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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
 
 Chap. Copyright No. 
 
 md 
 
 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 
 
Pictoris Carmina 
 
T'o a Lunette 
 
 'Sweeter to ga/e and idly dream than toil" 
 
 See Page 70 
 
PICTORIS CARMINA 
 
 v^ 
 
 BY 
 
 FREDERIC CROWNINSHIELD 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 IHOO 
 
Copyright^ igoo^ by 
 DoDD, Mead £f Company 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 51591 
 
 LjovMiy ot Oortv<*<!! 
 
 SEP 25 1900 
 
 Copyright •otry 
 
 SECO^^O COPY. 
 
 0«-.i<v«i^ to 
 
 OHOt« DIVISION, 
 
 ^QT 1 8 I9Q0 
 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS - JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON . CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 SONNETS 
 
 Page 
 
 Prologue 3 
 
 The Tonic 4 
 
 O Artist, speak ! 5 
 
 The Reason 6 
 
 After the Play 7 
 
 December 8 
 
 To MY Muse 9 
 
 Decadence 10 
 
 National Art 11 
 
 The Silent Wheel 12 
 
 Et in Arcadia Ego 13 
 
 Morning Hopes 14 
 
 The Frame 15 
 
 The Setting , 16 
 
 The Preface 17 
 
 To Themis 18 
 
 Sunday Vespers at S 19 
 
Page 
 
 Days of Illness 20 
 
 Valuations 21 
 
 Reflections 22 
 
 Degrees of Charm — I 23 
 
 Degrees of Charm — II 24 
 
 Two Windows 25 
 
 Brothers of the West. 26 
 
 The " Empire " 27 
 
 A " Della Robbia " 28 
 
 CONVICTIONLESS 1 29 
 
 CONVICTIONLESS II 3O 
 
 To Science 31 
 
 Not in Vain 32 
 
 Wheat from Chaff 33 
 
 Did we but dare ! 34 
 
 Michelangelo — Milton . 35 
 
 To A Portrait (New England Victrix) .... 36 
 
 Double Hollyhocks 37 
 
 The Remedy 38 
 
Page 
 
 In Hot Weather — I 39 
 
 In Hot Weather — II 4° 
 
 Giovanni — I 4^ 
 
 Giovanni — II 4^ 
 
 Unnatural Selection 43 
 
 " Competitions " in Art 44 
 
 Illuminate, O Lord ! 45 
 
 Veiled River 4^ 
 
 Evening at Stockbridge 47 
 
 Requiescam 48 
 
 Clouds 49 
 
 Italian Sketches — 
 
 I — Lunghezza 5^ 
 
 II — S. Sabina 5^ 
 
 HI — The Olive 52 
 
 IV — Reaction 53 
 
 V — Pompeii 54 
 
 VI — Villa Conti, Frascati 55 
 
 VII — San Gimignano 5^ 
 
 Vll 
 
Page 
 Italian Sketches — Continued 
 
 VIII — On the Sacred Way, Rome 57 
 
 IX — Roman Campagna 58 
 
 X — To a Fountain 59 
 
 XI — Epilogue 60 
 
 Grazie, Amico ! 61 
 
 "Make Hay" 62 
 
 The Stronger Sex 63 
 
 Waiting 64 
 
 Mountain-laurel — I 65 
 
 Mountain-laurel — II . 66 
 
 Gall 67 
 
 Drawings from Life 68 
 
 Dissolution 69 
 
 To A Lunette 70 
 
 To AN Engraving 71 
 
 A Prayer to the State 72 
 
 To Merchant Princes — I 73 
 
 To Merchant Princes — II 74 
 
 Vlll 
 
Page 
 
 A Vision 75 
 
 Confidants 76 
 
 Swift Moods 77 
 
 Spenser 78 
 
 Clear Skies 79 
 
 Eventually 80 
 
 To AN Old Model 81 
 
 Fruit Invisible 82 
 
 A Cult 83 
 
 To A Memorial Window — I 84 
 
 To A Memorial Window — II 85 
 
 The Permanence of Art 86 
 
 Falling Leaves 87 
 
 Backgrounds 88 
 
 Intricacy 89 
 
 O Night ! 90 
 
 An October Sketch 91 
 
 Green Age 92 
 
 Take not her Name in Vain 93 
 
 IX 
 
Page 
 
 Late October 94 
 
 Success ! 95 
 
 To Winged Eros 96 
 
 Midwinter 97 
 
 To Boreas 98 
 
 Enthusiasm without Delusion 99 
 
 Christmas-time 100 
 
 To England 10 1 
 
 The Recompense 102 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 Quelle Betise 105 
 
 A Song of the Garden 106 
 
 A Song of the River 108 
 
 A Song of the Sea no 
 
 To Galenus 112 
 
 The Choice 117 
 
 Consecrated Flowers 119 
 
Page 
 
 A Contrast 120 
 
 In Autumn 121 
 
 Hereafter 121 
 
 A Thought 121 
 
 Michelangelo 122 
 
 To A Landscape 123 
 
 Threnody 125 
 
 Adieu . , . . , 129 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Page 
 
 To A Lunette Frontispiece •y 
 
 " Sweeter to gaze and idly dream than toil " 
 
 To A Portrait (New England Victrix) ... 12 
 
 << Against a background cool of solemn green" 
 
 Giovanni 24 = 
 
 " Sun-tempered peasant from Abruzzi's peaks'" 
 
 The Olive 36 
 
 *' Naught is more lovely than the olive-tree" 
 
 Pompeii 46 - 
 
 << On many a morn athwart the slanting rays " 
 
 Villa Conti, Frascati 60 ^ 
 
 << Cool villa Conti, thou hast been to me" 
 
 To A Fountain 82^ 
 
 " I know twin fountain-jets that tireless fling" 
 
 Draw^ings from Life 112 
 
 " These drawings from the quick in black, or red" 
 
 xm 
 
SONNETS 
 
" Quelle plume enviable que celle de ces peintres^ quand r occa- 
 sion s'offre a eux de quitter la palette pour I ^encrier et de jeter un 
 cri du coeur ! " Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Bernard Prost. 
 
 Such words give needed heart to lay aside 
 The wonted tools, and take the stranger pen. 
 And sing acceptably to lettered men 
 Of things one cannot limn, nor yet would hide. 
 
 Perchance the tropes of him who doth abide 
 In bond to Nature and adore, or when 
 She clouds and frets, or smiles and shines again, 
 May wreathe his simple thoughts with comely pride. 
 
 And these sincerities, that have their root 
 
 In raptured vision which mere speech transcends, 
 May find their analogues in stately throng 
 
 Of winged bards. Yet some one might impute 
 A freshness to them. But if not ? — His friends 
 Will know him better from his candid song. 
 
THE TONIC 
 
 From time to time for health of soul 'tis well 
 To live with Nature hermit-wise and drink 
 From stainless source ; to diagnose, nor shrink 
 From cold dissection in a lofty cell 
 
 Whence we relentless look on those who dwell 
 In herds, blind for the dusty pack, nor blink 
 The trending ultimate of men who think 
 That they have found a Heaven in very Hell. 
 
 Yes, it is wholesome now and then to steel 
 The moral sense — to wrestle not with man 
 'Fore man — but on some scabrous mountain peak 
 
 Among the clouds, to tune of thunder-peal. 
 To wrestle with one's self before great Pan : 
 And thus phylactered, men again to seek. 
 
• O ARTIST, SPEAK! 
 
 O Artist, speak thy genuine thoughts unawed 
 By habits' lack. Whatever thou hast to say 
 Thy better reason's habit will betray 
 Which operates on life, and hath ignored 
 
 Ephemeral catch-words sheep-like men applaud. 
 Thou hast conciseness' gift ; thou dost obey 
 Proportion's laws ; thou dost not pad for pay, 
 Since thou hast soul with vetoing beauties stored. 
 
 When thou art ravished by some fairy scene 
 
 And wouldst with transport other hearts subject. 
 Concentrate thou dost seek the thrilling clue 
 
 And note it with insistence ; nor dost screen 
 The primal v/ith uneloquent effect 
 That lessens it. Thou speakest clear and true. 
 
THE REASON 
 
 I LOVE my lady for her beauteous face, 
 And flaunt the blazon of her bonny mien, 
 Then vauntingly proclaim her soul, unseen 
 Till I am shackled by her bonds of grace. 
 
 Sweet Nature's face I love — the clouds that race 
 From ridge to ridge, full-viewed by autumn's Queen 
 Waving her golden rods in scarlet sheen ! 
 Nor seek I reason ethical. I trace 
 
 The silhouette of some fair monument 
 
 Entranced. I love its face for symmetry ; 
 For ratio pure of mass to residue 
 
 Of void ; for decoration pertinent. 
 
 And yet some sage, in self-sufficiency. 
 Will say 'tis beautiful because 'tis true. 
 
AFTER THE PLAY 
 
 A SOMBRE piece, recalling harrowing days. 
 Aye years, of cruel fratricidal strife 
 That had for proem throbbing drum and fife. 
 And brass dementing, braided gold, and maze 
 
 Embayonetted of youth's flower, and craze 
 Of girls hand-clapping the parade of life 
 Deemed charmed 'gainst scath. Alas, young loving 
 
 wife. 
 What change did bring thee that infernal blaze 
 
 From actuality — that gaudless play 
 
 In sickening acts — the powder-grime — the steel — 
 The lead of triple shriek, that strident tears 
 
 A cry unwilled from lips fast turning gray, 
 
 And thine own piercing scream, dear Heart and leal. 
 Whom adamantine Death unpitying spares ! 
 
DECEMBER 
 
 Ah, one by one my faiths the fairest fall. 
 Which I had deemed inwoven in the woof 
 And warp of souls commercing 'neath the roof 
 Of friendship — where we give our mutual all 
 
 Confidingly ; where franknesses do call 
 For reciprocity ; wherein no proof 
 Is claimed, since from the Lie we hold aloof. 
 And by the Truth its right of life forestall. 
 
 So fall the autumn's gauds before the gale 
 That ramps from out the arctic skies of flint 
 And bares the sterling skeleton of things. 
 
 I love it not ; yet would I feel its pale 
 Cold breath, and see in icy eye the glint 
 Of Verity, and hear its candid wings. 
 
TO MY MUSE 
 
 Sweep me, O shining clouds, oh sweep me swift 
 Above the topmost passion's burning peak 
 To my imperial Love. For I am weak 
 With unattained desire, nor have I gift 
 
 Serene of Hope, nor can I plod with drift 
 Of commoners who would laborious seek 
 Her up the crags of Art, and 'fore her speak 
 The never spoken word. O, clouds, uplift 
 
 Me kindly on your fleet, resplendent wings. 
 Swifter and whiter than the god-like bull 
 That rapt Europa to enraptured meet. 
 
 Lift me to where she stands, the offerings 
 Of Genius on her brow. Lift me on full 
 Illumined forms, that I may kiss her feet ! 
 
DECADENCE 
 
 When fields are green with aftermath of Fall, 
 When trees parade in rich vermilioned dress. 
 Wan exhalations from the vales possess 
 The full, ripe forms of Earth, and cast a pall 
 
 Impalliding o'er mellow hues. Withal 
 
 Not charmless — but the charm that doth impress 
 Pale fever on some deep-eyed shepherdess 
 Near Rome, who croons her morbid madrigal. 
 
 Yet when the waxing sun with lusty rays 
 Burns into nothingness the vapors white. 
 And bares the splendent view of mount and lea. 
 
 Then gladsome Nature chants his ringing praise. 
 O, Life, consume the pale malarious blight 
 That hangs o*er Art, and give us Sanity ! 
 
 lO 
 
NATIONAL ART 
 
 Welcome the foreign aptitudes that reap 
 
 Us honor, westward borne on ravening prows 
 White-toothed and fleet, that ever sateless rouse 
 The undulations of the glaucous deep ! 
 
 Welcome the alien blood that aye may keep 
 By fresh infusion Life upon thy brows, 
 O Art Compatriot, my mystic Spouse, 
 And guard thee from content's anaemic sleep I 
 
 Yet see to it thou dost not rash exceed 
 Precision to inoculate, or ape 
 Thy benefactors. Elsewise wilt thou lag 
 
 Behind the shining throng, nor hope to lead. 
 
 Nor e'en stand peer. If foremost ^ — thou must 
 
 drape 
 Thyself in starry folds, thy country's flag. 
 
 II 
 
THE SILENT WHEEL 
 
 O'er all, dull browns, wan umbers, and decay ! 
 Embrowned the serrate outline of the drear 
 Escarped heights that leap abrupt from mere. 
 Entangled with the umbered husks which sway 
 
 Their sapless tufts, not long ago so gay 
 
 And confident. Embrowned the selvage sere 
 
 Of road — fair-trimmed with flowers when the year 
 
 Was full — on which I take my sober way. 
 
 Then flashes past me on the silent wheel 
 The radiance from a vivid, dazzling red — 
 A jaunty habit worn by jaunty maid — 
 
 Like scarlet poppies that unwelcome steal 
 
 Among the ripening stalks. Now umbers shed 
 A glory, and my mien no more is staid ! 
 
 12 
 
To a Portrait. {New England Victrix) 
 
 "Against a background cool of solemn green" 
 
 See Page 36 
 
ET IN ARCADIA EGO 
 
 Ten thousand poets hymn the glories white 
 And rose of May, and myriad artists limn 
 The gala boughs of fruiting trees and film 
 Of fresh-born green on rusty earth, where blight 
 
 Of frost has lain. The iterated sight 
 
 Is ever new. Conditions shift with whim 
 
 Of sun, or the elusive mood of him 
 
 Who e'en mean things exalts with fancies dight. 
 
 To-day no carnival of pink and blue. 
 The petal gleaming on a lambent sky. 
 Dark tell the fragrant blossoms 'gainst the sad 
 
 Sea-nurtured clouds, while at my feet the hue 
 Of purple pensees tunes my thoughts to sigh 
 Of southern airs. And yet the thrush sings glad ! 
 
 13 
 
MORNING HOPES 
 
 Could but the dew of silver-tinted morn, 
 Agleam with nascent light from orient sky. 
 Retain its sparkle fresh when noon is high, 
 And till the flaming orb, of radiance shorn. 
 
 Gives place to night ! Could but our hopes new-born 
 Hold true, and brave the beams reality- 
 Emits, and dusky-winged grief belie. 
 Thus making day a never-ending dawn ! 
 
 Would not our fickle fate — in turn betrayed 
 By feather-footed joy, and pain more slow — 
 Exalted be in perpetuity ? 
 
 Yet to enhance the light there should be shade, 
 Yet to enjoy the sweet, we should taste woe. 
 And to attain to bliss, we needs must die. 
 
 14 
 
THE FRAME 
 
 Were we to frame our pictures in such wise, 
 That no enhancement would be duly lent 
 To gracious subtleties on which was spent 
 Our flame ; we could not justly stigmatize 
 
 Indifference. When love-flushed lips and eyes 
 Are framed by massive golden hair, we vent 
 Frank, lavish praise. Yet were the tresses bent 
 O'er noble brow less fair, not to the skies 
 
 Should we our Aphrodite laud. Oh, yes. 
 
 The frame counts much. Ofttimes there rests on 
 sheet. 
 
 Disfigured by unsightly word or dress. 
 Some jewel smothered in the baneful reek. 
 
 The skimming eye nor reads nor heeds. In waste 
 'T is lost, or tainted by a noxious taste. 
 
 15 
 
THE SETTING 
 
 In the fresh cool of matutinal hour, 
 
 *Neath chestnuts dense that shield an Augustus sky. 
 
 What joy to climb in expectation high 
 
 To mountain perch, to wilding native bower 
 
 Of some glazed Robbia, a pious dower 
 
 From Gratitude ! What bliss to sweep with eye 
 
 The Tiber's plain, then mount in ecstasy 
 
 The slope where dwelt the sweetest cloistral flower. 
 
 Seraphic Francis, and on Giotto's wall 
 
 To view his tender zeal to right the wrong ! 
 
 What rapture 't is to pass from hall to hall 
 
 Athirst, then burst upon the " Stanze's " song. 
 
 Framed in its very frame congenital ! 
 
 This is the way that works of Art enthrall ! 
 
 16 
 
THE PREFACE 
 
 At twilight after storm, we buoyant greet 
 The break of lucent green in sodden air; 
 " This is a harbinger, it will be fair/* 
 We say, and on the morn, accoutred, meet 
 
 The emblazoned day. My Art seems incomplete 
 Because we should approach it up the stair 
 Of keen desire, and prelude should prepare 
 The mind. But sudden view, or indiscreet 
 
 Farrago of massed works. Intention spoils. 
 If we could but the wandering eye enslave — 
 As dramatist adroit the heart entraps 
 
 In his ascending wilderment of toils — 
 
 And lead it up the polished columned nave 
 Into the final Glory of the apse ! 
 
 17 
 
TO THEMIS 
 
 In summer when the night is clear and cold. 
 Impartial falls the dew — a diamond sea — 
 On humble tre-foiled clover, stately tree. 
 And proud, wide leaves of blazing flower of gold, 
 
 Turning to thee, O Phoebus, while you hold 
 The sky with flame unbiased. It may be 
 That at some Orient gate, blind equity 
 Is dealt by spangled sultan uncontrolled. 
 
 Whom we deem truculent, yet at the core 
 
 Kindlier, because more swift, perhaps more just 
 
 Than our protracting ministers of Law. 
 
 We "justice loving " Saxons crown the bust 
 
 Of Themis, and with reverence place it o*er. 
 
 Oh, not the Pauper's, but the Rich man's door ! 
 
 i8 
 
SUNDAY VESPERS AT S 
 
 When willows quiver in the golden air. 
 
 When shadows prone athwart the silent leas 
 Weave purple strands soft-creeping by degrees 
 Towards the basking hills, then I, too, share 
 
 The Peace of Seventh day, and unaware 
 
 Of sixfold fret, pass rapt 'neath reverent trees 
 Into the glooming navels solemnities. 
 Immersed in soothing atmosphere of prayer. 
 
 Here even I^ poor worldling, am enthralled 
 By dighted memories that equalize 
 
 The sunset glow from sanctities inwalled ; 
 
 By some full-throated voice that throbbing cries 
 
 From organ-loft above the Robbia choir. 
 
 If Heart is touched, why need the Brain inquire ? 
 
 19 
 
DAYS OF ILLNESS 
 
 In deepest shade of sombre, towering pines — 
 Primeval pinnacles — I seem to lie 
 Beneath their canopy, which bars the sky. 
 And dark portentous mysteries confines 
 
 Within its gloom. No ferns nor humid vines 
 Thrust through the piled up needles, ages high! 
 Naught but the brake of branches sere that die 
 In the dun sunless limbo, which defines 
 
 The limits of a region yet more dim. 
 
 And more mysterious far. But world-ward near 
 Its gate, there gleams like flaming sword God-set 
 
 At Eden's portal with the Cherubim, 
 
 A laurel-blaze — the winged angels peer. 
 Thither some day I may emerge — not yet. 
 
 20 
 
VALUATIONS 
 
 Whilst conning estimations absolute 
 Of genius made at various times, I note 
 The widely varying values, that connote 
 Standards diverse 'mong those who would impute 
 
 Priority to idols. Now we hoot 
 
 Derisive these sure verdicts ! Yet remote 
 The lesson which should serve as antidote 
 To baneful measurements, indeed acute, 
 
 But equally absurd. What craze to rank 
 The unrankable ! Sufficeth it not to say 
 This man is strong — that man of purpose veils 
 
 His strength — and this one wept, while that one 
 shrank 
 From tears ? We wield dissection's knife to-day 
 More apt — but do we steadier hold the scales ? 
 
 21 
 
REFLECTIONS 
 
 I LOOK upon the glassing river's face, 
 And see therein a mirrored pageantry. 
 The amethystine clouds, the subtlety 
 Symphonic of the varied greens that grace 
 
 The timbered banks and grassy interspace. 
 But yet the vision is not effigy 
 Exact of what hangs o'er : some entity 
 Is lost, while mere transmission doth efface 
 
 Some splendor, or of light, or deep-toned shade. 
 I look upon the face of a clear soul. 
 
 And see therein its image as 't was made. 
 
 Candid and free from guile. Oh no ! The whole 
 
 Is never seen ; some shadow is concealed. 
 Some glowing whiteness is but half revealed ! 
 
 22 
 
DEGREES OF CHARM 
 
 I 
 
 Say not this rendering of a graceful thought 
 Is bad, because 'twas born in florid days, 
 Or in the pseudo-classic time, when bays 
 Crowned dogmas, or when " Macchinisti '* wrought 
 
 Foreshortened prodigies, and science brought 
 To wide expectant wall, that well may daze 
 The best of us. If their bravura ways 
 Not ours be, ours not theirs, the true retort. 
 
 Byzantium's saints askew on vitreous glare 
 Of dome impress by majesty august. 
 Then Art was " dead." Not so ; rude at the start. 
 
 It blooms, then deflorescent wanes, yet ne'er 
 Dies. Oft on high, as often in the dust. 
 And yet withal some charm — so it be Art. 
 
 23 
 
DEGREES OF CHARM 
 
 II 
 
 The oak-leaf in Its bourgeon-days divine 
 Is fair, indeed, with fairness of the young, 
 With comeliness of contrast keen, fresh-sprung 
 From shaggy veteran boughs immune. The fine 
 
 Full forms of growth attained, the scalloped line 
 That marginates, the bluish glints among 
 The sombre greens that shade cupped acorns, hung 
 Adjacent, e*en with ampler beauty shine. 
 
 And then Decadence comes : the vinous reds 
 Deep dye the curling sapless leaf, and blaze 
 Rich harmonies that compensate. The late 
 
 Wan browns resplendent shine on turquoise beds 
 Of heaven. At last in sere and crumpled phase 
 It falls, and serves itself to reinstate. 
 
 24 
 
Giovanni 
 
 Sun-tempered peasant from Abruzzi's peaks'' 
 
 Sek Page 41 
 
/^- 
 
TWO WINDOWS 
 
 When sunbeams mellow grow, and mellowing fade. 
 When in the gloom of unachieved desire 
 I pose my tools, when the creative fire 
 Is spent ; then through the tepid crescent shade 
 
 Of May rise from the street the throb of trade. 
 
 And jar of wheels, their cries who hawk the mire 
 Of daily sheets, the frenzied tramp of buyer, 
 Of him who seeks, of him who would evade. 
 
 Another casement looks towards westering sun 
 
 O'er convent garden green. Through leafy throng 
 Pour waves of music from the virgins veiled. 
 
 With organ strains. While I, erstwhile undone. 
 Now weltering in the pulsing tide of song 
 See peerless things, e'en where my hand had failed. 
 
 25 
 
BROTHERS OF THE WEST 
 
 Oft, kinsmen of the West, you speak as though 
 We brothers, who indwell on orient shore, 
 We of the East, who you but yester bore, 
 Were aliens, and variations racial show, 
 
 Such as the herder 'neath high Alpine snow 
 
 Of Piedmont shows to swain who basks near hoar, 
 Archaic Selinuntine shafts. No more 
 Is he who tends the olives' terraced row. 
 
 Overlooking margins blue of soft Proven9e, 
 
 Like him who sees La Manche's white-caps flow ; 
 
 Yet of one country — Italy and France. 
 
 And we, blood brothers — if we will it — know 
 
 Our ties consanguined must the State advance. 
 The seeds of universal Manhood sow. 
 
 26 
 
THE "EMPIRE" 
 
 How dare we brand this polished classic Art, 
 As passionless and pale, a livid light 
 From Roman flame ; as though a ghastly blight 
 Lay on the ardent band who would impart 
 
 Its feeling rapturous, the throb of heart 
 For chastened form, its furious delight 
 In calm ; as if it had no well-won right 
 To claim of recognition its due part! 
 
 How dare we hound as formalists of stone, 
 Canovas, Davids, Perciers and their kin ! 
 
 For they were honest ; and they, too, were blown 
 Amain by an afflatus genuine. 
 
 They were as fiery in their coldness pure. 
 As hottest of us all. Their fame is sure. 
 
 27 
 
A "BELLA ROBBIA" 
 
 At this full season of the burdened year, 
 My thoughts are framed like Robbia relief 
 With fruit and haughty flower, with needle-leaf 
 And resined cone of lofty spruce, with sere 
 
 Ripe grain upright, and lowlier plants that near 
 The furrows creep despised — yet past belief 
 For bloom these kitchen Cinderellas. Chief 
 Among them note the flaming yellow sphere 
 
 Beneath huge leaves ; then note the tight-coiled ball, 
 Its foliage purple-tinged with pallid veins, 
 
 Bearing a sordid name I dare not call. 
 
 Perchance this wreath of varied products frames 
 
 Some sweet Madonna with the lengthened eye. 
 Supremely tender. Who shall say ? Not I ! 
 
 28 
 
CONVICTIONLESS 
 
 I 
 
 To-day I thrill in glint of morning hour 
 At open fields, and hills that nobly sweep. 
 Their emerald clearings, their massed foliage deep 
 Casting blue tufted shades — a jeweled bower! 
 
 To-morrow, lo, these vivid clusters lower 
 
 Beneath the white south wind, and willows weep 
 Dull tears compliantly. Again they sleep 
 Enveiled in mists of mildest summer shower. 
 
 And with these changings of the protean air 
 My mood keeps equal pace in swift caprice ; 
 For now the pensive tones out-laugh the gay 
 
 Enfeted fields begemmed ; and now despair 
 Inscrutable uplooms, while flowers cease 
 To radiate in light, and all seems gray. 
 
 29 
 
CONVICTIONLESS 
 
 II 
 
 And if with high endeavor long sustained. 
 
 We would portray the sweeping line of height. 
 
 And multiform exuberance of bright 
 
 Wide fields, the gem-like glints, the grasses grained 
 
 With russet reds, the fringe around the untrained 
 Gold-hearted daisies ; then with all our might 
 We must unswerving keep in constant sight 
 Our primal throb, immaculate, unstained. 
 
 If he who would create is daily swayed 
 
 By some ephemeral whim, some fashion's freak. 
 Some glamour shed by dominating glare, 
 
 Convictionless he '11 wander on paths frayed 
 In a blind maze, nor tread Parnassus' peak. 
 Nor feel the bays. Naught but the passing stare. 
 
 30 
 
TO SCIENCE 
 
 In the World's race, O Science, you sore strain 
 Our credence with the miracles that bring 
 Great gain — perchance not bliss. And you do 
 
 wring 
 Ejaculations sharp from us, who crane 
 
 The neck to reach a cornice-crest, till brain 
 
 Staggers at BabeFs dream achieved. You string 
 A subtle web from crag to crag, a thing 
 Secure o'er which may pass the pond'rous train 
 
 Propelled by vapor mere. And score on score 
 
 Of wonderments you fling through the land's length 
 And breadth. But must Uncouthness mate with 
 Force ? 
 
 Would Beauty mar ? What of the Gods of yore. 
 Those virile athletes fair, whose flawless strength 
 Lay in the harmonies of limb and torse ? 
 
 31 
 
NOT IN VAIN 
 
 How leaps the jaded flesh to call of will 
 
 Whene'er it strikes the clarion note of need. 
 Whether to help some nameless broken reed. 
 Or importunities of self fulfill ! 
 
 The smooth machine purls swiftly on until 
 Some trifling flaw, or something over-keyed 
 Will snap it. But sore may the body bleed 
 Nigh spent with pain, yet never cease to thrill. 
 
 Earth's forces in their awful throes upheave 
 Her rind, and variegate the wildered eye's 
 
 Horizon ; show where sparkling metals cleave 
 To hard alloy ; declare what men most prize. 
 
 What they should shun. Perforce we must believe 
 Our utmost efforts a provision wise. 
 
 32 
 
WHEAT FROM CHAFF 
 
 Alas, poor Art, thou hast become the goal 
 For waifs, malingerers, stragglers from the line 
 Of strenuous men who gladly pay the fine 
 That competence exacts, — men sound of soul 
 
 Who question not the cost that makes the whole 
 Of Life a stress, yet Victory. And thine 
 The shame that thou shouldst court the specious 
 
 shine 
 Of silken cant, of verbiage fair ! Enroll 
 
 Not in thy band this masquerading crew 
 
 Of fribbling men, nor yet the dames who prate 
 Hysterical. Oh, Beatific Art, 
 
 Save not this jetsam from the bark of true 
 
 Intent : sole let thy servants stanch be freight. 
 And guide the quivering keel to favoring mart ! 
 
 33 
 
DID WE BUT DARE! 
 
 The savage thunderbolt in furious swoop 
 Excoriates and rifts with stunning roar 
 The patient, fearless peaks that calmly soar 
 Into the clouds' array, and its red whoop 
 
 Of war catch and fling back, in echoing troop 
 Of bass reverberations, to the hoar 
 Astounded mists. What bearing of these more 
 Than human things, which to no meanness stoop ! 
 
 Dared we but stop and brand the obvious lie 
 
 That 's daily thundered by some fetished tongue. 
 And hurl it Cain-marked to the gaping mass ! 
 
 Dared we deride the wrath of Sanctity 
 
 Fore-guarded by the assent which holds among 
 The sheep-like crowd — then Truth for Truth 
 might pass ! 
 
 34 
 
MICHELANGELO — MILTON 
 
 I 'vE often mused beneath the frescoed vault. 
 
 Whereon the austere Tuscan has unrolled 
 
 Creation's cycle, and in manifold 
 
 Compartments, deftly planned, Man's primal Fault 
 And Fall has wrought in forms which so exalt 
 
 The soul, that neither lazuli nor gold 
 
 We miss, till then the law. The heroic mould 
 
 Suffices and soft grays, in glad default 
 Of garish splendor. And while musing so. 
 
 The thought has come, that he who trumpets sound 
 
 August, and sings in monumental line 
 The same great epopee, nor yet below 
 
 The Angelo in flight, may here have found 
 
 Some inspiration for his high design. 
 
 35 
 
TO A PORTRAIT 
 
 (new ENGLAND VICTRIx) 
 
 Against a background cool of solemn green — 
 That holds its hue of life in teeth of blasts 
 Which kill less hardy growths, and kindly casts 
 Deep grateful shade in heated terms — a Queen 
 
 She stands, blonde daughter of the pine, in mien 
 Both grave and sweet, erect as soaring masts 
 Hewn in her native woods. As long as lasts 
 Her kind the Nation 's safe. For that serene 
 
 Presence holds character, and truth, and will 
 Unswerving to enact the right. And yet 
 Not will alone ! Swift through the dusky air 
 
 Shoots an aggressive beam ; and a bright frill 
 
 Of light enwreathes the larch-crowned hair, a fret 
 Of gold — Oh azure eyes ! Oh bosom fair ! 
 
 36 
 
The Olive 
 
 Naught is more lovely than the olive-tree" 
 
 See Page 52 
 
DOUBLE HOLLYHOCKS 
 
 When after procreant rains in warm July, 
 The clear septentrion breezes scintillate. 
 My double hollyhocks' gay pennons fete 
 The freshened verdure with infinity 
 
 Of petals crumpled in avidity 
 
 To flaunt — like peacock vain to court his mate. 
 Less braggart are they when in single state. 
 Yet fairer in their plastic eurythmy. 
 
 In reading some old volume long forgot 
 
 * Neath lava streams from Man's eruptive mind, 
 I startle at some pregnant pithiness 
 
 Garbed tersely in sonorous phrases, not 
 In verbiage pedantic, oft designed 
 To cloak some stale idea with copious dress. 
 
 Z7 
 
THE REMEDY 
 
 Absorbing sunbeams on a westward slope. 
 Obliquely watching changes in the sky. 
 My garden grows in blooming symmetry. 
 Its full- toned tessellations fairly cope 
 
 With the eternal pictures planned by Pope 
 Paschalis, deathless Rome to glorify. 
 Yet by intensest culture this so high 
 Estate is reached — my consummated hope. 
 
 If our good Ship of State can keep afloat, 
 
 And fetch in foaming windward thrash the port 
 That 's now invisible ; if we can sight 
 
 A culture wide-diffused, which would connote 
 The only guarantee against the sort 
 Of Law the tyrant few devise — All 's right ! 
 
 38 
 
IN HOT WEATHER 
 
 I 
 
 It often happens that the tide of heat 
 Rolls densely o'er a crowded city's face 
 With fiery ruthlessness, and the foul place 
 Sun-saturated bakes, e'en when trade's beat 
 
 Has ceased at night, while myriad restless feet 
 Tramp on, and flesh adust that would efface 
 Itself, like Dives crieth out for grace 
 From finger-tip dipped in cool water sweet. 
 
 Hast ever, feeling thus, to ocean's shore 
 Been swift translated, and the mighty reach 
 Of white unnumbered sands caught sudden view? 
 
 And heard enrapt the lengthening raucous roar 
 Of the incomparable sea on beach ? 
 
 And felt its aqueous breath, and lived anew ? 
 
 39 
 
IN HOT WEATHER 
 II 
 
 Or yet again alight from stifling train 
 
 Hast deep inhaled the even-tide's cool breeze ; 
 And marked the rustling of the surcharged trees 
 In lushest June; and hearkened the refrain 
 
 Of pliant hssom leaves that dance amain 
 
 In twilight cool to quickening wind that frees 
 Itself from bosky heights; and seen broad seas 
 Of waving grass, and tall, blue-bending grain ? 
 
 Oh Painter, you can give the afterglow 
 
 From sun, the pallid flood of ambient light. 
 The wooded hills, the trees where birdling sings. 
 
 And waving grass, and corn blue-bending low ; 
 But ah, the ecstatic fragrance of the night! 
 The exhalations from the heart of things ! 
 
 40 
 
GIOVANNI 
 
 I 
 
 Sun-tempered peasant from Abruzzi's peaks 
 Of trembling rose cooled by cerulean stain 
 From lazy clouds, thou comest to the plain 
 Of triple-crowned tiara — plain that reeks 
 
 With immortalities, where captive Greeks 
 Victoriously uphold the lordly strain 
 Of Rome, and Art Renascent not in vain 
 Contends. Thou seekest him who ever seeks 
 
 Fair forms to realize. And thou art proud 
 To be his means, and eat thy frugal meal. 
 A model for the simple life, oh, wooer 
 
 Of graces let him pose. Vie not with loud 
 Philistine flare. To thy pure lights be leal ; 
 For Art unyielding must needs aye be poor. 
 
GIOVANNI 
 
 II 
 
 Wise Sadi tells us Poverty can find 
 
 With Allah no acceptance. Wandering prayers 
 Reach not his gracious ear. But he that fares 
 In ease, can give entirety of mind. 
 
 Oh, Father, who precedence hast assigned 
 In paradise to Sacrifice, the tares 
 Thy servants opulent — transferring wares 
 To thee in easy ratio — have designed 
 
 To check our better growth — these tares destroy, 
 And grant us ready wit with righteous pride, 
 A two-edged blade, to stand against the rife 
 
 Effrontery of Gold, that in its joy 
 Of arrogant possession would deride 
 Us — Us — who lead the elevated Life. 
 
 42 
 
UNNATURAL SELECTION 
 
 The lordly Iris, guarded by its blades. 
 We cultivate for its imperial hue 
 Touched with aureolin. It native blew 
 In far Japan, till by fair favoring trades 
 
 'T was wafted here. The rich flamboyant shades 
 Of oriental Poppy pale the crew 
 That lesser would compete. Content we view 
 This primacy that e'en proud things degrades. 
 
 The timid Violet we raise and love 
 Not for its diffidence, but its supreme 
 Aroma — and so on — always the best. 
 
 Yet when it comes to man, those who above 
 
 The average tower, pass on. Of Gods we dream. 
 And live by mediocrity oppressed ! 
 
 43 
 
"COMPETITIONS" IN ART 
 
 It must be wormwood to those urgent men — 
 Who would to competition aye resort. 
 And gauge by numbers the poetic thought — 
 That there 's no deity within their ken 
 
 Who may contest our Benefactor when 
 
 He moulds the graceful surfaces that court 
 
 The carping eye with color and extort 
 
 Its praise. They must reluctant say " amen/' 
 
 Yea, the supremest flowers, the amplest fruit 
 Claim the enrichment of their special soil, 
 Congenial airs, protection from the stress 
 
 And tumult of the storm, degrees that suit. 
 Most loving vigilance and tender toil. 
 Weeds thrive in earth that serves the striving press. 
 
 44 
 
ILLUMINATE, O LORD! 
 
 When we awake at night a keener sense 
 Of coming ills — that in the glare of day- 
 Dance airily on many a fatuous ray 
 Of specious light — our eerie thoughts condense 
 
 To concrete fears, 'gainst which our sole defence 
 Seems sempiternal sleep. Yet ashen gray 
 Of chilly dawn shall scarce have passed away. 
 When glossing sun will deftly lure them hence 
 
 As every morn it lures the glistering dew. 
 
 The glossing sun ? Then surely this would mean 
 That beauty masks the truth, and man sees right 
 
 When all His works are veiled. If such be true 
 Deceive no more, O Lord, with garish sheen, 
 But shed thy Spirit pure o'er day and night. 
 
 45 
 
VEILED RIVER 
 
 In my fair land there colls a river dear 
 
 Through flower-garnished meads ; nor has it mate 
 
 Elsewhere. Slowly it rolls deliberate 
 
 In dark rimmed sluggish swirls from weir to weir, 
 
 Like halcyon moments of a vexed career 
 
 'Twixt storm and storm. Soft willows marginate 
 Its banks, and build high cloisters foliate. 
 Their branches groin the airy hemisphere 
 
 Bedimmed, and shed a soothing tone of low. 
 Mysterious green, relieved by welcome note 
 Of piercing blue. Could I but smooth my brow 
 
 Immured in such a shrine, and watch the flow 
 Of levities, as buoyant nothings float 
 Adown the tide — fain would I take the vow ! 
 
 46 
 
Pompeii 
 
 On many a morn athwart the slanting rays" 
 
 Ske Pagk 54 
 
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EVENING AT STOCKBRIDGE 
 
 The sun has slipped behind the voided cloud, 
 But nov/ distended with the wrath of storm. 
 That spent its copious self upon the warm 
 Awaiting earth ; and violet vapors shroud 
 
 The flowering, incensed meads, the hills low-browed. 
 Sweet notes from distant chimes melodious swarm^ 
 Like flight of tuneful birds, and soft inform 
 With Peace the soul in contemplation bowed. 
 
 The storm of fiery years has spent its force, 
 Whereof the memory vague is but a shred 
 Of mournful gray, mere leaden fret on sheen 
 
 Of joy. While nearward in their rhythmic course 
 Float dulcet echoes of the things well said 
 Or done, nor jarred by clanging " might have been." 
 
 47 
 
REQUIESCAM 
 
 The lights are out, all out, and I, alone. 
 Am groping in the dense Cimmerian night 
 Among mute things : nor can I guide aright 
 My course by touch habitual, nor tone 
 
 Of wonted voice. Naught but spent stock or stone 
 To be my Pharos flame. The mouldering blight 
 Of apathy is mine, which clouds the bright 
 Responsive stars — studding the welkin's zone — 
 
 Aglow with alien fire, like to the kind 
 
 Moist eyes that beam with kindling sympathy 
 When we present our best, and ever keep 
 
 Us to true trend. Ah, when the love enshrined 
 Is veiled by ashen lids, when in the sky 
 The stars no more respond — then let me sleep. 
 
 48 
 
CLOUDS 
 
 I WOULD not dwell in Allah's paradise, 
 
 In fruitful gardens 'neath which rivers flow. 
 That irrigate the incensed flowers that grow 
 Enamored toward uninterrupted skies. 
 
 For I should miss the rains that fertilize ; 
 The deep-blue shadows on the plains below 
 Swift coursing clouds — like waves when sea-winds 
 
 blow — 
 And purple play on emerald wolds that rise. 
 
 And I should miss the heavy masses dun 
 Of some embattled wall, or clustered trees 
 On cumulative vapors opaline ; 
 
 And yearn for ruby fret o'er setting sun, 
 
 Or pearly mists that greet the dawn's cool breeze. 
 Or noon-day gems set in the sapphirine. 
 
 49 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 I _ LUNGHEZZA 
 
 I KNOW not if these ardent studies made 
 In fair, heroic Italy be fraught 
 
 With pleasure greater than the pain sweet thought 
 Of prototype oft brings, since day I bade 
 
 Farewell. The keen remembrance does not fade, 
 Nor needs inadequate portrayals wrought 
 In feverish fervor by a fancy caught 
 With charm. Alas, they goad the unallayed 
 
 Desire to feel again. This bit was done 
 
 On the Tiburtine road. Red poppies strew 
 The pallid fruiting grass, a swaying blaze 
 
 To breeze. Long granaries that gleam in sun, 
 With alternating piers and voids, on blue 
 Of Apennine, gleam, too, with radiant days. 
 
 5° 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 II — S. SABINA 
 
 'T IS said Saint Dominic, that trumpet-call 
 To torpid souls, did plant an orange-tree 
 That foliates and fruits in secrecy 
 Within a cloistered garden near a tall. 
 
 Square, storied tower, which dominates with wall 
 Of mediaeval craft th' acclivity- 
 Rising abrupt o'er swirls that seek the sea. 
 In tawny mass from Umbrian vales they fall. 
 
 Here in the dreamy month of languid May, 
 I limned the plumed palm, and grafted tree 
 Whose glossy leaves and fragrant bridal flowers 
 
 Like diamonds glinted in the matin ray. 
 O Heart, when icy blast congealeth thee, 
 How long I for those sunny cloistered bowers I 
 
 SI 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 III — THE OLIVE 
 
 Naught is more lovely than the olive-tree. 
 Or when it casts its ashy cloud of green 
 In fairy featheriness on lazuline 
 Sea-waves, or climbs the slopes that sweeping free 
 
 Upsoar from some far-reaching, fertile lea 
 To purple lofts ; or when its silver sheen 
 Plays to the wind against the celestine. 
 Or lulls in shades of verdant mystery. 
 
 The weird anatomy of limb and trunk. 
 Convolved and riven with age secular — 
 To which our gnarled apples saplings seem — 
 
 Cause wonder that a moss-grown stock, so sunk 
 In sere decrepitude, should prove no bar 
 To fruitage fresh — nor Age to fair young dream. 
 
 5» 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 IV— REACTION 
 
 What splendid strength of tones in that gray wall ! 
 What deep intensity of blue, enforced 
 By contrast with the vivid vapors horsed 
 To western wind ! What darkness of the tall 
 
 Commanding cypress, the grand seneschal 
 Of this great color- feast, a holocaust 
 To sensuous eye, that does not quick exhaust 
 Itself in flare, and then to blackness fall ; 
 
 But like the foaming rain-bowed cataract 
 Pours out perennial glory into space ! 
 How far we are, poor men, in strength below 
 
 Nature robust ! We force, and then react ; 
 We launch our tensest efforts, and then brace 
 Ourselves to meet the dreaded counter-blow ! 
 
 53 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 V — POMPEII 
 
 On many a morn athwart the slanting rays 
 I Ve ridden from my Eden-like abode 
 *Mid orange-groves, down to the whitened road 
 That cleaves the laughing plain, which — in those 
 days 
 
 The younger Pliny has portrayed — the craze 
 Of wild-eyed Terror trampled. Pleasure sowed 
 And pale Death reaped, while through the blackness 
 
 glowed 
 From unsuspected mount the fatal blaze. 
 
 Yet in the streets exhumed of that dead town, 
 Which lay for eons *neath the pumice-sea 
 Engulfed ; or in some peristyle still rife 
 
 With tints that gleam against the boding frown 
 Of fuming crater^s cloud, it seems to me 
 Less sad than in the living city's strife. 
 
 54 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 VI — VILLA CONTI, FRASCATI 
 
 Cool villa Conti, thou hast been to me 
 A rare retreat from Phoebus' brazen rays. 
 And leaden cares, and fears of anxious days. 
 As breeze-caressed o'er Rome's terrestrial sea — 
 
 Where Peter's dome uplifts — the soaring key 
 To heaven — I look ; or 'neath thy ilex maze, 
 Bronze-tinted, gnarled, exultingly I gaze 
 On plash of silvery jet, drought's threnody. 
 
 Thy sculptured forms grotesque, thy gay arcades 
 Expressions of a baser taste than ours. 
 And storied terrace cleft by white cascades 
 
 Have all been softened by the touch of time. 
 So ripening age youth's vehemence endowers 
 With mellowing traits, and moulds the man sublime. 
 
 55 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 VII — SAN GIMIGNANO 
 
 Ah, it is long ago that in youth's blush 
 
 I turned an angle of the rising way 
 
 And caught the astounding glimpse of towers' array, 
 
 Which rise from wall-girt hill like startled flush 
 Of birds into the Tuscan sky, and brush 
 
 The zenith's blue with crumbling weathered gray. 
 
 Upon their crests it might be yesterday . 
 
 That steeled factions smote — but for the hush. 
 The marveling eye rests on a stage full-stocked 
 
 With all the properties a play presage — 
 
 A stage whereon no histrion appears. 
 Yet in this mediaeval pyx are locked 
 
 The living deeds of that romantic age. 
 
 And sacred memories of my young years. 
 
 S6 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 VIII— ON THE SACRED WAY, ROME 
 
 Only two notes — the unutterable blue 
 
 On cloud-swept firmament, and the intense 
 Sun-sodden ochres glaring from the immense 
 Bare pile of Constantine, from residue 
 
 Of once incrusted shrines, and old, yet new 
 Fa9ade of Saint Francescas temple — whence 
 The tawny travertine rays complements 
 Of tone against the glaucous sky. Aye, two 
 
 Notes only — blue ineffable and gold — 
 The heavens unalterable and the ash 
 From man consumed — the basking monuments 
 
 Of erst impassioned worldlings, and the cold 
 Indifference of speechless skies to crash 
 Of States. — Yet what entoned magnificence ! 
 
 57 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 IX — ROMAN CAMPAGNA 
 
 Sometimes I think it is the test of taste, 
 The appreciation of the plain that sweeps 
 From Tyrrhene sea to where Gennaro sleeps 
 Serene, and aureoles the city traced 
 
 By wolf-bred hand. The undulating waste. 
 
 Whose flowering hummocks are but rounded heaps 
 Of pillaged splendors, wrecks patrician, steeps 
 In gloom the mind that broods on uneflFaced 
 
 Enormities. But tone and perfect line 
 
 Are all I see when breaks the unrivaled view — 
 
 The madders, golds, and tints incarnadine. 
 Each in their month, with the diviner hue 
 
 On Sabine mounts, and aqueducts' straight, fine. 
 And lessening flight into the far-oflF blue. 
 
 58 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 X — TO A FOUNTAIN 
 
 I KNOW twin fountain-jets that tireless fling 
 Great iridescent plumes of restless foam 
 Into the even smalt of August's dome 
 That brooks no cloud, nor indrawn mists which 
 wing 
 
 From distant strip of sea — like turquoise string 
 On queenly, olive neck of girls whose home 
 O'erlooks the plain of vineyard-girdled Rome — 
 While streperous cicadas shrilly sing. 
 
 The spray refalls in wide translucent sheets 
 Into a mossy bowl of travertine, 
 From thence to basin rimmed with balustrade 
 
 Soft-stained by age. Here some blithe satyr meets 
 His sylvan mate in mystic intertwine 
 Of ilex deep, by wind-blown foam-flocks sprayed. 
 
 59 
 
ITALIAN SKETCHES 
 
 XI — EPILOGUE 
 
 Think not I love ye less my native hills 
 
 That on your crests no time-worn tower stands. 
 Nor crenelated cap, nor marbled bands 
 Alternate on a fane, wherein man fills 
 
 His heart with tenderness ; that by your rills 
 No villa, cypress-sentineled, expands 
 Its stuccoed wings in festive, sparkling strands 
 Of light, and from the air blue shade distills. 
 
 If ye are modeled with less stately mien. 
 If ye in winter wear repellent frown, 
 Think not I love ye less ; for I adore 
 
 Your summer lushness, the transcendent green 
 O'er intervale, the mountains' foliate crown. 
 And swift expression of sweet Nature's law. 
 
 60 
 
Villa Contiy Frascati 
 
 " Cool villa Conti, thou hast been to me" 
 
 See Page 55 
 
GRAZIE, AMICO! 
 
 When all he knew were on the other side. 
 World-prone to say the fault was his alone, 
 And scoffed a nature quick as fluff, that 's blown 
 From seeding plants, to feel the rising tide 
 Of Auster's breath — the speech that wounds just 
 pride : 
 When blood abjured its debts, when love had flown. 
 And stanch-built buttressed friendships been o'er- 
 
 thrown. 
 When summer's fruits oozed gall, and insects lied 
 In song, which chirped erewhile so sweet a note 
 And true, that tired brain was lulled to rest : 
 When all was lost, and naught seemed worth the 
 while. 
 Thou didst not say with them " There is a mote 
 Beneath thy lids," but uttered words thrice blest. 
 And pressed the hand - — God help thee for that 
 smile ! 
 
 6i 
 
"MAKE HAY" 
 
 Capricious summer flies when I am sure 
 That she has come complacently to stay, 
 Enflowered like the silks of deft Cathay 
 On her inwoven dress — sweet and demure, 
 
 Yet warm withal : while I myself secure 
 In confidence inept! And now the gray 
 Imbues the landscape in the pensive way 
 That did a tender school of France allure. 
 
 But hold ! I feel the wakening southern air. 
 And see the light-bursts on the leafy height 
 And scent the stronger fragrance from the fields. 
 
 Lo, there she is again, my darling ! Fair 
 
 In her embroidered gown ! Now will she slight 
 Me ? Nay, to fatuous love she gracious yields. 
 
 62 
 
THE STRONGER SEX 
 
 Think you the forum, or the badge of state. 
 Or steel would bring you increment of power 
 O sovereign woman soft, whom in an hour 
 Select our benefactor did create 
 
 Defenceless to defend her girded mate 
 
 From his fell frowardness, and shift his lower 
 Forbidding to consent by soothing shower 
 Of moods, by inarticulate debate ? 
 
 Which hath the greater potency for good. 
 
 The soft persuasive airs that work their charm 
 In furrows waiting *neath their crusted hood 
 
 For spring ; or chill assertive gusts that would 
 Invigorate — and yet work naught but harm? 
 The telling bolt is flung when seas are calm. 
 
 63 
 
WAITING 
 
 How soft the darkling eve ! The sluggish cloud 
 Yields copious rain, the drooping months' arrear, 
 And sated earth beholden would appear 
 To match the largess with its rising shroud 
 
 Of summer mists that cool the parched crowd 
 Of Hfe. Afar the lights that promise cheer 
 And cordial welcome to the kinsman dear 
 Who *s heralded by shriek of whistle loud. 
 
 Now lower the key. By sympathetic sight 
 
 Of harassed hearts, suppose the thundering train 
 
 Bore not the living, but a corpse this night, 
 A hero dead, or a poor broken brain 
 
 Worn out in humbler strife. Then would yon light 
 Seem funeral torch, and brackish tears the rain ! 
 
 64 
 
MOUNTAIN-LAUREL 
 
 I 
 You flaunt, O Mountain-laurels, at the feet 
 
 Of stern impassive pines that darkly loom 
 
 Into the ringing blue, your flashing bloom. 
 
 Pink-fluted buds in clusters dense make sweet 
 Accord with blossoms fretted like the neat 
 
 And airy fabrics dainty maids assume 
 
 In summer time, and change New England's gloom 
 
 Into the radiance of those lands where meet 
 The red pomegranate, and the snow and flame 
 
 Of oleander, to inlace their sheaves. 
 
 O, Laurels, how we hopeless yearn for you ! 
 Not for the gleam of clustered flowers — nor claim 
 
 We fluted buds. We crave the sombre leaves 
 
 That crown the brows of the immortal few ! 
 
 6S 
 
MOUNTAIN-LAUREL 
 
 II 
 
 And who the few that wear the deathless crown, 
 Whose brows seem aureoled beneath the green. 
 So candidly they shine ? These reign serene 
 By cumulative years' consent adown 
 
 The decades long. See the great clouds that frown 
 In piled up involutions, ranged between 
 The zenith and the hills in shade and sheen. 
 Called Cumulus. On such a mass Renown 
 
 Assured must rest. But when we cross the tide 
 Of Stygian stream, and still world-scented make 
 Through asphodel inquiries for the smug 
 
 Puffed Czars who did complacently abide 
 With us, and profitable sceptre shake, 
 The nether Gods will blandly stare and shrug. 
 
 66 
 
GALL 
 
 'T IS not the bondage of incessant toil 
 
 That hurts — not that — since idleness conceals 
 The patient canker-germ that sure reveals 
 Its poison soon or late. Work is but foil 
 
 To pleasure, and content the sweet recoil 
 
 From flashing stroke thrust home, well done, that 
 
 steels 
 The flesh. The furrow or humped back appeals 
 To pity, not to crime, on our free soil. 
 
 But of potentialities rob man 
 
 Say unto him, "Thou shalt not be of us, 
 
 Thou canst not rule, thou hast the taint of caste.'* 
 
 That is what hurts, and that the cursed ban 
 Which makes him hate, and plot the infamous 
 Assassination. God ! must such wrong last .'* 
 
 67 
 
DRAWINGS FROM LIFE 
 
 These drawings from the quick in black, or red, 
 Delight, because without reserve they yield 
 First-fruits of fiery thought yet unannealed 
 By cooling exigent of over-bred 
 
 Finality ; because they give a shred, 
 A bit consummate in itself, and sealed 
 With personality, oft unrevealed 
 In sacrifice called " picture." Warranted 
 
 They are to evidence the strength, or lack 
 Of that trained faculty, control of form. 
 Untouched by savage passion for the glow 
 
 From opulence — a gift the fumbling pack 
 Ignores — and yet of lofty art the norm — - 
 A gift the greatest masters always show. 
 
 6S 
 
DISSOLUTION 
 
 Oh, Death, why should thy pallid blossom yield 
 Such loathsome fruit, that 'gainst the will we shrink 
 From cherished forms, which ere they reached the 
 
 brink 
 Of fate, roamed radiantly life's pulsing field. 
 
 Could we but shun thy gruesome rites revealed. 
 Thy functions grim, the touch by hands unclean, 
 The smothered fumes by counter-fumes more keen' 
 Of spicy plants — and yet but half concealed ! 
 
 Could we but mask the facts with glozing art, 
 And cast a glorious halo round the dead — 
 Fit tribute to fit life — and let the end 
 
 A resurrection be ! Then might we part 
 
 Resigned, aglow with sweet lament, not dread ; 
 As when afar we lose a well-loved friend. 
 
 69 
 
TO A LUNETTE 
 
 Sweeter to gaze and idly dream than toil. 
 And with averted eye from tools that irk, 
 Absorb the anodyne delights that work 
 Nor fret — begot of beam from fecund soil — 
 
 And lassitudes delicious which soft coil 
 
 Around the will, as noiseless serpents lurk. 
 
 Then twine their spell-bound prey. Dreams clear 
 
 the murk 
 Of care, as clears fierce crest-curls calming oil. 
 
 Alert to imitate the phases fleet 
 
 Of light or line with brush, were but to lose 
 
 Their charm. The medley wild of visions trapped 
 
 In Procrustesian verse were tame. To steep 
 In ink sweet ecstasies were gall. Why bruise 
 The enchantment of a contemplation rapt ? 
 
TO AN ENGRAVING 
 
 Each cloudless morn I greet the sturdy sun 
 
 That shoots obliquely through the leaded panes 
 
 His vital rays, and shower of gold-dust rains 
 Upon a picture that erst shed on one 
 
 I loved its calmness. She, alas, has run 
 
 Her gentle course ; but graven line maintains 
 Its charm ineffable. What chasteness reigns 
 O 'er the fond mother and the haloed son ! 
 
 What sweet sereness in her Umbrian face ! 
 
 How blond the infant pressed to Virgin's heart ! 
 
 E'en lack of color lends an added grace. 
 No reproductive process can impart 
 
 The burin's purity, nor yet displace 
 
 Its use, which mastered, is itself an Art. 
 
A PRAYER TO THE STATE 
 
 O State, evince thy Puissance not alone 
 By walls of steel, nor yet prodigious power 
 Of huge projectiles that in flash devour 
 Whole clans. Not only on thy strong, full-grown 
 
 Resistless forms, well panoplied — aye prone 
 To safe-guard, not attack — not only shower 
 
 ■ Thy golden gains ; but be a noble tower 
 Of Elegance. Shine as in Athens shone 
 
 Chryselephantine Pallas glorious. 
 Impressive in her peerless imagery 
 To loyal citizens. Stand forth not less 
 
 In Beauty. Yea, stand forth victorious 
 In raiments laureate. The primacy 
 In Art assume. Conquer by comeliness ! 
 
 72 
 
TO MERCHANT PRINCES 
 
 I 
 
 If we must argue on a plane so low, 
 
 O prince-projectors of emprises great — 
 
 Whose highest aspiration, is to mate 
 
 Your golden stream with rich Pactolus' flow — 
 
 Ye who with masterly prognosis sow 
 
 To reap a gross percentage, know this rate 
 Would grosser be did ye bad taste abate 
 And spend a modicum on studied show. 
 
 What crime it is to smear God*s faultless leas 
 And crags with vulgar placards of your trade. 
 Till some forswear the thing ye crave to sell ! 
 
 What need is there to trick utilities 
 
 With costly, savage gauds ? Bad Art displayed 
 Serves not to draw, but rather to repel. 
 
 7Z 
 
TO MERCHANT PRINCES 
 II 
 
 For if the useful things should shapely be, 
 
 They would not want this high-priced tawdry waste 
 Which costs ye more and brings ye less. Good 
 
 taste. 
 Is good investment. If on harmony 
 
 Of each, and happy mutuality 
 
 Your vast emporiums were firmly based. 
 As well as on a rock, the world would haste 
 To see these marvels of sweet symmetry. 
 
 There are communities, beyond the seas 
 That live on interest of monuments — 
 Chefs-d'oeuvres — that on their primal cost do 
 make 
 
 Percentage in the hundreds with great ease. 
 Oh, Beauty, pardon this base reference 
 To gain, now proffered for thy gentle sake. 
 
 74 
 
A VISION 
 
 (SEPTEMBER JO, I 899) 
 
 Could the Triumphal Arch stand proudly here 
 Amid the leafy troops, and at their head 
 High Autumn waving oriflammes, instead 
 Of in the masquerading town — veneer 
 
 Upon the mean, that makes the crude appear 
 Yet cruder ! Could our heroes, heralded 
 By ringing breezes out of heaven, tread 
 Beneath the storied groups that stately rear 
 
 Their incandescent forms upon the sky 
 
 Dimming the pearly clouds ! This would inspire 
 Enthusiasm : and Nature*s majesty 
 
 The conquerors would abase. Then in our fire 
 We might forget the price of victory — 
 The glory flaming from a Nation's pyre. 
 
 75 
 
CONFIDANTS 
 
 Brave Hearts, who grievous maladies do bear 
 In martyred flesh or mind tormented, choose 
 Not to tax the overtaxed, nor yet abuse 
 The quick encalloused ear to long despair. 
 
 Go shout your bitterness to piping air 
 
 That gulfs all lesser sounds in full-winged cruise 
 Among concordant trees. Aye, go diffuse 
 Your plaints on waves preoccupied with their 
 
 Own thunderings ; or better, cry them clear 
 And loud with clenched lips to your own soul 
 That should have patience of the gods above : 
 
 Or best of all, breathe in the blighted ear 
 Of some sweet sympathetic mute your dole; 
 She '11 take it for the frenzied breath of Love ! 
 
 76 
 
SWIFT MOODS 
 
 Slowly the wondrous aureate change Is wrought 
 From dusky August's greens — which densely ward 
 On sated ramage the unharassed sward 
 'Gainst scorching rays — to tones that eager court 
 
 The heightening beams, and tender-swaying sport 
 Upon the foiling blue — a brave accord 
 By contrast. Slow the myriad hues on broad 
 Mosaic fields, gay Summer's craft, are brought 
 
 To sereness uniform. But from the deep 
 Abyss of dark despondency when Life 
 Has seemed to be achievementless, and when 
 
 No excellence declares my zeal, I leap 
 
 To tumult of swift joy, to guerdoned strife, 
 To self-esteem — and then to gloom again ! 
 
 n 
 
SPENSER 
 
 (suggested by some windows) 
 
 Uplifting it has been to bide with thee, 
 Pure bard, and in thy rarer air peruse 
 The deeds of errant Knights thy roseate Muse 
 With sweet refinement hadst ability 
 
 To sing, and then " in all Humilitie " 
 
 To Faery Queene present. I would not lose 
 The tales of doughty paladins who bruise 
 Incarnate vice for Ladies. Yet to me 
 
 Thy spell lies in the noble end avowed — 
 To fashion in the virtuous discipHne 
 
 A Gentleman. And do, in faith, our proud 
 Progressions now more comely laurels win 
 
 To crown a Life, than the " Gentilitie " 
 Of Spenser, or his lofty " Chevalrle? " 
 
 78 
 
CLEAR SKIES 
 
 To-day I laugh full-mettled in the shine 
 Exalting as it heaves above the crests 
 Deliberate, and on the landscape nests 
 From flowered foreground to remotest line 
 
 Of the perspectived hills, which scarce define 
 Their high pretensions on a Hght that vests 
 The horizon with a nacreous veil, and wrests 
 From irised opal victory. Divine 
 
 The sky unoccupied ! Divine my sky 
 Unclouded by a vexing film of care ! 
 
 Effulgent Stars, ye coruscate for aye 
 
 In space — in unencumbered crystal air 
 
 Beyond the vapor-girded earth. Could we 
 But gleam in atmosphereless Life, like Ye ! 
 
 79 
 
EVENTUALLY 
 
 We shall emerge in course of time, I think. 
 From satisfied Philistia through the maze 
 Of thwarting crudities that block the ways 
 To high refinement. Neither shall we sink 
 
 Beneath the welter coarse, that cannot blink 
 An eye emancipated. For there plays 
 Below the surface-dross, on which we gaze 
 Depressed, a zeal sure-saving that will link 
 
 Us to accomplishment. So long as last 
 
 These efforts resolute, so long there 's hope. 
 
 O men, who to the beautiful hold fast. 
 And ye of finer sex, Relax not. Ope 
 
 The chiseled gates of Art, and let the past 
 Ring out its tale from East to Western slope. 
 
 80 
 
TO AN OLD MODEL 
 
 Plebeian venerable, you have posed 
 As Pontiff thrice-tiaraed, with the raised 
 Ringed-hand in Latin style, whereon has blazed 
 The pinch-beck gem, and finery that glozed 
 
 Your vulgar state. Again we have transposed 
 You on the canvas to the life, a crazed 
 Old dotish pauper, and have been amazed 
 At contrast. So our idols have imposed 
 
 Upon us, man-like, sham on sham. For now 
 We show as saints in Pharisaic mood. 
 And now, off guard, poor things, for what we are. 
 
 And if our thoughts were mirrored on the brow. 
 And if we let the fancy's leprous brood 
 Run riotous — dazed friends would gape afar ! 
 
 8i 
 
FRUIT INVISIBLE 
 
 Be not discouraged, Heart, because thy best 
 Endeavors bear not sudden fruit ; that thy 
 Dure throbs score not the heedless passer-by 
 With obvious scar. Is not the crushing test 
 
 Of hurtling missile made far from the crest 
 
 Whence wistful gunners watch ? Does not the high 
 Hot harvest gale release *tween sigh and sigh 
 The ravished seed to germinating rest. 
 
 Oft leagues from ripening fields where parent sere 
 Sways low its amber head, nor anxious rates 
 The loss nor gain of procreation's part ? 
 
 But having flung its offspring to the near 
 
 Fleet-swirling airs, the sweep of scythe awaits 
 Unflinchingly. So wait thou, too, O Heart ! 
 
 82 
 
'To a Fountain 
 
 1 know twin fountain-jets that tireless fling" 
 
 Skk Page 59 
 
A CULT 
 
 We, who have labored long with guerdon small, 
 Love as of old the bay-crowned classic muse 
 Of gracious mien, whose harmonies accuse 
 A guarded flame, whose curbed lips enthrall 
 
 The human heart more than the floods that fall 
 From facile tongues, which pilotless abuse 
 The art that would the chastened methods choose 
 And with a tithe of energy tell all. 
 
 Yet, if grandiloquence would choke its thought 
 With avalanche of words — if, undismayed 
 
 By law, amorphous novelties be sought 
 
 By those who all sweet singing do upbraid — 
 
 So let it be. With those of chaster sort 
 
 We '11 worship still the pure Castalian maid. 
 
 S3 
 
TO A MEMORIAL WINDOW 
 
 (from pilgrim's progress) 
 
 I 
 
 Farewell ye damsels beautiful and grave. 
 Conceptions of a higher flight than mine 
 Yet not more ardent ; for to the benign, 
 Sweet memory of one beloved I gave 
 
 My utmost art, and now distrustful crave 
 Forgiveness for impuissance. Yet ye shine 
 Resplendent in my dream, a stately line 
 Of virgins fair with sumptuous symbols, save 
 
 Pure Piety, more glorious still in white 
 
 Unblemished, who with quiet gesture shows 
 
 To wondering Pilgrim the transcendent sight 
 Of mounts Delectable, where blue and rose 
 
 Entwine their harmonies in radiant light 
 Of Truth, of Love, of infinite Repose. 
 
 84 
 
TO A MEMORIAL WINDOW 
 II 
 
 And now ye placid stand on minster wall 
 Entraced, aglow with opalescent glass 
 Of vibrant hues, and tranquil view the mass 
 Of worshippers, not pitiless withal 
 
 I trust ; since ye must see the pallid thrall 
 Of cruel pain, and hear their sobs who pass 
 In anguish next the bier, and heed, alas ! 
 The misery of those who bear, nor call 
 
 For sympathy of man. Again a peal 
 
 Triumphant from the trembling pipes and ye 
 
 Will note on brows conjubilant the seal 
 Of bridal joy delirious. . . . To me 
 
 Were great reward, indeed, if ye could heal 
 The stricken soul — grant bliss enduringly. 
 
 85 
 
THE PERMANENCE OF ART 
 
 The flash of high intelligence is spent 
 
 To nothingness, as equidistant light 
 
 Upon yon bridge — twin-lived when sombrous Night 
 
 Doth drowse — is smothered by more affluent 
 White flare of Day, though it perchance has lent 
 
 A timely hand to some wrenched soul contrite, 
 
 Who gropes for higher things from out its plight. 
 
 Yet lesser wit in beauty eminent 
 Attired, continuous shines — now fierce, now faint. 
 
 As sun or stars according to the hour. 
 
 Where now the rare devices ? the array 
 Of desuete rubrics of the past ? the quaint 
 
 Machines of devastation ? Lo, the flower 
 
 Of Art still blooms as on its natal day ! 
 
 S6 
 
FALLING LEAVES 
 
 Did myth of Danae its reason owe 
 
 To woman's virtue mastered by the shower 
 
 Of devilish, luring coin that doth deflower 
 
 The stanchest souls ? Ah, what a sensuous show 
 
 Those shining circlets scattered round the low 
 Firm breasts ! E'en thus did Phidias endower 
 His art with preciousness, and lift its power 
 With gleam of gold inwrought on ivory's glow. 
 
 But yet it might be that some poet's eye 
 Discerned on autumn-day a gilded rain 
 From trees unrobing for their wintry sleep — 
 
 A fall of gold-leaf down a creamy sky — 
 As I discern it now from boughs that wane. 
 From limbs relaxing for a slumber deep. 
 
 8; 
 
BACKGROUNDS 
 
 If Spring of tender flush and promise fair, 
 
 That out of swarthy mould evolves fresh greens, 
 Would metamorphose black, forbidding dreams 
 And tune them to the sough of quickening air : 
 
 If Summer, luscious-lipped, with pigments rare 
 Deep-stained, and full illumined by the beams 
 Of ardent light, could be the certain means 
 To tint with splendid hues our dull despair : 
 
 If Autumn's rods of gold brought golden thought. 
 Or Winter's icy rack with bale imbued 
 The soul : then Life a symphony would be ! 
 
 But nay ; our errant fancies over-wrought 
 
 Their backgrounds make. The gay gild reaches 
 
 rude : 
 The sad would tarnish Eden's radiancy. 
 
 83 
 
INTRICACY 
 
 Upon the margin of the shrunken mere 
 
 I saw the involutions intricate 
 
 Of stranded, bleached roots that once did sate 
 
 Great thirsty trees, but now on oozy bier 
 Enshrouded in their whitened snarl appear 
 
 Like petrified octopus in a state 
 
 Of agony. And such will be the fate 
 
 In after years of daedal phrase — the queer 
 Enmeshing of a thought in tortuous style. . . . 
 
 The tide of Life has ebbed ; but here and there 
 From out the Forum rise into the smile 
 
 Of Roman skies some graceful shafts that bear 
 The stamp of Beauty still, and reconcile 
 
 Us to a death that doth with life compare. 
 
 89 
 
O NIGHT! 
 
 Quiescent Night, thy deep sereneness grant 
 To lay a thirst for things that cannot be. 
 The Morning's goading beams arouse in me 
 A wasting ecstasy of schemes, and taunt 
 
 To strife a way-worn life, which efforts daunt 
 In its decline : while the intensity 
 Of searching Noon reveals in just degree 
 My stature — ah so low ! But failures haunt 
 
 Me at the dying hour of paling Eve ; 
 
 And in the gloom I crave thy quiet light. 
 
 Thy tranquil, studding stars that soft relieve. 
 Thy ways inaudible that so delight 
 
 The tossed. Into my being's fibre weave 
 
 Thy golden strands of peace, O stellate Night! 
 
 90 
 
AN OCTOBER SKETCH 
 
 Yon graceful birch-tree turned to mellow gold. 
 
 Whose fine-cleft leaves by merest breath are bent, 
 Remind me of a fair-wrought ornament. 
 The craftsmanship consummate of some old 
 
 Greek artisan. Its form soft airs enfold 
 Of palest amethyst, and complement 
 Its hue. To classic maid the trinket lent 
 A heightening charm, when graces manifold 
 
 Lay unconcealed 'neath clinging lilac gauze. 
 And yet this birch's sumptuous aureate tone 
 Seems dull beside the maple-flames that leap 
 
 Around a solitary spruce which soars 
 
 Aloft in gloom — a burnished golden zone 
 Setting in fire a mystic emerald deep ! 
 
 91 
 
GREEN AGE 
 
 In wonderment we gazed upon the swirls 
 Of golden rack behind the naked trees — 
 That wrought o'er wall of hills an inlaced frieze — 
 Assuming shape of subtile, feathery curls 
 
 EnsafFroned of a giant plume, which whirls 
 Across an ether blue the northern breeze. 
 It might be winter, but for summer's lees — 
 The virid sward through which the streamlet purls. 
 
 Dear friend, who wearest on thy face the mark 
 Too obvious of thy crowded, ruthless years. 
 
 Thou standest well-provided to embark. 
 
 As shortening life thy longer journey nears. 
 
 Yet many sturdy days remain, I ween. 
 
 For thy fresh, buoyant heart is ever green. 
 
 92 
 
TAKE NOT HER NAME IN VAIN 
 
 Blue cinctured Land, whose monumental past 
 Vies with the cypress grave, the wide-roofed pine. 
 And olive vague to captivate, consign 
 Thy lessening wealth of joyous craft to fast 
 
 Deep dungeon-keep of Country. For the vast 
 Array of cultured Goths would wrench thy fine 
 Wrought scutcheons, tarsias deep, and glazed shrine 
 From setting fair, symphonic ; and would blast 
 
 Their beauty with antagonistic breath 
 Of alien life — an ill-assorted match 
 Of young with old. Guard, too, with jealous heart 
 
 Thy sacred things from pundits* hands. Nor death 
 Nor crypt they spare. E'en would they impious 
 
 snatch 
 Great Pharaoh's corpse. And this in name of Art 1 
 
 93 
 
LATE OCTOBER 
 
 What chilling fall of day ! The bitter gusts. 
 
 Fore-trumping winter's march white-pennoned, scout 
 The glacial skies, while on pale earth they rout 
 Dry, crumpled, remnant foliage that rusts 
 
 On barren boughs. The naked willow thrusts 
 Its sheaf of branches radiate from out 
 The pollard stump, as clustered runnels spout 
 From Peter*s founts upon an air that lusts 
 
 For moisture in Rome's arid summer-time. 
 
 Ah me, the summer-time ! Then thou wast green. 
 Soft tree, and lay empurpled shades above 
 
 The emerald. And I in bliss did rhyme 
 
 To thee, and still do rhyme ; for clear between 
 The mesh of years, I see thy youth, sweet love ! 
 
 94 
 
SUCCESS! 
 
 We often hear the prosperous sagely say. 
 
 That some poor artist needs the useful knack 
 Called " getting on,'* and has a woful lack 
 Of worldly sense, nor finds the tortuous way 
 
 To wealth, to credit plethoric, decay 
 
 Of conduct, rise of gold — for which men rack 
 Both soul and fibre to possess, nor slack 
 At opulence, nor age's silver gray. 
 
 If "getting on" means conscience to the v/all, 
 Means practice of law-sanctioned modes that yet 
 Are dark, the coarse advertisement, craft's brag. 
 
 The eclipse of probity, and over all 
 
 The loss of Honor ; thank God we forfeit 
 Place, that — as liegemen of the Muse — we lag ! 
 
 9S 
 
TO WINGED EROS 
 
 Comely thou art, white Aphrodite's son, 
 
 A lithesome, dazzling youth, neat limbed with fair 
 Articulations and trim torso spare. 
 The muscles low-reliefed, not yet begun 
 
 To swell with manhood's fibre firm, but none 
 The less adroit to cleave the unwilling air 
 With fateful shaft sure-guided to despair 
 By long love-eyes — dark-lashed — to heart undone. 
 
 Why spreadest thou strong iridescent wings. 
 
 Wide-pinioned, from thy ivory blades, fell boy ? 
 Because daft man believes fatuity 
 
 Of love Divine? Thou hast these feathery things 
 That thou mayst fly deflowered loves, enjoy 
 The glad delirium of Inconstancy. 
 
 96 
 
MIDWINTER 
 
 Incredible it seems that waste of snow. 
 And sheeted ice which duplicates the gray- 
 Denuded coppice, should have late been gay 
 With insolence of rampant hue, as though 
 
 Perennial. Nor was it long ago 
 
 That black in lieu of white thick-massed did lay 
 Above that oval face, and winsome play 
 Unleashed of dimples set with pearls did show 
 
 To vantage spring-time on her wintry face. 
 Sometimes I think the ill-environed brain 
 Paints fairer than when fair reality 
 
 Surrounds ; that rude antithesis of grace 
 
 Doth force a lovelier note ; that through the rain 
 And sleet we see intensest brilliancy. 
 
 97 
 
TO BOREAS 
 
 Whirl me with wrath, North wind, to southern shore ; 
 I 'm weary : the chilled soul no longer strives 
 Against thy blasts. 'T is aye the weaker lives 
 Thou choosest and the rarest. For no more 
 
 The strong man fears. By cumulated store 
 
 Of crafty schemes the sturdy mob — where thrives 
 
 The lust of gain, and leadership derives 
 
 From height of hoard — heaps up its wealth before 
 
 Thee impotent. Yet strength nor piled up gold 
 Are all. Perchance the pliant, gracile heart — 
 
 Transplanted whither wingless zephyrs hold. 
 Infusing life, not bruising; — may impart 
 
 Something of sweetness to the human fold. 
 
 Then hurl me south, harsh wind, kind wind thou art ! 
 
 98 
 
ENTHUSIASM WITHOUT DELUSION 
 
 Let not my flame in wintry years grow faint, 
 Nor the creative thirst be slowly quenched, 
 As from the face of things the veil is wrenched 
 Impregnate with the lure of tinsel's taint. 
 
 When Tramontana winds have slipped restraint. 
 And draw from cold Soracte's summit blenched — 
 Chasing the filmy atmosphere that drenched 
 With rosy witchery the view — and paint 
 
 In deeper tones the more apparent line 
 Fair-modeled of the lower Alban height. 
 
 And loftier peaks of ranging Apennine ; 
 Then am I grateful for the clearer light. 
 
 O may enthusiasm e'er be mine 
 
 Now that Delusion does not bar my sight ! 
 
 99 
 
 LiTb 
 
CHRISTMAS-TIME 
 
 I MEET not Christ-joy in the eager press 
 
 That throngs to see the dazzling purchase-traps, 
 But rather barter-mania that caps 
 Achievement with fatigue. Yet none the less 
 
 'T is well to elbow for a merriness 
 
 Having years' warranty ; more wise perhaps 
 To narcotize the past by strain, than lapse 
 Into aloofness from the sanctioned stress; 
 
 For then I see the loved, departed band. 
 With whom in parle I would participate, 
 And lip to lip would ardently entwine 
 
 My arms with theirs. Alas, unmoved they stand ! 
 They do but wait for me — they do but wait. 
 The empty place is at their board — not mine. 
 
 too 
 
TO ENGLAND 
 
 England, I love thee and I love thee not; 
 I love thee for thy manumitted thought, 
 Which we recalcitrant — true scions — brought 
 To shores immune from privileged dry-rot. 
 
 From courts whose later arrogance begot 
 
 Our State. I love thy love to master aught 
 That hinders — right or wrong. I love the sport 
 Olympic of thy youths, who cast their lot 
 
 Indifferent on field of play or flame. 
 
 But most of all I love thee for those bards 
 Who sang intrepidly of vigorous 
 
 Societies birth -peer, to whom the name 
 
 "Sovereign " was lye, thy snobberies the shards 
 From shattered rights. They should have been of 
 us. 
 
 zoz 
 
THE RECOMPENSE 
 
 Vertumnus patient delves, and thrills, and frets 
 That his rath harmonies may bear the test 
 Of spring-born, fragrant Flora's eyes celeste — 
 Blonde Flora, tricked with fretted flowerets, 
 
 Who sings with vernal air her soft duets. 
 He toils to favor find with Summer's guest, 
 Pomona dark, in green the deepest dressed 
 Red-freaked with fruits, red as hot sun that sets. 
 
 Yet when his crop is ripe for eager hands, 
 
 He notes the stifling calm, the swooping great. 
 Swart thunder-cloud, with scything wings outspread. 
 
 And every nerve a-taut he powerless stands. 
 We, too, with travail sore upbuild and wait, 
 Not in achievement's Joy, but verdict's Dread. 
 
 102 
 
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS 
 
 /■■/ 
 
 103 
 
QUELLE BfiTISE! 
 
 Here am I a-trilling 
 
 'Neath a bourgeoned tree, 
 Here am I a-willing 
 
 That my song should be 
 Tuneful as the thrilling 
 
 Song of bird that 's free, 
 
 When I should be sighing, 
 Leashing words that beat 
 
 Futile wings while vying 
 To insure retreat. 
 
 When I should be lying 
 Stammering at thy feet. 
 
 loS 
 
A SONG OF THE GARDEN 
 I 
 Said the Rose to strawberry, 
 " Of all flowers I 'm the queen. 
 So at least the lovely women who are very 
 Lovely say. And I wear the royal red. 
 While my orbs are garlanded 
 With the fittest shade of green. 
 And the pretty maids they bury 
 Their sweet faces in my bed 
 Of soft petals perfumed 
 With rich odors that I screen.** 
 
 iq6 
 
II 
 
 Said the Strawberry to rose, 
 
 " I *m the acknowledged king 
 
 Of all fruit that in the luscious garden grows. 
 
 And I, too, am imbued in royal red. 
 
 While my cones are garlanded 
 
 With a green of rhythmic ring. 
 
 And the fairest maids one knows 
 
 With warm lips on nectar fed 
 
 Taste with daintiness inbred 
 
 The high flavor that I bring." 
 
 107 
 
A SONG OF THE RIVER 
 I 
 
 Would she flout me. 
 
 Would she scout me 
 
 In dismay, 
 
 Should I stroke her haloed tresses. 
 
 Should I tease her with caresses 
 
 In the flaunting light of day, 
 
 As the Sun-god toys with Terra 
 
 Till she blazes red with shame. 
 
 Conscious of her venial error ? 
 
 Would she doubt me. 
 
 Would she rout me 
 
 Did I amplify her name 
 
 With a " dearling " and a " darling," 
 
 To the twitter of the starling 
 
 Till her cheeks were all aflame ? 
 
 While the willow leaflets shimmer 
 
 And the wimpling wavelets glimmer. 
 
 1 08 
 
II 
 
 Would she shiver 
 Would she shiver 
 With delight, 
 
 Did I breathe on swooning eyelids, 
 As bold Phoebus breathes on Luna, 
 Makes her smile with radiance bright ? 
 Should I whisper what my heart bids 
 Would her parting soft lips quiver. 
 Would her teeth shine white the sooner. 
 Would she throb to throbbing giver 
 Should I kiss her in the night — 
 In a boatlet down the river? 
 
 109 
 
A SONG OF THE SEA 
 I 
 
 Black are yon sea and sky 
 Charged with destruction, 
 Cloud and wave blend in night 
 On the horizon ; 
 Nigh surge the combing crests, 
 Green as the emerald, 
 Tossing their spray on high 
 Quick to devour. 
 
 Let us sail into them, 
 Grapple and perish. 
 
 no 
 
II 
 
 Blue is the sky above, 
 The sea is resplendent 
 Each wavelet is flashing 
 Its jewel of sunlight. 
 Color, and light, and calm 
 Whisper " Welcome and linger. 
 Here the unruffled soul 
 Hath peace sempiternal.'* 
 
 Let us launch into it. 
 And float there forever. 
 
 Ill 
 
TO GALENUS 
 
 On a morn of resplendent weather, 
 
 On an ApriFs ineffable day, 
 That has severed its wintry tether. 
 
 And bespeaks the white garlands of May, 
 
 Galenus and I outpaddled 
 
 In the quaintest kind of a boat. 
 
 Not a care, not a thought that ensaddled 
 Truant hearts on the streamlet afloat. 
 
 When the righteous were at their devotion, 
 And the plausible Pharisee, too. 
 
 To us came the impious notion 
 That He who created the view 
 
 XI2 
 
Drawings from Life 
 
 These drawings from tlie quick in black, or red" 
 
 Skk Page 68 
 
Of mountain reflected in brooklet 
 And turf turning green on the plain, 
 
 Could be worshipped in open-air booklet 
 Devoutly read by us twain. 
 
 The willow shoots gay were imbrued in 
 
 Their amber juices of spring, 
 Which a bent for damp places now strewed in 
 
 Our bent for the channels that bring 
 
 To openings rippled by breezes, 
 To pools that are dimpled by trout. 
 
 To banks that the sand-piper teases. 
 As our oars dipped in and dripped out. 
 
 "3 
 
The air was transcendently quiet, 
 Nay, even the birdlings were mute. 
 
 Glad respite from turmoil and riot. 
 The noise of that urbanized brute 
 
 Called civilized man in the city, 
 
 Where cacophonies dear to his heart. 
 
 Serve the purpose — the greater the pity 
 To attest the bulk of his mart. 
 
 We were dreaming rather than speaking, 
 
 Cheerful rather than gay, 
 Each of us absently seeking. 
 
 Perchance in identical way. 
 
 114 
 
Vague phantoms and hallucinations, 
 That come in the bud of the year 
 
 To confound the vaticinations 
 Of him who laughs at the fear 
 
 Of Love the ever-persistent. 
 
 Of Love that broods in the spring. 
 
 Of Love that flouts the resistant ; 
 Of all things the only thing. 
 
 Galenus if you were but Phyllis 
 
 Were your redolent hair blossom-bound. 
 Did your raiments, white as the lilies, 
 
 Betray the symmetries sound 
 
 "5 
 
Of your limbs, of your figure consummate, 
 
 Should I taciturn sit face to face. 
 Overwhelmed by your graces, my dumb mate. 
 
 In such a provocative place ? 
 
 Or should I yield to temptation. 
 
 When to yield to my soul would bring balm. 
 And declare my quintessent sensation ? 
 
 Would the face of the brooklet be calm ? 
 
 And you, my sober Galenus, 
 
 Were you dreaming the very same dream ? 
 That I were your Phyllis ? . . . Between us 
 
 We quietly worked up the stream. 
 
 1x6 
 
THE CHOICE 
 
 Of the many flowers that bask 
 On my terrace softly ranging 
 Through the color-gamut, changing 
 
 With the seasons, it would task 
 My acumen should you wonder, 
 
 My appraisement should you ask 
 
 Which supreme is. I should blunder. 
 
 In my vagueness I should seek 
 
 Amaryllis bird-like singing, 
 
 I should note the flower clinging 
 To her hair that sunbeams streak 
 
 With their lesser gold in glory. 
 Were it gaudy, were it meek 
 
 That to me would tell the story. 
 
 117 
 
Were it dainty, blue-celeste, 
 
 Sweet Forget-me-not entreating, 
 
 Tiny petals each repeating 
 Tendernesses of days blest ; 
 
 I should say this suits my treasure 
 Better far than all the rest, 
 
 And award it victor's measure. 
 
 Were it Marigold aglow 
 
 With flamboyant colors flying, 
 With the burning tresses vying. 
 
 Making most dramatic show. 
 Forcing even sceptic credence ; 
 
 Surely, surely I should know 
 
 Which of all should take precedence. 
 
 ii8 
 
CONSECRATED FLOWERS 
 
 I HEAR the blast of winter's latest breath 
 Congealing nascent greens and sweetest vernal flowers, 
 Sweetest since earliest, yet doomed to frosty death 
 With crescent human hopes that pant for bounteous 
 
 bowers 
 Of June, offspring of May and fickle April's showers, 
 Cheering the heart depressed by long hibernal hours. 
 
 And while with restless gait I pace the room 
 Or count my steps in hall that meets the lofty eaves. 
 And pass another door to break the lowering gloom, 
 Behold, 't is broken ! For the fragrance sweet of 
 
 leaves 
 And flowers that thou hast worn and sanctified, reprieves^ 
 My chafing, morbid mood, and incense back receives. 
 
 X19 
 
A CONTRAST 
 
 If by the strength 
 And the song's length 
 Is gauged the force of voiced felicity; 
 Then must in shrillest, merriest ecstasy 
 The cheerful cricket ding 
 His triumph, who doth sing 
 From flushing star of dawn to star of silver light. 
 From dew-drops of the morn to drops of dew at night. 
 But if with notes of joy my verse 
 
 Sometimes doth ring. 
 My heavy heart-throbs quick the joy disperse. 
 
 I20 
 
IN AUTUMN 
 
 Placid the autumnal stream, 
 Placid they who dare not dream 
 Dreams of incandescent sheen. 
 They the losers, too, I ween. 
 
 HEREAFTER 
 
 Not hallelujahs loud nor frenzied hymns, 
 But mere repose of soul and change of view. 
 
 A THOUGHT 
 
 I DREAMED of far-ofF, wall-girt, Tuscan towns. 
 Their tapering trees, and vaporous olives dear. 
 Whilst scanning Massachusetts* pine-flecked downs ; 
 Nor could I say which seemed to me most near. 
 
 121 
 
MICHELANGELO 
 
 Buonarroti ! high as eagles, that patrol 
 The sky, their pinioned kind do dominate, 
 So thou o'ertowerest all men of thy kindred state. 
 Not that thy hand with greater cunning wrought ; 
 Not that thou sternly worest the crowns by thee un- 
 sought ; 
 But for thy godlike soul, 
 Which crushes all with its preponderating weight ! 
 
 122 
 
TO A LANDSCAPE 
 
 Not now the thundrous cloud, nor strenuous gale 
 
 That makes trees cringe, and show the silver side 
 
 Of tossing leaves. Oh, not to-day the deep 
 
 Effects of masses rich 'gainst sunset skies. 
 
 Nor sensuous hues, nor freakish outhne wild I 
 
 But give me Peace — a pleasant sunny stretch 
 
 Of landscape sweet in daisied June, all steeped 
 
 In equal whitish light ; the bosky hills 
 
 Flecked here and there with faint blue shades where 
 
 axe 
 Has hewn its way ; the nearer slopes well tilled. 
 Sweeping in gracious curves to meet the brook. 
 Not seen, but margined by the vaporous row 
 Of willows thick ; and cropping through the grass. 
 
 123 
 
Red-ripe, the uninvited flowers — though to 
 The poet meet — not gorgeous, but bedight 
 With frescoed tints, palish, yet adding glow 
 To torpid, basking fields. From time to time 
 (Alas how pitifully rare !) unvexed, 
 Unharassed hours, stress free as unbent grain. 
 Serene as sloping meads in sunlit June, 
 Are foisted into agitated Life. 
 
 124 
 
THRENODY 
 
 I 
 
 Like demi-god, who wore the shaggy spoils 
 
 Of sovereign beast, I Ve closed with sinewy Death, 
 
 And once have worsted him, saving a heart 
 
 Beloved, too young to go. But vanquished now 
 
 And broken, impulseless, and without bent, 
 
 I yield a cherished life to stronger Fate. 
 
 II 
 
 FiRM-anchored by its grappling, burrowing roots. 
 Upon a hill-slope lush with summer's lymph — 
 That tones its varied hues to shifting skies 
 Without ajar to eye — there grew a fair 
 Proportioned tree, thick-fronded, highly prized ; 
 For it had long companioned many moods. 
 
 125 
 
One murky day a bolt sinister struck 
 
 Its comely form, and rived with gashes deep 
 
 The accumulated, palpitating growth 
 
 Of years — and I, a helpless witness, gazed. 
 
 Recuperative nature has long since 
 
 Adorned with alien gauds the soil where trunk 
 
 Had clung to it, and veiled the transient sight 
 
 Of wounded limbs with memory's vision of 
 
 Its sturdier days. The unobstructed view 
 
 Reveals a range of heavenly blue with flecks 
 
 Of sun-flashed green — like plaques of Persian craft 
 
 'Gainst massive cumuli of shining clouds 
 
 With azure rifts, whence shoot the quivering rays. 
 
 126 
 
Ill 
 
 Let me not bear in mind the sombre close 
 
 Of thy frail life, the saint-like fortitude 
 
 Of thy poor harrowed soul ! Let me forget 
 
 The stress, the strain, and e'en those calmer states 
 
 When thou didst lie like effigy supine 
 
 On fretted marble, canopied beneath 
 
 The angel-crowned arch, whose shadows vague 
 
 Abide in deep-set eyes ! Let me forget 
 
 The scene when thou didst leave us in the gray 
 
 Of early dawn, thine own face grayer far ! 
 
 There hangs upon the wall a radiant head 
 Of thee, dear mother, when a dimpled girl ; 
 And yet another more mature in years 
 
 127 
 
But ever sweet. Will not the daily touch 
 With lovely traits, serene and sane, efface 
 The evanescing lines of bitter days ? 
 Will not thy gentle life be Life to me ? 
 Will not thy death dispel the gathering shades, 
 And ope a splendid view of things beyond ? 
 
 128 
 
ADIEU 
 
 I CANNOT see the tops of my dear hills, 
 The settling mists their crests obliterate. 
 And curtain with a veil compassionate 
 The sobbing trees, while lowering sadness fills 
 
 My yester-heart of joy. The wailing rills 
 Bear on convulsive, turgid waves their freight 
 Of sapless dead, and the disconsolate 
 Gray wind a mournful harmony instills. 
 
 The glowing heat is spent, the song is sung. 
 And these desiccate leaves upon the swollen 
 
 Tide of verse will soon amain be flung 
 
 To ocean's waste. Into the haunts of men. 
 
 The tasks enforced, I hurl my lyre unstrung. 
 
 And when the Spring returns ? — We '11 wait till 
 then. 
 
 12i 
 
SFP 25 1900