Class^,£l-\5fe-8 Book.£L(o..ML__ GDFWIGHT DEPOSm The Armenian Version of MARK: a Sonnet. Together With Fairmount Park and Other Poems PHILADELPHIA: Ideal Press 3341 Lancaster Avenue 1920 The Armenian Version of X'i^ MARK: a Sonnet. Together With Fairmount Park and Other Poems PHILADELPHIA: Ideal Press 3341 Lancaster Avenue 1920 pa COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY ALBERT J. EDMUNDS. OEC 17 1920 ©CU605367 DEDICATED to MY FRIEND JACQUELINE HARRISON SMITH ARMENIAN MANUSCRIPTS AND THE MARK APPENDIX: A STUDY IN NATIONAL TENACITY. (BEING THE KEY TO THE SONNET.) (See "Mark" XVI, 9-20 in the American Standard Version, Gran- ville Penn's, James Moffatt's and the Twentieth Century New Testaments.) OMIT PROTEST INSERT A. D. 887 About 900 QQQ ("Presbyter ^0<^ Ariston's") (Latin, Greek and Sy- riac MSS. are inserting since the fifth century.) 1098 (in smaller letters *1116 after the red colophon) About 1166 ^ 1207 *1181 1281 *1282 *1280 1295 About 1300 1317 1541 1321 1582 1436 Century XV About 1450 Century XVI 1484 About 1600 About 1600 icn7 This mute story is almost as tragic as the massacres. Surrounded by powerful and unscrupulous Churches, the Armenians refused for a thousand years to corrupt the Holy Gospel, *Cilician and Romanized MSS. Lower Criticism: Manuscripts, Versions and Fathers. THE ARMENIAN VERSION OF MARK. The Lord appeared to Peter. So saith Paul, And Luke, in one perfunctory line, the same. Where was the glorious story? Mark had all Before 'twas torn or died in Nero's flame. Then came the rival, Mary Magdalene, In John's Ephesian rhapsody sublime. And crowned by him the Church's Easter queen. But Christ appeared to Peter. Place and time And lofty words then uttered, all are lost. ( 1 ) A later pen dragged Mary into ''Mark," (2) And Syria, Greece and Rome the tale embost Upon the Holy Gospel. All was dark Except ARMENIA'S mountain nakedness, That kept the torso Mark thru storm and stress. Cheltenham, Pennsylvania: May, 1920. (1) Except, perhaps, the charge to Peter, mis- placed in Matthew xvi. It was pointed out in Buddhist and Christian Gospels (Tokyo, 1905) that this oracle was post-resurrection. Bacon, of Yale, repeated the suggestion in 1909, in the Harvard Theological Review. (2) The quotation marks signify the spurious ap- pendix (xvi: 9-20). HANDEL'S MESSIAH After an Evening with Children. Messiah music, with the dual drums And Handel's organ thunder, shook the hall. The Christian Lamb beside the Godhead throned In Oriental splendor — Hebrew wealth And Persian might and title, KING OF KINGS- Reigned like a Hindu silence over all. And yet by every glory unsubdued, I meditated on my trinity — The lovely Mary, wondrous little Bet, And now this supernatural speechless Jean Who looks unfathomable mysteries And messages from God. The nations rage, Until the Hallelujah Chorus booms And harmonizes all : we hear the shout Of peoples unto peoples from afar And from the deeps of time, from brutal pasts Backward and backward to the primal apes And crocodiles of hell. Demiurge ! With all thy crimes prodigious, I forgive E'en thee when I behold the eyes of Jean, And think that in some hundred million years Thine empire of the Beast of wickedness Will be an unrecorded nightmare, gone Forever and forever, while the Lamb Only begins his vast eternity. 1914. THE READER. I entertained the kings of creed and thought ; The Buddha was my guest; for many a year Of youth and midlife his disciples brought Their Lord before me. Socrates was here, And One, half saint, half myth, from Palestine. From Stockholm and from Konigsberg there came The founders of a new dynastic line, Antagonists at first, at last the same. Then scholars moved across my mental stage, Uniting tongues and peoples, while the fire Of poets, beaconing a newborn age. Made all things equal in a vast desire. Where is the pageant now? My heart is cold. And gone forever are the pomps of old. December, 1908. RUSKINIAN. Dedicated to John Ruskin (1819-1900) and Rose La Touche (1849-1875) Once thy mother let thee love me, I was fifty, thou wert ten ; By the sacred Minnehaha Oft we roamed together then ; Grief consumed me, torture tore me, Thou wert all the world to me : Now that I am old and weary Let me dream of Love and Thee. Once thy mother let thee love me, Now she says we must forget; Puritanic lore forbids us, Bids us warble: "Strangers yet!" Dark the valley, long and lonely, While I fail thy form to see : Darling ! I am old and weary, Let me dream of Love and Thee. Once thy mother let thee love me. Soon her nay will not be nay. Soon my journey will be ended, I am going far away — Far away from earth and parting, Going where the shadows flee : I shall wait and dream, my Rosa ! I shall dream of Love and Thee. DEATH IN THE OPEN AIR In reply to the jeer of Professor Garbe in his In- dien und das Christentum (Tiibingen, 1914, p. 16, apropos of Buddhist and Christian Gospels, Tokyo, 1905, p. 218; Philadelphia, 1908-1914, Vol. 2, p. 169; Palermo, 1913, p. 249.) All over Christendom the painter paints The Crucifixion, over Buddhadom Parinirvana — tragedies august No stifling stye of palace or of slum Could consecrate, but only open air. Life in the open air, saith poet Poe, Is one of manhood's prime necessities Of happiness ; and in the open air Did work and die earth's mighty Masters twain. May, 1914. ; . . BENJAMIN LYMAN, (American Geologist, 1835-1920). Friend Lyman talks of boredom in the world Beyond the grave, as if the soul might tire Of living on for ever. Dying sage ! Here in our little Cheltenham, thy mind. Brimming with facts of geologic lore. Grasps not the vast resources of the heart. Such is the marriage of immortal saints They die into each other till they know That God is love and God is in them both. Then comes a third and then a fourth and more Until a whole congeries throbs as one. Thus life can wax to all eternity And ne'er be sated. Even here we thrill To meet another, and our hearts explore With zest the labyrinths of stranger lives, Doubling and trebling, multiplying ours By endless love-arithmetic. What then? New worlds to conquer ! "Love's rare universe," As the rapt Shelley sang, shall be our Heaven. August 25, 1920. THE SEA-BATH. To Margaret, aged six. The summer glows, my darling, The waves around us break. They purge the winter paleness And vernal roses make. But, more than bounding billows And more than cheeks aglow. The surges calm and heal us And wash out many a woe. An endless incantation From endless regions rolled, This mighty tidal music Links us with souls untold. From climes and times beyond us The thought-waves o'er us roll, We ne'er can lose each other In such a sea of soul. The waves can make no strangers, No land their wholeness mars^- The billows of the nations, The billows of the stars ! I'm young with thee, my darling ! And thou art old with me In these cold salt embraces Of Time's eternal sea ! Avalon, N. J., September 7, 1912. ANNA, SARAH, MAY. Once again the lilac blossomed, Once again ; Once again I walkt with Sarah, Once again; Anna too was at my side In the mystic, deep May morning. Heaven's annual spring-tide ; And it bore them on its bosom. Bore my darling golden Anna, Bore my changeless, constant Sarah, Bore them like the lilac blossom, Sailing, sailing on its bosom, On the bosom of the spring-tide Once again. May, 1919. A CHOICE OF KAISERS. On the frozen Gulf of Dantzig, Which the Northern streamers haunt, Reigned of old a German Kaiser And his glorious name was Kant. Deep the arches of his empire. Sunken in the human mind, While his name abroad is wafted On the planetary wind. 'Twain the things that overawe me," Was the Kaiser's ancient saw ; "Namely, yonder starry welkin And the inward moral law." Germans, will ye serve your Kaiser? Deem ye not his soul a match For the chief who murdered Europe By the falsified dispatch? Germans, is it Kant or Bismarck Who shall rule your lives today. Hurling midnight bombs at babies. Or proclaiming wisdom's way? Far and wide your Heinrich Heine Reigneth over hearts that feel. Will you change eternal empire For the hells of fire and steel? Germans, choose this day your Kaiser, Choose for ever, choose him well ; Earth and Heaven await your answer- Christ or Judas, who can tell? August, 1914. BLOSSOMS. Lo, 'tis August, but an odor As of May the day perfumes, Like the trees on dying Buddha Shedding their untimely blooms. Evermore I know the odor Like a sea of blossom wild. Evermore I feel before me One eternal Saviour child. 'Tis her soul that makes the whiteness Of the foamy bloom appear, Tis her soul that pours a fragrance Thru the cycle of the year; 'Tis her soul so far above me Where no human feet have trod, Like the tree of life in blossom In the paradise of God. August, 1910. FM ONLY A LITTLE THING. mother, please don't scold me ; Upon my way from school Of course I know I've loitered, For the playground air was cool ; And then there were dirt-pie gardens And bars and a glorious swing; Please don't be angry, mother, I'm only a little thing! Dear child ! I stand in the starlight And gaze at the orbs above. Then think of thy words and wonder If I unto Infinite Love Might cry when the worlds are crashing And a last wild splendor fling: "I've loitered late on the playground, I'm only a little thing!" April, 1914. FAIRMOUNT PARK. O'er Babylonian garden And Persian paradise And Indian aramo My soaring fancy flies ; Manorial halls of England, In beechen shadow dark, — I leave them all, alighting At length in Fairmount Park. 2. Thou wild ! I long have loved thee,- Hardly the work of man, Except for fringe of railway And bridges' airy span ; But maple, pine and cedar Invoke the soul to soar. Anticipate her future. Or muse on heretofore. 3. With many a friend I've wandered, For many a year in thee ; In thee I've thought and written. Till echoes roll to me, Reverberant o'er ocean With words that first were penned Among thy lordly meadows. And where thy streams descend. 4 The smoke of Philadelphia, A spectral haze afar, Can harm me not, protected As thine environs are : No chapman's vulgar blazon May here affront the eye. No hearse, nor funeral pageant May come this highway nigh. 5. No swine thy meads may wander, Nor goats nor dogs be free : Without are such : old symbols Of sin depart from thee ! No hunter's arm may murder Or fray thy birds away : We here may drink nepenthe To kin with beasts of prey. 6. The weight of our existence Thy gentle breezes lift. And calm adown the Schuylkill A poet's dream may drift ; Autumnal tints are glorious On Wissahickon Heights As all that once to Ruskin Revealed unearthly lights. The poet of " The Raven" Hath mused thy woods among, And Moore hath felt the Schuylkill Inspire his tuneful tongue. Our classic names what Vandal For storied writ condemns, When Gibbon ranked the Delaware With Ganges and with Thames ? Here Franklin oft hath wandered In eighteenth-century calm, When Sunday meant a Sabbath And care could find a balm ; While e'en amid the turmoil Of our one hundredth year The youthful Rock hill pondered On Orient wisdom here. 9. Ah, lovely Wissahickon ! If but the past were thine, And Greeks were nigh to worship, Thy foam would be divine ; Within thy noonday twilight The muse a shrine would rear. And on thy cliffs at evening The gods would oft appear. 10. But Quaker vied with German To turn thy stream to gain, To churn thy holy waters With mills at every lane. Then burst the Revolution, And Hessian cannon boomed Among thy hills, " horrendous" To martial soul begloomed. 11. The mills are now in ruin. Gone are the warlike roars. And Fairmount Park enfoldeth Thy thrice enchanted shores : Oh, may some genius guard thee From foul invasion now By sons of Belial-Jehu Before whose gold we bow. 12. Thy trees, like lines of mountain. Serrated high in air, Thy broadening pool reposeful, Unutterably fair, In solitudes of morning Exalt the daily round ; Yet all this Alpine wildness Is in the civic bound. 13. Could Socrates or Gotamo In contemplation walk Beneath thy fiery woodland, And by thy waters talk, The shades that erst were hallowed By Washington and Penn Were fitting Academias To hive new thought for men. 14. When Buddha 'neath the sal-trees Which, all one mass of bloom With blossoms out of season, Shed o'er him their perfume. With Anando beside him. Composed himself to die. The prophet of the open air By no means bade good-bye. 15. For us the sacred heir-loom. From Plato in the Grove And Jesus on the mountain, The weft of Scripture wove ; And in the long hereafter Who knows what thunder-voice. In Pennsylvanian gardens. May make the world rejoice ? 16. Not only beating hammers And rush of railway roar Shall wake thy rural echoes, As now, for evermore : The dream of man will alter When, through titanic rifts In cloudy lines of battle, The ages' drama shifts. 17. When mines are spent, and millions Obey the ancient law, Avaunt the " steeple-chimney " CarIvYLE beheld with awe ; No more the pall in heaven, No more the stream defiled, For man shall then be master, And yet eternal child. 18. Again the shepherd quiet Shall o'er the planet rest. And forms adored aforetime Be worshipped in the West : The pipe of Pan shall soothe us. To Dryad haunts enticed, And summer hills re-echo The pastoral prayer of Christ. Fairmount Park and Gerniantown : igo2-igo6. NOTES, Verse 1. Line 2. Paradise is a Persian word carried over into the Hebrew of the Old Testament and the Greek of the New. (D"l"lS in Eccles. ii 5 and Canticles iv 13 ; Tra/aaSao-os in Lnke xxiii 43 ; 2 Cor. xii 4 ; Apoc. ii 7). Palestine was a Persian province for two hnndred years, and this word is one ont of several connecting links between Mazdeism and Christianity. Its original meaning was simply a park, nntil Hebrew and Chris- tian eschatology transfignred it to mean the abode of the Blessed. Line 3. Aramo (pronounced Ahrahmo) is the Pali word for a park, (Sanskrit aramas). As rich patrons presented parks to the Buddhist Order in its early days, the word came to mean a cloister-garden. It is cognate with the '^py]ii.o% (wilderness) of the New Testament, which means a lonely place. In the Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Miiller, aramo is contracted into the stem-form arama, which, as Karl Neumann rightly says, is neither Sanskrit nor Pali. In my translations from Pali I use the nominative case in transcribing proper names, for the sake of correctness, following the scholarly instinct of the Greeks, who were the first Europeans to transliterate Sanskrit words. But in poetry I use this form in -o, not merely for cor- rectness, but for music. Edwin Arnold, in \\\s, Light of Asia- has the noble line : " The Buddha died, the great Tathagato." This would be spoilt by the barbarous Europeanised " Tathaga, ta," which is the stem-form of the word and also the vocative case, and should never be used in transcription. To those who object to the introduction of this Pali word aramo into the present poem, I reply that it is as lawful as Academia in Verse 7. Our culture for ages has been pro- vincial, having the Mediterranean Sea for its centre, and Greece, Rome and Judaea for its classic nations. But since the acquisi- tion of India by the English, and still more of the Philippine Islands by the Americans, bringing in their train the revolution of trade routes and the translation of the Sacred Books of the East, our culture is becoming cosmic, with the Pacific Ocean, instead of an inland lake, for its centre ; and to our own classic nations we must now add India first and foremost, and after- wards the Chinese and Persian Empires. When this new plan- etary culture supplants the provincial, the aramo immortalized by Gotamo will be just as classic as the Academy immortalized by Plato. We shall then be able to appreciate Edward Gibbon's collocation of Persians and Chinamen with Greeks : — " the learned and civilized nations of the South : the Greeks the Persians and the Chinese." {Decline and Fall^ Chapter 26.) Verse 2. Line 4. " Echoes " refers to certain passages in the preface to my translation of the Dhammapada, quoted by British re- viewers. This preface was written in the Park, in the meadow beside Memorial Hall, September, 1901. Line 7. I should almost prefer : " Thy lordly lawns around me." But an adverbial phrase in the nominative absolute is obscure to many. This is one of the drawbacks of a weakly inflected language. In Sanskrit and Pali, Greek and Latin, the phrase would be perfectly clear, being in the locative absolute in the first two, and in the genitive and ablative respectively in the two last. Verse 4. Line 5. Some would prefer : " No vile commercial blazon." But this is too sonorous : I purposely made this line harsh. As to any who may object to the antique word " chapman," I must ask them to read that noblest monument of classical Eng- lish, the King James version of the Old Testament. (2 Chron. ix 14). " Chapman " (i. e. shopman or cheapman : compare Cheapside, Copenhagen, etc.) is simply the English word for " merchant," which is French. It is best known in these deca- dent days, by its colloquial contraction, "chap." For "chap- man," see Shakespeare : Love's Labour's Lost," Act II, Scene 1 ; Troilus and Cressida, Act IV, Scene 1. Also Burns : Tam O' Shanter ; Epitaph on Thomas Kennedy of New York ; and Election Ballad, No. 4. 10 Verse 5. This verse was written on October 22, 1902, after re-reading the Park Regulations. The last line refers to the Darwinian doctrine, which I have held since 1880. Verse 6. The allusion to Wissahickon Heights, and indeed the whole poem, was inspired by a walk to the Wissahickon with the T family on Sunday, October 20, 1002. Line 7. See Ruskin's description of autumn foliage at Ar- icia, in Modern Painters^ Vol 1, chapter on truth of color. Verse 7. Edgar Allan Poe lived in Philadelphia from 1838 to 1844. The Philadelphia Directory for 1843 gives his residence as : " Coates, near Fairmount," i. e. F'airmount Avenue, near the old Park. The Directory for 1844 has : " Seventh, above Spring Garden." Thomas Moore was in Philadelphia in 1804. See his " Lines on leaving Philadelphia," and especially his Epistle to W. R. Spencer, written from Buffalo, N. Y. After reproaching the United States for its then lack of culture, he breaks forth : " Yet, yet forgive me, oh ! you sacred few Whom late by Delaware's green banks I knew." And again : " Believe me, Spencer, while I winged the hours Where Schuylkill undulates through banks of flowers," etc. Moore was the guest of Joseph Dennie, editor of the Portfolio^ and at that time the leader of American letters. He was called the American Addison. There is a picture of him at the His- torical Society of Pennsylvania, and a long account by Albert H. Smyth, in his "Philadelphia Magazines": Phila., 1892. Dennie lived at 113, Walnut street, which, says Dr. John W. Jordan, was at that time near Third street. Scharf and Westcott's History of Philadelphia (1884) ex- plodes the theory that Moore occupied a cottage in the Park. In recent times the word Schuylkill has become a by-word and a jest throughout the Republic, on account of its foul drink- ing-water. But no corrupt politics, which has delayed so long 11 the now coming filtration, has been able to efface the beauty of the Schuylkill beween Fairmount Dam and the Falls, to say nothing of that river's upper reaches. For a splendid scientific description of the Schuylkill, see J. P. Lesley's Summary De- scription of the Geology of Pennsylvania : Harrisburgh, 1892, vol. 1, p. 118. Lines 7 and 8. " The conquests of our language and liter- ature are not confined to Europe alone, and a writer who suc- ceeds in London is speedily read on the banks of the Delaware and the Ganges." Gibbon : Autobiography, Chap. 24. From MS. E. This whole verse I added on account of the criticism of a friend who objected that the Schuylkill was not a fit subject for poetry ! Verse 8. Line 1. See Franklin's Autobiography. Line 7. William Woodville Rockhill, the diplomatist, was born in Philadelphia in 1854 ; studied Eastern languages in France ; served in Algeria, 1873-1876 ; and is well known as the author of the best account in English of the Tibetan re- cension of the Buddhist Scriptures. Verse 10. Line 7. Armstrong, in his official report on the battle of, Germantown, says that he carried off one field-piece, but was obliged to leave the other "in the Horrenduous \^sic\ hills of the Wissihickon." [sic] (Letter to Thomas Wharton, dated: Lancaster, Oct. 5, 1777.) Verse 13. Line 6. It is well known that Washington lived in Phila- delphia from 1790 to 1797. His house, demolished in 1833, occupied the site of 526, 528 and 530, Market street. See me- morial tablet ; also, Washington after the RevohUio7i^ by Wil- liam Spohn Baker. (Phila., 1898). Verse 14. Sal is pronounced "sahl." For this glorious passage from the Pali Book of the Great Decease, see Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XI, p. 86. " All one mass of bloom " is a faithful 12 translation by Rhys Davids of a magnificent Pali phrase : sahba- ph ali-ph 11 lid. _Ana7ido (pronounced "Ahnnndo") is commonly written Ananda. He was Buddha's beloved desciple. Verse 15. That Plato, through Philo the Jew, has influenced the New Testament, see Percy Gardner's Exploratio Evangelica : Lon- don, 1899. This work has been well described by a German scholar as the best account of the origin of the Gospels in Eng- lish. The Platonic philosophy appears especially in John and the Epistle tq_the Plebrews. See also Col. I, 15, 16. Line 6. "Anando with his thunder-voice recites the Sutras." Wong-pu's Life of Buddha (Scec. VII.) Verse 17. Line 3. Carlyle : Past and Present^ chapter on the Twelfth Century. Line 8. " The great man is he who does not lose his child- heart."— Mencius. Shelley has been called " The Eternal Child." A poem on the Park, entitled Faire-Moiint^ by Henry Peter- son, appeared at Philadelphia in 1874. It opens with some noble lines : " On Schuylkill's banks, where hills of beauty rise, 'Neath the deep blue of Pensylvania skies. Oft have I wandered, from the world apart. To feed the immortal hunger of the heart." The author deals chiefly with Robert Morris and other Revo- lutionary heroes. 13 A VANISHED CAPITAL. In a day long dead, by a river wide, A city, now as if glorified — Vanished, extinct as a grave in Greece — Asylum lent to the sons of peace. The walks were planted with shady trees. And gardens perfumed the High Street breeze ; The founder's home was of storeys twain. And every road was a country lane. Some crowded alleys and courts were there. But all were nigh to the river fair. Where quaint old ships, with their sails unfurled. The fame of the city took round the world. Up High Street now in a dream I drive ; 'Tis seventeen hundred and ninety-five ; One Edmund Hogan^ my coachman is, Who knoweth the capital's mysteries. At Second Street are the Court House^ grey And a crowded mart^ in the midst of the way, And over against it a house of prayer*: — The Quaker CathedraP some call it there. Here lately a shrewd little schoolboy^ sat. Noting each Friend in his broad-brimmed hat. And painting at last, through the long years' mist, A scene to be used by the Annalist. James Pemberton sits here, shine or rain. With both hands crossed on his ancient cane. And Nicholas Wai^n with a smile is seen, And Thomas Scattergood's eye serene. While Arthur Howell's enshrouded guise Is wrapped in a mystery, prophet-wise. 14 ^olian harp-tones rise and fall When William Savery's lips recall The Quaker message of light and peace, Whose vibrant music shall never cease. A sound from a forge the heart hath stirred When Daniel Offley proclaimed the word. Two years ago of the plague'^ he fell, When Evangeline mourned her Gabriel. But who can recount the worthies here ? Reprover, consoler and mystic seer.® At Ninth Street reach we the city's verge Where woods in the open country merge ; But turn we away from the grass that rolls To see the vision of human souls. Behold Another who walks our stones. With an iron will that has humbled thrones ; No Quaker he, but a warrior form, That rode on the wings of the battle-storm. Just now the sage of a nation free, Enthroned like Simon the Maccabee. Yes, along this road on the left there stands A mansion famous in many lands f The High Street here is adorned with trees,'" Where Washington holdeth his state levees. One hundred and ninety his numbered door ; But the President's palace is now no more ; For, alas ! I wake from the reverie sweet In a twentieth-century Market Street. Where he with Hamilton ofttimes met In that Olympian Cabinet — Gone, gone with the gods of the Nevermore, Now merchants barter and waggons roar. 15 Ah ! feel we never, who Fifth Street cross, As thoiiofh we had shot the albatross ? For holy ground unto man and God Were the halls where the nation's hero trod. "Aside, on the benches of Franklin Square, A workman at eve released from care May dream of the wilds of the days of old And list for the tread of the searcher bold Who here the immortal kite let fly And snatched the bolt from an angry sky ; He snatched the soul from a thunderstorm. And power from a towering tyrant-form — The boy forlorn with the weary feet. Who wheeled his burden on Market Street. O Market Street ! in what region vast Are all these phantoms from out thy past? Now noise succeeds to the Quaker trance. And iron cars to the horses' prance, And, for storeys twain to a home of prayer. Phalansteries piled by a millionaire. O Quaker City ! what days are these ? No rest at eve under High Street trees. No sunrise call on the watchman's round. No silent city in sleep profound. For a tidal wave from the age of steam Hath carried away that antique dream. And in vain we search for the hero-race 'Mid jar and jangle of commonplace. ^^The blades, whereby in the Delaware, Poor Fitch careered on her waters fair. Now multiplied by a thousandfold, Have borne us far from the days of old. 16 Where once an august Convention bound God's newborn States in a league profound Now demons juggle with freemen's lives — All free to struggle when usury thrives. Where Friends once pondered in Centre Square'^ There now* sinks hellward a daily prayer That the rights of man in the dust be trod Till the Hall be ripe for the wrath of God. Oh, give us the years, so far and fleet, When ambassadors lived down Market Street !'^ Yet know I souls with a hope sublime,^^ Who pray for the dawn of a juster time ; With white wings folded, their hearts pursue The quiet life, with the goal in view. They only wait for a Fox or Penn To gather the children of God again. Oh, who shall garner this human wheat, Now lost in the crowd on Market Street ? All, all we crave is the rallying cry. To make these days as the days gone by ; To make them more, for the God we need Is a life-power keeping the freeman freed. Purge hall and hovel with air of morn, Command that a weakling shall never be born. Ah, Philadelphia ! there doth remain From those lost ages one faded fane ; We guard and laud it with heart and lip, As Athens guarded the sacred ship. * Written early in 1905. 17 The Ark of the nation's fate it seems, And ever it haunts our stormy dreams, As on that day^'' when a Lincoln gazed At its mouldering stones and the flag he raised. That mystic minster had thrilled him through, And the prayer he uttered was all too true. By night he rode as a man unknown^^ Down Seventeenth Street till the hour had flown. And a train from the Southern depot bore The nation's elect unto Baltimore. That depot dark is a heritage From the troublous times of our middle age, But the railroad's birth and the Civil War Have left the State House calm as of yore. We love thee, O vision old and sweet Amidst the Rialto of Chestnut Street, — Thou stranded salvage of bygone years ! Thou star of a thousand hopes and fears ! 'Twas here the lightning of modern time Flashed forth from thee with a thunder chime; For forty summers were kings repulsed,^® And earth and heaven in wrath convulsed. If the freed for freedom must fight once more, God grant us a sage from the days of yore ! May no NapolKON ever be. But another Washington throned in thee. No bank's proud portal, no civic tower. Can awe the heart with a half thy power, And even the belfry of Christ Church old No tone like thine on the breeze hath rolled. For never cathedral chime could swell An American heart as the Liberty Bell : The State is more than the Church, I trow — The Federal Westminster Abbey thou ! 1905 and 1906. 18 NOTES. ^ Author of The Prospect of Philadelphia^ which is a directory for 1795, arranged by streets. In this book one can walk about the old city in imagination, among streets haunted by French emigres and all the motley population of the time. 2 Built in 1707, demolished in 1837. * In 1795 the market sheds extended along the middle of High Street from Front to Fourth. See John Hills' map of 1796. * "The Great Meeting House," built in 1695, rebuilt in 1755, and supplanted by Arch Street meeting-house in 1804. It was at the S. W. corner of Second and Market Streets, and is mem- orable as the scene of Franklin's first sleep in Philadelphia ! ^ Watson's Annals of Philapelphia, Vol. I, p. 500. The pagi- nation of this book (except for some appendices) has been un- changed since 1844. The fine old first edition of 1830 contains plates which were never reproduced. The art of engraving appears to have degenerated after the opening of the railroad age. These plates have a national, not merely a local signifi- cance, so that I was astonished to find the book lacking in the Boston Public Library during a tour through the libraries of New England and New York in the summer of 1905. I con- sider this book one of the most remarkable productions of the last century. Its author, born during the American Revolution and dying on the eve of the Civil War, saw with his own eyes the transition from old Philadelphia, with its pillories, tinder- boxes and tiny window-panes in shops up flights of steps, to the noisy metropolis that builds locomotives for a hemisphere. The passages added to the later editions are very instructive, es- pecially those on the decay of monarchical manners and the rise of republican ones. The great changes which passed over Phila- delphia between 1840 and 1859 are alluded to by Edwin Har- wood, in his address to the Pennsylvanian Alumni in the latter year : " The College has changed ; the town has no longer its staid old uniform appearance." ^ William McKoy, first teller in the Bank of North America. See Watson I, 182 and 507. This man wrote, under the pen- 19 name of Lang Syne, a series of reminiscences of Philadelphia in Poulson's American Daily Advertiser for 1828-1829. {Poiilson's was an ancestor of our present North American). A few of these articles were reprinted in Samuel Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania^ but most of them have never been reprinted. They are to be found pasted into Watson's MS. Annals at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. They ought to be pub- lished in book form. Watson speaks highly of McKoy's lively style, and regrets that the latter's position in life did not per- mit him to write more. Some German critic of the future may hunt up these articles with the zest of a scholar searching for lost sources of Tacitus. McKoy's description of the Quaker ministers has here been partially versified. " An imperturbable severity rested upon the dark features of Thomas Scattergood," says the text, where severity is an obvious newspaper misprint for serenity. McKoy's name last appears in the Directory for 1831. He lived at 8 Powell Street, which ran from Fifth to Sixth, above Pine. '' Daniel Offiey, the Quaker blacksmith, died of the yellow fever in October, 1793. See Biographical Sketches a7id Anec- dotes of Friends. Philadelphia, 1871. [By Joseph Walton]. When Watson (I. 430) speaks of " the reminiscent " looking through the Front Street windows of Offley's anchor forge, he is quoting McKoy. * Samuel Emlen. ^ Among many travelers who called on Washington in those years may be mentioned Chateaubriand, the celebrated reaction- ary writer of the French Restoration. In 1791 he was an ob- scure young man, as he says himself, while Washington was at the height of his fame. Speaking of the presidential abode, he says : " Une petite maison dans le genre anglois, ressemblant aux maisons voisines, etoit le palais du president des Etats-Unis : point de gardes, pas meme de valets." A maidservant said, ' Walk in, sir,' and walked before him " dans un de ces etroits et longs corridors qui servent de vestibule aux maisons an- gloises." Chateaubriand presented a letter from Colonel Ar- mand (then Marquis de la Rouairie), and proceeded to tell the president of his youthful ambition to explore the North-West Passage. Perceiving that Washington was bored, he cried : " Mais il est moins difficile de decouvrir le passage du nord-ouest que de creer un peuple comme vous 1' avez fait !" Whereupon 20 the father of his country was moved, and extending his hand, exclaimed, " Well, well, young man !" followed by an invitation to dinner. Next day the feast was set, and the two notables, with five more, sat down at 528 Market Street to discuss the French Revolution. ^^ Hills' magnificent map of 1796 shows that the Market Street trees began at Fifth Street. The president's mansion occupied the ground now covered by numbers 526-530. It was demolished in 1833. [JVashington After the Revolution. By William Spohn Baker, sometime vice-president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, 1897, p. 184.) " The exact site of the famous kiteflying is unknown : it was Parton who suggested Eighth and Race Streets, while Fisher says it was probably near Fourth and Vine. We have no detailed account by Franklin himself. He wrote an impersonal descrip- tion of an electric kite, dated Oct. 19, 1752, printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette of that date, sent as a letter to Peter Col- linson, and reprinted in the collected works. But the famous narrative of the promising cloud that disappointed him, of the shed in "the commons," where he took shelter with his son, etc., is derived from Stuber's continuation to the Autobiography, though it first appeared separately in the Columbian Magazine (Philadelphia, 1790). This account in turn is merely repeated, with glosses, from that by Joseph Priestley, in his History and present state of Electricity. (London, 1767, p. 180). Priestley, in his preface, states that Franklin had given him information. So we have Franklin's facts in Priestley's words. It will be recognized by the student of American history that I have here versified in English the famous hexameter line on Franklin by Turgot : Eripuit coelo fulmen sceptrumque tyrannis. '^ John Fitch navigated the Delaware in a steamboat for both freight and passengers during the entire summer of 1790, as contemporary newspapers abundantly prove. In the Phila- delphia Directory for 1791 we read : " Fitch, John, owner of the steam boat, 462 No[rth] Second Street." As early as August 22, 1787, he exhibited an earlier steam boat to most of the members of the Federal Convention, except Washington, while his first experiments were earlier still. See his Life by Westcott. Fulton, in the next century, got all the 21 glory ; but the courts decided that he merely repeated the plans of Fitch. "^ For the old Centre Square meeting-house, see Watson I, 391. I wrote these lines early in 1905, when the notorious " gang " were at the height of their power. '* In 1795, the Dutch ambassador was at 258, High Street (Market Street, south side, between Seventh and Eighth), and the Portuguese ambassador in Franklin's Court (south side of High Street between Third and Fourth). See Hogan's Prospect^ pp. 10 and 12. ^^ These lines were added after a conversation with a member of the Historical Society, who, upon hearing the poem, declared that present-day morality was superior to that of the eighteenth century. ^^ February 22, 1861, at 6 A. M., according to Nicolay and Hay, Vol. Ill, p. 310. But this was the hour when the crowds began to gather. A committee waited upon Lincoln at the Con- tinental Hotel at seven o'clock, and took him to the Hall, so that the speeches must have been made between seven and eight. {Public Ledger^ February 23, 1861). In the speech made in the Hall just before the flag-raising, Lincoln said : " I was about to say that I would rather be assassinated on this spot than surrender it" (i. e., the principle embodied in the Decla- ration of Independence). See Lincoln's Complete Works, Vol. I, p. 691. N. Y., 1894). " Letter of H. F. Kenney, Dec. 23, 1867, in Allan Pinkerton's History and Evidence of the Passage of Abraham Lincoln from Harrisburgh to Washington^ on February 22 and 2j^ 1861. (Chicago, 1868, p. 12). Lincoln had to "kill time" on this famous night journey, and was driven across Philadelphia by a circuitous route. ^^ The American Revolution was the beginning of the long struggle of democracy with aristocracy which ended (tempora- rily) in 1815. 22 RAIN AT SEA. The elements all overwhelm and astound me, And baring- my brow to the brunt of the rain, I ask of the universe mourning around me, What comfort can flow from its infinite pain ? No answer, but only the dull desolation ? — Then, oh that the surges were over me thrown. That the watery roar of the great lamentation, Unmeaning, unheeded, were rolling alone ! Nay, deeper than grief is the dirge of the ocean. And breathing beneath it a quiet release, A sweetness, a calm that is more than emotion ; For infinite sadness is infinite peace. 1881. THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST. Light the torch of thought at midnight. Watch the forms of history file Down the aisles of old religions ; Wake and let us muse awhile. First the shade of Zoroaster Shimmers in the shadow dim ; Fleets and armies of Darius Caught the glint of heaven from him. What remains of all his altars ? Where the temple's vast fa9ade ? Are his wrestlings in the Gathas? Are his laws the Vendidad ? 23 F'ragments all ; the Nosks have perished ; Wrecks and Contents meet our wish, Like the salvage of the Damdad Drifted in the Bundahish. Here we hear the battle-aeon — Ormazd, Ahriman, at war ; Till the lava burn the evil Into good for evermore. So from Bosphorus to Indus Did the Parsi Empire hope For the Hero and his helpers With the serpent-foe to cope. Into heaven soars Elijah ; Rightly doth Elisha cry : " lyO, the chariot of Israel And his horsemen in the sky !" Central in the world's religions Prophesy the Hebrew seers — One, from Moses to Ezekiel, More gigantic than his peers. Loftiest in the long procession He that never penned a line : 'Tis the lightning of Elijah Makes the Covenant divine. Lo, the shade of Kung the Master, And the shores of fair Cathay, Underneath the stars receding Into ages great and grey. Twain millennia lay behind him. And for twain millennia more Lighted he the ranks of China With the lamps of heretofore. 24 Hark ! the tramp of tribes and ages, Echoing from Shii to Shih, And the nation's daily footsteps Resonant throughout the Li. In the trance of midnight, Lau-tza Climbs with Reason to her heights Round the immemorial Mystic Coruscate eternal lights. After Vedic Hymns to storm-gods And the One unborn Supreme, After sacrificial magic, Deeper yet the Indie dream. While Upanishads were musing, And the Sacred Laws began. All the burning soul, incarnate, Burst into a central Man. Gotamo the Sakya Lion Preached to princes in his train How the compounds of existence Are the origin of pain. Not thy dream of sad Nirvana, Mighty Master ! moves the heart. But thyself : of One diviner Thou the foregone shadow art. Far above the stately Sutras, Every tender act endears ; Jewelled in the Great Decease Book Anando's immortal tears. Spite of all thy stern remonstrance. Over Asia's ancient mind Swept a wave of tidal passion For a God from out mankind, 25 Hush ! We need not seek the sequel, How the moonlight paled away : Over Syria broke the morning And the Deity of day. Fiercely royal, towers Mohammed, Dark against that setting moon. Writing death to demon- worship In a fiery desert Rune. End the vigil and the vision ; But my window skyward looks, And for no less lofty learning Will I leave the Sacred Books. 1895. WHEN IS THE TIME? Ere the rosy colors die. Ere the scented summers fly, Ere the years of youth on wings Fade with all delightful things, 'Tis the time. While the pearls are on the marge, While the moon of life is large, While the chime of Easter bells Of the vernal triumph tells, 'Tis the time. When the self to soul is turned, When the ways of love are learned. When with every virtue sweet Manliness and beauty meet, 'Tis the time. 1893-1899. 26 REQUIESCAT MARIANA. WITH AN OLD REFRAIN. Hush ! Within there reigns a silence O'er a sleeping fosterling ; Hark ! Without there thrills a music From the universe of spring ; Roses round the window sweep ; Little sister's gone to sleep. Tell the early trailing roses That they hide the boundless lea Where my soul would fain be roaming, From the haunted chamber free ; Roses, hide me while I weep : Little sister's gone to sleep. Blossoms of the endless orchard ! Billows of the endless sea ! Hide and bury me forever. Far from where she used to be : Roll above me dense and deep : Little sister's gone to sleep. 1897. SONG IN MEASURE FOR MEASURE. Take, oh ! take thy form away. Only leave thy memory whole, Be my life from day to day, Be the soul within my soul ; From this world, oh ! set me free, set me free ; Let my self be lost in thee, lost in thee. 1898. 27 1903. DECEMBER SUNSET. I love the winter sunset, I love his fiery eyes, I love the far-off purple Of Pennsylvanian skies, Where deep beneath the sky-line The last dead summer lies. Aromas of that summer Exhale into the air, The mountains and the rivers I passed are painted there. The likeness of the Lost One Is in that furnace fair. The flames of grief are silent, Like sunset hues they burn. And rising in the twilight I feel my love return, — A hundred summer sunsets Are in yon smouldering urn. A BICYCLE RIDE. The sweetness of eleven springs Is in that human flower Who rode with me on modern wings For one enchanted hour. I loved to ride a little space Behind my infant queen. To watch her form of airy grace. Arrayed in dainty green. 28 1899. The color of that little dress Was e'er as sweet to me As all the kindred loveliness On every April tree. Oh, tell her not the reason why I rode behind a space : I fear to fill that lovely eye With consciousness of grace. So let her think her wheels are swift, And mine are laggard-slow, That I may still adore that drift Of infant virgin snow. THE COAST AND THE SHORE. The coast's a stony prison, The shore is fair and free ; The coast confronts the ocean. The shore receives the sea. By day the sailor curses The coast as if the tomb ; By night he dreams of kisses On shores with homes a-bloom. The coast is where the sea-bird Is shrieking to the storm ; The shore is where my brothers Are round the ingle warm. Upon the coast I wander In solitude and care. Afar to seaward gazing — The shore is over there ! North Durham Coast: April, iSSj. 29 DOLDEN. A rare old town adown the bays Is Falmouth, in the dreamy days When August all her gold arrays, World-olden ; And here a beauteous boy I met, Who came to earth with memories yet Of suns that had not wholly set — Aye golden ! When he could hardly talk, he told Of what their eyes can ne'er behold Who know not of the Age of Gold In Dolden ; For such was his untutored name For some fair region whence he came And went, in visionary game : ,Twas "Dolden." He saw the morning's argent car, He saw the virgin evening star, And said that all was fairer far In Dolden. But, Falmouth ! when he came to thee. And saw the forest meet the sea. He said, "This place on earth shall be My Dolden." I use, O child ! thy charmed eyes. As here I watch Orion rise Amid the sea-enamoured skies Of Dolden, Where once the wave of Shakspere's hand, Above Miranda's yellow sand, Brought Ariel from fairyland — All Dolden ! 30 Here Shelley heard the Skylark ope The Sensitive Plant on cloudy slope, And Browning kissed his Evelyn Hope In Dolden ; And children fair have breathed its air With Wordsworth in the light that ne'er On sea or land was anywhere Save Dolden. And here, O Lyra ! long ago. The splendours of the heavenly bow We stole, and brought to earth below From Dolden, When first we saw the sea, and met. And heard the white Diana set Our life-long, love-long own duet Like Dolden. And heard, alas ! the music bars The angels hymned on sad guitars To all thy world of weeping stars, O Dolden ! When we, with many a laden soul. Obeyed the earthward muster roll. And left the golden oriole In Dolden. But oft we glimpse a feather float. And hear a stray eternal note On sunset-haunted shore remote, Near Dolden ; And then we feel that all is best. That out of earth we build a nest Amid the starry palms of rest. In Dolden. IVesi Falmouth, Massachusetts, 1887. 31 The last verse but one of Dolden was altered without permission by the editor of the Anglo-Burmese magazine, Buddhism (Rangoon, November, 1904), The object of the mutilation appears to have been to introduce the doctrine of physical transmigration instead of the purely spiritual prse-existenec implied in the poem. THE LORELEI. FROM THK GERMAN OF HEINK. 1889. I know not whate'er can have holden My soul to be sad to-night : A tale of the ages olden It haunts me with eerie light. The lift is cool, and it darkles. And restful flows the Rhine, The peak of the mountain sparkles In the holy evenshine. On high there sits and brightens A maid who is wildly fair ; Her golden adornment lightens, She combeth her golden hair. She combs with a comb that is golden, She sings a wonderful song, And hearts are in mystery holden By the strains of the melody strong. The heart of the skipper they capture, The skiff to the rocks is nigh, But all that he sees in his rapture Is the wildering vision on high. The waves of the river swallowed The boat in the setting sun. And the laugh of the Lorelei followed The deed that her song had done. 32 1891. BEATRICE. A love that is houses and raiment To me were a hunger and dearth ; So give me the love that is all love — The heaven without the earth. Beatrice Portinari, In the glow of her summers nine, Set fire to the lips of Dante With a coal from her soul divine. Unto him she was never a woman, But a spirit, an angel, a child. And a tower of eternal music In the light of her eyes he piled. I too have a Beatrice lent me, And I ask the Lord to spare Just one of the legion of angels Who wait on her evening prayer. GEOLOGY. Like shells upon the ocean floor, The wrecks of olden friendships lie, For new deposits, o'er and o'er, To rise in islands by and by. Like mountain dust in river beds, Washed by the rains of thought away With bones of vanished quadrupeds. Will sink the friendships of today. And youthful hopes, in shale and schist Upheaved in the later air. Will find a true geologist To lay their ancient record bare ; 33 While buried wrongs and Vulcan hates, Compressed in many a lava fold, Will roof with metamorphic slates The temples of the age of gold ; And old religions of the race, Imbedded in the minds of all, Will lift a gray primeval face On some historic mountain wall. Here or hereafter men will read, Or angels when the splendors tire. The life of every dream and creed, And every dead volcano fire. Then what, my friend, if thou and I — Two shells within the chalk preserved — Through ages of oblivion lie Till higher uses be subserved ? O'er universes deep and vast Our psychic atoms wander far, United or dissolved at last In some incalcuable star. And out of self's abysmal time To timeless being shall we go : Behind the scenes a life sublime Consumes the worlds of weal and woe. Upon the Parsi scroll of flame Is graven one eternal line : That heaven and hell appear the same To memory in the life divine. 34 Thou may'st be saved, and I be lost Some deity will reap the gain Of lives and deaths together tossed, To build a new diviner plane. So let us toil and suffer on. Nor meanly seek the reason why : Our little life will soon be gone With geologic aeons by. Fainnount Park : July, igoo. MY LOST HOME. When in my childhood by father caressed. When in my youth upon knowledge's quest. When in my manhood I strove to be free, All my life long I was seeking for thee. Many a maiden would beautiful seem — Fairies, but false to my deep inner dream : Over the continent, over the sea. All my life long I was seeking for thee. Lovely girl-children my fantasy found — Nearest of all to that untrodden ground, Nearest to Her who my heaven should be : All my life long I was seeking for thee. After false glamours had led me astray. Made me despair of the wearisome way, Fear that my loved one I never should see, All my life long I was seeking for thee. Then, when my midsummer fervours were past. Softly thy shadow came stealing at last — Peace more serene than the deeps of the sea ; Hardly I dared to believe it from thee. 35 Ah ! but the sweetest child-daughter was thine, Pure was her heart and her love was divine : Lost in the light that appeared to be she, Hardly I dreamt that the dream was of thee. Louisiana was bright in thine eyes, Tenderer North-lights within them would rise : Scotland and France and the ranks of the free Found an eternal alliance in thee. Just for a year did my life-river roll Full to the sea, with a soul in my soul : While the white glory was dawning on me. Death put an end to the finding of thee. O'er me for ever thy heavenly face, Lone as a star in the ocean of space. Beacons me on to the home that shall be : All my life-long I am seeking for thee. 1903. TO MAY AT THE PIANO. The instrument appears a part of thee. And when thou leavest it I feel a shock As if I saw thine arm arrested. Be For ever set before it, on some rock Or solitary sea-shore, where the knock Of thy sweet fingers on responsive keys May make the soul of harmony unlock The portals of eternal music ! These And more than I can count of fancies wild Throng to my spirit as thy fingers fall. I know not whethet 'tis the girl or child That thus enchants me, or if one and all Of music's mighty masters fill my soul, But thou thyself art song, bright oriole ! 1904. 36 1905. WISSAHICKON. Few and fleeting, Irenelle ! Are the moments we can love ; For upon me lies a spell From the silences above, And a guide thou canst not see Is to lead me far away : I must break my trance with thee At the breaking of the day. I must leave thee, Irenelle ! Here beside the haunted stream ; From the piny-scented dell Comes a token like a dream ; Like a waft from bygone lives Is the perfume of the pine, And my memory dips and dives Into seas unknown to thine. Look ! 'Tis dawning, Irenelle, Darkly in the forest glade : I must take a long farewell Of the silence and the shade, For the tempest in my soul Calls me onward o'er the sea, And a storm of years will roll Ere I come again to thee. THE SUNSET CITY. There's a city in the sunset. And its domes are known of old, — Known the glamour of the purple And the glory of the gold. 37 Buddha's eye had surely seen it : Anando had heard him tell Of the Palace of Religion, Where ideal virtues dwell. John beheld the Patmos waters, When the waves at eve were calm, Lighten with the lofty vision, Murmur with the far-off psalm. Yester eve I too beheld it. In the twilight's airy sea. Reddening deeper in the redness ; But the power was not from me. For my vision weak was aided By a childlike presence there, Elevating sight to seership. Meditation into prayer. Then I saw the Holy City, Where alone it e'er can be. Throned within the soul of childhood, And the spirit of the free. Fairmouni Park : July, 1902. 1881. A DURHAM MEMORY. Child I found and left unknown. If we meet not at the goal. May thy pines above me moan Where thine upland breezes roll,- May the soil have all my soul, And this life, as lime or loam. Dye with deeper green the knoll Close beside thy lonely home ! 38 THE LIVING PAST. 1880. IN MEMORY OF HENRY I.AWRENCE, B.A., WHO DIED AT HITCHIN, 1879. Thou knowest, quiet Hertfordshire, Where the grass is growing deep, Where the sunset shadows love to rest, And the early dewdrops weep ; And though with roar of rolling wheels We cross thy meadows fair. The heart is hushed, — we dream of him In his calm slumber there. Dead years have yet the fire of life In Memory's holy urn ; Her altars, heaped with frankincense Of bygone summers, burn ; And when in everlasting night We see yon sun decline. Deep in the soul his purple flames Eternally will shine. Be sure that all the love we need Will flow for ever ours, And, though no comrade watch with us Upon the dreary towers, Behind the soul's dim veil revealed. As on the Ark of yore. One holy solitude of light Reposeth evermore. THE CRIMSON RAMBLER. Beside me a rosy schoolgirl On the rest-day afternoon ; Before me a rose-tree climbing In the mid career of June. 39 1902. I asked of the human rose-bloom The name of the garden rose, And she called it a crimson rambler, For such is the lore she knows. Yon cloud is a crimson rambler, Afar in the dying west ; My heart is a crimson rambler, On an old eternal quest. The roses die with the June-tide, The cloud with the twilight wan. And the heats of the sultry noontide Kill hearts when the hopes are gone. SEPTEMBER AND DECEMBER. When last the leaves were falling I walked and talked with thee. And heart to heart was calling. Like birds from tree to tree. In earthly soil though planted. Our roots were deeply one. And in these ways enchanted Our leaves absorbed the sun. * * * * Thus far I sang September, And now the winter blows ; Experience, like December, Upon thy memory snows. So fast the flakes are falling I fear thy form may fade In silence more appalling Than on thy grave the shade. 40 1903. Can love be snowed thereunder? Can thought and learning kill The lightning and the thunder That once the clouds did fill? Shall clouds return to vapors, And vapors melt in air? Nirvana quench the tapers Of life's phantasmal prayer? Was Buddha by Nepala Beclouded out of truth ? Did terrors from Himala O'erwhelm his awful youth? Did Jesus by the Jordan A loftier vision know ? Is He the rightful warden Of souls that melt like snow ? Can any Power hereafter Our being whole restore? Shall heavenly roof and rafter O'erarch us twain once more? Appear to me by noontide When life is beating high ; Appear to me in June-tide, A sky beyond the sky ! Away with ghosts of twilight. With wraiths and dreams of sleep ! Appear to me in thy light. Thou dawn above the deep. 41 MOUNTAINOUS. Alps upon Alps, O poet, how they flout thee, Whelm thee in wildness that no god can tame Caverns and grots above thee and about thee Whisper to thee my solitary name. May 5, 1895. The words in italics came in sleep. A WISH. A life by the sea and a life at thy side, And together in death to go out with the tide. 1892. FINIS. APPRECIATIONS The late JOHN H. DILLINGHAM, Editor of THE FRIEND. 140 N. 16th St., Philadelphia : 12 Mo. 11, 1906. My dear friend, Albert J. Edmunds : I sat up late last night reading several of the poems in thy "Fairmount Park" collection, finding not one of them would grow old under successive readings, one of which would be a revealer of its ever new successor, so full of suggestion are they all : also of deep feeling, and exploration in much learning. ******* Thou art to be congratulated on thy publication, and there are many that can give that appreciation above the multitudes of pearl-tramplers. Sincerely thy friend, John H. Dillingham. The late ALBERT H. SMYTH, Editor of the Works of Franklin. I have enjoyed the poems for their own still sym- pathy and beauty. They have a love of the deep reme- dial and redemptive forces of nature that is seldom found in our contemporary verse. F. W. FRANKLAND, of New Zealand. The poems .... are very beautiful. I was especially impressed with the one entitled "The Sacred Books of the East." It is on the whole the most beau- tiful description of the great pageant of religious his- tory I have ever seen. The references to Zoroaster's religion and to "Gotamo the Sakya Lion" are, to my mind, especially touching. [Mr. Frankland proves the sincerity of his words by reprinting the admired poem and circulating it as a leaflet among thoughtful people.] BY THE SAME AUTHOR Studies in the Christian Religion. Complete series, 1915-1920, large quarto, $2.00. The Ghost-Story attested by Peter and Paul that inspired the Christian Religion. (Se- lect leaves from the above, $1.00.) Buddhist and Christian Gospels. With Notes from the Chinese by Anesaki, 1908-1914, 2 vols., 8vo, $5.00. Philadelphia INNES & SONS 129 North Twelfth Street 21 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper pn Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxid' Treatment Date: Sept. 2009 PreservationTechnolo A WORLD LEADER IN COLLECTIONS PRESER 111 Thomson Park Drive Cranberry Township, PA 1606< /79/HT?a-?111 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 018 597 158 2