Class ?^ ? 5 ^1 Book Copyright N" COPYRIGHT DEPOSm froiu a j-ai',ii>.g by E. H. Mhui Sherwuod Slitdios, A. i '. /J^,^^///y^^^^^^^^^^ /f^. X4l^ PRESIDENT OF THE CAMEO CLUB OF NEW YORK WALDORF-ASTORIA ROSE OF THE FLAME IMMORTAL BY ROSE M. DE VAUX-ROYER Author of "Soul Shadows,'' "Songs and Sonnets,'' "Influence Telepaihique" (published in French), etc. Tarn corde quam manu THE CAMEO PRESS AND PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY ^^e Copyright, 1920, by the author Rose M. de Vaux-Royer Printed in the United States of America All rights reserved Edition limited to five hundred copies ^ oj which this is No.. .4Sil For permission to reprint most of the poems included in this volume thanks are due to the New York Herald, New York Times, The Overland Monthly, Washington News Letter, Nautilus, The California Magazine, Munsey's, and various magazines and periodicals in which they first appeared. M^v 19 1920 ©aA570172 IN MEMORY OF MY DEAR HUSBAND CLARENCE de VAUX-ROYER WHOSE ELOQUENCE IN MUSIC AND GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT WERE UNIVERSALLY RECOGNIZED, THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR A WORD IN MEMORY For long years I knew Clarence de Vaux-Royer, and it was a delight to know him. He had the graces of a gentleman and the courtesies of a friend. More than this he was an artist, a violinist of exquisite touch, of infallible taste, of indefatigible devotion. Often in my own home and in the concert halls of Manhattan, I have listened to the witchery of his melodious bow ; and only music of the highest quality and performed with the highest artistry, ever breathed from his beloved violin. Clarence de Vaux-Royer was an honor to the musical circles of America. Everywhere he held high the ideals of his great art. Many will miss his friendship and his ministrations, now that he has gone on into the Next Chamber of the Mystery. We follow him only with happy thoughts in his new adventure ; for he is now more alive than ever, more free to express the fine melodies of his spirit. Edwin Markham Staten Island, N. Y., February, 1920 IN MEMORY OF CLARENCE DE VAUX-ROYER He whose divining heart and hand knew here How from tense chords rapt melodies to win. Now draws within some happier unseen sphere More golden music from his violin. Clinton Scollard. iv PREFACE We slowly learn the language of the hours whose voice is hushed. It is not in words, but the silence that ensues that bears the conviction of our love; and those who have loved deeply have learned many secrets unknown to others. The great silences of death and grief are broken that others may be comforted. In 1896-98 I was a student of Psycho-therafie in Paris, and at this time was appointed delegate to the capitals of Europe for the Medico-Legal Society of New York. Honorary membership was extended to me by the French Societe Legal et Medicin and I passed through the doors of the Palais de Justice under unusually pleas- ant auspices. It was in Paris that I met the happy- hearted musical soul, Clarence de Vaux-Royer. His devotion to his art — inborn of the spirit — could not be exceeded, but of the temperament of Mozart and Shelley, he was not strong physically, and his physicians had made a forecast of two years for him. (He outlived the term by twenty years.) I advised his return to America. After six months' absence he wrote me of his illness and discouragement in New York and entreated my presence. I cabled and went to him on the first steamship. La Champagne, in mid-winter. Upon his earlier departure from Paris we had experienced a wonderful and accurate transmission of thought — tele- pathically — with such corroboratory evidence as to make it valuable to the scientific world. It w^as published in the French Journal " Les Annals des Science Psychique " at the request of Dr. Charles Richet of the Academy of Medicine. What I wish to add of import is that since he has en- tered Immortal Life I have received similarly intelligent telepathic communication from him. We know that the "dead" do not die — that mind transcends matter; that no material function or sense is called upon to bridge the etheric spaces — any more than to solve a mathematical problem; that a law remains a law. Every day we pray " Thy kingdom come," and when the manifestation appears, we often miss the revelation. Nearly 2,000 years ago, life in continuity was demon- strated to man. Today as yesterday the law is operative. "Man is not the offspring of flesh, but of Spirit — of Life not of death. Life is of God . . . eternal, self- existent, . . . everlasting . . . whom nothing can erase."* " Mind never becomes dust." Mind does not inhabit the grave ; it is its own power, and cannot be annihilated, for God is Mind. VERITIES There is no night ! Who follows the sun's ray And travels in its light Knows but eternal day. There is no death! From out the warring strife Man's spirit — as Christ saith — Will rise to eternal life. Rose M. de Vaux-Royer. * " Science and Health," p. 289. vi CONTENTS Page Man, The Immortal xii Rose of the Flame 1 Deserted Beaches 1 Dead Days 2 Islands of Infinity 3 Butterflies 4 The Miracle of Spring 5 To a Canary 6 In My Summer Garden = . . . . 7 The Conqueror Worm 7 Faiths and Creeds 8 Idolatry 9 The Valley of Bloom 11 Unity 11 In Memory of Elbert Hubbard 12 Tempest-Tossed 13 Reverie 14^ The Search for Heaven 15 December Days 16 Democracy (1917) 17 The Poets 18 Dreamer of Dreams 19 The Passing of a Poet 20 To Joaquin Miller 21 A Sketch 22 The Stars Above the Stars 23 Consolation 24 Pipes o' Pan 24 Longing 25 vii Page Cameos 26 The Mathematician's Passing 27 Jerusalem (1917) 29 Springtime 30 Woman in Marble 31 Days 31 Power of Place 32 An Hour of Mirth 33 Justice 34 Wild Roses 35 Sea Song 36 Pastels 37 Little Loves 38 Query ? 39 Whither ? 39 In the Beginning 41 Divine Desire 42 Birth of Bermuda 42 Reflections 43 To a Boy with Poet-Face 44 Vanished Leaves 45 Intermezzo 47 Transformation 47 To the Egyptian Sphynx 48 Echoes 49 Frailties 50 Evolution 51 Woman 52 High Control 52 Lighted Windows 53 At Udaipur 53 Criticism 55 Understanding 56 viii Page Silhouettes 56 Spring's Miracle 57 Dawn 58 Till Dreams Come True 59 The Little Country Cottage 60 To a Bird of Song 61 La Suicidio 62 Symbols 62 Where the Roses Twine 63 In Memoriam 64 Departed 65 To One Passed Beyond 66 My Heart a Lute 68 Love's Sunset 69 Constancy 70 He Is Risen 70 The Mulberry-Tree 71 Then I'll Come Back to You 72 Loss and Gain 73 The Immortal Dead 73 Spring 74 Fall 74 The Law 74 Aux Ames Bien Nee 75 The Light Beyond 76 April's Music 76 Twilight Shadows 77 All that Perisheth Shall Live 78 Restoration '<'9 A Dream 81 Tributes 83 A Dream Interview 86 IX THE HARP Blow through me, wind of the world divine, Gentle or sharp; Each chord of the trembling soul is thine — I am thy harp. Set in the casement of earth I caught One starry strain. Blow through me, wind of the heavenly thought, Again! again! (Justice) Wendell Phillips Stafford. Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, March 9, 1920. ROSE OF THE FLAME The Title. — ^Who can gather again the scattered petals of a rose and recharge it with fresh perfume? The soul is silent in the flower, but manifests itself in man. The flames with which the Greeks enveloped and consumed the bodies of the departed, die out and are lost; but the flame of life does not die — it is immortal — bestowed from the Divine treasure house. xi MAN, THE IMMORTAL A N inner sense appeals and questions why? ^^TL That you who were so near, so very far Appear; even as some luminous distant star That burns yet brightly to the mortal eye When night and all her radiant hosts pass by; Vanquished by dawn, which dims, but cannot mar The worlds invisible, nor yet debar Your silent place in the eternal sky. I know you live {enshrined, vital and warm. Within God^s arms enfolded)^ even as I. Obscured my Tnsion to discern the form Your spirit radiates in realms most high; Where birth greets death transmuted from the clay. Man, the immortal, holds the flaming ray! Xll ROSE OF THE FLAME (in memory of JOYCE KILMER ) ROSE of the flame immortal ! Flame from on high; Piercing the heavenly portal, There let it lie! Green grow the graves of passion ; Silent the slain ! Roses, strewn in sweet fashion, Crown hill and plain. Heroes, life's wine are spending; Drenching the soil ; Crimson the flow — unending The torture and toil. Flowers of passion, burning Under blue sky; Heart-beats of hope and yearning Throb endlessly! DESERTED BEACHES THERE is no stir in all the atmosphere ; A quiet calm is brooding o'er the main ; Creation's murmurs do not greet us here Where silence throbs its passion and its pain. 1 DEAD DAYS GHOSTS of the dead days haunt me With lustral glow and smile ; Old tendernesses taunt me, And hold my heart awhile. Faint rose-leaves — resurrected Like perfumes past — beguile. Could we but lure, together. Those halcyon days that sing Of other times ; and tether Renascent powers of Spring That gild the sylvan meadow With sunlit glimmering! In evening's silent spaces Hang pictures of the past ; Of unforgotten faces That enter at Love's fast, With their immortal treasure Of happiness, dream-cast. Dust-shrouded faiths are dying ; Deluded their false fears Which play on heartstrings, crying In spectral chant or tears. Oh ! miracle of memory That yearns adown the years. Of this fine instrument God gives. 'Tis you that may remember, And I that must forget The fire from some old ember That may be smouldering yet. (Dim ghosts of dead days haunt me, Vague shadows of regret.) ISLANDS OF INFINITY NATURE wears at even-while Still her sad mysterious smile ; Turned the flagons of the vine Back to earth — the wasted wine I Music penetrates the past Faintly, tranquilly at last ; And the floating petals fall In the sea where slumber all. Love and hate and passion's lust Kiss, united in the dust. Blended, both the fair and wise Sleep beneath the watchful skies. Softly go ; serenity Waits by the untroubled sea ; Fair the phantom that is seen In these Grecian groves of green. Hellas greets you : " Who shall say Life is short — dream of a day ! " For the Breath — immortal Will — Which transports us, ne'er is still. Sunsets pass while I repeat Nature's secret: — Man's retreat In his ageing, endless quest. Is not bounded, east or west ! Youth with bloom and beauty blent, Lit the torch of love, and went Dancing into shadowland — "Follow after!" his command. And this dream-pent path, oh, friend ! We must follow to the end. Softly go; serenity Waits by the untroubled sea. On these shores of silvered sheen Minstrels chant, of mystic mien. Sunset pilots paths to Thee^ — Islands of Infinity ! BUTTERFLIES GOD'S in His temple ! aflame and afloat. Butterflies flit in their filmy array ; Sailing the fields in a frail fairy boat — Tiny aeronauts, here for a day ; Man in his grandeur is even as they. 4 Simple the service of love and of life — Myriad forms of the Infinite mind ; Vain is the tempest of warring and strife, Soon all resolves to its own and its kind — Held in the law of the ages enshrined. THE MIRACLE OF SPRING I'VE come again ! I've come again ! To roam by rock and river, To scent the wild anemone And set the world a-quiver. I burn in heart of bird and bee, I temper tides a-flowing. And scepter with new majesty The flower-blent fields a-blowing. I court the canvas of the night- Emblazoned beauty ever; (Imbedded far from mortal sight. The secrets of the Giver). From empyrean solitude With shafts of light and laughter, I paint the great infinitude Of blossoms following after. Launched on the auras of the air. By sunny and waste places, Rebirth is hovering everywhere In merry joy-lit faces. 5 And Spring's rare miracle includes This resurrection ; sighing On Pan's low pipes her interludes : " We live, even after dying ! " TO A CANARY THOU trilling form of joy! O bird, with throbbing throat ; The sorcery of thy note Is rapture's deep alloy. Apostle of ecstasy! With flitting yellow wing. What is the theme you sing In such alluring ke}^.^ Quaint gymnast, fleet and free; By music's spell enshrined; What high melodious mind Inspires thy minstrelsy.? IN MY SUMMER GARDEN OUT in my garden of blossoms and birds — Colors of opal and rich Orient — Lotus-cupped lilies the mirrored pool girds ; Arched by the latticed trees, dreaming, content. Rarest of roses grow ; fair Persian dyes ! Steeped in the nectar that Lucullus sips. Golden and fleeting my summertime flies ; Transient its rays as the amber moon dips. July 9, 1919. THE CONQUEROR WO RBI " God made man in His own image, in the image of God mxide He him."— Genesis. BUT who created thee, thou conqueror, wonn ! What need was voiced that thou, too, shouldst appear In hideous form of matter animate. With power to crumble the deserted throne ? Base scavenger of transitory fame, Existing where was once invested mind. And trembling held as lord of that domain. What dim funereal processes are thine. Thou tiniest form of law immutable! Consuming buried hopes toward greater ends Transforming atoms into lowly dust. Even empty shells where once have reigned vast powers, Thou enterest there to devastate all form Reducing all unto thine own, O Worm ! 7 Brave forager of unknown darks and depths. No mystery remains proof to thy lens ! The first and last in germ of life extant ; Of form the one eternal to endure. There's nothing holds to self its purposed power More lasting, omnipresent, than art thou. We crown thee king and conqueror of Earth ! — This myriad-peopled pedestal, thy throne ! Los Angeles, 1890. FAITHS AND CREEDS MY faiths and creeds about me lie; In heart and hand-clasp understood By all mankind beneath the sky Who seek the universal good. The constellations glow on high. And play their part with parent sun ; We, as the lesser Earth-lights die. Turn our unswerving faith toward One. Life-weavers, on our wavering way; The higher light of mind discerns The bright new versions of the day ; Leaves justice that which justice earns. The comedy of man for man — The tragedy of bread and blood — The human ocean and its clan, That flows back to its source in God. 8 Is this the purpose of the race — These flesh-crowned pyramids we build? Life's aim, greed's wild chaotic chase With Earth's eternal moanings filled. Where words ascend in labored creeds Unto some sacred place — divined — Oh, send the demonstrated deeds. As incense to the throne enshrined. My creeds embrace the common tie That binds a broader brotherhood ; My faith is founded to supply The universal love of good. IDOLATRY IN the years that grow old — In the days that grow dim, As the years onward roll — It is night without him ; Without him it is night in my soul. In this darkness of night Hangs a pale moon dipped dim ; And its wan shadow-light Filled with weird thoughts of him Shrouds this desolate darkness of night. 9 In this last hour of night I fashioned and wove Him a garment all white From the fabric called Love — From a love that was strong in its might! I bordered and bound It with rainbows of Hope His form to surround. Now blinded I grope — For it fell to the soil of the ground ! (They were false vows that bound;) When the girdle-knot broke, It fell to the ground; With a start I awoke, As it fell to the soil of the ground ! I awoke, and 'twas day ; The pale moon had gone down ; God above! can I pray That the night come and drown At its dawn this great anguish of day ! Will no kind mercy stay — Hedge my consciousness round? Oh, my God ! can I say — Can I say what I found? I found that my idol was clay! 10 THE VALLEY OF BLOOM OH, the depth of fragrance and wealth of blows In the flower-kissed valley, where no man goes ; A land of God's rare gardening Across the river of Ting-Lo-Ting. The mountains are blue and amethyst, Their sapphire peaks a starry tryst. Here Love abroad is wandering Beyond the banks of Ting-Lo-Ting. What spell of rapture the Iris wreathes In vales where Beauty immortal breathes ; Elysian fields ! The wild birds sing Their song to heaven — near Ting-Lo-Ting. When evening comes with scented breeze, One prayer is wafted over-seas ; And thought goes merrily back to bring The vision fair of Ting-Lo-Ting. (There is a " Valley of Bloom " in the Orient where the odors of flowers are so overpowering in their massed fragrance that tour- ists have succumbed and fallen while admiring their natural beauty. This section is uninhabited.) UNITY TWO souls met in the silence ; Each bore a flaming star; And one was Night and one was Day — Both traveling afar. 11 Night held aloft her jewels In sparkling proud display, And flashed her menaced monarch then Full in the face of Day. Day roused himself from shadow And blew his horn with might ; Then red and bold the god of gold Quenched all the stars of Night. And thus alone he traveled — A solitary Sun — ■ Till Twilight wooed, in winning mood, And wed the twain, made one. IN MEMORY OF ELBERT HUBBARD WHERE trees and blue hills bask Under the sun ; 'Neath the drawn veil we ask Where now this one.'* Where gone the life that held Glory and glee.? Give this faint message: spelled Its mystery. Re-birth a joy shall bring Spirit supreme ! In its full blossoming Back from the dream. 12 All life's past conflicts crowned; Infinite love — Formless — the breach has bound Beneath and above. Gone to its own again — Light to the Flame — Soul of the soul in men One is His name ! TEMPEST-TOSSED I WATCHED the low-toned waters beat Upon the pebbles at my feet, In soothing ripples murmuring sweet Of tenderness and love ; And placidly the sea so calm Coquetted in the sunbeam's charm With not a dream of sudden harm From burning skies above. When lo ! on her untroubled breast A mighty, surging, deep unrest Unfurled and tossed a haughty crest Toward the towering sky ! The lightning's eye, 'mid rumbling roar, Scanned the wide seething waters o'er. And bowed the leaden cloud-line lower. Like pennants floating high ! 13 With thunderous peal the hghtnlngs flash, The heaving breakers rend and crash And torrents pour with vengeful lash Into bold ocean's bed ; The sea climbs shivering up the land, In vain to foil the furious hand Of the invading tyrant-band That signals overhead. With swollen bosom river-rent She sobs and moans her discontent, Till soon — the tempest's fury spent — The sun resumes his place; Again uniting at the dim Horizon-line where wan clouds swim Across her bosom's boundary rim And there imprints his face ! REVERIE OLD memories of a thousand things Crowd back to haunt my busy brain- Where recollection fondly clings — Ere sent out to the world again. One thought hangs lingeringly on The swinging hinge of memor}^ ; And places, faces, absent, gone. Are floating past me rapidly. 14 I seem to stand by grassy mounds — Within a porch that westward looks — And steep my senses in the sounds Of lowing herds and running brooks. ******* Of all the arts, of all the creeds And all the logic learned by man, There's nothing touches the heart's needs As simple forms of nature can. And so they come and so they go, These thoughts — that kindle new the themes That once set our fond hearts aglow — Live now in reverie and dreams. THE SEARCH FOR HEAVEN LAST night my soul rose on the foam Of a great wave beneath the dome Of all creation ; rose to see Age-ripened hosts in agony. Seeking a heaven ; Saw forms and faces early known. From which a haloed radiance shone ; As though their inner vision lent To life new meanings God had sent From His high heaven. I saw within a field a pair Of workers ; — labor checked their prayer 15 In this His vineyard — called to key The homelier things to harmony ; And was this heaven? Here one whom Hate's foul venom fanned Turned from Love's way the great Will planned ; Weary, unmerciful the breath — An ecstasy perverted — death ! (For Love is heaven.) I reached across the black abyss — The chasm 'twixt that world and this — Called him by name of magic, " friend " ! And watched the light and shadow blend, And there found heaven. DECEMBER DAYS THE bleak wind-minstrel tones the blast, As Winter tints the wonder sky. And saddens the discerning eye, Haunted by Autumn's ardor, passed. The flickering leaves low fallen lie, Remnants of glory, faded, gone. The naked boughs we gaze upon Point mercilessly toward the sky. No sweet-souled rapture of a bird Resounds again from leafy bower; Its song is hushed, and struck the hour When Winter speaks the final word. 16 His seal is on all Nature's moods: And deep within his silent breast Her burning secret, held in rest ; Over all a solemn silence broods. The cricket's voice, the tree-toads " chirr " Are hushed ; the katydids that stray Through twilight's echoed ecstasy Are banished. New enchantments stir The wood ; King Frost has blown his blast And gathered all his courtiers round. The little things of air and ground Have vanished, each, its fate forecast. Soft snow-flakes shroud the shivering earth, And under Winter's garment creep Our little loves, to lie asleep — Waiting the gentle Spring's new-birth. (Read by Edwin Markham at the Cameo Club Banquet, 1916.) DEMOCRACY {1917) (to dr. J. GARDNER S3IITH) WHEN the great above and the small below Are levelled by a fair God's throw ; When mothers of men, at the bugle's blow, Give the best they have to give ; 17 When the gun and the sword and the steel that rings, In the clash of the savage strife that stings, Are laid in the dust of forgotten things — Then democracy will live ! With death and despair must the martyrs meet Till dawn brings a respite in night's dark defeat. Bright as the stars on the heights, fair and sweet, Shines the spirit of God's man ! Caught like a shred on the edge of the world ; Battled and scarred, like a leaf he is whirled — Plaything of time — to eternity hurled ! (Mighty the plea and the plan.) Shrouded in sorrow the shadow is cast ; Echoes roll on as the victors sweep past ; A thousand years hail this day, here at last. To herald democracy! (From The New York Herald, October 21st.) THE POETS WE are the weavers, monarchs of might! Dreamers of dreams and prophets of light. Singing the Song Everlasting, which rings Out on the void like an echo that brings Courage and hope in the world-weary strife. Rich with the romance — the red blood of life. 18 . We sing of the Past that has ripened, grown strong; For our heart is a heart of passion and song. Thought upon thought we have built, full and free, — Philosophy, art, in their complexity. We are the product of all that has been Brought from the crucible ; Beauty must win ! From the dim heaven and from the deep hell, Transfigured, on the empyrean we dwell ; With the fire and the flame — unkempt and unshorn Our threnodies rise to the high hills of morn, 'Mong the minarets ; poised like a bird in its flight Come we, the Titans of magic and might. The old gods are greying ; the faithful and few Will worship forever their shrine ; and the new. From the fire of their fury and dreaming divine Shall create a new Athens to shimmer and shine! DREAMER OF DREAMS OH, hero of a bygone day ! Oh, lover of the songs unsung ! We cherish thee with thoughts among Our choicest in life's Litany. And thus I fashion these like flowers, Woven in wreaths of amethyst And rose, to tint the wayside tryst, And mark with music lonely hours. 19 For in the heart's deep place there rings A happier note that poets find — Strong faith in self and in mankind — The radiant way to higher things. Divined beyond the measured word, A message to the inner soul — A harp that vibrates to its goal — Where friendship's mist is mixed and stirred. Fulfilment waits the shadow cast ; So child of faith — dreamer of dreams, Though vague thy vision, that which seems, Bursts into being, thine at last ! THE PASSING OF A POET (Upon scanning a collection of Madison Cawein) WE welcome the words of one now dead ; And ponder the pathway he did tread- In these uncut pages of books unread — And would that the world might listen To one who gave of his finer sight ; Who followed a vision of higher light To fathom the soul in its chastened might And nature with beauty christen. The images woven within remain ; The joy of his joy, the pain of his pain ; The flow of the tears, like the drip of the rain- Or a voice in the night that is calling 20 Through the soundless calm of an empty room ; (A shuttle that's stilled when spent in the loom) ; A voice vibrant beyond the tomb — When the twilight shadows are falling. What is your message, oh friend, gone forth ? To realms of Israfel — ^bidden from birth — Poet, who passed by the portals of Earth, Seeking the wisdom of sages ! Falter nor fail not ! song is reborn ; One final cadence of agony drawn — Fraught with the rapture of death ! a new dawn ! Linked in the law of the ages. TO JOAQUIN MILLER (In response to his last poem " At Final Parting") HE lived true-souled to nature; gave His life to modeling in thought; The rhythm of the wind and wave Were moods wherein this monarch wrought. Nature his God ; he stood aloof. Pregnant with all that makes men ; this And more, — the poet's insight — proof That simple ways are ways of bliss. His final cry — fine soul ! for man Must ring forever as to-day. He knew the secret of God's plan ; He gained the great finality ! But no, there is no first nor last ! Man comes and goes and comes again; Form cannot serve to hold him fast, For spirit rules its own domain. And so a brother did but pass Within the shadow ; to our eyes No more revealed. The flowering grass Returns to earth: its beauty dies In its own season. Essence lives. And blooms again the coming year. And so our growth goes on, and gives "Life after life" in some new sphere. A SKETCH (to an unseen poet) AND are you tall — and somewhat slim and slender.'^ A mind wherein moods rhythmic words engender.'' Falling darkly once the hair — But the lighted face is fair, With the old-time gracious tone and tender. I would, if I could, paint a faithful picture ; But you — impish-like — evade a mental fixture ; Yet I fain would here reveal What no rogue of time can steal ; 'Tis mt/ vision of the deeper inner mixture. 22 Limpid notes, rose-bloom reflections transcendental; Dreams of daring in a mind not sentimental ; True as arrow's aim e'er pointed, Nature's heart with hope annointed, So are you, hke truth, unchanging, rare and gentle. Is't the opal's iridescence that foretelleth? Deeper meaning than mere words portray, indwelleth ! Would that distances were slain : Bridged by ether's mystic chain — For to meet you face to face all doubt dispelleth. THE STARS ABOVE THE STARS (to EDWIN MARKHAm) THE gods may grey, but never grow old ; Your monarch mind with its flint at play Strikes from dull earth a starry ray That warms the heart of man, grown cold. Your flame-wrought rhapsodies resound With chords of tenderness and might; They sing with stars at the gates of night ; They touch the morning's rosy round. The future will your song rehearse Down all the misty shores of time ; You build the dream of earth sublime. Oh, architect of mighty verse ! 23 CONSOLATION (to ELLA WHEELER WILCOx) LIFE is all beautiful ! God, Man, tree, universe! Hush ! Lest we tread on the sacred things ; Things that recur, like the memories of the dead ; The inarticulate murmurings and meanings Of life at its early inception — with The soul in its spring. Form and sound Are not life, if devoid of the force where imprisoned Lies the source of re-birth — Resurrection ! Even through tears and sadness and death ! All growth comes through travail and sorrow; Dead leaves, bruised and brown, cover the sod — But underneath, the violets crave new birth ! (New York, 1916.) PIPES O' PAN AUTUMN'S here and temps du Nord Pour their chilling blasts abroad ; Glowing tapestries of leaves Now the vagrant wood-wind weaves. Nymphs come forth from reedy pools Driving butterflies in schools ; And the fauns that sleep by day, Roam at night to hear Pan play ! Beneath mellow moonbeams, he Pipes his tender melody ; And the shadows to and fro Sway, enchanted by its flow. All the laughing painted things — Flower-faced, with fairy wings — Come to bid poor Pan farewell Ere stem Winter throws his spell. All fair things will hide away While the Frost-king holds his sway. Dreamer thou of dreams of men, Sleep till they return again ! Quiet on earth's loving breast These bright forms shall fall and rest. Waiting Pan's gay pipes to sing Welcome to a new-born Spring. LONGING I AM weary, tired of waiting, gazing West where you have gone ; Weary of the fast and feasting since you left ; And I miss the tender touch and joyous welcome of the morn; For the hours are charged with memories bereft. S5 When I walk among the roses, there I fain would meet your eyes ; Or within the sun's gold rays behold your head ; See the warmth of love's own light before my vision rise, As I fold you to my sad heart — comforted. The stars above shed loveliness in lights that flash and gleam ; Across the scented grass I breathe a prayer. Through the music of the meadows flows the iridescent stream Past the voices of the night and gray mists' glare. Oh, I would that you were with me, that I could touch your hand; Could hold you close before my dazzled eyes ; Could call you mine till daybreak — call you from the shadowland — The land where love immortal never dies ! CAMEOS CLEAR chiseled, cut upon the crest Of life's reflected joy and woe ; Man carves within his secret breast A self-created Cameo. Thy thought creates thy prison place. Fair architect of heaven or hell ; By some fine hand or divine grace Rare tracings in the shadows tell 26 Of Ideals wrought in land of dreams, That we shall welcome face to face On some far shore that fades and seems Our fairest treasures to embrace. Incessant flows the Power that thrills Through form of lily and of rose ; Burst from the bonds of lesser wills We stand, each, clear-cut Cameos ! THE MATHEMATICIAN'S PASSING (Read before the Psychological Section of the Cameo Club, New York City, February 25, 1916) O LD Dusty-bones he died last night — Left " plus " and " minus " in pitiful pHght— For he was " divided " from self in his flight. He died of " figures in the head " ; For that is where they found him — dead — In the counting-house, whence his soul had fled. " Spaces and lines have never lied," Said this Doctor-of -digits, with pardonable pride, Who passed by the Borderland undenied. Spaces and lines for every class. Furnish their measure for all who pass ; Even our Globe is a circling mass. 27 Circles and angles — it whirls around, Giving us bearings as figured and found — Diameter by circumference bound. But he escaped and went his way ; Whence or whither — now who shall say ? Thus they go from us every day. Spirit and body were never one ! (Spirit the builder of body begun.) Thought will reach to the farthest sun. Spirit, released, floats freely in space. Drawn to its destined ethereal place. By laws as fixed as the Sphinx's face. Phantom-like, here, our deeds are filed. Burnished and brilliant and sense-beguiled. The One Great Wonder looked and smiled. Captured by Death and made his own; Given new lease in the upper-zone Of the undefined, unsought, unknown ! Measures and weights — what can they tell.? Or figures, of one now gone — Oh, well — To the place where souls are said to dwell.? No answer comes from out the tomb — No ray to light the empty room Where Science ponders in the gloom. Greater the wisdom than of man Ruling the magical works that ran ; Will He not finish what He began? 28 Risen again, this soul last night Stood in the gloaming, pale and white. In an iridescent shape of light. And he tried to tell what his presence told : That there is no end for the Godly-souled ; That death is life in a finer mold. Life, with its forms and changes spent ; The hour-glass turns with Time's intent — Inverted bears its eternal bent. Forward and backward, in and out, The juxtaposition we worry about — Life and death — lead a merry rout! JERUSALEM {1917) JERUSALEM! Oh, Jerusalem! Adown thy storied street Resounds the might of freedom's arms — The tramp of marching feet. Oh, Sacred City of Solomon ! Of faiths and creeds and war ; The Cross has conquered the Crescent and The Mosque of old Omar. The sun shall rise all-glorious Again upon the scene. As rose the Star of Bethlehem That hailed the Nazarene. 29 And we will hear the cheering chant Of angels from afar, And know the hero-souls of earth, Have risen in peace from war. Jerusalem ! Oh, Jerusalem ! Path where the patriarchs trod ; Still shines the Star of Bethlehem Above the City of God. SPRINGTIME SPRING is here, With its cheer! And the storm's cold blast Is lessened at last ; And the bars Of Winter's wars Are thrown down. About the town Violets bloom, and on the hill Dandelions flock and fill Old waste places ; in the lane Pussy-willows bud again; And on mossy woodland banks Pale arbutus files and ranks With the lone anemone ; And the birds from every tree Trill their mirth in maddest glee. Chirping loud in gayest cheer " Spring is here ! " 30 WOMAN IN MARBLE La Femme Fro'ide (to ADELAIDE JOHXSON) THIS, the fine substance, cold and clear, was lent To art — transmuted by the fire that warmed A dual being into beauty ; formed The line and curve with human passion blent. Then Love, the sculptor, with a high content Created woman ! From the depths he called Her name! unsealed by magic, sense-enthralled, Her soul shone through the marble, smiled, then went To other trysts ; but time can ne'er erase The artist-touch triumphant, nor efface. Ephemeral and exquisite it seems The spirit calling subtly, through the years — A radiant calm that cancels joy or tears — To live with Beauty in the land of Dreams. DAYS STILL as a dream the western sea. That bears upon its breast The light of one lone star. To me Its quivering sheen speaks longingly Of days that were ; with prophecy Of those to come as best. 31 Hung like a white rose, sails the moon Above the silent sea. A million lights encircle June ; Harps, hidden, strum their love-mad tune, And myriad fire-flies dance and swoon. While I sit silently. And count as beads days gone to rest. Strung in a rosary ; Each bead a prayer — a soul confessed — Gone to its setting in the v^'est Where glad hand-greetings wait. The best Of days are yet to be ! Oh, spirit of the singing sea. Light of the lingering West ! Bring back the loved of memory That bind our hearts in constancy And bear us through eternity ! The days to be are best ! POWER OF PLACE WHERE are the men who crave for place and power? Who cry aloud for their lost heritage? Nothing is lost that may not be regained ; (Except that inner shrine be desecrate — The soul's sweet sense purloined to other ends Than building. ) " Man is his own star ! " Achieving character that will resound To credit or discredit ; a few years Allotted here upon his deathless way. 3^ True power and glory ring forever on Adown the dusky pathway of dim graves, And fortify — though aeons pass — the deeds Which proclaim man immortal, to his time. So memory, both merciful and kind. Finds niches for her loved and long revered. But Nature's immortality, not thus Established, comes and goes in forms, Even as the blades of grass or leaves of trees. Empowered with divine self-consciousness And will to be, to live on endlessly Beyond time limitations, or flesh-throes Of pain and pleasure — bidden by the sense. All things become perfected thus in time And man's high place awaits him subject to His conscious effort ; one with the Supreme ! AN HOUR OF MIRTH (At the Cameo Club Bcanquet) / said of laughter: It is mad: What doeth it?" — Eccl. I. II LET laughter lighten care awhile. And mirth sit at the feast. And happiness the sense beguile, With beauty sans the beast. Here hope our horoscope has cast. That we should love each other. Each " Cameo," from first to last. Just wisely " as a brother." 33 And should jou step on slippery ground, With Cupid to command it — You're not the first — just look around And see how others stand it ! Life has its seasons ; times to weep And mourn, and dream thereafter ; But let us ever try to keep Our fill of love and laughter. JUSTICE " We lie in the lap of an immense intelligence, which makes us organs of its activities, and receivers of its truth. When loe dis- cern justice, when we discern truth, loe do nothing of ourselves but allow a passage to its beams." — Emerson. I AM the Voice of human souls ; I am the Music of the night ; I am the Thought that God controls ; I am the Power that makes for Right. I am the chosen force that frees — That sends abroad in kindlier tone The world's deluded harmonies, Fearless and first to seek mine own. The soul is but a sounding board For rhythm ; or by vain misuse. May vibrate to a common horde Of dissonant chords — jangled abuse Of this fine instrument God gives. Oh, let us seek the true and brave ! And knoAv within each soul there lives The same desire our own hearts crave. WILD ROSES (to ELLA M. franklin) WILL you come some morn to the old world's edge, Where the dew lies damp on the moss-growTi ledge, And the wind-flower whispers unceasingly To the zephyrs that murmur caressingly, And look and listen ? For there you'll find In a wonderful fairy nook enshrined Queen Beauty abloom in a wild-rose fane. Singing so softly her rare refrain : " Rose ! Wild-rose of the wind and fire. Born to bloom for an hour or day ; Breathing 3^our beauty through root and clay Revealing God's deep desire." Rose ! Wild-rose ! Sweet memory sings And re-awakens the voiceless years ; Joy and heart-ache, tenderness, tears ; As a strain in the wilderness rings And quivers and dies — so life will close ; Fade as petals fade in the air ; But spirit is dwelling everywhere : The spirit of life and the rose. 35 SEA SONG ON the river ! On the river ! Sea-craft sail and rock and quiver, Floating pennants — color patches; Lorelei with lute sing snatches To the neriads 'neath the waters Where the wavelets shine and shiver. Willow branches wildly blowing, In reflected beauty showing Wind-turned leaves of grey and green Shimmering in golden sheen ; And the trailing lotus-lilies Mingle with the sedge-grass growing. 'Twas a day like this I found her. With the sea spray swirling round her In the surging singing reaches Of the waves on glistening beaches ; And her soul was like the sunlight ; — Iridescent glory crowned her. With the summer's wane and going, I confessed the deep love growing ; Told her of man's highest passion In the oft repeated fashion ; Held her as a jewel precious, Under starry heavens glowing. 36 But she vanished ; morning called her Back to God, who had enthralled her ; Left my soul to solitude, Love turned cheerless, heart laid nude. Here I wait to follow after To the heaven where He installed her. O'er the River ! O'er the River ! From the rainbow world a-quiver ; Lo ! a Boatman comes for me ; Sails the ship of Destiny ! Into Shadowland he passes — To the presence of the Giver 1 PASTELS THE day is dark, and gray the moor ; I stand beside the open door Of an old house, known long before. Upon its well-remembered stoop The tangled grape-vines twine and droop ; And at the sight fond memories troop. Gray sand-dunes slumber restlessly. Beyond, the deep and silent sea Lies, boundless as eternity. I step within the open door ; An empty cradle on the floor, A vacant chair, is all its store. 37 No faces press the window-pane, No merry voices ring again These barren walls that wait in vain. No magic can resuscitate The passing years that soon or late Takes each its toll beyond the Gate. ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ « And still it stands, remote; with wild Sweet-briar thorns about it piled, Where once I walked — a little child. LITTLE LOVES LITTLE Loves are lasting; Love of beauty, love of flowers. Childhood's fleet and happy hours — Soon the heart goes fasting. Little loves are given That with the worn world's increase We may seek our heart's surcease In the old love's leaven. Faster time goes winging ; Cherish memory as we must; Time, the tyrant, turns to dust All but love's low singing. 38 QUERY? OH what Is glory and what is fame And what the worth of a saintly name? When all is resolved to whence it came. The world as critic is tardy and tame ; The world is raw, and it taints of shame ; But — who is the world? and who is to blame? WHITHER? (in ME3I0RY OF ELBERT HUBBARd) There was the Door to which I found no key, There was the Veil through which I could not see; Some little talk awhile of Me and Thee There was — and then no more of Thee and Me. — Omar Khayyam. THE ceaseless centuries Roll on, roll on ! No word returns from these. The dead and gone ! No clue is wafted back To us forlorn. From the far vanished track Beyond the morn ! Darkness enfolds us round, Dim grows the night ; Doubts that enwreath the ground Rise in their might! Whence passed the soul of him? This soul supreme That haunts the vision dim ; Was it a dream? Flesh is the form which life Inhabits, holds ; Sin-interwoven, strife Remodels, moulds. Are all earth's strivings lost Since life began ? Must man, then, pay the cost? Futile the plan ! Out of pale shimmering Born into Light, Back to dull glimmering Gone into night! Oh, Mystery ! the mask That veils our sight ; Grant thou the prayer we ask : Fathom man's flight! Show us the place we seek, Land of our lost! May we his soul bespeak ? Him that has crossed? Voice from the mist of dream. Oh, tell us where Vanished our loved that seem Passed into air ! 40 IN THE BEGINNING {" God spoke and the luorld ^ms horn! ") STAR-MIST— a radiant glimmer! (Before the birth of man;) An opalescent shimmer, A form — and life began. The World was born insistent As the unseen fountain springs ; And Adam, non-resistant. Awakened woman brings With Earth's new dawning ; woman — Soul of the crystal stream Of life — mysterious, human, Drawn from the wonder-dream. Adown the years of glory. By field of asphodels, Love loiters ; transitory His breath where beauty dwells. Parts in the Play of Shadows They come and vanish — sleep 1 Pale Psyches from dim meadows Their poppy-vigils keep. 41 DIVINE DESIRE (" Seek ye first the Kingdom ivithin, and all things shall be added thereto") ^rr^IS not through unknown ways man rises higher, I But by some kindly grace to friend or kin ; Born from the deep recesses bared within The soul's quick comprehension, and desire To reach the lofty height that truths inspire ; To sing with morning stars above the din. And herald a new brotherhood ; to win The common kingdom — light its altar fire. Oh, Heaven-bound summit ! Thy vast peaks arise As thought, that interpenetrates and flows Incessantly, beyond life's pallid woes ; Beyond the little days of Time, that flies ; Beyond the grave — the grave of blinded eyes, — Reflecting what infinitude bestows. BIRTH OF BERMUDA (child of the sea) THE Earth arose ! the Sea Stood rigid, calm and still Beneath the panoply Of God's high heaven. A thrill From yonder star to me Brought life's fair, holiest fill ; 42 Brought you — Love's agony ! Mind, body, soul and will United hold life's history ; Its promise to fulfill Its mission and its mystery. (In Bermuda, 1900.) REFLECTIONS I KNOW a place within the deep And dewy woods where crickets " cheep " ; The paths are carpeted with sleep, And moonlight flows On all around. The pixy elves Dance in the dusk among themselves, As in the flower-hearts each one delves Mid blooms of rose. One bright star in the quiet sky Turns truant from its sphere on high. To cast a glimmer lovingly In woodland streams ; And there in shine and shimmer lies — Reflecting heaven in new disguise — To light the way for faery eyes Where Beauty dreams ! 43 TO A BOY WITH POET-FACE POET, with flower-face, Gladsome with glee; • Soul, with a winsome grace Buoyant and free ! Beauty will list to thee ; Thy fair mind holds Shadows of mystery The muse enfolds. Where dim ideals dwell Vaguely, it seems. The veil is torn to tell Truth lives in dreams. Voice of the wonder-world! Faint forms of earth — Spirit and mist-empearled^ — Song gives them birth. All the sweet, sentient things. Whispering, sad; And the wild-bird that sings With joy gone mad. Moonbeams, and music's stress, Starlight and strife. Temper with loveliness The poet's life. 44 VANISHED LEAVES (to MRS. HEKRY VILLARD) IN the old deep woods, With its changeful moods. And sounds that never cease, The chill winds blow A crimson flow Of leaves in the roadway's crease. They flutter away Through the livelong day. In wavering shapes and shades, (Their duty done). To Oblivion — Or rest in the murmuring glades. They vied with Spring's Gay colorings ; But Autumn's ardent breath Bore the fair things born Of the Summer's morn, To the twilight's cavern — death. With ceaseless change They roam and range Like formless fleeting things, Or stir the wood's Calm solitudes With a sound like beating wings. 45 They fall once more On the forest floor In a sleep of death or dream ; Or turn in the track To wander back To their place in Nature's scheme. As the dim tides flow That bade them go On the waves of the wilderness ; The veins that thrilled Once ruby filled, Cling to earth and its cold caress. The shadows fall And cover all Their loveliness from me ; Still they haunt my heart In their lonely part As they lie released and free. But the burning fire And the warm desire Of spring shall bring rebirth. There is no death For the living breath And the vanished forms of earth. 46 INTERMEZZO LONG slanting lines upon the hills betray Declining hours where dusky Night meets Day And Summer blithely treads beneath the boughs Of trees red-ripe in fruitage ; she allows A last fond look where these her children stood, Ere Autumn claims a foster-motherhood; Warm, languorous-limbed, pale Summer glides away, Lost in the tawny touch of Autumn's sway. TRANSFOFMA TION THE sound of the falling waters Is music to the ear ; The dance of dawn on the tip of morn When the clouds hang violet-clear. Where the stars of God have vanished — White cities of the skies — And golden-red from his gorgeous bed King Sol's wide wings arise. There, shining from the shadow^s Lie the shores of Earth, mist-gowned ; The green washed wave and deep sea-cave — Man's kingdom, emerald crowned. The sound of the laughing waters And the surge of a deep unrest ; 'Neath the cold and slime of the Winter-time Bides Spring in her beauty drest. 47 TO THE EGYPTIAN SPHYNX LOST hope and hunger and despair Of centuries are chiseled there ! Massive, inscrutable, outborne From man's own mind to conjure on ; Created soulless, without thrill Of things designed by divine will ; Raised to the heights of finite power, Fashioned to fit the ages. Dower Of mortal might ; voiceless and free From aught save the dread destiny, To pose forever; centuries drear And changeless — without smile or tear ; Nor human touch nor taunt can bare The silent history hidden there. Oh, mound of mystery, stony face ! Wert thou the ruler of some race Long passed to dissolution's tomb. Emblem of everlasting gloom ? (Do cubes and squares portray the part That thou hast ever held to art ? ) A monument to memory. Or tribute to geometry ? Above thee marched Orion's bands ; Pale Pleiades twinkled o'er thy sands ; And here Arcturus sought at night To cast thy shadow in his light. Unmoved thou art — though worlds go wrong- 48 Before creation's passing throng ; Immune from pain and pleasure, free From all the powers of necromancy. The silence of the ages stares From thy unseeing eyes ; the cares Of nations — midnight wail of babes — Reach not thy cold mute heart ; the slaves Of commerce, rulers of the world, Beat at thy breast ; back to them hurled That which they gave, and only that ; Where thou, stern shape, impassive sat As sentinel to the centuries ! ECHOES OH, time is fleet, And laughter sweet, When Autumn's leaves are sere ; But the old, old chime Of true love's time Can never grow less dear. In the frolic of fate There are many who wait To gather the brightest and best, While their beautiful Day Is dancing away Down the golden glow of the west. 49 Somewhere above Or below, with love, And a true heart's happy cheer, From the South or the North Your call will bring forth An echo of faith or of fear. Where the shadows meet In the loveland sweet, There the music-makers dwell. With the harmonies That hold the keys Of life in a magic spell. FRAILTIES REJOICE O faiths of yester-morn. The sun has risen again ; And vanity meets not your scorn Within her world of men. Necessity bends each to each ! Beginnings serve the end As life serves death ; thought waits on speech. And fashion finds its friend. In symboled form we walk the earth. And welcome man as brother. Thro' tears and prayers, and death and birth. We claim " We love each other ! " 50 But sad to say man loves but self, And worships where he must; He sells his soul for punch and pelf, And settles — with the dust! So all his days are sorrow. His cup the lot of men ; But in some bright to-morrow He must be " born again." EVOLUTION OUT from the soil and the dust and sod. Drawn from the source of eternal things ; Formless and fleshless — a breath from God — Heaven-empowered with light and wings ; Up from the earth the lilies nod, Down from the heavens the skylark sings. Each in its orbit of color and sound. Holding its secret and melody ; Born from the silence where Beauty profound Fashions the blossoms for fruit of the tree ; Weaving invisible waves, far around. Wafting sweet visions and music to me. Man, far-famed, with the host of men. Loves and rejoices forever to be; Faltering he goes — returning again — As the billows flow back embraced by the sea ; Life at the centre, aglow, must then Surge soul-laden eternally. 51 WOMAN I AM the mother of the Ages ! I held man's fate and fashioned it all fair, Both body and the mind alight therein ; Made man again in His own Image — ^blessed; And taught this mind to speak words all aglow With light and life and love and fire and warmth ; And nourished him and raised his form to fame, And placed him where the strong earth-currents meet; This primal first-born impulse called " my son ! " And as his tender years to manhood grew, And I, still mother in my beating breast, Did penance do each day within my heart ; I heard his cry as cry of my own flesh. And saw his shame In shame wrought to my sex ! HIGH CONTROL THE dreams that all our slumbers fill, Are shadows from a higher will ; The deeds which we aspire to do. Are unseen forces filtering through. We serve as forms for mind's repose And action, like the budded rose. 52 LIGHTED WINDOWS (to dr. fraxk crane) You have sent afar from your lofty height, Into the fevered shades of night, A message that mellows the soul of men, A song that is echoed again and again. Out from the silence your symbols weave Hope for the hopeless hearts that grieve ; Light for the unknown endless years, Born from the mist of the sun and tears. Back of the song the singer lives ; Back of the gift the hand that gives ; Sending a radiance near and far Into the years from the days that are. Love triumphant is yet to be, Lifting the soul of humanity. From these windows the light will shine Outward forever — the Light Divine! AT UDAIPUR (to COLIX CAMPBELL COOPER) A RADIANCE crowns the silent hills : The mosques of morning open stand ; A reach of sky-line throbs and thrills And trembles through the land. 53 The miracle that Dawn creates Now sends its roseate glow afar, To fire the ruby in the gates And light the Temple bar. At Agra, past the burning sands, By towers of Siva flashing red, Upon the banks of Jumna stands The Taj ; built for one dead. Shah Jahan lies beneath the stone Of Taj Mahal,* the Palace Tomb. Forever has his spirit flown — Burst from the darkened room ! The Emperor searches far and wide ; By sacred waters lifts his prayers ; He seeks his favorite Mumtaz bride. Long buried. Unawares Her soul has risen with the dawn : No temple, mosque, or marble tomb Can bind the life that is inborn. As light escapes the gloom Her spirit broke the prison-bars ; Even as the new-blown flowers break — Take shape, and shine beneath the stars — Spring from the earth, awake. * The Taj Mahal, Agra, was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in 1648 for his favorite wife, Mumtaz-i-Mahal. Both were buried therein. 54 Bathed in the moonbeam's breath, astir, She welcomes those who this way go, (The legend told at Udaipur) That all who pass may know. CRITICISM ^^ Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar of: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter." — ■ Isaiah. AWAKE ! The world's new age needs heart ! Combined with purpose and strong mind to-day For local justice! Puritanic sway! " Pure food " is offered now at any mart, Except those choicer stuffs, that play no part In vender's deals. Embodiments that prey As crystalized conceptions bid us stay ! And tear to tattered bits life's earlier art. Cold critic ! Even the muse must feel your rod Of iron will, and measurements that fit Your mitred age : obedient to a nod From high opinion ! Shafts which hurled must hit The just and the unjust. To fathom it Behold ! Man prays to man in place of God ! 55 UNDERSTANDING " He that hath ears to hear let him hear." HAVE pity, Thou, for the unseeing eye ; — For him who, seeing, understandeth not. Oh, raise their insight to the perfect sky Of promised vision by the earth-bound sought ! Restore the sound attuned beyond the sense ; Re-string the hearing to Truth's highest tone ; Unto the faihng give Thou recompense For prayers unspoken, mighty deeds undone. Oh, lend compassion to the fettered mind, Groping and faltering on Life's winding way ; That thro' the sin-mist these at last may find The Path that leads unto the Perfect Day. SILHOUETTES (to dr. J. p. mccaskey) THE fading lights of evening fall ; Faint silhouettes of hours gone by Glide past, where their pale shadows lie. At darkening day's low call. Beyond the portal-ways of thought, Be^^ond the tender sense of dream. The mystic waves of memory seem To bear a vision fraught 56 With old-time places and their lure ; A lustral radiance drawing near Breathes of the self -same atmosphere That former scenes insure. Oh, Time, return and bring again The faces we were wont to see Held in Love's chastened sacristy, — The joy, and the sweet pain. The joys that mock me with their guile, The kisses vanished, but still dear ; — Their spectral shapes arise and wear Dead passion's haunting smile ! Oh, perfect days of love and life ! Oh, mystery that none may know. Of those who meet and part and go Beyond the tide of strife. In dreams I sail the Golden Sea ! Pale wraiths of forms draw near and pass Across the silent mirrored glass Toward Eternity! SPRING'S MIRACLE THE oriole swings on the topmost bough And chants his litany To Spring ; the tall pines cease to sough ; Buds peep out lovingly. 57 The great old world is brisk with breeze From sunrise till nightfall ; They have planned to decorate her trees And her gardens, each and all. The spirit of love and beauty shines In this earth-wide garlanding; The spirit of God in His work enshrines The miracle of Spring ! DAWN THE dawn's grey mist now dims the stars ; A crimson flush new-heralds day With prophecy and promise ; mars The night (pale ghost, stealing away !) Its luster banishes — disbars The lesser faiths that worship clay. A fiery radiance flames anew. And Truth is born in minds of men ! The light steals over Earth with hue Of opaline and gold, as when God first created man, and knew Eternal Law the victor then. (From The World Court.) 58 TILL DREAMS COME TRUE THE hills are fused with heaven And the fires of sunset-glow ; The substance and the shadow Meet where the roses blow ; The wild earth holds communion And kinship with the sky — The immemorial granite And heather-bloom, near by. And, half-discerned, a ghostly group Of dandelion heads There, seem to resurrect old dreams, As dusk the day-light weds. The night is made for dreaming Strewn with its silver stars And moonbeams, brightly gleaming. That swerve the sword of Mars. A brotherhood is breaking Across the earth again ; And love of kind is waking Within the hearts of men. A finer force is dawning More lasting than world-wars, And soon will come the morning Of victory for our cause! It would be always morning With sunshine in the heart. With hope and cheer, and not a fear, We play our daily part. 59 And we will do our dreaming Beneath the skies of blue, And work away through night and day Until our dreams come true. THE LITTLE COUNTRY COTTAGE (revtiille of night) JUST a little rustic cottage By the orchard's vine-wreathed wall, With the perfume of the wild flowers And the wandering night bird's call. Here a silvery rippling brooklet Sends the music of its song, With a melody and murmur, Through the meadows all day long. In the twilight strums a cricket Where the fire-flies sow their flame ; From the oak an owlet twitters ; Whippoorwill cries wild its name. Winds are whispering of beauty ; Fairies flit in drowsy dance ; And the stars above reflected Lie in pools of nee romance. On the porch we sit and listen To the music of the night ; In the little country cottage, In the shadowy moonlight. 60 And we sense a subtle presence That enshrouds the soul — a call From the mountains and the meadows- And the great God over all ! (Music by Florence Turner Maley.) TO A BIRD OF SONG SWEET singer of the untold melodies ! Warbled and trilled in many a wayside glen ; No varying note within thy tale, than when, In olden days, heard by Demosthenese. Sacred the source of song ; the wonder ke^^s Of minstrelsy vibrate the air again As flashing wrings soar far from haunts of men — To mingle with Heaven's higher harmonies. In Grecian glades — by ancient streams that run — There thou didst swell Aeolian lyres with song. The secrets of the infinite lie among The innumerable trysts thy throne of joy hath won. Thou art of the vast universe a part Even as I — born from the cosmic heart. 61 LA SUICIDIO I DID not know that I was dead ! White roses bloom about my head, And cahn hands clasp across my breast As friends come in their mourning dressed. I did not know the dead must lie So mute and cold as pride passed by ; That false tears shed, and forced smiles give The conqueror's claim to those who live. The dead may rise to realms on high Where sham and shame no more shall cry Their farewell forms of mockery ; Thank God that I, at last, am free ! SYMBOLS WHERE shall we look for the love that's dead? For the Summer day when the rose bloomed red. And the sun shone gaily overhead ? Can we claim anew the days that were.'^ With radiant thought our vision stir Of a dream long hushed in the world's loud whirr. God fashioned this as frail and fair As he fashions the flowers of field and air, And scatters their beauty everywhere. A maid was won with a princely pride ; All bright and brave the promised bride ; O fair, sweet face — that drooped and died. 62 The moon shone down on the cold earth-bed And a voice from the solemn silence said, " Come, dream with me of the love that's dead." Up from this mound of faith and trust A lily's sheath from the soil was thrust; — Spirit transcends both death and dust ! And there bloomed again — where the rose was red- A chastened lily of pearl instead; An emblem eternal of love not dead ! (From The Advance Sheet.) WHERE THE ROSES TWINE (iJf CALIFORNIA) NEW mornings dawn, but still I remember A love that lighted another year, By flowery fields of a rare September, By country lanes, when the skies were clear. We welcomed there the world as brother. Mid Beauty's glamour and gentle glow. In that sunset land we loved each other. In that summer-time of long ago ! Through the hush of night my heart goes dreaming Over the past and the peaceful pine ; And two rise out of the dream-mist, seeming To reunite where the roses twine ! (Music by Florence Maley.) , 63 IN MEMORIAM THE soul of one who vanished — His star shall guide my hand From the cool fields of Heaven, From a far lovelier land. I know the hallowed angels Communion to us grant; A subtle haunting presence Sings on in solemn chant. And summons me at evening When skies grow sombre, sweet. Within God's silent spaces. Where day and darkness meet. I hear a voice transcending Mortality, whose art Has risen from the shadows To shine — of light a part. And he who gave it listens In the anointed ways ; In some high chambered heaven Among the endless days. Beyond the broken altars, Beyond blind mammon's creeds His soul ascends, nor falters. Where love incessant leads. 64 J/cU,-/on St!i' y-'rA- CLARENCE de VAUX-ROVER DEPARTED ''Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou (/oesi/'— Joshua 5, 9. OH, he has gone to that far fair land, Gone undismayed ; And he will walk in that new rare land. Walk unafraid! And he will find bright flowers blooming — Not asphodels ; There is no death for love's consuming Where beauty dwells. For he was fair in word and token ; Strong for the right; He failed no pledge ; with vows unbroken He braved the fight. The roses droop ; the leaves fall sadly ; Hushed is all song. A voice within my heart rings madly — "'Twill not be long!" For we shall meet and know dear faces. Those passed before; Where God, in love, assigns our places Forevermore. (Clarence de Vaux-Royer entered the consciousness of Eternal Life, October 28, 1919, aged 45.) 65 TO ONE PASSED BEYOND NO more, then, no more tears ! Knowing beyond our vision, free, he stands ; The anguished call, the clinging touch of hands — Beyond Earth's fading years ! I yet will speak your name at eventide, — The hour you set, when souls may still commune — Listening to hear one faint familiar tune Of those you played — my secret grief to hide. They haunt my heart — the songs you treasured well ; And fitful echoes bring again to me Your wondrously wrought floods of melody — I turn the page ; love is too deep to tell ! To you who have ventured into the Unknown Vast, into the limit- less etheric spaces, do you not find all life as one in continuity — now, as you are nearing the outposts of Eternity? When we discussed the " wireless," the revelations to come and the essence called " life," we knew that the laws which exist today always have existed, although they only exist to us from the time we make them ours by recognition. Perception is the ultimate end of thought; and of our many queries and wonderings do you now perceive the Truth in its en- tirety, or only the foreshadowing? And are there further shores toward infinity that stretch beyond that on which you now stand? And is life then a frame within a frame — a vision within a vision — in multiplicity? These symbols of the mind are material; what are the symbols of the soul? You are but following the law that must achieve the thing that once was not, for man we know is a process, not an end. You 66 went, but left a murmur — as a shell tells phantom tales in mur- murings of the sea, once it inhabited on other shores of con- sciousness. And do the vibrations of our friendly memories resuscitate you there? Is God's vision now made visible to you — or are you held within the confines of your own beliefs and limitations, to grow wise gradually by training and degree, even as on Earth? You went after the Indian Summer time, when the air was full of the mist of parting, and the Earth bore a gentle regret for her losses, but in the ebb and flow of nature we know it will all return again. You may, too, be sleeping, but when you awaken within the Gates of Light, may God make it a happy dawn for you. And there shall you be made whole of sorrow, Have no more care ; No troubled thought of the coming morrow Or days that were. 67 3IY HEART A LUTE THE wintry winds grow mournful as they pass Above my head; I do not heed the f aUing leaves — alas ! For Love is dead ! The human chords attune an instrument — The heart a lute ! Play on sweet Life ! thy message God's intent — (Let pain be mute!) We cannot bear the silences ; the soul Its burden breaks ; It breathes its anguish and its high control Old flame awakes. We are as flowers, that blossom here on earth, Fade and depart ; They bloom in beauty — transient hour of birth — Oh, aching heart ! And is there not some solace left — or given — When Love is slain? With brave " farewell " we pra}^ to meet in Heaven, Healed of the pain. 68 LOVE'S SUNSET AROSE ATE glow heralds Night ! In the hour of darkest despair, One soul beams on, scintillant, bright, To lighten the lone cares of Night; One the star-broidered Heaven holds fair. (The star-broidered Heaven holds fair.) Faint echoes of song and of sighs, Bear dreams of delight unto me : Bring visions where love never dies — But lives in the lure of her eyes Like the gold of the sun on the sea. (The gold of the sun on the sea.) Did Beauty have birth in Cathay ? Crown Capri's cerulean sea.^ Is it fairer in Heaven than May When together through flower-fields we stray Together forever to be ? (Forever and ever to he?) A cold wind blew in from the west ; A cold wave rose out of the sea And blighted the love in my breast. She went with the sun to her rest — Far, far from the world and from me! (Far from the world and from me!) 69 At sunset, when silence greets sound, A mist shrouds the earth and the sea; Then I'll welcome my lost there refound. Where the past and its voices resound, On the shores of Eternity ! (The shores of Eternity !) (Music by Clarence de Vaux-Royer.) CONSTANCY AFTER the Summer roses are dead, And merry-winged singing birds have fled, And you and I by the window-pane Stand watching the pitiless, ceaseless rain. I look within, and I thank God then That out of His countless creation of mep. One soul stands firm, unchanging and true, That shines as a light from the vaults of blue. To temper the days and years ahead : — After the Summer roses are dead. (Music by Clarence de Vaux-Royer.) HE IS RISEN WE all will pass the slumber-shore. Where the cypress sorrows evermore ; We all will lie in the lap of life Till time has quenched the burning strife. 70 Christ said, " In three days I shall rise ! " And cast the doubt from weeping eyes. Calm science shows the battling creeds To follow man's design. Who reads From Nature's tale — intuitive — Knows naught is lost, that all must live. Go, rest in peace ! Each soul a part Of God's great plan in the cosmic heart. o THE MULBERRY-TREE (to clarence) H the mulberry-tree ! the mulberry-tree ! That brings back the vision of boyhood to me. When far from the city and worn marts of men It cheers me with memory's music again. Where fields are all ripe with the soft-blowing grain And the quail sounds its whistle — a challenge for rain. The grace of a day near forgotten comes back To cancel the years in time's endless track. The robin and woodpecker, swallow and wren. Sing now in its branches the same song as then. Their melody rings in a heart once more free By the mulberry-tree — dear mulberry-tree. 71 A THEN FLL COME BACK TO YOU S the first ray of morn Breaks from the night, So is man's spirit born Into the bright Immortal world above Back to the goal of love, Into the light. Death's fatal, fair caress The door unbars ; One moment's perfectness Beneath the stars: The voices of the spheres Sing softly through the years — No sound that mars. Like night's low whispering. Crystal and fair; Lulled where bird-vespers cling Upon the air; Held in the hazy mist Of memory's fond tryst — Our lost are there. Day's glamour fades and goes ; A shimmering track Wavers at dusk and glows, — Grows sombre — black. " Then I'll come back to you In the soft twilight's dew. Then I'll come back ! " 72 LOSS AND GAIN " There is no death; ivhat seems so is transition! " ^ ^ ^"^"^ UR friend is lost ! " we often say ; O' But naught above — beneath the sod Is lost. The soul will seek its God, Severed in love from form of clay, He knows, and His the eternal way ; The way that one and all have trod, With promise that we meet some day. Some day we'll wake with sweet surprise, And know those thought afar are near. The days grown desolate and drear Will brightly dawn to gladdened eyes ; As when rain falls from saddened skies The afterglow is made more clear; So loyal heart, let hope arise. (From The Progressive Thinker.) THE IMMORTAL BEAD ^ ^ (~^ OME ! dream in my arms," carols death ; V-V (There freedom will meet you.) Come ! breathe deeply once of my breath ; (No passion will greet you.) Come, conquerors ! wreaths wait for your head ; (Immortal we crowned you.) Come ! live in the world where the dead Sweep silently 'round you. 73 SPRING (life) BLOSSOMING! blossoming! With all its might ; Budding in rainbow tints Out of the night ; Up through the soil of things Into the light. FALL (death) SHEDDING its leaves again, . _ Dropped into earth — Gone is the beauteous sheen, Lost now its mirth; Mourning the tribute then Of a new birth. THE LAW OH ! Who can call the red rose back When its last flower is fled.^^ And who would walk the crimson track Of life when love is dead? 74' Down in a gentle garden's dusk I saw the dew unfold, From barren bush and bed of musk, The fragrant blooms of old. The essence there withm them lies, The spirit that God gives ; Naught perishes ; love never dies ; Love is the Law — and lives. AUX AMES BIEN NEE (les artistes) No chart nor compass made for these I find ; But as the roaming, restless, flippant breeze Provokes to bloom the buds of springtime trees And flings their wealth of color on the wind ; Casting these peerless petals in a shower, Held imaged and perfected by a power That caught with brush and canvas the refined Perpetuated vision: — the desire Of each brave mariner of the high seas Of art ! Bold dreamers who aspire — Cold frozen peaks have warmed to life, and these Imbued with magic of the divine fire That flashed from God into the artist's mind. 75 THE LIGHT BEYOND WHEN twilight tints the misty peaks A voice long-stilled unto us speaks ; And memories gather close and fond, Led by the lure of the light beyond ! There are faces that we fain would greet — Faces grown old, and fair and sweet — That link the present's golden thread With the unrevealed of the years ahead. In the dark of night, w^hen the great world sleeps. And thought lies silent within the deeps. Then our dead return in a mist of dreams, And counsel us till the new day gleams. As we travel on 'twixt smile and tear. What once seemed far, now measures near. The years grow less and friends more fond, Led by the lure of the Light Beyond ! APRIL'S MUSIC BLOSSOMS, blossoms everywhere! In the earth and in the air ; Colored flame and opal fires Burning with their brief desires. 76 Bluebirds whirr and sing again In their sky-tinged splendor. Wren, Thrush, and robin's matinee Thrill the hillside all the day. Through the evening's amethyst — Echoing in a golden mist — Tinkle the clear waters falling ; Kindling stars are faintly calling. Beauty born of murmuring sound Weaves its witchery around; Wandering voices fill the air — April's music, everywhere! Lancaster, Pa., April, 1919. TWILIGHT SHADOWS TWILIGHT shadows stealing round us. Shroud our senses to beguile ; Ancient memories here have found us Wrapped in reverie for awhile. Calling to us friends and faces. That were dear in days of yore ; Twilight shades of lingering graces Hover round the open door. 77 Boughs in blossom bend and beckon Silently their shadow-wings ; And my heart's mad riots reckon With the Past, that sobs and sings. Hushed the wind with soft caresses ; Star-mist crowns the jewelled air; What the fond heart here confesses, I alone may know and share. Light loves pass with shine and shimmer. Gold now glints the azure east; Night's new passion spent, with glimmer Of old fancies at life's feast. ALL THAT PERISHETH SHALL LIVE TWISTED and curled upon the ground The dead leaves lie; The sparrow sends his twittering sound From haunts on high ; And the wind moans in plaintive round Pitilessly. The rain folds in a pearly mist The shimmering trees ; Their crimson etchings, once cloud-kist. The coy winds tease; Here Autumn's artist holds high tryst As Summer flees. 78 All grey and empty is the sky And drear as doom ! But in the mold and rootlets lie New bud and bloom Where Nature's beating heart will vie With Resurrection's tomb ! RESTORATION ALL the day you have been near me, Like an echo that has found In some faint reverberation Lost for long, a kindred sound ; Or a voice once trilled to music, Out of silence vague and dim. Now rejoicing, newly gladdened, By some radiant morning hymn ; — Or with memory of a June-time Fresher than the early dew Held in lily bell-cups, swaying On the hillside ; so are you ! So you conjure to my fancy Reminiscent days of charm. When we lived in faery glamour Innocent of fear's alarm. Birds were singing, boughs were budding, And I long again to see All the rosy warmth and gladness That those memories bring to me. 79 Tell again the old, old story ; Whisper, Voices, if the while My fond heart is breaking, breaking For the living word and smile I once knew in Love's sweet springtime, Knew and loved without regret; Knew in God's own image perfect. One my soul can ne'er forget. Flowing to thee as a river Flows beneath the stars and sun, Ever onward and forever. Toward the great eternal One ! Oh, that love! its joy and sadness — Mingled rue and roses bloom ! Voiced in music, mute with madness, While Love's altar-fires consume! Love, the universal essence. Comes and goes, and comes again, To and fro a vital presence Hedged about by laws of men. I shall know you, spirit, ever. And my soul with yours entwine. Though the Cosmic chain shall sever — For the finding made you mine! Love lives on in human places, Where our human feet have trod, While our hungering hearts and faces Crave the shining peaks of God! 80 When the lutes are playing softly, And the lights are burning low, Then I seek your star in heaven- Woo a dream of long ago; And in fancy hear you calling ! Calling ! and I see your face, Feel your arms about me falling. Folding me in close embrace ! And I whisper to the silence : " Kiss me once before you go I " And the echo of that whisper Is the only sound I know 1 ***** A DREAM THE CROWN OF LIFE MoxDAY Night, May 17, 1917. (After reading Ecclesiastes by Solomon.) I climbed and climbed the highest trestle-like structure to the very top-most height. This structure was higher than any build- ing or monument ever built by man. When ascending I was con- scious of a huge crowd watching me with keen interest, and at the same time devotion or sympathy, and a desire that I should win. When I arrived at the very summit I was made conscious of the fact that I had already won, before hand, two trophies, or vic- torious prizes; i.e.— a large silver cup and a larger gold one. The summit of this structure upon which I stood was only about three feet by two and one-half feet. Then a most beautiful gold crown, immense in size, at least a foot and some inches in height was placed upon my head from out the invisible, or as if from above. Immediately the material structure began to rock, up and down and side ways like a modern scales, when things are thrown upon 81 it for weight. I then lost my balance sufficiently, so that the crown fell from my head. I witnessed the consternation among the great crowd of people below, who thought that I had purposely thrown the great crown, with its valuable diamonds, rubies, emer- alds and other precious stones (of immense size) away. After losing the crown, beautiful and valuable as it was, I felt a great spiritual upliftment and relief from material things, accom- panied by such a heavenly peace of mind, that I threw the other two prizes (cups) after the crown, which caused still more agita- tion and condemnation for me from the crowd below. I then dis- covered a wide white marble stairway, winding round and round to the bottom. I ran and ran and ran down this, oh so fast, not stopping to answer the questions on the way about the crown, from people who came out at different points of the descent. When I arrived on the Earth, I went still farther down into a basement- like place, where was seated my wife, cold and distant. With her were Markham and many other notable people. I said to my wife, "Is this a time to be cold and condemning? Didn't you know it was an acident? " Whereupon they all advanced toward me, and Markham took my hand and said, " I am so glad, we all thought you threw the crown away." AMEN (Signed) Clarence de Vaux-Royer. 628 W. 139th Street, New York City. 82 TRIBUTES One day when I was a very little boy ... my father, Andrew John Kauffman, took me ... to hear a violinist, a boy not much older than I was. He said that we were going to hear him now and that some day we would surely hear a great deal of him. . . . I don't remember what the place looked like, nor even how the musician looked, for, the moment he began to play, all my other senses blended into the sense of hearing — and how he played I shall never forget. He was Clarence de Vaux-Royer. As we came away, my father said : " That boy is your cousin ; the day will come when you will be proud of it." The day did come, and, although Clarence Royer has now passed, my pride in him has not passed. It grew year by year, as his art grew, and it will remain as long as my memory endures. Royer interpreted beauty to an ugly world, and his interpreta- tion was creative. He made music in the silence of life and har- mony of our hearts' discord. He has left us the sadder for his going, but he took with him a soul all music to play its part in the anthem that shall never cease. I think of him as a musician on his way from a little orchestra to a great, and I think of that prayer from the Divine Liturgy of St. John the Goldenmouthed, as it is read in the Holy Eastern Orthodox (the Graeco-Russian) Church: " Give him rest, O our God ! Give him rest in a quiet place, a pleasant place, where there is neither sorrow nor mourning . . . and grant him finally a sure defense before the dread tribunal of Christ." Reginald Wright KAUFrMAN. 24th February, 1920. From The Critic (New York Musical Journal). Mr. de Vaux-Royer was a man of very fine distinctions and charming personality, with Wagnerian nose and Byronic chin, and during his days in Paris he wore his hair a-la-Mozart — in ringlets over his collar. His friends were legion. He sang in three lan- guages, having been tenor for the Empress Friedrich Church, in Berlin, and also one of the prominent churches in Paris. During his fifteen years in New York he was associated on the musical staif of the Church of the Heavenly Rest, All Angels Church, St. Bartholomew's and many others. He was in every sense a true artist, and consecrated his life to music, holding it above price. His high aims and noble spirit promiDted him to give his music to charitable institutions and individual charities, and responded to innumerable demands. Biographical data of Mr. de Vaux-Royer appeared in Grove's Musical Dictionary, The Musical Blue Book, Who's Who in Amer- ica and in The Genealogy of the Schumann Family. His lectures before universities and The Board of Education were written on The Composers of the Nation, but his great work was as concert artist — Violin Soloist — and he was known with honor over twelve countries of the world. Lancaster, Pa., Oct. 28, 1919. The end of earth has come to Clarence, and soon will come to all of us. What is the deep mystery that lies so near us, and all the while j ust ahead ? We are glad to have been born, glad to have lived, and, I think, the experience of all good souls when they have passed beyond is that they are glad to have died. Let us look with grateful hearts, it may be through tears. He was kind and wished well to all about him. He toiled manfully at his appointed work and attained eminence in it. He was never strong in physique, and lies down to sleep very tired, but with hope of to-morrow. May he who giveth his beloved sleep give that glad rest to him and you and all of us. Dr. J. P. McCaskey. . . . The length of life depends not upon years but upon our service to humanity. Mr. Royer's life was one of service and cheer to all who knew him. We mourn his departure as our loss, but his spirit will live forever. (Dr.) J. Gardner Smith. (Over five hundred tributes from devoted and distinguished friends were received, all worthy of space here.) 84 For C. de V.-R. Extol his valour, Earth! Let all revere The memory of his song, and lofty ways; So men may grow in wisdom thro' his praise And life be sweeter since we knew him here! Blanche Shoemaker Wagstaff. March 31, 1930. Pre-eminent in his profession Mr. de Vaux-Royer not only ex- celled as concert artist but had written and delivered seven illus- trated lectures on the comjDOsers and music of the seven principal musical countries of the world. He was director of his orchestra and the De Vaux-Royer Quartette, and of latter years composer, having been educated in Europe under the greatest living masters. Errata: Page 83, line 19, word should read "accident." A DREAM INTERVIEW Last night I experienced a wonderfully realistic dream interview with ray dear husband, who passed from mortal to the immortal plane two months ago. We were together in a very old house of Revolutionary period (standing when my father bought his coun- try estate with 500 acres surrounding it). We were at the top and he was hewing his way out with an axe. (These symbols are given in dream visions where language fails.) The timber was of very heavy beams, with board upon board nailed over, as though by each generation, all bearing labels, viz.: "Creeds," "Traditions," " Smothered Aspirations," " Deranged Ideals," etc., and he slashed at them all. I said, " You are not strong. You must not do that." He replied, " I have Eternal Life, and I must do this to live in the open sunlight of Truth. That is what the human race needs today for growth, mental and physical, not to be hedged around by false and antiquated conceptions. To know that man himself is a respon- sible agent and his own builder. My life was hampered by false teachings. Your institutions may be ' a way unto,' but if you do not branch out bigger than the Institution you will not arrive, but be hidden under the name — in the letter. It is the emancipated Spirit that builds for progress. Some smug corner of soft conces- sion in a church does not constitute Christianity, or save the soul, or save anything. Your growth is arrested. Sleepers, awake! I have found no golden streets or great white throne here, but plenty of work to be done (you cannot get away from that), but under a finer and clearer atmosphere. Thought is the thing! Train your faculties." Then I tried to raise an old window of small panes of glass, grown green and mossy and dim, securely fastened, so that nothing should escape its bondage or filter in. But time had loosened its setting; yet I was fearful and put the old fastening back with a sacrilegious feeling. He bounded through the structure he had liberated himself from and I followed. He said, " You were right. Rose; you have a great work before you. Half the musty books should be burned and re- placed by new ideas." Then as I looked around I saw the two beautiful maples of my Father's place (that I have not visited for 18 years) overshadowing a scene, natural but not earthly, as it was radiant with a strange 85 light — a luminous glamour. There stood a family group that seemed familiar, but only one advanced to meet me — my dear Mother, natural, but ultrarefined. And a lamb came up and placed his forefeet, crossed, into my hand in loving greeting, so gentle, without fear, and of human expression, as though one of the family • — all in harmony. Then the light faded gradually as the beautiful landscape and setting disappeared from view before I could greet the others assembled. This is one of several impressions I have received since he passed over. — From the Washington News Letter. There is one Mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same. He that is once ad- mitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can under- stand. Who hath access to this Universal Mind, is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. — Emerson. 86 SOUL SHADOWS, SONGS AND SONNETS ROSE M. DE VAUX-ROYER (With portrait of the author) PARAGRAPHS FROM THE PRESS Some views and reviews of prominent people "Your songs have delicacy and alluring melody:'— Edwin Markham. " Your poems are full of messages to the soul of humanity, and I find a quality of spirituality pervading them seldom found in books of modern verse." — Madison Cawein. " I am particularly impressed with the high purpose and motive the poems give evidence of, on the part of their author. '—Ralph Waldo Trine. "If you have expressed what some one else feels— that one will get your book. Put my name down for two hooks."— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. "Your poetry is refined, lofty, deep, and musical, the touching voice of an Aeol's harp on which Ariel plays with his flower-like fingers. In the midst of materialistic American society, a soul like yours is a national blessing. Your life work means idealism and you are the incarnation of this noble tendency."— Dr. Max Nordau. ■• I congratulate you that you have been able to imprison in verse so much of the loveliness of nature and \ife.''—Clinton Scollard. "Always the poems contain hints of something just beyond- suggested— this more secret loveliness whose presence haunts every page. The essence of your poetry is the optimism of the spirit." —John Hall Wheelock. " I find a philosophical flame throbbing through your soul poems —a musical rhythm which fascinates."— /fomer N. Bartlett. " Lofty in tone and refined in expression her verse shows true poetic insight and fee\mg.''—Light, London, W. C. 87 " I have been reading your very charming volume with profit and pleasure. It does credit to everyone concerned — author, artist, printer and binder." — Elbert Hubbard. "No appreciative reader can lay down the volume without feel- ing that through some occult power in the lines he has absorbed a radiant spiritual uplift." — Overland Monthly, Calif. " Under the title ' Soul Shadows ' Rose M. de Vaux-Royer issues a volume of her songs and sonnets, many of which have been pub- lished previously in magazines and papers. " The sonnet ' Within,' written in Paris, is dedicated to Francois Coppee."— iY. Y. World. " In ' Soul Shadows,' by Rose M. de Vaux-Royer, we find a nice fancy, at times eloquent and musical. They all show an earnest- ness and genuine inspiration. " ' Memory's Visions ' reveals a rare depth and philosophic fervor, and ' Calling ' is a breathless, fervent little paean." — The Internationa]. " I like your lines on Edwin Markham, and I see by his comment that he also likes them. I am glad to see that your poetic marks- manship has hit that big Bull Muse." — Hudson Maxim. " Your poems are a noble work : virile and full of exalting images." — Blanche S. Wagstaf. " I find your poems almost beyond my criticism. You are too true — too elusive; you must be studied if one sees the beauty of your lines." — Marqaret Holmes Bates. 88