 
 Meekly obey my mandate to be still. 
 Who rest at my command as well deserve 
 As they that toil — who wait shall also serve. 
 
 [124] 
 
m HEE HEAET 
 
 When the day was done, 
 
 And the little one fed, 
 Mary laid her baby son 
 
 On his white bed. 
 
 Beside him, kneeling there 
 
 In the stillness, alone, 
 To the Heavenly Father's care 
 
 She trusted his own, — 
 
 Praying God would make the street 
 Smooth and clean and straight, 
 
 Down which those baby feet 
 Must travel late, — 
 
 Praying God would make light 
 
 The sorrowful load 
 Those hands should carry quite 
 
 To the end of the road, — 
 
 Praying God would take away 
 
 A full and bitter cup 
 That on one dark day 
 
 Should be lifted up. 
 
 With words not her own 
 
 So did Mary pray, 
 Fearing the end unknown 
 
 Of the dolorous way. 
 [125] 
 
With a troubled breast, 
 
 Not seeing light, 
 She went to her rest, 
 
 And pondered in the night. 
 
 She thought of three men, 
 
 And a tale they told, 
 And in her mind again 
 
 Counted the gold. 
 
 Of frankincense fine 
 
 She thought, and of a word — 
 That the child should be a sign, 
 
 And to her should come a sword. 
 
 But a shadow and a fear 
 
 Darkly folded her 
 When she tried to see clear 
 
 The meaning of the myrrh. 
 
 Then, trusting God to keep 
 
 Her Wonderful One, 
 Tired Mary fell asleep 
 
 Near her little son. 
 
 At the end of the night, 
 
 All her terrors fled, 
 Mary stood in fair day-light 
 
 Beside Jesus' bed. 
 
 Eyes starry after rest 
 
 He opened wide and smiled; 
 The mother lifted to her breast 
 
 Her own sweet child. 
 [126] 
 
CHRISTMAS JOY 
 
 Christmas joy ! The bells are flinging 
 
 Happy music on the air; 
 
 Unseen censers, lightly swinging, 
 
 Scatter fragrance everywhere. 
 Something the laughing infant sees 
 
 Of circling joy, this day has brought, 
 A-quiver on the burdened breeze. 
 
 We look on him with tender thought, 
 Remembering how our Lord did rest 
 A Babe upon a mother's breast. 
 
 Christmas joy! The air is thrilling 
 
 With a wonderful delight; 
 
 Love the fleeting hours is filling 
 
 With all pleasure, pure and bright. 
 This is the children's festal day; 
 
 To-day their sun may know no shade; 
 Who will not smile upon their play ? 
 
 Surely he smiles who holy made 
 All childhood for that, undefiled, 
 He dwelt on earth a holy Child ! 
 
 Christmas joy! Unto all people 
 
 Came good tidings once of yore. 
 
 Let the bells from every steeple 
 
 Tell the story o'er and o'er ! 
 Who would not be a child to-day, 
 
 To let the Christmas gladness in? 
 Who would not be a child alway ? 
 
 For who would Heaven's kingdom win, 
 [127] 
 
He as a little child must come 
 Unto a loving Father's home. 
 
 Christmas joy ! The stream of living 
 
 Overflows with effluence wide ; 
 
 So by taking and by giving 
 
 Blessedness is multiplied. 
 For God all gifts to us hath given, 
 
 Each sweetness that his creature finds, 
 The thrill of life, the thought of Heaven ; 
 
 And first and best this day reminds 
 How for supremest gift, indeed, 
 He gave Himself unto our need. 
 
 Christmas joy ! Its tide shall never 
 
 Find through all eternity 
 
 End nor bound. Peace like a river 
 
 Broadens to the shoreless sea. 
 For God all tears shall wipe away : 
 
 The aged and the sorrowing 
 May share the joy of Christmas day, 
 
 May hear old words their comfort bring : 
 Our griefs he bore; to light hath he 
 Brought life and immortality. 
 
 Christmas joy! The bells are ringing, 
 Tuneful throats their sound prolong; 
 Almost through the children's singing 
 We can hear the angels' song. 
 
 The tidings which the shepherds heard 
 Were unto us as unto them, 
 
 And for our saving Christ the Lord 
 [128] 
 
Was born that day in Bethlehem. 
 KCark ! 'Tis the heavenly host again, — 
 Peace upon earth, good will toward men ! 
 
 [129] 
 
COSMOS 
 
 Not hazard, but the guiding hand 
 
 Of regnant Providence controls 
 
 The destinies of motes and souls; 
 
 Earth's elements combine and cleave, 
 
 Their orbits fixed, their permutations planned 
 
 From the young world's primeval eve. 
 
 0, what a moment that which saw 
 Force become power, and matter brought 
 Under the sovereignty of thought, — 
 When inchoate star-dust, blindly whirled, 
 First learned obedience unto cosmic law, 
 And out of chaos dawned — a world ! 
 
 Life quickened the insensate heart, 
 Life, with its leaping pulse of change, 
 Its linked mutations, seriate, strange; 
 Each form, as comes its birth-hour ripe, 
 Grade above grade, in rhythmic counterpart, 
 Incarnates its ascending type. 
 
 Sprang mind, the crowning fruit of time, 
 
 The creature made creator, lent — 
 
 For earth's command, by Heaven's intent — 
 
 Divine volition, centre-stirred, 
 
 Dominant thought, and — poet of God's rhyme 
 
 Dowered with his attribute — the word. 
 
 From ultimate atom unto man, 
 So was the world's equation solved, — 
 [130] 
 
So coil on widening coil evolved, 
 In mystic curves of beauty wrought, 
 The involutions of creation's plan, 
 The convolutions of God's thought. 
 
 [131] 
 
FABLES OF ELD 
 
 I 
 The old mythologies, they say, are dead, 
 And borne to bygone Fantasy's pale spheres, 
 Low laid on conquering Reason's level biers. 
 Dead as the languages whose souls are wed 
 With poesy ! Cold as the arts that shed 
 From potent finger-tips, adown the years, 
 Ideal grace ! Mute as the poet-seers, 
 Whose songs are sung, whose deathless words are said ! 
 shadowy host, that dwell in purple state 
 Upon the mount of Beauty, — Phoebe mild, 
 And Aphrodite, whom the enamored seas 
 Reluctant yielded, Pallas fair and great, 
 Wing-sandaled Hermes, and Dionysus wild, — 
 Ye live instead, if ye but die as these ! 
 
 II 
 Surely the beautiful can never die ! 
 Still in the mossy shade of sylvan deeps 
 The circling dance Pan with the Dryads keeps; 
 Still from the rock is heard sad Echo's cry, 
 And Zephyr woos young Flora with a sigh; 
 Still on the mountain top Endymion sleeps, 
 And Cynthia kisses; still the Naiad leaps, 
 And turns her gleaming tresses to the sky; 
 Still in the sculptured wave Cyrene sits, 
 And sees from out her casement's lucent bar 
 Palsemon train his dolphin; still askance 
 Persephone eyes Hades as she flits; 
 Still Phoebus reins his coursers, and afar 
 Swift Iris, passing, tints the cloud's expanse. 
 [132] 
 
Ill 
 
 I think the poets of the infancy , 
 
 Of earth had looked upon the life that thrills 
 The insensate forests and the immobile hills, 
 Throbbing in throat of bird and leaf of tree, 
 Deep glimmering where the hollow surges be, 
 Smiling in mead, and trembling in the rills, — 
 The changing, swift, perpetual life that fills 
 With ebb and flow each quick variety 
 Of natural form, — had looked until they caught 
 The pulse of the creative touch that wrought 
 Life out of chaos, crowning and complete. 
 Thus, meeting God in nature, soon they thought 
 Nature was God, and in their blindness brought 
 Their rude and untaught worship to her feet. 
 
 IV 
 
 So near in their simplicity they crept, 
 Those earliest poets, to the inspiring wood, 
 The subtle melodies of field and flood, 
 And harmonies of cataracts that leapt; 
 The earth's mysterious influences swept 
 Over their souls, in glad receptive mood, 
 With so resistless power, — 'twere sometimes good 
 Our wilful feet should follow where they stepped. 
 For we, with truer knowledge, larger sight, 
 And wider outlook, whose experience 
 Has grasped the secret things of sea and strand, 
 May miss, perchance, through fulness of our light, 
 The faith that owned with childlike reverence 
 God's handiwork divine, though hid his hand. 
 [133] 
 
The world is old, the heart of things is new; 
 It changes not, although the seasons may; 
 It changes not, although the hills decay; 
 In ruin of water-spout and poise of dew, 
 It beats responsive still to him who drew 
 Order and action out of formless clay. 
 A thousand years are as a single day, 
 And life is ever living, truth is true. 
 The ages pass, the verities abide; 
 The ancient energies unswerving act, 
 And strike one hour of Nature's tireless youth. 
 Woven in the web of myth ran side by side 
 Fantastic fiction and primordial fact, 
 Ephemeral error and eternal truth. 
 
 VI 
 
 So much they saw, yet were so little wise 
 By vision given, those dreamers of the fair 
 Fables of eld! Of life divine were ware, 
 Quickening the world's heart, yet with holden eyes 
 Missed the Life-giver ; starred with deities 
 Beheld the verdurous plain and luminous air, 
 Yet found not God by seeking anywhere, 
 And paid an orphaned Nature sacrifice. 
 Let pass the phantoms! Holy ground is earth 
 For who will worship, but her holiest place 
 Was veiled unto that shadow-haunted band. 
 A world conscious of God has a new birth 
 Of beauty, flowers into diviner grace, 
 Held in the hollow of the Father's hand. 
 [134] 
 
THE ORIOLE 
 
 Hark ! do you hear that note, sustained and clear ? 
 
 Come, look into the top of yonder tree ! 
 
 No, higher — higher yet ! There, do you see ? 
 
 It is the Oriole, that's lighted here 
 
 To bring a bit of tropic splendor near, — 
 
 A vision of the warmth and brilliancy 
 
 Of southern coloring to you and me. 
 
 Now he is stirring! There's a gleam of sheer 
 
 Translucent flame, and he has flown away. 
 
 We welcome, do we not, our timid guest ; 
 
 Upon our tallest elm, if he will stay, 
 
 He and his mate shall hang their hammock nest, 
 
 Where the light zephyrs, that forever sway 
 
 The pendent leaves, shall rock their babes to rest. 
 
 [135] 
 
OCTOBER 
 
 The air is sweet and warm, the sky is blue, 
 The clouds are fleecy, and the fields are green 
 As early June; only the gaze serene 
 Of the far southern sun, the golden hue 
 That tints this drifting leaf, the distant gleam 
 Of reddened maple, and the breeze just stirred 
 By eager new-tried wing of forest bird, 
 Its heart a-flutter with the prescient dream 
 Of the long journey southward, — hints half -told, 
 Whisper not spring but Indian fall is here. 
 'Tis the late afternoon of the tired year, 
 When, like a wearied housewife, she may fold 
 Her hands to enjoy the rest and warmth and light, 
 Before close down the gloom and chill of night. 
 
 [136] 
 
THE BERMUDAS 
 
 Sweet summer isles ! The southern zephyrs blow 
 
 With odorous gale from balmy summer seas, 
 
 And warm lagoons murmur to shores that please; 
 
 The sapphire waves turn rose against the glow 
 
 Of coral sands, and cocoa palms bend low 
 
 O'er white shell cliffs; the sombre cedar trees 
 
 Are bright with redbird's wing; the whispering 
 
 breeze 
 Comes sweet from jasmine-scented bowers, where 
 
 grow 
 Tangles of aloe and palmetto. Bowers 
 Of beauty, breath of scent! In such a spot 
 The weary heart might find enchanted rest, 
 As thought-free as the oleander flowers, 
 Knowing the world is fair, but sad is thought, 
 And labor irksome — idleness is best. 
 
 [137] 
 
MOUNT WASHINGTON 
 
 Falsely, Mount Washington, 'twas said of thee 
 
 That thou dost stand a hard and soulless stone, 
 
 Immutable, gazing like Brahm upon 
 
 The world's uplifted eye and bended knee; 
 
 For thou art changeful as the summer sea, 
 
 And still dost answer Nature's varying tone, 
 
 The lights and darks across her features blown, 
 
 With quick response and gracious harmony. 
 
 Now draped in gloom of cloud, now veiled in mist, 
 
 Now wearing like a king right royally 
 
 The purple or the ermine, fair to see, 
 
 Now by the crimson lips of sunset kissed, 
 
 Down the sky's color gamut thou dost range, 
 
 And still the same dost seem each day more strange. 
 
 [138] 
 
DEAR ONES GONE 
 
 dear ones gone, ye yet abide by me; 
 Ye share each day what hap of life I meet, 
 "Wonted or strange, making the hope more sweet, 
 The fear less fearful. In the questioning sea 
 Or answering wood my heart in underkey 
 Your speech may know, or in the busy street 
 Is ware of soundless fall of following feet, 
 And finds heart-comfort in such company. 
 So, being gone ye stay, being dead ye speak ! 
 With silent voice of fairer joys ye tell 
 And fuller life than these I know in part. 
 Ye do live twice who were for life too meek, — 
 Once in the bowers where saints celestial dwell, 
 And once in the rose-circle of my heart. 
 
 [139] 
 

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