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WITHOUT A NAME 
 
 anD a)tl)et Poems 
 
 BY 
 EDWARD BLACKMAN 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 THE WHITAKER AND RAY COMPANY 
 
 (INCOEPORATED) 
 
 1901 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two CoHES ReceivEO 
 
 )UN. 25 1901 
 
 Copyright entry 
 (JtSLASS ^ XXa N». 
 
 COPY a 
 
 f6'i 
 
 
 Copyright, 1901, 
 By Edwaed Blackman. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 Without a Name 5 
 
 Varied Leaves 33 
 
 Shadows \ .:.-.. . .• 35 
 
 Rest-Land 38 
 
 Snowing at Night 39 
 
 Glimpses -iO 
 
 To the Class of '96 42 
 
 Fancies 45 
 
 The Old Year 47 
 
 Old Man Impulse 49 
 
 The Members of the Year 58 
 
 Kissed his Frown away 60 
 
 To-Night 62 
 
 Blotted Pages 64 
 
 Toys 66 
 
 The Crowd 68 
 
 The Last Member 73 
 
 The Senior's Dream 76 
 
 Do NOT Hide thy Tears ... 79 
 
 In Dreamland 82 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page 
 
 The Hermit's Early Morning Reverie 85 
 
 Do NOT Tremble 92 
 
 The Statue of Folly 93 
 
 To 96 
 
 A Sonnet 98 
 
 September 99 
 
 Smiles 100 
 
 My Gderdon 102 
 
 The Way of Life 106 
 
 A Voice Returned 108 
 
 The Sand-Lily 110 
 
 Two Hands 112 
 
 Do be Jolly 115 
 
WITHOUT A NAME, 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS. 
 
 *> 
 
 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 WHO has not seen, at some exalted hour, 
 A youth approaching there the throne of 
 fame; 
 But, e'er he reached it, stricken in his power. 
 And laid within his grave without a name, 
 While men of evil deeds, devoid of shame, 
 Still kept to Earth and tried to find no truth, 
 
 Nor wished a good and only sought to maim? 
 Ah, world, why then is this? — poor, blameless 
 
 youth ! 
 Has not God taken him to shield him from thy 
 ruth? 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 You smiled to watch him from your humble 
 height, 
 Slow climbing up the rocky gorge of fate ; 
 As toiling upward through the murky night, 
 
 Fair dawn beheld him fallen 'neath his weight. 
 Ah! then you moved to help him, but — too 
 
 late: 
 The word was spoken ; we had lost a man — 
 
 Yes, that and more — a beacon at the Gate, 
 That would have signaled others as they ran, 
 And lit the road where walks a heaven-aspiring 
 clan. 
 
 So well it is that some one's friendly voice 
 
 Should sing of him, who ne'er had time to tell 
 The wondering world the pictures of his choice. 
 
 O muses kind ! come, help me sing it well ; 
 
 Pour in from every deep and wooded dell 
 Thy conscious strain ; for nature had decreed 
 
 This anxious youth should cripple to his cell ; 
 So more the worth, and more the crying need 
 To lift his virtues higher and praise each little 
 deed. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Yet, how can I, with this poor lisp of mine, 
 Whisper the thought to find a willing ear? 
 
 When that the hurrying dragon, o'er the hne 
 Of kindliness, is crowding, through the year, 
 Soul after soul— I cannot make them hear. 
 
 This is the song of one forsaken youth : 
 
 Why should they care for this memorial tear? 
 
 Why should they pause beneath the dragon's 
 tooth, 
 
 To listen to my dirge, where life 's a dirge in truth. 
 
 Still comes the thought that some one moving by 
 May, through a gain of time before this day. 
 
 Have this spare moment, and will not deny 
 The soothing voice, and sympathetic sway 
 Of listening kindly to what memories say. 
 
 Old memories and sad, unsung so long! 
 But I can only briefly sing and play 
 
 Those only which must rise up into song ; 
 
 Those only that may touch and still will not pro- 
 long. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Into the vast beyond he seemed to gaze, 
 Seeking a light of wliich he caught tlie gleaai, 
 
 And yet so faint and clouded with such haze, 
 It left a doubt along its misty beam. 
 Glooming his life, yet filling it with dream ; 
 
 Until the real became unreal ; unreal 
 The shroud of truth, that would soon seem 
 
 A life in resurrection, when the peal 
 
 Of high-rung rousing bells should waken it to zeal. 
 
 world ! in life there is so much to learn ! 
 
 world ! in death there is so much to lose ! 
 What scarcity of wisdom can we earn — 
 
 God ! with but so little time to use ! 
 
 And what a dangerous coffin we may choose ! 
 There on a cliff I see the morning glow, 
 
 And on the vapory verge an ended cruise — 
 From clouds an angel — Satan from below — 
 Out portals and the gulf they race, and neither 
 know. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 How dread the deep and dark vincertainty ! 
 
 How peacefully sweet the faith in something 
 real! 
 
 So real because of perfect sympathy — 
 Because of perfect trust in what we feel 
 Is simple truth we never can conceal. 
 
 What wild regret, to heap a sinner's load 
 And follow on till sudden stars reveal 
 
 A lone, forsaken shepherd's wrecked abode, 
 
 Upon the crumbling steeps of purgatory's road. 
 
 So he would ponder o'er the creeds of life, 
 
 Seeking divine within their formal word ; 
 Still were the doubts in demon numbers rife, 
 Crowding the bridge and through the darkness 
 
 heard. 
 Until confusion whispered, " All have erred." 
 With soaring mind, he 'd rise above it all, 
 
 And, looking down, behold great truths inferred 
 From those same doubts — and still the sacred 
 
 call 
 Comes from the peaks of truth, not where their 
 shadows fall. 
 
10 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 He lifted up a pleading face to Him — 
 A single, lorn appealing of despair — 
 
 When hope of life was growing pale and dim, 
 As if he thought that death was hardly fair. 
 Then settled back upon his pillows there — 
 
 He gasped and sighed, and quivering, breathed no 
 more. 
 Ah, tearless eyes, to see that vacant stare. 
 
 Where once a hope was shining at the door ; 
 
 Where oft the noble tears came pouring o'er and 
 o'er! 
 
 Bitterest tears ! — when at some careless thought. 
 As life was slowly shifting toward the bar, 
 
 The "Might Have Beens " his sadness haply 
 caught. 
 And spread them o'er the blue, so clear and far, 
 When climbing up, as some forgotten star, 
 
 A sorrow starts upon the deep blue plain. 
 And shadowing clouds come rolling in to mar 
 
 The lovely sight and prove it all in vain : — 
 
 Sad tears ! regretful tears ! that fall as scalding 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 11 
 
 Strange thoughts ! when, on some darkened eve, 
 
 The angry battle clouds did scud acrost, 
 We tried to make our shadowed minds believe 
 Some lingering hope remained — as though we 'd 
 tossed 
 A ringing coin for life and death — and lost. 
 Yet turned the coin with trembling fingers up 
 
 To view its hidden side. Alas ! the cost 
 Seemed darker than before ; the last sweet sup 
 Of life had passed his lips and left an empty cup. 
 
 A sufferer at dawn of life, he laughed 
 
 E'en while a sting had pierced his tender frame ; 
 Or lisped a baby prattle as he quaffed 
 
 From out a bitter fiagon without name. 
 
 Doomed from his birth to right a sickly shame 
 That dropped beside some ancient road of wrong, 
 
 Where he, entangled in its coil of blame, 
 Must drag it to his weary doom along — 
 Along this time-cursed highway, walled with 
 maniac song. 
 
12 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Full many a slip and many a treacherous fall 
 
 Along this path would blind his soul with dark, 
 Wherein are shrieks ; and wretched demons call 
 
 From out the gloom ; and ghostly Terrors bark ; 
 
 And underneath, the white skull, cold and stark, 
 Of some lost traveler, meets his tender palm ; 
 
 And fleshless fingers on the blackness mark 
 One hellish portent, smoothing into balm. 
 With dangerous f)romises of rest and definite 
 calm. 
 
 But out of this would struggle to his East 
 The first liquescent lights of glimmering morn, — 
 
 Far from the lapping shore where storm has 
 ceased 
 To break upon the crags of life forlorn — 
 And leave his land to wave its leaves of corn. 
 
 Thus from the mire and ghostly habitude, 
 He 'd lift his tired spirit, waste and worn ; 
 
 Cast off the touch of chilling fingers rude. 
 
 And, rising, bid his heart to take a merrier mood. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 13 
 
 I mind him, maimed, so often left behind 
 In childish play, and hear his cr3dng " Wait," 
 
 Then I with others, trying to be kind. 
 
 Would pause a little 'neath impatient fate. 
 
 But soon some onward shout — too late — too 
 late — 
 
 Would waver in upon the boyish brain, 
 And we would leave him, left without a mate ; — 
 
 His urgent pleading cry and mental pain, 
 
 Forgotten in our joy as summer winter rain. 
 
 But when the joyous impulse ran its race. 
 
 Some kinder heart would 'long his path return 
 To find him weeping silently — his face 
 Bedewed with hopeless tears, but such that 
 spurn 
 This one's forgetful, selfish made, concern, 
 Ah, years ! slipped through the waiting noose of 
 Time — 
 Flashed golden through and on life's flowered 
 Urn — 
 I think from out the nightly angel rhyme, 
 I see that pleading Wait and hear its chorus 
 chime. 
 
14 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Kind visions helped him as he limped along, 
 
 Intent, perhaps, on some pure boyish theme. 
 Contented now, he 'd hum some simple song. 
 
 And conjure up his pretty toys in dream ; 
 
 And, dreaming, glide upon a rippled stream. 
 Out through a happy land, where, strong of arm. 
 
 He 'd lightly touch the oar, and see the gleam 
 Of grace in fairy forms, and feel the charm 
 Of Naiad voices in their chorusing alarm. 
 
 The river Hope, with banks of evergreen. 
 
 Is lovelier still within the brain of youth ; 
 Eed roses by its lapping shore are seen. 
 
 And fairy dimpled beings and no ruth, 
 Among the higher leaves of conscious truth, 
 He pulls the Naiad boat with painless oar ; 
 
 Peers through the crj'stal tide from cushioned 
 booth 
 To find an underworld with open door, 
 So beautiful and rare, 'tis no Plutonian shore. 
 
WITHOUT A mXAME. 15 
 
 Thus borne apart from cramped reality, 
 Beyond the dangerous verge of troubled seas, 
 
 He would forget the world's partiality 
 And win a share of life's immortal ease, 
 In dreaming midst a fairyland of trees. 
 
 Then to, the silvered haze along the dale 
 At early morn, would press the hidden keys 
 
 Into a silent song ; the piping quail 
 
 At sunrise strike the beauteous chords that never 
 fail. 
 
 So passed aloof those lorn prevenient days — 
 Life's village school — where dawn of knowledge 
 broke 
 Through morning mists, with ever-brightening 
 rays 
 That lit the mountain passes and awoke 
 A million voices that arose and spoke 
 To him a hidden recitation kind, 
 
 Filled to the last with wisdom to provoke 
 The highest thought from out his teeming mind 
 And flash its brightness forth to aid the stumbling 
 blind. 
 
16 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 And yet 't was not the deeds, but prophecy, 
 That gave so fair a promise ; as the moon. 
 
 When, on across a sultry summer sky, 
 Now hid behind dark clouds, gives notice, soon 
 In silver fringe to bring a lovely noon. 
 
 So had that curtained lamp in flashes shone, 
 All sudden through a tattered rift, a boon 
 
 To soul- wrecked eloquence — apart — alone 
 
 Was hidden — as the blackened edge was frin- 
 ging—gone. 
 
 Remembrance keen of one triumphant hour 
 
 Would serve to show a dazzling glimpse of all — 
 The Class Farewell. He rose in kingly power 
 
 And won applause of silence — great and small ; 
 
 A wondering spirit whispered through the hall ; 
 A wonder burst from out those weary days 
 
 Of silent suffering ; crowded to the wall. 
 All rose to ponder ; went their devious ways ; 
 But not till overflowing hearts had left their praise. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 17 
 
 God knows that many a lash was wet that night, 
 As flashed again the image of that boy, 
 
 Alone upon one shrunken limb of right, 
 To strive in pain to paint another's joy. 
 Whilst a low moan did constantly annoy. — 
 
 Our lives are letters, scribbled o'er with pain 
 And printed over this a laughter coy ; 
 
 We read the laugh aloud ; reserve the stain, 
 
 For better light of tears within our shadow lane. 
 
 Yet once again the mind oblivious wake 
 
 To echoes drawn from slumbering days of yore. 
 'T was then he made the conscious spirit shake. 
 
 The whitest thoughts that echo evermore 
 
 Awoke the deeds of patriotic lore. 
 How startled was the rustic mountaineer 
 
 And city guest at freedom polished o'er ! 
 That long had lain within its wintry bier, 
 Unburnished and untouched — now washed with 
 many a tear. 
 
18 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Alas ! The while he touched our very hearts, 
 The gaunt hound, Sorrow, cringing at his side, 
 
 Would lap his hand in those triumphant parts. 
 To let him know his faithfulness, denied 
 By transient ripples in the flowing tide 
 
 Of praise and shout and clasp of friendly hands. 
 Be sure he bid the cur to crouch and hide ; 
 
 But its fidelity forever stands 
 
 To howl and moan upon the ghostly seashore 
 sands. 
 
 High was the spirit w^hich did bear him on 
 
 To action greater than his strength withstood, 
 For he would conquer when his strength was 
 gone; 
 His Would in life was stronger than his Should. 
 Bright were his fires that burned for earthly good, 
 And yet to him were torture and distress ; 
 
 High were his passions in life's brotherhooi, 
 And yet in him, consumed without redress 
 The joys and hopes and loves within his wilder- 
 ness. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 19 
 
 How painful, too, the sting of Cupid's arrow — 
 How tipped with rank and poisonous despair ! 
 
 And yet at first, how covered up this sorrow 
 With new impassioned flowers, unaware 
 Of needle thorns beneath the fancy fair. 
 
 He plucked them leaf by leaf, — each petaled 
 bloom ; 
 No friendly breeze could waft a warning care, 
 
 Till every cup had poured its sweet perfume 
 
 And stinging pain revealed the wounding thorns 
 of doom. 
 
 As round and round the lamp at eventide 
 The wanton miller risks a burning grave. 
 
 And circles near and nearer, undefied ; 
 So did his reason circle as a slave 
 Around his love without a hope to save. 
 
 Those smiles were smiles of pity, not of love — 
 Despised compassion on a glittering glave 
 
 He reached a hand and found an empty glove, 
 
 And drooped, as do the wings of some lost weary 
 dove. 
 
20 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 He drooped — but roused again with closer clasp, 
 And better brace, that keeps us from the slip ; 
 
 Set firm his soul and struggled in the grasp 
 Of strong remorse — that gladiator's grip 
 Stern effort conquered; had him on the hip. 
 
 And for a moment stood in high disdain ; 
 Then gathering all his force beneath the whip 
 
 Of Godly resolution and the pain. 
 
 He flung bis victim clear and turned to laugh 
 again. 
 
 You who have felt the all-inspiring thrill 
 Throb to the heart, go rushing to the brow, 
 
 And crackle till the fire consumes the will : 
 Just here as you have learned another's vow 
 Has sealed a weary doom forever, now, 
 
 With quivering feature, totter to the gate, 
 And pass alone to your dark chamber ; bow 
 
 Your dizzy head until the hour is late 
 
 To think of his deep woe ^— then rise to bear your 
 fate. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 21 
 
 Long closed and still are mortal wings in death. 
 
 While lifted out to fan the breath of God, 
 They wearied, drooped, and sank for want of 
 breath 
 
 From flight so vain above a swampy sod. 
 
 Yet if beneath some high inspiring nod, 
 He sings, what gentle music flows to him ! 
 
 All filled with magic strikes the tuning rod, 
 So grandly chorded with the Seraphim, 
 While I — ah me! — reach out with tears — too 
 faint and dim. 
 
 Too faint and dim ; for when the bounden tongue 
 Seeks to express that, which the heart would 
 feel. 
 
 Vain arms that through the city's mists are flung. 
 Resemble this, when in a drunkard's reel, 
 So wildly reached, man totters to his heel ; 
 
 Grasps at the ivy clinging to a wall, 
 But tears a tattered leaf. So, though w^e kneel 
 
 With every pleading muse, or call and call 
 
 Across the silent seas, we stumble to our fall. 
 
22 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Deep moved as thought within a higher sphere — 
 Not understood — and that 's the life of all — 
 
 The far-off music wafted to us here 
 
 We can but hold an earward hand to call 
 But one sweet strain our own ; we tiptoe tall 
 
 To peer above an image wall of tune : 
 Beneath our feet the sod sinks, and we fall 
 
 Down to the foot, Despair, where fancies swoon, 
 
 Or sing a faint remembrance, dying to a croon. 
 
 Speak to the winds where phantom ships are sail- 
 ing— 
 
 Perhaps upon that gilded prow 's the face 
 That left before, with drooping wings a-trailing, 
 
 Our farewell tramp beside this hallowed place. 
 
 The snow was falling, flake by flake, apace ; 
 The wind of March was blowing bleak and chill ; 
 
 The stealthy wheel had left a deepened trace, 
 While climbing up the ghost-encumbered hill — 
 A frost e'en at the grave, we left him to His will. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME. 23 
 
 Lie on, base creed, with eveiy beating breath, 
 Tliat with an ancient tongue of withering hate, 
 
 Would claim a death or torture after death 
 For such as he, who bravely bore the weight 
 Of burdens worse than torture to the Gate. 
 
 May sound the heart of such a slanderous tongue, 
 And paint a cruel picture of his fate : 
 
 This only from the heavenly roof is rung ; 
 
 Thus only, from their mouths I could have sadly 
 sung: 
 
 O kindred soul within your throbbing city ! — 
 
 With wings that flutter upon a pool of hell — 
 Lift pleading eyes and send a shriek for pity ; 
 
 But you shall not receive it : on you dwell 
 
 Eternal torture as the Records tell. 
 Fall back with pufSng lips acurl in pain. 
 
 And that loved brow ridged deeply, or aswell 
 With bursting vessel : falls the scalding rain : 
 And so renew your strength, and so renew your 
 strain. 
 
24 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 What! — this, I plead, and there a God of love? 
 
 Untrue ; the follj^ buried in the shame 
 Will point a warning finger up above 
 
 And say : Unguided malice is to blame 
 
 For sending such a messenger of flame 
 On out among the stars to wander here. 
 
 A Godly voice of pity must proclaim : 
 No judge of man shall rule a throne of fear, 
 But reign with parent love and whisper word of 
 cheer. 
 
 Yet this fair youth, though virtuous and clean, 
 Had never learned to tread the narrow trail, 
 
 Where old interpretations haply glean 
 A misty light, far up a shadowed vale, 
 Which keeps retreating as their sj^irits quail. 
 
 White ships aglow sailed o'er his shadowed main ; 
 White truth of love had served his Holy Grail ; 
 
 White stars of hoiJe lit up his darkest plain ; 
 
 But wrinkled creeds of old had printed not their 
 stain. 
 
WITHOUT A XAME. 25 
 
 Think you that God would crumple up his 
 thought 
 
 And thrust it forth into a filthy phrase? 
 Soar higher, you mortal, surely fraught 
 
 With puffed importance, blind with gloomy 
 haze 
 
 Of hoarded superstition ; lift your gaze 
 Toward the high-moving worlds and there to scan 
 
 The aged suns — the words of broader ways. 
 Come, people them with wonder, if you can, 
 To feel the sense of God and live a larger man. 
 
 And wander not so wanton o'er the range 
 And down some deep Yosemite : His sigh 
 
 Is broad, not moved to malice or revenge 
 Upon His suffering babes, because they cry 
 For love, and, not receiving, wander. I 
 
 With you and every one hold but the signs 
 In each, of some deep purpose, or a lie 
 
 Is resting in each word of nature's lines ; 
 
 And all we see and hear is mocking our designs. 
 
26 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Stoop not unto the groveling dust to seek 
 
 The truth in some weak chronicler of time — 
 The history of petty deeds and weak 
 
 Vain slanders on a Worthiness sublime. 
 
 Unchain the raging mind to every clime, 
 And let it wander with the elements — 
 
 The atom and the world, and hear the rhyme 
 Of universal poetry's defense, 
 In rousing soldier song from out the battlements . 
 
 Move with the surge of seas, upon the shores, 
 Beyond the myriad gaping gulfs of space. 
 
 Wing on your wandering flight to where the 
 roars 
 Of mightier winds than ever blanched the face 
 Of vain and transient mortal, sweeps the place. 
 
 Where sea-wide rivers roll and glance 
 Between the league-high foliage, and the grace 
 
 Of wondrous trees and beauteous plants ; 
 
 Where live the inconceivable inhabitants. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME 27 
 
 Perceive the broad, deep possibilities, 
 
 In thought and deed, of one all-powered mind. 
 Take hold of kinder, mightier sympathies. 
 
 And leave this cramping prejudice behind. 
 
 Come, follow not the halting and the blind. 
 Unto the verge — precipitous despair ; 
 
 Build you a noble mansion, where you find 
 A sweeping vista onward, and prepare 
 To help to work and win — we do not know nor 
 care. 
 
 Too faint and dim. Now down the morning wall 
 
 The golden line steps softly to the lawn, 
 And burns with hope the level sweep of all ; 
 Then dims, and toward the evening side steals 
 
 on. 
 There glows in paling blushes and is gone — 
 Gone into dusk and into night's alarm — 
 The mournful whip-poor-will, whose note is 
 drawn 
 As, unto life or unto death, a charm — 
 In dreams of dreams I fall, and clasp a dreamer's 
 arm. 
 
28 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 In dreams of dreams, and through it all it seems 
 The voice of him I praise will talk to me, 
 
 To-night or else to-morrow night, in dreams. 
 A voice speaks from the shadow : " You will see 
 Him pass this way — and singing merrily." 
 
 So in a trance, I peer out with delight, 
 In trust, and hope, and all sincerity, 
 
 Until the dawn is dropping with its light. 
 
 The bars of morning, and I wait another night. 
 
 Truth breathes upon the walls down there, 
 Far to the east, beside my bowered gate — 
 
 Truth in gold from out the evening air, 
 Read from above, by watchers on the wait. 
 And laid upon the even scale of fate. 
 
 Now floods the stilly air with spirit song ; 
 The happy echoing stars resound, elate ; 
 
 Athwart the moon I see the shadowed throng 
 
 With laughter pass and pass, and troll the troop 
 along. 
 
oq 
 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 I lean far o'er my castle window case, 
 
 And listen with a trembling ear intent, 
 For one white-draperied fancy stooped apace. 
 
 And whispered : " He is passing." On she went. 
 
 E'en as I scan the dome-walled firmament. 
 With every nerve asiartle, flits a form 
 
 Aslant the golden disk. Up through a rent, 
 Torn through a rolling portent of a storm, 
 I see his spirit soar and lead the beauteous swarm. 
 
 How well I know that highway leads to heaven, 
 
 Though just beyond the rolling rifted cloud, 
 Was built a road, afoam with risen leaven. 
 And, close beside, a demon in his shroud. 
 Who swings aloft a sign, in letters loud. 
 With sulphurous meaning: "HO! THIS WAY 
 TO HELL ! " 
 There for a moment pause the heavenly crowd, 
 To seek for footprints on the seething swell. 
 Then all with laughter pass, each singing: "All 
 is well." 
 
30 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Dream flies with morn. The wind goes rushing 
 by; 
 The gum tree tops and cottonwoods bend after ; 
 A flock of bluebirds float their passage high, 
 Till all too fast, they follow on with laughter. 
 The broad Umbrella lets the straight winds waft 
 her, 
 Or writhes within a whirl's enfolding arm ; 
 The old house cracks, with many a warping 
 rafter. 
 Reminding me with half a ghostly charm 
 Of times when other ears could hear the swift 
 alarm. 
 
 I close my door, as comes a stormy eve, 
 
 And seek the gaze within this picture-frame ; 
 The world's unlit conditions seem to grieve 
 For light beyond our weakly human flame. 
 And in this blind beginning of the game, 
 We cry to one who played it to the end. 
 Although the bout was short and still and lame. 
 Withal to teach and help us to contend — 
 To drive our courage on to battle and defend. 
 
WITHOUT A NAME- 31 
 
 And in these firm and grace-set features, I 
 
 See strength and courage, as to brave a storm— 
 The stern head poised, as if to win or die. 
 And large bold eyes, yet flashing deep and warm 
 
 With sympathies, if seen in honest form. 
 How meet it is that I should turn to these 
 To ask one fearful question of the swarm 
 Of queries that I dare not try to please, 
 Though just to hear them echoed brought eternal 
 ease. 
 
 An answer to that question, I have waited 
 
 These years, to-night expectant of reply, 
 And as the gloom is gathering, sore belated, 
 
 A sharp distress would ask the reason why. 
 
 Hush ! — in the wind I hear a stifled sigh — 
 As if to part a pathway in the dark — 
 
 I write on fast — 'twill surely not deny — 
 Alas ! I am mistaken — and a spark 
 Of hope is smothered by a voice that bids me 
 hark: 
 
32 WITHOUT A NAME. 
 
 Come, lift your wearied eyelids from the page, 
 The lashes wet with a hopeless dash of tears : 
 The poet, prophet, saintly priest, or sage 
 May only ask a question of the years, 
 And never get an answer to their fears. 
 Peer through the gloom, out o'er the wharf of 
 
 time — 
 Just hear the water lapping at the piers — 
 The roar ! the roar ! but nothing else sublime — 
 All 's black, so come away and let the waters 
 rhyme. 
 
VARIED LEAVES. 
 
 33 
 
 VAEIED LEAVES. 
 
 WAFTED hither by the breeze, 
 Where I sit beside the stream, 
 From the gnarled old autumn trees, 
 They are falling in a dream. 
 
 Some are floating in the air. 
 More ambitious than the rest : 
 
 Lifted higher, wavering there, 
 Slowly downward to their nest. 
 
 Some are floating on the stream, 
 Like a soul's unconscious glide, 
 
 'Neath the shadow and the gleam. 
 To the music of the tide. 
 
 Some are lying round in heaps 
 
 In the hollows of the vale, 
 As a deadened life that sleeps 
 
 After feeble efforts fail. 
 
34 VARIED LEAVES. 
 
 But across the stream I see, 
 Caught upon some lilies white, 
 
 One lost leaf of vanity 
 Basking in the fair sunlight. 
 
 It attracts the gaze, and holds 
 Rapt attention from my eyes ; 
 
 For it seems that it unfolds 
 Half my own realities. 
 
SHADOWS. 35 
 
 SHADOWS. 
 
 TPVOWN I sit this lonely evening 
 -'-^ By the fireside here within, 
 With the fire that just is kindled 
 Creeping upward out and in : 
 
 And the firelight falling on me 
 Throws a flickering over all, 
 
 While the objects all around me 
 Cast their shadows on the wall. 
 
 Here I sit, before me, staring 
 At the pictures on the wall, 
 
 All my soul within comparing 
 With the shadows' rise and fall. 
 
 As they waver back and forward, 
 Up and down, and to and fro ; 
 
 So the feelings now within me 
 Rise and fall and ebb and flow. 
 
36 SHADOWS. 
 
 Like the sad, uncertain firelight 
 Are the hopes I dare to own ; 
 
 Like the shadows 'cross the pictures, 
 'Cross these hopes are shadows thrown. 
 
 And I think, and muse, and ponder : 
 Ponder long, at times despair : 
 
 Ponder o'er the world's ambitions 
 And the fruit that 's hidden there. 
 
 Now I 'm borne by fancy's transport 
 Up the mount of care and toil ; 
 
 Leave behind the blackest shadow. 
 Think no more of world's turmoil. 
 
 But those shadows, dark and gloomy 
 
 As they are upon the wall. 
 Spread across my pleasant vision 
 
 Like a black and dreaded pall : 
 
 For the fire has smoldered lower — 
 Scarce a gleam the coals allow. 
 
 Covered o'er with smothered ashes: — 
 Nearly all is shadow now. 
 
SHADOWS. 37 
 
 There I see before me looming 
 
 Still that mount of fame's turmoil : 
 
 Shining heights above the darkness 
 Only reached by constant toil. 
 
 Though the fire may burn yet brighter, 
 
 Still the shadows ever fall ; 
 Till the lamp above is lighted 
 
 They '11 keep flitting 'cross the wall. 
 
38 REST- LAND. 
 
 EEST-LAND. 
 
 TTAVE you not longed for spectral lands of 
 * * yore, 
 Flooded with mellow light, down by a sea, 
 With waves that never break tumultuously. 
 
 But lap with low laughter the quiet shore, 
 
 Where spirits pass who passed here years before, 
 Young and content, and echo restfully 
 The laughter of the rippling waves to me — 
 
 As music from another life passed o'er? 
 
 Have you not dreamed of hope to gather here 
 The choice of yours beside you from the strife — 
 
 Oblivious quite of malice, greed, and fear — 
 Unto a summer dawn of peaceful life. 
 
 To feel the pulse and hear the rhythmic flow 
 
 Of what we cannot see — we cannot know? 
 
SNOWING AT NIGHT. 39 
 
 SNOWING AT NIGHT. 
 
 9 f~T\ WAS in past years, but brought to memory 
 J- yet- 
 
 Under the roof of home, we hear the rain 
 Soft pattering from the dark against the pane, 
 
 And know the world is dripping, dripping wet. 
 
 So close beneath the roof our couch is set. 
 No note within that musical refrain 
 But soothes the ear with lullabies of rain. 
 
 And calming sleep the years cannot forget, 
 
 Comes nestling down ; but when we wake again. 
 We hear no sound of dripping from the eaves, 
 
 Save muffled drops that fall but now and then ; 
 
 Yet mind a rustling, as of far-off leaves. 
 Or of night's curtain shifting, soft and light, 
 And know the snow is falling through the night. 
 
40 GLIMPSES. 
 
 GLIMPSES. 
 
 COME out and away from the city's breath, 
 My friend, before the night ; 
 Come up into the hills with me 
 And watch the eagle's flight. 
 Mount, mount to the highest peak 
 
 And see him higher still ; 
 And then look back on the crowded street 
 And think just what you will. 
 
 Now sit you down upon this stone 
 
 And feel the cool, proud winds, 
 As fresh as those to the tropic cheek 
 
 That blow through the tamarinds. 
 Peer, peer through the simmering heat 
 
 Far out o'er the scorching plain, 
 And feel again that towering heights 
 
 Are not at all in vain. 
 
GLIMPSES. 41 
 
 Now hie away to the woods with me : 
 
 We '11 follow this deep ravine 
 Till wild with a snort the startled buck 
 
 Goes lunging down the scene. 
 Crash, crash through the underbrush ; — 
 
 Far down the vale is he ; 
 The sun has slipped from the western hill 
 
 And you are alone with me. 
 
 It had snowed all night, 
 
 And the bushes drooped ; 
 And the great tall trees 
 
 With their shoulders stooped, 
 Like some old man 
 
 With his whiskers gray, 
 Awaiting his call 
 
 And the judgment day. 
 
 I saw some birds 'neath the bushes sit 
 With their feathers fluffed as to weather it ; 
 
 And one sweet bird on a post-crown sat. 
 And cheeped and cheeped on account of that. 
 
42 TO THE CLASS OF '96. 
 
 TO THE CLASS OF '96. 
 
 SO rise and fall the billows of our lot : — 
 When flowers bloom and wither, and the 
 frost 
 Of winter in the blazing sun of summer is forgot, 
 You, Class of '96, will then have tossed 
 Aside the rules of knowledge, and have lost 
 Their many pleasures, but a life step gained. 
 Then as the fleeting days of fate are crossed 
 By hope and doubt and fear — 't is thus ordained — 
 You '11 turn a backward thought on school days 
 that have waned. 
 
 The tolling bell as 't marked the study hour, 
 
 And yet again, as 't told the time of play, 
 Became a joyous sound, as from its tower, 
 
 Unmuffled tones pealed out from day to day ; 
 
 The martial lines, drawn up in strict array. 
 And soldier march became a hidden pride : 
 
 The beating drum that timed the steps so gay : 
 All these sweet charms to you will then have died ; 
 Will seem the greater loss when they are so denied. 
 
TO THE CLAUti OF '96. 43 
 
 Not to forget those dear old books : we read 
 
 And honored them, and dived in darkness deep 
 To unknown depths, and raised as from the dead 
 
 Those priceless pearls, which, gathered, serve to 
 keep 
 
 The memory fresh when we are laid to sleep. 
 Then, too, those smiles of various meanings true : 
 
 Of friendship, honor, yea, Cupid's doubtful peep 
 To seek a heart's mate e'er his bow he drew. 
 And yet, still yet, withheld to send his arrow 
 through. 
 
 In that broad scope of recollection dear. 
 
 Perhaps some sad remembrance softly steals ; 
 At mention of a heartfelt name, a tear 
 May speak to that kind heart that feels 
 Of time, when clear were heard those measured 
 peals. 
 Another face, that 's now beneath the sod, 
 
 Beamed back the light the kindled soul reveals : 
 The name still clings with friends who onward 
 
 plod; 
 The soul has flown above, and nobly works with 
 God. 
 
44 TO THE CLASS OF '96. 
 
 So rack the brain and sternly knit the brow ; 
 
 Thread on, friends, this labyrinthian way. 
 I would not grieve that some lost member now 
 
 Has taken from this field his aid away. 
 
 What power drives, we may not know to-day ; 
 And yet to-morrow glows some wondrous lamp. 
 
 Relit from eons by this hand of clay, 
 Lighting the world, and, too, the onward tramp 
 Of universal armies, through the ages damp. 
 
FANCIES. 
 
 45 
 
 FANCIES. 
 
 OH ! bow swiftly pass those visions, — 
 Like some fleeting swarm of birds ; 
 Pass tbose fancies and illusions, 
 Far too transient for our words. 
 
 Thougb we seek by struggling efforts, 
 
 So to catch some fairy strain, 
 We get nothing for that striving 
 
 But our hearts dashed full of pain. 
 
 Still they come, lit up with brightness : — 
 We shall trace them down alone— 
 
 Ah ! but now their light has faded, 
 And these words are dead as stone. 
 
 Like some cold, white marble statue 
 
 Looking deathly on and on, 
 They are left as faint reminders 
 
 Of the something that is gone. 
 
46 FANCIES. 
 
 And the heart turns cold and shivers, 
 Fearing : — wondering as time rolls, 
 
 If these dim, still, passing visions 
 Are not transmigrating souls. 
 
THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 47 
 
 THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 THE wind blew cold — 
 The year was dying, 
 The year hoar and old 
 On his death-bed was lying. 
 
 His thin drawn cheek 
 Looked ghastly and white ; 
 
 He scarcely could speak 
 On that deep, still night. 
 
 So deathly and chill, 
 
 As if broken-hearted, 
 He gasped with a will. 
 
 And his last breath departed. 
 
 But list to those sounds ! 
 
 'T is the ringing of bells ! 
 'T is the barking of hounds 
 
 And the tolling of knells ! 
 
48 THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 The night's people shout ; 
 
 The whistles are blowing ; 
 The churches cry out 
 
 To the New Year bestowing 
 
 Their praise and their hopes 
 For the joy he is bringing, 
 
 As onward he gropes 
 Till in age he is clinging 
 
 To life, like the one 
 
 Who gives his last breath 
 And all he has done 
 
 To the new in his death. — 
 
 The old year is dead ; 
 
 The new one is born ; 
 And all the great dread 
 
 Has passed with the morn. 
 
OLD MAN IMPULSE. 49 
 
 OLD MAN IMPULSE. 
 
 JUST around the bend from our house, 
 In a hut there by a roadside, 
 Dwells an old man, David Impulse. 
 Bent and feeble, gray and shaken, 
 Is this man of many follies ; 
 Yet he toils in fearful struggle 
 'Gainst the wolf that 's near the doorstep : 
 Wields the axe and falls the timber ; 
 Splits it well in slender stove-sticks ; 
 Piles it high in tiers well corded ; 
 Toils and groans, and waits for buyers. 
 Has no food as yet to live on — 
 Only that which neighbors give him. 
 Cooked upon a fire that 's builded 
 On the ground beneath the heavens. 
 
 Many stories he can tell you 
 Of his life, with all its follies. 
 Of his boyhood days so joyful ; 
 Of his youth so wild and roving ; 
 
50 OLD MAN IMPULSE. 
 
 Of his travels and adventures ; 
 Till so warming with his subject 
 He forgets the world around him ; 
 He forgets he 's old and feeble ; 
 Lives again his life of impulse ; 
 Treads again the path of boyhood : 
 Tells that once alone he wandered 
 From a fond and loving mother ; 
 From his dear home to the ocean ; 
 Of his sailing and its wonder. 
 Then a tempest came, and shipwreck, 
 And upon a raft of splinters 
 Floated he with just five others. 
 Day by day they floated onward, 
 Till fierce hunger mastered manhood ; 
 And the boy's flesh young and tender 
 Crossed the wild thoughts of the others. 
 When he heard their eager whispers, 
 Caught their tiger-looks of fierceness, 
 Would have plunged into the water, 
 But they caught and lashed him firmly 
 To the splintered raft to share him. 
 But just then the heavens thundered, 
 And the waves dashed high in anger, 
 Till from off the buoying timbers 
 
OLD MAN I yr PULSE. 51 
 
 Then each man was washed and swallowed 
 By the great-mouthed waves of ocean. 
 Then a great ship found the outcast, 
 Bruised and faint, and him attended. 
 Till at last with eager longing 
 He was homeward-bound to mother ; 
 But he found she had been buried 
 In the old churchyard of silence. 
 
 To Peru his story takes you ; 
 To the land where bold Pizarro 
 Found the country ruled by Incas ; 
 Found it rich in gold and silver ; 
 Found it, conquered took the Inca : 
 Ruled himself in pride and splendor, 
 Till his comrades, waxing jealous, 
 Slew him in his house of plunder. 
 Oh ! this struggle, blindly, madly. 
 Just for gold, is sure to murder 
 All the soul and heart and body 
 Of each man that has no other 
 Hope and aim and tiust in living. 
 
 Now, he tells you, in that valley 
 Are a people easy-going, 
 
52 OLD MAN IMPULSE. 
 
 Who, not rich in beads nor wampum, 
 Live a life of sweet contentment ; 
 For the cause of life within them 
 Grows upon the trees around them. 
 There in forests grows the orange 
 And sweet peaches and bananas, 
 And the bread-fruit grows in cluster. 
 
 Once he loved and wooed a maiden 
 In this happy, prosperous valley ; 
 Wooed and won a beautiful maiden. 
 They were wed, and started westward 
 On the mule-backs of the mountains, 
 O'er the wild and rugged Andes ; 
 W^ound their way among the ledges, 
 In and out among the ledges. 
 Till a sound like thunder heard they 
 Eumbling downward from the passes. 
 Just across their trail it thundered : 
 Struck the mule the maid was riding : 
 Struck and carried them far downward 
 To a death so dread and ghastly 
 That he stood in sickening horror : 
 Stood and gasped and groaned in horror. 
 Then he searched with eager longing — 
 
OLD MAN IMPULSE. 53 
 
 Searched in vain to find her lying 
 In some cavern. She had fallen 
 Far beyond the earthly finder, 
 Lost to all except her heaven 
 And the ministry of angels. 
 Long he wandered, bent with grieving : 
 But in time the wound grew over, 
 Buried deep beneath the striving 
 Of the world with all the others. 
 
 Then he wandered into Chili, 
 Down into the mines of silver. 
 Into mines of hoarded copper, 
 Where no light of day does enVer ; 
 Where they work from morn till nightfall 
 And from nightfall to the morning, 
 Hardly ceasing : only stopping 
 For their food and sleep so needful. 
 While the others take their places. 
 Thus they dig with pick and shovel 
 By the light of lamp or candle ; — 
 Dig from out the earth's recesses, 
 For the use of all the nations. 
 Copper, silver, in abundance. 
 With what burdens some are loaded 
 For the ease of other shoulders ! 
 
54 OLD MAN IMPULSE. 
 
 These are ever, ever toiling 
 
 Without thought or dream of pleasure : 
 
 Toiling onward in the darkness, 
 
 Like so many moles of shadow ; 
 
 Working brain out into muscle : 
 
 Working soul out into body. 
 
 Till there 's naught but clay to molder. 
 
 Once a slave had worked for freedom 
 In these mines of hoarded silver : 
 Worked for twenty years for freedom. 
 Till at last the days were numbered. 
 Till at last the day was numbered. 
 And he clambered up the ladders, 
 With a heart so full of throbbing 
 That it stopped short as the sunlight 
 Kindled up his hopeful features. 
 And he fell back in the darkness ; — 
 Gained his freedom at the portals — 
 At the portals of the heavens, 
 By the ministry of angels. 
 
 Next he sails upon the high seas 
 With a crew of sturdy smugglers. 
 You the listener ; he, the captain 
 Of this valiant band of rovers, 
 
OLD MAN IMPULSE. 55 
 
 Tells a story of adventure ; 
 Tells a story you must hearken : 
 
 With two ships of secret treasure 
 Boldly sailed these rough freebooters, 
 When, on looking far to westward, 
 Where the great red sun was setting, 
 There across its disk was flitting 
 One black vessel, then another — 
 Still one more — a threatening number. 
 Well he knew, this captain smuggler, 
 Of the portent in those vessels ; 
 But a braver band of outlaws 
 Never sailed a stormy ocean 
 Than this rover and his comrades. 
 Wheeling then toward the westward. 
 Straight toward the coming warships, 
 Sailed the wild crew into battle. 
 Soon the booming of the cannon 
 Roared across the surging waters, 
 Till the echoes from the heavens 
 And the echoes from the ocean 
 Met and fought another battle. 
 Never stopped they for the slaughtered 
 Till they reached the belching warships ; 
 Till they lashed the ships together. 
 
56 OLD MAN IMPULSE. 
 
 Fought they then with sword and cutlass, 
 Hand to hand and man to man, 
 There they fought in desperation, 
 Thrusting, beating, cutting, stabbing, 
 Moaning, groaning, howling, cursing. 
 There upon the decks they struggled ; 
 But the smugglers were the stronger ; 
 Back the others slowly wavered, 
 Till, exhausted, they surrendered. 
 And the pirates were triumphant. 
 But the battle was not ended : 
 On the captured bleeding vessel. 
 Sent for safety, was a fortune — 
 Was a hoard — a million dollars. 
 Soon a rover found it, held it 
 High in air, and shouted madly. 
 Then a comrade, waxing jealous, 
 Drew his sword and thrusting killed him ; 
 Then like tigers at a slaughter. 
 Like the beasts of Rome's arena. 
 Losing all their sense of honor. 
 Closed the comrades in a struggle : 
 For the smugglers and the captured 
 Mingling in this sordid mel^e. 
 Fought like wildcats on the mountain. 
 Fought and died to gain a fortune ; 
 
OLD MAN IMPULSE. 57 
 
 Fought and died till all had perished ; 
 On the decks were dead and bleeding, 
 Save alone the smuggler captain. 
 There he stood in wondering horror, 
 Gasping, panting, at the masthead. 
 With the riches in his clutches. 
 Wet with blood, each bond was ruined. 
 Long he gazed upon the money. 
 Then around upon his comrades. 
 What is this to me? he shuddered; 
 For, my God ! I cannot use it. 
 And the law would sure reprove it. 
 So he gazed and deeply pondered 
 On the havoc spread before him, 
 And to free a demon notion. 
 Tossed the burden on the ocean : 
 And the battle there was ended. 
 
 With the ending of the battle. 
 As he told it in excitement ; 
 So the old man sank with faintness. 
 And I know not of the future 
 Of the vessels that were captured. 
 As these stories now are ending, 
 So the old man's life is blending 
 Into death, where it is wending, 
 Slowly, surely, onward flowing, 
 To another world is going,- 
 
58 THE MEMBERS OF THE YEAR. 
 
 THE MEMBEES OF THE YEAR. 
 
 THERE are pleasures in each member- 
 In each member of the year, 
 From the nebulous November 
 On to August brown and sere. 
 
 From those stark winds in December, 
 Blowing bleakly through the trees ; 
 
 To those soft sighs in September, 
 Whispering peace among the leaves. 
 
 And the blown snows coming later, 
 Whirling downward through the air. 
 
 Stir the soul to action greater — 
 Full of strength and not despair. 
 
 So the February weather 
 Sings in through its wintry arch ; 
 
 There 's a tone of music ever 
 In the romping winds of March. 
 
THE MEMBERS OF THE YEAR. 59 
 
 True, we start at April thunder, 
 When the lightning hands perform 
 
 As though tearing hills asunder — 
 Grumbling with their load of storm. 
 
 Yet a few such startled hours 
 
 They are folded, all is still ; 
 Lo ! the happy springtime flowers 
 
 Are out peeping on the hill. 
 
 And the May-time, blushing May-time ! 
 
 All the poets sing of thee — 
 'T is the love-time and the play-time, 
 
 And the world is glad and free. 
 
 Then the summer, with its tickets 
 
 For the concert nights of June, 
 With the whip-poor-wills and crickets 
 
 And the katydids in tune. 
 
 As in this, so in its follows, 
 Through the harvest, gone too soon, 
 
 They are singing in the hollows, 
 Just beneath the mystic moon. 
 
60 KISSED HIS FROWN AWAY. 
 
 KISSED HIS FROWN AWAY. 
 
 A LITTLE boy and little maid 
 Were on the beach at play, 
 He wore a frown, for a dashing wave 
 
 Played havoc with its spray ; 
 
 But the little maiden tiptoed up 
 
 And kissed his frown away. 
 
 The years passed on, as years will do, 
 When Cupid came their way ; 
 
 But a quarrel rose, as quarrels will — 
 His brow was ashen gray, 
 
 When loving hands drew down his face 
 And kissed his frown away. 
 
 So on they went through ripening years 
 Till auburn locks were gray, 
 
 When trouble came — a growing debt — 
 Without a cent to pay. 
 
 But she was there, with her gray hair. 
 To kiss his frown away. 
 
KISSED HIS FROWN AWAY. 61 
 
 Then came the time in withered age, 
 
 His life was but delay ; 
 His frame was racked with cruel pain, 
 
 While all the world was gay ; 
 But she stooped o'er with hidden tears 
 
 And kissed his frown away. 
 
 And when they meet on lawns of ease 
 
 Upon some hallowed day. 
 If frowns there are beyond this life, 
 
 With him they 'd never stay ; 
 With heavenly grace she 'd lift her face 
 
 And kiss his frown away. 
 
62 TO-NIGHT. 
 
 TO-NIGHT. 
 
 YOU would speak to me to-night 
 In a confidential tone : 
 You would tell me of a fight 
 In your bosom all alone. 
 
 You would tell me of a fear 
 That was long since realized, — 
 
 Something said to bring a tear 
 That was formally despised. 
 
 You would speak to me to-night 
 While the clock is striking eight? 
 
 You should speak to me to-night : 
 Pretty soon will be too late. 
 
 Pretty soon, and comes the hour 
 Deepened slumber shadows me ; 
 
 Pretty soon, and human power 
 Could not listen sensibly. 
 
TO-NIGHT. 63 
 
 You would speak to me to-night 
 While the shadows gather round? 
 
 Speak of some long-cherished right 
 That would add to love profound? 
 
 Just a word, — I know it 's small ; 
 
 But relief to burdened hearts — 
 Little tones that gently fall 
 
 With a thousand loving arts. 
 
 You would speak to me to-night 
 
 Of anticipated fear? 
 It might bring to you a light 
 
 And relieve me of a tear. 
 
 Just a word that soothingly 
 Brings some penitent delight. 
 
 Do not keep it ; for I see 
 You would speak to me to-night. 
 
64 BLOTTED PAGES. 
 
 BLOTTED PAGES. 
 
 DARKLY o'er these varied leaves 
 That I 'm turning one by one, 
 Fall the shadows of the trees, 
 Playing fortune with the sun. 
 
 As a faint reluctant breeze 
 Sways the branches to and fro. 
 
 On the pages through these trees 
 Spots of sunshine come and go. 
 
 Then anon some happy thought. 
 Now revealed within the light, 
 
 Fades, beneath the shadow caught, 
 As a traveler in the night. 
 
 Fades and leaves the anxious heart 
 
 In an agony of pain : 
 While the tears of hopeless art 
 
 Fall as silently as rain. 
 
BLOTTED PAGES. 65 
 
 Ah ! this serious book of life, 
 
 With its calendar of years, 
 Is a volume full of strife 
 
 Sadly blotted with our tears. 
 
 When we turn its last lorn pages, 
 With a trembling hand to save : 
 
 Though we 're numbered 'mong the sages, 
 We are tottering o'er the grave. 
 
 Still forgive ; there is some spark 
 
 For a sad soul sure to be ; 
 Like a lighthouse in the dark 
 
 For the lost ship on the sea. 
 
 These are teardrops — that is all — 
 Some of joy and some of pain — 
 
 That on every page must fall — 
 Fall as silentlv as rain. 
 
66 TOYS. 
 
 TOYS. 
 
 I READ, reread, and read again, 
 Till filled with varied lore 
 I tossed each book quite rudely down ■ 
 
 My thoughts dashed on before ; 
 I read of Burns and angel songs. 
 
 Of goblins in dark lanes ; 
 Of nightly meetings of young hearts 
 Upon the tumbling plains. 
 
 I read of lovers at the gate. 
 
 Whose souls hung on a sigh, 
 Or yet of nearer parting kisses 
 
 Beneath a silver sky ; 
 I read of kings and queens, and all — 
 
 The brilliant pageant comes — 
 And then I turned to other kings — 
 
 The heroes of the slums. 
 
TO YS. 67 
 
 Till in a labyrinth of thought 
 
 I tossed them all aside, 
 And wondered if I lived to die 
 
 Or lived on when I died : 
 I wondered if the world was made 
 
 To cut a caper on, 
 And whether we are playthings 
 
 Of others that are gone. 
 
68 THE CROWD. 
 
 THE CROWD. 
 
 FAR with a glimmering, 
 Silently simmering, 
 Comes a faint light. 
 Spreading out, flashing in. 
 Morning comes dashing in 
 After the night. 
 
 Rising from slumber then, 
 Worldly encumbered men 
 
 Pass to their work : 
 Onward so busily, 
 Often so dizzily — 
 
 Daring not shirk. 
 
 These so unfortunate ; 
 Those so importunate ; 
 
 Silently move : 
 Some so unsteadily ; 
 Rising yet readily 
 
 Recklessness prove. 
 
THE CROWD. 69 
 
 Other men fortunate — 
 Meanly extortionate, 
 
 Loudly exclaim. 
 Smiling so fraudfully, 
 Living not laudably, 
 
 Speak the proud name. 
 
 Some in their humbleness, 
 Silent and mumbleless. 
 
 Striving along : 
 Each in his narrow plain — 
 Living not all in vain — 
 
 Sings a sad song. 
 
 Hopeless, unspirited, 
 Sadness unmerited. 
 
 Clouding their lot. 
 Spurned for their unbelief ; 
 God pities their grief — 
 
 He notices not. 
 
 Some seek the heights of fame- 
 Hunting for mountain game 
 
 On to the end : 
 Striving on fatefully. 
 Living ungratefully — 
 
 Try to ascend. 
 
70 THE CROWD. 
 
 Seeming superior ; 
 Really inferior — 
 
 Stealing their way : 
 Thoughts so abhorable ; 
 Hearts so deplorable, 
 
 Holding their sway. 
 
 Mocking divinity, 
 E'en to infinity, — 
 
 Heavenly dressed : 
 Praying so mournfully ; 
 Sadly and lornfully — 
 
 Outwardly blessed. 
 
 But should we look again 
 Into the souls of men. 
 
 Seeking divine. 
 Changed then the scene would be- 
 Heartlessness we should see 
 
 Dressing so fine. 
 
 Then to the gutter go. 
 Pull back the shutter low — 
 
 What do you see? 
 Sights that would shock the soul 
 Now on the vista roll — 
 
 Mad as the sea. 
 
THE CROWD. 
 
 71 
 
 Pitiful sanity ! 
 Blackest profanity ! — 
 
 Mournfully lost ! 
 Fooled by a worldly kiss, 
 Hiding the serpent's hiss, — 
 
 Led to the cost. 
 
 Thu 8 have the spirits passed 
 O'er the mind world aghast, 
 
 Varied as leaves 
 Sighing in forest trees, 
 Swayed by the summer breeze — 
 
 God-given leaves. 
 
 Mistily, dreamily. 
 Mystical seemingly 
 
 Vanish in shrouds : 
 Vanish and come again 
 Millions of different men — 
 
 Veiled up in clouds. 
 
 Wonderful world of dreams ! 
 God ! O, how strange it seems ! - 
 
 Life on a star. 
 While all around about 
 Wheeling their circuit route 
 
 Millions afar ! 
 
72 THE CROWD. 
 
 Gemming the sky at night, 
 Lighting the angels' flight 
 
 'Mong all the worlds. 
 Each with its spirits rife, 
 Earth-like perhaps in life, 
 
 Strivingly whirls. 
 
 Think of it wonderingly, 
 Not of it blunderingly — 
 
 Space-wide and deep ; 
 Then as the glimmering 
 Dies faintly simmering, 
 Lie down to sleep. 
 
THE LAST MEMBER. 73 
 
 THE LAST MEMBER. 
 
 THE ship has landed and they 've gone- 
 Gone out into tlie world 
 With the first faint streaks of dawn 
 And their flags of hope unfurled. 
 
 Gone on down the streets of time 
 Like some morning walkers grim ; 
 
 Gone on with their hopes sublime — 
 Hopes that must and will grow dim. 
 
 And while their footsteps linger still, 
 
 With a solemn echoed tone, 
 Each upon his separate will — 
 
 Let us cast one life alone. 
 
 Who can tell as with the years 
 Onward sweeps the tide of life. 
 
 If with joy or if with tears 
 He shall look back on the strife? 
 
74 THE LAST MEMBER. 
 
 When adown some far lone isle 
 Of the great ancestral hall, 
 
 This last member for a while, 
 Gazing on the pictured wall, 
 
 There shall see some honored face — 
 His companion long ago — 
 
 With its features full of grace. 
 Looking smilingly below. 
 
 Then the recollections come 
 Of the school-days of their youth ; 
 
 And he thinks in language dumd 
 'T was the fairy time of truth. 
 
 He remembers then of old 
 
 The old school-bell's joyous tone ; 
 
 And the names that were enscrolled 
 Long ago upon the tomb. 
 
 Of that proudest day of all. 
 
 When eleven students stood 
 In the great and crowded hall 
 
 And were crowned for earthly good 
 
THE LAST MEMBER. 75 
 
 Of the later days that came, — 
 They were crowned with other things : 
 
 Not with thorny wreaths of fame, 
 But with honor wisdom brings. 
 
 Then he thinks of after years, 
 When the raven locks turned gray ; 
 
 And he breaks down into tears, — 
 He must go as well as they. 
 
76 THE SENIOR'S DREAM. 
 
 THE SENIOR'S DREAM. 
 
 A SENIOR round him drew his robes of uiglit 
 To soothe his little troubles of the day. 
 A moment's silent thinking, then a light 
 From dreamland, loomed the darkness far away ; 
 And vanished real and came the vision play 
 Of fairies, on the vista of a dream. 
 
 Ah, such a dream ! so soft, so still, so gay, 
 Stole on the panoramic pictures. 'T was a theme 
 Beyond a poet's pen, so mystic did it seem. 
 
 A dainty hand a sparkling curtain drew ; 
 
 A pale, soft, silver light fell on the scene ; 
 A thousand evergreens shone bright with dew, 
 
 That twinkled as a million stars ; a sheen 
 
 Of golden light fell slowly in between. 
 So that one side was white, the other gold. 
 
 An avenue where twined a path was seen. 
 And at the farthest end a castle old. 
 Where, from its portals then, a hundred voices 
 rolled. 
 
THE SENIOR'S DREAM. 77 
 
 And listening, the silvery voices sent 
 To him the sweet and phantom music. Then 
 
 Each wavering echo stealing onward went 
 Slow trailing down some deep and quiet glen 
 To distant sleeping silence, where and when 
 
 Each follow came, and dying, sank beside 
 Its phantom sister, speaking ne'er again. 
 
 Even as hopes these transient echoes glide, 
 
 That have forever risen, and as surely died. 
 
 Then by the unseen wings of rising hope. 
 Into the castle hall he 's swiftly borne, 
 
 Where every hoarded sorrow did elope, 
 And every happy pleasure did adorn. 
 
 And doubt was left a-sleeping, all forlorn. 
 
 The spacious hall in brilliant luster shone 
 In gold and white — a paradise of morn. 
 
 And still the subdued choruses unknown 
 
 Fill up the corridors with sweet angelic tone. 
 
 So, wandering long the pictured galleries 
 With fays and sylphs and fairies, that attend. 
 
 He nears a white-robed company, and sees 
 A marble throne, in which all colors blend ; 
 And o'er it hung a curtain to defend, 
 
THE SENIOR'S DREAM. 
 
 But now drawn back, that to his eye revealed 
 The queen of fame, who bade him to ascend, 
 And while triumphant bells are pealed 
 He 's crowned a king of thought and wakened as 
 he kneeled. 
 
DO NOT HIDE THY TEARS. 79 
 
 DO NOT HIDE THY TEARS. 
 
 DO not hide thy heart-felt tears from me, 
 Sweet friend of mine — those tears that 
 seem divine — 
 Speak them — shed them e'er the sea 
 
 Rolls in upon the sanded line, 
 Washing prints of love from off the sand 
 
 Of two hearts one ; or welded into thine ; 
 Or into mine, whilst wandering on the strand, 
 'Neath gleam of hope and doubt of fears. 
 Do not hide thy tears. 
 
 Drawn from eve the angel lights away — 
 Then swelling to our hearts from depths un- 
 known — 
 
 Sweet depths where fairy lovers play 
 With Naiad ropes of feeling all alone — 
 
 They rise — the saddened melancholy tears — 
 And speak for thee to God in undertone ; 
 
 And He would send another, sharing fears 
 
 With thee ; and kindly says : — "It more endears, 
 Do not hide thy tears." 
 
80 DO NOT HIDE THY TEARS. 
 
 Thoughts that wake the very depths of me — 
 The feeling thoughts, and chase them to my lips 
 
 To lisp them in a childish song of thee, 
 Are pleading with humble lingual slips 
 
 To share thy pain and sorrow evermore. 
 And why wouldst thou, with finger tips 
 
 Just resting in my palm, deny what I implore, 
 
 Forgetting we are friends through all the years? 
 Do not hide thv tears. 
 
 And why wouldst thou, as sadly to express 
 
 In those far dreaming eyes of thine, 
 So innocent of guile, defending, not confess 
 Thy bleeding heart, and place thy hand in mine, 
 Saying bravely: I will try and from this hour 
 
 No hidden coil of weeping shall entwine 
 This throbbing heart — all trembling in its power. 
 These secret drops commingle with thy fears ; 
 Do not hide thy tears. 
 
DO NOT HIDE THY TEARS. 81 
 
 As gliding happy waters go laughing to the sea 
 
 To clasp their mother ocean in embrace, 
 Yet rise again and mingle tears with thee 
 
 And her, and all, and all their lives retrace ; 
 So shedding thine with mine, a crystal stream 
 Of happy tears goes gliding to another silent 
 place. 
 The happier for company in dream ; — 
 Goes singing into heaven ; sacred tears, loving 
 tears ; 
 
 Do not hide thy tears. 
 
82 7,V DREAMLAND. 
 
 IN DREAMLAND. 
 
 IN dreamland's fairy ship of state I rode ; 
 Away through misty realms it took its way ; 
 A world where mind is king its vista showed. 
 Where fancies with their own sweet visions play ; 
 And as the gauzy sails so light and gay 
 Were spread before the happy breeze of thought, 
 All worldly thoughts of sorrow sped away ; 
 Each pang dimmed , fainter grew, and died , or sought 
 The air and fled as small dark clouds the wind 
 has caught. 
 
 'Midst softly flowing voices and sweet tune, 
 
 The ship has paused and I in dream explore 
 This paradise of dreamland that too soon 
 
 Will vanish in the mists for evermore. 
 
 O happy land ! with fairy bordered shore, 
 And spreading grassy lawns and fountains clear, 
 
 Where naught but peace and pleasure do out- 
 pour, 
 O, would that all the world did thus appear ! 
 And I with thee could dwell, not knowing worldly 
 fear. 
 
IN DREAMLAND. 83 
 
 Oh ! would that I, entranced as I am here, 
 
 Might rove at leisure 'cross thy shaded plain ; 
 Might wander o'er thy level glades so dear, 
 And dwell within the castles of my brain. 
 Upon thy fairest dimpled lawn I 've lain, 
 Surrounded by the graceful evergreen ; 
 
 All round about the perfumed fountains rain. 
 Where shooting high their purest crystal sheen, 
 The air with fragrance fill and show a beauteous 
 scene. 
 
 Near-by my visionary castle stands — 
 
 A jeweled palace reared by fancy sweet. 
 There 's none so pure in all the earthly lauds, 
 
 So grand ! in structure, form, and size complete. 
 
 The massive pillars stand with molding neat, 
 Are set with precious diamonds here and there : 
 
 The steps are gold, the floors a silver sheet 
 And gemmed with pearls and other jewels rare, 
 While upward flights there show like heaven's 
 golden stair. 
 
84 ly DREAMLAND. 
 
 Sweet Cupid fays play round me o'er the green, 
 
 Or flutter in and out the palace ways, 
 Or trip fantastic figures down between 
 
 The long-drawn shades to please me in their 
 plays. 
 
 But fairest, best of all, upon my gaze : 
 My vision ideal of face and form and soul 
 
 Floats through the perfumed air to me and stays 
 To lave my dreamland hour with floods that roll 
 O'er each and every pain that seemed beyond 
 control. 
 
 But back again the ship must take its flight : 
 
 Yes, swiftly back to this real world of ours : 
 We leave behind the pictured theme so bright 
 To wend our worldly way of toilsome hours. 
 And who would not have sought those blissful 
 
 bowers 
 Where thought made happiness the pleasing 
 
 theme? 
 O, who would not tread fields of earthly flowers 
 In preference to the barren plain ; 't would seem 
 'Twere better than to weep and wail, then why 
 
 not dream? 
 
THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 85 
 
 THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING 
 REVERIE. 
 
 SO high among the mountains here, 
 With God and me alone, 
 The wintry days will soon appear 
 And death in tears bemoan. 
 
 Remembrance of the times gone by 
 
 Make plain the ones to come : 
 The often changed and frowning sky, 
 
 That speaks in language dumb ; 
 
 The pelting rain, the shifting snow ; 
 
 The chilling blasts so drear ; 
 The leafless trees, the branch's flow. 
 
 Will tell that winter 's here. 
 
 Perhaps to-day the sky is clear. 
 
 With not a mar in view ; 
 And you would think that not a tear 
 
 The heavens ever knew : 
 
86 THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 
 
 And yet the morrow brings a cloud, 
 
 Which slowly larger swells ; 
 And, shading all beneath its shroud, 
 
 A coming storm foretells. 
 
 And e'er the light breaks in again, 
 
 A drizzling rain sets in. 
 When, rousing from my slumber then, 
 
 I listen from within. 
 
 The patter, patter overhead, 
 
 The dripping from the eaves, 
 Makes cozier still my cozy bed, 
 
 Which not a drop receives. 
 
 The din, the din upon the tin ; 
 
 The dripping, dripping down ; 
 The gurgle, gurgle creeping in 
 
 From gullies running down. 
 
 The trickle in the tins so placed 
 
 To catch the water pure ; 
 The splatter of the running waste 
 
 My dreamy feelings lure. 
 
THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 87 
 
 I sleep and wake, then dream again, 
 
 And wait the coming day, 
 Till, mingling with the drowsy rain 
 
 My thoughts unconscious sway : — 
 
 Sway back to other rainy nights, 
 
 When life was mostly joy ; 
 I listened to these keen delights, — 
 
 Such music to a boy. 
 
 Sway back to seek another dawn — 
 
 Another by my side — 
 Alas ! dear brother, thou art gone. 
 
 And part of me has died . 
 
 Those dawns we woke to hear the rain, 
 
 Soft pattering on the roof ! 
 Before the day had lit the pane. 
 
 Or pierced the night's black woof. 
 
 Those dawns, when underneath, we knew 
 
 That others slept, or woke 
 To hear the cock's first call anew, 
 
 Who to the morning spoke. 
 
5 THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 
 
 But round the darkness still hung low ; 
 
 And softer fell the rain, — 
 Still softer — softer — into snow 
 
 That brushed the window pane. 
 
 Alas ! Three graves upon the hill 
 
 Have gulped those others down ; 
 And I alone await God's will 
 
 Without a smile or frown. 
 
 For one drear winter passed to March, 
 Then stopped, dead still, in pain, 
 
 And wailed in through its snow- wrapped arch 
 With sorrow, sleet, and rain. 
 
 And e'er time reached the next December, 
 
 Another mound wad made. 
 Just two then met the dying ember, 
 
 And saw the ashes laid. 
 
 Still yet one other flowering May — 
 
 Just near the perfect June — 
 The one soul left me dropped away 
 
 Into the mystic swoon. 
 
THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 
 
 So, brother, father, mother gone, 
 I strayed on through the years, 
 
 Passed many a sad and wakeful dawn 
 With heart-felt silent tears. 
 
 Out in the rain ! Out in the rain ! 
 The leaves drip on their graves ; 
 And yet their slant roofs drip no pain ; 
 . 'T is only mine that craves. 
 
 But some kind murmur whispered low : 
 
 "Go, seek for love and joy 
 Out in the world — the passing show — 
 
 Your heart is sorrow's toy." 
 
 So, far I went and shook the hand 
 
 The world held out to me. 
 Ay, grasped it feebly — half unmanned 
 
 By all its mystery. 
 
 The world was kind, though, for a time, 
 
 And joy came ; so did love. 
 For all, and one, and into rhyme 
 
 My soul was tuned above. 
 
90 THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 
 
 Sweet love returned is made of bliss 
 The wedding bells' sweet chiming, 
 
 Sends heaven's raptures into this 
 With all its spirit rhyming. 
 
 A year passed down, and she and I 
 Passed down that year together — 
 
 Passed on beneath a varied sky. 
 From fair to stormy weather. 
 
 Alas ! The wind had swept a place : 
 
 And grave old winter sighed, 
 But sapped the life-blood from her face : 
 
 And spring said she had died. 
 
 Long years and lorn have passed away : — 
 
 A faith comes with the rain, 
 That somewhere on the soul's highway, 
 
 I '11 meet my loves again. 
 
 And meanwhile new joys have grown up: — 
 
 Ah, no, not quite so dear: 
 But just half fill life's empty cup 
 
 Through all the changing year. 
 
THE HERMIT'S EARLY MORNING REVERIE. 91 
 
 I love the winter's rousing cold ; 
 
 I love the spring and song ; 
 I love the summer's shining gold, 
 
 And autumn's whirling throng. 
 
 For he who hears the season's song, 
 
 As past the numbers flit, 
 Can laugh and let the world go 'long. 
 
 Without a thought of it. 
 
92 DO NOT TREMBLE. 
 
 DO NOT TREMBLE. 
 
 DO not tremble, boy, 
 When thunders knock and forests shake ; 
 The whole earth trembling seems to quake ; 
 And demon fire shoots from the cloud. 
 Do not tremble : 't is allowed. 
 
 Do not tremble, youth : 
 
 Because the phantom fame floats on ahead : 
 When you give chase you find it fled : 
 Tumultuous floods on every side : 
 
 Do not tremble : stem the tide. 
 
 Do not tremble, man : 
 
 Lest, when your gold is coffered in the vault. 
 Some booted robber makes assault : 
 'T is gone ; come taunts cf poverty : 
 
 Do not tremble : you are free. 
 
 Do not tremble, age : 
 
 Because death angel wings beat down to thee 
 
 And drag you to that dreaded sea 
 
 Whose waves gulp clod that holds the soul : 
 
 Do not tremble : — let it roll. 
 
THE STATUE OF FOLLY. 93 
 
 THE STATUE OF FOLLY, 
 
 B 
 
 I Y the brookside I stood, thinking 
 Of the vastness of our home, 
 AVith the brooklet's waters drinking 
 In each star of nature's dome, 
 When a fairy angel figure sat uprightly on the 
 foam. 
 
 She was white as alabaster 
 
 In a vessel near the shore ; 
 And my heart beat fast and faster 
 Than it ever had before, — 
 'T was a vision of such beauty that I could not 
 help adore. 
 
 Not a ribbon looped her tresses : — 
 Just a wreathing of fresh flowers. 
 Robed in fair and sylphlike dresses, 
 Just from out some dreamland bowers ; 
 And I gazing on the picture felt a failing of my 
 powers. 
 
94 THE STATUE OF FOLLY. 
 
 Felt the soul die out with sighing, 
 
 As a faint star in the morning, 
 
 When the saddened night is dying. 
 
 And its darkened pall is torn. 
 
 So I knelt there on the sand-bar with imploring 
 
 all forlorn. 
 
 Words of tenderness I uttered, — 
 
 Burning words from out my heart ; 
 Pleading there I stooped and muttered 
 Words beyond an earthly art ; 
 But she moved not, and she spoke not, and she 
 gave no sign nor start. 
 
 Still I spoke on blindly, madly, 
 
 While the moonlight flooded o'er ; 
 And the breezes sighed on sadly 
 By the brooklet's babbling shore ; 
 But this Naiad stared out blankly, keeping silent 
 as before. 
 
 Then a chill came, and I shuddered 
 
 Lest a dread fear might be real ; 
 Like a lost ship all unruddered 
 All my senses seemed to reel ; 
 And a cloud-shade falling round me seemed to 
 spurn me with its heel. 
 
THE STATUE OF FOLLY. 95 
 
 Till in silent desperation, 
 
 Moved by some ungainly hand, 
 With a wild heart's palpitation 
 I stepped forward on the land ; 
 Reached out blindly ; found it marble ; just a 
 statue on the sand. 
 
96 TO 
 
 TO 
 
 HOW little we know the heart of another : 
 Our own are hard to explain. 
 How little we know the smile of a brother 
 May not have been costing him pain. 
 
 Could we look o'er the field of the battle of hearts, 
 Which is walled to the questioning eye, 
 
 We would probably see what we never did see — 
 The birth of the deeds and the why. 
 
 We would probably see that the wrong that is 
 done 
 
 Is done in the shadow of right ; 
 And the cause of defeat is the lack of a force 
 
 In the mist and the gloom of the night. 
 
 We would probably see that the battles he won 
 
 Were many at dawn on the field ; 
 But the enemy rose in the heat of the sun. 
 
 Outnumbered and forced him to yield. 
 
TO . 97 
 
 So lend you a hand to the stumbling man, 
 And lift up your sword to the sky ; 
 
 And help him to win in the battle of night ; 
 For I heard from the heavens a cry : 
 
 How little we know the heart of another ; 
 
 Our own are hard to explain. 
 How little we know the smile of a brother 
 
 May not have been costing him pain. 
 
98 A SONNET. 
 
 A SONNET. 
 
 SAD change : when joj' comes thrilling all the 
 land 
 
 With blessed thoughts of olden time release, 
 
 And life 's so full it seems 't will never cease, 
 And laughter almost holds you in her hand ; 
 Never to lose, no more to leave the strand, 
 
 Where roams pure love, and where the doves of 
 peace 
 
 Wing near their flight, and all fair hopes increase, 
 Shedding their light upon the golden sand — 
 
 To meet and face to face, old wrinkled Death, 
 With fiendish smile of triumph and uplifted wing. 
 
 Who fans your face with zephyrs of hot breath, 
 And, casting shades of awful suffering 
 
 Over the wharf where joy ships anchoreth, 
 Departs and leaves the soul an altered thing ! 
 
SEPTEMBER. 99 
 
 SEPTEMBER. 
 
 KIND September, do not go, 
 For we need your friendship so : 
 This is when the old friends meet — 
 Red-faced summer and autumn greet. 
 They have known each other years ; 
 Often meet in silent tears ; 
 Often shake each other's hand — 
 Do not speak, but understand. 
 Understand that many days 
 Must go by, e'er in the haze 
 Of this time they meet again — 
 Meet and greet as silent men. 
 So they often linger here 
 As two lovers by the mere — 
 Linger till October's chill 
 Drives the shepherd from the hill. 
 Linger here, and, hand in hand. 
 Do not speak, but understand. 
 O, we need your friendship so, 
 Kind September, do not go. 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
100 SMILES. 
 
 SMILES. 
 
 ~|~ ET those who will the world encumber 
 -Li With their small care and woe ; 
 Be not yourself among the number, 
 But light the face with cheerful glow. 
 
 Turn on the world a painless smiling — 
 'T is smiles that cheer the heart ; 
 
 And all the time sad souls beguiling 
 Bid pain and sorrowing depart. 
 
 But if at times the heart seems breaking, 
 
 You cannot bid it cease. 
 Turn not to man to soothe its aching, 
 
 Go, shrive yourself to bring release. 
 
 Go, hide and bask beneath the glowing 
 
 Of angel smiles above. 
 Till thrilling through wdth inward knowing 
 
 You smile a smile of peace and love. 
 
SMILES. 101 
 
 A smile that with its cheerful token 
 
 May soothe anothei"'s pain ; 
 A smile that says when chains are broken 
 
 You lived, you loved, and not in vain. 
 
 A smile that wins amidst the calling 
 
 Of angels at the door. 
 In accents softly, sweetly falling, 
 
 A welcome here for evermore. 
 
102 MY GUERDON. 
 
 MY GUERDON. 
 
 f I THOUGHTS, weird and silent chase, along, 
 -■- Fancies shaped from out my life, 
 Sing, sing faintly, in one forgotten song ; 
 
 Hope rises from its humble bed of strife. 
 Staring proudly on the morn. 
 
 Ah ! hope and fate and strife and pain 
 Had been dying all forlorn, 
 
 Did not a lingering spark remain. 
 Thou hast been my guerdon. Love, 
 
 Walking heart in heart with me ; 
 And with the twittering birds above 
 
 I join in praise of thee. 
 
 No, no, not praise : for what is praise? 
 
 Better have a loving heart to feel 
 A better life, when, in the autumn days, 
 
 All silently, we at some altar kneel. 
 Ah, praise so dank and dead and dark ! 
 
 O love, so full of hope and light ! 
 
MY GUERDON. 103 
 
 When eyes love eyes with every kindled spark, 
 And hands clasp hands in silent slumbering 
 night,— 
 
 Woven into mine, woven into thine — 
 Stars rise, and the moon with happy tears 
 
 Full of ecstasy and Godly song. 
 With music, music dead to other ears 
 
 Floods are souls and twangs each tended thong. 
 
 Now breaks the morn with ripening corn ; 
 
 To pluck the golden ears is ready ease ; 
 A wondrous harvest would the world adorn, 
 
 If but the hand of love did all appease. 
 Life, life ! come ring your sounding bell 
 
 That echoes from this earth to heaven's door 
 Will break the silence, stir the gates of hell, — 
 
 The visionary gates, that beavity hates — 
 Aye, banish them, and love what God creates. 
 
 But even I must help to ring the bell — 
 The bell, where apathy still hangs with heavy 
 weight, 
 
 Ring, ring loudly from every sounding cell. 
 
104 MV GUERDON. 
 
 I hear the battling chain of earth 
 
 Clanking, clanking on the rocks : 
 Blood kindles in the veins of worth 
 
 To ope the gate that wisdom locks. 
 But now the trailing sun is low, — 
 
 I hear the whisk of tired wings, 
 And close beside I feel a glow 
 
 And a gentle voice that sings : 
 " Art thou yet my own, my love? " 
 
 And the world fades with all it brings. 
 
 And there in the soothing dusk of eve, 
 
 Clasped closely in embrace. 
 We watch the world, and trustingly believe - 
 
 The moon and stars each in its place — 
 Forgotten all the hollow voice 
 
 That speaks for worldly weal. 
 Love, love deeply for only one of choice ; — 
 
 As when your passioned whispers steal 
 Unto my soul — as lovers stroll, 
 
 Or as cooling water unto thirsty throats. 
 Or as gentle music floats 
 
 Upon the evening air. 
 Filling up the deepened cells of care. 
 
MY GUERDON. 105 
 
 Age, gray hairs, and wrinkles on my brow: 
 
 The world cares naught for me. 
 With trust I turn, with trust renew my vow, 
 
 With what sweet trust I turn to thee. 
 As welling up through all the loving years. 
 
 With hair that mingles gray with gray. 
 We clasp each other then, and loving lose our 
 tears, 
 
 And turn our happy thoughts along the way. 
 Hope, joy, faith, and sure regard, 
 
 Love deepens into a stream. 
 Flowing calmly through the teeming sward. 
 
 We float out on a dream. 
 
106 THE WAY OF LIFE. 
 
 THE WAY OF LIFE. 
 
 WE sometimes feel 
 As we journey along, 
 Like breaking away 
 
 From the right to the wrong. 
 The road is so steep 
 
 And the sun is so hot, 
 That we sometimes think : 
 
 Is it better or not, 
 To toil on ahead 
 
 To that green everglade, 
 Or drop down and rest 
 
 Forever in shade? 
 
 We sometimes feel 
 That 't is better to gain 
 
 The pleasures of life. 
 Whatever the pain ; 
 
 To gather the flowers 
 Of indolent ease, 
 
THE WAY OF LIFE. 
 
 107 
 
 Though the sun on the morrow 
 Bring shameful release : 
 
 Than to bear up against 
 This mountain of toil, 
 
 And shoulder our share 
 Of the earth's turmoil. 
 
 'T is the weakness of life — 
 
 The childish complaint 
 To be free of the strife 
 
 And the bitter constraint ; 
 But we never can get 
 
 Or we never can gain, 
 But the world is the better 
 
 For our toiling and pain. 
 Let us live for the world, 
 
 Not heaven's reward ; 
 If to dust we return, 
 
 Let it be the greensward. 
 
108 A VOICE RETURNED. 
 
 A VOICE RETURNED. 
 
 I TURNED from my heart in the darkness 
 And uttered my soul out alone ; 
 For hope lay staring in starkness ; 
 
 Seemed cold and dead as a stone. 
 How heavy the doubts that encumber 
 
 With deep-rooted fear and with pain ! 
 Yet flock o'er the soul without number 
 
 And darken this surge of its main. 
 So I spoke in despair, and then listened 
 
 While the world in its silence stole on ; 
 For I thought, from the darkness unglistened 
 
 Came a sound from a voice that is gone. 
 
 Was it the rustle of leaves that fluttered ? 
 
 Or the sigh of the wind in the trees? 
 'T was surely a syllable uttered, 
 
 Though wafted away by the breeze. 
 I could not have heard and mistaken 
 
 A voice I have known as a child 
 
A VOICE BETUJiXED. 109 
 
 (Ah, how well I have known) : So, unshaken, 
 
 I listened and peered, unbeguiled; 
 A hush, and the silence was broken. 
 
 And afar, with the peep of the dawn. 
 So full of encouragement spoken, 
 
 Came the words from the voice that is[|gone : 
 
 " Be brave in your nebulous dwelling. 
 
 And smile on the world and its care ; 
 For sorrow is borrowed in selling 
 
 Thy soul to the demon despair ; 
 And happiness, hope, and devotion. 
 
 Will rise from their adamant form, 
 If you throw from your fancy the notion 
 
 That your ship is alone in the storm. 
 Be brave in mortality's session ; 
 
 Your motto be forM'ard and on ; 
 For this is the hope in confession," 
 
 Were the words from the voice that is gone. 
 
110 THE SAND-LILY. 
 
 THE SAND-LILY. 
 
 WHERE the plain is the barest, 
 A flower the fairest 
 Has lifted its head. 
 Where the dunes have been drifted 
 By the sand that is sifted — 
 All others are dead. 
 
 There the serpents are gliding 
 Like demons in hiding, 
 
 But never infest ; 
 For the grace of the flower 
 In sultriest hour 
 
 Is sacred and blest. 
 
 Alone in its beauty. 
 As if conscious of duty, 
 
 It droops a fair face ; 
 And yet, reconciling 
 All around with its smiling 
 
 Of infinite grace. 
 
THE SAND-LILY. Ill 
 
 In the midst of the glimmer 
 Of heat, and the simmer 
 
 Of desert and death, 
 Its purity blesses 
 The air it caresses 
 
 With every sweet breath. 
 
 Like the soul that is purest 
 Of all that endurest, 
 
 The sand-lily blows ; 
 Like the soul that is whitest 
 Where the touch of sin blightest, 
 
 In the desert it grows. 
 
112 TWO HANDS. 
 
 TWO HANDS. 
 
 WITH weary tread caroe one from out the 
 fields : 
 Rough hands he had, all seamed with marks of 
 
 toil. 
 A thrifty stranger drew away in scorn 
 To grasp that roughened palm ; yet well it was, 
 For drops of life blood cling within those mouths. 
 All bowed was he — the owner of this hand — 
 Still lower bowed to see the soft white one 
 Whose tapered fingers bore bright rings of gold 
 Well set with precious stones. Hard years of life 
 Upon another's finger stared at him ; 
 Long groaning nights that follow days of strain 
 Had paid in soul a fiend's own price for these. 
 
 And lower still in humbleness he bowed 
 When he, the two, with startled glance compared : 
 His own he sees, a lifeless-looking chip — 
 Sun-cracked and dead ; the other smooth and fair. 
 Ah, where 's the tongue can tell the bitter pangs 
 Of lost hopes in that weary broken look? 
 
TWO HANDS. 
 
 113 
 
 Whose brush can picture all his stifled woe? 
 Whose pen divine can tell it o'er again? 
 He spoke no word, but seemed to gaze in pain, 
 Or awful dread, across the desert past ; 
 Or down the darkening future, all alone, 
 And side by side two hands contrasted there : 
 Two hands then, when both were young and fair ; 
 Two hands now, when both are turned apart ; 
 Two hands soon, when both enfolded lie. 
 
 There was no need to look again : deep-sered 
 In recollection, two shapes burned apart 
 Upon the dead, dank wall of memory. 
 His sharp woe buried in his bosom bare ; 
 His life track black and misty on ahead ; 
 He stood in moody reverie. 
 And envy born from this ill-mated pair 
 Looked in upon his soul, and then looked out 
 Through eyes aglow with one hot flash of flame. 
 — As powder thrown upon an ash-blown coal — 
 Flashed sudden anger ; then a flood of tears 
 Rushed hurrying out, but quickly dammed 
 
 within. 
 It never reached the lash. His bosom heaved, 
 And with one sigh he went back to his field. 
 
114 TWO HANDS. 
 
 hand of sloth, beware ! that smoldering fire 
 So long beneath the shifting ash of time 
 May flash again and sere your perfect mold. 
 Some lofty one has said, " His brain is dead " 
 — This owner of the hand so seamed and rough - 
 But, e'er the embers' toil are wholly dead, 
 Some mightier, horny-handed spirit king, 
 God-sent, and stalking earthward with his load, 
 May heap a pile of fuel upon this fire. 
 That wall uproar and burn a wondrous change. 
 
no HE JOLLY. 115 
 
 DO BE JOLLY. 
 
 BE jolly and be gay ; 
 That surely is the way 
 To drive away our sorrow and our care. 
 Though you bear a heavy load 
 O'er life's uneven road, 
 Let every one believe that you no burden bear. 
 
 Be jolly and be gay ; 
 
 Be cheerful now, to-day, 
 Although to-morrow sees you die in pain. 
 
 To every one you meet 
 
 A cheerful word repeat ; 
 Let not your tear-drops give another's heart a stain. 
 
 For what 's the use at all. 
 
 Of doubling all the gall 
 That penetrates the bosom while we stay. 
 
 Then you 'd better shed a smile 
 
 Upon others all the while, 
 So that when you 're with them, they '11 be jolly 
 and be gay. 
 
The Western Series of Readers 
 
 EDITED BY HARR WAQNER 
 
 Designed Kspecially for Supplementary Work in 
 
 HISTORY AND NATURE STUDY 
 
 In Our Public Schools 
 
 All Fully and Beautifully Illustrated. Each Volume Contains from 
 Eighteen to Twenty-Six Full-Page Pictures. 
 
 EXTENSIVELY ADOPTED AND USED IN THE SCHOOLS OF THE PACIFIC COAST 
 
 VOL. I 
 
 PACIFIC HISTORY STORIES 
 
 By HARR WAGNER 
 
 Fop Fourth and Fifth Grades 
 
 During the short time that this book has been on the market its 
 sale has been phenomenal. It is pronounced, by all of our leading 
 educators, to be excellently adapted to the work for which it was 
 intended— a supplementary reader in history study in the Fourth 
 and Fifth Grades. Fully two-thirds of the counties in California 
 have this book on their supplementary and library list. 
 
 VOL. II 
 
 PACIFIC NATURE STORIES 
 
 By HARR WAGNER and DAVID S. JORDAN and others 
 Fop Fourth and Fifth Grades 
 
 A companion volume to the above. It contains some eighteen most 
 interesting and instructive sketches of our Western animal and 
 vegetable life, all told in a delightfully flowing style and written by 
 the greatest educators of the West. As a reading book in nature 
 study it cannot be excelled. 
 
 VOL. Ill 
 
 NATURE STORIES OF THE NORTHWEST 
 
 By HERBERT BASHFORD 
 
 State Librarian of Washington 
 
 Fop Sixth and Seventh Grades 
 
 This book covers a more extended field than Volume II, and is not 
 strictly confined to the Northwest. Among the interesting stories 
 will be found those of T/ie Black Bear, The Kingfisher, The Clam, 
 The Mcadowlark, The Seals, etc., all of which are of interest to any 
 pupil in the West. The illustrations are works of art and true to 
 nature. 
 
VOL. iV 
 
 TALES OF DISCOVERY ON THE PACIFIC SLOPE 
 
 By MARGARET GRAHAM HOOD 
 
 Fop Third and Fourth Grades 
 
 The Tale of History could not be more charmingly told than it is in 
 this volume, which is intended for the lower grades. A Third or 
 Fourth Grade pupil will read it easily, and with interest. Its eight 
 chapters are devoted to the early his'ory of our great Western 
 empire, and tell of characters and events, but little touched upon by 
 the general school history. The child here acquires a taste that 
 leads him to further research. 
 
 VOL. V 
 
 TALES OF OUR NEW POSSESSIONS, THE PHILIPPINES 
 
 Written by R. VAN BERGEN 
 
 A Thirty-Year resident of the Orient 
 Author of "Story of Japan," Etc. 
 
 Illustrated by P. N. BOERINGER 
 
 War Artist Correspondent at Manila 
 for San Francisco Papers 
 
 For the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Grades 
 
 A timely book for the young. We employed to write this volume 
 a man whose thirty-year residence in the Orient made him 
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 eight chapters, all I ichly illustrated by the best artist we could secui'e, 
 will give the pupil an excellent idea of our new country — 
 a knowledge which will prove of great financial value to him. 
 
 VOL. VI 
 
 STORIES OF OUR MOTHER EARTH 
 
 By HAROLD W. FAIRBANKS, Ph. D. 
 
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 With 27 Full Page Illustrations. An Intensely In- 
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 For the Sixth and Seventh Grades 
 Can the study of Geology be made interesting to the young? It 
 certainly can when written in the style of this book. It contains 
 some thirty eight chapters, every oneladen with knowledge but all 
 reading like a story book. The chapters on The Yosemite Valley, 
 The San Francisco Bay and The Colorado River in themselves alone 
 warrant the purchase of the book. 
 
 Complete Descriptive Circular, giving contents of each volume, 
 testimonials, etc., sent on application. 
 
 PRICES — School Edition, Bound in Board, Leather Back, Net 50 cents 
 
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 JOAQUIN MILLER'S COMPLETE POEMS 
 
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 ••Songs of the Sierras" "Songs of Sunland" 
 
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 "Sengs of Ihs Mexican Seas" "Classic Shades" 
 
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 Price, Library Edition, postpaid $2.50 
 
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 BY DAVID STARR JORDAN 
 
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 One Set of Jordan, 3 Vols, in bos. Cloth, postpaid $ 4.00 
 
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 MISCELLANEOUS LIBRARY BOOKS 
 
 Sugar Pine Murmupings, by EHz. s. Wilson ?1 00 
 
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 The Main Points, by Rev. c. R. Brown 1 25 
 
 Life, by Hon. John R. Rogers 100 
 
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 Pepcy OP the Foup Inseparables, by M. Lee 1 00 
 
 Personal Imppessions of thn Gpand Canyon of the Colopado 1 50 
 
 Some Homely Little Songs, by Alfred James Waterhouse 1 25 
 
 FoPget-me-notS, by Lillian Leslie Page. Illuminated paper cover 50 
 
 Guide to Mexico, by Christobal Hidalgo ©100 
 
 Send for Complete Descriptive Portrait Circular of Our Westero Publications 
 
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 Elementary Exercises in Botany, by Prof. Volney Rattan $0 75 
 
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 Heart Culture, Lessons in Humane Education, by Emma E. Page 75 
 
 Spanish in Spanlsii.by LuisDuque Net 1 25 
 
 Patriotic Quotations, by Harr Wagner 40 
 
 Key to State Advanced Aritiimetie, by A. M. Armstrong l 00 
 
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 Studies in Entomology, by H. M.Bland 75 
 
 Algebraic Solutions of Equations, by Andre & Buchanan, Net 80 
 
 Study of the Kindergarten Problem, by Fred'kL. Burls; 50 
 
 OrthcEpy and Spelling, by John W.Imes, (4 parts each) 20 
 
 Toyon— A book of Holiday Selections, by Allie M. Felker 
 
 Paper, 35c. Board, 60c. Cloth 1 00 
 
 Supplement to State History, by Harr Wagner 25 
 
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 (Schooled) 75 
 
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 Lessons in Language Work, by Belle Frazee Net 50 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF PAPER BOOKS 
 
 No. 1. Songs of the Soul, by Joaquin Miller 25 
 
 No. 2. Dr. Jones' Picnic, by Dr. s. E. Chapman 25 
 
 No. 3. Modern Argonaut, by Leela B. Davis 25 
 
 No. 4. How to Celebrate Holiday Occasions— Compiled 25 
 
 No. 5. Patriotic Quotations 25 
 
 WESTERN LITERATURE SERIES 
 No. 1. Readings from California Poets, by Edmund Russell 
 
 Paper, 25c. Board 40 
 
 WESTERN SERIES OF BOOKLETS 
 
 No. 1. California and the Californians, by David Starr Jordan 25 
 
 No. 2. Love and Law, by Thos. P. Bailey 25 
 
 No. 3. The Man Who Might Have Been, by Robert Whitaker 25 
 
 No. 4. Chants for the Boer, by Joaquin Miller 25 
 
 No. 5. Toil, Poems by D. F. Leary 25 
 
 WESTERN EDUCATIONAL HELPS 
 
 No, 1. Civil Government Simplified, by J.J. Duvall 25 
 
 No. 2. An Aid in the Study and Teaching of Lady of the 
 
 Lake, Evangeline, and Merchant of Venice, by j. 
 
 W. Graham 25 
 
 Mo. 3. Grammar by the Inductive Method, by W. C. Doub. . 25 
 
):} 
 
lUN 25 1901