MOODY MOMENTS 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD DOYLE. 
 
 What I err'd in, what corrected, 
 What I suffered, what effected, 
 
 To this wreath as flowers belong. — Gcethe 
 
 KETCHAM & DOYLE, Publishers, 
 302 West 126th Street, 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 #838. 
 
 CO 
 

 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1888 
 By Edward Doyle. 
 
 Ketcham & Doyle, Printers, 302 W. 126th St., New York, 
 
TO MY SISTER. 
 
 Not only kings and queens make tragedies, 
 
 Which lump our throat so thick we may not speak, 
 Or start big tears that linger along our cheek. 
 
 What tragedy so sad as ours ? We freeze 
 
 On a lone island in the Arctic Seas 
 
 Where, when I stranded, you with love did seek 
 Me out to share my night, chill, long and bleak, 
 
 Leaving behind the Sun, all hope of ease ; 
 As bold crusader, bound for the Holy Land, 
 
 Left his gold crown at home on the Virgin Shrine 
 
 At his departure for the battle line. 
 
 Ah ! higher than the Sun the icebergs stand 
 
 Around us, and how cold ! yet you repine 
 Not, but predict near their migration grand. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 A FEW facts regarding myself may not be out of place as prefatory 
 to " Moody Moments." In 1882 I published a dramatic poem enthlcd 
 ' Cagliostro," which depicted " Modern Spiritualism," a delusion that 
 at one time had counted among its adherents hundreds of thousands of 
 our fellow-citizens. The sale of this work being slow, I betook myself 
 to the establishing of the Uptown Visitor, a local newspaper for the 
 upper portion of New York City, and before long made the venture a 
 tolerable success, although at almost every step I was confronted with 
 the grossest prejudice on the part of many who could not conceive how a 
 person, deprived of sight, could make a newspaper prosper. While 
 building up the Uptown Visitor I frequently had moody moments 
 when thoughts and fancies came to me and robed themselves in verse 
 Whether these productions be true poetry, or no, is of course for the 
 reader to determine. Many of the poems are personal, but not, I trust, 
 egotistic in a repellant sense. It seems patent that egotism in verse is 
 offensive only when it is too laudatory, too didactic, or too pretentious, 
 or when, like that of Walt Whitman, it glories in personating the brutish 
 propensities of human nature in insurrection against Reason and Law, 
 enthroned on the accumulated wisdom of the Ages. My egotism is that 
 of a human being who, isolated from the visible charms of Creation and 
 from nearly all the pleasures of life, has so intense a longing to behold 
 and enjoy them that, when they appear in fancy, he welcomes them, 
 
 And ah ' how help but sing, 
 
 As bird at break of day, or dawn of Spring ? 
 
 EDWARD DOYLE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 To My Sister 
 
 Grant's was True Genius 
 
 By the Light ok Death 
 
 In the Darkness of Grief 
 
 Laying the Hero to Rest . 
 
 The Chant of the Poet 
 
 Cherubs ! I Follow Slowly . 
 
 Little Hands and Small Red Mouth 
 
 Shoulder Deep 'Mid Fallen Stars 
 
 Firebird ! 
 Sweetest of Creatures 
 Brother to the Bird as Well . 
 New York . 
 Strange to Witness 
 Rarely does Heaven Rejoice 
 Ending the Jest 
 
 1 Look up and Hope 
 Modern Society's Prototype 
 To Her Posthumous Child . 
 To a Yellow Coaxer 
 Decoration Day 
 The Poet 
 
 To the Entrapped Yellow Bird 
 The Myths of Greece . 
 Sweet Lady, Cease thy Singing 
 The Birds at Morn 
 A Spring Song 
 
 Never thus in our New Land 
 Not Stone, nor Flower, nor Leaf 
 Oh, More than Lovely, Leal! 
 Ye Wretches Who Burn Grain 
 Girl and Woman . , 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Fair Freedom 
 
 Freedom's Resting Ground 
 
 Willie Lay a Dying 
 
 The Nubian, Greek and Jew 
 
 The Death of Sappho 
 
 Bewitching Sleep 
 
 You, of Course, Shake Your Head 
 
 A Rainy Day in the Groye 
 
 The Presidential Election 
 
 As the Jav Leads Earth 
 
 By the Torn Twin Oaks 
 
 Katydids 
 
 Too Clear to Ignore 
 
 On Shore with a Flambeau 
 
 Sheridan at Winchester 
 
 O Hope ! 
 
 The Divine One 
 
 Oh, for Dreamless Repose ! 
 
 Too Late . 
 
 Come, Break off from the Hunt 
 
 What Shall We do with the Children, 
 
 The Secret Grave 
 
 The Poet's Tower . 
 
 Across the Greatest of Lands 
 
 The Hymeneal Morn 
 
 The Miller Moth 
 
 Fair Riverside 
 
 To the Hudson 
 
 To the Enchanting Hudson 
 
 So Divine I Ought not Fear 
 
 Some Day . 
 
 To Independence 
 
 Jane 
 
 PAGE 
 
 44 
 45 
 
 47 
 48 
 
 48 
 50 
 50 
 51 
 
 52 
 53 
 54 
 55 
 56 
 57 
 53 
 53 
 60 
 61 
 6r 
 62 
 63 
 65 
 67 
 67 
 6S 
 
 71 
 
 72 
 75 
 75 
 76 
 78 
 78 
 
LEAVES FROM CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Awaiting the Messengers 
 
 No Real Fire . 
 
 A Mother's Grief . 
 
 A Struggle with Passion 
 
 At the House 
 
 Verifying a Phenomenon 
 
 The Capture 
 
 Command Her to Arise 
 
 80 
 
 83. 
 
 84 
 
 86 
 
 87 
 go 
 92 
 93 
 
GRANT'S WAS TRUE GENIUS. 
 
 Yon suffering hero let all men revere. 
 
 His was true Genius ; no mere comet grand — 
 
 Napoleonic — such as dazzles a land 
 Once in a thousand years and sweeps earth drear 
 With plague, war, ruin, the tail of its career. 
 
 Ah! when our States, by God a system planned, 
 
 Burst, making the Angels aghast and breathless stand, 
 This Captain was raised up a Solar Sphere 
 
 To re-attract and lift to upper air 
 These planets, which were sundering down through space. 
 
 They re-cohered around him, rose resplendent, 
 And with their many-hued, harmonious glare 
 Blazed the red beams of a manumitted race, 
 
 A star occult long, but henceforth ascendant. 
 
 BY THE LIGHT OF DEATH. 
 
 Around the form of Grant death coldly coils 
 As there mid trophies of the siege, Surprise, 
 He sits and ponders. Glares it, lightning-wise, 
 Into his features, flash on flash! But foils 
 Not him, — he works by its light. With a smile he toils 
 On, penning down the conflict, rallying cries; 
 The fields with lighted tents 'neath clouded skies, 
 And bombs that, bursting, dash up trees and soils, 
 
i2 IN THE DARKNESS OF GRIEF. 
 
 And set ablaze the forest, town, or fort, 
 Alarming for miles the women and old men, 
 On hill and housetop, many never again 
 
 To see their brave sons, even with limbs distort. 
 He pauses rapt, beholding Freedom, wild 
 With her long-lost, bruised, blackened, hope-dazed child. 
 
 IN THE DARKNESS OF GRIEF. 
 
 The light of joy has gone out from the land 
 
 And dark is every dwelling, as a grave, 
 
 On hill, in valley, from the zig-zag strand 
 
 Of the Atlantic to the sleeping wave 
 
 Of the Pacific, which receives from Eve 
 
 The mantle of her peace as she ascends 
 
 To heaven with all the good which men achieve. 
 
 Ah! laden are the arms which she extends 
 
 To Heaven now, filled with the fruits of the glorious deed 
 
 Of Grant, through whom vast millions of his kind 
 
 Were re-created into men — were freed 
 
 With all their progeny in body and mind. 
 
 At doors before the hurrying stream, dense wood, 
 On mountain and on plain, the people stand 
 AVith pallid faces in a pensive mood. 
 There is no fire of mirth in all the land 
 On any hearthstone, nor illumination 
 Of pleasure shining through a mansion pane. 
 As black the clouds, which overhang the Nation, 
 A6 those surcharged with the Forty Days of rain. 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 13 
 
 No hearthstone will break forth in a roaring blaze 
 With neighbors sitting round, nor house be lighted 
 For guests assembling thick, for many days. 
 Her great son dead, the Nation mourns, heart-blighted. 
 
 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Up from the broad, bright bay the warships sail 
 
 In blue midstream toward peaceful Riverside, 
 
 Where thousands watch for them with wearying eyes. 
 
 Larger the vessels grow, and restlessness 
 
 Stirs, breeze-like, through the throng along the slope. 
 
 With port-holes eyeing Riverside, they boom, 
 
 Shaking the shores, and tents of smoke arise, 
 
 Recalling camps thrown up on eve of strife, 
 
 While from both air and water rolls 
 
 A double, dolorous moan among the hills 
 
 And valleys, up the peopled palisades 
 
 And toward the black Metropolis, through which 
 
 March the battallions, whom the fleet escorts, 
 
 As erst it covered them assaulting fortress 
 
 Skirting a town, wherein men flew to arms, 
 
 Flashing incessantly, like soundless lightning 
 
 On Summer night before the storm lets fall 
 
 Its avalanches, thunderbolts and torrents. 
 
 Upon our Riverside of hill and dale, 
 Wooded and rocky, concentrate vast throngs 
 From .near and far in carriage and on foot. 
 The father holds his wild boy by the hand, 
 Fearful lest prancing steed, or whirling wheel, 
 
i 4 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 May drag him down and maim his arm or leg ; 
 
 Or lest the crowd may crush him in its swerve, 
 
 As on a lever, toward the booming ships, 
 
 Or toward the wave-like rolling of the drums 
 
 Up old Broadway. Oh! How the concourse thickens! 
 
 It does not thunder now with acclamations, 
 
 As when the hero homeward came with glory, 
 
 His eyes enkindled, seeing North and South 
 
 All armies breaking into citizens 
 
 Like rugged, roaring Winter into Spring ; 
 
 Seeing his dauntless men, each dark as Arab, 
 
 Stacking their muskets or dismounting fr6m horse, 
 
 And clasping their wives and children, lily-white, • 
 
 Beneath the trees on sidewalk, or at door ; 
 
 And seeing the freedman, too, in marsh, plantation, 
 
 Clasping his children, without dread 
 
 Of ever being dragged out from his hut, 
 
 Off from their moaning midst, their shrieks and sobs, 
 
 By a slave dealer with a whip and hound. 
 
 The General comes now, not erect on steed 
 
 And chatting with his staff, nor smiling, bowing, 
 
 At throngs upon the sidewalks and on stoops 
 
 And balconies, but silent and supine 
 
 In purple casket on the lofty car, 
 
 By twenty-four draped horses slowly drawn, 
 
 Each steed led by a groom, a freedman proud, 
 
 Up River Drive, between a long sun-shaft 
 
 Of Soldiery before and evening shade 
 
 Of equipages of the President, 
 
 The un-crowned First of men; of cabinet; 
 
 And Governors of States, as large as kingdoms, 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 15 
 
 From the magnolia, orange-scented South, 
 
 The hilly, snowy, wooded, lakey North, 
 
 The East, volcanic with huge factories, 
 
 And from the West, where proud, exultant Nature 
 
 Points out to man and God her grandest offspring, 
 
 The Rockies and Sierras, the Missouri 
 
 And Mississippi, and the sky-wide Prairies, 
 
 Lighted up by the thousand-colored meteor 
 
 Of vegetation from the depths of earth, 
 
 And darkened by dense scudding clouds of cattle. 
 
 As evening star before the host of heaven, 
 
 So comes brave, brilliant Hancock, leading the march 
 
 To Clairemont Hill, where Washington once stood 
 
 In anguish, noticing how few, how few, 
 
 His routed men were, and how great, how great, 
 
 His undertaking, and where he took heart, 
 
 Feeling God's inspiration like a breeze. 
 
 Ten thousand veterans, firm of foot, erect, 
 
 With tattered standards, arms reversed, and treading 
 
 In silence, like the stepping of fair snow 
 
 Over the field she covers tenderly, 
 
 That sleeping flowrets may not die of cold; 
 
 Or to the time of mournful, muffled drums, 
 
 Or that of slow, soft dirge, or hopeful hymn; 
 
 And sons of veterans, eager to emulate 
 
 Their fathers' deeds for freedom's sake, with arms 
 
 A-flashing, like the lightning, yester' eve 
 
 Boding the heat to-day, as they descend 
 
 Our sloping Riverside; and citizens 
 
 In windows, on the housetops, thick as fruit 
 
 On tallest trees, on lofty rocks, and seats 
 
16 LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 
 
 Erected as in amphitheatre; 
 
 Nay, sixty millions from high-ridged Atlantic 
 
 To the Pacific, prairie low and long 
 
 Of waters, where the weary sun lies down; 
 
 And from the Canadas, moonlit with snow, 
 
 To Mexico with men like ants in mines; 
 
 All gaze here sorrowfully, bid farewell 
 
 To their great Captain, over whose sheathed form 
 
 The bugler old, with tear on cheek, breath faltering, 
 
 Standing aloft upon the funeral car, 
 
 At vault, with chiefs that erst were hostile, watching 
 
 Sadly at either side, sounds loud the taps, 
 
 The last call unto ears that cannot hear, 
 
 Making brave Sherman think of other days 
 
 And break down like a child, strong Johnston weep, 
 
 The fearless Sheridan bow down his head, 
 
 The stern old Buckner tremble as he never 
 
 Trembled in battle, and old veterans sigh, 
 
 Knowing the camp will never more behold 
 
 The missed one galloping back on foamy steed. 
 
 O massive warships ! boom, each minute boom, 
 
 And voice the gratitude we may not shout. 
 
 Grand Army Chaplain ! read your sacred rite 
 
 Over the casket, decked with stars and stripes. 
 
 Discharge your volleys sharp, young regiments ! 
 
 Poet and orator ! narrate, — invent 
 
 Not, for your fancy were a pale half moon 
 
 Amid the heavens instead of the blazing sun 
 
 Of his achievement. Freedmen ! come to the tomb 
 
 Of Grant with floral " Gates Ajar;" responsive 
 
 To Lincoln's fiat, he flung open to you 
 
LAYING THE HERO TO REST. 17 
 
 And your posterity, the heavenly gate 
 
 Of liberty, that else might have been bolted q 
 
 And rusted fast for darkest ages longer. 
 
 Behold ! the Angel Reverence who sees 
 
 In men who act sublime their greatness only, 
 
 Sees them as factors in the ages progress, 
 
 Obliterating with a sad, sad tear 
 
 The speck here, there, on which small creatures gloat, 
 
 Arises unto form august from out 
 
 The grateful hearts of many mournful millions 
 
 And bows before this soldier. His bright spirit 
 
 She companies now to glory, to the throne 
 
 On high, the steps of which innumerable 
 
 Are, each a sky with dazzling luminaries. 
 
 O spirit on ! you saved our land from blight 
 
 Eternal, and for ages, let us trust, 
 
 From sorrowful need of such a luminous sword 
 
 As that you lifted and directed with, 
 
 When you, calm, statuesque, omniscient, sat 
 
 On charger on the peak above the guns, 
 
 Tempestous, crater-mouthed, earth-shaking cannon, 
 
 On thousands of bluffs, each circled with smoke and 
 
 stench, 
 With bloody, moaning men a-flooding the vales 
 And dashing off in cataracts from life. 
 On, spirit, on ! and may the roar of war 
 Reverberate ne'er in your memory, 
 As ocean in the shell, found on the peak, 
 Whence eyes of hungry vultures can descern 
 Not the green, mossy rocks of wreckful beach. 
 Ah ! as those vultures on the peak see not 
 
i8 THE CHANT OF THE POET. 
 
 The ocean, which receded thence of yore, 
 
 May you no more behold the woeful strife, 
 
 But only the souls of the millions, dark of skin, 
 
 That shine, like waves of a phosphorescent sea 
 
 Beneath a cloud fast scudding from the sky. 
 
 O large and luminous comet-sword of Grant ! 
 
 That in the sky shone, making haughty rulers 
 
 Abroad, Napoleon and the British Premier, 
 
 Who plotted to destroy us, sunder us, 
 
 To clip a pinion from the skyward eagle, 
 
 The bold companion of the Westwarding sun, 
 
 And have the echo of his youthful scream 
 
 In the high heavens and his slow, hobbling flight 
 
 Along the ground, a jest for the coming ages — 
 
 Whiten with fear and tremble, skulk back into 
 
 Their haunts, with tyranny loathsome, aye, and perish 
 
 With all their kind, that fain would redden arrow 
 
 In breast of our free Republic, swiftest-winged 
 
 Of nations, Bird of the highest, longest flight ! 
 
 THE CHANT OF THE POET. 
 
 The poet chants: " Though all about 
 Us darkness be, still no, Soul ! doubt 
 
 Not there is light ahead. 
 Step cheerfully on, as a lover, knowing 
 That his betrothed, with cheeks a-glowing, 
 
 Awaits him to be wed." 
 
CHER UBS ! I FOLLO W SLO WL Y. 19 
 
 Hark ! how the skeptical mob are laughing 
 At him ! and, though their brainless chaffing 
 
 Cuts through him like a blast. 
 He smiles and chants: ' k For a grand sunrise 
 Were our heart-longings made — these skies 
 
 Extending so high and vast !" 
 
 He climbs, attains the mountain top ; 
 While they in the mountain shadow stop 
 
 And howl as he jubilant sings 
 At sight of dawn ; as they might howl 
 At screams in the cloud of water-fowl 
 
 With lightning-blasted wings. 
 
 Their din may deafen their own ears 
 But cannot drown his chant, which cheers 
 
 Up thousands, weary and worn, 
 Who after them ascend the slope 
 And see in the East the rays of hope, 
 
 The sweetening, mellowing morn. 
 
 CHERUBS ! I FOLLOW SLOWLY. 
 
 Walter and Annie, two years old and three, 
 Sweet, cunning toddlers, take me by the hand 
 And, prattling, pull me off my seat. I stand 
 
 Up, follow them — What ! follow them, they free 
 
 Of visual wing as bird ? They cry, " see ! see !" 
 As the inbounding waves of new things, grand 
 And beautiful, break, break, as upon a strand, 
 
 Before them and retreat incessantly. 
 
20 
 
 LITTLE HANDS. 
 
 Now, leaving me upon the muddy shore, 
 Away, afar, they speed with the cherub wing 
 Of vision, over the waves of beautiful Spring 
 
 Which dash across hill, valley, without roar. 
 Cherubs ! I follow slowly, laboring 
 
 In memory's sluggish boat with heavy oar. 
 
 LITTLE HANDS AND SMALL, RED MOUTH. 
 
 Little hands ! Oh, how you thrill me 
 
 With delight, . 
 And with longing, dreaming, fill me 
 
 Day and night ! 
 Soft as moonlight on a flower 
 Is your touch upon my arm, 
 When we meet at twilight hour, 
 
 In the grove below your farm ; 
 While the birds, brown, blue and red, 
 
 Over head, 
 On the branches blossoming, 
 
 Ceaseless sing, 
 And from honeysuckle, rose, 
 Richest fragrance overflows. 
 
 Small, red mouth ! Oh, how you thrill me 
 
 With delight, 
 And with longing, dreaming, fill me 
 
 Day and night ! 
 Luminous the smiles that play 
 
 Ever about you ; and, at star-rise, 
 How they brighten up my way, 
 Once I see you from afar rise ! 
 
SHOULDER-DEEP MID FALLEN STARS. 21 
 
 While the crickets chirp in choirs, 
 
 Mid the briars, 
 Amorous fire flies here, then there, 
 
 Flit and flare, 
 And the moon puts off the rain, 
 Making bows, though faint, yet plain. 
 
 Little hands and mouth that thrill me 
 
 With delight, 
 And with longing, dreaming, fill me 
 
 Day and night ! 
 Will ye beckon me away 
 
 When I seek a clasp forever ? 
 Or then welcome me to stay, 
 
 Urging me to high endeavor, 
 Bidding me halt not, but climb 
 
 Height sublime, 
 Though the clouds that round it drift 
 
 Seldom lift, 
 And though all the world beside, 
 Till I reach the peak, deride ? 
 
 SHOULDER-DEEP MID FALLEN STARS. 
 
 A sweet, mild face has haunted me these years 
 Since an outcast from light on this lone isle. 
 That dimpled cheek, that double chin, that smile, 
 Those large, black eyes — O God ! the vision appears 
 So real I spring to it ; but big, sad tears 
 
22 O FIREBIRD! 
 
 Roll down my cheeks, for it vanishes off, aye, while 
 
 I clasp it to my bosom. Void of guile 
 In seeming, as of old, again it nears, 
 
 Extending unto mine its small, soft hand. 
 Vision, depart from me ! Leave me alone 
 
 Here, where all stars, which lighted my sky of yore, 
 Have fallen, and where, shoulder deep, I stand 
 
 In their hot embers that burn me to the bone — 
 Hopes, wishes, grown despairs for evermore. 
 
 O FIREBIRD !* 
 
 O Firebird ! on the oak, the hillock's highest, 
 
 From brook thou flyest 
 Beside the nest where thou wilt no more dwell. 
 
 " Old nest, farewell!" 
 Thou singest, and- thy mate chirps her refrain 
 
 To thy sad strain, 
 While, like affrighted sentinels, from hills, 
 
 From spires in villes 
 And cities, tree-tops and from peaks, whereon 
 
 Snow broods like swan, — 
 Imperiled outposts, — all the last rays run 
 
 After the sun, 
 As into his great castle of the sea 
 
 Grandly goes he, 
 And his huge outer gates of red clouds close 
 
 On his dark foes. 
 
 ♦This beautiful bird migrates by night. 
 
O FIREBIRD! 23 
 
 O Firebird ! art thou taking a parting look 
 
 Of lake and brook, 
 The grainfields and the forests of the North ? 
 
 Wilt thou start forth 
 With twilight on thy migratory flight ? 
 
 Ah, then, good night ! 
 Kind Nature prompts thee for thy good to fly 
 
 To .Southern sky. 
 Oh, when my instinct, Conscience, bids me seek 
 
 A world less bleak, 
 Where flowers and fruitage do not run to seed, 
 
 Would I could speed 
 As promptly in response, as from yon highest 
 
 Of oaks thou flyest 
 To the bright, fragrant South, where winds blow raw 
 not 
 
 And want will gnaw not ! 
 
 O Firebird ! how I envy thee thy flight 
 
 Southward, by night, 
 Between reflected stars in lake and stream 
 
 And those that gleam 
 In gorgeous lustre, or alone, on high 
 
 In pure, blue sky ! 
 What meteorites, when thou art swift, aloft, 
 
 Submerge thee oft 
 With their green glare ! but drown thee not with woe, 
 
 As pleasure's glow 
 Drowns us poor mortals on our earthly flight.' 
 
 On through the night 
 Thou speedest, over homes where mothers breast 
 
 Their babes to rest, 
 
24 O FIREBIRD f 
 
 Repeating sweet words, as the Summer, roses, 
 Till each dear dozes. 
 
 O Firebird ! under thy meteoric flight 
 
 Gleam Cities bright 
 In Dippers, Galaxies and Southern Crosses. 
 
 The forest tosses 
 In a wild blaze beneath thee, and beyond. 
 
 The pear-shaped pond 
 Twinkles with oars. Fond lovers hail thee oft, 
 
 Then dart aloft 
 To Floridas of fancy. Thou doest meet 
 
 And joyfully greet 
 The dark blue gulf-stream, wafting warmth along 
 
 As thou dost song, 
 Upon its mission North through icebergs drifting 
 
 And huge whales lifting. 
 
 O Firebird ! cheery is thy note. I know- 
 One, wild with woe. 
 
 Who, standing upon a rock, about to leap 
 In stream — dark, deep, 
 
 Heard thee, and paused, then wept back to her home, 
 No more to roam 
 
 From her fond parents, who forgave her fault. 
 Is to exalt 
 
 Benighted mortals not thy mission ? Thou 
 On no one bough 
 
 Singest all night, but travelest leagues along, 
 Dropping sweet song 
 
O FIREBIRD! 25 
 
 In sorrowing hearts, like seed on sea-girt islands 
 Where, on the low and highlands, 
 
 Ere long spring branching trees, which blossom and 
 fruit 
 
 And take firm root. 
 
 O Firebird ! though beneath thy carol, deep 
 
 Be the world's sleep, 
 Thy sweet notes mingle with its dreams, yea, soften 
 
 The whirlwind often 
 Into a browsing breeze, with blossoming peach 
 
 Above its reach, 
 The leaf alone within its touch of lip. 
 
 Warm fellowship 
 Exists between thee, Firebird, and the bard. 
 
 The world sleeps hard 
 Beneath his trumpeting, too, when from a height 
 
 In Heaven, at night, 
 He lowers a luminous ladder down to men, 
 
 Whose soulless ken 
 Perceives not they are seraphim, who climb 
 
 His thoughts sublime. 
 
 O Firebird ! when thou, warbling,' dost alight 
 
 At black midnight 
 On gable over one with soul deprest, 
 
 Thou bringest rest 
 And inspiration. Never night so blear 
 
 But that bright cheer 
 During some hour melodiously sings 
 
 In it and wings ^ 
 
26 O FIREBIRD! 
 
 To happier climate. May we have the ear 
 
 With which to hear 
 And eyes with which to see the bird, which passes 
 
 O'er the morasses 
 And woods of life where mystery makes them dark. 
 
 Such Faith is. Hark ! 
 See ! even as thou melodiously singest 
 
 And heavenward wingest ! 
 
 O Firebird ! through the starless night of pain 
 
 Great minds maintain 
 A lofty flight thus to sublimest goal. 
 
 Before them roll 
 Huge clouds, but these they mount, like flashes of 
 light, 
 
 Oblivious quite 
 Of ought except their quest for the orange ranches 
 
 Where, on rich branches 
 Of buds and fruit, they perch, build nests and breed. 
 
 Nor does their speed 
 Cease here, but flashes on, bright with renown, 
 
 While earth goes down 
 In the dark sea with her throngs and the domes they 
 rear, 
 
 To reappear, 
 Sun-like, with gladsome millions, whose deft hand 
 
 Redomes the land. 
 
 O Firebird ! on thy beauty I could gaze 
 
 Tireless, whole days, 
 And through the thickets, woods, could all night long 
 
 Follow thy song. 
 
O FIREBIRD f 27 
 
 Graceful in movement, as a woman's eyes, 
 
 Art thou ; and wise, 
 For, when alighting on the branch, or ground, 
 
 Thou circlest round, 
 As if suspicious that a snake or snare 
 
 Were larking there. 
 How sensitive ! a zephyr, weaving its way 
 
 From spray to spray, 
 Would startle thee, like whir of a cruel stone 
 
 By urchin thrown, 
 And make thee flutter off ; and yet thou fearest 
 
 Not darkness drearest. 
 
 O Firebird ! lovelier than the evening star, 
 
 Who, poising afar, 
 Gazes upon us worldlings for brief space, 
 
 Then hides her face 
 In sadness at the sight of the throngs in strife 
 
 For bread, for life, 
 On hill, in valley, village and in town ! 
 
 Thou comest down 
 Among us, like a Cherub with assistance, 
 
 Seekest not distance. 
 Nor dost thou sing alone when fireflies flare 
 
 Cloud thick in air, 
 The glow worms creep and owls have keen, glad 
 eyes ; 
 
 For at sunrise, 
 On tall magnolia or on poplar limb, 
 
 Ascends thj hymn. 
 
t B O FIREBIRD! 
 
 O Firebird ! when I see thy glory drop 
 
 On the cedar top, 
 hike flame from Heaven upon the altar erst, 
 
 My soul is athirst 
 To see Him who has fashioned thee so fine. 
 
 Yea, thou dost shine 
 With thy rare beauty, like the pillar bright, 
 
 Which led by night 
 The Hebrews through the desert, for dost thou 
 
 Through night and slough 
 Lead not to Him before whom falls the sun, 
 
 A glow worm dun ? 
 Thou lightest up the way, bright bird, by making 
 
 Us, with doubts aching, 
 Feel that such beatific beauty as thine 
 
 Was born divine. 
 
 O Firebird ! will thy beauty burn away 
 
 As breaks the spray, 
 And thou no more recover comeliness ? 
 
 Thou who dost bless 
 Us with bright cheer when we to grief succumb, 
 
 Wilt thou lie numb 
 And shapeless when from nest, the grave, we rise 
 
 To Heaven lark-wise, 
 And have no need of thy kind ministry ? 
 
 Will God love thee 
 Less, then, than when He ceased creating the earth 
 
 To give thee birth 
 And lavish loveliness upon thy frame ? 
 " His love is the same 
 
 
BROTHER TO THE BIRD AS WELL. 29 
 
 Ever, oh, ever!" in response thou singest 
 
 As off thou wingest. 
 
 SWEETEST OF CREATURES! 
 
 Sweetest of creatures ! I have but one dream, 
 
 Wake or sleep, that I am at thy side, 
 Strolling through' park, or through grove, or by stream ; 
 
 Only one longing — to make thee my bride ; 
 Only one dread — that the future may fall 
 
 Snow-like and drift thee away from my call'. 
 
 Sweetest one, hearken ! the zephyr of spring 
 Whispers to daffodils : " Laugh out for mirth, 
 
 For the wild winter has broke his black wing, 
 Beating the sun off from swooping near earth." 
 
 Even so thou, with thy language of eyes, 
 Biddest my daffodil hope to arise. 
 
 BROTHER TO THE BIRD AS WELL. 
 
 Behold the ant at work ! How hard 
 
 It struggles with its load up hill ! 
 
 It climbs each rock which would retard. 
 
 Ah, that I had its heart and will ! 
 
 It ceases not its plucky strain, 
 
 But pushes ahead, nor ever in vain. 
 
 The tenderest regard for thee 
 
 I have, O ant ! ah, I, too, shoulder 
 
 A load, though less successfully, 
 
 I freeze and my grain begins to molder, 
 
3 o NEW YORK. 
 
 Or else a foul bird with a shriek 
 Snatches it off and leaves me bleak. 
 
 Though brother to the ant, still I 
 Am brother to the bird as well. 
 
 birds, that over the mountains fly f 
 Do you in purer azure dwell 
 
 Than I, who float among' bright spheres, 
 The thoughts of the sages of all the years ? 
 
 1 live two lives : One grovels low 
 In anguish, while the other flies 
 
 In rapture, such as the angels know. 
 If ant alone — but shut thine eyes 
 O Soul ! from that appalling vision ; 
 Watch onlv the bird on its flight elvsian. 
 
 NEW YORK. 
 
 Hail faires-t of cities ! as, in fancy pendant 
 Above thy roofs and spires, I downward gaze 
 Upon thy millions, wending their divers ways. 
 
 On pleasure, enterprise, or thrift attendant, — 
 
 How shine thy " Homes," with charity resplendent, 
 The grandest temples man to God can raise ! 
 Aye, for when waifs with hunger ache and craze. 
 
 Asylums, in the place of spires ascendant, 
 
 Send Heavenward luminous shafts of souls redeemed 
 
 From want, despair and sin. Since Charity 
 
 Hides multitudinous transgressions, thou 
 Art fairest of the cities ever dreamed 
 
 Of by the saint or poet. Ever be 
 
 Thou such a groye of luminous shafts as now. 
 
STRANGE TO WITNESS. 31 
 
 STRANGE TO WITNESS. 
 
 I see a strife for the world. The cannons roar 
 And glare the dark dome red with bursting shell, 
 And wounded thousands groan, or frenzied yell. 
 
 With gleaming blades impetuously pour 
 
 The foe on the front, flank, rear, of the Christian corps, 
 Who, strange to witness, dash not to repel 
 The furious onslaught, but each other fell 
 
 With spear and battle axe beclotted with gore. 
 
 The heavens now open ; Nature, awed, stands still, 
 
 And softly a voice asks, "Why be militant 
 
 With brethten ? Peace. He, whom I am well pleased 
 With, taught, ' Love one another ; ' but you kill. 
 
 Drop spear and battle axe and charity chant. 
 
 No victory till your discords shall have ceased." 
 
 RARELY DOES HEAVEN REJOICE. 
 
 Gray, venerable shepherds, who have lost 
 Vast numbers of their flocks along the vale, 
 Hill side and wood, search not their mazy trail 
 
 To fold them from the nightly prowling frost, 
 
 But gather jasper, spar, from rock storm tossed, 
 Or cast up by the freshet through the dale ; 
 And grand, high temples make they, which no gale 
 
 Can drag the roofs from, golden domed and crossed. 
 
 Happy are they, but woful are their sheep. 
 
 Rarely does Heaven rejoice upon their finding 
 Of poor, lost lambkins, that the while are winding 
 
 Down into the lairs of wolves, or pitfalls deep. 
 The Shepherd, who for the flock which he was minding 
 
 Gave up his life, must, seeing those shepherds, weep. 
 
3 2 I LOOK UP AND HOPE. 
 
 ENDING THE JEST. 
 
 In yonder marble palace, white as snow, 
 
 Around long tables, each in sumptuous seat, 
 Pose men and women, who from silver eat 
 
 Ths choicest dainties and hilarious grow. 
 
 Outside, the howling winds of want and woe 
 Scourge fellow-beings, who with shoeless feet 
 And tattered garments shiver through the street 
 
 In search of shelter, groaning as they go. — 
 
 " Come out, thou gourmand, ablaze with diamond pin, 
 And trot off with thy brother, bare of breast ! 
 Come out, proud woman, gemmed and queenly dressed 
 
 And sit beside thy sister, famished thin ! " 
 Death calls you out and ends the cruel jest 
 
 Of flattering Life tJiat you are not a kin. 
 
 I LOOK UP AND HOPE. 
 
 After the weary day when I recline 
 Upon a bench beneath the birdful tree, 
 A wave comes, then a bracing, boundless sea, 
 
 Upon whose waves I walk like one Divine, 
 
 Fleetly and full of joy. Befireath me shine 
 Towns, institutions, which humanity 
 Builds coral-like. What rapture to walk free 
 
 On Contemplation's blue and boundless brine ! 
 
 Oft am I startled, seeing at my feet 
 
 The luminous reflex of a sphere, unseen 
 
 By science on his Babel, telescope. 
 
 Ah ! how I long with mine own eyes to greet 
 
 That Luminary, which I now can glean 
 By reflex only ! I look up and hope. 
 
TO HER POSTHUMOUS CHILD. 33 
 
 MODERN SOCIETY'S PROTOTYPE. 
 
 Blue limpid lakes lay in a land of yore, 
 
 Environed by high mountains, green with trees. 
 
 Upon these waters floated flocks of geese, 
 As white as the peaks, or the stars that clustered o'er. 
 There must have been a thousand flocks, or more, 
 
 Upon each lake, and long they swam in peace 
 
 And grew in beauty ; but, as springs the breeze, 
 A frenzy sprang on them from shore to shore. 
 Each seized his neighbor by the neck and beat 
 
 Him bare of plumage with his wing now red. 
 
 They swam no more, but drifted like the dead. 
 It was a ghastly sight ; they would not eat 
 
 What nature in the lake and meadow spread, 
 But deemed each other's life blood much more sweet. 
 
 TO HER POSTHUMOUS CHILI). 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 Close your world weared eyes. 
 
 Sleep while I weep. 
 To heaven, love, rise, oh, rise ! 
 
 Your papa you will know 
 By his fond gaze, hug, kiss, 
 
 And disappearance slow 
 As you descend from bliss. 
 
 SJeep, baby, sleep. 
 
34 TO HER POSTHUMOUS CHILD. 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 Oh, that you could reveal 
 
 The sights you peep 
 At, when those sweet smiles steal 
 
 Across your pinkish cheek ! 
 Oh, could I only hear 
 
 Your papa you hear speak 
 When you seem listening, dear ! 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 Sleep, 1 will let no flies 
 
 Across you creep, 
 For I will net you nice. 
 
 Sleep, I will let no rays 
 Down dazzle your heavenly flight, 
 
 Or freckle your pretty face, 
 And I will rock all night. 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 Oh, how resist a kiss? 
 
 But I will creep 
 Off, not disturb his bliss. 
 
 Puss, walk your softest. Dick, 
 There's sugar, hush your peek. 
 
 How loud the clock's click, click ! 
 Now cradle hush your creak. 
 Sleep, Baby, sleep. 
 
DECORA TION DA Y. 35 
 
 TO A YELLOW COAXER. 
 Wee, yellow, innocent Siren ! hush, be still. 
 
 Why art thoa so bewitching a beseecher 
 
 To kindred on the wave 7 No, guileless creature ! 
 The inspiration of thy amorous thrill 
 Is not to coax from woodland, meadow, rill, 
 
 And from the nest on willow where no reacher 
 
 Can place his hand, touch egg or wide-mouthed screecher. 
 Glad birds to share thy cell at gable sill, 
 'Mid lattice work of shadows from cherry limb. 
 
 In thy clear eye lurks no intent malicious. 
 Thou leanest so wild in cage with snapping lock, 
 
 I ween thou longest for the fields, now dim 
 In memory, and dost sing of fondest wishes 
 
 To mate free, yea, and migrate with thy flock. 
 
 DECORATION DAY. 
 
 Rolls the echoing boom. 
 
 See ! the flowers by veterans shed 
 On our Country's Tomb, 
 
 Mount like clouds, white, golden, red, 
 Green, pink, purple, on the sun 
 
 When through rain his race is run. 
 
 The Divine appears, 
 
 Pleads with heaven for peace below. 
 We grow dim with tears 
 
 F'or the slain, both friend and foe. 
 Ah, the foe were brothers brave ! 
 
 Grief will ever green their grave. 
 
$6 TO THE ENTRAPPED YELLOW BIRD, 
 
 Fragrance rises where 
 
 Sickening gun-smoke, bomb-shells rose ; 
 Where were yells is prayer ; 
 
 Friends stand where stood fiercest foes ; 
 And where Thralldom ruled with hound, 
 
 Freedom, cheered by all, sits crowned. 
 
 THE POET. 
 
 A new Creation does the poet find 
 
 At every glance. Sublime horizons spread 
 
 Fresh, gorgeous clouds at his each turn, each tread. 
 
 New glories he discerns in human kind, 
 
 Seeing the spirit, which is ever inclined 
 
 To noble effort, though the flesh hang dead 
 And be a vulture's prey. When epochs shed 
 
 Old creeds, or customs, as the fruit the rind, 
 
 He views not only the molding but the flowering, 
 
 And chants for joy. Down into the germ, or cell, 
 
 He looks and finds, as in an artesian well, 
 
 A starry field. Oft, 'mid the blackest showering 
 
 That deluges earth, he stands forth luminous, 
 
 Shines with the Sun whose rays yet reach not us. 
 
 TO THE ENTRAPPED YELLOW BIRD. 
 
 Fly, fluttering creature, fly ! 
 
 Lose not the woods and sky. 
 Go, let glad Morning fling 
 Her gold dust on thy wing, 
 
 Thou by the brook on a bushy scup 
 
 Imbibing thine own image up. 
 
THE MYTHS OF GREECE. 37 
 
 Fly, lest thy mother worry, 
 Upset the nest, Oh, hurry ! 
 
 May not she, flurrying wild, 
 
 Dash out her sickly child 
 Who, restless, climbeth up the nest? 
 Fret pales thy mother's wing and breast. 
 
 Thy brothers, in their play 
 About the lilac spray. 
 
 Are timider than ever. 
 
 Their handsome, bold and clever- ' 1 
 Big brother is not there to lead, 
 And father is off for worm and weed. ' 
 
 He comes now, hear his shriek ! 
 
 The worm drops from his beak. 
 He circles about us, leaping 
 From ground to tree and peeping. 
 
 Were I away, how he with rage 
 
 Would beat his wing against this cage ! 
 
 Why are thy wings so strong? 
 
 To scatter pearls of song . 
 Along the lake and field, 
 Where farmers mow, concealed 
 
 By the tall hay ; not for a nook 
 
 To be- — aye, crushed, like 1 buds in a book. 
 
 THE MYTHS OF GREECE. 
 Dead are thy Deities, beautiful Greece ! 
 
 Gorgeous embodiments they, of thy wishes, 
 Fancies and hopes, thy heart yearning for peace. 
 
 Beautiful, horrible, virtuous, vicious, 
 
38 SWEET LADY, CEASE THY SINGING. 
 
 Thou wert, O Land ! and thy gods were the same ; 
 
 Beauty, however, was crowned King of both. 
 Time set thy temples, homes, Heavens aflame, 
 
 Perished thy gods under earth's overgrowth. 
 
 Perished have they ? They are bough's phosphorescent 
 Shining 'mid forest in distant dim cave 
 
 Down — oh \ abysmally deep from the Present, 
 
 Jut where we watch from and, wistful, hands wave. 
 
 Boughs phosphorescent, bright Myths, ye illumine 
 Unto us Greece with its woodlands supernal, 
 
 Light up a Nation of struggling, great, true men, 
 Hold it aloft out of darkness eternal. 
 
 SWEET LADY, CEASE THY SINGING. 
 
 Sweet lady ! cease thy singing. I have lain 
 Here in this hammock half this sunless day 
 Hopeless and still, as a frozen-hearted jay, 
 
 Bold pioneer in lone advance of the train 
 
 Of flowers and vernal warblers. It is pain 
 To me to hear thy joyous, amorous lay 
 Rising and falling, even as fountain spray, 
 
 In this night air, when I must ever remain 
 
 In infinite distance from the beaming eyes, 
 The red, melliferous lips, the cheeks just fair, 
 
 The smile entrancing and the queenly air, 
 Which vividly before my vision rise. 
 
 Yet sees not, for thy voice dispels despair, 
 Singing of love and gallant enterprise. 
 
THE BIRDS A T MORN. 39 
 
 THE BIRDS AT MORN. 
 
 I stroll by the Hudson side, 
 
 While from the ocean the tide 
 And sun, and the birds in song 
 
 From nests, arise, and long 
 I loiter, hid by briar and rock, 
 
 To watch the cataract fall of a flock 
 Of all hued birds on the ground, 
 
 On boughs and all bushes around 
 The brooklet, where they slake 
 
 Their thirst, and, bathing, shake 
 White showerlets from their flaming crests, 
 
 Their pinions blue, or yellow breasts. 
 
 With radiant plumage, they 
 
 Besparkle, like rainbow spray 
 About a waterfall. 
 
 One flies with a call, then all 
 Ascend a column grand, 
 
 Like sun lit spiral sand 
 In desert. See ! in flocks they break 
 
 And courses eastward, westward, take, 
 Dropping on meadow and grain 
 
 As thick as the atoms of rain 
 From sultry clouds, upon whose trails 
 
 Come days with troops of freshening gales. 
 
4 o NEVER THUS IN OUR NEW LAND. 
 
 A SPRING SONG. 
 
 It is spring and I must sing 
 
 With the brooklet, bee and bird, 
 And must flower with ground and bower. 
 
 With new life my soul is stirred. 
 Ice is past that long and fast 
 
 Held the Falls of hope suspended. 
 How they cast their volumes vast, 
 
 Roar, spread, are with bloomage blended ! 
 
 Flowerets fair rise everywhere. 
 
 Children ! go and gather them. 
 Be aware. Time stoops to tear 
 
 Glad hours quickly from the stem. 
 Pure, bud-wise, may we all rise 
 
 So that angels, sent to bind 
 What is beauteous in God's eyes, 
 
 Shall not pass us like the wind. 
 
 NEVER THUS IN OUR NEW LAND. 
 
 In each old land see millions delving deep 
 With pick and shovel after minerals rare ; 
 Upon the sunny, pure, salubrious air 
 
 They turn their backs and famish. Oft they heap 
 
 Dead comrades mountain high before they reap 
 A glimpse of what they seek. At last they share 
 The trophies. Who? The workers? Do they wear 
 
 The diamond, and the dust and nuggets keep ? 
 
NOT STONE, NOR FLOWER, NOR LEAF. 41 
 
 Or is it rather not the few who stand 
 
 Idly on top at beck of some crowned head ? 
 
 Idly ! Ah, no ! with axes, smoky and red, 
 They crush the skulls of each ascending band 
 
 And spoliate the dying and the dead. 
 It never must be thus in our new land. 
 
 NOT STONE, NOR FLOWER, NOR LEAF. 
 
 Illustrious soldier ! who at Riverside 
 
 Sleepest in breathless peace, where up and down 
 
 Beside thy tomb the Hudson solemnly treads, 
 
 Like Sentinel, the live long day and night, 
 
 Relieved not by the stars, nor moon, nor sun, 
 
 I join the throng about thy vaulted couch. 
 
 Offer the tribute of my gratitude, 
 
 And, as memento of my pilgrimage, 
 
 Carry away not stone, nor flower, nor leaf ; 
 
 Nor inspiration to act gallantly 
 
 In vanguard in the strife for Fatherland, 
 
 As these gay striplings, prating at my side 
 
 With voices cracking hoarse with wakening manhood, 
 
 May carry to their homes and long preserve ; 
 
 For, ah ! no vanguard, action, ever for me ; 
 
 But a weird vision I bring home. and keep 
 
 Vivid before me — that of thy rescuing 
 
 Our young Republic from abyssmal doom. 
 
 See ! Mutiny, which has unhinged and broken 
 Her pilot wheels and has unlinked her chains, 
 With wildest shrieks is reddening deep her deck, 
 Heaping the dead in zigzag, ghastly drifts, 
 
42 OLL, MORE THAN LOVELY, LEAL! 
 
 And crimsoning her wake from shore to shore. 
 
 The brink ! the brink ! across it she has shot 
 
 Her bowsprit from the water, as an arrow 
 
 From bow, and is about to plunge on the rocks, 
 
 When, like a mighty wind from heaven, thy genius 
 
 Comes, fills her sails and drives her — sweeps her back 
 
 With silvery trail into the calm, blue stream 
 
 Where not a tributary to a vortex, 
 
 But where it branches off through meades, woods, quarries, 
 
 Where farmers plow and feed the ground with seed, 
 
 The birds chirp cheerily, fond mothers smile 
 
 As their smart boys and girls run off to school ; 
 
 Where lumbermen cut down and raft big trees 
 
 To build up towns with, and where quarrymen 
 
 Blast granite huge that architects and sculptors 
 
 May beautify — aye, and immortalize — 
 
 0ur cities with great temples, dedicated 
 
 With priestly rite and popular procession 
 
 To God, Art, Science, and Philanthropy. 
 
 OH, MORE THAN LOVELY, LEAL! 
 
 Dost thou ask, Love, 
 
 Why a coy smile plays 
 
 Round my mouth and face, 
 
 When I bask, Love, 
 
 In the peace which radiates 
 
 From thy beauty, as from rose, 
 
 Fragrance, when gray twilight snows 
 
 Heaven in with its golden gates, 
 
 Towers and walls, and darkens the woods 
 
YE WRETCHES WHO BURN GRAIN. 43 
 
 Where the warblers, snug with their broods, 
 Nest and rest from fear and feuds ? 
 
 I confess, Love, 
 
 If a coy smile plays 
 
 Round my mouth and face, 
 
 When I press, Love, 
 
 Thine soft hand, or lay my cheek 
 
 Over thine, as petals fold 
 
 O'er each other from the cold, 
 
 When bats flit and Heaven is bleak, 
 
 'Tis a gleam of the joy I feel, 
 
 Knowing thou, my goal, ideal, 
 
 Art — Oh, more than lovely, leal ! 
 
 YE WRETCHES WHO BURN GRAIN! 
 
 In the Missouri valley and on plain 
 
 At nightfall barns burst crimson, set ablaze* 
 
 By speculators, who, delighted, gaze 
 At the red heavens, and smile as over the slain 
 Smiles steel, or lightning, when a glimpse they gain 
 
 Of the large cities East, where women ply 
 
 The needle unavailingly and sigh 
 With shadowy babes upon their breasts in vain 
 For sustenance, and men, gaunt featured, fall 
 
 In faint or spasm upon the street when, crazed 
 With hunger, they choke pride and beg for bread, 
 
 Or, beast like, into a loathsome cellar crawl. 
 Ye wretches who burn grain to have rates raised ! 
 
 May vultures that now scent you soon be fed. 
 
 * '.The barn burning symbolizes " cornering." 
 
44 FAIR FREEDOM. 
 
 GIRL AND WOMAN. 
 
 White as flax her hair is, 
 
 And with blushing, dimpling cheek, 
 
 Not with voice, does she now speak. 
 While most coy her air is, 
 
 When accosted by a stranger. 
 
 Is the hare, which sniffles danger 
 Ceaselessly, in dark or glare, 
 
 In the clover field, or slope of snow, 
 Timider and Adilaire? 
 
 She is doubtful whether she 
 Has the right, or no, to be 
 
 Anywhere so ever she may go. 
 
 Lo ! her flaxen hair has 
 
 Brown become, and how commanding 
 
 Is her mien among men, standing, 
 Each of whom a kingly air has ! 
 
 Oh, how quick girl grows to woman ! 
 See ! her large blue eyes sail through men 
 
 To their hearts, thoughts innermost, 
 As a jay through frost to buds of spring. 
 
 Now, like dauntless chief of host 
 Reconnoitering town or wood, 
 
 Gallops she in joyful mood 
 To commanding peaks in everything. 
 
 FAIR FREEDOM. 
 
 Freedom fair, of Heavenly birth, 
 Was a wanderer long on earth. 
 
FREEDOM'S RESTING GROUND 45 
 
 With a pale and haggard face 
 
 She was cast from every place, 
 Though, at first, her path was strewn 
 By young girls with flowers of June, 
 
 And with shout, oration, song, 
 
 Thunderously loud and long 
 She was welcomed by the throng ; 
 This was ere the king grew strong. 
 
 Freedom fair, divine of birth, 
 Lives celestially on earth. 
 
 Never in her thought, speech, deed, 
 
 "Would she stoop from Heaven to feed 
 On the glow-worm, gold or guile ; 
 Therefore monarch, cruel, vile, 
 
 Drove her forth to perish drear 
 
 In the sea ; but she came here 
 To our forest, mountain, mere, 
 Where she dwells and knows not fear. 
 
 FREEDOM'S RESTING GROUND. 
 
 O Land, where Freedom, fugitive 
 
 On earth so long, delights to live 
 
 'Mid mountains where at morn the snow 
 Reddens, and, when the sun falls low, 
 
 Pales into stars above the plains, 
 
 Guiding a thousand immegrant trains 
 With scouts alert for wolves, wild cattle, 
 Or Indians creeping along to battle — 
 
 How we rejoice that Freedom has found 
 
 In thee eternal resting ground ! 
 
46 FREEDOM'S RESTING GROUND. 
 
 O Land, where our ancestors bold 
 Found warm, snug shelter from the cold, 
 Which then in Europe numbed with thrall 
 The hands, feet, brains, nay, souls of all ; 
 And where our fathers in the field 
 Of conflict bled, but would not yield 
 To savage or to foreign foe, 
 And drove each back with deadly blow—- * 
 How we rejoice that Freedom has found 
 In thee eternal resting ground ! 
 
 O Land, where soon our fathers spread 
 
 From sea cost to the river's head, 
 
 Across the mountains, through the woods, 
 Over the streams, swamps, solitudes, 
 
 The Mississippi, prairie land, 
 
 The Rockies and Sierras grand, 
 Until they reach the flaming West 
 To share with the sun and Pacific, rest — 
 
 How we rejoice that Freedom has found 
 
 In thee eternal resting ground ! 
 
 O Land, where millions come by sea 
 
 From every clime rejoicingly, 
 
 And where they on our prairies, through 
 Which mighty rivers, dark, green, blue, 
 
 Dash toward the Gulf, or ocean wide, 
 
 Build towns, impregnably fortified 
 
 With temples, schools, courts, factories, marts 
 And fanes for science and the arts — 
 
 How we rejoice that Freedom has found 
 
 In thee eternal resting ground ! 
 
WILLIE LA Y A D YING. 47 
 
 O Land, where men make their own law, 
 Have no armed force to overawe, 
 
 Have no old, fierce feuds to renew 
 
 But only high aims to pursue, 
 And, aye, ten hundred millions strong, 
 A giant grand, will be ere long, 
 
 And, overshadowing every clime, 
 
 Will bring earth back her halcyon time — 
 How we rejoice that Freedom has found 
 In thee eternal resting ground ! 
 
 WILLIE LAY A DYING. 
 
 Far down town in Grandma's house 
 
 Willie lay a dying. Latticed sun rays lit his brows 
 Sisters stood around him sighing. 
 
 Up he rose and shouted " hey ! " 
 Whistled then thrice shrilly. 
 
 Back he fell, and ah ! when they 
 Felt his forehead, it was chilly. 
 
 "He was wandering," murmured they ;, 
 "Well 'tis mother is away." 
 
 He was wandering— hasting gay 
 
 To his home in Bloomingdale, 
 As he used each Saturday 
 
 After work when he was hale. 
 At the old familiar sound 
 
 Stood the mother stunned on stair. 
 " May the Stage for Glory bound 
 
 Stop and take him," was her prayer. 
 
48 THE DEATH OF SAT 110. 
 
 THE NUBIAN, GREEK AND JEW 
 
 The Nubian, with black shining skin, 
 
 Sits half hid in white sand, 
 Greeting the warm sun with a grin. 
 
 He scoops deep with his hand 
 For tortoise egg, or burled bird, 
 
 Or spawn, that he may bite. 
 In him mind has no more than stirred. 
 
 He grins at the Sun for its light 
 And heat — the log fire builded high 
 
 In the thick jungle of night, 
 Whose cold and darkness, tigers sly, 
 
 Skulk off. He laughs outright 
 When polished Greek with rapture cries : 
 
 "The Sun how beauteous ! So 
 Did civilizing Egypt rise, 
 
 Whose roseate setting glow 
 Is in the strata under you." 
 
 The Nubian understands 
 The Greek, as much as the Greek, the Jew, 
 
 Pure soul, who lifts his hands 
 Up to the Sun, exclaiming : "Hail 
 
 Rapt Seraph, who dost see 
 God in His glory void of vail ! 
 
 What thou art I shall be." 
 
 THE DEATH OF SAPHO. 
 
 Sapho, deserted by Phaon, the bold, 
 
 Stands on the rock where the wild billows shriek. 
 
 Well does she know a cadaverous cheek 
 Never rekindles a lover grown cold ; 
 
THE DEATH OF SAP HO. 49 
 
 Hence she will plunge in the sea from the rock. 
 Trembles not she, but stands firm on the brink ; 
 Firm as a vessel a-settling to sink. 
 
 Wherefore survive, for do brooklets not mock 
 Her with her image, her lustreless eyes? 
 Hearken ! she utters her thoughts with deep sighs. 
 
 " Over thee, Phaon, whose burnished, proud shield 
 Mirrors another, mere infant, tall grown, 
 Rose with the dews of the morning unblown ! 
 
 Sapho has poured all her passion, revealed 
 Unto none other her sunlight ; as Spring 
 
 Scatters her beauties profusely on ground 
 
 Welling in desert, though many leagues round 
 There is no tree for the bird's weary wing, 
 
 Or for the camel to rest and quench drouth. 
 
 Me thou didst love not, but only my youth ! 
 
 "Death ! thou alone art not fickle, art best. 
 Into thy bosom this ravenous child, 
 Hungry with knowing life, plunges now wild, 
 
 Ne'er to be weaned from oblivion, thy zest. 
 
 Protean Shadow ! no form couldst thou take 
 Grander than ocean with welcoming arms. 
 Ocean ! so manifold now are thy charms, 
 
 Fain would I wed thee. Oh ! may I awake 
 Up as a Niard, with moss wreath my brow- 
 Moss that grows greener. Ye gods ! I leap now.' 
 
 Down does she plunge, as a diver for pearls; 
 
 Aye, for the pearl of perpetual peace. 
 Once she was fairest, most graceful, of girls ;. .. 
 
 Led she the mystical dances with ease. 
 
5o BEWITCHING SLEEP. 
 
 Followed by thousands of virgins, young men, 
 Phaon among then, all chanting her ode, 
 
 Over this meadow and sea shore. If then 
 
 Hermes had warned her desertion would goad 
 
 Her to this plunge, oh, how she would have laughed, 
 
 Dashed from his fingers the cup ! how have quaffed ? 
 
 BEWITCHING SLEEP. 
 
 Bewitching sleep ! come, take me by the hand 
 And lead me out of darkness into dreams, 
 Where I am free, as speckled trout in streams 
 
 Gushing blue, lucid, over yellow sand 
 
 From peaks where, all year round, the snow smiles bland 
 At Sol's behest to march before his beams, 
 Like a sad race, made captive. Oh, for the gleams 
 
 Of spring a-breaking through the cloud-like land ! 
 
 Oh ! let me see once more those clouds a-breaking, 
 And let me Wander, like an antelope, 
 Through gleams of grass and flowers along the slope, 
 
 Plateau and valley ; for my heart is aching 
 With my drear isolation even from hope 
 
 Of meeting Beauty and her warm hand taking. 
 
 YOU, OF COURSE, SHAKE YOUR HEAD. 
 
 Thousands of ants are alive at your feet ; 
 
 Thrifty are they, and to them life is sweet. 
 You might destroy them with even one tread, 
 But would you try ? You, of course, shake your head. 
 
A RAINY DA Y JN THE GROVE. 51 
 
 Think you the Father, in sunny, blue sky, 
 
 Under whose love we, in ant masses, vie 
 Madly and blind with each other for bread, 
 Ever could crush us from hope with His tread ? 
 
 Think not, Brother ! the peoples of earth 
 Go down forever in darkness and dearth ; 
 
 Bending above them, God, sun like, will break 
 Softly the bread of His light for their sake. 
 
 A RAINY DAY IN THE GROVE. 
 Y^onder the yellow bird and blue 
 Fly, flashing their wings. Let us pursue 
 
 Them to the grove where trees 
 Stand humbly, casting down their eyes, 
 Leaves, like our parents in Paradise, 
 
 Receiving God's decrees. 
 
 The day is dark with rain and cloud, 
 And yet the birds sing sweet and loud 
 
 On many a dripping limb. 
 The robin, red cap, thrush and wren 
 Sing "God be praised," chirp low "Amen," 
 
 Thrill "Glory unto Him." 
 
 How solemnly they chant ! Like choir 
 Of saintly nuns in dark attire, 
 
 Each in her hidden Stall, 
 In Lent, when purple hides from sight 
 The scenes, which made their eyes gleam bright, 
 
 Hanging on Chapel wall, 
 
52 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 Like nuns indeed, for see ! the shower 
 Walls them in from the world, field, flower, 
 
 Brook, sunlight, vale and hill. 
 Ah ! that we could, when woes descend 
 Like rain, with those glad songsters blend 
 
 In sweet praise of God's will. 
 
 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. 
 
 Under the Scales in the air, 
 
 Dipping from ocean to ocean, 
 Millions with blaze and with blair, 
 
 Heave with volcanic commotion. 
 Over those scales the supreme 
 
 Will of the people is Zeus, 
 Holding the lightning from gleam, 
 
 Thunderbolt dreadful when loose. 
 
 Citizens all, one by one, 
 
 Highten and drop in their paper ; 
 Down sinks one scale like the Sun, 
 
 Up goes the other like vapor. 
 When the result is made known, 
 
 How the volcanoes subside, 
 Scarcely disturbing a stone, 
 
 Making great Zeus smile with pride ! 
 
 Thee we revere, O Supreme 
 Will of the people, O Zeus ! 
 
 Hold in thy lightning from gleam, 
 Let not thy thunderbolt loose 
 
 Ever while high in the air 
 
AS THE J A Y LEADS EARTH. 53 
 
 Glitter those scales, aye, unless 
 Fraud, the bold Titan, be there, 
 Step on one scale to depress. 
 
 AS THE JAY LEADS EARTH. 
 List ! sings she like rose-burrowing bees, 
 
 While readying up the house, 
 Dusting the books. White blossoming trees 
 
 Between' us spread their boughs. 
 I slacken reign and let the mare 
 
 Slope her black mane and graze 
 To hark, Love, to thy charming air 
 
 To one of my amorous lays. 
 
 Thy voice how thrilling rich and soft ! 
 
 It flames my soul. Oh, how 
 Resist a climb on the vine aloft 
 
 To reach thy lips and brow ! 
 I must be calm. The day is set 
 
 When we, Love, shall be one — 
 Though seems a fixed star that can get 
 
 No nearer, not a Sun. 
 
 Thou singest, Dear, of love, hope bright, 
 
 And how our hearts rejoice 
 As we both watch that star each night. 
 
 Oh, Love ! with thy sweet voice 
 Thou leadest Heavenward, as the jay 
 
 Leads with its caroling 
 The snow blind earth to feel her way. 
 
 To flowery, fragrant Spring. 
 
54 BY THE TORN TWIN OAKS. 
 
 BY THE TORN TWIN OAKS. 
 
 Dear Love of mine, I long to meet 
 
 Thy face so radiantly fair, 
 Thy voice so soft, thy smile so sweet, 
 
 Thy sparkling eyes, vivacious air. 
 Like tides the days flow in and out, 
 
 Yet bring no sail, nor wreck, but doubt. 
 
 Oh ! just to touch those lips of thine, 
 And with my arm around thee stray 
 
 Down where with phosphorescence shine 
 The torn twin oaks, and there to stay 
 
 Until the dark grain fields all glow 
 
 With moonlight, as with a fall of snow. 
 
 If thou hast sailed to lands remote 
 From love of me, fond Love of mine, 
 
 Why not dispatch a dove with note ? 
 I then would know my fate and thine. 
 
 Oh ! how couldst thou have crossed the sea 
 Without one wave of the hand to me ? 
 
 The torn twin oaks, which lightning split, 
 I nightly visit, cloud or shine, 
 
 And watch the rays their barks' emit. 
 A star falls and I wish thee mine. 
 
 A leaf stirs, and I strain my ear 
 
 For thy fond footstep drawing near. 
 
KATYDIDS. 55 
 
 Am I dead, too, dead as this tree — 
 
 Dead to thy heart — dear Love of mine ? 
 
 What ! is my hope of meeting thee 
 Again, dead phosphorescent shine ? 
 
 Then, here by these lifeless, shining trees 
 'Tis meet I make my mound, seek peace. 
 
 KATYDIDS. 
 
 What did Katy do, or say, 
 
 That you should create a clatter ? 
 Every evening you waylay, 
 
 First depress me and then flatter. 
 Some declare " She did." Did what ? 
 
 Tear my picture, gift, or letter ? 
 Murmur that she loved me not, 
 
 Or she loved'another better? 
 " Katy didn't " afar and nigh 
 
 All the rest, indignant, cry. 
 
 ''Katy did," again I hear 
 
 Through the thickets down the lane 
 To the gate, from which I see her 
 
 Coming, though clouds threaten rain. 
 " Katy didn't," reverberate 
 
 Thousands up the hill behind. 
 Insects, hold your taunting prate, 
 
 Hush you mockers of my mind ! 
 For is she not coming fleetly 
 
 For a walk and smiling sweetly ? 
 
5 6 TOO CLEAR TO IGNORE. 
 
 TOO CLEAR TO IGNORE 
 
 In a dory I drift ; 
 
 Not a sail I espy, 
 Nor an island, bine clift, 
 
 Nor a star in the sky ; 
 But the sweetest faint note 
 
 Of a grove bird I hear, 
 Hence I hopefully float 
 
 For I know land is near. 
 
 If the warbler aloft 
 
 Let not fall his land note 
 On me, dashed up and troughed, 
 
 How help plunge from the float 
 There I starve as I drift 
 
 And no sail can espy, 
 Nor an island, blue clift, 
 
 Nor a star in the sky ? 
 
 The low note is the voice 
 
 Of the Spirit, God, Love, 
 Saying, " Driftling ! rejoice, 
 
 There is harbor Above." 
 And that voice, in despite 
 
 Of the thunder, sea roar, 
 All the bowlings of night, 
 
 Is too clear to ignore. 
 
ON SHORE WITH A FLAMBEA U. 5.7 
 
 Though in billow and gust 
 I must lap up the rain, 
 
 Eat the hardest of crust, 
 I shall trustful remain. 
 
 Let the waves wash across, 
 Sweep off joy, roaring dread, 
 
 I shall follow my loss 
 Not, but hope, look ahead, 
 
 ON SHORE WITH A FLAMBEAU. 
 
 When pensive, despondent, I slacken my oar, 
 Not caring much whither I drift ; the wild roar 
 
 Of the ocean alarms not, nor whirlpool in stream ; 
 
 But soon a voice comes, like St. Elmo's mast gleam, 
 A brightening my face, and my darling I see 
 On shore with a flambeau a beckoning to me. 
 
 To me, Love, no ocean on earth is so wide, 
 But gently thy accent comes over the tide ; 
 
 And though in the weeds or the yeast of mid sea, 
 With waterspouts whirling between us, I be, 
 I row and with flashes of lightning I reach 
 My darling with flambeau and smile on the beach. 
 
 With thee, Love, I wander through meadow, up hill, 
 To see the far city like tombstone, white, still, 
 And sleeping buds waken with glorified eyes 
 When Dawn, the Archangel, blows light trumpet wise; 
 As waken hope, rapture, entombed in my breast. 
 The moment thy image comes down from the Blest, 
 
5 8 O HOPE! 
 
 SHERIDAN AT WINCHESTER. 
 
 Through his wild, routed men he spurs his steed, 
 
 Flashing his sword and shouting. On he flies 
 Through mounds of wounded men, whose darkening eyes 
 
 Flicker, beholding him. Hordes, that stampede 
 Like cattle, halt, and his bold " Forward ! " heed ; 
 
 His presence lights the field up like sunrise. 
 
 He meets the foes and takes them by surprise 
 Abruptly, as were they asleep, indeed, 
 
 In shade of oak or cedar, each with brow 
 Or bearded chin on hand, or face toward ground, 
 Dreaming of home with wife and child around. 
 
 Where are the foes that were triumphant ? How, 
 Though echoes of their glad shouts still resound 
 
 In wood and vale, they fly all shattered now ! 
 
 O HOPE ! 
 
 My doom was first a crushing stone, 
 Beneath which I in helpless plight 
 
 Lay on the ground. From my sad moan 
 And sight of me Hope took to flight, 
 
 Ran weeping to a darkening glen ; 
 
 Nor came she unto me again. 
 
 I struggled. Oh ! how lie supine 
 
 Without Hope bending low with cheer ? 
 
 O Hope ! when that far sight of thine 
 Could see no help approaching near, 
 
 It was thou spedest off, and then 
 
 That vowed I we should meet again. 
 
O HOPE! 50 
 
 I rose and desperation lighted 
 
 My way up with incessant flaring. 
 One moment sunned, the next benighted, 
 
 Through field and fen I hastened, caring 
 But little when I fell and bled 
 My eager foot, or throbbing head. 
 
 Reaching at last auroral skies, 
 
 I saw pale Hope , astounded, stand. 
 
 Gazing at me with tear bright eyes. 
 
 I kissed her mouth, then took her hand ; 
 
 She fixed on me her starry stare, 
 
 For how could I, stoned down, be. there ? 
 
 Hope ! I know not. All I know, 
 
 I could not rest when thou wert fled. 
 I, wild with my Promithean throe, 
 Sprang up. The echo of thy tread 
 
 1 followed till I found thee here 
 
 Beneath this dawn which blooms forth clear. 
 
 Hope, O gentle, patient Hope, 
 Who seest afar, as from a peak, 
 
 When I in gulch or valley grope ! 
 
 Be thou with me when, old and weak, 
 
 1 totter along ; with cheer bend low 
 
 When I fall stiff in the deluging snow. 
 
6o THE DIVINE ONE. 
 
 THE DIVINE ONE, 
 
 In this dark, misty world, at times, appear 
 
 Divine Souls, who with the light of a loftier sphere 
 
 Are luminous and draw vast throngs of men. 
 
 Women and children to the mount, or glen, 
 From town and seaside, grief, despair and greed. 
 They draw less by bright word than with warm deed. 
 
 About us clamor teachers, who declare 
 Their light divine effulgence, though their flare 
 Is only as phosphoresence on the bark 
 Of lifeless oak in the forest, dense and dark. 
 They do no deed divine, hence, multitudes 
 Follow them not to the mountain or the woods. 
 
 Along dark time how few with acts divine 
 Are luminous ! But, oh ! how many shine 
 
 With phosphorescence in the dark and rain ! 
 
 Round these dead shining trees men wail with pain, 
 And, shoulder-deep in the fathomless quicksands, 
 Wave, till submerged, their frantic, surgelike hands. 
 
 See the divine one ! by the Wrist he seizes 
 And drags u'rj each unfortunate, then eases 
 
 The sore, bruised body on a bed of grass. 
 
 Look ! countless thousands follow through morass 
 And over mountains, deserts, night and day, 
 This teacher, and remain with him alway. 
 
TOO LATE, 61 
 
 OH, FOR DREAMLESS REPOSE ! 
 
 1 am fatigued and long for dreamless sleep. 
 
 What have I to awake for ? Pleasures, being' 
 A herd of fleet-foot creatures, ever fleeing 
 
 Prom man, come not within my range, but keep 
 
 Off on the plains where hunters, galloping, sweep 
 
 Round curves, up hills, to them converging. Seeing 
 The millions chasing, aye, and capturing, gleeing, 
 
 And knowing that my steed, my fate, will leap 
 Upon his feet no more, but feed the crows — 
 
 That I am doomed to join not in the chase — 
 
 I fling myself down heavily on my face 
 And cry out childlike, " Oh, for dreamless repose ! " 
 
 Not that I envy them, at easy pace, 
 Who, trophied, passed me at each evening's close. 
 
 TOO LATE. 
 
 Dearest, hide one kiss 
 In your lips, hot, crimson. 
 
 Henceforth, hope of bliss 
 Is to me a dim sun 
 
 Without heat, or radiant glare. 
 Oh, how part from one so fair ? 
 
 Darling, why not speak ? 
 
 Dazed you gaze and tremble. 
 You with hot, red cheek 
 
 Cannot love dissemble : 
 
62 COME, BREAK OFF FROM THE HUNT. 
 
 Say not we have met too late ; 
 May not Fate re-ope her gate ? 
 
 If, Love, we must part, 
 
 Then, before we sever 
 Heart from clinging heart, 
 
 Grant one kiss, and never 
 Shall its pressure lose its form 
 
 From my mouth, or grow less warm. 
 
 COME, BREAK OFF FROM THE HUNT. 
 
 Come, break off from the hunt, from hound and blair, 
 
 And up the mountain of reflection pace. 
 
 Let the wild World go on its break-neck chase 
 
 After the fox, elk, buffalo and bear. 
 We will catch up ; if not, what need we care ? 
 
 The horn of elk, or tail of fox, may grace 
 
 Our porch, or gate, and bison hide encase 
 Our flesh from beak and claw of the swooping air ; 
 
 But what all these to the ecstacy of eyeing 
 The spirits conflict with Adversity ? 
 
 Which on this mountain we can vividly see 
 In the black field of cloud — the red foe flying, 
 
 And though returning, wavelike, crashingly, 
 Back beaten by the Soul, God glorifying. 
 
WHAT DO WITH THE CHILDREN? 63 
 
 WHAT SHALL WE DO WITH THE CHILDREN, 
 
 JANE? 
 
 What shall we do with the children, Jane ? 
 
 No habitable house 
 In Gotham can we now obtain, 
 
 Except they get a douse — 
 Say, from the Bridge, or in the sewer, 
 
 Or in a tank are drowned. 
 Since children should, like dogs, be fewer, 
 
 We need a children's pound. 
 
 What shall we with the children do, 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? 
 Our Country may want them, 'tis true, 
 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
 From East to West, street after street. 
 
 From Bowling Green to the Height, 
 Have I not trudged to find a suite 
 
 Of rooms, broad, airy and bright, 
 Without contagion lurking near, 
 
 Which might infect our Kate 
 Or cherub Tot through eye or ear ? 
 
 But, Jane, 'twas fighting Fate. 
 
 W T hat shall we with the children do, 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? 
 Our Country may want them, 'tis true, 
 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
6 4 WHAT DO WITH THE CHILDREN? 
 
 One lady with white ringlets said 
 
 Quite blandly, " I presume 
 My regulations you have read, 
 
 Which dogs and children doom." 
 I answered that my dears were each 
 
 As mild and sweet as a rose 
 And did not fight, climb, scratch, nor screech, 
 
 Walked always on tip-toes. 
 
 What shall we with the children do, 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? 
 Our Country may want them, 'tis true, 
 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
 Another woman, slim as a snake, 
 
 And just as baneful, too, 
 Bit me, which made me swell and ache, 
 
 With this remark most true : 
 "Sir, marriage has its dismal side 
 
 As well as bright, for when 
 Folks have a drove, they must abide 
 
 Not in house but pen." 
 
 What shall we with the children do, 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? 
 Our Country may want them, 'tis true, 
 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
 « 
 
 1 told the next one, sour of face, 
 
 Tall, ugly, curt and portly 
 That hers was a delightful place 
 For people married shortly — 
 
THE SECRET GRAVE. 65 
 
 (Five minutes by the old church spire.) 
 
 She said : " My regulations 
 Necessitate me to inquire 
 
 If you have expectations." 
 
 What shall we with the children do, i 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? * 
 
 ( )ur Country may want them, 'tis true, 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
 Dear Jane, as we must live somewhere, 
 
 Let us begin to pack 
 Kate with her smile and golden hair, 
 
 Bright, curly-headed Jack, 
 And Tot a-sucking her big toe, 
 
 That we may have them drowned 
 To please our Herods. You must go 
 
 With them to the children's pound. 
 
 What shall we with the children do," 
 
 With Katie, Jack and Tot ? 
 Our Country may want them, 'tis true, ' 
 
 But landlords, Jane, do not. 
 
 THE SECRET GRAVE, 
 
 Hid by shrubbery from the gaze 
 Of companions, standing nigh, 
 
 Is the grave, where oft one lays 
 Down his heart and fain would die. 
 
CO THE SECRET GRAVE. 
 
 Weeping willows overflow 
 
 Yellow branches, like a fountain, 
 
 At this grave, in vale below, 
 
 Or on shore, plateau or mountain. 
 
 Who has not a secret grave, 
 Which he visits stealthily, 
 
 And, although his heart be brave, 
 Does not there let tears flow free ? 
 
 From the dearest friend he steals 
 To the grave to plant fresh flowers ; 
 
 Then with hand-hid face, he kneels, 
 Inconsolable for hours. 
 
 Oft the face that sleeps below 
 Is his Love, for aye departed. 
 
 To the grave how help but go 
 
 From the throng, when broken hearted 
 
 Or the closed brown eyes beneath 
 Are his mother's, pure and good, 
 
 Though her name he may not breathe, 
 Save in his heart's solitude. 
 
 As he gazes on those eyes, 
 
 They reopen, and a light 
 Flashes from them to the skies, 
 
 Where it shines both day and night. 
 
THE POETS TO WER. 67 
 
 Weeping willows, overflow 
 
 Yellow branches, like a fountain, 
 At this grave, by fog, nor snow, 
 
 Hidden, nor by sea, nor mountain. 
 
 THE POET'S TOWER 
 
 Above this world the poet builds a tower 
 
 Of numerous stones, each with balcony. 
 Few of the crowd climb to the top and see 
 
 The glory of creation and the power 
 
 Exhibited by man in his brief hour. 
 'Tis well they climb one story even ; breathe free 
 From stifling care — admire the fountain, tree, 
 
 Children at play and lovers near a bower. 
 The bright horizon broadens from each story; 
 
 From sea to sea beams cities , pole to pole, 
 Extend white peaks , men war and Thrall is slain ; 
 
 The Seasons rise and fall in tidal glory ; 
 And on through time the Eagles, mind and soul, 
 
 With our land soar and the loftiest flight maintain 
 
 ACROSS THE GREATEST OF LANDS. 
 
 Bright yellow birds ! ye ride upon the air 
 
 As on a billow, up and down, so gay 
 
 From dawn to sunset — till the clouds wax gray 
 From orange, crimson, green and purple glare — 
 That, while I envy not, I fain would share 
 
 Your southward flight to reedy stream, or bay ; 
 
 Or westward, where great peaks would from glad day 
 Head night off ; as with shoulder-reaching hair, 
 
68 THE HYMENEAL MORN. 
 
 White like their beards down bosoms, lifting their hands. 
 Tall shepherds their black shaggy sheep divide 
 
 From frisking white flocks, fresh from shears and shore. 
 Oh ! for a flight across the greatest of lands, 
 
 Nay, back to its birth, when it dashed oceans aside, 
 You glaring tigers which still cringe with awe. 
 
 THE HYMENEAL MORN. 
 
 " Happy the bride the sun shines on.'" 
 
 Green, pink and purple bloom the skies ; 
 
 Fragrance breathes everywhere ; 
 The robins sing, "Arise ! arise ! " 
 
 Come bask in the sunny air." 
 The dew, glad tears of the flowerets, gleam ; 
 
 The swallow twitters along the ground ; 
 
 The cocks crow loud, round after round, 
 And farmer lads run after the team, 
 Let out all night ; and still you dream 
 
 On with shut eyes, as were this morn 
 
 Muggy and black, of all hope snorn. 
 
 The goldfinch sings, " Arise ! arise ! 
 Come bask in the freshening air." 
 
 The dream which fascinates your eyes 
 Cannot be half so fair 
 
 As yonder mountain slope, where strays 
 Your lover after flowers — the rarest — ■ 
 To deck your breast with on this fairest 
 
 Of mornings when, as the Church chime plays, 
 
 He leads you up the aisle in the gaze 
 Of fond companions, who confess 
 You charm them in vour bridal dress. 
 
THE HYMENEAL MORN. 6 9 
 
 The linnet sings, " Arise I arise ! 
 
 Come bask in the glorious air." 
 The fatherly Sun stoops from the skies 
 
 And puts his hand on your hair. 
 His dazzling fingers touching your eyes, 
 
 You spring to the window sill and, when 
 No cloud is seen foreboding rain 
 
 And sad career in the pure blue skies, 
 
 What fancies, Birds of Paradise 
 In plumage and skylarks in song, 
 Rise from your bosom, heavenward throng f 
 
 The birds all sing, " Arise ! arise ! 
 
 Come bask in the joyous air." 
 But ah ! no finch nor robin flies 
 
 In air so joyous as where 
 Your hopes and fancies sing and soar, 
 
 While you, at the lifted window, stand, 
 
 Resting your cheek upon your hand, 
 Heedless of your night garb, loose hair. 
 You fall on your knees in the flame of prayer ; 
 
 Tears fill your eyes and sighs obtrude 
 
 As you take leave of maidenhood. . 
 
 The roses whisper, " Arise ! arise ! 
 
 Like us, come, sweeten the air." 
 The violets with tremulous eyes 
 
 Look up. Rise, maiden fair ! 
 Ere long the maids will come to cull 
 
 The orange blossoms and array you. 
 
 The groom will ask, what can delay you ? 
 
yo 
 
 the hymeneal morn. 
 
 What, on your bridal morn- look dull ? 
 
 True, breaking from home is sorrowful ; 
 Ay, 'tis sad, when outward steering, 
 To see your old home disappearing. 
 
 " Rise, Sister, rise ! " your brother cries 
 At the door. " The morn is fair ; 
 
 No crow caws in the field, or 
 
 Skies ; no cloud broods anywhere. 
 
 Arise ! to arrange your locks and array 
 Yourself in style will take, you know, 
 As long, as a morning-glory to blow 
 
 From shut bud into a dawn of day. 
 
 If you be late, what will folks say ? 
 A tardy bride forebodes more ill 
 Than torrents, or though salt should spill." 
 
 Your bright flocks sing, " Arise ! arise ! 
 Come bask in rapturous air ; " 
 
 But, maiden ! what so terrifies 
 You, makes you southward stare ? 
 
 What ! that mere speck ? — It larger grows 
 'Tis true ; and darkening, stretches over 
 The mountain, wood and field of clover, 
 
 Where cattle graze and a brooklet flows ; 
 
 But ah ! your face now radiant glows, 
 For into pigeons, white and blue, 
 The clouds break, carrying joy to you. 
 
 The pigeons coo, " Arise ! arise ! 
 
 Alighting everywhere 
 On grass,"tree, shrub, like snow from the skies ; 
 
 The Sun has a dazzling flare ; 
 
THE MILLER MOTH. 
 
 Yet ah ! that orb which kills decay, 
 Perpetuates life everywhere. 
 Is no sublimer, maiden fair, 
 Than you and your lover, gifted, gay, 
 Bold, handsome, upright, just ahvay, — 
 Who will perpetuate the grace, 
 Beauty and virtue of our race. 
 
 THE MILLER MOTH. 
 
 Miller Moth ! as white as flour, 
 
 Into my room thou flutterest 
 From moonless night and quickening shower. 
 
 The wildest fowl is in his nest. 
 Yet thou art out ! like lady fair 
 
 To meet her lover, bold and true, 
 Who will embosom her fore'er ; 
 
 Or like a damsel, pale with rue, 
 Ringing her hands and wandering daft, 
 
 With startled eyes before and aft. 
 
 Not to snare thee did I fling wide 
 
 The shutters, lift the window case, 
 But to trap breezes, which outside 
 
 Tike snow birds gave each other chase. 
 Seeing the storm, I dimmed the room, 
 
 Ave, to enjoy the lightning's glare. 
 Thou earnest through the flash and gloom 
 
 To me for shelter from the hail, 
 Last straggler, seeking the lost sun's trail. 
 
7_> FAIR RIVERSIDE. 
 
 O Moth, as frail as the flake of snow 
 
 Which melts on a baby's smilelit cheek ! 
 Thou art my welcome guest. Fly low .' 
 
 1 chase thee, not to crush thee bleak 
 Between the pages of a book, 
 
 But just to feel thy velvet form, 
 Then help thee find a cozy nook 
 
 On shelf or cornice, till the storm 
 Shall have blown off Poor outcast ! stray 
 
 Not out again till break of day. 
 
 Bright Moth, pure spirit of the worm, 
 
 Which groveled on the ground and grass, 
 Though thou no longer needs must squirm, 
 
 Through trials thy higher life must pass. 
 With our transcendent life of thought, 
 
 So is it, too ; we leap the bound 
 Which stems the senses, but are caught 
 
 By dark doubt oft and driven astray 
 To trudge through ram till break of day. 
 
 FAIR RIVERSIDE. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Among thy bushes dense it was my joy 
 
 At morn to hide 
 And catch with cage green finches, when a boy. 
 Or list to linnet, perched on lofty limb ; 
 Then stroll thy beach, row, barb for eels, or swim. 
 
PAIR RIVERSIDE. 73 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Thy tallest trees it was my joy to climb, 
 
 And with what pride 
 I lifted the nest of robins ! — hardly a crime, 
 For from harsh storm I put them under cover 
 And served their wants, as might a slave, or lover. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Upon thy rock, or hill, how oft at eve 
 
 I, rapture-eyed, 
 .Beheld the Sun, Redeemer-like, take leave 
 
 Of sorrowing - earth, with kindliest face toward her 
 And promise to come back, her solacer. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Now, since the Sun, who resurrects each day 
 
 All glorified 
 From tomb-like sea, comes near me with no ray. 
 My Sisters come, in his Heavenly stead, along 
 With me to thy grove of fragrance and bird song. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Beneath thy trees we sit and, reading, heed 
 
 Not hours that glide 
 Through sunshine ; only when on galloping steed 
 Night comes a-shadowing, scaring to barn and nook^ 
 The fowl and cattle, do we close the book. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Oft do we turn a leaf down on our lap, 
 
 Electrified 
 By lark and linnet, which I used to trap. 
 
 Ah ! soon their songs charm reverie, and then 
 From chaos black Creation evolves again. 
 
7 1 /v/77? RIVER$U)E. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 What visions spring from contemplation here ! 
 
 And rapture-eyed, 
 Drear darkness dropping from me like a tear, 
 I welcome them, and ah ! how help but sing, 
 As bird at break of day, or dawn of spring ? 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 I see the land from the waters rise and shape 
 
 The prairie wide, 
 The mountain, forest, valley, stream and cape, 
 And Man arise to meet the Sun, build towns, 
 States, churches, schools, put on and take off crowns 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 The bugle call at nightfall brings to view 
 
 Our unified 
 Republic, then the forest fire gone through 
 By all our people, and the leader grand 
 Who through the flames led to rock-sheltered land. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 Sacred thou hast become. The saddest vision 
 
 By me espied 
 Is that of thy starlit vigil, for thy mission 
 
 Is now to guard his rest, whose grand endeavor 
 Gave all our land divine repose forever. 
 
 Fair Riverside ! 
 From North and South brave soldiers, battle-scarred, 
 
 Come and divide 
 Not hostile wise in Soul, but form one Guard 
 Of Honor with reversed arms, sighing, weeping, 
 Around him who in peace lies in thy keeping. 
 
TO THE ENCHANTING HUDSON. 75 
 
 TO THE HUDSON. 
 
 Sweet stream, the meades and woodlands on thy way 
 Smile, in response to the smile upon thy .face, 
 Smile on with joy, with longing wild to place 
 
 Thy hand upon the broad, bright, shield-like Bay, 
 
 Embossed with ships, clouds, islands, birds blue, gray, 
 Which ocean casts off for a breathing space, 
 Fronting great cities, whose bright spires draw grace 
 
 From Heaven, as locust groves on a sultry day, 
 
 Upon the bouldered, chasmed, huge mountain side, 
 
 Mirrowed from peak to base in the lake below, 
 
 Draw lightnings. Sea mist thou wert first, then snow 
 Recamest, falling dead ; revivified 
 
 By sun rays, thou, bright Soul, dost restless grow 
 Until thy father Ocean is descried. 
 
 TO THE ENCHANTING HUDSON. 
 
 Where on earth, at night, or day, 
 
 A magician more enchanting 
 Than thou art from spring to Bay ? 
 
 Groves to grassy meadows slanting, 
 Where the kine graze, and the sheep, 
 
 Mountains shouldering bluest skies, 
 Palisades sublimely steep, 
 
 Villas, towns, before thee rise, 
 Whether thou art swanlike gliding, 
 
 Or around the Jutland dashing, 
 As with blithe intent of hiding 
 In a cave ; or then reflashing 
 
76 SO DIVINE 1 OUGHT NOT FEAR. 
 
 On our eyes which, raptured, follow 
 
 Thee, as after flowering Spring 
 Scuds the glossy purple swallow 
 
 From the South, on tireless wing, 
 Searching for the seed its race 
 
 Fed on, ere the Angel flew 
 Over Eden, stern of face, 
 
 And from Heaven a comet drew. 
 
 SO DIVINE I OUGHT NOT FEAR. 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound, 
 By ascending from my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned. 
 Love or hate me ! nought between, Love, 
 
 Will I suffer. If I share 
 Not the Heaven where thou art queen, Love, 
 
 Everywhere else is despair. 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound, 
 By star-gazing from my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned. 
 Crowned, indeed ! to rule a realm 
 
 Of delight, whose walls and towers 
 Never a horde could overwhelm, 
 
 No, nor all grim Allied Powers. 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound. 
 
SO DIVINE I OUGHT NOT FEAR, 77 
 
 By not lowering to my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned. 
 Crowned to rule a realm of pleasure 
 
 Where each moment would, like vassal, 
 Drive his herd, or shoulder treasure 
 
 To the lodge-gate of our castle. 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound, 
 By not bending to my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned. 
 Oh, to see the warm sun flinging 
 
 Tidal light waves through the murk, 
 The bird kingdom, startled, winging, 
 
 Mankind scattering to its work ! 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound, 
 By not gladdening at my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be Hymen crowned. 
 Oh, what joy to watch young Spring, Love, 
 
 Take from savage Winter's hand 
 Arrowy winds which whizz and sting, Love, 
 
 Or watch Summer tent the land ! 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound, 
 By mute poising o'er my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned. 
 Life is sweet, aye, next to thee, Love ! 
 
 If thou love not, smite, I crave. — 
 Friendship? Name it not — 'twould be, Love, 
 
 Only a flower upon my grave, 
 
78 SOME DA Y. 
 
 Banish me not to despair, Love, 
 
 Where clouds dwell and wolves abound 
 Shut all Heaven not to my prayer, Love, 
 
 That we be by Hymen crowned, 
 'Tis my soul that cries to thine, Love, 
 
 Luminously lowering near 
 Through the dark with face Divine, Love, 
 
 So Divine I ought not fear. 
 
 SOME DAY. 
 
 Brother ! speak boldly out the truth you see. 
 
 Disguise no lie, though on it creeds may rest 
 
 Their jaded bodies ; for a lie, at best. 
 Is the fur of a sleeping panther, and will he 
 Some day not wake, ere men have time to flee, 
 
 And claw them ? When you spy the feline breast, 
 
 Arouse your brethren gently. Be deprest 
 Not, though you should be stoned from earth to the sea, 
 
 Be doomed to walk the long, black, marshy coast 
 Alone and cold ; for wrathful will grow men, 
 
 Disturbed from ease ; but some day they will swarm 
 The shore to bring you home to lead their host 
 
 And crown you. When ? 'Tis sad to think 'tis when 
 The beast lies dead, midst many a ghastly form. 
 
 TO INDEPENDENCE. 
 
 As the bird all day 
 
 Sings one roundalay, 
 
 Sweetly swells his throat 
 With the same rich note ; 
 
TO INDEPENDENCE. 79 
 
 So I sing from morn 
 Till the stars are born, 
 
 Or the clouds have blest 
 
 Earth with shade, with rest — 
 Sing " I yearn and burn for thee, 
 Life is wild concern for thee." 
 
 As the waves all day 
 Dash their lives away 
 
 On the rocks and beach, 
 
 Far as they can reach ; 
 So, from when the day 
 Blossoms pink from gray 
 
 Till earth's hues subside, 
 
 Like a sea, sun dried, 
 I, on shore of hope for thee, 
 Dash my life and grope for thee. 
 
 How I yearn for thee ! 
 
 Oh, and burn for thee ! 
 And, on hope for thee, 
 
 Dash and grope for thee ! 
 I shall yearn and burn 
 
 And on hope shall grope, 
 Till I, sun-like, turn 
 
 Down the western slope, 
 When the cloud, men's thought of me, 
 Red will glow that I sought for thee. 
 
Leaves From Cacrliostro. 
 
 AWAITING THE MESSENGERS. 
 
 General Willard, a candidate for the Presidency of the United States, 
 having been killed by a fall down an embankment at Monument Park, 
 Colorado, is personated by Salvation Plover at the instigation of Judge 
 and Colonel Guilderbury, who hope by the ruse to maintain their Party 
 in power and secure their own predominance in the Councils of the 
 Nation. In the following scene, which is laid in Monument Park, the 
 conspirators await the messengers whom they sent for Dr. Squigginson, 
 a medium, with whose assistance they expect to effect a marriage rite 
 between Salvation Plover and Mrs. Willard without arousing her sus- 
 picion, in order to appease the false scrupulosity of the Judge, her father. 
 
 Col. Guilderbury. (Entering.) 
 
 Fouracres not yet back ? 
 
 Plover. Not yet. 
 
 Judge. The grave 
 
 Is all right I suppose,— 
 
 Col. Suppose it is. 
 
 fudge. No danger — not the slightest — of discovery ? 
 
 Col No more than of your ever hushing up. 
 Ask me at once, sir, if I am stark mad. 
 
 Judge. I need not ask about a thing I see. 
 
 Col. We start right off without that charlatan. 
 Oh, idiot that I was to have consented 
 One second ! There is something, not ourselves, 
 That makes for evil, as for righteousness. 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. Si 
 
 Judge {Warmly) We Christians call that Satan. 
 Col (Sarcastically.) We ! 
 
 Judge. Oh ! 
 
 Col. (To Plover ) Sicken. 
 
 Plover. Sicken ? 
 
 Col. Assume a disease that alters features, 
 As Walter Raleigh did to save his life. 
 Plover. He did, hey ? How wind up? 
 q 1 How ignorant ! 
 
 fudge. How manage the marriage ? 
 
 Col. During his convalescence 
 
 We can treat that, as well as how to lessen 
 Ourselves of clumsy luggage. Have we not 
 His project to dispose of, and his wife ? 
 
 Plover. Gosh ! I forgot poor Sal — as usual. 
 
 fudge. Was 
 
 She ever unfaithful ? 
 Plover. No. 
 
 T u dge. To ° bad ! bad case ! 
 
 I would advise desertion for two years. 
 Plover. Only two years ? 
 
 Col, Damn it, man, are you raving ? 
 
 Plover. Expected next his hand out for the fee. 
 fudge. Were she unfaithful, we could feel less culpable, 
 (Pacing) Oh ! swarms of thoughts are beetling in my face. 
 They bite and blind so, that I feel half mad. 
 The marriage when arranged — 
 
 pl over All clouds above us 
 
 Will snow in our favor fast and thick the moment 
 The medium comes. A reindeer I shall be 
 With bells to the nuptial sled. Gosh ! I can see 
 Myself a flying and the country taking 
 
82 CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
 A hitch behind. 
 
 fudge. The snow may turn to rain, 
 
 Make swamping slush. Why was I ever born ? 
 
 Col. I give it up, if not to be a plague. 
 
 Judge. Back ! 
 
 Col. Never. 
 
 Judge. Where is Andrew ? where" Fouracres ? 
 
 They took our finest horses, — 
 
 Col. As I ordered 
 
 Them. 
 
 Judge. Ha ! the more the idiot, fool ! big fool ! 
 
 May be they start the human cry against us. 
 
 Plover. This secret is indeed too small a boat 
 For more than three to sit in. 
 
 Col. We must tumble 
 
 The others over, else go down to bottom. 
 
 Judge. Murder ? murd — 
 
 Col. Damn you, hush. 
 
 Judge. [Staggered.) Damn ! damn ! Oh ! Oh ! 
 
 Plover. Can we keep up a steady pull from sight, 
 If we are wedged in — have not elbow room — 
 And have to carry three huge lifeless bulks ? 
 No one but pullers can remain aboard, 
 Except the cockswain. [To Judge.) You must be the 
 
 cockswain, 
 Though must not blur your eyes with tears, then fancy 
 Thick fog ahead. 
 
 Judge. Were it not better, sir, 
 
 To catch those runaways than, unpetitioned, 
 To give instructions ? 
 
 Plover. (Good liumoredly.) Judge, you hit bull's eye. 
 
 Judge. Fouracres seemed in hissing, howling woods, 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. S3 
 
 Striving to keep in shriek till out of them. 
 
 ***** * 
 
 Oh ! knew that once we cut adrift from God, 
 
 He would not send an angel to our rescue 
 
 But let us dash a-down the dark canyon. 
 ******* 
 
 I look up and I see no sky, no hope, 
 But sand-storms bursting down and the walls collapsing. 
 
 — Act II. 
 NO REAL FIRE. 
 
 Rev. Mr. T. How pitiable to behold a genius 
 Expiring dolphin-like, emitting brilliance — 
 All hues except the brightest, Christian hope ! 
 
 Mrs. W. No kinder brother ever lived than George. 
 
 Temp. Of course, the good in him is hope for him. — 
 His brusqueness not a recent acquisition ? 
 A genius is no genius save he show 
 Some eccentricity. 
 
 Mrs. IV. No hypocrite, 
 
 Not George ; no ! no ! He uses those horrid words 
 Because he notices the people, who 
 Would blush to mention them, as if all covered 
 Up the glare of the dreadful opening furnace, 
 Shovel their fellow creatures into it, 
 Like so much coke or coal. 
 
 Temp. Be not alarmed, 
 
 Dear, — no real fire. 
 
 Mrs. JV. Where then does Satan abide ? 
 
 Temp. Indeed, dear, to be frank, we are not certain 
 That Satan is a personality, 
 (Smiling.) But soon intend to put it to a vote. 
 
 Mrs. W. If voted out, he may rebel, for is 
 
U CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
 Not, to rebel his nature ? 
 
 Temp. Quite a wit. — 
 
 — Act III. 
 
 A MOTHER'S GRIEF. 
 
 Rev. Mr. T. Been weeping ? Why, dear, why ? 
 
 Mrs. IV. Oh ! when those lightnings 
 
 Were sweeping earth, as waves the deck of ship, 
 I saddened, thinking George must die so soon. 
 How good he was upon that other day 
 Of awfulest torrents, thunder, when my darling, 
 My Emma, lay in the lake ! Oh ! Though all sopping, 
 He would not change his clothes. How urge him much ? 
 Moreover, I thought God would pity Emma, 
 Her father, and me, and not let him take cold. — 
 Poor darling ! (weeps.) 
 
 Temp. Better off. 
 
 Mrs. J J'. We meet here, love, 
 
 Clasp and are sundered. 
 
 Temp. (Checking himself quickly?) Jane ! — too true ! 
 
 too true ! 
 
 Mrs. W. Nothing but woe, loss, pain. 
 
 Temp. Pain has its virtues, 
 
 My dear. At birth, it wakens consciousness, 
 Our dormant faculties ; child, are not we 
 Now being born anew in Christ ? All pains 
 On earth arouse our consciousness of being 
 For Glory, for are they that mourn not blessed ? 
 Waken grand longings, faculties for Heaven, 
 Pinions that have not spreading room on earth. 
 
 Mrs. W. Would that George had a tenth of Aleck's vigor, 
 Or father's ! 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. 85 
 
 Temp. Or their earnest piety. — 
 
 Where is the General ? 
 
 Mrs. W. Out among the mountains. 
 
 Temp.. Be frank, — why always sad ? One unacquainted 
 With your keen sensibility, might fancy, 
 Because of shadows often darkening you, 
 As from a cloud, or something you would fly from, 
 The cause of your distress, dear, must be dreadful ! 
 
 Mrs. W. What !— Oh ! shall tell you all— I do begrudge 
 My Emma to the Lord. 
 
 Temp. Mere feeling, natural 
 
 Enough, dear. Who of us worth speaking of 
 But falls and lies a slab on a loved one's grave ? 
 But you will not keep stubbornly averted 
 From graces, sent from Heaven to lift you up. 
 We must not live all root, but rise and blossom. 
 
 Mrs. TV. God had so many angels, he could surely 
 Have spared me her. What bad I ever done 
 For such affliction ? 
 
 Temp. Emma may have been 
 
 An anchor drawing your bright face from Him. 
 
 Mrs. W. So horribly disfigured by the fishes, 
 Aleck would let me have no glimpse of her, 
 No farewell kiss ! Oh, it was horrible ! 
 
 Temp. Warmly He loves us, loves our lifted faces 
 So, that he turns their anchors into wings. 
 
 Mrs. IV. I could not realize it in that light, 
 Hence, absent-hearted ly, ran into wildest 
 Excesses — 
 
 Temp. No, no, no ! — ■ 
 
 Mrs. IV. Of world liness—- 
 
 Temp. Oh !— 
 
86 CAGL10STR0. 
 
 Mrs. IV. From her madly ravishing memory ; 
 Still, in each lovely child I saw her hooping, 
 Jumping the rope, or chirping infant games, 
 Swinging, or pouting, wondering, smiling, shouting, 
 So much so that one day — but it was wrong, 
 Oh, very wrong ! — I clasped one to my heart, 
 Yes, felt like running off — I knew not whither — 
 Until I saw her mother wandering wild, 
 Like Jesus' mother on the three days' search. 
 
 Temp. Oh, were such fervor but directed upward ! 
 Remember Isaac was a response to prayer. 
 
 —Act III. 
 
 A STRUGGLE WITH PASSION. 
 
 Temp. {Taking the paper which Mrs. W. put on the table, 
 and walking to and fro.) 
 "We meet here, love, clasp, and are sundered." 
 Lord ? how did I restrain ? That was the moment. 
 Oh ! how my lips burn feverish for one kiss, 
 My arms and breast for one embrace ! I care 
 Not, care not, I will clasp her, come what will. 
 My love will out, though, like the genie freed 
 From casket, it cloud earth, push Heaven from sight. 
 But God ! an Atlas now, I hold the heavens 
 Of millions ; if I fall, what havoc ! Verily, 
 A Heaven-quake, such as when bright Lucifer fell. 
 Oh ! hers is such a whirlwind of a glance, 
 It carries every resolution off, 
 Dashes my sun-domed temples to the ground. 
 I will away, encounter it no more. 
 How weak, thou will of mine ! Yet, what is pleasure 
 But hands across our eyes from ghastly death ? 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. 3 7 
 
 No wonder that our hands stick fast to them ; 
 
 That only death, or Christ by miracle, 
 
 Has power to pull them down. How death, when drawing 
 
 Our bashful, maiden hands away, will grin, 
 
 And, with bone. crushing and ash-showering arms, 
 
 Embrace us ! Oh ! how help but rush from him 
 
 With eyes hand-pressed, as if by bird-shot stricken, 
 
 Or stone from sling !. Stand, I will be no dastard, 
 
 But will pull down my hands, give death an eye 
 
 With which I could drag down the highest madman 
 
 To lick the dust. — Oh ! he a hero, indeed, 
 
 Who runs the howling gauntlet of the world 
 
 Back to adjust what he has done amiss. 
 
 Though peremptory is Thy order, Thou 
 
 Most High ! to do so, still how few — how few — 
 
 Oh ! 'tis too much. If weeds, sown in the past, 
 
 Spring tall before us, will not firing them, 
 
 As we march on, suffice ? This would I do 
 
 Most eagerly. 
 
 — Act III. 
 
 AT THE HOUSE. 
 
 Col. [Leading Mrs. IV. to Temp.) Come, 'tis the Doc- 
 tor's positive injunction. 
 
 Mrs. W. I will not leave him. 
 
 Col. Come, come. (Folds the 
 
 doors.) 
 
 Temp. (Conducting her through them.) Come, my dear. 
 How stand this longer ? Shall I go for doctors ? 
 
 Mrs. IV. What ! yes, do ! do ! A dozen at least. Poor 
 Aleck ! 
 Never more sprightly than this morning, when 
 
£8 CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
 He cantered from my proud and happy vision. 
 
 Temp. Let not your pain, my dear, be too acute, — 
 Men overjoyed, cut saturnalian antics ; — 
 I have not now the fear I had at first. 
 I would suggest, — 
 
 Mrs. IV. What? 
 
 Temp. I should not, perhaps ; — 
 
 Mrs. TV. Why not ? do ! do ! 
 
 Temp. Since I let slip the hint, 
 
 May be I ought ; still, Jane, it pains, — 
 
 Mrs. TV. What is it? 
 
 Temp. Oh ! had not (rod just freshened me with grace 
 To start anew in the race, as Paul describes it, 
 I scarcely could have reached the resolution 
 To hint remotely that if, now and then, 
 You would with glances sweep out nooks and corners, 
 You might find dust. 
 
 Mrs. TV. Be plain. 
 
 Temp. Matilda may be 
 
 Pure. 
 
 Mrs. IV. Nonsense ! 
 
 Temp. Then you know she is not pure ! 
 
 Mrs. TV. I did not say so. 
 
 Temp. Was her action — pushing 
 
 You back — not queer ? I thought she had some dreadful 
 Confession. 
 
 Mrs. IV. {Contemptuously) Oh ! 
 
 Temp. Well, I hope so. 
 
 Mrs. J!'. How you frighten ! 
 
 Temp. I know how penitents are prone to act, 
 Tear all considerations, bandages 
 From their gashed foreheads, though they bleed to death. 
 
CA.GLIOSTRO. 8 9 
 
 Breathe not what I have hinted, but be watchful. 
 
 Mrs. IV. Hurry the doctors, please. [Exit Temp.] 
 [Shaking the door.) George ! George ! 
 
 Col. ( Unfolding them.) What ? — where 
 
 Is Templeton ? 
 
 Mrs. IV. Gone after doctors. 
 
 Col. What ! 
 
 Does he care for the. General more than we do ? 
 
 Mrs. IV. It seems he does. 
 
 Col. Not till the filmy ailment 
 
 On Aleck's eyes is off,— the seance — when ? 
 
 Dr. [Starting.) What seance ? Think that I would stay 
 to be 
 At a scene of murder ? 
 
 Col. Thunderation ! 
 
 Mrs. IV. George ! 
 
 Col. Approach him not. 
 
 Mrs. IV. You must be silly. [Rushes towards Plover.) 
 
 Col. [Plucking her back) Not 
 
 For your own easement but for his. His wound, 
 Far more than yours, will needlessly be probed. 
 Kept red, raw, gaping, not let heal, form skin. 
 
 Ralph. [At door, with hand on head, and to Dr.) 
 A telegram directs you to remain. 
 
 Mrs. TV Oh ! 
 
 Col. Where is the girl ? She did not fetch the spreads. 
 [Exit, kicking over the chairs in his way and locking the door.] 
 
 Mrs. IV. Quick ! I insist on a dozen, at least. 
 [Pulls the Ml violently, then instinctively arranges the chairs.) 
 
 Dr. Insane, ma'am. 
 
 Mrs. IV. Why not have other physicians to consult 
 with ? - ^ 
 
9 o CAGLIOSTRO. 
 
 Dr. Their chattering sickened me at Petersburg. 
 The Duke was raging, raving, swearing that 
 He was a carpenter, — nay, Nihilist, — 
 Wanted to work. Materialistic quacks, 
 Who would have us look down upon the ground, 
 As were we villains going to the gallows, 
 And not aloft to Him, who scatters suns 
 To draw our eyes from filth, our starving birds 
 From adders, venomous worms, came in a mob, 
 Shook shoulders, heads, then turned on him their broken 
 Backs, humped with pride, swift-deserting dromedaries, 
 Each, all opining that he should be smothered 
 Between two ticks. 
 
 Mrs. W. Good Lord ! Did he get cured ? 
 
 Dr. Can it be possible you do not know ? 
 
 Mrs. W. I now recall it faintly, — really cured ? 
 
 Dr. Would I palm off a falsehood on the world, 
 Give the poor savage sawdust for best meal ? 
 
 Mrs. W. I do not think you would ; still I know nothing 
 About you. Father ! George ! George ! Aleck ! Aleck ! 
 
 — Act III. 
 
 VERIFYING A PHENOMENON. 
 
 When Rev. Mr. Templeton sneers at the physical saviour of the race, 
 a machine which Dr. Squigginson was inspired to construct, Ralph 
 Raymond, a Cagliostro in flesh, who at seances had " produced the 
 spirit of the renowned preacher," attempts to draw from him the admis- 
 sion that he was conscious of his spirit's disembodiment. 
 
 Dr. 'Tis easier to convince posterity 
 By millions, than contemporaries singly, 
 And this consoles me. 
 
 Van D. {Smilingly?) Fly to the millions, brother ! 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. 9 r 
 
 Temp. {Entering.) Egad ! ha ! that the engine, patented 
 To lift Creation out of the eely mud ? 
 
 Ralph. {Rushing to Temp?) By Jonathan, the man I 
 want. I called 
 To-day upon you, Mr. Templeton, 
 To interview you. Last September, tenth, 
 Thirteenth, and fourteenth, and October sixth, 
 November sixteenth, seventeenth, generally 
 At ten o'clock in the evening, were you conscious 
 Of being present at our seance ? 
 
 Temp. What? 
 
 Ralph. Did you wake up with an aching head ? 
 
 Temp. What do 
 
 You mean, sir ? 
 
 Van D. That your spirit is a diner 
 
 Out.* {Noises, and the gas-jets leap?) 
 
 Temp. Precious must your nut of meaning be, 
 Since, 1'ke a squirrel, fountain-tailed, you hide it. 
 You are requested to postpone this farce 
 Indefinitely. Close the windows, — windy. 
 
 Dr. Mistaken ! 'tis not windy. Did you not 
 Drink often at my expense, sir? 
 
 Temp. What ? 
 
 Ralph. Beer, bourbon. 
 
 Temp. The Colonel must be drafting a regiment 
 Of the deranged. Beer, bourbon ! — Oh ! snakes, vipers ! 
 These banished, all were Paradise ; while they 
 Are extant, never an Eden. — (To Col.) George, your sister 
 Was made to swallow rum, when physically 
 Unable to resist. Must she be dragged 
 Down ? or must he be lifted up ? Decide ; 
 
 * R. D. Owen. 
 
( } 2 CAGLIOSTRO. . 
 
 Which is it, Heaven or Hell ? 
 
 Col. (Petulentfy) Hell ! 
 
 Ralph. Templeton, 
 
 Do you not like long tunnels best, because, 
 In them, you have a chance to snatch a swig 
 Without eyes shining, like segars, at you ? 
 
 Dr Your spirit said so at our seance, sir 
 
 Mrs. L. (re-entering.) Go on without her ; she wants too 
 much coaxing, 
 
 Temp. Oh ! to be thus calumniated drives 
 Me mad. Were it aught but the beastliest 
 Of— Oh ! 
 
 Dr. Birds on the wing conceal the feet 
 
 That ran in dirty places. 
 
 Act IV. 
 
 THE CAPTURE. 
 
 Mrs. JT\ (At the sea nee.) My darling, if you are now 
 here, do speak. 
 
 Col. Hem ! 
 
 Temp. I will brace the marriage, end the farce. 
 
 Male Spirit. Will Sister Lamb not go ? 
 
 Mrs. L. Xo, never ! 
 
 Col. Must. 
 
 Female Spirit. The preacher must go, too ; should take 
 her arm. 
 
 Male Spirit. Let him remain, for does he not resemble 
 A great apostle ? 
 
 Female Spirit. Verily the one 
 
 W ho died of a sore throat ; for in each woman 
 He spies his Lord, and kisses to bet ray. 
 I 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. 93 
 
 Temp. (Flinging a rope at the female spirit, and clutching 
 the male, whom she pushes in his way.) 
 Human or devil ! I will strangle you. 
 Victory ! 
 
 Mrs. TV. George ! George ! 
 
 Col. Come quickly. [Exit with Mrs. IF.] 
 
 Mrs. S. What is it ? 
 
 Mrs. L. A spirit is pushing the coarse disturber out. 
 
 Male Spirit. Oh ! Oh ! Your eyes are burning glasses, 
 Grape shot ! * 
 Direct their deadly fire elsewhere — on him. 
 Have spirits, when in human form, no feeling ? 
 
 {Dr. jerks Temp, aside, thereby releasing the spirit, who 
 disappear si) 
 
 Temp. As I conjectured, they are vulnerable 
 As Africans upon the shin-bone. That 
 One should have been more expeditious crossing 
 The fence between both worlds, let not me catch 
 His tissue paper trousers, like a bull dog. {Flourishes his 
 trophy.) 
 
 Mrs. L. You brought that tissue paper in your pocket. 
 
 Temp Let us thank God for the capture of the shark, 
 And be not fools, dear friends, to bathe again 
 In these dark waters. 
 
 — Act IV. 
 
 COMMAND HER TO ARISE. 
 Mrs. Squigginson expects the resurrection of Lilla Lamb, not by 
 means of the Doctor's Physical Saviour of the Race, but by Christ, the 
 time of whose reappearance on earth she believes to be at hand. It does 
 not occur to her that her own sight requires straightening, or that she 
 also is one of the " poor fools." 
 
 * Andrew Jackson Davis, The Diakka. 
 
94 CAGLIOSTRO, 
 
 Mrs. S. {Lifting Li I la s kead.) 
 
 Command her to arise, and, Lord ! 
 Do straighten the sight of those who turn their eyes 
 Into their sockets to their will from Thine. 
 
 Dr. God ! laugh Thy fill now. 
 
 Mrs. L. (Rushing at Dr.) Give me back my darling, — 
 You told me what she said was true ! was true ! — 
 Must have her ! Give me back my Lilla, ever 
 My warm heart — at my side — a heart that never 
 Could fail me ! Give me back my darling child 7 
 
 Dr. [Eluding her.') 
 Let out annihilation from Thy heart, 
 Thy all eternity-harbored "ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 Mrs. S. Lord God ! dost Thou in this dark hour forsake 
 me ? 
 Pity us all. — Do I ask Thee to pity ? 
 All human pity for our kind that ever 
 Could be, were but a dew-drop on a daisy, 
 Compared with Thine, which is an endless rain, 
 A deluge, though unseen by us, poor fools, 
 Who fancy that our hearts are larger than Thine, 
 And with this fancy flagellate our souls. 
 
 (Cagliostro, the inspirer of delusions, evolves gorgeously froin 
 a cloud.) 
 "Welcome, O dearest. Lord ! Oh ! welcome, welcome ! 
 Once that this Babel lay demolished, as 
 All such must lie, I was as sure of seeing 
 Thee, as if I had just approached the Mount 
 W here thousands, quiet as snowy morn, 
 Stood, and from clay changed into violets, 
 Lillies and roses, an oasis sweet 
 To angels, deserting since Eden sank, 
 
CAGLIOSTRO. 95 
 
 Beneath Thy zephyr voice. G Thou, who breathest 
 On wintry earth, and it is Spring ! I beg Thee, 
 Behold poor Lilla. With Thy garment's hem 
 Only just touch her ! touch my husband, too, — 
 Oh ! c.ll the world, which is to be the more 
 Pitied because, like owls, it hoots at light, 
 At those who mean well, — even those far astray — 
 Oh ! even, Lord, those who, having lost Thy trail, 
 Follow the moon, their promptings, round and round 
 The prairies, and lie hopeless down, thirst, craze. 
 
 —Act V, 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 The extracts from " Cagliostro " give only a faint inkling as to the 
 nature and scope of the play. The work is primarily a poem, and there- 
 fore has to do with types and ideals rather than with ordinary characters. 
 Strange as are the fancies and actions of some of the dramatic personre 
 in " Cagliostro," analogous material may be found in abundance in the 
 history and literature of the subject. The author is not unmindful cf a 
 strong antipathy on the part of the public to his theme ; but thinks that 
 the wrath of the critic should be appeased by the fact that he makes his 
 spiritualistic machinery emblematic of the speculative Spirit cf the Age 
 as revealed to us by even such a dispassionate thinker as M. Kenan. 
 
X Adoo 
 
 8981 
 
 9W 980' 
 
 Z.09E Sd