Verses 
 
 William Grant McColley, Jr. 
 
 United States Navp 
 
 1918 
 
Class -XS^jSML 
 Book.A/4|V^___ 
 
 GopyrightN°__Laiff_ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIH 
 
Verses 
 
WRITTEN BY WILLIAM GRANT 
 McCOLLEY, JR., WHILE IN 
 THE SERVICE, IN THE YEAR 
 NINETEEN EIGHTEEN, AT 
 THE UNITED STATES NAVAL 
 TRAINING STATION, GREAT 
 LAKES, ILLINOIS AND 
 CAMP LOGAN, ILLINOIS 
 
Copyright 1918 by 
 
 W. G. McCOLLEY. JR. 
 Milwaukee 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 MEYER-ROTIER PRINTING. CO. 
 
 MILWAUKEE 
 
 DEC -5 1918 
 
 (Q:.i.A509079 
 
Verses 
 
 William Grant McCollep, Jr. 
 
 United States Navy 
 
 1918 
 
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Verses 
 
 HAVE you known the dainty rustle of the 
 elfish morning air, 
 As it twinkled and it danced along the way, 
 Have you felt its flitting sweetness laugh away 
 each drooping care, 
 Till you whistled and you carolled all the 
 day? 
 
 There is something in its music that the world 
 can never know, 
 For it's fleeting as the mystery of a shade, 
 But your song goes up to heaven and your sigh 
 goes back below, 
 While you guess in happy wonder where it's 
 made. 
 
 Page five 
 
NO name but sweet could mark her f ace. 
 And none but sweet her wafted grace, 
 As woodlands knew her pace. 
 
 No word but fire could hold her flare, 
 And none but fire her breathing hair, 
 That tempted winds to dare. 
 
 No sound but strong could give her might, 
 And none but strong her passioned fight, 
 That made the might a right. 
 
 No days but made her mounts a mole, 
 And none but what her forward goal, 
 Left life a living soul. 
 
 Page til 
 
1 WOULD sing of the crags and the dim gray 
 sea 
 That spread to the arc of the sky, 
 Of a whimsied wind that came to me, 
 With the blush of a stolen sigh. 
 
 I would sing of the leaves and the fluttered 
 shades, 
 
 That lay on the dark of the green, 
 Of the light's last kiss in the silent glades, 
 
 With the glint of a golden sheen. 
 
 I would sing of the night and the twinkled stars, 
 That gleamed to the end of the blue, 
 
 Of a sweetened voice that breathed its bars, 
 With the strains of a message true. 
 
 Page seven 
 
DO you know the croon of the silent sky, 
 Of waves and the crash of the sea, 
 Of the darkened winds that powered fly, 
 And sands of a distant lea? 
 
 Do you know the cry of the rustled leaves, 
 Of steeps and the call of the wild, 
 
 Of the yearning droop of the yellowed sheaves, 
 And warmth in the laugh of a child ? 
 
 Do you know the song of the feathered folk, 
 Of nests and the bark of the trees, 
 
 Of the pulsing scream from a burdened yoke, 
 And paths where a tracking flees? 
 
 Do you know the end of a strength in leash, 
 
 Of minds and the want of a soul, 
 Of the leaping fire from a quickened flesh, 
 
 And what is a livings' goal? 
 
 Page eight 
 
COME roam with me on the leaping hills, 
 Where the trees grow high to the sky, 
 Where the wild life sings for the joy it brings, 
 And a laugh is the end of a sigh. 
 
 Keep pace with me to the river's brink, 
 Where the waves hurl might in their flight, 
 
 Where the eddy's whirl brings a flying curl, 
 And mist with a gleaming bright. 
 
 Flit on with me to the shadow's home, 
 Where the dusk is made for each glade, 
 
 Where the day's dim foe throws a dying glow, 
 And sight in its sleep is laid. 
 
 Page nine 
 
WHERE the bushed trees blow with a nod- 
 ding head, 
 And the clouds fly whitely and low, 
 I am going soon of a whispered wind, 
 And my heart has asked that you go. 
 
 Where the hills show green with a living grass, 
 And the streams rush leaping to flow, 
 
 I am going soon on a dancing float, 
 And my heart has asked that you go. 
 
 Where the skies bow dim with a fading blue, 
 
 And the sun dies red in its glow, 
 I am going soon on a spreading shade, 
 
 And my heart has asked that you go. 
 
 When the shadows grow into graying light, 
 And the night steals gently and slow, 
 
 Will you sail with me 'till the dew is laid, 
 For my heart asks e'er that you go? 
 
 Page 
 
COME live with me on the greening, 
 'Neath the clouds and the high growing 
 trees, 
 Where the flutter of leaves wide careening, 
 Sings low as the murmuring seas. 
 
 The breeze is sweet, but your whisper 
 
 Is sweeter than breezes could be, 
 And a grassy knoll where the shadows slur, 
 
 Lies waiting for you and for me. 
 
 Your spirit will come, that I'm knowing, 
 
 But a spirit is less than a life, 
 For the want of you ever is growing, 
 
 And the pain turns a stone for its knife. 
 
 Will you come and the days spend together, 
 By the banks of the sun-glinted streams, 
 
 For to me you're the bloom of the heather, 
 And the gold of a million dreams ? 
 
 Where the reeds march close to the water, 
 There you'll find me waiting for you, 
 
 When the sun gives the light to his daughter, 
 And the stars are steadfast and true. 
 
 Page eleven 
 
SLOW voices croon with a whimsied sigh, 
 In the kiss of a floating breeze, 
 And echoes low of the night birds cry, 
 Gilds glades where the shading flees. 
 
 The waves' gray wash brings a subtle call, 
 Of worlds that their eyes have known, 
 
 And the frothings break with a gleaming fall, 
 As the crests to the air are thrown. 
 
 Dim blue reigned high to the nestled stars, 
 With their eyes in a limpid white, 
 
 And the soft winds sang with their fairy bars 
 Till dreams stole the soul in flight. 
 
 Page twelve 
 
SOME say 'tis the stars 
 That make the night sweet, 
 Some say 'tis the trees, 
 
 Or the snows whitened feet; 
 But what may be said 
 
 Of the wide glimmered seas, 
 When cloud sails move windward, 
 Soft curls to appease. 
 
 Page thirteen 
 
WITH the stars a song I'm singing, 
 Would you care to know it too, 
 Ere a bell of light is ringing, 
 Or the flowers damp with dew? 
 
 A song of shaded cloud trails, 
 
 Is the song I happied sing, 
 A song of shifting misted vales, 
 
 Ere birds their offering bring. 
 
 'Tis the peaceful gongs of silence, 
 
 A silence deep and pure, 
 A silence with no where nor whence, 
 
 Yet e'er a wound 'twill cure. 
 
 Page fourteen 
 
WHEN the heat of the sun has faded, 
 And the leaves are fluttering shades, 
 Like the dainty kiss of a slumbering miss, 
 Glides the song of wakening glades. 
 
 O'er the nodding heads of the bushes, 
 
 Flows charms of a world afar, 
 With the mystic veil of a floating sail, 
 
 And the gleam of a distant star. 
 
 It is then I would live forever, 
 
 While memories softly play, 
 Till the once cool dusk is a gleaming husk, 
 
 And the sun comes again with the day. 
 
 Page fifteen 
 
HPHE pink and blue of the evening, 
 1 Turned gray with the graying clouds, 
 
 And the softened ring where the breezes cling, 
 With whispers grew softly loud. 
 
 The song was old and centuries long, 
 
 As long as a wrinkled wave, 
 But a song it was, and it did belong 
 
 To life, and not the grave. 
 
 And while it sang, did you hear it, 
 
 Or the crash of a monied din, 
 Or sense the flit of a feathered bit, 
 
 When its kin were welcomed in. 
 
 You live, perchance, and perchance you die, 
 
 Yet a life is nothing to me, 
 For the lights that fly from the shadow's sigh, 
 
 Are worse than a hurtling sea. 
 
 Page sixteen 
 
w I 'HERE'S a feel about the morning that it's 
 
 1 good to be alive, 
 To breathe the subtle fragrance from the winds 
 that lightly drive, 
 To taste the wine of falling dew 
 that glistens diamond white, 
 And know that shades of yesterday 
 have winged eternal flight. 
 
 It is in the scented morning that the world is 
 
 filled with song, 
 With bursting heralds from a land where sprites 
 and nymphs belong, 
 And it's in the glowing morning 
 
 that the red of life is high, 
 When your words are those of worship 
 and your altar bounds the sky. 
 
 Page seventeen 
 
HPHE birds are bickering from the leaves, 
 1 Outside my window 'neath the eaves. 
 
 They chatter with a rougish play, 
 A subtle scold for creeping day. 
 
 Soon quick away their wingings speed, 
 For downy fledglings in their need. 
 
 Then back to bicker from the leaves, 
 Outside my window 'neath the eaves. 
 
 Page eighteen 
 
DID you sense the golden kindness of the 
 merry sun today, 
 As it touched the burnished yellow of the 
 trees; 
 Did a breeze of southern fragrance steal your 
 memories out to play, 
 And to hunt the mysteried harbours of its 
 seas? 
 
 There's a glowing in its beaming that is filled 
 
 with warming light, 
 
 As it glitters through the dimness of the sky, 
 
 And the breeze that flows below it with the kiss 
 
 of pulsing night, 
 
 Wafts you gently where the winging spirits 
 
 fly. 
 
 Page nineteen 
 
HPHERE are moonbeams in the forest and 
 
 1 their trails of yellow light, 
 Creep in and out the fallen leaves with gleams 
 of checkered flight; 
 The song of slowly waving trees 
 comes clear with accent slow, 
 As the moonbeams in the forest bathe 
 their tips with golden glow. 
 
 The moonbeams of the forest have a language 
 
 far away, 
 A subtle tale of hidden skies with clouds where 
 spirits play. 
 And they bring their dainty memories 
 
 from the ends of all the earth, 
 For the moonbeams of the forest 
 twined with romance in their birth. 
 
 Page twenty 
 
SHALL we wander by the river where the 
 stones are show gray, 
 Through the rapids where the crestings 
 lightly roam, 
 May our footsteps tread its margin where the 
 leapings whirl away, 
 And the buffets turn with laughter into 
 foam? 
 
 Shall we follow by its swirling 
 Till the leapings quiet lie, 
 And its windings know the stillness of the 
 night, 
 May we breathe the subtle sweetness from 
 the pools that give the sky, 
 And the swing of flickered shadings in their 
 flight? 
 
 Page twenty-one 
 
WERE you a friend when your soul was 
 crushed? 
 Then say you're a friend of the world, 
 For the man that lives is the man that gives, 
 And the man where the storms have swirled. 
 
 The man is dead who will hide himself, 
 When he's sick of the world and its sham, 
 
 But great is the soul that will make its goal, 
 In the face of a drouth and a dam. 
 
 It is only the man who makes his way, 
 Over bones and the ash of despair, 
 
 That leaves a light for each coming flight, 
 Are you dead, or afraid to dare? 
 
 Page twenty-two 
 
HAVE you a friend who will stand by you, 
 When the storm throws a blackened 
 cloud, 
 Who will gladly die with a hidden sigh, 
 When the green turns dark in a shroud? 
 
 There are friends and friends in this dizzy world, 
 
 And their color is ever the same, 
 'Till the battle cry calls to do or die, 
 
 Or to hide with a deadened shame. 
 
 When the fight seems lost and your bloody 
 wounds, 
 Turn stiff with the death to come, 
 Then's the time to know where the cowards 
 grow, 
 And whose lips with aid are dumb. 
 
 It is harsh to say that our friends are few, 
 And that life holds but for its own, 
 
 Yet the years will tell when a touch of hell, 
 Comes burning, and leaves you alone. 
 
 Page twenty-three 
 
UPON the beach where curled waves play, 
 And cast aside each surf-torn day 
 Their pack of sea-tossed bones, 
 A sorried group of tales doth lay, 
 Dead tales of Davy Jones. 
 
 This spiked piece of salt-bound wood 
 
 Was once a living spar, 
 That held within its wide spread hood 
 
 The stirring winds which bore it far, 
 
 Till last it topped a jagged bar. 
 
 A bit of smashed and broken oar, 
 Calls to your mind the wild sea lore, 
 
 Whose strange tales know no bounds; 
 
 And each of all the whitened bones 
 Which knew the rocks where wild waves pour, 
 
 Has its dead tale of Davy Jones. 
 
 Page twenty-four 
 
"TO MY MOTHER" 
 
 1 WOULD tell you that I love you, 
 Love each graying strand of hair, 
 That I made by wayward roaming, 
 Through your great undying care. 
 
 Long miles may count the gulf between, 
 
 And habit build its bonds anew, 
 But Mother dear, when night awakes, 
 
 Draw deep from stars my love of you. 
 
 My love is like these whispered lights, 
 That blocked by clouds have e'er shone on, 
 
 And Mother, know I think of you, 
 Though gleamings bright from skies have 
 gone. 
 
 Page twenty-five 
 
UPON the irons, 
 The woody fire, 
 Glows, 
 And grows. 
 
 The tiny climbing flames, 
 
 Daring; 
 From slender shafts, 
 Are flashing, 
 
 Flaring. 
 
 The embers, 
 
 Dropping, 
 
 Live brands popping, 
 And jets from resined knots 
 
 Go hopping, 
 O'er the hearth. 
 
 Page twenty-six 
 
HAVE you roamed alone 'mid a million men 
 Away from the tongue they speak, 
 A stranger to the sounds of earth, 
 Uncertain what you seek? 
 
 Did you fare your way on the vagrant tides 
 
 That live to ebb and flow, 
 A whimsied wish of fancied winds, 
 
 That wildly restless go? 
 
 Perchance your life and a rutted world, 
 
 Are not of a kindred plane, 
 But time will ask when leaves are brown, 
 
 Was your trailing blazed in vain ? 
 
 Page twenty-seven 
 
1 WRITE of life in molded forms, 
 Of faces sad and gay, 
 Of struggles through a blackened night, 
 And fields where children play. 
 
 One theme is strong with restless pen, 
 
 With tales of potent fire, 
 A strength that rises swift to warm, 
 
 Or pluck a soothing lyre. 
 
 Creation is my title bold, 
 
 The steeps that build the strong, 
 The sleep that wears away the weak, 
 
 And lands of endless song. 
 
 Page twenty-eight 
 
ALONE I roamed 'neath bleaking sky, 
 jt\ Of life, save moaning trees and old gray 
 
 stone, 
 No sight nor sigh. 
 
 The cloud faint mist grew cold in rain, 
 
 With Death I was alone, 
 With Death and pain. 
 
 The World, alas, had died, 
 
 And bones, with grating, crunching sound, 
 In wierdness cried. 
 
 Loud called my wail for earth's cold lot, 
 
 But vain, and e'er a living pain 
 Forget me not. 
 
 Page twenty-nine 
 
A 
 
 TALE of memories all in vain, 
 A wasted tale, and breaking 
 pain. 
 
 A tale of months that fled as days, 
 A leaping tale, and burning rays. 
 
 A tale of weeks that hang as years, 
 A sodden tale, and gnawing fears. 
 
 A tale of memories all in vain, 
 A wasted tale, and breaking pain. 
 
 Page thirty 
 
WHEN with a sharpened grasp of steel 
 The world tears out a sweet ideal, 
 Whose life has brought you joy; 
 Tis hard to shake the sickening reel, 
 
 And hold your voice from jarring cry, 
 If quivering 'neath a heavy heel, 
 
 You've seen a shining life hope die, 
 A hope that gold can't buy. 
 
 But though your aching spirit's torn, 
 And gray clouds make your skies forlorn, 
 
 Forget your earth ground rents to pine, 
 From every wreck a hope is born, 
 And for the garments shabbied worn, 
 
 There'll be a cloak divine. 
 
 Page thirty-* 
 
THERE'S a rush and a roar through the 
 swaying door, 
 And the grind of the beaten steel, 
 With a crashing sway like an angry bay, 
 Where the flounderers rock their keel. 
 
 The smoke curls fly with a passioned cry, 
 And the fire of a ceaseless heat, 
 
 O'er the pound of wheels in whirling reels, 
 And the force of their hammered beat. 
 
 With the hurtled bound of a leaping 
 hound, 
 The swirl of the dust speeds by, 
 And the dying scream of the driven 
 steam, 
 Dies faint in a silent sky. 
 
 Page thirty -two 
 
THE COLOR GUARD 
 
 THEY were marching up to colors, 
 Twas sure a pretty sight, 
 And with life their steel was gleaming, 
 Gleaming back the morning's light. 
 
 My heart, it sure went with them, 
 With their flash of swinging white, 
 
 And it seemed as though I saw them, 
 Saw them marching to the fight. 
 
 Then they paused, and grew as statues, 
 Symbols of the right's forced might, 
 
 Reverent, too, as colors floated, 
 Floated high in fluttered flight. 
 
 Page thirty-three 
 
n I 'WAS the boom, boom, boom of an 
 
 1 angry sea, 
 
 And the fifes of a shrieking gale, 
 Rolling the waves with a fiendish glee, 
 
 'Neath the crack of a tattered sail. 
 
 The sea rolled fast, and the ship rolled high, 
 And a splintered stump was her mast, 
 
 With only a ribbon or two to fly, 
 Or to catch the wind which passed. 
 
 'Mid the ocean's surge, and the ocean's crash, 
 
 And the flick of the biting wail, 
 With fingers each a bloody mash, 
 
 The crew was fighting the flail. 
 
 A Mail was she, and her tons were great, 
 And a heart was locked in her deck, 
 
 Not to be loosed on a breakers' gate, 
 Nor to die unmanned as a wreck. 
 
 So the sea fought on, and the crew fought on, 
 
 And the two fought on together, 
 For a broken bit of woody pawy, 
 
 Lest a soul from grief might sever. 
 
 Page thirty-four 
 
Twas the fight they loved, and the fight they 
 sought, 
 
 And a fight they made it ever, 
 Nor dead when a peaceful sea was wrought, 
 
 But a fight that lives forever. 
 
 Page thirty-five 
 
HPHROUGH wavy mists that coil and reel, 
 
 X High pointed, 
 Muscled strong with steel, 
 
 Ribboned like a spiders' lair, 
 Fingers that so lightly feel, 
 The pulsing air. 
 
 The living wires, 
 
 Pour forth their speeding tales, 
 Or as a net of virile lyres, 
 
 Tap deep the fluffy sails, 
 Of floating clouds. 
 
 Dim distant leagues, 
 
 That hold what worlds would know, 
 Hide nothing, though their miles 
 
 Be numbered as the flaking snow, 
 The lightening currents, 
 
 Open wide as wind-shot sails 
 
 Their covered trails, 
 And snap them, flashing, 
 
 Past the speeding mails. 
 
 Page thirty-six 
 
TO float in one long endless sleep, 
 Until all time has ceased to beat, 
 With a dream to break the still, 
 Just silence, and its music sweet. 
 
 Tis not that I am tired of life, 
 For life is rich with leaping fire, 
 
 Tis only that a silence calls, 
 A silence calls and tunes its lyre. 
 
 I would forget the bonds of time, 
 That wing with houred rise and fall, 
 
 My mind would seek some hidden cloud, 
 Where centuries pass and make no call. 
 
 Page thirty-teven 
 
TAPS, and the day is far away 
 From the dregs of a living gall; 
 Taps, and the end of another play, 
 In the strains of a silvered call. 
 
 Taps, and a voyage to another land, 
 A land where souls belong, 
 
 Taps, and the sweet of an endless life, 
 And the breath of a living song. 
 
 Page thirty-eighc