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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
 
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 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 The Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/harpofmilanOOshep 
 
Harp of Milan. 
 
 SHEPPERSON. 
 
 1897. 
 
 J. H. YEWDALE & SONS CO. 
 
 MILWAUKEE, WIS. 
 
. ^ 
 
 Copyright, 1897, 
 
 BY 
 
 William Shepperson. 
 
 
 .,.^'7 
 
 
<3 
 NT 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 MY FATHER AND MOTHER. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 The great Aeolian Harp of Milan extended from 
 the house of Harold El Zagel to the rear of the 
 Church of St. Ambrose. The Milanese record that 
 this Harp preserved, and at times reproduced, the 
 dominant passions that had burnt beneath it. 
 
 Harold El Zagel tells us that his house was 
 thronged nightly with people striving to hear this 
 voice of the spirit. He also relates that "the night 
 following the wedding of Count Chialfoz and his 
 fair bride — while yet the city was re-echoing the 
 voices of song, laughter, congratulation — the Harp 
 took up the spirit of joy. The sound thereof was 
 the vocal exponent of happy thoughts, hopes, ten- 
 der longings, desires, untried loves, Heaven-born 
 aspirations, that lay voiceless in the crowd below. 
 The listening city became still as the stars. It was 
 sweet — that voice of hope which had been nour- 
 ished in silence so long; it was tender as the smile 
 of the Blessed — that love which had watched o'er 
 the graves of the years; it was strong with the 
 strength of eternity — that promise of the soul's true 
 home." 
 
 "As though," Harold El Zagel continues, "the 
 bells of midnight had power to annihilate time and 
 to arouse the Spirit of the Past, oft-times in re-echo 
 of these bells, forgotten heart throbs rushed forth 
 
from out the silence encircling Space and Time, and 
 vibrated in mystic melody through the Harp. A 
 midnight melody of great beauty and pathos is 
 called by the people the "Death Scene of St. 
 Ambrose." 
 
 "Sweeter music never left its Heaven. Mingled 
 with the breath of pain, which ceased only with the 
 music, all worthy feelings of life sang as it were of 
 triumph. A low minor of great sweetness was 
 called the "Kindness of St. Ambrose;" another 
 chord more breath-like in which the alto Pain pre- 
 dominated, was called his "Friendship for August- 
 ine ;" a strain of spirit-like joy was named the "Bap- 
 tism of Augustine." But above the strain and the 
 triumph arose the song of Peace. Peace modulated 
 into holiness while Silence adored — silent the Alps 
 now — silent the river, the city, the stars. O Silence! 
 Child of Eternity ! the depths of Thought are thine, 
 the hearts of men, the white lips of the dead, the 
 lowest waters of ocean, the space homes of the stars. 
 Linger yet, while, from the death-bed guarded by 
 holiness, Heaven shall call the soul. Sweet as an- 
 thems of angels, faint as the breath of the dying, 
 chaste as the Alpine couch of purity and peace, kind 
 as the night-winds of Calvary rose — sank — trem- 
 bled — ceased the "Call of Heaven." 
 
 We have given paraphrases of the Harp Songs 
 as found in Harold El Zagel's manuscripts. Of 
 this person we have only such desultory knowledge 
 as may be gleaned from scattered fragments of man- 
 uscripts found among the Harp Songs. From 
 
 VI 
 
them we learn that he was of Spanish-English orig- 
 in; a wanderer, probably an invalid, residing with 
 his mother in Milan. A spirit of gloom pervades 
 his writings except when influenced by his mother 
 whom we may conclude to have been a woman of 
 education, talent, and piety. In the following ex- 
 tract, he, speaking of his mother, says: "Out from 
 the long buried Past came her story. How the fair 
 English girl of the Convent School in Italy was 
 about to consecrate her life to God; pure passionless 
 life, uneventful as the life of flowers in the Convent 
 garden. How the happy days of school life closed; 
 the graduates' Cross glittered on her neck; the kind 
 farewells were spoken,- — just for one month, one lit- 
 tle month, in which to visit England, to receive her 
 father's blessing, to kneel by the grave of the 
 mother whom she had never known, and then, — to 
 return, to die to the world, to live for God. Ah! 
 month replete with destiny! For Harold Hastings, 
 ever restless, ever enterprising, welcomed to his 
 halls the Spanish enthusiast, the inventor of the 
 diving-bell, — Giovanni El Zagel. Ah, Alice Hast- 
 ings ! the trees are murmuring 'round your Convent 
 home, murmuring of change, of sorrow; but you 
 hear them not. The faces of saints in the Convent 
 Chapel are sad to-night, but you see them not. The 
 memories of conscience are calling, — calling like 
 the bell that is ringing for prayers for the dead in 
 the Convent chapel so far away, but you hear them 
 not. 
 
 Who shall blame the young heart in its first fond 
 
 Vll 
 
dream, or who shall know that the bride of earth 
 was meant to be the bride of Heaven? 
 
 Six happy months passed by replete with pleasure 
 and love. Giovanni El Zagel and his wife, weary of 
 travel, took up their abode in the courtly cottage 
 nestling amid the blue hills of Teheran. 
 
 A new experiment, child of the restless brain, 
 called Giovanni from his happy home to tempt once 
 more the gloomy grandeur of the water world. 
 The yellow waters of the Persian Gulf kept well 
 their secret. Perhaps they did not care that the 
 dark comely head and passionate heart should soon 
 be still low in the home of pearls. Surely the sun- 
 light laughed, — -laughed in the high blue sky, 
 laughed o'er the cottage watching from the hill, 
 laughed o'er the cheerful words, the light good by, 
 laughed o'er — his grave. 
 
 My father whom I never knew! Dark eyes that 
 never met my own save from the gilded frame upon 
 my nursery wall! Heir am I of his doubting mind, 
 his ever restless heart; heir of my mother's sorrow." 
 
 Again speaking of some sorrow which had come 
 upon him, he says: "I could not rise above my 
 fate. Blue rose the undulating hills of Teheran, 
 clear was the sky above, peaceful the white head 
 stones of the dead. All nature breathed indiffer- 
 ence, tranquility, — a life serene, not consonant, not 
 ours. I turned from nature to the quiet of my 
 room. The pictures upon the wall gleamed with a 
 human sympathy. I shuddered with Beatrice Cenci 
 at the Mannaia. O Earth! your sad, sad woe rolls 
 
 Vlll 
 
on; and we, drifting upon its tide, claim kindred 
 with a sorrow that is still — A low rustle, a light 
 footstep, and my mother's hand rested upon my 
 arm." 
 
 Among the songs of ten years' later date we find 
 the following: "O that a hand .might come from 
 out the storm, the darkness, the despair! O that a 
 voice might speak, till one by one these phantoms 
 pass away; till back they hasten, back to their hell, 
 — these hideous doubts and fears! 'If life were all, 
 my child, I would weep with you. If this poor 
 mound of earth were all that remains of the human 
 heart which has lived and loved and suffered, I 
 would weep with you. The song of earth is a song 
 of woe; the life that ends with the grave is a dis- 
 torted thing; the poet heart which wanders not be- 
 yond the narrow things of time must — break'." 
 
 This is all that can be gathered of the personal 
 history of Harold El Zagel. 
 
 Knowing how much expression and even 
 thoughts suffer in translation, we have no hope 
 that the songs here published shall, even in a 
 remote way, resemble the subtle music of the Harp. 
 The pristine force is gone, many connecting melo- 
 dies are lost; and, without the prose introductions 
 which shall in a measure convey the subject matter, 
 the songs themselves are become almost 
 unintelligible. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
 IX 
 
SOUNDS OF RESTLESSNESS AND 
 SOUNDS OF SORROW. 
 
 Crying still as they cried of old, — the Harpies of 
 the legend, the Sirens of the song; the lament of 
 Jeremiah, the groan of Gautama, — yea, down thro' 
 the ages, in the songs of Byron, the "Sorrows of 
 Werther," — desire, unrest, afflictions of the soul. 
 
 Where shall the surges of the soul waves cease? 
 Thro' all the world I wander seeking peace. 
 
 It was night; and through the great Aeolian Harp 
 of the world arose sounds of restlessness and sounds 
 of sorrow. Spain lamented her children. With the 
 sob of wife and children mingled the death groan 
 on the Cuban battle-field. The warm breath 
 through the Harp was the burning village of Guira 
 Melena. The measured sound was the march to 
 battle, and the steel-music of midnight was the clash 
 of machete and sabre. 
 
 With a voice of the conquered cities of Alexander 
 and of Caesar, with the cry of the burning Capitol 
 of Carthage, Armenia lay prostrate, lamenting. 
 
 Cold as the Alpine dawn, salt as tears of the night, 
 came a breath from the sea. Frost bands held not 
 the vessel, storms were with Aeolus; only the sighs 
 
of earth's sleepers had lingered in mist o'er the 
 ocean,- — but the "Elbe" was sinking. 
 
 Sounds from awakening cities! Surely the Angel 
 of Dawn weeps o'er the sorrows that awaken at her 
 coming! Sleep had brought rest to the laborer, 
 dreams to the sad heart, forgetfulness to eyes that 
 are watching, to hearts that are waiting; silence and 
 peace had blessed all. But, alas! what sights await 
 the dawn! O sad Rhine river, Loire, and Thames, 
 from out your tides some Harriet Shelley's face 
 stares at the dawn! In the palace, in the home, in 
 the hovel, Death has been; and they lie equal now, 
 — the weary Czar of Russia, the mother of the 
 home, the wretched babe of Regent Street. And 
 there are sadder sights. O Angel of Dawn, la- 
 ment! Lament the victims of Toil, the wrecks of 
 Passion, the cries of Rachel for her children, of 
 David for Absalom; the weariness of old age, the 
 white grave-stones rising from hearts; the hopes 
 which await the vessel that lies beneath the storm; 
 the maniac and his Hell, the murderer, the suicide, 
 the condemned cell, — the scaffold. Ah! it was 
 morn; and through the great Aeolian Harp of the 
 world arose sounds of restlessness and sounds of 
 sorrow. 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 THE POET-PHILOSOPHER. 
 I. 
 
 He stood alone amid thousands: too cognizant of 
 sorrow to be selfish ; too great for a thought of bit- 
 terness against the pitiful hands that struck him. 
 
Life as a falling star, rose — sank in eternity and the 
 poet-philosopher waited and watched. With the 
 eye of a Gibbon he walked midst the Middle Ages; 
 with the heart of the Wandering Jew he gazed on 
 the history of nations; with the kind human heart 
 of Gautama he pitied the frailties of mortals. Had 
 he himself essayed the higher Path? the path of 
 purity, universal charity, self-denial? Had he be- 
 come strong and holy victor in the Lerna strife? 
 Glorious is the height of virtue whence the eyes 
 unawed survey Time and Eternity. There only we 
 stand in the shadow of God's peace; there have our 
 noble hearts advanced into the light of God's peace; 
 there have our martyrs and saints died inebri- 
 ated with God's peace. Had the heart of the 
 hero become less vigilant because the giant war- 
 riors, Passion and Pride, were wounded and the 
 sounds of battle were low? Had he fallen from 
 virtue's height? O woe! there's a gash in the soul 
 which the years shall not heal. Well if the great 
 lesson shall be learned at last, — that we are most 
 truly God-like when most kindly human; well if, 
 extending the hand of beneficent kindness to the 
 creatures of our London Strand, our Broadways, 
 our Madeleine boulevards, our work houses, jails, 
 penitentiaries, we may exclaim with the God-man, 
 "Neither do I condemn you;" well if that great scar 
 on the soul shall interpret for him the history of 
 ages, the troubled panorama of to-day, the humili- 
 ating atonement of death, the tragedy of Calvary, 
 the Credo of the Church, the peace waiting home 
 of the soul. 
 
 II. 
 
 He stood mid the wintry stillness of a Canadian 
 forest. The scene was magically weirdly beautiful: 
 the snows as frozen coldnesses enveloped the trees; 
 
 3 
 
the zenith moon, the stars shone cold as resenting 
 the weary monotony of their mystery; the broad, 
 white snow world waited and scorned not and 
 hoped not. 
 
 His heart was the wintry stillness of a Canadian 
 forest. Out from his life had sunk the youth- 
 constellations. Then he had cried aloud, but Pride 
 stood beside him and pointed to other men's lives 
 and showed him the thing in the semblance. Jn 
 the politic smile lay the sneer, in the lip laugh the 
 eyes' scorning, and the flowers of compliment, 
 friendship, and love were set in heart shading. 
 Over white graves in hearts the snows were cease- 
 lessly falling and men laughed and forgot. There 
 lay an early love, there lay enthusiasm, there lay 
 wide trust in another, and by it lay human kind- 
 ness. So he walked forth with Pride. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Ever the atmosphere rises and revels in unrest. 
 Her million animalcules have lives commensurate 
 with their motion and rest for them means death. 
 In the elemental world liveth and reigneth unrest. 
 In the rock, gigantic, o'erfrowning the deep, change 
 is enacting. At its base the water ocean entices the 
 elements from their compounds, at its summit the 
 air-ocean entices the elements from their com- 
 pounds and there is struggle, disintegration, trans- 
 mutation — then on the victors go exulting in the 
 strong joy of affinity, unrest, — change. Aye, on the 
 victors go to meet that which shall call, with a yet 
 stronger voice, to atoms of their molecules, and 
 there shall be struggle, decomposition, unrest, — 
 change. O paradox of the chemic world, where life 
 is death and death transition! O compounds that 
 
 4 
 
we break at will and compounds that we form, yet 
 are your elements sacred for they are from eternity! 
 The scientist turned from his laboratory. Worthy 
 at heart he was but proud. The church bells were 
 chiming* Adeste for it was Christmas eve. The 
 flames from a tall blast-furnace played grandly on 
 a back-ground of black sky. He called the flames 
 by name "I know you Calcium, Carbon, Silicon — . 
 I know the spectra of your flames. I know what 
 you have been what you shall be — but the life-heat 
 of the flame, the non-annihilation, the brilliance, the 
 wild freedom — whence? whither? With the al- 
 chemists of old I have analyzed gold, but I cannot 
 make gold; I have analyzed organic matter, I know 
 the elements of life but I cannot make life; I have 
 analyzed flame, I know — nothing." Mildly the stars 
 looked down as pitying the proud impotence of his 
 soul, and the churches chimed Adeste. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He stood 'neath the Northern Aurora. How 
 essentially unsympathetic is the physical world with 
 the Ego of each heart! As an Armenian refugee 
 on the London Strand, so is the heart in the uni- 
 verse. Who shall describe thee, O Night of the 
 Northern Aurora! The cold magnetic storm was 
 yet sullenly sobbing. 'Twas the Carnival night of 
 the Colors. Steel blue sported with crimson, green 
 pursued amber; hues of the violet, purple, and red 
 rose into scarlet. Scarlet was mother and queen. 
 Scarlet spread down o'er the snows, o'er the hills, 
 o'er the ice-bergs. Scarlet grew pale in pity for 
 earth and the gay colors triumphed. Yellow and 
 purple contend in an emerald cloud wave; crimson 
 and amber embrace in steel-blue. Quick corus- 
 cations — palpitating light — Twas the Carnival 
 
night of the Colors; with Earth it was Lent — earn- 
 est and solemn ; with the heart 'twas the Eve of the 
 Passion. Out from the Past they came,— the loves 
 that had perished; slow at their side stalked the 
 dreams of the years; Doubt the deriding and scorn- 
 ful led into the shade of the iceberg and thence 
 watched the world. O flame of the heart! burn low, 
 burn down to peace. All whom thou lovest are far 
 from thee; thou hast entered the Northern night in 
 far Franz Josef Land. May the mountain shadows 
 o'er unbroken snows bring thee repose! May the 
 slow solemnity of the glacier, the majestic motion of 
 icebergs, the star bound quiet of the abode of the 
 vast, the awful, the sublime — bring thee repose. 
 And far away in the Christian land the churches 
 chimed Adeste. 
 
 V. 
 
 He was kind, and his kindness had no return, 
 therefore he perished. 
 
 With honest earnest eyes he had watched life, un- 
 awed by the gloom hanging over its origin, frown- 
 ing over its end. A soul strong in the strength of 
 immortality, joyous in its own kindness; hopeful, 
 confident in the reflex beam of its own probity, — ■ 
 such a soul had blessed the world, had made the 
 world better because he lived. But the bright head 
 is low to-night, the weary face asks "Do not wake 
 me." 
 
 He was kind and his kindness had no return, 
 therefore he perished. 
 
PILATUS. 
 
 Why should the world be gay when people are 
 moaning and dying; 
 What is the glory of earth unto a spirit of pain ? 
 Why should the wheel revolve after the main belt 
 is broken? 
 Why should the sister-stars call sisters that come 
 not again? 
 
 Now I remember a voice that spoke to the noble 
 within me, 
 Out of the silence it came — glorious, possible 
 thing; 
 Why did it fade because I smiled to the greeting 
 of Caesar? 
 Why does it wait in my grave — Angel of ebony 
 wing? 
 
 Cold is the mountain of mist, but colder the sun 
 without Caesar, 
 Glorious god of the world, great in the gloom of 
 the grave. 
 Yet does it rise in my soul — O Protean sorrow of 
 sorrows ! 
 Where I have loved I am lost, what I have loved 
 will not save. 
 
 Over the glittering grief, rises a sorrow that trem- 
 bles; 
 Far in the mist at my feet, wanders the ebony 
 wing. 
 Why does it bear thro' the gloom the scene of the 
 Trial of Jesus? 
 Why do I see thee again glorious possible thing? 
 
Why does it wait in my grave — the scene of the 
 Trial of Jesus? 
 If I consent I believe, if I believe I despair. 
 Why does my soul grasp the light that fades in the 
 greeting of Caesar? 
 Black! black! black! is my soul as the grave of 
 pines calling me there. 
 
 THE CENTENARIANS. 
 
 We are very, very old! 
 Each to-morrow is a dreary yesterday; 
 We are waiting, waiting, waiting, for the call which 
 shall summon us away 
 
 Out of the world. 
 
 For the children have become us — and they say 
 The self same things we said; 
 
 They smile upon each other with the eyes that smile 
 upon us from the holy dead, 
 Beyond the world. 
 
 If, Tithonus-like, we cannot die 
 
 Of all mortals, are we most unblest. 
 
 Peace o'er the white hearse passing! Little one 
 
 soon hast thou found that which the old heart 
 
 longs for — rest 
 
 Beyond the world. 
 
 Peace o'er the white mounds gleaming on the hill, 
 Strange peace within the heart! 
 God's angels call us and their breath is cold. 
 Press down the eyelids — we are very old, and we 
 depart 
 
 Out of the world. 
 8 
 
THE GANGES. 
 
 Roll, mighty Ganges! roll, thou lordly tide! 
 
 A thousand summers greet thine effluent wave, 
 A thousand blessings on thy course abide, 
 
 Yet is thy source cold in its glacial grave. 
 
 The gay hall glitters and the music wakes, 
 The dancers grow embodied melody; 
 
 The snow of flowers descends in pearly flakes, 
 'Tis sunlight on the Ganges near the sea. 
 
 They place the crown on the dead poet's brow, 
 
 They title him the "lost Divinity;" 
 They wreathe his bier with many roses now, — 
 
 'Tis sunlight on the Ganges near the sea. 
 
 The source! — ah! back, back in a glacial grave, 
 Solemn and stern and dark and very cold. 
 
 Whence springs the Ganges, while her effluent wave 
 Sparkles in sunshine girt by sands of gold. 
 
 SAFE FOREVER. 
 
 Safe forever, little one, 
 But my heart is aching; 
 
 Where the human currents run. 
 Human hopes are breaking. 
 
 Rest forever, little one, 
 
 Past the sounds of sorrow; 
 
 While the weary wander on, 
 Down the vast to-morrow. 
 
Peace forever, little one, 
 Past the troubled waking; 
 
 Yet where human currents run, 
 Human hopes are breaking. 
 
 WANDERER. 
 
 Art thou dreaming, tender hearted, 
 Of the restless ones who roam? 
 
 Have the children all departed 
 From thy heart and home? 
 
 AGED PARENTS. 
 
 There are life affections broken, 
 Lying painless 'neath the sod; — 
 
 There are names that are not spoken 
 Save between the soul and God. 
 
 There were childish hearts that missed us, 
 Ere the life storm left us old; 
 
 There were childish lips that kissed us, 
 Which are loveless now and cold. 
 
 There is error, there is sorrow, 
 There is restlessness and pain; 
 
 Yet the heart cries to each morrow 
 "Bring the children back again!" 
 
 THE DYING ARAB. 
 
 All of earth is drear to me, 
 
 Arable; 
 Lone I lie and dream of thee, 
 
 Arable : 
 
 IO 
 
Now I drink the fragrant breeze 
 'Neath the pure Pimento trees; — 
 Now I hear the roaring- seas, 
 • Arable. 
 
 All my spirit cries aloud, 
 
 Arable, 
 O'er the world in foamy shroud 
 
 Arable; 
 While each mile of land and wave 
 Seems to hold some life hope's grave 
 O'er whose gloom the surges rave, 
 
 Arable. 
 
 I am in a foreign land, 
 
 Arable, 
 And I cannot understand, 
 
 Arable; 
 While the many pass me by, 
 Heeding not my starving cry, 
 And I lay me down to die, 
 
 Arable. 
 
 Oh! from out the sunny land, 
 
 Arable ! 
 But to touch one kindred hand, 
 
 Arable; 
 But to hear the liquid flow 
 Of the language that we know, 
 But to hear and answer low, 
 
 Arable. 
 
 I am sinking unto death, 
 
 Arable. 
 Now I drink the flower breath, 
 
 Arable; 
 'Tis the allspice on the breeze, 
 'Neath the white Pimento trees, 
 And the realm of dreamless ease, 
 
 Arable, 
 ii 
 
THE ALPS. 
 
 Glorious sunset o'er the mountains! 
 
 Mighty pillars of the cloud, 
 Crimson sullen plains of heaven, 
 
 Gild yon glacier cold and proud; 
 
 Like our love world in a shroud. 
 
 Fades yon bird within the glowing 
 Of a crimson incense-bond. 
 
 Hark! the bugles chilly blowing 
 From the glacial gloom beyond. 
 
 Isolated scenes of nature, 
 
 Cold and high, uncomplemented; 
 Lone in pain and lone in grandeur, 
 
 I dwell here contented. 
 
 Far beyond the clouds of sunset, 
 Soars my soul to sink in Thee; — 
 
 That of which I am an atom, 
 God — and God's eternity. 
 
 THE MISSIONARY. 
 
 And thou art dead! Brave, generous heart, rest on! 
 
 Thy noble sorrows consecrate thy tomb. 
 Our martyred one, God's smile is over thee 
 
 Gilding the darkness of thine early doom. 
 Beauty and holiness, angels await to bless,— 
 
 Loved, lost, deplored! 
 Slumber now peacefully, loved by that Deity 
 
 Our souls adored. 
 
 12 
 
Ah! I hear the north wind calling" thro' the pines, 
 And I hear the gentle rain drops on the vines, 
 
 And I see the home forests wave; 
 But I waken at the Orinoco's mouth, 
 'Neath the burning waves of light in the South, 
 
 Alone by his grave. 
 
 Our martyred one, from that bright home above, 
 
 Look on thy brother-soul in sorrow here: 
 Plead my petition at God's throne of love, 
 
 That he may give me grace to persevere. 
 For all of light closes in rayless night; 
 
 No phosphorescent glitter on life's wave. 
 Last of our band, lone in this burning land, 
 
 Dying beside his grave. 
 
 Ah! I hear the holy Office pealing forth, 
 From our Monastery chapel in the North, 
 
 Where the pine forests wave; 
 But I waken at the Orinoco's mouth, 
 'Neath the burning waves of light in the South 
 
 Alone by his grave. 
 
 DISSONANCE. 
 
 Far have I wandered from Thee, 
 
 My Father, the mountain is cold; 
 I would turn from the mist and the mad mystery 
 
 I would kneel in the fold. 
 
 For we cannot understand, 
 
 And the days evolve our fate, 
 While the night with starry hand 
 
 Writes the warning — "wait!" 
 
 13 
 
Wait secure in the humble fold, 
 
 Wait, the longing of soul shall cease ; 
 
 Wait till the fiat of God is told, 
 Wait and there shall be peace. 
 
 My God, I would come back to Thee, 
 
 Too God-like art Thou to repel ; 
 J Tis the spark of "Thyself that Thou gavest to me 
 
 Which seeking its high flame — fell. 
 
 Wounded and willing to wait, 
 
 Willing to trust for the best; 
 Willing to bend by the sunset gate 
 
 Which borders the land of rest. 
 
 Weary of all that is low, 
 
 Astray in the misty unknown: 
 Too cold in the mists of the mountain of snow 
 
 Too far o'er the crowd and too lone. 
 
 The lights of the valley shine warm, 
 
 The gray spire reposes with men : 
 Shall I stand on the height and complain of the 
 storm ? — 
 
 I will enter the valley again. 
 
 Enter the valley and enter the church, 
 
 Enter the dim confessional, 
 The soul storm shall cease, the heart shall find 
 peace, 
 
 And God's absolution shall fall over all. 
 
 14 
 
THE AVALANCHE. 
 
 Behold the snow bound city, 
 
 The fair-haired bride of night! 
 But little Nellice moans in pain. 
 
 The proud frost spirits laugh again. 
 And thro' the icy air 
 
 A voice in prayer: — 
 "Above the world in white, 
 
 In a home warm and bright; 
 Oh! let the spirit wander in a world of starry light.' 
 
 'Tis an angel of the snow,, 
 
 Breathing o'er me freezing breath ; 
 But my duty points to Blanche 
 
 'Neath the cruel avalanche, 
 And I sink in snowy shroud, 
 
 And I breathe in cirrus cloud; 
 Oh ! the crimson life-tide flows 
 
 Tingeing all the silent snows; 
 Closer now the frozen breath, 
 
 And I sink in waiting death. 
 
 Oh! the broken hearts to-night, 
 
 Oh! the mighty avalanche, 
 Little Blanche! 
 How yon glacier shone this morn, 
 
 And majestic Matterhorn! 
 Ere to-morrow's sun shall rise 
 
 The eternal meets our eyes," — 
 Faster now the crimson tide 
 
 "Jesu, mercy" Nellice cried 
 And she died. 
 
 O'er the dead in snowy bed 
 
 Burst the morning sun ; 
 And the wailing lamentation, 
 
 Universal desolation 
 
 15 
 
Gilded by the pale red ray, 
 
 Seemed the dawn of that great day, 
 When the span of life is run, 
 
 And the world is done. 
 
 STORM. 
 
 Our Father, there are storms upon the deep, 
 
 And human souls are crying helplessly; 
 Lost human souls night's waiting watches keep, 
 
 With frozen gaze fixed on Eternity. 
 O the strong and mighty waters! 
 
 O the world of moving waves! 
 The moon shining full, and the lone sea gull 
 
 Guarding our graves. 
 
 Our Father, there are storms upon life's sea, 
 
 They rage around us and obscure our goal; 
 Oh! let one ray of light glimmer to-night, 
 
 For icy pain is gathering o'er the soul 
 O the strong o'er mastering sorrow! 
 
 O the pain that may not cease! 
 Twilight memories thronging, o'er the soul's rest- 
 less longing, 
 
 And we cry, — "peace, peace!" 
 
 POETS' GRAVES. 
 
 Where Keats and Shelley sleep, 
 The poet heart must sigh; 
 
 Must with Religion weep, 
 And then pass by. 
 
 Must pause with solemn heart, 
 In Hucknall's old church yard 
 
 Where lies the mortal part 
 Of love and sorrow's bard. 
 t6 
 
Lord Byron, o'er thy grave 
 The long gray grasses wave, 
 
 And thou hast slumbered long, 
 O restless child of son°r! 
 
 & 
 
 OLD DUTIES. 
 
 Old duties, welcome! So you're back again, 
 
 And ye are ladened as the autumn sheaves. 
 What! is there languor in the extended hand? 
 
 It must not be. Life is an earnest thing, 
 Strong, neutral background whereon Heaven shall 
 paint 
 
 Eternity with colors of to-day. 
 Welcome, our duties! Stand across the years, 
 
 Unfold each day; and wrap each solemn night 
 In thy approving smile. And life shall be 
 
 Calm in the strength that suffers and endures; 
 Patient and prayerful 'mid the hosts of wrong; 
 
 Divinely human where the ignoble err. 
 So shall the soul be happy in its God, 
 
 When Duty signs the cross above our graves. 
 
 PROMISES. 
 
 Unreal, unreal; — 
 
 As falls the petal from the rose, 
 
 As drift the leaves in autumn wind, 
 As summer glories under winter snows, 
 So are they fallen, — 
 
 Life's promises. 
 
 Unreal, unreal; — 
 
 O restless human heart! 
 
 The mirage yet recedes as we appear, 
 Ah ! 'tis the glow, of hope loth to depart ; 
 So are they fleeing, — 
 
 Life's promises. 
 17 
 
Unreal, unreal; — 
 
 Where is that land of rest? 
 
 Where shall the surges of the soul waves 
 cease? 
 Where is that all we crave of purest, holiest, 
 best? 
 O Saviour of the world! where is thy peace? 
 "In Heaven." 
 
 DRINK, BUT YE SHALL THIRST AGAIN. 
 
 'Twas a scene of magic beauty in a forest of the 
 West, 
 For the toil of day had ended and all nature 
 breathed of rest; 
 E'en the long grass, e'en the laurels, e'en the trees 
 did peaceful wave : 
 Mellow skies, suffused in crimson, watched the 
 sun's all glowing grave 
 Rose the home fires, came the dear ones, while all 
 earthly longings cease 
 Came the benison from Heaven, came the words 
 of peace. 
 And the human heart was happy, while I heard a 
 sad refrain; 
 "Drink, but ye shall thirst again." 
 
 Thou art crowned, our angel beauty! Alice, thou 
 art crowned to-day; 
 O'er the bold eye, o'er the bright eye, fair haired 
 blue eyed Queen of May. 
 Little Alice, little Alice, night is weaving shreds 
 with day; 
 Little Alice, little Alice, roses fade away. 
 And the human heart was happy, while I heard a 
 sad refrain; 
 "Drink, but ye shall thirst again." 
 
 18 
 
SORROW. 
 
 Afar the sounds of earthly sorrows roll. 
 
 Ah! in our misery. 
 Whet a nonentity, 
 
 All human things may be, 
 While anguish rages in the inmost soul. 
 
 Oh! how we bend in woe, 
 Where the heart bleedeth; 
 
 Though all the world below 
 Our solace needeth; 
 
 Tho' storms of passion blow, 
 Tho' tears of sorrow flow, 
 
 Yet lone we bend in woe, 
 When the heart bleedeth. 
 
 None was so brave as he — our fallen one, 
 
 None was so fair as she — our child that died ; 
 None know as we must know 
 
 Our own peculiar w r oe, 
 Our joy, our hope, our pride. 
 
 Let the dead lie softly sleeping, 
 Let the living heart arise ; 
 
 Grandly, thro' the night of sorrow. 
 Let us paint beyond the skies 
 
 Scenes of love for weeping eyes. 
 
 All is common; and our soul-cry is but part 
 
 Of a universal lamentation; 
 And that w T hite head-stone gleaming on our 
 heart 
 
 Marks one of common graves 
 Vast as the foam of waves 
 
 O'er deluged desolation. 
 
 r 9 
 
THE SIMOOM. 
 
 Sultry was the desert air, 
 
 And the cloudless sky was fair; 
 
 Deep the sunbeam burned the sand, 
 Winds of fire waved o'er the land, 
 
 Hot exhaustion pressed our band. 
 
 Cease, O Sun! thine every beam 
 
 Is a heavy burning stream. 
 Cease, and sink within thy West; 
 
 Madly is thy power confessed, 
 Cease to burn us, — let us rest! 
 
 Hell comes on in heat and gloom, 
 
 And we see the wild simoom; 
 Black and broad the fiend draws nigh, 
 
 By our camels low we lie, 
 Waiting but the power to die. 
 
 Fear and might have worked their will, 
 
 And the broken mind is still. 
 Rolls the tumult, whirls the sand, 
 
 Dying eyes on native land 
 Gaze; and peace is over all. 
 
 Hear the heavenly rain-drops fall ! 
 Falls the evening cool and still 
 
 As he quaffs the endless rill : 
 Gentle fingers lave his brow, 
 
 Loving voices murmur now 
 As his lips are pressed 
 
 'Thou art weary, rest!" 
 
 Rise we to the sandy main ; 
 
 He will never rise again. 
 Ah! thy mother should have pressed 
 
 Thy young head upon her breast, 
 Tears and prayers should soothe thy rest. 
 20 
 
Turn and leave the fair-haired child, 
 
 Ah! his parting hour was wild 
 Yet it seems in death he smiled. 
 
 ELAINE. 
 
 "Truly our world is fair," she said, 
 "The love-birds thrill the air, 
 
 The clouds are veiled in lace pale-red 
 The breeze holds fragrance rare 
 
 The waving trees rich beauty shed." 
 She said, "the world is fair." 
 
 She said, "Ye glowing happiness, 
 
 Ye love-bird minstrelsy, 
 Ye are without the power to bless 
 
 The child of misery; 
 And mid ye I am comfortless." 
 
 She said, "O pity me!" 
 
 "For memories come of dreams that were 
 
 All happy and all kind, 
 And hopes that painted empty air 
 
 With longings of the mind." 
 She said, "they left with promise fair 
 
 And sorrow stayed behind." 
 
 CHANGE. 
 
 O ancient world! thy ruins round me lie; 
 
 Ye speak in words of peace unto my soul. 
 All that has been beneath yon sullen sky, 
 
 All that now is from ice-bound pole to pole, 
 All that shall be while Sol's great car shall roll, 
 
 Form but their parts in Time's capacious whole. 
 
 Here Dardenelles becomes the Hellesponte. 
 Abydos seeks her youth and beauty — where? 
 
 21 
 
The night is darkening over Sestos' hills, 
 And Hero smiles, verging a life's despair. 
 
 Troy stands again surrounded by her foes. 
 And Helen gazes with a spirit moved. 
 
 Achilles raves about the funeral pyre 
 
 Of him — his friend, — Patroclus, the beloved. 
 
 Ah! Babylon, proud Paris of the Past! 
 
 Thy chariots dash along thy mighty wall, 
 Thy thousand towers smile o'er thy flowery domes, 
 
 And Baal, poor idol, recks not of thy fall. 
 
 O God! above, beyond the sullen skies: 
 God knowing all, from cause to final close; 
 
 Under thy guidance take thy weary child, 
 And in that quiet let my soul repose. 
 
 TEMPTATION. 
 
 All day the long grief surges o'er the soul. 
 
 Thrice welcome, Night! the iron guard may fall, 
 And gentlest sleep enfolds the wounded thing 
 
 Which bleeding cries "my duty, and my all." 
 
 All day upon the soul's high battle ground 
 The passions fight against the lordly will. 
 
 Pale victor, there is truceacross the world 
 And night o'er sobbing dav cries, "peace, be 
 still!" 
 
 O God! the hidden strife is hard to bear. 
 
 The mailed morrow follows down the West, 
 And waits the awakening of a weary world; 
 
 And only in the grave my heart shall rest. 
 
 The long, long conflict, and the frequent fall. 
 Dark laid mosaic of unknown design; 
 
 With lights of mercy, shades of penitence. 
 What may ye yet be in a plan divine? 
 
 22 
 
RESURGAM. 
 
 I have stood over the ruins of Palmyra and of 
 Babylon; I have asked for the things that have been, 
 but no answer came from the silence. I have bent 
 with the madman, Hugh Miller, over earth's his- 
 tory written in the rocks; I have beheld, in the 
 stratified cliff, the sun-work of a million years. I 
 have seen the formations of different aeons cement- 
 ed into one rock, and have traced the story of 
 upheavals and gigantic perturbations. Yea, I have 
 watched wide ocean breaking into spray, bursting 
 her thousand bonds, leaping unto the stars, falling 
 into the continents; — while from her central still- 
 ness Alps have risen. And I have questioned the 
 rocks: "What of the Past?" But no answer came 
 from the silence. 
 
 I have stood in Greenwood, in Pere-la-Chaise, in 
 Westminster. How peaceful are these abiding 
 places of the dead! With the voice of prophecy 
 they speak, but, Cassandra like, they are unheeded. 
 The forms that once held talent, beauty, genius lie 
 at my feet; but talent, beauty, genius — where are 
 they? Thales of Miletus might answer: "Nothing- 
 is produced, nothing is destroyed; the Protean ele- 
 ments live through transition and clothe themselves 
 in appearances." The unanalyzed Motive Cause, 
 with its unanswered How and Why, rises from 
 Thales' philosophy, waits over Pere-la-Chaise, over 
 the world. Reason has failed. The grave of the 
 new born babe holds its secret secure 'neath her 
 search lights. Reason admits that she has failed. 
 Poor finite wanderer, wandering amidst the 
 thoughts of God! Let us call her home! Let her 
 be only the noblest offspring of Time, nay better 
 let her wed strong Faith, the Child of Eternity. 
 
Holding the Creed of the Church I have stood in 
 Greenwood, in Pere-la-Chaise, in Westminster, and 
 I have said to Brooklyn, Paris, London: "When 
 Change and Time shall have been; when all the 
 rosy sleepers of to-night shall lie in beds more 
 narrow; when the great life-tide round the world 
 to-night shall have rolled, Protean, down the ages; 
 when the splendid pageant — theaters, palaces, 
 courts, thrones, House of Parliament, Notre Dame 
 and the proud record of mighty names, national 
 honors, noble battle-fields, shall have become chap- 
 ters in Ancient History; — nay when Brooklyn, 
 Paris, London, shall have become Palmyras of the 
 Past, even then shall my soul be young. 
 
 I have bowed low in reverent wonder 'neath the 
 stars of winter midnight. With pain of soul I 
 have regarded them in the fancy light of Science, — 
 so far that they seem near, so rapid that they seem 
 stationary! Weary is the paradox! In utter 
 absence of meaning rise the figured lines of space. 
 
 With pride of soul I have regarded the stars as 
 the creatures of my Creator. On the mild glory 
 of Night have I gazed and claimed kinship with 
 the farthest star. In the still order of our Solar 
 System, in the majestic motion, emanative of the 
 Primum Mobile, strongly controlling universes, 
 have I recognized the intelligence of that Being 
 who created me. Nay, holding the Creed of the 
 Church I have said to the stars, "Glorious art thou, 
 Arcturus, Sirius, Procyon! In frost-mist splendor, 
 confused glory, ye are fair — Suns of the galaxy! 
 Yet when aeons shall have passed away; when suns, 
 systems, universes shall have burned out, and from 
 their smouldering ashes shall have arisen the 
 Phoenix glory of a new heaven — even then shall 
 my soul be young. 
 
 I have stood 'neath the Northern Aurora. Surely 
 
 the artist of the firmament had wrought magnific- 
 
 24 
 
ently that inverted cloud fountain of light. A band 
 from the space world reaching to the zenith heav- 
 ens beckoned to the Colors. Warm, humble, happy, 
 they assembled neath the hand that caressed them, 
 then their blessedness diffusing extended in widen- 
 ing streamers and rested broadly upon the horizon; 
 then their blessedness suffusing broke, commingled, 
 changed; became warmth, shadows, smiles, hues, 
 shades, tints, — the glorious color world. Surely the 
 artist of earth had wrought magnificently the 
 North's snow-garment. Perfectly fitting it lay over 
 the peak of Altus, over the sentinel icebergs, over 
 snow-bound ocean and earth. Holding the Creed 
 of the Church I have said to the Northern Aurora, 
 ''Thou art a creature of my Creator; let us praise 
 Him! And kneeling in contemplation of that pri- 
 mal Being of whom all beauty is an effluence I have 
 adored. 
 
 I have trodden earth's battle fields. Yet where 
 shall the foot of man rest and stand not upon them; 
 Marathon, Cannae, Pharsalia, Waterloo, the w T ay of 
 Alexander, the retreat from Moscow, the cities of 
 Carthage and of Rome, — these are earth's battle- 
 fields, earth's cemeteries. Not where the headstones 
 glitter, there lie the sleepers of to-day, but in the 
 heart of our cities, in the deep stillness of our seas, 
 yea constituent of the earth itself lie the sleepers of 
 the ages. 
 
 There is a mythical story which says that in the 
 decomposition and transition of each human body, 
 one atom, or molecule, untransmutable, indestruct- 
 ible remains; that this germ is to the future body 
 what the acorn is to the oak; that quintillions of 
 such molecules form the dust beneath our feet; and 
 that the favored few who have secured the favor of 
 the Spirit of the Resurrection may hear, upon apply- 
 ing the atomed particle to the ear when over- 
 shadowed by the angel's wing, the word Resurgam. 
 
 25 
 
With a smile at the beautiful thought, with a heart 
 oppressed by the spirit of Time, of Mystery, of 
 Silence, — yet holding the Creed of the Church I 
 have said to the sleepers of the ages, "Resurgitis. 
 Ye live to-day, and ye shall live forever." Forever! 
 It is a little word but too great for the finite mind. 
 Is it measurable by numbers? Not by all the num- 
 bers in the mind of Pythagoras. By comparison? 
 Comparisons are of the known, and of time ; forever 
 is of the unknown, and of eternity. By the imag- 
 ination of Genius? Plato has failed. Even as the 
 ocean monsters cannot contain the ocean neither 
 can human minds contain the word "forever." It 
 encircles us, it encircles the sleepers of the ages. 
 It extends to every horizon, it rises from every 
 horizon and glimmers in the zodiac, it wanders 
 among the stars, it touches God. 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 "Physician, heal thyself!" and I reply, 
 
 "The worm of Pain is gnawing at my life • 
 While I rebellious, helpless, must endure. 
 
 'Tis hard to bear this lingering slave of death. 
 Whose banquet is life-tissue, whose repose 
 
 Is deep within the vaults of human pain; 
 Who bears secure commission signed by fate 
 
 And whose great shadow falls across the world. 
 Drugs, opiates, a finished laboratory! 
 
 A hundred painless hasty slaves of death 
 Would lay me at His feet who sends for me. 
 
 Come, Acids! Monarchs of the chemic- world ! 
 Arsenious, prussic, phosphoric, sulphuric, — 
 
 Short bridge of death! Anticipated fate! 
 Yet though I hold you, though I love you too 
 
 Strong, latent powers, immortal as myself; 
 
 26 
 
I will not use my will superior 
 
 To call your power against your God and mine. 
 But come, kind opiates, and friend to man, 
 
 Control this pain, this lingering slave of death, 
 Let me lie low aw T hile, nor feel its fang, 
 
 Nor see that shadow T looming o'er the world. 
 Repose is sweet, surcease of pain is peace 
 
 Rest, waveless rest beneath a stormy sea. 
 
 II 
 
 A voice awoke me in the far off roar, 
 
 A voice reproving yet divinely kind. 
 "The world rolls on, earth-child, nor will it pause 
 
 At thy sad cry, nor yet if thou wert dead 
 Would one vibration of its iron heart 
 
 Thrill o'er the tide because thou art no more. 
 Because the world is selfish, I am loth 
 
 To speak too harshly of the human heart 
 Which deifies its sorrow and would claim 
 
 From hearts as selfish and as sorrowful 
 Consideration, tribute-sympathy. 
 
 One cry mid cries whose echoes rival space ; 
 One waiting death, 'mid deaths commensurate 
 
 With each pulsation of the heart of time. 
 Poor earth child, sister-soul in bonds of clay! 
 
 Could I but bear thee o'er yon sunset bars, — 
 "O Spirit," said I weeping, "bear me hence!" 
 
 "I may not now," she answered, for thy soul 
 Is earth bound in its selfish misery; 
 
 But I will speak to thee of things above, 
 And I will show thee mysteries below. 
 
 Beyond those western curtains lies a world 
 Of most resplendent beauty. 'Tis the home 
 
 Of thy companion sisters of the soul, 
 There is thy rest, thy bliss, thy Heaven, thy God. 
 
 Life is a blessing, child, the curse of life 
 Is ignorance of this, its destiny. 
 
 While ages o'er the cyclic ages roll, 
 
 27 
 
Eternal as its source, life, glorious life 
 
 Shall thrill through space, — a blessing just to be. 
 Now I will show thee earthly mysteries, 
 
 And thou shalt hear the "Credo" of the dead. 
 
 III. 
 
 I woke before Zambezie's lordly falls. 
 
 grandeur, solitude ! I stand alone 
 Where other human foot has never trod. 
 
 "Nay," said a voice reproving, kind, divine, 
 "The dead bear witness that they wandered here." 
 
 She raised from off the ground a clod of earth 
 And smiling on me, placed it in my hand, 
 
 "Child, would'st thou know the mystery here," 
 she said, 
 "An atom indestructible thou hold'st, 
 
 Unchanged by pressure, force, affinity, 
 Secure within the acid's fiery breath, 
 
 Secure within Vesuvius' foamy flame, 
 Secure within the deluge of the world. 
 
 The mighty oak within the kernel lies. 
 The intrinsic germ of being herein lies, 
 
 With power to attract each wandering element 
 Unto its primal being, have they roved 
 
 From Patagonia to Spitsbergen's snows. 
 But hearken, earth-child, tell me what thou nearest/' 
 
 And holding close the earth clod to my ear, 
 I heard a breathing whisper, listening still 
 
 1 heard "Resurgam,"— still entranced I stood 
 Again and yet again "Resurgam" rose. 
 
 The spirit wing withdrawn I heard no more. 
 O mystic word! the Credo of the dead! 
 
 Resurgam cries the dust beneath our feet, 
 O mystery o'er life from cause to close ! 
 
 O world of life unknown in worlds of life ! 
 My brain grew weary touching the unknown, 
 
 The spirit smile hung o'er me and I sank 
 Submissive, helpless, 'neath the encircling wing. 
 
 28 
 
IV. 
 
 Unbroken stillness o'er unbroken snows! 
 
 Horizon to horizon seemed a realm 
 Where chaste frost spirits watched their loves' 
 repose 
 
 And all besides a passive purity. 
 The smile divine, the spirit at my side 
 
 Embodied snow the wing encircling me, 
 And lo! the silence is replete with sound. 
 
 Ten thousand crystal snows responsive sing 
 "Resurgam," one long harmony, again 
 
 "Resurgam" sounds from snows to waiting skies. 
 "Here many thousand fell," the spirit said, 
 
 "In that ill-fated march Napoleon led 
 From burning Moscow. In yon frozen tide, 
 
 Three hundred thousand soldiers sank in death 
 Sad Berizina! it is thence vou hear 
 
 The psalm Resurgam, and whereon we tread 
 Each footstep holds its germ of life to be. 
 
 Again the pain of soul, the pitying wing 
 The smile divine, unconscious confidence. 
 
 V. 
 
 The hanging gardens bloom in Babylon, 
 
 And flowers vivified in brilliancy 
 Spring into being and go trilling by. 
 
 Above me in a dome of scarlet light, 
 An aggregate of roses hill-tops high; 
 
 And living flowers that glide in heavy space 
 As birds, as fish, as starry brilliancies, 
 
 Gilding the heights of yonder sky-borne ferns. 
 A tropic forest of the Carbon age ; 
 
 A vegetation unfamiliar 
 The atmosphere not ours, the very form 
 
 Of nature changed and all her elements. 
 The smile divine, the wing stretched over me ; 
 
 Deep darkness, and the voice reproving said, 
 
 29 
 
"We tread the plateau Zoor, beneath the sea, 
 
 And soon I leave thee. Child, when earth 
 restored 
 Make known unto the world what thou hast heard. 
 
 And thou more nobly bear that nascent life 
 Whose full fruition fills eternity." 
 
 She ceased to speak, but, silence held the strain 
 Of voices countless as old ocean's waves. 
 
 "Resurgam" sang the waters, sang the world; 
 The dead of ocean to the dead of earth 
 
 "Resurgam" sounds the universal cry 
 Revolving onward to eternity 
 
 Waiting the hush of God across the world. 
 
LIONEL. 
 
 We are the sequences whereon evolve 
 The full blown evils of another age. 
 
 Recorder, here's an item for the world's great fail- 
 ure column. 
 Write it down to tell the masses, the great masses 
 whom we know not, 
 That the strife which they are striving is tremend- 
 ous, is gigantic; 
 That with failures life is covered as the forest 
 floors of Autumn. 
 Write it down to tell the masses that a brother lived 
 and suffered, 
 Suffered long all that they suffer; died in failure, 
 yet rejoices. 
 Does the heart ache? He now painless bowed alone 
 in Pain's low 7 prison; 
 Wrestled mightily with sorrow, called aloud 
 across the darkness. 
 Is the part a dreary waiting? Oh! life's long and 
 weary Waitings! 
 Rather tempest, rather battle, rather ten fold con- 
 sternation 
 Rather all the ills of Chaos than the weary helpless 
 Waiting. 
 Yet our silent brother waited, waited for the 
 things that came not. 
 Are the great affections bleeding? Pitying Christ 
 bend kindly o'er us! 
 All the world is with the loved one, and the loved 
 one has departed. 
 From the cradle to the cloister, from the cloister 
 o'er the wide world, 
 Throbbed in love, and throbbed in longing the 
 hot poet heart now painless. 
 
Doubts, delusions, disappointments, — all the ills of 
 
 seventy winters 
 Fell upon the kindest feelings ever exiled from 
 
 their Heaven. 
 Let the world pronounce him failure! There is 
 
 glory in the white head, 
 Meek and pure and self-enduring that another 
 
 may not suffer; 
 Scorning to be called a victor in a strife that is 
 
 unworthv. 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 By the gentle Guadalquiver lived the dark-eyed 
 boy, Lionel. 
 Never mother's arms embraced him, friend he 
 knew not save old Clothel. 
 Was she nurse, or aunt, or guardian? Clothel said 
 naught, and he knew not. 
 This he knew that only Clothel oped the door 
 to give him shelter, 
 Only Clothel met his coming with a smile; and, 
 slow removing 
 The long pipe, mid fumes of glory told the opium 
 dreamer's story. 
 Told about the gray Alhambra, of the conquest of 
 Granada ; 
 Told the ancient Spanish legends of the Moors 
 and captive Christians; 
 Of the warrior-saint, Gonzales; of the statue of 
 Madonna, 
 Which descended from the church top when a 
 blessed babe was buried; 
 And again it came in darkness where a mournful 
 mother waited, — 
 Waited for the love that came not, kissed her into 
 breathless slumber. 
 
 32 
 
She herself had seen that statue smile, and lift the 
 hand of blessing 
 As the children scattered flowers in the Forty 
 Hours' procession. 
 
 She remembered too the story of the abbess, 
 Isabella: 
 How she led a life of penance, died the young, the 
 long lamented. 
 
 How Al Hassan, home returning, lingered long- 
 where she was buried: 
 How a great Italian sculptor wrought in nure 
 Carrara marble 
 
 Her own image, as in girl-hood, dressed in white 
 with long veil flowing, 
 As she looked that happy morning when she 
 made her First Communion. 
 
 Then the statue was erected o'er her grave. O 
 marble beauty ! 
 All the city came to see it, thronged beneath the 
 splendid moonlight, 
 Lingered long amid the tombstones and the quiet 
 graves of Sisters, 
 Till the holy air resounded with the angelus of 
 mid-night. 
 With the latest sound vibrating, prostrate fell the 
 marble beauty. 
 There was horror o'er the city. Next day came 
 the sad Al Hassan 
 
 Said the work had been imperfect, had the statue 
 re-erected. 
 Yet that night the city slept not; at the angelus 
 of mid-night, 
 Thousands saw the great Madonna slowly turn 
 toward the statue, 
 Raise the eyes with look reproving. Thousands 
 saw the marble beauty 
 
 33 
 
Prostrate fall upon the soft soil — broken in a hun- 
 dred pieces. 
 Other legends she remembered, but the dark 
 eyed boy, Lionel, 
 
 Slept beside her on the house top, and the opium 
 dreamer spoke not. 
 
 II 
 
 By the gentle Guadalq^iver, thus rolled on Lionel's 
 childhood; 
 Happy in old Clothel's dream world, happy that 
 the gentle river 
 Murmured strains of wondrous promise as he 
 whistled o'er its waters. 
 Happy that the stained-glass windows, sixty-two 
 in the Cathedral, 
 Told the Creed of Catholic christians, and the 
 glories of the Blessed ; 
 That the white-cross cemetery, with its vocal 
 "requiescat," 
 Uttered "amen" to the river, to the Church's pic- 
 tured Credo, 
 To life's earnest supplications, to the hopes of life's 
 Hereafter. 
 Only when the bells of evening, pealing forth from 
 the Cathedral, 
 From the Convents, from the churches, chimed in 
 concert o'er the city, 
 Came a sense of painful longing, dying far in things 
 eternal. 
 Longing for a home, a mother, for a foretaste of 
 God's promise, 
 That the unknown shall be made known, that the 
 asking shall be answered. 
 More of Heaven than earth was near him as the 
 Angelus of evening 
 Sank in crimson beds of sunset watched by sentinel 
 Sierras. 
 
 34 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 O'er the wide world I have wandered, and to-night 
 my soul is weary ; 
 Earth has scenes of wondrous beauty, but my 
 soul of soul is weary ; 
 I recall the cloisters quiet while my soul of soul is 
 weary. 
 Free of heart, a humble brother, dwelt I in the 
 monastery; 
 All the quiet, holy Fathers met me kindly, called 
 me Brother, 
 And my happy novice-brothers tempered with me 
 the bell-metal, 
 Wrought with me the ponderous church-bells tuned 
 the chimes and sister-bells. 
 How I loved my chimes' first ringing! — ring 
 they yet o'er Guadalquiver? 
 I remember when my glass chimes waked the city 
 Christmas morning, 
 Clear upon the gray morn twilight broke the 
 glorious "Adeste." 
 They were my chimes and I loved them, lightly, 
 lovingly I rang them. 
 
 the silvery clear "Adeste," and the angel-teared 
 
 "venite!" 
 
 And the joy of "adoremus!" All the city thronged 
 to listen. 
 In the silence came the loud cries "Ring again, 
 O blessed chimers!" 
 
 "Ring," I cried to dark Jacinto who loved not me 
 or my glass bells. 
 "Not without receiving orders from our Rever- 
 end Superior." 
 
 "Ring," I cried, and growing frantic with the clam- 
 orings of the people, 
 
 1 began the great "Adeste." Dark Jacinto moved 
 
 not, rang not. 
 
 35 
 
I would try to ring his part too, but the voice of 
 Padre Corso 
 Low reproved him; dark Jacinto sullen, hasty 
 seized the bell-rope, 
 Struck my dominant too harshly, broke my glass 
 bells, my year's labor. 
 Bitter were the words I uttered, and my pride lay 
 wounded, — bleeding. 
 'Twas a melancholy Christmas, but before the 
 Infant Jesus, 
 I repented all my rash words; and the deep 
 humiliation 
 Seemed as nothing 'neath the mild eyes of the God 
 within the manger. 
 Penitent I sought the chamber of our reverend 
 Novice Master. 
 Long the kind old man knelt with me, blent our 
 voices in contrition; 
 Long he spoke of Jesus' meekness, of our glor- 
 ious vocation, 
 Of the eternal years of Heaven, waiting those who 
 shall have triumphed. 
 Pride was gone and deep contrition sobbed 
 throughout my very being. 
 Ah ! that night how calm my slumber, now my soul 
 of soul is weary. 
 I remember Padre Corso ; scarce ten words to me 
 he uttered; 
 Always kind and always silent, always studying or 
 writing. 
 He was fifty, I was eighteen, he was Priest and I 
 was Brother, 
 Yet my heart's first full affection lay down at his 
 feet and perished. 
 With the weight of years upon me, with life's 
 part almost completed, 
 I aver that sorrow's sorrow lay in conquering that 
 affection. 
 
 36 
 
II. 
 
 O'er the wide world 1 have wandered, and to-night 
 my soul is weary. 
 O'er my life is incompleteness, o'er my dreams, 
 irresolution ; 
 Yet my world of dreams is beauteous as the stars of 
 winter mid-night, 
 As the coral groves of ocean; as the lordly, 
 glacial grandeur 
 Silent at the feet of ice-bergs, kissed by streamers 
 of Aurora. 
 In my world of dreams is music, soft as sighs of 
 the departed; 
 Sad as night winds through the hemlocks, sweet as 
 dreams of those who love us, 
 Troubled as the pulse of ocean, peaceful as the 
 Church's amen; 
 Confident as Catholic christians, when contrite they 
 make confession ; 
 Kind as I would have my heart be towards old 
 Earth and all Earth's children. 
 Ah! my w r orld of song is wondrous! Not for all 
 the wide world's treasure, 
 Would I part from thee, my dream world, world 
 of beauty, world of music ! 
 Nobly pure my realm of dreams is, like the forests 
 of the West world 
 When frost-spirits weave white mantles, frozen 
 foam bands, cirrus cloud webs; 
 Wreathe each twig of monarch forests in a lace of 
 wondrous white-work : 
 Wh£n frost giants stretch earth's snow-shroud 
 down the circular horizon, 
 And old Winter, white, majestic in the January sun- 
 light, < 
 Loudly claims the palm of beauty from the hand 
 of gaudy Summer. 
 
 37 
 
How we love the silent grandeur, found in heart of 
 man or in nature! 
 Not the glow-light of the valley, but the snow- 
 light of the mountain ; 
 Not the heart's great cry of sorrow, but its strong, 
 enduring silence. 
 Had I been in life as noble as the faces in my 
 dream world, — 
 I had made my death hour peaceful, I had made 
 the years eternal 
 One long glory;- — but I fainted on the peaks of 
 self-denial, 
 Called aloud unto the Human, sought the warm 
 lights of the valley. 
 Little saw I this old wanderer, when, the eve of 
 my Reception, 
 I knelt through the holy night hours inundated 
 with Divine love. 
 Stars of January mid-night, sleeping world 
 watched by Sierras, 
 Matin light in monasteries, spires of churches, 
 grave of Clothel, 
 Duteous rolling Guadalquiver — our great Maker 
 calls us brethren! 
 O the peace of self-denial, the strong joy of Christ's 
 beloved! 
 Eyes of Calvary smiled o'er me, for my inmost 
 soul was stainless. 
 Then how peacefully I slumbered, but to-night my 
 soul is weary. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In my world of dreams is sorrow, pure as mem- 
 ories of angels ; 
 There are dying eyes that loved me, there are 
 lonely graves in Moscow : 
 
 38 
 
Rest, O blue eyed Russian woman, friend and 
 sweet-heart, wife and sister, 
 Slumber 'neath the Russian snow-storm, with our 
 pale child on thy bosom! 
 
 Pretty pale child, never waken; earth holds not thy 
 dark eyes' answer; 
 Warm and kind thy mother's arms are, angel 
 gentle her affection. 
 
 Lo! a tear from earth's old wanderer falls upon the 
 graves in Moscow. 
 Lo! a tear from earth's old wanderer mingles 
 with the waves of ocean 
 
 Where she lies, the dead musician, silent lies earth's 
 sw 7 eetest singer; 
 How majestic the Atlantic! Like eternity its 
 grandeur! 
 
 Like the hand of Fate, colliding crashed the great 
 ship on our vessel; 
 Like a hell let loose, the waters glared with flame- 
 red eyes of swimmers, 
 Eyes of horror, shrieks of anguish; and when Death 
 was satiated, 
 Life called back her unconscious children, but 
 she called not our musician. 
 O'er thee shell harps murmur requiem, 'neath the 
 storm w r orld, requiescas! 
 Lo! a tender sigh is wafting to the pines of 
 Arizona 
 
 Where we laid the blue-eyed Scotch boy far from 
 home and waiting mother; 
 O'er thee tall trees murmur requiem, blue-eyed 
 rover, requiescas ! 
 
 Lo! a sigh for far Australia, for a stately home in 
 Melbourne; 
 For the high romantic young heart who would 
 share the actor's fortune, 
 
 39 
 
Self-willed girl who plunged to ruin that lamented 
 to receive her. 
 I had saved her but she would not, broken- 
 hearted, requiescas! 
 Ah, the dead in memory's grave-yard, the gray 
 crosses of a long life! 
 Ere I leave my realm of sorrow I would question 
 of the unknown 
 If a cross marked "Padre Corso" rests beside the 
 Guadalquiver? 
 He is dead, my heart's first idol; he w 7 as old 
 then, I am old now; 
 He is dead to earth but living where the poet heart 
 is happy. 
 In my bosom are his writings, whence I learned 
 the mighty flood tides 
 Underneath that calm exterior, bound down in 
 that strong endurance. 
 "Farewell, let us meet in Heaven," said the kind 
 heart when we parted. 
 May we meet there! Tenderest tear-drop steal away 
 to Guadalquiver. 
 
 IV. 
 
 O the music of my dream world! Symphonies of 
 majestic measure, 
 In their strong unanswered longing growing 
 mystic, weird, unearthly, 
 Tinkling, dying in the star world, in the strong 
 arms of Orion. 
 Stars of beauty, stars of duty, teach us to be 
 strong as you are. 
 Waiting! Waiting! life is waiting. Minor mazes 
 faintly breaking 
 Weirdly moan like ocean signals, cry like flame- 
 ships on dark waters. 
 40 
 
Waken dirges, slowly, sadly as the alto moan of 
 requiems 
 Wailed in mid-night monasteries, while six 
 candles light the dead monk, 
 Light the vows clasped in the cold hands, light the 
 still face of my dead love. 
 Would that I to-night were lying in that mid- 
 night monastery. 
 Would to God I had been victor on the peaks of 
 self-denial ! 
 Thro' the requiem bells are ringing with a sound 
 like tears of angels, 
 Sweeter than my chimes "Adeste," rising heaven- 
 ward, rising homeward, 
 And they bear my own contrition, bear the 
 prayer with which I wrought them * 
 When I tempered the bell-metal, when I fashioned 
 them and formed them. 
 Can it be that God is calling with the voice cast 
 in the bell-mould? 
 Saving me earth's erring wanderer with the nov- 
 ice's contrition? 
 Bells that ruined, bells that save me, ring ye yet 
 o'er Guadalquiver? 
 Bless ye now the sleeping city with the angelus 
 of mid-night? 
 Ah! my fervor, my contrition, my prayer moulded 
 in the metal, 
 "Speak to hearts of Calvary's sorrow, speak in 
 accents of contrition." 
 All the day this prayer I uttered, set it in the hot 
 bell metal ; 
 And my dominant I tempered with the tones of love 
 and mercy. 
 ''Ring, O bell, across the wide world, ring of 
 God's great love and mercy !" 
 All the day this prayer I murmured, set it in the 
 hot bell-metal; 
 
 41 
 
And the spirit of the third bell was the promises 
 of Heaven. 
 "Ring, O bell, across the wide world ring God's 
 promises of Heaven!" 
 All the day this prayer I uttered set it in the hot 
 bell metal. 
 Then I gave away the merit of, perhaps, a century's 
 ringing. 
 Gave my "Promises of Heaven" sweetest toned, 
 to Padre Corso, 
 Gave my second to the people who should listen to 
 its ringing; 
 For myself I kept "Contrition." Ring for me, O 
 gray "Contrition!" 
 Then a happy, holy novice in the silence of Retreat 
 time, 
 In Retreat for my Reception, thus nine days I 
 prayed and labored. 
 
 V. 
 
 In my dream world stands Religion, yes the Cath- 
 olic Religion. 
 True I've travelled many mazes, winding from 
 metempsychosis, 
 Thro' Aristotelian forests, thro' Platonic wilder- 
 nesses, 
 Thro' the Eclectic creed of Sybils, of the mystic 
 Syrian Gnostics, 
 The great Pantheistic breathings, the wild hopes of 
 Zoroaster, 
 Thro' the existent transmigration found in mon- 
 asteries of Buddha, 
 Thro' the thunderings of Luther, the development 
 of Darwin, — 
 Yet thro' all my orphan heart cried, "Speak to 
 me, O speak, my Father; 
 To the unknown God these creeds rise, I would 
 know Thee, — Maker, — Father!" 
 42 
 
VI. 
 
 'Twas in western Pennsylvania, in the weary days of 
 Autumn, 
 That I rested from my labors in a fair suburban 
 village. 
 Church there was and cemetery, — half the place was 
 cemetery, 
 And serene the sky bent o'er the sleepers of the 
 Smoky City. 
 Hourly rose the pick of sexton, daily came the long 
 procession, 
 Hearse of ermine, hearse of sable; while the great 
 heart lamentation 
 Daily pierced the waiting silence o'er the dead of 
 Smoky City. 
 'Twas a morning when white frost mist, like the 
 -winding shroud of Summer, 
 Kissed and killed the tender dahlias, the chrysan- 
 themums and asters; 
 Left them wilted sapless sentinels at the obsequies 
 of Summer. 
 To the cries of birds migrating, all the dead leaves 
 rustled dirges; 
 To the weary "Waiting" written in the mist, the 
 sky, the silence, 
 Each white finger pointed coldly, muttered ghost- 
 like, "we are waiting." 
 To the restlessness of nature, to the bitterness of 
 old hearts, 
 Came the church bells' tolling, tolling; roll of car- 
 riage, clank of horse-hoofs, 
 Funeral train kissed by the white mist, hearse of 
 sable at the church door. 
 'Twas this morning that some spirit, winging from 
 far Guadalquiver, 
 Led me where the unceasing lamp burns, where 
 Madonna waits and welcomes. 
 
 43 
 
Forth came one from God's tribunal, — well I knew 
 the peace of pardon ; 
 I had followed, I had knelt there, I had known 
 the peace of pardon; 
 But a mocking, scornful demon rose from out my 
 years of wandering, 
 Chilled the feeling, veiled the occasion, and I 
 watched the priest departing. 
 Sadly as a soul lamenting what it sought to save 
 and could not, 
 Rose the prelude wail of Requiem, moaned the 
 Kyrie Eleison. 
 Slowly up the aisle they bore her, placed her where 
 the six wax candles 
 Mocked the lilies, mocked the black pall o'er the 
 dear, dead wife and mother. 
 Memory murmured with the Requiem, "Rest, O 
 blue eyed Russian woman!" 
 Faith from out the depths of Reason murmured 
 "Kyrie Eleison;" 
 Prostrate, broken lay my proud heart murmuring 
 Kyrie Eleison. 
 "Dies Irae," wailed the organ, but I heard not 
 "Dies Irae." 
 Heard only the voice of Jesus calling to the erring 
 wanderer, 
 Calling with the voice of Clothel, with the smile 
 of Padre Corso; 
 Old prayers rose in old time measures, old tears 
 trembled in contrition ; 
 All the novice heart awakened 'neath the years of 
 change and error, 
 Wakened humble, contrite, hopeful, waiting for the 
 peace of pardon 
 That shall fall as benediction o'er the penitent's 
 confession; 
 And it came, — God's absolution, God's abiding 
 benediction. 
 
 44 
 
Thro' the Winter I remained as organist of the 
 great church organ. 
 How I played my own life-story in the long, still 
 hours of practice. 
 Almost human seemed the organ, with a human 
 love I loved it ; 
 How it rose and trembled, waiting like my own 
 irresolution; 
 How it sank in soft inertness from the combat, the 
 grand "forte;" 
 Scorning effort, scorning victory, in a strife that is 
 unworthy. 
 Sadder, holier, rose the organ in the chords of 
 life's affections; 
 Yet there rose the strains in sequence of God's 
 promises to mortals, 
 And the great "amen" was peaceful as the Pres- 
 ence on the altar. 
 
 Ever restless is the spirit. I departed from the 
 village, 
 I re-entered the world-maelstrom when the 
 churches chimed Adeste. 
 Pain of heart and deep soul-longing backward 
 turned to Guadalquiver; 
 To my glass bells, dark Jacinto, gentle Brothers, 
 holy Fathers; 
 Kind dark eyes that smiled upon me, heavenly peace 
 of Christ's beloved, 
 Hallowed monastery memories with the churches 
 chimed Adeste. 
 
 Mist and rain hung o'er the village on the morn 
 that I departed. 
 Thro' the accustomed path I wandered mid the 
 dead of Smoky City. 
 
 45 
 
'Neath the rain a covered wagon hastened toward 
 the pauper's corner. 
 " 'Tis the murderer, Giovanni, he was hanged at 
 nine this morning." 
 "Happy corse the rain rains over!" Time's sad 
 product, requiescas. 
 Thro' the rain a snow-white hearse came, but no 
 mourning carriage followed. 
 Ah! the lonely baby coffin in the strong arms of the 
 sexton ; 
 Lower, lower, baby, wake not; muddy clods fall 
 o'er your cradle, 
 Narrow, cold, your mother's arms are; you are 
 happy that you wake not. 
 It is well that Heaven should weep thus o'er the 
 sad homes of her children, 
 O'er the head-stones of the dead ones, o'er the 
 house tops of the living; 
 These long tears will ease the spirit, and the night 
 stars shall be peaceful. 
 In my own night stars are rising; stars of pity, stars 
 of promise. 
 Nobler are the star-affections than the passion 
 lights of morning, 
 Mellower are the hues of Autumn than of inexper- 
 ienced Spring-time, 
 And the old considerate mountains hide the 
 errors of the valley. 
 So the heart of man grows kinder as the deep life- 
 years pass o'er him, 
 So the heart of man grows broader, knowing 
 human strength and weakness, 
 Knowing pain and all the evils that shall come upon 
 the living; 
 Till the heart is grandly human like the heart of 
 Prince Siddartha, 
 Nay, until the heart is god-like with the expiring 
 love of Jesus. 
 
 46 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 When shall care and pain be ended? 
 
 Were I he who rules Creation 
 I would utter, " Let the end come!" Cease the 
 writhing tide of evil, 
 Cease the wailing* of the women, cease the 
 anguish of the strong man. 
 Weary are the sultry cities where the voices of the 
 children 
 Catch the moan of factory motion and the long 
 lament of labor. 
 Youth is unreal, life is hollow, every human heart 
 is weary; 
 All the weary world is calling, "Let the end come! 
 Let the end come!" 
 Failure life, the end is coming. Calm upon the 
 Guadalquiver, 
 To the happy scenes of childhood, they are bear- 
 ing old Lionel. 
 Glorious sunset skies bend o'er him; reverently the 
 dark eyes open, 
 Smile upon the approaching steeples, on the old 
 familiar places. 
 Lo! the gleaming of the grave stones, and the statue 
 of Madonna 
 Which had raised the hand to bless him in the 
 Forty Hours' procession. 
 Lo! the grand old monastery, hallowed home of 
 Padre Corso. 
 Childhood's tears rise in the dim eyes of the old 
 man, suffering, dving. 
 Said the Spanish priest beside him, " Aged wan- 
 derer, you are dying ; 
 Is your soul at peace with Heaven? May I give 
 you absolution? 
 Dark-eyed stranger, you are dying. Ere the sun's 
 
 refracted glories 
 
 47 
 
Shall have sunk 'neath the Sierras, you will be 
 beyond the sunset/' — 
 "I shall be beyond the sunset, — I shalll know what 
 life and death are." 
 Wake, O angelus of evening, with a sound like 
 tears of angels ! 
 "Bells! my bells! the bells I moulded,— Hark ! my 
 "Promises of Heaven, " 
 That I gave to Padre Corso, and my own, my own 
 "Contrition!" 
 I am dying and I fear not, — Hark, my own, my 
 own Contrition! 
 I love God, and — Death embraced him 'neath 
 the sounds of absolution, 
 And the echoes lingering, dying of the "Promises of 
 Heaven." 
 
MORTUA EST. 
 
 Cold is the heart — burned out in the youth con- 
 flagration. 
 
 I have stood by the grave of Petrarch and Laura; 
 I have beheld the rock whence Sappho flung her- 
 self into the wave; I have seen the name, "Leonora 
 D'Este" traced by the hand of Tasso; I have stood 
 among the silent nobility of Pere la Chaise and 
 Westminster, — I am standing by her grave. 
 
 In the sister-shadow of this grave, all other graves 
 become sacred; in the sister light of this love, all 
 other loves become hallowed; in the sister glory 
 of this soul, all other souls become holy. O the 
 grave of one we loved so long ago! How the well 
 known date on the head-stone seems to turn a thorn 
 lying painless in the soul! How the name breathed 
 again on our lips conjures forth a vision whose 
 mournful eyes watch us out of the Past, — ay, and 
 reproach us ! Here we recall kind words that were 
 spoken, kind actions done; perhaps, too, we recall 
 hasty actions and words that brought tears to the 
 eyes closed so long. O Child! would you avoid the 
 anguish of this memory, be warned in time; now, in 
 the troubled life of every day be kind to the dear 
 ones at home. Lover, husband, wife! would you 
 avoid the anguish of this memory, wound not the 
 heart that loves you. Affection is a holy thing and 
 with the magnanimity of a god, it gives into your 
 hands the darts, fixed in its own life-blood, that you 
 may wound it, kill it when you will. 
 
 O the grave! the grave! Here lies a little child 
 who would walk to the swans at rest on the lake 
 and who saw not the death-arms around them. 
 Wondrous golden head, beauteous blue eyes, rosy 
 
 49 
 
boy, who would touch the white swans at rest on the 
 lake, and who died in the death arms around them. 
 Little sleeper, rest. Earth's first deception was for 
 thee its last. 
 
 Here he. lies who wronged me years ago. Does 
 a thought of bitterness rise on beholding the pomp- 
 ous mound and the carved name coldly defiant? 
 No, he who has died, has expiated all wrongs to 
 mortals. Earth's heaviest wrongs can ask no 
 atonement greater than that of the humiliating 
 agony of death. Earth's fiercest heart subsiding 
 thro' the years may stand in pity, even in prayer, by 
 the grave of one who wronged it years ago. 
 
 Shall I turn away as one without hope? "Ex- 
 pecto resurrectionem mortuorum et vitam venturi 
 saeculi." "I expect the resurrection of the dead and 
 the life of the world to come." Somehow the gray 
 night gathering o'er the world becomes holy when 
 those words are spoken. The snows fall more ten- 
 derly. The white blankets muffle more kindly the 
 sleepers in Death's dormitory. The human heart, 
 as tho' it had heard a voice from its native Heaven, 
 feels nobler, feels truer to that which is worthiest 
 within us, when those words are spoken. Human 
 hearts, cherish them! Winds of Winter, murmur 
 them thro' branches of leafless trees. Snowflakes 
 falling, whisper them over the world; over the tomb 
 of Petrarch and Laura, over St. Mary's, Green- 
 Avood, Pere la Chaise, — over her grave. 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 Yes, I came back to the old home to-day; 
 
 I paused at the door-way, — she used to stand 
 there ; 
 I knew I must suffer, I tried to be strong, 
 
 I entered the parlor and sank in — her chair. 
 
 50 
 
The veins of my throat were as strong- bursting 
 strings, 
 
 Their tension relaxed with the gathering tear : 
 I looked to our God, and I tried to be strong — 
 
 But I gazed on the picture she painted last year. 
 
 In corridor, stair-way, and desolate hall 
 I miss her, I miss her; before me I see 
 
 The place where she painted, the place where she 
 played, 
 But her voiceless piano is mourning with me. 
 
 I knelt in the chapel, God's blessing was there, 
 I prayed to the silent Heart caring for all ; 
 
 I almost touched peace in that depth of the deep, 
 But the storm spirit shuddered o'er her vacant 
 stall. 
 
 The many lights glimmered, sweet incense arose; 
 God waited to bless us with gleams of our goal ; 
 Some hand touched her organ, and all the world 
 moaned, 
 
 Sister, my Sister, peace, peace to thy soul ! 
 
 II. 
 
 Out of the many I sought that one, 
 
 And Death sought that one, too; 
 The white cross tells who the victory won, 
 
 And the grave is between me and you. — 
 O my lost one, rest in peace 
 
 Where the sounds of sorrow cease! 
 
 Out of the grave I feel your hand, 
 
 1 hear your laugh as of yore; 
 Your music lures to the better land, 
 
 And the grave is the grave no more.- — 
 O my lost one, rest in peace 
 
 Where the sounds of sorrow cease! 
 
 5i 
 
Still is the organ that waked for you, 
 That throbbed your pleasure or pain; 
 
 Hushed is the master minstrelsy, 
 I never shall hear it again. — 
 
 O my lost one, rest in peace 
 
 Where the sounds of sorrow cease! 
 
 From sweet violin the spirit is fled, 
 From harp and from silvery horn: 
 
 O world of Song, the musician is dead, 
 Then mourn, mourn, mourn! 
 
 Have you approached the Master of Song 
 Whence the choirs of spheres have birth? 
 
 Have you forgotten the key-note of wrong, 
 And the dissonant chords of earth? 
 
 O my lost one, rest in peace 
 
 Where the sounds of sorrow cease! 
 
 Cold little hand in the grave to-night, 
 The music world feels your thrill; 
 
 The queen of Sorrow stands robed in white 
 Where the children of Song are still : 
 
 She takes in her hand your own violin, 
 Your harp and your silvery horn; 
 
 The children of Song her strain begin, 
 And mourn, mourn, mourn. 
 
 Hark! from the prelude of sorrow is prayer; 
 
 The Requiem Mass is sung: 
 Some seraph of God is celebrant there, 
 
 For the "sanctus" bell is rung. 
 
 While "Sanctus, sanctus" hallows all, 
 
 And the bells of angels play; 
 White wings touch the grave with tender call 
 
 And bear my love away.— 
 O my lost one! rest in peace 
 
 Where the sounds of sorrows cease. 
 
 52 
 
III. 
 
 How is it now in the world of the dead? 
 
 that your spirit might come 
 Out from the mystery over the tomb 
 
 And tell of the future home ! 
 
 Come if you can as I bend o'er your grave, 
 
 Tell me your spirit is free; 
 Tell me you rest with the choirs of the blest 
 
 And you wait for the earth-loves and me. 
 
 Silence majestic reprovingly mild, 
 
 Bending o'er life's waiting way, 
 Bids me depart from this grave in my heart 
 
 To the living cry of to-day. 
 
 In the heart silence, distinctly I hear 
 
 All the world calling with me, — 
 "Light us, O Faith! down the shadow of death, 
 
 And shine over life's mystery." 
 
 So loud was my own cry I heard not the roar 
 
 Of the wrecks on the sea of pain: 
 I have sorrowed so long, I will rise and be strong, 
 
 1 will clasp hands with Duty again. 
 
 IV. 
 
 What my heart says, — that I sing. 
 
 Thro' the forest sighing, 
 The autumn breeze and the bending trees 
 
 Bewail the dead and dying, 
 Mourn where my love is lying. 
 
 All my spirit sobs with these. 
 
 All the leaves of all the trees, 
 All the holy stars that rise 
 
 Countless in the midnight skies; 
 
 53 
 
Every shrub, and blade of grass, 
 Wings of night-birds as they pass, 
 
 Every voice of pain or mirth 
 
 Born of Heaven or born of earth, — 
 
 Bending o'er that white cross bed, 
 Mourn because my love is dead. 
 
 While the world mourns, dear musician, 
 
 Hear it not, but sleep; 
 Tho' in realms of song above thee 
 
 Sister spirits weep. 
 
 Tho' all instruments of music 
 Mourn their queen with me; 
 
 Tho' they wake untouched by mortal 
 One long harmony. 
 
 Hear it not, O sweetest singer! 
 
 Earthly song with earth retires; 
 Wings thy spirit rapt exulting, 
 
 Mid the cherub choirs. 
 
 V. 
 
 I'm used to it now — that pain at my heart; 
 
 And the presence is kind that forevermore glides 
 Thro' familiar old places, re-living a life 
 
 That forever departing, — forever abides. 
 
 I heard music last night. How the old sorrow 
 throbbed 
 
 When her faithless piano awoke in glad strain 
 Tq the touch of another! With bitter reproach, 
 
 The human heart called for the lost hand again. 
 
 Oh! thrill thro' the mazes of music once more, 
 Little hand that touched worlds where the song 
 spirits dwell; 
 Tinkling rivulets, bending pines, high stars of 
 sound, 
 The dirge in the deep, — the eternal farewell; 
 
 54 
 
The moonlight came down at thy call; and the sea 
 
 Told to thee its regret, its deep th robbings of 
 
 pain : 
 
 They will come never more, they are calling with 
 
 me 
 
 "Little hand in the grave, come again, come 
 
 again ! 
 
 VI. 
 
 O music, be still! Shall I ever be strong? 
 
 Shall I ever clasp duty, and walk hand in hand 
 From the pain central self, down the broad human 
 strand 
 That silently leads toward the lone silent land. 
 
 sad sister world ! you are stronger than I ; 
 I watch you with pitying pain. 
 
 1 hear not a cry where the broken hearts lie, 
 
 Nor a sigh from the world-weary brain. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The lightning revels thro' the primal grove; 
 
 Cloud to cloud is calling. 
 Replete with sound the fiery arrowy path. 
 
 Midway rains are falling; — 
 Falling over her grave. 
 
 The lightning is flashing, 
 The thunder is crashing, 
 
 The wild storm is dashing, 
 Maddest where the tall trees wave, 
 
 Saddest over her grave. 
 
 Thro' the cold window pane, 
 
 See how earth mourns her loss! 
 The trees that knew her wail again, 
 
 The heavens sob in tearful rain, 
 The heart that loves her cries in pain 
 
 Over that still gray cross. 
 
 55 
 
sister soul! you are not there, 
 The dust to dust is given; 
 
 The immortal part, the noble heart 
 Is happy now in Heaven. 
 
 And I shall meet you when my hour shall come 
 To pass in dread transition to that state 
 
 Which we believe to be the soul's true home, 
 Where Christ and all the good of ages wait. 
 
 1 think there'll be reproach upon your face 
 That I have grieved ignobly for your loss, 
 
 And borne a dead light thro' the halls of life, 
 And signed even duty with your iron cross. 
 
 The pain I could not help; but the lament 
 Is useless. And the good I might have done 
 
 Lies tangled, dead in mournful memories; 
 And high ideals from my life are gone. 
 
 Yet might I rise on all ennobling pain 
 
 And call them back, out from the realm of youth, 
 
 And look them firmly in the face again, 
 
 And love them better in the robes of truth! 
 
 Yet might I be what I have longed to be, — 
 The noble heart, the generous, the true; 
 
 Whose love is universal charity, 
 
 Whose life is for the good that it can do! 
 
 VIII. 
 
 They are singing of beauty and youth, 
 
 They are praising the brave and the bold, 
 
 They are singing of honor and truth, 
 And of love that shall never grow old. 
 
 56 
 
They are singing of those who roam, 
 They are praising the stars of even, 
 
 They are singing the pleasures of home, 
 They are singing the hopes of Heaven. 
 
 One sings of the sad billows' roll, 
 Of the sorrows asleep in the sea; 
 
 One sings of the longing of soul 
 That watches o'er life's mystery. 
 
 We are singing of sister and brother, 
 
 Singing of those w T ho roam; 
 Singing of father and mother, 
 
 Singing of childhood's home. 
 
 We are singing of birds that are flown; 
 
 We are singing old age and its gloom: 
 The music is murmuring in sorrow's low tone, 
 
 And the lover laments o'er the tomb. 
 
 I touch the chords of submission, 
 
 I sigh with the sobbing wave; 
 I sing to the dead musician 
 
 Low in the gray-cross grave. 
 
 We touch the chords of submission; 
 
 We sigh with the sobbing wave: 
 Each sings to some dead musician 
 
 Down in the lone heart-grave. 
 
 IX. 
 
 Mighty waves of music start; 
 There is hunger in my heart. 
 
 Just a year ago to-night 
 
 Since I knelt by her side; 
 Darkness tingeing all of light 
 
 As she died. 
 
 57 
 
Sounds are sighing olden woe, 
 She is lying cold and low. 
 
 They are playing airs she played 
 
 On the gay violin. 
 Do they know my heart will break 
 
 With the strain? 
 
 All my being cries in pain, 
 "Dead musician, come again!" 
 
 Sing in silence, stars of even, 
 
 Bid the players cease; 
 Give my soul the hopes of Heaven, 
 
 Give me peace. 
 
 X, 
 
 It is raining over her grave, 
 
 And the winds are wearily wailing; 
 
 And the trees like broken manhood wave 
 Forever near forever unavailing. 
 
 A year ago to-day they buried her. 
 
 Of all unheeding, 
 I stand alone in the storm. 
 
 My heart is bleeding. 
 
 A year in the world of the dead, 
 
 A year embraced by the tomb; 
 A year have the knights of the charnel house fed 
 
 On the lips that I loved in their bloom. 
 
 Music is borne on the lulling rain. 
 
 O cold little head, lie low! 
 Tho' the wind and the rain with the music of pain 
 Loudly lament that you come not again, 
 
 And tears of affection flow. 
 
 58 
 
XL 
 
 Sweet is the voice of song", 
 
 Sweet are the strains we sung, 
 Meaningless, mystic music that we sung 
 
 When w r e were young. 
 
 Strange is the voice of song, 
 
 When other lips repeat 
 Words that are sacred for the sake of one 
 
 Who made life sweet. 
 
 Sad is the voice of song", 
 
 When on a foreign shore, 
 Strange lips are singing" what our loved shall sing, 
 
 Ah — nevermore ! 
 
 XII. 
 
 I have learned a useful lesson 
 
 From the years, 
 And if you to-night behold me 
 
 Bowed in tears; 
 Tis not that the winds of winter 
 
 O'er her rave; 
 But for every human heart cry 
 
 O'er a grave. 
 
 For the cold face at the window 
 
 While the storm is wild, 
 Turning from the empty cradle 
 
 Of her child. 
 
 For the first great grief that calls loud 
 
 O'er the waiting bed, 
 Mother, mother! O my mother! 
 
 You are dead! 
 
 59 
 
For the ghost-like rooms that knew her, 
 For the altered homes ; 
 
 For the hollow world that is waiting- 
 Till she comes. 
 
 I have learned a useful lesson 
 
 From the years, 
 Arid if you to-night behold me 
 
 Bowed in tears, 
 Tis not that my soul is sobbing, 
 
 "Let the striving cease!" 
 But because the world is crying, 
 
 "Give us peace!" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 A glitter of the old glow 
 
 Fell upon my heart; 
 They sang the songs of long ago 
 
 And made the old tears start. 
 I left the merry party, 
 
 The midnight city slept; 
 The longing silence sighed with me 
 
 And all my spirit wept. 
 O sleepers of the city! 
 
 Our sorrow soon shall cease; 
 Our God shall smile in pity, 
 
 And give us peace. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 I have bid old memories sever 
 
 From the homes in which they dwell; 
 
 I have said farewell forever, 
 Low T and long I said farewell. 
 
 All my soul of soul is weeping 
 
 Folded in the arms of Pain; 
 As I stand where thou art sleeping, 
 
 I shall never stand again. 
 
 60 
 
I shall sail away to-morrow. 
 
 I shall wake 'neath foreign skies; 
 I shall drift o'er tides of sorrow 
 
 To our waiting paradise. 
 
 Other songs may soothe my sadness, 
 Other eyes may wait for me; 
 
 I shall see the smile of gladness, 
 Thine again I shall not see. 
 
 I shall hear the organ swelling 
 Thro' the master minstrelsy; 
 
 I shall hear all music telling 
 Of a grave beyond the sea. 
 
 "Dust thou art, to dust returnest!" 
 Never wails where thou dost dwell; 
 
 Life is calling strong and earnest — 
 Low and lone and last — farewell. 
 
 61 
 
AL RIDER. 
 
 "Out of the depths have I cried to Thee!" So 
 Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton cried — out of the 
 depths of Thought. How God-like are those 
 depths; and how few there are that find them! 
 There are the diamond beds of life, — there are the 
 fountain-heads of streams which have blessed the 
 world. The names which star-like glitter in the 
 firmament of each art and science, are the names of 
 those who have labored in the dusky mines of 
 Thought. Slow, heavy, analytical, all-comprehen- 
 sive Thought is the mathematical accuracy of Euc- 
 lid and of Pythagoras; the logical lucidity of Aris- 
 totle; the flame-light of Dante's Inferno: ay, the 
 captured spirit breathing forth from all that is 
 worthy in painting, sculpture, poetry, and music; 
 the liberated spirit rushing forth in man's inven- 
 tions; the miracle worker, the all possible one, walk- 
 ing upon the waters; searching the clouds; flashing 
 across the world from shore to shore. 
 
 Thought is the great pacificator. Only analyze 
 deeply enough, and all perplexities, sorrows, 
 wrongs of earth resolve themselves into their 
 harmless elements. With eyes fixed on God; and 
 holding a scroll unrolling out from the past and 
 losing itself in the future, Thought watches over 
 the troubled to-day and cries, "Peace!" 
 
 Thought is soul-music. Have the creations of 
 genius thrilled us? Have we wept with Lear in the 
 storm, or with Margaret in prison? All things 
 grand in this world are to the hearts that produced 
 them as flame-light to flame. O the painful grand- 
 eur of that flame heart! There rise the great 
 pleading eyes of Gautama; there laughs Cleopatra; 
 
there agonizes the love of Tasso; there lies the 
 magical beautiful woe on the dead face of Sappho. 
 Voices steal thro' the flame heart like odors of 
 roses and lilies; voices sob thro' the flame heart as 
 a lost child at the grave of its mother; — and there is 
 music on the river under the stars — soul music. 
 
 Thought is God's Sanctum Sanctorum; and all 
 who shall have been found worthy to enter therein 
 shall find the Truth. 
 
 The man of the world, the statesman, astronomer, 
 philosopher, poet — Al Rider sat alone in Stello- 
 burgum, — the central glass-domed observatory of 
 Uraniberg. Silence was upon the world. The 
 great w T aves of the Baltic, in unison with the watch- 
 ing human heart, surged in subdued awe under the 
 stars. Al Rider turned from the optic glass thro' 
 which he had been scanning the heavens. A look 
 of painful unrest gleamed in the deep dark eyes. 
 His was a soul truly royal; his was a mind earnestly 
 striving to see God's placid, eternal truth in the in- 
 finitesimal reflection of reason and science; his was 
 a heart — a great Aeolian harp on which, cognizant 
 of their power, the life winds played. Vibrations 
 answered a zephyr, and maddening melody, frenzy 
 re-echoed their pleasure and pain. 
 
 The mocking, victorious stars, seeming to deride 
 his impotence, looked full upon him. A light wind 
 blew down his latest optic glass, and it lay shattered 
 at his feet. Something in the politic glitter of the 
 glassy fragments seemed to reflect the laughing 
 mockery of the stars. The human mind was weary 
 and the poet heart sank deep — deep in thought: 
 "My senses perceive thee, O earth home, O starry 
 worlds! The effect pre-supposes a cause; the thing 
 made, a Maker. That Cause, that Maker, that God, 
 where art Thou? What art Thou? Does it seem 
 well to imprint on the soul a question which cannot 
 be answered? Yet should that world creating Intel- 
 
 63 
 
ligence pause to answer me? Yes, since He created 
 me with a desire to know, a capability of suffering. 
 Should He come in God-head splendor, could the 
 clayey wormling live? Nay, something in us, but 
 not all in us, can see God and live. How the little 
 hearts of men would wither in the All-Light! But 
 the kindness of life, the earnest seeking for truth, 
 the soul-longings for the beautiful, the good- — shall 
 these grow dark in the All-Light? Nay, rather shall 
 they rush therein and rest. 
 
 Truth where art thou? I have sought thee long. 
 Mohammed knew thee not; Buddha on the heights 
 of human kindness beheld thee veiled and tearful. 
 Christ — is it not earth's best? He answers the 
 heart He made, the heart with a desire to know, 
 with a capability of suffering. He came not in God- 
 splendor so that in his presence the clayey worm- 
 ling writhed and stung and lived. 
 
 Are not His teachings life's grandest? Like the 
 beneficent sunlight, they shine o'er the wide 
 creation, and no atom of life is unwarmed by their 
 beam. Unto the children they come, and, smiling, 
 they bless them; unto the wretched they come, and, 
 with hand caressing, they bend over the sorrowing 
 soul. The Time-storm stands rebuked. The bil- 
 lows fall, and sobbing roll away, and sighing wan- 
 der far away; and smiling rippling die away on the 
 eternal shore. Unto the erring they come. With 
 eyes of serious tenderness, with heart of pitying 
 pain they say "Neither do I condemn thee!" Unto< 
 the grave they come. O graves of earth, ye bury 
 deep the bodies of the dead and the hearts of the 
 living! Then is it well to stand with Christ's 
 teachings over a grave; yet — " 
 
 Approaching footsteps broke the deep abstrac- 
 tion. Al Rider rose as the opening door admitted 
 his two friends, Otho and Kaled. They brought 
 to him from Tycho Brahe a new and still more 
 
 64 
 
powerful optic glass; they bore also intelligence 
 concerning a wondrous star located near Caph in 
 the constellation Cassiopeia. This star had sud- 
 denly sprung into existence under the startled eye 
 of Tycho Brahe as he sat scanning the heavens. 
 It had rapidly increased in splendor; it shone to- 
 night a star of first magnitude. Al Rider adjusted 
 the glass and gazed long upon the heavens. 
 
 The heights are cold. The peaks are alone. Yet 
 on the mountain heights they dwell — earth's 
 sciences, earth's philosophies. Yet on the moun- 
 tain peaks they dwell, earth's heroes, earth's 
 geniuses. Al Rider watched the heavens. In 
 myriad millions gleamed the stars. The colored 
 stars rejoiced in their beauty; smiled thro' their 
 halos of sapphire, of amber, of crimson, of green. 
 The star clusters trembled with love secure in their 
 vaporous home. Space, time, immensity spoke in 
 the silence 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 Waiting, — half our life is spent in waiting; 
 Here he was to be, and here he is not. 
 Little truth there is and less of wisdom; 
 Sealed upon us the capricious future 
 Opening hour by hour with fates opposing. 
 Let him come or come not! This is pleasing; 
 This silent eye of heaven would have me gaze 
 Within the trackless, awful, vast, concave. 
 O space, immensity, infinity, 
 Chaotic order! How the human soul 
 Stands numb and trembling touching the unknown. 
 Great Tycho Brahe sits in his lone tower, 
 Holding this commune while the seasons roll. 
 Lo! thro' the mazy hailed Uraniberg, 
 Al Rider comes with Kaled by his side. 
 They stand above the range of common minds, 
 They raise me to a longing for the true. 
 
 65 
 
There is within them sternest principle, 
 
 And that which all commanding, elevates. 
 
 "Look thro' my optic glass, late ones,'' I cried, 
 
 "A new one, Rider, thro' whose powerful eye 
 
 Zel shines resplendent, a new world to-night: 
 
 Most brilliant, of first magnitude, — all fire." 
 
 He gazed intently on the flaming world; 
 
 Grand Rider, whom I love for wealth of soul. 
 
 I knew the asking heart unanswered, 
 
 The fretting of the soul confined, bound down; 
 
 The silent infinite o'er impotence. 
 
 "Rider," I cried, and touched him as a child 
 
 Might touch a father stern yet much beloved. 
 
 "Dear friend, turn from the sullen mystery; 
 
 In our Eclectic creed, the Sibyl says 
 
 'Tis vain to call the secrets from the stars. 
 
 Between us hangs yon vast infinity — " 
 
 A groan from Rider, and his lordly head 
 
 Sank low a helpless burden on my arm. 
 
 From Tycho Brahe at his optic glass 
 
 A woeful cry, a heavy sounding fall. 
 
 What is it, Kaled? — Kaled, see — the star! 
 
 He looked, I looked; but Zel was seen no more: 
 
 No more, in all the heavens, that brilliant star. 
 
 What had they seen, — the prostrate noble ones? 
 
 A fiat of eternity unrolled? 
 
 Poor human minds breasting infinity! 
 
 Al Rider, rest! if rest be for thy soul. 
 
 True Kaled lavished all of chemic lore, 
 
 But, thro 1 the long night hours, that helpless form 
 
 Reposed upon my arm; in that embrace 
 
 I felt his soul with my soul inter-twined. 
 
 The bands of dawn were breaking in the east 
 
 Beyond the glassy domed Uraniberg; 
 I longed for Truth, true knowledge of the True ; 
 And, as I urged in restlessness of soul, 
 I bent o'er him akin in mystery 
 And as I gazed, Al Rider's eyes met mine. 
 
 66 
 
We knew each other's secret and revered. 
 
 True Kaled entered with the drugs that heal. 
 
 Al Rider discoursed long and reverently : 
 
 "We are encompassed by mystery; 
 
 That we know nothing is our truest creed; 
 
 Yet something in us calls to the unknown 
 
 And claims affinity beyond the stars." 
 
 A silence fell oppressive, and the sea 
 
 Moaned in the heavy darkness fraught with pain, 
 
 A chilling wind played thro' Al Rider's hair. 
 
 I knelt beside him, Kaled nearer drew 
 
 And spoke of union with immortal Brahm, 
 
 Reunion of the spark unto the flame. 
 
 "Mohammed says there is no God, but God 
 
 And he is mighty, patient, loving all 
 
 And Jesus Christ says we shall rise again 
 
 Lo! our Eclectic creed is fraught with hope!" 
 
 Al Rider 
 We have of all creeds chosen their better part, 
 And cleansed it fully from its base alloy, 
 And yet, like Buddha, till I gain that state 
 Where memory unfolds all that has been, 
 A universal knowledge viewed from Brahm — 
 An exile I,— 
 
 Kaled 
 
 An exile I, 
 Otho 
 
 Andl. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 This night yon brilliant star burst in the heavens, 
 And nearer, nearer came a flaming world. 
 And lo! it burst, it scattered, it grew dark. 
 Did Tycho fall! He saw the wondrous change. 
 From this night forth I view the heavens no more 
 I wander far, and if I do return 
 I shall have found that which all mortals crave 
 Peace, peace of soul, and knowledge of the True. 
 
 67 
 
Not in the human creed, the common throng, 
 Perfidious, all-self, — not there — -not there; 
 Far, far away 'tween nature and the soul. 
 "The universe is God;" the Pantheist says; 
 Nay but God permeates the solemn wilds, 
 And, if the soul be amply purified, 
 This God may touch me and I shall be pure. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 Al Rider, Stelloburgum is no more 
 For me or Kaled if you be not here. 
 Where would you go, Al Rider? for the True 
 Is sealed beyond the grave. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 Then I go there. 
 I know you would dissuade me, but my mind 
 Stands as Polaris in the winter sky. 
 What answer, Kaled? Will you seek the true? 
 
 Kaled. 
 Yes o'er the alembic and the crucible. 
 
 Al Rider 
 Then do we search? 
 
 Kaled. 
 Aye, search for twenty years. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 For life — 
 
 Otho 
 Beyond life ere you find the goal. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 Beyond life — See yon gray necropolis, 
 A link apparent in a chain unknown! 
 How the young day caresses the gray slabs. 
 The shadows yield; the mystic ilex trees 
 Stand sentinel and murmur requiem. 
 
 68 
 
Kaled 
 How the blue hills cloud capped salute the morn! 
 
 Otho. 
 
 The world is fair viewed from a mind in peace. 
 Here is a silhouette of Augustine. 
 Behold, Al Rider, in his face dwells peace. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 'Tis calm but calm that speaks a tempest passed 
 Grand serious head and face that typifies 
 A master mind contemplating the True. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 Grand Augustine! Rememberest thou his words; 
 "The soul is restless till it rests in God. 
 
 Al Rider. 
 
 The goal we know, the path there we know not ; 
 But we will know. When we shall meet again 
 'Twill be in knowledge and deep peace of soul ; 
 From virtue's pinnacle our souls shall gaze 
 Upon the infinite, eternal Truth. 
 
 Kaled and Otho. 
 
 From virtue's pinnacle! So let it be. 
 
 Al Rider 
 
 When we have gained that star now lost as Zel 
 Resort to far Chartreuse. We stand to-day 
 Upon the self-same spot; oh! far removed 
 From virtue's pinnacle. Let us ascend! 
 
 Kaled and Otho. 
 It shall be so, and we shall meet again. 
 
 Al Rider. 
 And now farewell ! 
 
 Kaled and Otho. 
 Al Rider, fare thee well. 
 
 69 
 
PART SECOND. 
 
 ''Resort to far Chartreuse.'' Al Rider said, 
 
 Lo ! I have found the True, and I have come 
 
 To greet those friends who, twenty years ago, 
 
 Stood on that base with me; oh! far removed 
 
 From virtue's height and knowledge of the True. 
 
 Al Rider, Kaled, 'tis your Otho calls — 
 
 A white haired, broken pilgrim. Wild Chartreuse, 
 
 My wearied limbs refuse to bear me on, 
 
 Here I must rest. The face of God is dark, 
 
 The star above Jerusalem is lost, 
 
 And storm is dark'ning in the sullen sky. 
 
 Thou, whose head the mountain bed received, 
 Whose lips, the dews of sad Gethsemani, 
 Whose weary limbs, the all supporting Cross — 
 Look down upon me; smile across the gloom! 
 
 1 wandered on, the smile of God returned. 
 Before me rose an entrance to some den 
 Of man or beast, and, lo ! I stood within 
 
 A desert cave some Bruno may have trod. 
 I knelt in prayer and prayed for Heaven's rest, 
 And o'er my cry the waiting angels sang, 
 ' Twill not be long, old heart, 'twill not be long!" 
 The storm burst forth in madness o'er the wild, 
 The lightning reveled on the mountain brow, 
 And in its glare a human figure stood. 
 I hurried toward him, brought him to my cave. 
 "Art thou a man of God?" Then pray with me. 
 (The silence of the desert may not speak.) 
 We knelt together, while the tempest raved 
 While crashing trees fell round us, and the waste 
 A mighty grandeur rolled in living light. 
 Old forms exhausted sank secure in God. 
 A beauteous morn was breaking o'er the world, 
 
 70 
 
But sobbing trees and chilling winds might speak 
 
 The recent revel of the elements. 
 
 The stranger slept, gaunt recluse, and I rose 
 
 To gather herbs and roots for sustenance; 
 
 Returning- laden, I first fairly saw 
 
 The stranger of the storm. Thro' time's disguise, 
 
 Thro' ravages of change, thro' chill of soul — 
 
 We saw, we recognized — and we knelt down. 
 
 "Yet Kaled, speak!" 
 
 Kaled 
 Fair Otho, is it thou? 
 
 Otho 
 Old Otho now. Then thou hast found the True? 
 
 Kaled 
 Deep peace is ours and knowledge of the True. 
 
 Otho 
 The earth stain lingers on this gleam of Heaven 
 Al Rider comes not. May our best have failed? 
 
 Kaled. 
 
 Tis ours to pray for him and trust our God. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 Al Rider, oh! my soul writhes in its God: 
 
 If thou art lost, if our eternity 
 
 Shall roll between thy God-like soul and God! 
 
 Kaled. 
 
 A saint awaiting Heaven dwells in Chartreuse; 
 We'll gain his prayers for our Al Rider's soul. 
 He wrote the words which brought me to my God, 
 An exile in the far America — 
 
 Otho. 
 
 America! O Kaled, speak thy part, 
 
 Thy devious path thro' twenty weary years. 
 
 71 
 
Kaled. 
 The heights secured, the heavy stairs may fall. 
 
 Otho. 
 Yet gazing down were food for gratitude. 
 
 Kaled's Story. 
 
 Strange fortune called me to Arabia. 
 Al Bershid wrote to me in glowing words 
 Of wondrous workings in his laboratory; 
 Of strange conversions, powerful sublimates; 
 And magic transformations — allotropes. 
 U A thosand substances apparent, few 
 The elements; and, in our alcahest, 
 We gain the elements of gold and life; 
 Then combinations, allotropic forms 
 Must give us silver, gold, and human life. 
 Come to Arabia, come and search with me 
 The far quintessence, the all-spirit lost." 
 I sought the alchemist, and dreamed his dream, 
 And o'er the alembic and the crucible, 
 O'er acids, vapors, metal-elements, 
 O'er compounds analyzed and synthesized, 
 O'er elements combined in every form 
 By distillation, sublimation, chance 
 Of cold, heat, sunlight, freed affinities — 
 For fifteen years we sought for gold and life. 
 Proportion, depth of mind and breadth of soul 
 Repaid our efforts, but we formed not gold. 
 We found the herbs that nourish human life, 
 All herbs medicinal and friend to man — 
 We sought "elixir vitae." Antidotes 
 And many compounds bringing aid to man 
 And drugs oblivious found we, — but not life. 
 
 A sympathetic ink we chanced to form: 
 
 Al Beshid called it symbol of our lives 
 
 Whose works lie cold to blossom forth in Brahm. 
 
 72 
 
One day as weary, heartsore, I gazed far 
 
 Upon a seene of noonday loveliness 
 
 I saw a beautious child whose merry laugh 
 
 Re-echoed thro' the white pimento trees, 
 
 And swept the chord of joy within each heart. 
 
 A woman's voice arose in wild despair, 
 
 The fair child prostrate lay, the venom clasp 
 
 Of Egypt's serpent wound about his life. 
 
 With antidotes and soporific drugs 
 
 I reached the child, the serpent raised his head 
 
 And knew in me his deadly enemy. 
 
 Without a change of eye-glare long we gazed, 
 
 But I exhaled, from a replenished case, 
 
 A soporific, and I knew its power. 
 
 The child lay sleeping in the cold embrace, 
 
 The anguished mother knew no more her pain. 
 
 I sank not, for I used reactive fumes: 
 
 At length the serpent lay in truce with life. 
 
 I quickly disengaged it from the child, 
 
 And placed it in a chloral vat to die. 
 
 Before the child awakened I annulled, 
 
 With antidotes, all venom in the wound; 
 
 Then binding herbs medicinal, I stood 
 
 Contemplating a life that I had saved. 
 
 No hour of fifteen years had joy for me 
 
 Like this — the silent bliss of doing good ; 
 
 I felt that I had almost touched the True. 
 
 Henceforth to seek it in the public good! 
 
 To place on fevered lips the cooling draught. 
 
 To strengthen weakness. O'er the withering pain 
 
 To wave the love wand of oblivion. 
 
 Unto disease and sin and misery 
 
 In dungeons, hospitals, on battle-fields 
 
 To come with love and healing! Wondrous 
 
 thought ! 
 May virtue's pinnacle be charity? 
 
 73 
 
The mother woke with sad remembering cry, 
 
 I brought to her the child. She stupefied 
 
 Fell at my feet in wordless gratitude. 
 
 I turned away, lamenting that of life 
 
 So far exhausted, 'twas my first true deed: 
 
 Henceforward I should live for good alone. 
 
 A few days later, strong in purpose true 
 I stood departing for the busy town 
 To seek disease; to mitigate all pain. 
 Aaron, my Arab courser, knelt for me, 
 And I was on my mission proudly borne. 
 
 I've failed to vivify life-elements; 
 
 Yet may it be that some far origin 
 
 Evolves creative essence, and that life 
 
 Is emanative of the Intelligence 
 
 That guides the stars, and rules infinity? 
 
 Capella reigns to-night and Proeyon, 
 
 Arcturus trembles faintly in the East, 
 
 Orion waits in world-like majesty, 
 
 Apollo, Thuban, Sirius, Betelguise, 
 
 Polaris, Caph, — the vacant bed of Zel, — 
 
 Dear lights of Stelloburgum, ye are fair! 
 
 Our great Al Rider, have you found the True? 
 
 My path has failed; and virtue's pinnacle 
 
 Is lost as Zel. All life, all space, all time, 
 
 Some vast eternal Intellect controls. 
 
 We dream of Brahm. Is Brahm intelligence? 
 
 And is my soul a spark of Brahmic flame? 
 
 May yon Omnipotence have smiled o'er me 
 
 That would compel his secrets? I recall 
 
 The vulgar wonder when by occult power, 
 
 We held Al Bershid in the empty air. 
 
 Now had some clown, to whose dull intellect 
 
 Our art unknown, might never be made known, 
 
 Essayed to imitate ; with what contempt, 
 
 Security, derision, had we gazed! 
 
 74 
 
Yet were that clown the work of our own hands 
 A part of our full being — could we hate? 
 Nay, nature teaches that we love our own. 
 
 The dream of doing good I realized; 
 My Aaron bore me o'er a waiting world; 
 And pain and grim disease fled at our call, 
 And death came down oblivious o'er the strife. 
 Unto old age, whose ills no man may cure, 
 We gave the balm of hope and healing words. 
 But ever restless is the human heart. 
 They spoke to me of far America, 
 The founts of Youth; De Soto's lordly bed, 
 The trackless grandeur of the Indian land. 
 So faithful Aaron, my one friend and love, 
 Stood by my side upon the sailing boat 
 That sought the stranger w r ave and stranger shore. 
 Proud Aaron, with what to'ssings, restless neighs 
 He trod his confines 'tween the sea and sky, 
 And reared, receding from the treacherous wave, 
 As tho' he saw it yielding, — claiming him 
 And felt the embraces of his grave to be. 
 The morning of the eighteenth day arose 
 Upon a breathless void, a waveless sea. 
 Asleep lay ocean in the zone of calms. 
 Our vessel lay as moveless as a raft 
 Beheld on great tar lake of Trinidad. 
 All day the glass eternal rippled not; 
 While men grew desperate, and offered it 
 Shoes, watches, books, plates, boxes, swords, — 
 And smiled to see one thankless bubble rise; 
 Gray night came down, and man retired to dream 
 Of clouds, of rolling waves, of mighty winds. 
 Gray morn arose, and man awoke to see 
 A burned out sky, a peace — how terrible! 
 The glare, the gloom; but not the strife of Hell. 
 Yet seven days passed; the captain came with hope. 
 "A cloud appeared far in the eastern sky, 
 And were our burden lighter we might sail; 
 
 75 
 
Beside, the last of our provisions failed 
 
 For yonder steeds; to-morrow they must stand 
 
 Sick, fearful, starving. 'Twere humanity 
 
 To cast them in the deep and save the ship. 
 
 Himself would sacrifice eight noble steeds, 
 
 He asked his generous hearted passengers 
 
 To merge self-interest in the common good. 
 
 "Take mine/' they said, "take mine/' they said, 
 
 "take mine/' 
 "Take Aaron, my white Arab Aaron, too!" 
 'Twas twilight. And the deck led to the wave 
 A lame, old horse, blindfolded walked thereto 
 The slide drew back, he struggled in the calm 
 Sank, rose with head uncovered. Fiery eyes 
 Sank watching us from out their waiting grave. 
 A terror gathered in the living herd; 
 Short, piteous cries rose; fiery fearful eyes 
 That asked a human sympathy. I thought 
 Of transmigration and cold, shuddering turned 
 To leave it all ; but Aaron knelt for me, 
 And eyes of meek intelligence met mine. 
 I threw my arms around his neck and cried. 
 Old gray beard! — yet my very being cried. 
 "My faithful one, my beauteous one, my true ! 
 Is't thus that I repay fidelity! 
 
 Poor trembling one!" I heard the frequent splash. 
 A hand touched mine. I led my Aaron forth. 
 "My Aaron, we must part." A fresh cool breeze 
 Rose o'er my sacrifice. Upon the slide, 
 The slide withdrawn; a sick'ning heavy splash— 
 (Yon albatross seemed biting at my heart.) 
 The vessel quivered, caught the approaching storm 
 While lightning, thunder, winds, and mighty rain 
 Raved over Aaron as the vessel sped. 
 
 In far America I found my God. 
 An Indian chief, Wachita, sought my aid 
 For dying Korsur of the Cheyenne tribe. 
 I followed him, still seeking human good; 
 
 76 
 
The poisoned blood burned in old Korsur's veins, 
 
 But my true art prepared a healing balm. 
 
 Wonder awoke and Indian gratitude; 
 
 Four large white steers were yoked and offered me, 
 
 I took them not but asked that, in return, 
 
 The poor whom I might send may shelter there. 
 
 Old Korsur gazed intently and exclaimed 
 
 "Thou'rt Louis Bertrand, in a stranger form! 
 
 Those whom you send are welcome as my own." 
 
 Then searching in a bag of skin, he brought 
 
 A Roman Missal and "The Hermit's Prayer, " 
 
 And bade me keep them, saying that to him 
 
 They were no use, yet treasured for his sake 
 
 Who left them there — the missionary priest, 
 
 Great Louis Bertrand, the lone Indian's friend. 
 
 I took them and departed glad of heart. 
 
 All night I bent above the "Hermit's Prayer," 
 
 Each word seemed fraught with peace unto my 
 
 soul, 
 And when I finished, I had found the True. 
 In Faith, in Heaven, in Jesus Crucified — 
 Contrition wept o'er our confesional. 
 But peace was mine at last, deep peace of soul. 
 The rest you know. My soul had found the True. 
 "Resort to far Chartreuse" Al Rider said. 
 I too would kneel with that good hermit there 
 Who wrote "Due, Domine, ad Te" and gaze — 
 
 Otho. 
 O Kaled, in that work I found my God! 
 
 Kaled. 
 And is't the same? 
 
 Otho. 
 
 "Due, Domine, ad Te!" 
 By name, "The Hermit's Prayer," I knew it not, 
 Nor knew that he who wrote it yet survived. 
 
 77 
 
Kaled 
 
 True, name and history were, in my book, 
 Recorded by the pen of great Bertrand. 
 Read, Otho, ere the vesper bell shall chime, 
 "Due, Domine, ad Te;" then let us pray: 
 Enough that round us are the eternal arms ; 
 The storm may rave, we kneel secure in God. 
 Old Harp of Stelloburgum, sound once more 
 Fraught with the melody that saved our souls. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 My voice has not the depth of other days 
 But you shall hear "Due, Domine, ad Te." 
 
 Due, Domine, ad Te. 
 
 The soul was made for God, and unto Him 
 
 It must return therein to find its rest. 
 
 All evil is forgetfulness of God: 
 
 All sin rebellion 'gainst Omnipotence. 
 
 All things were made for man and man for God. 
 
 Man sets the creature on God's pedestal, 
 
 And offers homage to a kindred clay. 
 
 The years probationary hurry by, 
 
 Each day a mine, in whose exhaustless store, 
 
 Eternal treasures may be held secure. 
 
 The years replete with strivings heavenward, 
 
 With generous charity for all mankind, 
 
 With sacrifice of self and love of God, 
 
 Shall add new brilliance to the star set soul. 
 
 Time is the price of that eternity. 
 
 Here we must merit; past the pale of Death 
 
 Reward or punishment awaits the soul. 
 
 'Tis ours to serve and love our God on earth: 
 
 And is it hard to love Him? We do love 
 
 His attributes bound in the things of earth. 
 
 All beauty, all intelligence, all good, 
 
 78 • 
 
All magnanimity, all wealth of soul, 
 
 All truth, all purity, all sanctity, 
 
 All worthy things of life — all — all of Good 
 
 Is a far gleaming from the All of God. 
 
 Man grasps this little good and calls it God. 
 
 Man seeks to satiate in finite joys 
 
 A soul created for infinity. 
 
 Were ocean's bed an empty void to-night, 
 
 And should we throw one cup of water there 
 
 'Twere still a burning, waste capacity. 
 
 Seek thou the soul's true end — union with God. 
 
 Unto that empty sea should one bird come, 
 Whose flight, thro' early morning, might collect 
 Some drops of rain; returning thus again 
 After one thousand years have passed away: 
 But when thro' countless ages, that lone bird 
 Shall have filled the broad Pacific whose proud 
 
 waves 
 Shall rise storm-borne unto the darkening sky, 
 E'en then the soul shall live and, from its God, 
 Shall cry, "Eternity is just begun! 
 Truth, goodness, purity, and charity! 
 O never ending light, and love and life! 
 O knowledge, wisdom, — God-intelligence! 
 O beauty, symphony, — and this for aye!" 
 Deep praises roll from ransomed soul to soul 
 Caught by angelic waves and starry shores : 
 One grand Te Deum sounds from world to world. 
 E'en then the soul shall live, and from its pain, 
 Shall moan, "Eternity! eternity!" 
 
 Our crime is ignorance. We will not learn 
 The things of God. Kneel low, my child, with me; 
 Feel'st thou within thee immortality? 
 Then learn its origin, its destiny. 
 
 Almighty being is almighty love; 
 
 His rays divergent yet remain His own, 
 
 79 
 
His rays distorted cease not to be His. 
 O'er rays distorted — erring human souls 
 The infinite Perfection gazed with love. 
 All earth was dark, it lay immersed in sin, 
 It knew not origin or destiny; 
 Its very life lay close embraced in death. 
 Almighty Love looked o'er a w r eary world: 
 A Babylon rejoiced, a Carthage mourned; 
 And souls were falling, as a long monsoon, 
 From bloody siege, from bloodier battle ground, 
 From funeral pyre, from Moloch's iron shrine. 
 Thro' all the avenues of Hell earth joined 
 Souls fell as drops that form the long monsoon: 
 And He whose goodness fills eternity, 
 Repented that His fiat had gone forth. 
 Annihilation were to strike Himself. 
 Love spoke in accents of the Trinity: 
 "'Tis ignorance of origin and end, 
 'Tis Lucifer's false glitter o'er the True, 
 'Tis yon barred Heaven. See in that fevered strife 
 Our own divinity in prison bonds, 
 In ignorance, in restlessness, in woe, 
 In aspiration to the unknown God. 
 I, clothed in human form, will go to earth 
 And teach the world its origin, its end" 
 He spoke; the angels trembled and adored 
 And veiled their faces in their snowy wings 
 To cry "all" holy, holy, holy, Lord!" 
 Immensity awoke immensity. 
 Then slowly, mid the whiteness of the throne, 
 A burning cross — a Crucifix arose, 
 And God incarnate hung and suffered there. 
 Lo! cherubim and seraphim are dumb; 
 The Powers are still, and million angel choirs 
 And anthems of the voiceless waiting spheres 
 Are silent now. The mighty Crucified 
 From, "Consummatum est,' intoned the psalm 
 That broke the hushed concave from world to 
 world. 
 
 80 
 
Ring, cherubim and seraphim and powers 
 
 And principalities and angel choirs; 
 
 And ring, ye gates of Heaven re-opening, 
 
 And echo, blood-bought home bound human souls! 
 
 Behold the Crucifix, the book of Heaven 
 Who wills to read divinely, let him come 
 And kneel within my cave in wild Chartreuse, 
 Where all are welcome: and I promise peace. 
 
 ye who drink at many a sullied fount, 
 
 O'er which the pure of heart read "Thirst again!" 
 Kneel low with me; and should the earthly damps 
 Obscure the light above yon Crucifix, 
 Return and pray. I live to comfort thee 
 
 1 live to lead the souls of God to God. 
 
 The last w r ords blended with the vesper chime, 
 The desert silence and commune with God. 
 
 The morning rose; we sought the hermit's cave 
 "Pray for Al Rider, for our truest, lost!" 
 
 Kaled 
 Relate thy wanderings, Otho, thro' the past. 
 
 Otho. 
 
 Of little interest, and my rebel heart 
 Loses itself in great Al Rider's loss; 
 And gathering o'er me is a chill of soul. 
 
 Kaled. 
 Yet tell, where didst thou dwell these twenty years? 
 
 Otho. 
 
 I lingered long about Uraniberg, 
 Yet never entered more. As Autumn days 
 Grew weary o'er the world, I turned away. 
 A dream of Egypt's glory lingered still; 
 
 81 
 
For, in a long forgotten childhood, lived 
 A fair haired mother whom I never knew; 
 A scene which memory conjures or retains 
 Of stern confusion; dark browed sullen men 
 With fierce red turbans over flashing eyes. 
 Hot angry words; "Mohammed! Christian! She 
 Will bring the curse of Allah on our homes !" 
 Quick flashed a scimetar, — low fell one form; 
 While strong hands siezed a crying child that 
 
 turned 
 And bore impressed by fire this image hence. 
 A fair haired woman with both hands stretched 
 
 forth, 
 Clasping her head whence issued streams of blood. 
 Her wild blue eyes fixed on me. Once I spoke 
 Of this to him who claimed to be my sire, 
 And his dark brow grew fearful. All that night 
 Fear dwelt with me; while, from his restless bed, 
 He raved of murder; then in gentler tone 
 He called "Natalia! Otho's fair haired bride, 
 Lone Alpine chamois! Matterhorn's gazelle!" 
 Then troubled he arose, but I had fled. 
 
 Towards Egypt I had turned, but Switzerland 
 Held my inconstant footsteps. Many a morn 
 From Alpine height I watched yon lordly orb 
 Break o'er the world thro' crimson belts of dawn. 
 'Twas evening. On the highest pinnacle 
 Accessible to foot of man I stood, 
 Watching a scene which might find place in 
 
 Heaven. 
 Were our Al Rider here, he might portray 
 High silent arms of earth enclasped in heaven, 
 The bugle's call; the clear and far "good night!" 
 Long, long I lingered; dreaming of the True. 
 My brain grew dizzy, — pain abode with me, 
 I sought the downward path, — obscure it lay. 
 The bright blood gushed, a voice of song awoke, 
 And all things sang in darkness over me. 
 
 82 
 
I felt, the first hour (in a waking dream), 
 
 That I had passed beyond the gates of Time, 
 
 And stood among the stars and heard their strain. 
 
 One choros rang across the universe, 
 
 Then faintly silenced in the galaxy. 
 
 Now earth encompassed me. — A dreary hut — 
 Wine, mystery, and lo! the opening door 
 Admits a woman weeping bitterly. 
 She heeds me not, I break the dreamy pause, 
 And speak of wondrous music lately stilled 
 "The monks below are chanting "Tenebrae." 
 
 With wide blue eyes, that look but see not, fixed; 
 And hands uplifted to her head she sang: 
 
 SONG. 
 
 Shall our weary forms repose 
 In the Convent cemetery, 
 
 When the scene of life shall close 
 O'er you and me? 
 
 Shall we lie together there, 
 In the Convent cemetery? 
 
 No more parting, no more care 
 For you and me. 
 
 Shall the peace prayer o'er us plead 
 In the Convent cemetery; 
 
 And the white cross intercede 
 For you and me? 
 
 Shall the sister-mounds arise 
 In the Convent cemetery; 
 
 Angel pathways to the skies 
 For you and me? 
 
 83 
 
Or within the future gloom, 
 Do our union ways diverge? 
 
 Shall the space-winds o'er each tomb 
 Moan a dirge? 
 
 O God grant that we repose 
 In the Convent cemetery! 
 
 When the scene of life shall close 
 O'er you and me. 
 
 The while I seemed to see the Egyptian home, 
 The fair-haired woman with both hands upreared 
 Clasping her head, whence issued streams of blood. 
 
 The song was ended, and the hands drooped low. 
 The woman slept or lived in phantasy. 
 
 Revived; with morning glory I arose 
 
 And sought to hasten from the strange abode, 
 
 Yet fascinated, turned. The woman rose 
 
 And pressed upon me hospitality. 
 
 A gracefulness, a dignity, a spell — 
 
 A high mysterious sorrow — while my mind 
 
 Repeated from the dark man's wanderings, 
 
 "Lone Alpine chamois, Otho's fair-haired bride !- 
 
 Kaled, we would not drag our minds to-day 
 Thro' graves of evil. Thoughts contaminate, 
 And he who waits us in the hermit's cave 
 Would have our souls as Jungfrau's sky-borne 
 
 snows. 
 That woman was my mother. Twenty years 
 I held the hand of duty as the True. — 
 Lo! Bruno's grave — beyond the Hermit dwells. 
 
 84 
 
Kaled. 
 
 Of all that comes to us we but receive 
 The measure of our capacity. Kneel down 
 Here let us cleanse our souls in contrite prayer 
 
 Otho. 
 
 Thou art the worthier, Kaled, yet I feel 
 That I shall see yon Truth unveiled to-day. 
 A hand of ice is grasping my old heart 
 Can this be death? — 
 
 Kaled. 
 
 Haste to the hermit's cave. 
 
 My Otho, is it thus the drama ends? 
 
 Yet linger, for we stand within the cave; 
 
 The Hermit yonder prostrate as in prayer. 
 
 One cry from Otho, joyous, anguished, last — 
 
 We gazed, we saw — our own Al Rider — dead. 
 
 85 
 
HELEN. 
 
 It was a London hospital conducted by Sisters. 
 Helen, the night nurse, had just completed the well 
 worn round. She had held the cup to the fevered 
 lip, her cool fingers had soothed the burning brow, 
 her kind heart had left its benison on all — even the 
 sleepers. 
 
 It was the last night of the old year. Helen 
 stood by her window watching the myriad lights 
 of the city; smiling as the meaningless jangling of 
 bells, shouts, and cannon roars arose from the dis- 
 tant throng. What power was there in the spirit 6f 
 the place, the hour, to annihilate thirty years, — so 
 that Helen, the night nurse of fifty, was Helen, the 
 actress of twenty? What rich veins of sentiment 
 and sorrow lie in the rugged, every day hearts by 
 which we are surrounded ! Each life is a battery of 
 broken circuit. Deep in the soul lies the potent 
 cell; thence issuing they lie — the negative pole in 
 the logical sense, the positive pole in the heart's 
 affections. In passive potency they lie until God's 
 hands shall have rested in benison on both; then 
 shall the joyous currents run throughout the ages 
 of ages. 
 
 The night nurse stood in revery. Not weak, not 
 even tender was the heart. The London skies grew 
 Arctic still and pure and cold; the London towers 
 grew iceberg shadows o'er pure snows; the London 
 lights grew faint Aurora amber. In the dream 
 light came the children, happy school girls with 
 yellow hair, who pelted one another with Dandelion 
 balls. But amid the group the merriest eyes of all 
 gazed earnestly on the dreamer. The night nurse 
 murmured mournfully, "O Childhood! do you not 
 know me?" 
 
 86 
 
With the dream light mingled love-light. Far 
 
 away on life's horizon, wondrous blue eyes, gem- 
 like, star-like, God-like rose in zenith splendor to 
 the Northern Constellations, mid the stars which 
 rise and set not. That star was shining' to-night and 
 in its distanee Pain moaned in the arms of the eirrus 
 cloud; and in its smile Forgiveness tinged the world 
 and waiting skies; and in its tenderness the crimson 
 streamers trembled down the dawn, the wondrous 
 Aurora rose o'er the world and the heart of the 
 dreamer grew weak, — yes w r eak and tender. 
 
 With the love light mingled death light. A 
 mother's face slept as a lily 'mid lilies — slept and 
 awoke not; a mother's hands held the frost blossom 
 in peace and extended not, welcomed not; a mother's 
 heart lay cold at last, while upon the waiting face, 
 about her as an atmosphere lingered the longing, 
 the waiting, the love that had killed her. Kiss her 
 again, not with the old passionate anguish, but with 
 a tender sorrow, the child of the life years. 
 
 Unusual sounds ascending from the city ended 
 the wanderings of memory. A fire had burst forth 
 apparently on the Strand. Madly the flames leaped 
 up to the darkening sky. Helen prayed long and 
 earnestly; prayed for those who might even now be 
 suffering in the flames, prayed for the dark tide of 
 humanity shouting, struggling toward the scene 
 of disaster; prayed for those dear to her whether 
 they wander in Time or wait in eternity, prayed for 
 the world. 
 
 HARP ECHOES. 
 
 "Dying and calling for you!" O Mother, blest star 
 
 of my childhood! 
 Sink not yet in the western world till thy prodigal 
 
 finds thee; 
 Place thy dear hand on my head, and murmur the 
 
 words of forgiveness. 
 87 
 
Time stands still, and the distance between us 
 increases. 
 
 Train, and vessel of steam, ye are painted forms 
 and ye move not. 
 
 Oh! for the speed of desire, and I tread you to- 
 night, native city, 
 
 On, on, on, from the pier, to the home, to the heart 
 of my mother. 
 
 Has she grown haggard and wan? O God! I recall 
 the last parting; 
 
 Heart broken, passionate prayer that I pause for 
 the love that is pleading 
 
 Pause on the threshold of error, and turn to the 
 loves of my childhood; 
 
 Pause — but the pleading voice was hushed in the 
 smile of a lover; 
 
 While thro' my mother's tears, I saw the glittering 
 foot-lights, 
 
 The curtain about to rise, the crowd, the low wait- 
 ing of music, 
 
 And, tearing away from her arms I left her pros- 
 trate in anguish. 
 
 "Dying, and calling for you." Ye sentinel stars 
 o'er the city! 
 
 Bless all the world as it sleeps, and cherish the chil- 
 dren of London. 
 
 Pain is the guest of my soul. I stand by the dark 
 peaceful waters 
 
 Where they have sought long repose, — the children 
 of error and sorrow. 
 
 Sisters, who stood where I stand, who sought what 
 the dark waters promise, 
 
 I, too, long for its peace, and scarcely my sorrow 
 condemns you. 
 
 May ye have found rest at last, ye wretched, ye 
 strong ones! 
 
 Life is a wearisome way, but surely some eye is 
 above us 
 
 88 
 
That watches from cause to close, and pities the 
 
 sorrows of mortals. 
 Dawn by the eastern sky. Farewell, Fred Ashton, 
 
 my husband, 
 Sadie and Wilson and Nell. — Tis the train that 
 
 conveys to the steamer. 
 How will it be in the western world; and what of the 
 
 future ! 
 
 PART SECOND. 
 
 Nearer that central thing, that coffin upborne by 
 
 the lilies; 
 Delicate Russian frost-flowers that spring from the 
 
 heart of the sleeper. 
 Heart that I made thus cold; but I, too, am dying, 
 
 my mother! 
 Dying to lie as you lie, and never to waken or 
 
 sorrow. 
 When will it come, — the end of this insupportable 
 
 anguish? 
 Mother, O Mother ! yet rest. I know all and I must 
 
 endure it; 
 Late, too late have I come, and yet I must live and 
 
 endure it. 
 If he comes in — the man who stabbed ere I stabbed 
 
 the dead woman. 
 What shall we murderers say? — She called him 
 
 husband, I — father. 
 Yet could the proud lips move, they would seal yet 
 
 deeper the silence 
 That hangs over fatherless years, and meaningless, 
 
 sad lamentations. 
 Better to go as I came, and, o'er the mysterious 
 
 ocean, 
 
 3 9 
 
Join in the throngs of men, — a sigh in a sob 
 
 universal, 
 Asking the whence and the whither, the why, and 
 
 the wherefore of living. 
 Cease, this pain at my heart! Something is draw- 
 ing my life blood. 
 How does she look in the face? I have groaned at 
 
 her feet in the lilies. 
 Take them from face and hands — those cloths — -and 
 
 the weights from the eye-lids. 
 Bend o'er the dear dead face, and gather it close 
 
 to my bosom; 
 Will not the agony there awaken its slumbering 
 
 sister? 
 Wake, for the answer is here; oh! waken thou 
 
 carved Expectance! 
 Go not thus to the grave, thou Question forever 
 
 unanswered! 
 Lo! I have come — had I known — Sink fond head 
 
 on the pillow ; 
 Haunt me forevermore, thou Waiting embodied in 
 
 marble ; 
 Live in the world, in the sea, in the sky, till I 
 
 cease, till I die. 
 
 II. 
 
 Out from the dead and away, mid the gathering 
 
 lights of the city. 
 Phantoms and falling snows, and I hurry, one mid 
 
 the many. 
 Ten years passed in a night, and youth has forever 
 
 departed. 
 Yet could I weep for the throng, some indefinable 
 
 sorrow 
 Passes from me to them and rests upon me and the 
 
 human. 
 Forever hurrying onward, phantasmagorical 
 
 changes, 
 
 90 
 
Perhaps she will pass this way; the lights and the 
 
 feathery stillness 
 Were not unmeet for her feet. 1 smell the odor 
 
 of lilies, 
 All things cease to revolve, and the world is 
 
 petrified Waiting. 
 
 III. 
 
 Out on the ocean again, silent, yet inwardly 
 
 sobbing 
 As a fresh grief must be — ever ready to lash at 
 
 the heart strings. 
 Heavily falling snows, sequester the vanishing 
 
 city ; 
 Mourn o'er the form in the hearse and the long 
 
 black funeral procession. 
 Peace o'er the waiting grave kissed by the whisper- 
 ing spirits; 
 Mourned by the frozen tears that fall from my soul 
 
 o'er the city. 
 Mother, my mother, gcod-by! Good-by, thou 
 
 noblest of women! 
 Roll away carriages, roll, and echo the hoofs of the 
 
 horses ; 
 One of the many is sleeping in peace from the 
 
 surges of sorrow, 
 And she will not waken. 
 
 O thou mysterious ocean ! 
 
 Have you some anguish of soul, some mighty e'er- 
 mastering sorrow; 
 
 That you thus moan and lament and murmur a 
 long incompleteness? 
 
 Last of the Western world — the Goddess of Liberty 
 blesses: 
 
 91 
 
Sea birds are singing ''forgiveness," and sea gulls 
 
 are murumuring "duty." 
 Long, long, long, have I died with the dead, but I 
 
 live with the living. 
 
 IV. 
 
 To-morrow we land in England. How still is the 
 
 bosom of ocean! 
 Over the home of the cirrus-cloud and under the 
 
 earth borne waters, 
 Wanders the Regent of night sedate mid her glitter- 
 ing companions. 
 Thus she was lying, poor heart! mid the restless 
 
 life of the city, 
 Just one week from to-night, and I crushed her 
 
 shroud and her lilies, 
 And fell, like a wounded thing, to the street from 
 
 the balcony gate-way; 
 Leaving the great door locked and the dead with 
 
 another sad secret. 
 How is it now, O my Mother! Moonlight and 
 
 star-light o'er Greenwood 
 Glide among spectral tombs and straggling shad- 
 ows of pine trees, 
 Glide over snow laden spruce trees and low winding 
 
 covers of myrtle ; 
 Over the paupers' square and monuments lordly 
 
 of rich men; 
 Over the little grave of the brother who wailed 
 
 for an hour 
 E'en at the portals of Life — and over the new grave 
 
 beside him. 
 Moonlight and starlight and shadows, join in a 
 
 Requiem o'er them; 
 Sighs o'er the graves, combine and wail on the 
 
 midnight their dirge; 
 Winds of the sullen dawn, murmur their last 
 
 lamentation. 
 
 92 
 
V. 
 
 Why do 1 stand in England? A sob from a sorrow 
 
 subsiding 
 Answers in meaning vague, and consonant with 
 
 other feelings. 
 Shall I go back to the stage and join Fred Ashton, 
 
 my husband? 
 Fred with his winning face and character weak and 
 
 ignoble ; 
 Wanting in self-command, and the power to will 
 
 and to will not; 
 Fred with his fortified word strongly defended by 
 
 promise, 
 Fred in the ruins by night, o'ercome by a breath of 
 
 temptation : 
 Fred with his happy blue eyes and girl-like beauty 
 
 of person: 
 Made by God to be loved as she loves him, — the 
 
 desolate mother 
 Who follows his erring way and worships the sin 
 
 in the sinner. 
 Yet I recall the night when life was bitterly 
 
 earnest; 
 Fear and deep pain were mine, and death stood 
 
 waiting a victim. 
 All my soul cried for him then, and the woman- 
 heart w r eak as a child-heart 
 Suddenly, sternly died in the call and the answer 
 
 that came not. 
 Yet o'er the hurried past whose sobbings yet break 
 
 from the ocean, 
 Joining the chiming of bells and far American 
 
 lilies, 
 Surging from public applause to an infant wail into 
 
 silence, 
 Touching all things of life, from childhood to 
 
 dreams that are passing — 
 Wide and warm as the sunset sky lies the buried 
 
 affection. 
 
 93 
 
PART THIRD. 
 
 Calling me back to life again when I thought to 
 
 have laid down 
 All broken links of a chain that never can be 
 
 re-united. 
 Yet fair is the new world with flowers and loves of 
 
 the beautiful spring time ! 
 Sweet is the first smile of life after pain and the 
 
 long shore of shadows ! 
 Ten long months have I wrestled with pain and the 
 
 pitiless fever; 
 And they have nursed me well — those gentle voiced 
 
 Sisters of Mercy. 
 Pictures upon the walls, ye speak of peace and a 
 
 haven 
 Where there is peace of soul. There bends St. 
 
 Louis Gonzaga. ' 
 Why is that face so grand bending over the skull 
 
 and the crucifix? 
 Half would I know whence its peace and the depth 
 
 of that mystic Religion 
 Whose strong, pure children look out from the ages 
 
 upon me. 
 St. Bruno in hoary Chartreuse, the harp of the 
 
 martyred Cecelia; 
 The boy Pancratius in prayer waiting death in the 
 
 Roman arena; 
 Grand Augustine clasping a peace o'er the cold 
 
 human altar; 
 The Mother of Sorrows looks down, the Wander- 
 ing Sheep and the Shepherd. 
 Beautiful faces of saints, ye are poems in language 
 
 of angels ; 
 
 94 
 
Speak yet again to my soul, and I earnestly seek- 
 that Religion 
 Which made you strong to endure and noble in 
 
 combat. 
 Oh! may it be for me, that, after the drama of 
 
 error, 
 I may yet aet in real life a part that is noble? 
 May there be peaee for my soul in this Roman 
 
 Religion? 
 She in the grave loved it not, and 1 would embark 
 
 for her heaven — 
 Heaven — and Hell — and the soul — some Sunday 
 
 School murmurs from childhood 
 Break thro' the long dark years. O Pater, 
 
 peccavi! 
 Lips of the strong saints move, and utter one long 
 
 miserere ! 
 Lo! from the ruins! God, lo, from the ruins! 
 Lo! I will paint my sin, the sin and its hasty 
 
 requital. 
 Black was the back-ground, my God, yea, sullen 
 
 and wild were the heavens 
 Bright was the flame, O my soul! as it leaped on 
 
 wings to the starless ; 
 Aye, tragic and grand was the scene, but I marked 
 
 not the palace consuming. 
 Black is the back-ground, my God, but blacker the 
 
 desolate ruins; 
 Ceased is the treacherous flame, but ceaseless the 
 
 moan of the night wind. 
 Lo from the ruins! God! lo, from the ruins! 
 Angel of pity, forbear, nor answer contrition with 
 
 justice! 
 God of the erring, enfold my sin in the mantle of 
 
 mercv. 
 
 95 
 
CONCLUSION. 
 
 Fire in tiie London Theatre! How madly those 
 flames lash the darkness! 
 
 Horrible sounds fill the air; lo, the bells tell the 
 death of the old year. 
 
 God — that great building in flames! Say not it is 
 crowded with mortals. 
 
 Hope, yet hope — they are out; for escapes there 
 are many. 
 
 Well do I know every board of the Strand Covent 
 Garden. 
 
 Strange to recall, thirty years from this night that 
 I stood there 
 
 With Sadie and Wilson and Nell and Fred Ashton, 
 my husband; 
 
 Thirty years from this night came the news that my 
 mother 
 
 Was dying and calling for me. O Destiny, guard- 
 ian of mortals! 
 
 Lead you to Heaven at last? I have trodden cir- 
 cuitous mazes, 
 
 Nor would I re-live one day of the life that is 
 passing. 
 
 Old am I now, and my heart is cold without pain or 
 affection ; 
 
 Yet in their time pressed graves, they shudder — 
 dead pleasures and sorrows. 
 
 O how slowly they died! How long in life's deso- 
 late chambers, 
 
 Gaunt white ghosts they repined; but they spoke 
 not, they hoped not; 
 
 Only gazed out on the past, and knew not they 
 shaded the future. 
 
 96 
 
So lies our dying babe, unknowing he causes the 
 anguish 
 
 That breaks o'er the still, white face of the des- 
 olate mother; 
 
 Kisses and prayers and tears, but the soul is 
 departing. 
 
 Yes, ye died hard and long — life's mighty 
 affections! 
 
 II. 
 
 Lower, yet lower, the flame; but long has my old 
 
 heart been dreaming. 
 Born is the bright New Year, like a willing king 
 
 o'er a kingdom 
 That clasps the unknown to unknown, and smiles 
 
 at the sad face departing. 
 Yet is our God over all, the thirty years I have 
 
 passed here; 
 Caring for dying and dead, and assuaging life 
 
 sorrows ; 
 Doing for God's clear sake the work of a Sister of 
 
 Mercy— 
 Never aspiring to them but having their God, their 
 
 Religion, 
 These years look on me to-day, and their faces are 
 
 peaceful. 
 Yet would I know 7 of the answer to prayer. In the 
 
 waiting hereafter, 
 All must be well with those I have loved; for is it 
 
 not written 
 "Ask and you shall receive!" Heart and life have 
 
 been asking 
 Heaven for those souls I have loved; Heaven to 
 
 each devious pathway, 
 Pathways that rise from the grave, and pathways 
 
 that wind amid error. 
 
 97 
 
"Ask and ye shall receive/' To the God of the dead 
 
 and the living- — 
 Merciful Father of all! heart and life have been 
 
 asking — 
 "And ve shall receive!" 
 
 III. 
 
 Long has the night-nurse slept. List! the vesper 
 
 bell of the New Year. 
 There is slow pain at my heart, — a sob from a 
 
 slumbering sorrow. 
 Ah! I was dreaming last night, but here is the 
 
 present and duty; 
 Patience and prayer lead away to the beds of the 
 
 sick and the dying. 
 
 IV. 
 
 He will not need my care, 'round whom priest and 
 
 sisters are kneeling, 
 Bearing our great, good God to the soul on its 
 
 terrible journey. 
 "O Christian soul, depart to thy Judge and thy 
 
 Saviour!" 
 Still, all still, — move away, leave the nurse with the 
 
 dead man. 
 "Burned in the London theatre!" I gaze for the 
 
 first time 
 On the still face of the dead. I have pressed down 
 
 the eyelids 
 Ere my dim eyes discern that the dead is Fred 
 
 Ashton, my husband. 
 Cry not, O heart, in thy pain; we have learned to 
 
 endure and to suffer! 
 Press it down, let it moan, let it writhe, let it 
 
 conquer! 
 
 98 
 
Life for one word! ( ) bend low, hold his head on 
 
 my bosom ; 
 Back to his old love at last! Kiss his brow, kiss 
 
 his eyelids! — 
 Break for his soul from the frozen pain the long 
 
 De Profnndis: 
 Gratitude, bring" me my tears; he has died with the 
 
 rites of Religion. 
 Old heart, God watches o'er all. Rise, be strong 
 
 and be silent. 
 Now is the corpse in the dead-room alone, and the 
 
 night-nurse — on duty. 
 
 99 
 
BERNARDUS. 
 
 Imperious winds of winter stir the trees, 
 My stately forest bends at their weak call 
 Obeying Him who speaks beyond the voice. 
 O Life, that wanders hand in hand with Death! 
 Commutual agents of a common cause! 
 Thy mysteries gather round me, but I bow 
 Obeying Him w T ho speaks beyond the voice. 
 
 Loved solitude, loved pain! Can I be he 
 
 Who, glowing in the light of noble lives, 
 
 Arose and cried for combat, cried for souls? 
 
 Cried strongly; for o'er borne on ocean winds, 
 
 Saddening the skies of golden Italy, 
 
 Came wailings from the far America 
 
 That souls were dying, grand Italian souls 
 
 Rich with the breath of nobles of the world. 
 
 Then came the torch that burned all human ties. 
 
 "Bernardus," ran the letter from Pauline, 
 
 "Vittorio is dead: alas for me! 
 
 They killed him, Father, killed Vittorio. 
 
 With morning he went laughing from my side. 
 
 (You know the soul of truth, the heart of fire.) 
 
 'Tis midnight. Lo! he sleeps and shall not rise. 
 
 O burning heart, thy first rest and thy last! 
 
 O soul of fire, to be so cold, so low! 
 
 They killed him, but his death knell waits for mine. 
 
 Pauline, fair child, Vittorio the true, 
 
 And is it thus the bright America 
 
 Unrolls the silver scroll that star-like shone? 
 
 In yonder Abbey's shade I see you now 
 
 ioo 
 
Chasing your golden childhood. Now I stand 
 Before the white procession sealing thee 
 True heart — to heart so sadly falsely true. 
 And now — O scene unknown! Too late I go 
 From thee, Italian skies, Italian home; 
 To late I come to thee, white land of souls. 
 
 Ah me! from this low bed I live once more 
 One year, whose every moment was a love 
 Immersed in God, diffused o'er human souls. 
 I fought, I conquered; and a prostrate self 
 Lamenting, freed its caged divinity 
 Which bounding to its center, walked with God, 
 Thence God-like walked with men. Then kindred 
 
 souls 
 Responsive rose, and rich the harvest grew 
 Of souls for God. From far Loretto's pines 
 To fair Los Angeles, the fields were mine. 
 Oh! how I felt the God within me speak, 
 As, Sunday mornings, 'neath the lordly pines, 
 I rose to bless my cherished country-men: 
 I rose to plead the cause of Heaven with them, 
 To gild the mystery o'er human lives; 
 To open yon eternity and show 
 The perfect thing, — the broken chrysalis. 
 In the dark depths of restless longing eyes, 
 A peace arose, a reverent content: 
 While an electric circle thro' that throng 
 Bore love to me and passed with love to them. 
 
 Perhaps, grown God-like in commune with God, 
 L'prising Self had seen the adoring throng, 
 And my strong intellect, with poison-pride 
 Of Lucifer, had said, "Non serviam." 
 It may have been so. God ordains the best, 
 And this I know, — that yon eternity 
 Is calling me, and I approach nor fear. 
 The end of life secured, calmly we view 
 
 IOI 
 
Those guideless rests and wanderings on the way, 
 Those hours replete with fate, those joys and griefs, 
 And that great combat where the soul has bled. 
 
 Aye, calmly now I hear the Oregon, 
 
 Bewailing to the pines the gathering storm. 
 
 Great trees that stood unmoved yet moaned because 
 
 My thousands waited me beneath the storm. 
 
 I hear the rain, the thousand liquid balls 
 
 Break on the trees that hid the scowling skies. 
 
 I feel again the apprehensive chill 
 
 As like strong demons, from a battle ground 
 
 Precipitate, yet closed in burning strife, 
 
 The lightnings struggled mid the crashing trees. 
 
 Why, as encircled thus I looked to Heaven, 
 
 Did falling trees and thunder from the flash 
 
 Sound mid the flame, "Bernardus, God is kind!" 
 
 This had the demon heard? that, from the strife, 
 
 Perceived me, recognized a soul to know 
 
 In that bright world his birth-right forfeit throne; 
 
 And crashing thus in mocking maddened power, 
 
 Assails me, strikes me, permeates my blood — 
 
 A poison-fire; and my strong sinews bind 
 
 In fixed contortions; while the glorious eyes 
 
 Close in his light forever. Now I feel 
 
 The death hand crushing, too unkind to kill. 
 
 Ah well! calm evening came, but I had grown 
 
 Blind Old Bernardus. O the fierce Cannae! 
 
 While my hot spirit loathed the hideous bonds, 
 
 And latent pride cried long, "Non serviam!" 
 
 And all the hopes of all the years wailed loud. 
 
 While, rushing from the future, grim despairs 
 
 Assailed the white robed Peace which weeping said, 
 
 "His will be done. Bernardus, God is kind," 
 
 t 
 
 But as the peace-prayer sank in human cries, 
 And the white tears grew blood upon the plain; 
 Faith stretched across the sky a wondrous bow 
 
 102 
 
That rising eastward, touched the western shore; — 
 
 A scarlet band of beauty; thereon traced 
 
 As it were of snowy mist and foamy wings 
 
 The words, "Eternity! Eternity!" 
 
 By day, by night, it shone above the strife; 
 
 Divinely kind, a weeping sympathy. 
 
 Grand o'er my night of day, my night of night. 
 
 While I beheld a thousand silent things 
 
 Rise from the earth unto the crimson skies. 
 
 There as a mighty vortex summoned them, 
 
 All came, all sank in that "Eternity." 
 
 And now the sky is dark, horizon bound, 
 
 With restless things that ever more ascend, 
 
 And ever more approach and fall therein. 
 
 My conquered spirit cried, "this scene must be 
 
 The things of Time which meet eternity." 
 
 Ah ! life of pain that soon shall cry no more, 
 
 Eternal spirit soon to wander free, 
 
 Endure thy strange companionship awhile 
 
 And breathe, with that dim echo 'round the world, 
 
 "His will be done. Bernardus, God is kind." 
 
 103 
 
SONGS OF HOME AND SONGS 
 OF HEAVEN. 
 
 There are plenty to extol the hero of the battle- 
 field, to sing the sorrows and delights of love, to 
 lament over the sorrows of the living, over the 
 graves of the dead; but oh! for an angel voice, 
 sounding from shore to shore, to sing the song of 
 Heaven. Sounding o'er the narrow alley, the 
 wretched court where children live and know not 
 they are wretched. Sounding in the lone attic, the 
 damp basement where all day long, all night long 
 moan poverty, neglect, disease. Sounding where 
 lie irrevocable wrong, misunderstanding, change, 
 grief, which only the grave can heal. 
 
 Surely it is our grandest theme. By whatsoever 
 name it may be called — Nirvana, Valhalla, Elysium, 
 Heaven, we mean the abode of peace, of never 
 ending happiness which the human heart craves, 
 which reason demands, which Religion promises. 
 Say as our wisest have said that there are differ- 
 ences which we cannot reconcile, mysteries which 
 we cannot understand; but say more earnestly in 
 union with the innate voice of the soul, with the 
 noblest aspirations of earth's noblest children, — that 
 Good is paramount; that Love is the name of that 
 almighty Being so silently guiding universes; that 
 evil shall, in the Divine economy, conduce to good; 
 that death is the liberation of the soul. One voice 
 has spoken over the gloom of the grave, and the 
 sorrow which hears that voice becomes a holy joy: 
 "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he who 
 believeth in me, although he were dead, shall live; 
 and every one who liveth and believeth in me shall 
 
 104 
 
not meet with eternal death." What joy these 
 words have brought to earth! It is worth being a 
 Christian just to repeat them to the sorrowing 
 heart, to murmur them low and solemnly amid the 
 lamentation of the soul when we kneel by our dead. 
 Behold the mother bending over the white death- 
 sleep of her child, whose every feature becomes 
 more beautiful, more intensely dear while she gazes; 
 whose words and actions rise like great flood waves 
 over her soul while she gazes! Whose words shall 
 console that brokenness of heart? His who made 
 that heart; "I am the Resurrection and the Life." 
 Like the white cloud mist of the morning shall fall 
 Religion's requiem; like the steady radiance of 
 Rigel in the winter sky shall shine Religion's 
 promises. 
 
 We see the child standing by the still form of a 
 father, bending over the ashy cheek, the thin, white 
 hair, the lifeless clasp of the cold hands. Who 
 shall take from her the faith in the prayer which 
 nature teaches her to pour forth ; the prayer for the 
 welfare of that dear soul ; the prayer that they shall 
 meet again in a better world? The hand that would 
 stretch out over the darkness of human life, and 
 drag down that light shining from Heaven, is the 
 hand of a demon. 
 
 We stand beside the woman who has sinned and 
 suffered. We remember the meek Christ who said, 
 "Neither do I condemn thee." Words of kindness 
 are spoken, words of hope. 
 
 We stand by the infirm old man tottering to the 
 long rest of the grave. Words of kindness are 
 spoken, words of hope. 
 
 We stand by those long monotonous lives which 
 daily take up their burdens simply and earnestly, 
 not knowing that they are heroes. Words of kind- 
 ness are spoken, words of hope because we believe 
 in the promises of Christ. 
 
 105 
 
HARP ECHOES. 
 
 Shine, star of earth, the hope that points to Heaven ! 
 Calm o'er each life let thy soft splendor fall; 
 What else shall heal the world-wound hourly given? 
 What else shall answer when the erring call? 
 
 What else shall gild the gloom above the grave? 
 What else shall solace where the heart has bled? 
 What else shall shine with power o'er land and 
 
 wave, 
 And promise us again our dead, our dead? 
 
 Shine o'er the night, the night of strife and wrong; 
 Shine where e'er sorrow sits, and evil sleeps; 
 Shine o'er the awakening of a weary world; 
 Shine where Religion weeps. 
 
 THE LARGE-PRINT BIBLE. 
 
 The large-print Bible is open wide 
 
 On my mother's knee; 
 But her head is back, and the closed eyes see 
 The children that once played 'round her knee, 
 
 And the merry look, 
 
 From the apron nook, 
 And the clasp that lies on the finger-stained book. 
 
 The large-print Bible is open wide 
 
 On my mother's knee; but the still tears glide 
 
 Through the sheltering hand; 
 The silence is hard to understand. 
 And her dreams call aloud, call aloud 
 To the pitiful pride of the proud, 
 
 106 
 
To the wanderers that walk with the crowd. 
 To the bright eyes that sleep in a shroud. 
 
 Call aloud, call aloud 
 To the pattering- rain 
 That breaks on the plain, 
 That it come back again 
 
 To the cloud! 
 
 The large-print Bible is open wide 
 
 On my mother's knee, but grief is still, 
 
 For she lies in a golden dream: 
 And I kiss the brow and the thin gray hair 
 And the tear from the cheek and the wet eye lash, 
 And I hold her close till the children come 
 And laugh in the sun-light of childhood home, 
 Then pass thro' a cloud world angel bright 
 
 Into twilight and night. 
 But they sing as they fade in the air 
 "Of that home of the soul bright and fair," 
 And the welcome awaiting her there. 
 
 "In the sweet by and by" 
 We shall meet, we shall part never more: 
 
 Hush the sob, hush the sigh, 
 
 In the old lullaby 
 Of the babes on the beautiful shore. 
 
 "In the sweet by and by" 
 Where the pain and the parting are o'er, 
 Where the wanderer shall wander no more, 
 Where the love world shall love as of yore, 
 "We shall meet on that beautiful shore." 
 
 THE ANGELUS. 
 
 Day was weaving shreds with twilight: 
 Sank the sun into the West, 
 Lingering rays blushed over ocean 
 And the scene held magic rest. 
 
Came the echoes from the city 
 (Faintly sank into the sea.) 
 Of the bells, the minstrel keepers 
 Of the time years' treasury. 
 
 Far the Angelus was ringing, 
 And we knelt together there; 
 While the sun's last ray departed, 
 And the sea moaned thro' our prayer. 
 
 I have stood by other oceans 
 Traversed many a weary shore, 
 But the fullest glow of beauty 
 There departing, rose no more. 
 
 Far the Angelus is ringing, 
 Faintly stealing o'er the sea; 
 And a star of memory shineth 
 In the great eternity. 
 
 CREDO. 
 
 That all of evil shall be good 
 That, bending to the earthy plain, 
 Some hand shall pluck the Tree of 111 
 And all its lingering roots of pain, 
 
 Hoc credo. 
 
 That want of knowledge is not sin, 
 Nor is its blighting progeny ; 
 That crime is never what it seems, 
 But what it is on Calvary, 
 
 Hoc credo. 
 
 That God shall call across the world. 
 And Time shall answer from its birth. 
 That, in a realm where death is not, 
 My soul shall' meet the loves of earth. 
 
 Hoc credo. 
 ioS 
 
THOUGHTS. 
 
 They tell me I shall die. There looms a night 
 Whose sequent dawning I shall never see; 
 Or there shall be a dawn whose sequent night, 
 Benignly coming, cometh not to me. 
 
 A little ceremony, a few tears; 
 
 A requiem pleading for the parted soul: 
 
 A little wonder from the passing crowd 
 
 That sighs as onward the dark hearse shall roll; 
 
 And I shall sleep low with the mighty dead. 
 And I shall know all that the dead now know: 
 Shall be as uncommunicative too 
 Concerning* certain rites we undergo. 
 
 Above me shall the fruitful seasons roll, 
 
 Above me shall the storms of Winter rave, 
 
 Shall Summer thro' the breeze borne boughs 
 
 complain 
 And bend in light and shadow o'er my grave. 
 
 Such is earth earthy, and we fear it not 
 
 If homeward bound the glorious soul shall soar: 
 
 Nor cease to live within the smile of God, 
 
 Xor cease to exult from star-bound shore to shore: 
 
 Nor cease to exult for all eternity. 
 Oblivious of the narrow things of earth; 
 All conscious of the glorious destiny 
 Vibrating in the strong eternal birth. 
 
 EASTER BELLS. 
 
 Loud the Easter bells are ringing, 
 Alleluias fill the air; 
 "Resurrexit, sicut dixit!" 
 Bend, O grateful world! in prayer. 
 
 109 
 
Echoes rise from cliff and wildwood, 
 All the world is glad; 
 I recall the home of childhood, 
 And my heart is sad. 
 
 Ring God's promise o'er the wide world, 
 Linger o'er my home; 
 Tell the loving hearts that wait there 
 Of that world to come. 
 
 Say that dark ways shall be made plain. 
 Say that loved ones never roam; 
 Ring, O bells, across the wide world, 
 Linger o'er my home. 
 
 RENUNCIATION. 
 
 What I gave away for God 
 
 That I keep for Heaven; 
 
 I have furrowed deep the sod, 
 
 And my dear one given. 
 
 Ne'er on earth to clasp thy hand, 
 
 Meet in the better land. 
 
 Meet me where the farewell song 
 
 Never wakes a sigh; 
 
 Meet me where the clouds of wrong 
 
 Never dim the sky. 
 
 Ne'er on earth to clasp thy hand 
 
 Meet me in the better land. 
 
 Meet me where our souls are pure 
 As yon lamps of even; 
 Meet me where our loves endure 
 As the loves of Heaven. 
 Ne'er on earth to clasp thy hand 
 Meet me in the better land. 
 
 no 
 
JUST BECAUSE ONE BABY DIED, 
 
 Who shall pause or who shall listen 
 Mid the moving tide? 
 Who shall know how hearts can suffer 
 Just because one baby died? 
 
 Who shall know that all life's sorrow 
 Knelt by baby's bed and cried, 
 While pain chilled the golden ringlets 
 And she died? 
 
 Who shall know that all earth withered 
 Unto compass, coffin-wide; 
 Unto one still form with lilies, 
 Just because one baby died? 
 
 Where the myrtle ivy slumber 
 Even now a tear is dried, 
 And I love the whole world better, 
 Just because one baby died. 
 
 Other faces now surround me, 
 Other footsteps bid me guide; 
 Life is kinder, Heaven is nearer 
 Just because one baby died. 
 
 HEAVEN, 
 
 Earth-children, there is rest in Heaven : 
 Strong choirs shall raise the psalm sublime 
 That lulls all strife in victory, 
 While Toil shall sob far down in Time. 
 
 in 
 
Earth-children, there is joy in Heaven: 
 For standing where the Sinless stood 
 All malice falls from each desire, 
 And all that pleases, — must be good. 
 
 Earth-children, there is love in Heaven: 
 The idol shrined within each breast 
 Shall live, shall love its devotee, 
 Our saddest here is Heaven's best. 
 
 Earth-children, there is peace in Heaven: 
 And we shall sorrow never more ; 
 The time-storm's circling billows roll 
 In gentlest surges on that shore. 
 
 Earth-children, thus the dreamer dreams, 
 And thus the prayer for you ascends. 
 My heart is kind for all the world, 
 And all the world and I are friends. 
 
 THE ANGEL. 
 
 I bend o'er the dead in the white robed bed 
 While the farewell sighs are given, 
 I breathe on the air from the censer of prayer 
 That the home of the soul is Heaven. 
 
 I bend o'er the world with my banner unfurled 
 Till the night of sorrow is gone, 
 I murmur of peace where the soul surges cease, 
 And the ages of Heaven roll on. 
 
 My throne is Faith, my palace is Death; 
 And I am a Voice that is given 
 To cry sublime, o'er the sorrows of time, 
 That the home of the soul is Heaven, 
 
 112 
 
EUGENE. 
 
 Just a beauteous baby sleeping, 
 Smiling to the angels' call; 
 And a mother vigil keeping 
 Dreaming — that was all. 
 
 Just a part of fate unfolding 
 Silent as a falling star, 
 Guiding baby through the waters 
 To the "Gates ajar." 
 
 Just a little life-way ending 
 Where the purest lilies blow ; 
 Straight, unstained, amid the mazes 
 Lost in crime and woe. 
 
 Silent watchers vigil keeping; 
 Earth bound while the angels call, 
 And a lonely mother weeping, 
 Praying — that was all. 
 
 EUGENE. 
 
 O hearts that mourn above the dead! 
 Yet hear an angel strain : — 
 "All silent is the waiting bed, 
 But ye shall rise again. " 
 
 "Since Jesus wept above the dead, 
 Thy sorrow may complain; 
 He whispers low whose heart has bled,- 
 The dead shall rise again.'' 
 
 "While Faith is pleading o'er thy dead. 
 Oh! murmur thro' thy pain, — 
 All silent is the waiting bed, 
 But we shall rise again." 
 
 "3 
 
HOMES THAT ARE DESOLATE. 
 
 Homes that are desolate! Ah! my mother sits 
 
 Artist divine, within the lonely room, 
 
 While wondrous visions rise 'neath her deep tender 
 eyes, 
 
 And forms that are not walk in memory gloom. 
 For on the vacant air 
 There are faces wondrous fair, 
 There are youthful footsteps springing, 
 There is guileless laughter ringing, 
 There are childish voices singing, 
 Scene of light, angel bright! 
 
 There is love its vigil keeping, 
 
 O'er the couch of beauty sleeping: 
 
 Silence deep, rosy sleep, 
 
 Holy night! 
 
 For, on the vacant air, 
 There are faces filled with care; 
 And the voices die away 
 In a melancholy lay, 
 
 And a groan ; 
 For a pale child bows the head, 
 And upon the breast lies dead. 
 
 Loved Leone! 
 Weary winds of Winter rave 
 While we lay her in the grave, 
 Silent snows breathe repose 
 While the north wind wildly blows. 
 
 For a brave heart touched the shadow 
 Where Life's promises begin: 
 
 There was sin. 
 
 Ah— well! 
 Then his country called away, 
 And he donned the sombre Gray, 
 
 And he fell. 
 
 114 
 
They are coming from the child-world, 
 From the love world, from the home, 
 From the sorrow, from the battle, — 
 To the dreamer, lo! they come. 
 
 AMAMUS TE. 
 
 For the heart that heard earth moan 
 Thro' the strain the spheres intone, 
 Sought the soul and quit the throne ; 
 
 Amamus Te. 
 
 For the soul in agony 
 Keeping its sublime decree 
 In the stern Gethsemani; 
 
 Amamus Te. 
 
 For the weary pathway pressed, 
 For the Cross and thorny rest, 
 Unto "Consummatum est;" 
 
 Amamus Te. 
 
 PRAYER. 
 
 Stay beneath me in the valley, 
 All of earthly care, 
 While my spirit seeks the mountain 
 Pinnacled in prayer. 
 
 O my soul's love Heart of Jesus! 
 While the earth clouds roll, 
 Raise me to Thee, great Ideal, 
 Inundate my soul. 
 
 115 
 
In thy high transcendent beauty, 
 
 Let my spirit lie 
 
 As Arcturus now reposes 
 
 In the midnight sky. 
 
 Take from me, all that offends Thee, 
 Make my life like thine; 
 Patient, noble, generous, god-like— 
 Human life divine. 
 
 Cleanse my soul in anguished burning, 
 
 Fires of Purity! 
 
 Teach the majesty of sorrow, 
 
 Lone Gethsemane! 
 
 Lead me down into the valley ; 
 I will meet life's part: 
 Strengthened in the holy love light 
 Of the Sacred Heart. 
 
 REST, 
 
 Our hearts can find no place of rest 
 Until they seek that fount above, 
 Deep in the City of the Blest 
 Where all love joins eternal Love. 
 
 Thou art, O God! my soul's repose, 
 
 And if I never rest in Thee 
 
 I am forever as the bird 
 
 That wings a world beneath the sea. 
 
 My soul is portion of Thy soul ; 
 As Thou art, so am I — divine 
 And if I join Thee not again, 
 Eternal isolation mine. 
 
 116 
 
STORM. 
 
 Thou art the sea-gull resting on the wave, 
 
 O prayerful human soul! 
 The storm is on the deep, the lightning blast, 
 Upborne by echoing thunders, cuts the vast, 
 
 And Ural ranges roll : 
 Black skies descending sink into the wave, — 
 
 O bird ! O human soul ! 
 Above, within, encompassed, and alone, 
 Deep in the death world, and not doomed to die. 
 
 Bright star of our goal, 
 While we wait o'er our deathless graves 
 
 Shine strong in Eternity's sky! 
 
 RESURREXIT. 
 
 He is risen, we shall rise! 
 Bid the paean roll, 
 Thrilling to the zenith skies. 
 From each ransomed soul. 
 
 Sing it o'er the sobbing waves 
 Bathed in sunset glow; 
 Sing it o'er the waiting graves 
 Robed in purest snow. 
 
 Sunset banners are unfurled, 
 And my soul is still; 
 Clasping hands beyond the world, 
 Willing but Thy will. 
 
 RETURN. 
 
 Jesus watching on our altar, 
 To Thy patient love we come; 
 We are weary, we have wandered 
 Far, oh! far from home. 
 117 
 
Faith is singing songs of childhood, 
 Old emotions fill the breast; 
 Low the Altar-voice is sighing 
 "Come to me and rest." 
 
 FAITH. 
 
 Credo that Jesus died for me, 
 That I shall live eternally, 
 
 In pleasure or in pain; 
 That since His eucharistic birth, 
 The Son of God remains on earth, 
 
 And ever shall remain. 
 
 That o'er the world, from end to end, 
 The eyes of a kind Father bend 
 
 In pity o'er His own: 
 That every heartfelt prayer is heard, 
 Contrition's sigh and trembling word, 
 
 And Sorrow's meekest moan: 
 
 That laying down the earth worn heart, 
 And rising from its mortal part, 
 
 My spirit shall be free; 
 Ethereal bound across the night, 
 To be a beauty truth and light 
 
 For all eternity. 
 
 PEACE. 
 
 Across the night, with silent pinions furled 
 The angels sang a song of peace 
 
 Unto a sleeping world. 
 O'er the guardian lights of cities, 
 O'er the winding river's bed, 
 O'er the forests, o'er the fountains, 
 
 This is what they said: 
 118 
 
"Sister world, we know thy sorrow, 
 1 > 11 1 we know thy wondrous home; 
 Rise to-night, and rest to-morrow 
 Never more to roam. 
 
 Sister world, thy unveiled darkness 
 I s supernal light ; 
 Truth is paramount and Reason 
 And eternal Risrht." 
 
 119 
 
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