te. PS ^4-6^ Book '_/yA/^ CotpghtW COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT BREATH OF THE WORLD BY STARR HOYT NICHOLS • •• • .• •.%*- • AUTHOR OF "MONTE ROSA, THE EPIC OF AN ALP." G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS NEW YORK AND LONDON ^bc Iknlckecbocftec press 1908 ii^o nRARY "ot CONGRESS wo Copies Received MOV 27 1903 CopyrlKiit t" Copyright, igo3 uv STARR HOYT NICHOLS Ube ttnlcftcrboclietr ipreps, "Hew l^orfc CONTENTS CRITICS SONNET BREATH OF THE WORLD: The Gates of the Century Columbus San Salvador Ingratitude . The Columbus Parade — 1893 Henry Hudson Aborigines . 1695 Tecumseh Pale-Face and Red-Skin Cotton Mather Jonathan Edwards Rip Van Winkle Rousseau George Washington Lafayette Ben Franklin Alexander Hamilton Thomas Paine Jefferson Ethan Allen Israel Putnam Hale and Andre . PAGB xvii xvii 3 3 4 4 5 5 6 6 7 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 12 12 13 13 14 CONTENTS Paul Jones . Benedict Arnold Webster Henry Clay . John C. Calhoun Harriet Beecher Stowe Abraham Lincoln General Grant Robert E. Lee Edison Watt Napoleon F. D. Maurice Matthew Arnold Charles Darwin George Jones, Journalist Mozart Verdi . Wagner Zenobia Plato . Francis Bacon Shakespeare THE REPUBLIC: The Republic Election . . . . The Union . . . . Genius of the United States Slavery . , . . Emancipation Pension List iv CONTENTS Little Italy Amalgamation PAGE 33 EVOLUTION: Natura Naturans Evolution's Orchestra Brain . Research The Tale of Years The Radical . Development A Suspicion . Rising and Risen . Ancestors The Making of Man Man the Animal Habits as Fate 37 37 38 38 39 39 40 40 41 41 42 42 43 DEMOS: Race and Person . Genius . The Good Old Times Our Age Desire . Brains Many Classes and Masses Forecast Democracy The Majority The Lion and the Mouse Proletariat . Hinds . 47 47 48 48 49 49 50 SO 51 51 52 52 53 CONTENTS VULCAN : Machinery Socialism Cupid and Vulcan EZEKIEL The Locomotive The Factory Reveille The Newspaper Morse's Telegraph CRAFTS: Electricity . . . . The Modern Dance of Death The Light-House . Planet and Lantern The Mariner's Compass . Wood's Holl Point Judith The Millennium . CRAFTSMEN: The Ambulance Mankind The Mechanic The Engine Driver The Switchman Custodes The Fireman The Teamster The Farmer . The Frontiersman CONTENTS The Cowboy , The Newsboy The Placer Miner The Laborer The Coal-Miner Servants Johnnie Rags Organ Grinder The Tenement Delmonico's . Orient and Occident The Tramp Samoans PAGE 77 77 78 78 79 79 80 80 81 81 82 82 83 PROPERTY: Plutus . Plutus as Jove Mammon Wealth The Root of all Evil Temple and Traffic St. Francis . Mercury Captains Twain Capital Enterprises . The Rogue . Homestead . Strikes . Culpa . The Speculator The Cavalier 87 87 88 88 89 89 90 90 91 91 92 92 93 93 94 94 95 CONTENTS SPORT: Kings' Reviews Yachting Baseball The Boat Race Football The Bicycle . VIRTUES' VICES: Circe Economy Conscience . Duty Ikon Celibacy Troy and To-Day VICES' VIRTUES: Selfishness . Self-Interest Slander Envy Extravagance Revenge Avarice Hatred Greed . The Gambler Divorce The Wit of Wealth Ignorance Welt-Schmerz CONTENTS PHILOSOPHY: Philosophy Sin's Sin Happiness Ideals . Attitude Depression Hope Involution Man in Nature Right and Best Materialism . Fact and Fairy Chance . Word-Craft . Pith Alternative . Our Overlords Correspondence Narrow-Mindedne Metaphysic . Monotony David and Goliath 121 121 122 122 123 123 124 124 126 126 127 127 128 128 129 129 131 131 SLEEP AND DEATH: Sleep Sleep and Death Eternal Life After and Before Lethe Nirvana Immortality . 135 ^35 136 136 137 137 138 CONTENTS The Morgue . Pestilence . SCHOOLMEN : Mephisto Corner-Stones Credulities . Seekers after Gods Sects Buddha Calvinism The Puritan . The Quaker . The Shaker . The Sectary . Liberal Christians The Agnostic FAIRY LAND: Spirit . Sin . . . The Fanatic . Occultism The Question of Evil The Black Veil Black Friars SUPERNATURAL: Theology Heaven and Earth Deus ex Machina . The False God Worship PAGE 138 139 143 143 144 144 I4S 145 146 146 147 147 148 148 149 153 153 154 154 155 155 156 159 159 160 160 161 CONTENTS Sfrmons Authority God and Nature . A Flickering Torch Mystery The Poppy The Coffined Priest Early Gods . Myth and Science . fuliginosus . The Holy Coat of Treves Milan Cathedral . Knowledge of God The Will of God . Expansions . PAGE l6l 162 162 163 163 164 164 166 166 167 167 168 16S LOVE: Beloved Pan and Echo Venus Victrix Disparted Dear Despair Solatium Brooding Waking and Sleeping Don Giovanni Love's Treason Loving and Liking Love and Marriage Her New^ Lover Thought and Love Repentance . 171 171 172 172 173 173 174 174 17s 17s 176 176 177 177 178 CONTENTS A Face . Love in a Horse-Car FRIENDSHIP: PAGE 178 179 Eli Kirke Price 183 Incessu Patuit Dea 183 Bereavement 184 Friends' Friends 184 Sirens . 185 Frost . i8s A Lost Friend 186 Deserted 186 Friends in Need 187 Dies Ir^e 187 LIFE: Society ......... igi Conversation 191 Walt Whitman 192 Youth and Eld 193 Solus cum Solo 193 Saratoga 194 A Lawsuit 194 A Client I9S Old Age 195 Beauty and Time 196 Classic Universities ig6 ANIMALS: The Speechless ........ 199 Felis Leo ......... 199 The Last Buffalo . 200 xu CONTENTS Rover . . . . 200 The Red Squirrel ....... 201 A Snap Shot . . . . . . . . .201 BIRDS: The Robin ......... 205 Bob White • 205 The Blue Jay . 206 The Sparrow's Nest . 206 The Sparrow's Courtship . 207 Bobolink . 207 Wild Pigeons . 208 The Turkey . . 208 Migrations . . 209 September . 209 Eagle and Lightning . 210 The Firefly . . 210 FLOWERS: The Red Peony ." . . . . . . .213 Chrysanthemums . . . . . . , .213 NATURE: The Hudson ......... 217 Manhattan Bay . 217 Newport — 1891 . 218 Mount Desert . 218 Water . . 219 At Sea . . 219 Sea-Waves . . 220 Calm and Tempest . 220 Niagara . 221 The Great Lakes . . 221 xm CONTENTS A Trout Brook The Mississippi The New England Elm Nature's Festivals Autumn Indian Summer The Birth of a Cyclone The South Yard . A Hot Wave . New Year at Bombay The Heavens. To-Day . Finis Old Comrades OF VARIOUS FEATHER: Beauty The Bachelor's Last Dinner A Rebel Slave Spring-Tide . Apple Blossoms Love and Wealth . Love and Friendship Unrest .... Aphrodite Love's Peril . The Bat The Squirrel and the Lion Felix Amor . The White Fleet . The City Miser .... xiv CONTENTS PAGE Spendthrift ......... 255 Melancholy .... • 256 The Fickle Winds . 256 Physics .... • 257 Circe ..... . 258 Exile ..... . 258 At a Concert • 259 Wine and Love . 260 Love's Excuse for Fickleness . 261 A Wife ..... . 262 Man's Future . 263 Carpe Diem .... . 264 Her Favor .... . 266 Mouse and Match . . 266 Flesh and Thought . 267 The Whippoorwill . 268 Tennyson .... . 269 The Rosegg Glacier . 270 XV CRITICS Kind friends, whose words of praise so free Have been my solace midst of careless men, Enkindling heart and brain, when else my pen Had wandered idly from sweet verse, here see The work your favor wrings afresh from me ! And if a late repentance ripens when These numbers you peruse, be kind again, For now too late your lashes I should flee. A wonder 't were, if guides such as ye are. Trained in good books and words arranged with art, Should be quite wrong, and all your subtle care Did but misfit you to play well your part ; So, I, the happy subject of your praise, Once more adventure into public gaze. THE SONNET . The sonnet is a wine-cup whence should rise Aromas fine and delicate as those Of choice Vesuvian vintage named for woes Of sad Gethsemane, that banish sighs; Or it may be a clarion's voice that cries In thrilling tones a battle 'gainst man's foes. Or a slim flute's clear tone that comes and goes "Where gladness fills the air with melodies; Or it may be love's royal, lotus flower Expanding in full splendor when fresh youth, Glowing with passion's fervor, crowns the hour Which has no rival in our life forsooth ; Or it may be the hearse where starkly lies Life's glory or love's fatal sacrifice. Breath of the World THE GATES OF THE CENTURY As some foot-weary caravan from the East Heavy with gems and ivories and all rare, Rich orient plunder that men love to share, Nearing a mighty city finds increased The highway throng and press of ladened beast, So these our century's closing years, that bear Upon their camels costliest bales, and fare Towards portals new, where they shall be released, Approach a mightier age whose promise large Already crowds the ways of human hope With shadowy figures of a richer charge Than any past held in its straitened scope. The gate that on the illustrious century closes Opes on the new as June on budding roses. COLUMBUS What lion-heart throbbed in Columbus' breast That he should launch slim ships to beat his way O'er foaming leagues of never-travelled sea That flashed down the illimitable west ! Who but a dreamer with a prophet's zest Would dare to seek a world beyond all ken. Possessed of fairy monsters and strange men, Nor turn his rudder till was reached his quest? But when upon gray ocean's vacant ring A low green isle with plumy palm-trees shone. What wonder that his men knelt worshipping To crown the bravest triumph ever won ! And what glad thoughts rose in his valiant soul. Seeing his dream there on the billows' roll ! 3 SAN SALVADOR An isle he saw, he gave what lay behind: Two continents that lent worn Europe space For its sad people to refresh their race, And snatch their fortunes from the monarchs blind, Whose fumbling made earth wretched for mankind ; Lands where men free might laugh with happiness And find releases in the sunnier face And motley thinking of the common mind. Would he had waked but for one hour to hear The bugle-call of our democracy That bade all quarters of the peopled sphere To send confederate squadrons o'er the sea In honor of his matchless deed ! And raise To him as to a god their psalm of praise. INGRATITUDE What more pathetic figure hath old time Etched in amid his stored miseries Than this Columbus victimed to mean spies. Chained in his cabin, charged with traitorous crime? But as the majesty of Lear sublime Discrowned, dis-kingdomed, raving to foul skies. Yet "every inch a king" doth still uprise And no less princely than in sceptred prime, So shows this sailor, this "high admiral" proud, While bigots rage and carping courtiers prate, Disowned of craven king and fickle crowd, With manly courage mid his foes elate ; While we of alien blood — his heirs — conspire To arch the centuries with his name — in fire. 4 THE COLUMBUS PARADE— 1893 Huge warships of all nations side by side, Oarless and sailless, heedless of the breeze Drive their colossal prows with conquering ease Against the thrusting of an adverse tide ; And mid them three curved caravels — the pride Of bold Columbus, when he clove the seas, The windy sport of what storm-gods might please, Seeking strange ports where keel did never ride. Yet these leviathans are proud to dip Their bright flags to the pigmy counterpart Of his slight ships ; and from the flame-wreathed lip Of thundering cannon cheer his dauntless heart. Greater than Caesar's fortunes carried well The fragile oak of Christopher's caravel. HENRY HUDSON Bluff Henry Hudson, — his red-letter day, — Swung his good ship inside the scythe-like curve That bids the green-surged Neptune chafe and swerve, Outside the wavelets of Manhattan Bay ; The uncharted Narrows saw his tall sails sway; Awed red-men, deeming their great Manitou With benedictions came, gave welcome true; Alas for them ! What fatal futures lay Within that towering cruiser's oaken sides! For the old sea-dog drove his urgent prow 'Twixt pillared palisades until the tides Gave wave unsalted foaming at his bow; So wrote his sailor name in water sure. But writing famous long as streams endure. 5 ABORIGINES How long tall Indians roamed this land and here The slim buck took to wife the tawny squaw, Bred red pappooses as his cubs a bear, And reared them on the yield of stream and shaw: Dim centuries fled; aloft gray eagles screamed. Panther and wolf his wigwam-camp beset; Oft shrilled he war-whoops where his foemen dreamed, Oft gravely puffed the peace-wreathed calumet. In frescoed skin he prowled to woo or war; Trimmed his lithe form with scalps and feathers gay; With his beast-totem did the white-birch scar, And like the wood-fowl threw his years away ; Ungrudging nature nursed his untaught brood Through what millenniums of waste solitude? 1695 His dusky aboriginals, two thousand told Their sombre sachem, chief of Pequot braves, Camped in a rude stockade, where Indian graves Now fill all ground still theirs by title old ; For them did stout John Mason, warrior bold Of Plymouth colony, march forth to slay One Sabbath afternoon ; and ere the day Had faded in December's twilight cold, That ancient tribe lay dead around their fires — Buck, squaw, pappoose — one gory heap of slain; While pious Puritans — grim warrior-quires — Raised to their God a psalm of grateful strain; Scarce lived a Pequot evermore to tell That here his fierce forefathers fighting fell. 6 TECUMSEH The roaming savages in wigwams free Disclosed no sachem of a larger mold Than grand Tecumseh, whose shrewd brain enrolled Red nations five in one confederacy. What worsened history had white settlers seen, Had this red captain spread his snares what time At wintry Plymouth mid the frosty rime Pilgrims were landing from the salt sea green! Or when his Puritans Miles Standish led In scanty files against their stalwart foes, How had their lean ranks fared, had this clear head Ambushed his braves behind the forest rows? But when he rose to halt his people's fate, Pathetic fortune could but cry " Too late!" PALE-FACE AND RED-SKIN What goblin-haunted forests faced the band That first explored our green woods' mysteries! Hunting fierce clans of hunting savages, Poor painted tribes! They little could understand Save chase of wildings through the bushy land ; So little knew that nature scorned their wise, With plague and famine slew their young like flies, And smote their witless braves with hasty hand. Now is their heritage a hive of men Who axe in hand make echoing forests shake; Who run the plough-share through the foxes* den And plant great factories where crawled the snake. Was it a wrong the idling land to fill With lordlier men against the red-man's will? 7 COTTON MATHER Beneath the pomp and periwig of him Perchance a heart of common flesh did beat Whose throbs sent Hving blood to hands and feet, Lending continuance to life and limb. But what a guise of man, both vain and grim, Who preached Christ's gospel with salvation sweet, Yet at the dreadful gallows raged with heat Lest some poor witch be spared at pity's whim. So far did superstition mar this man That, gentleman, scholar, Christian, as times went, He laid upon his day a murderous ban And better souls than his to Tophet sent. Men praised his parts — would he had found a place In his learned ignorance for human grace ! JONATHAN EDWARDS A strong, sweet nature curdled in its prime By surly doctrines, whose hysteric fear Raising the ghosts of uncommitted crime, Jarred the fine balance of his reason clear; His pure face felt the scorch of flaming hell. He heard lost souls in ruthless torture rave; Saw mid eternal torments doomed to dwell Myriads of misbelievers good and brave. Fair earth became to him a realm accurst God-harried for dead Adam's sin of yore, A guilty planet earning still the worst Of cruel punishments reserved in store. And man's will hand-cuffed to God's stem decrees Helped him to hell through sin's unhealed disease. RIP VAN WINKLE Old Rip Van Winkle — so Dame Fortune spun — Hath o'er the cloudy Catskills cast a spell, Where thunders low to ghostly nine-pins swell, And flits Rip's genius with his rusty gun. As sketched by Irving, played by JeflEerson. A worthless creature fleeing the clamorous knell Of his shrew's tongue, made haunted gorges tell Of foaming flagons and the sleep he won. This slipshod roysterer drifting down his day, To dogs and children dearer than to great. Who knew him for an idle castaway, Hath with these solemn mountains linked his fate. And busy ages still his romance cherish With jovial memories, letting saints' names perish. ROUSSEAU The shrewd world-spirit on its jaunt through time Puts up in many a curious tenement Forlorn or goodly, comic or sublime, Yet ne'er complains however poor its tent. 'T is ugly Socrates, Mahomet mean, Or hermit Peter, Cromwell regicide, Coarse Luther, churl Napoleon, Darwin keen, Or our rail-splitter Lincoln, erst decried. So once he housed in French Rousseau, a strange, Disreputable genius, rare of wit, Whose vibrant words rang in a day of change. Knelling the doom of aristocracies unfit. Kings, nobles, priests by his explosive thought Blown into fragments to harsh ending brought. 9 GEORGE WASHINGTON As when from out a block of marble nade By Greek art chiselled steps a god sublime, Glorious in feature, form, and attitude. Immortal mid the wrecks of blighting time, So from rough quarries of humanity By great times sculptured Washington stood forth Of godlike mold and godlike soul to be A rare high wonder of pure human worth ; And as o'er Athens towered the form divine Of helmed Athena, guardian of the state, Lifting her spear and buckler o'er the shrine Where shone her face in light immaculate, So stately Washington radiant and alone Stands guardian genius of his land — our own. LAFAYETTE A high-bom Gaul, whose heart beat warm for man. Fired with young zeal 'gainst immemorial wrongs, Heard our great revolution's bell and ran With knightly sword to join our farmer throngs; A lordly ease ungnidged he left, since he Adored the trinity of that time's grace, "Liberty, equality, fraternity," More than all luxury that kept men base; So won our hearts and made forever dear His generous France to all Americans, Sister republics linked across the mere By his betrothal in the holiest bans; Nor shall day dawn that shall not join in one Brave Lafayette and our grave Washington. BEN FRANKLIN Most prying artisan of patient time, Philosopher of hearth and farm and mart, Gay humorist of common sense subUme, FrankUn naught prized or praised from men apart; Yet soared his fancy through the upper skies To pluck Jove's thunder from his high command ; He looked at nature with such fearless eyes, She smiled and gave the lightning to his hand. Palace and salon vied to laud his name; Himself superior by his mien and mind Now lends their gilded court his lease of fame, To give a halo to its frivolous kind. To nature close as glove to hand was he, Who mid earth's wisest gave him place to be. ALEXANDER HAMILTON A fairy changeling. Merlin's later son, Graceful in mien, with magic gift of speech, Lit on our coasts one morn, heaven-sent to teach Our sagest statesmen wisdom ; there was none But with winged Mercury's eloquence he won, And held amazed at the scarce-rivalled reach Of his ethereal genius ; still with each He seemed the first whatever race was run ; He took men's thoughts in his with subtle wit To soothe the jealous, bind the fractious fast, The scattered links of feeble states to knit To one firm empire matched with time to last ; Our chain of union welded he so well That time nor rage could rend his powerful spell. THOMAS PAINE As a white statue buried in the sHme Of yellow Tiber, when restored to day Comes forth discolored from its bed of clay, Nor ever loses traces of the grime ; So may a great name from a turbid time Emerge distained by slander's muddy spray That naught can show its pristine purity, Though spotless 't were as any babe of crime. Tom Paine was such, whose bright-eyed genius clear Hailed by the greatest of his mighty age Shone like a star o'er either hemisphere Till lies befouled its glorious embassage; Then men forgot his work in freedom's cause When it lay fainting 'neath the lion's claws. JEFFERSON As a bold swimmer plunging in the sea, With rapture hears its tumbling billows clash. And gives his body to them fearlessly, Fearing no evil from such playmates rash, So heard our Jefferson the roaring surge Of wild democracy as swelling high It thundered forward eager to submerge The ancient dunes of aristocracy. He gave his fortunes to its boisterous play. Where colder statesmen shrank the invading tide ; Glad as a boy he left the sheltered bay To breast the greater ocean's lift outside. So his name shines forever in the van Of those who made the state American. ETHAN ALLEN When Ethan Allen with stout soldiers few Before Ticonderoga's lonely fort Stood on a misty morning with the port Of one prepared to make a brave foe rue His vain defence, what triumph did ensue! His summons, "Yield in great Jehovah's name And of the Continental Congress," came Like Jove's command to Britain's startled crew ; Joyous our colonies the conquest hailed ; Success by rashness brought to such quick birth, And lifting foes on mirth's light spear impaled, Gave place for deathless laughter to dull earth ; Such daring may from any fireside spring Where freedom has the boys in nourishing. ISRAEL PUTNAM When at his plough "Old Put" heard war's shrill call, He left his gear within the furrow there. Rode off his horse to get him powder and ball, That for his country he might do and dare ; And as the grizzled wolf in his rock den In youth he bearded, so he faced the foe Oblivious to each deadly peril when Compatriots rose to work oppressors' woe ; But when at Bunker Hill his soldiers ran. Against those fugitives this churchman swore. And though defeated won as valor can The laurel crown which victors ever wore ; And in our annals never shall his name Fail from the roll call of the loved of fame. 13 HALE AND ANDRE Two victims of red war's rapacious will, Both young, devoted, to their colors true, One in red coat, the other in gray-blue. Were to a gibbet hung ; both noble still ; Two spies, whom comrades loved as void of ill. Their costly sacrifice two nations rue. Which then with stupid hate each other slew, But now full bumpers to old foemen fill. What baleful Fury deaf to coming woes Hurls men to slaughter 'neath the sunshine sweet, Their cherished comrades now t' assault as foes Whom soon as friends once more they gladly greet? But those brave souls in dewy youth once slain What toast or smile restores them youth again? PAUL JONES Was ever heard of rasher mariner Than stout Paul Jones who harried the English coast With fearless sails, and smothered England's boast In exploits that made quake the heart of her? How swore scared squires in hall and field! What stir Uproused all parts, as, flitting like a ghost From bight to bight, his ship appeared a host. And squads were drilled to halt this visitor! Rocks, tempests, nor the thundering foes' broadsides, Rent masts nor splintering bulkheads could him fright; Had England been but anchored on her tides He would have cut her cables and, despite Her rage, have towed her o'er the Atlantic wide A helpless captive to his patriot pride. 14 BENEDICT ARNOLD A haughty, rash, and jealous soul, whose fire Blazed bright amid the battle's hot affray, Quick to resent rebuke time would unsay. Caught at revenge to sate his sudden ire ; Home, country, friends he tossed upon the pyre Of hasty wrath, and ardent to betray Nailed his name high with traitors gone astray. Trampling its early splendor in the mire. 'T were better far bright honor not to know, Ne'er to have worn the wreaths of happy praise. Than having worn to fall to depths so low That all men curse whom once they crowned with bays ; So smirched is Arnold's name we blush that one Bom to our land should earn such malison. WEBSTER Great-souled defender of the heritage Our fathers left, was Webster eloquent, Whose clarion voice, against whatever meant Disunion's madness, rang in noble rage. As with Jove's grandeur, how did he engage The listening Senate ! Straining mortal art With full outpourings of his patriot heart. Secession's awful ruin to presage. How was the horror of his prescient fears O'ertopped, when farm and city knew War's bloody havoc and fast-falling tears, The curse of faction's blind, infuriate crew! But now restored, "full high advanced," we see The flag his words had matched in majesty. IS HENRY CLAY A rich, magnetic voice whose echoes great Drift down dim years with ever lessening swell, Like dying throbs of some far mountain bell, Is Clay to us, who once could dominate Attending ears like a superior fate ; For on his times his tones persuasive fell With generous burden that would hate dispel. And hearts anew to country consecrate ; His life into our commonwealth was wrought As one who could not stoop to projects base ; The Union's glory was his foremost thought; His honor stainless as a planet's face ; A modem Bayard whom no tales decry Lives in his record of fine chivalry. JOHN C. CALHOUN As is a jangling boll in some sole tower That clangs forever one discordant note For feasts, or fasts, or fires, with brazen throat, So was Calhoun reiterate every hour Wrangling for slavery and secession sour. With the stale tedium of a parrot's rote. While freedom's radiant crest he ever smote With shameless blows as genius lent him power. His clangorous tocsin ringing loud and late Called out an angry mob for slavery's guard. And marshalled annies to the tierce debate Of bloody fields that Union deeply marred. Marius mid Carthago's ruins hotly sped Is Calhoun's symbol mid his slaveries dead. i6 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE Most dainty lady, in whose gentle mind Unnumbered flowers as by a wayside sprang, Whose frolic fancy in such gay notes sang As birdlings warble by no bars confined, What spirit touched thy sportiveness so kind To blow a warri(jr's trumpet till it rang A tingling challenge to the lawless gang That bullied all the land the slave to bind? No sweeter nature ever found its r61e The tenderest thoughts with war-gear to enlace, And like Jeanne d'Arc as 't were a sword to wield With men-at-arms upon the clashing field, And still to walk with woman's fragrant grace, A heroine in act, a saint in soul. ABRAHAM LINCOLN What gentleness suffused the thoughtful soul Of our one martyred President, who led. Without a word of rancorous import said. Mar's blood-stained armies towards the statesman's goal; No page he wrote that love could not extol. Nor any act allowed of malice bred That might in memory rankle, when was dead The frantic strife, and reason resumed control. His mildness brought as heritage to us Such brothers' unity as ne'er before Knit hostile States in love ; his generous Spirit glows like a shrine that men adore; And the foul bullet to his kind heart sent With deepest rue o'erbroods our continent. 17 GENERAL GRANT When war red-handed drew his biting sword, And hung revolvers to his dreadful belt, A modest soldier who for duty felt Stood forth at his loved country's earliest word ; Not dreaming that his fight should be adored By half the continent, such blows he dealt That beaten foemen to his valor knelt Till every hostile flag to him was lowered ; So rose he to the top of our young world ; And grateful countrymen did more augment His praise, when peace her white flag had unfurled, And civic garlands with his war-wreaths blent; Patriot, warrior, statesman, well was won His lofty place — our nation's second son. ROBERT E. LEE A courteous soul of ancient, knightly strain Hearing fierce bugles blow their bitter breath Spurred instant forth to meet the ravening death. Following bright honor through the bloody rain ; What ringing battles did his genius gain ! But still his squadrons melted till he saith, "Some god mine enemy replenisheth, 'T were butchery to prolong the fight in vain. " So like a soldier to a soldier gave His good sword up and from war's ranks retired ; Not crowned with victor's laurels, yet a brave Stout captain whom stem duty had inspired; And well content within his home did see In his defeat a larger victory. i8 EDISON This genius of late times in workman's guise Swings wide the gate of nature's dark domain, And entering Uke her sovereign v/ise of brain Summons the secrets from their mysteries ; And they bow down before him, to his eyes All nude, like maidens of some slaver's train, Whom this strong lord mechanic doth constrain To serve his mandate ever sane and wise. His wizardry distils new spells each day ; Bids light to be and forthwith there is light; Man's voice he prints or carries leagues away, And drives strong engines to a swifter flight; Bright Ariel-Nature whispers in his ear Her latest news from atomy and sphere. WATT More than Columbus or Napoleon, did Watt change the antique world, inventor shrewd! When by the fireside he did inly brood On the slight lifting of a kettle's lid. Napoleon bridled Europe and bestrid Its kingdoms like a war-god; for what good? Watt's thought had power that knew no lassitude And it went forth to do what men should bid. Columbus gave new worlds but left weak man Enslaved to drudgery's millenial blight : Watt wheedled steam, that stout barbarian, To slave for slaves with never-tiring might : Watt tames Columbus' savage continents. Napoleon's hosts dismantles like his tents. 19 NAPOLEON A brigand from rough Corsica astray, His blood with wild vendetta-flame afire, Greedy, remorseless, and a ready liar. Found genius his to do what genius may ; Strange times lent Frenchmen for his daring play To train as bandits with him, in his hire ; The twain half-frenzied with war's fell desire Struck hands to raid rich Europe's empires gray. He fluttered armies as an eagle crows; Crowned kings he collared, kingdoms stole and sold; And like a cracksman plundered as he chose Pictures and statues, bronzes, jewels, gold; Nobles and princes he as grooms abused, A royal palace like a trooper used. II Lonely, as 'mid great Alpine peaks alone The Matterhom its elf -hewn grandeur rears Remote from rivals, or companion peers To match its snow-wreathed cliffs of sculptured stone. Napoleon stood apart with comrade none ; A frowning grandeur fronting cruel years. Aloof from sympathies of smiles or tears. While on men's skulls he raised his dreadful throne. His genius, like the mountain's fondled storms Laced with fierce lightnings shot toward field and town, That bore unsparing terrors in all forms To blast men's lives where he might win renown; Yet for that genius men condone his ill. Since greater never did a man's place fill. F. D. MAURICE Well-wishing scholar, whose embarrassed mind, Forever beat the bush with throbbing heart, In hopes the modem hares of thought to start Mid ancient tomes ! How long with thee purblind Had I my way mid folk-lore tales to wind, Exploring tombs with hieroglyphs inscribed By ignorance, of olden times the bride. Yet wert thou noble though to creeds confined! Now, issued into breezy realms where life Blows clarion challenges as bugle clear. My blood stirred by the trumpets of man's strife, Bounds with the conflict for things real and near. Thy books seem but as spiders' wandering threads Hung with bright morning dew upon the meads. MATTHEW ARNOLD Nature's gross frame betrays "a tendency Not of ourselves that makes for righteousness," Cries brooding Arnold ranging far and nigh For moral raiment man's nude limbs to dress ; Yet to this dreamer did no light reveal What earthly plant could furnish fibre tough To weave a robe shot through with forms ideal. And drape crass, bestial man with grace enough. So never in his 'plaining hours gave heed To what grew rankest round his spuming feet, The plant which always he mistook for weed — Material wealth, for every vesture meet. Art, letters, science, law, and righteousness Of wealth's gold thread are woven 'gainst man's distress. CHARLES DARWIN Deep student ! Who to nature wcrt so true That lier still secrecy could never shirk Thy patient study, what strange vistas new And vast as time's dim corridors thy work Has opened to our gaze ! Revealing there The thronged procession of the world's advance, The method of her movement everywhere; Firm laws that keep eternal dominance. And how the little to the large may wax, The simple to complex; how habits make The tiger strenuous, and the serpent lax, The eye to see, the facile hand to take, A mind to solve the star-mist in its range Or frame a stable state on fluent change. GEORGE JONES, JOURNALIST George Jones, cast in the antique mokl Of those to whom the state is more than self, More than great power, or pleasure bought with pel!". Was lately carried to the churchyard's fold A guest of silence — with a name of gold. For none could buy him, though one proffered wealth Would pay an emperor's ransom, and with stealth Enough to leave no trace or what was sold. Long live the young republic where plain men Keep honor imdishonored stainlessly, Holding that even a journal's public pen For public duty should be held in fee. If these be few, those few shall freiHlom wear As lieirloom jewels in her streaming hair. MOZART When rosy dawn breaks on the shadowy groves, A wavering warble of all wild-fowl sweet Out-streaming from the throats of feathered droves Follows the dayspring o'er the growing wheat; So Mozart broke above a sombre earth In carols of heart-piercing melody, Wherein all songs of fluttering birds found birth For raptured men where never bird could be. Ah! marvellous boy! with boy's untroubled heart, And sportive frolic in life's lightsome play! Who can but love thee for thy jocund art That lends new charm to every mortal day? Though in life's morn thou didst untimely die, Still like the lark thou singest from the sky. VERDI From forth the teeming loins of nature strong, Fresh as Apollo in young Grecian days Springs Verdi's genius voicing harmonies That charm all souls, assuaging half life's wrong. He fills the air with an invisible throng Of spirits chaunting love and rage and praise. Till men enraptured fling him crowns of bays. Transported by his many-burdened song. An Orpheus of a golden race, whose strain Has flowered in genius since the Roman prime. From Caesar to Napoleon, its grand brain Has shaken the large-orbed world, surprising time. Rare Verdi joins th' immortal band, his soul Outpouring music that might stars control. 23 WAGNER We love Niagara's thund'rous organ flow, The breezy quires of spring-saluting birds, Old ocean's stately marches without words. And autumn's windy anthems loud or low; All these in restless numbers swift or slow, Or sweet or stormy, Wagner hath surprised Into his scores as by old Pan advised, Whose strains as with his dwarf -folk forges glow. More human voices hath he also seized ; Love's rapture and despair, the hero's ire, Youth's rippling gladsomeness, hate unappeased, With e'en the high God's misery on their pyre. All mighty passions known to nature surge Through his vast chords as were he demiurge. II As when athwart a boss of frowning cloud The storm-god flings his lightning shafts of flame, Till every fold with lurid seams is plowed, And fire on water writes its foreign name, So through his gravest score of harmony Swift, meteor strains doth Wagner loosely fling, Horns over strings tumultuously ply In dazzling pyrotechnic wandering. Awhile the erratic meteors wildly dart Hither and yon, as did prime chaos near, Then gathering to the central theme impart An elemental grandeur large and clear; Till, blended in th' o'erwhelming climax, all Swell to such storm-bursts as might Thor enthrall. 24 ZENOBIA Zenobia, queen of old Palmyra's gate, About whose walls the desert flashed its sands, Defied all-conquering Rome with martial bands Of swordsmen, spearmen, horsemen, braving fate; An airy maid, bright-eyed, of heart elate, Since naught her beauty at the court withstands. Thought the stout legionaries to her hands Might be as wax not insubordinate ; Defeated, captive, chained she shamed the streets In great Aurelian's haughty triumph led A spectacle to Rome's proud populace; Yet won a woman's victory to wed, And mother Roman boys, while of her seats Rude-mannered legions left but smallest trace. PLATO Great dreamer! who hath long enchanted souls With rainbow visions from thy magic pen And spells well-woven of things beyond all ken, Art thou not chief among the human moles That wander round thy cave? Upon thy scrolls Is news of nothing that abides with men. But only visions of what might have been But is not. Yet so much thy dream unrolls Of beauty, splendor, colored by witching speech, That I too, willing captive, follow thee Through the dim realms whereto thy wing doth reach And revel in thy gorgeous pageantry. But words of charm that paint the air with gold To air resolve, when things their charm unfold. 25 FRANCIS BACON A princely mind, at whose imperial court Stood every knowledge of his eager day, Garbed by his fancy in such choice array As Iris might devise of graceful sort ; There wit and humor made increasing sport And learning all her treasures would display, And sweet-voiced wisdom ever would foresay What weal from nature genius might extort ; Nature's great self he saw and bent his knee, Put his fine hands in hers, as liegeman swore To win to her allegiance times to be By teaching men to love her fruitful lore ; Though not unstained in his perturbed career Yet who of human kind may stand his peer? SHAKESPEARE What strange magician tutored Shakespeare's brain ! That statecraft like a statesman he should show; History, philosophy, and faery know; Of science, trades, and games be deeply fain; Dry law and medicine as well explain, Music dissect, with folk-lore overflow. Strange tongues, far customs, ghost and witchcraft low, The love of flowers, beasts, insects, birds, attain; Scan men beside of every strain and state ; Dainty with maidens be, with harlots lewd; With motley, rogue, sot, princes intimate. That nothing mundane should his ken elude; Bacon was other such, and there were twain. Or Bacon lent the player his books and brain. 26 The Republic 27 THE REPUBLIC Son of the youngest time with heart of oak, With thews of steel and soul of flashing fire, With will to reach the heart of thy desire And bring a continent beneath thy yoke! Thou art the Hercules of modem folk Who hast already strangled serpents twain — ■ Rebellion, slavery, that sought in vain To slay thee in thy cradle at a stroke! Now more than labors twelve are in thy reins, Since countless citizens of courage high Pour from full hearts into thy swelling veins The seething ferments of new liberty ! And thou, their demigod with unmailed hand Dost guard them safe in thy unsoldiered land! ELECTION As fall the blossoms of fruit-bearing trees. When May is ripening into beauteous June, So fall white ballots written with the rune Of freemen's choices, on November's knees; Blossom and ballot fall, but neither flees Except it leave behind a germ that soon Shall grow to fruitage 'neath a future noon, Or sweet or sour as wise and foolish please. Well may we on the issue breathless wait ! Since the vast welfare of the nation hides In the conclusions there enunciate, Whose speechless word for many a moon abides. Nor can the crown of king out-majesty The uncrowned people choosing king that day, 39 THE UNION As when outsails a fleet of gallant ships From sheltered harbor to the ocean wide, Of one great Admiral armored to the lips In convoy, each self-steered though side by side ; So fared our thirteen States, one stately fleet Forth on time's tossing waves to conquer fate; Each for itself, from other each discrete. Yet all to one command subordinate ; And as years fled, new cruisers joined their force, Till fourfold multiplied their crowded sails. One starry flag at peak, bound on one course, Defied all peril of disparting gales; Nor can the ocean of humanity A braver sight on its broad waters see. GENIUS OF THE UNITED STATES Black-lettered scholars of old Europe's court Are asking from us poet and architect. Artist and what not genius of the olden sort, Whose works adorn, though little they effect. Aim we however at a greater work Than a few men of genius to delight The silk-clad folk that common labor shirk ; We would display a people trained aright In clear sound knowledge of the world, and how To win them goodly homes, live well, and give Their tender children freedom from the woe Of painful toils, while youth is theirs to live. Nor Shakespeare's book our envy shall awaken When wretchedness our commons hath forsaken. 30 SLAVERY How curst a demon he that slyly sent Among our freemen that envenomed snake Of slavery spared for closer union's sake, Though threatening union with dismemberment ! Like viper by the woodman warmed, it bent Its hideous head, and hissed and struck until Its poison did all veins with madness fill. And the young state lay writhing, nearly spent. But when the scaly horror fell away. Men took new heart, though bathed in bloody sweat, As flew their starry banner to the day Though every fold with patriots' gore was wet. Then from her fastness conquering freedom blew Her tingling bugle to good men and true. EMANCIPATION 'T was a dark annal in our nascent state When North and South, old comrades dear and tried, Mad with disputes no logic could decide Closed in loud battle's crash infuriate ; Four million slaves, Afric's unfortunate. Too imbecile themselves to draw a knife. Though clanking squadrons marched to drum and fife, Stirred irate pity though deferred till late ; Did ever such release outflash 'mid men, Or follow clash of bayonet and sword, As played electric through the gliding pen That cancelled slaveries by a legal word ? Good Lincoln writing that one order takes High place 'mid fame's immortal favorites. 31 PENSION LIST "Republics are ungrateful," cried of old The pensioners of kings who might bestow Ribbons or titles, revenues of gold, With princely lavishness for service low ; Little one recked, even if the guerdon came From plundered subjects' store, content that he Recipient was of such bright-feathered game. Though poached from state preserves by royalty. But we republicans, while showering less On statesmen, captains, and our other great, Rain more on undistinguished privateness, Which else might suffer hardship desperate. And each gives of his fruits of toil severe With long-lived gratitude time cannot sere. LITTLE ITALY Columbus' countrymen, a swarthy host, Forsake their homes of classic memory. Their orange groves and cypress glooms, to be Exiles more thriving on a foreign coast ; Columbia gains what Italy's need hath lost ; Sons of Rome's first republic at the knee Of ours — the latest — swear allegiance free, While brown eyes pledge our blue in cordial toast ; So doth the New World on the Old bestow Release from penury's antique thrall of fears; The Old sends blood, whose strain from long ago Bred captains, statesmen, artists, — all men's peers; Sooner will Italy for her loss feel rue Than we be cankered by th' Italian dew. 32 AMALGAMATION Strange races gather to our open shores, Bringing all bloods that flow in human veins, All forces that derive from human reins To swell the vigor through our life that pours; Matters it little of their different corps, Their dirt and ignorance, poverty or banes, Their strange religions or their alien strains — A talisman we bear to heal all sores. Not freedom, schools, nor equal rights, nor creeds Work out our miracle ; the wizard new Is greatening wealth that quiets growling needs, And washes vileness as with morning dew. Where wealth accumulates men ne'er decay, Since wealth enlarges every human day. 3 33 Evolution 35 NATURA NATURANS ' The undying tree of evolution grows Like some huge banyan of far Indian lands That mighty branches through broad heaven outthrows And downward countless boles to earth remands ; For leaves and fruits it carries tribes of men That flaunt their pride, then flutter off and die; I Races and empires bears awhile and then ^Sheds them for others, careless how they lie; I The golden stars on its stretched boughs that hang •* Ripen and rot, yet leave it hale and green. Ne'er giving hint whence its first stirpling sprang Or what its flourish may through eons mean; The wind of time that in its foliage sighs Breathes no word from its twin eternities. EVOLUTION'S ORCHESTRA A mighty diapason Nature plays For ears attuned to her gigantic quires, Where restless fickleness of theme and phrase Express the vast caprice of her desires; Her strings the multitudinous flora are In sighing undertone ; her reeds the animals. Whose variant species through bold discords bear Responsive chords of grand antiphonals. With these at last the human score is blent, Whose deep, dramatic passion of affairs. Love, science, war, and government. Sounds the loud horns keyed to immortal bars. Strains both of demon and of angel then Make clash and chorus of evolving men. 37 BRAIN That artful matter which we count as dead Steals forward hour by hour to higher fonii, And, having sauntered on from ooze to wonn, Grown more ambitious makes itself a head And vaults to thinking brain of quadi-uped ; Where tickle convolutions strangely scored House wizardries in unexampled horde, Such as were ne'er in other trenches bred ; Nor even then draws curb, but onward strains, Improving types from lower to formulate ; Each gens of fish, bird, beast in turn disdains And fashions man its present ultimate; In him the atom scans the universe And its deep secrets doth for tales rehearse. RESEARCH For ages with short tether men were fain To potter round known hills and streams of earth, And from wide travel cat-like did refrain, Still dozing at the safe, patcnial hearth; Now would they ransack isle and continent. Scale peaks, plough seas, map rivers, deserts, bights, Forever bus3^ growling discontent, From bright equators to long polar nights; All nature's works have they in mind to scan. Pierce the sphynx's secrets, harness force and ride, Descry the tlying comets' weight and span. The cyclone bridle and the sea-tides guide ; Nor does one dream of reaching any end Though time should eons to inquiry lend. THE TALE OF YEARS What lazy ages hath the beadsman Time Taled on his rosary of years wherein were coached Earth's forms from low to higher — a mounting rhyme- Till the grave monkey's cousin had approached To laughing man! On him time further waits To give his wrangling clans from jars release, Of blood-stained warriors make friendly states Where goodliness and gain may thrive in peace. Years hale him forward through sharp agonies To ampler dignities and waxing powers That show his past as reek of miseries Matched with the mercies of arriving hours; The weedy wilderness a garden grows, Where brambles throve, abounds the gorgeous rose. THE RADICAL The stiff conservative would amjjlify All past gain as the last gain gainable. Whereas uneasy nature will supply New evolutions as attainable; Nor will she pause for laggards' discontent. But, hurrying reinforcements to the field, Cry "Forward march" to him what e'er his bent, "Go look for far perfections mist-concealed." So has the radical as ally true Nature's prodigious, forward urgency (Howe'er conservatives may writhe and rue). To push new movements to new victory ; Man's deadliest foemen are the tory squires Who scold at fertile nature's fresh desires. 39 DEVELOPMENT Here goes the heedless creature man, Thirstmg for love, or gain, or power, or name; And nothing recks that in his restless frame Cool nature laboring for her deeper plan — To mold a finer animal — doth ban His bad, his good doth bless; whereby her aim Creeps stealthy on, as hunter toward his game, Using his wayward passions as she can. A merry dance he leads, or groans with toil ; Her seeming lord, yet all too haughty fool; And like an earthworm turning sand to soil Is in his loftiest moments her blind tool To give his frame increasing powers — her goal Sought e'en through soaring transports of his soul. A SUSPICION Is man, perhaps, the simian, who betook Himself to eating flesh, and so became As carnivore the strongest of his name? Strongest and fiercest, that would nothing brook To curb his bloody appetite? 'T would look As were the violent the pets of dame Nature; the gentle, subject to her blame, Doomed to erasure in her secret book. The cannibal savage aye surpasses those Who live on nuts and fmits, the Buddhist poor With weakly rice is dulled; who eats his foes Or eke his friends finds ample food in store. The full-fed predatory waxes great. His victims many wane attenuate. J.O RISING AND RISEN A cunning, bloody animal is man, Who doth achieve his vaunted primacy By craft and cruelty through all his span, Heedless how many victims shriek and die; Such desperate dealing only could secure His kingship 'mid wild beasts of bulk and claw, Which low-voiced reason never could conjure, Where gentle hands were weaker than a straw; Now crowned and sceptred, man would mask his traits, Would call the dove his emblem and sing hymns To love's self -sacrifice, while he berates Those old allies as low, and their help dims; But touch his rights! then tooth and claw are bared And the old lion bristling stands on guard. ANCESTORS Who of himself will boast to be liege lord And master sole to do his own stout will Forgets the countless ancestors aboard Battened beneath his hutches, furtive, still ; A pirate crew deep in his tissues hid, Armed to the teeth with primitive passions strong, Ready for mischiefs though his soul forbid, Deaf to all reason, fond of old-time wrong; Himself, their boasted captain stands aghast, Bestorms, bewails, beseeches that gray crew, Arresting one is by his mates caught fast, And struggling vainly damned their will to do; Such freedom finds he as 'mid furious mobs Their victim hath to smile between his sobs. 41 THE MAKING OF MAN The silent years within their soft hands took The molds, for hairy beasts by nature made, And slowly fingered without lore of book To curious changes as each fresh need bade. The paw they wrought to hands' felicities. Delved fumbling brains with convolutions new. Taught bended spines erect on feet to rise. Strung growling throats to vocal voices true. And with each change new functions grew apace, New functions framed to powers of loftier strain, Till full-formed man emerged with thoughtful face, Art in his fingers, science in his brain. So did the dust its atoms recompose Till Bacons, Franklins, Darwins shrewd arose. MAN THE ANIMAL Fish, bird, and beast raised towards infinity Is man compacted of all flesh that goes ; As fish he swims an atmospheric sea Tempestuous, changeful, thick with crafty foes; As bird he pranks bewitched with ornament Outvying peacock, oriole, wren ; Or like the Bobolink on music bent Forgets the hour in trancing sounds ; and then Prowls and behowls both sea and soil, is here A hare, there tiger, yonder ox or fox; Cramming with progeny lands far and near, King-beast of all, and lord of cognate stocks; Then for himself creates a kosmos new Where graces reign and pleasures hold review. 42 HABITS AS FATE Habits form living tissues fit and strong; Form species fixed for geologic years ; Form ravening lions dead to weakling fears ; Form subtle snakes to slide the ground along; Form birds in love with gush of blithesome song ; Form fishes sportive in lugubrious meres; All living creatures as each now appears Fast-tethered to his habit-twisted thong; Each species in its chosen activities But follows wonts articulate in its joints, Held by those sinewy machineries To those sole purposes that match its points; The general force each transient framework borrows And gives it chance t' ensure its own to-morrows. 43 Demos 45 RACE AND PERSON How potent seems the lordly person bent On ends to him most weighty, till he deems The round world made for his environment And all things marching to his chosen schemes. Yet, as the wind-blown foam on crested waves Were e'en the lordliest heroes when compared With nameless masses that but peopled graves, Begetting only children as they fared. For these preserved their race with puissant loins, Their race whose solidarity of life Outweighs the person as the mine its coins, Itself the motive of the advancing strife. Cassar and Newton count as bubbles where The vast, dark wave of man grows on the air. GENIUS Greater than all his geniuses is man, And abler to attain his larger ends, Unled, than all his leaders in the van To march him to them; he, real leader, lends Their genius to his geniuses, and gives The inspirations, claimed to come from heaven, To poets, heroes, orators; he lives In his own great, who sole had never striven. But this race-man, who worships them on high, By plodding labor, menial, scorned, and dull, Creates the sphere where ease and leisure ply Their braggart powers, and genius fares to full. Genius can never show his painted wings But where toil's wealth its genial sunshine brings. 47 THE GOOD OLD TIMES As is a steamer thrashing down the bay In teeth of wind and tide, quite unconcerned So long as black coals in her grates are burned, Bearing rich freights and gay humanity — As is such steamer to a sail-ship's way, That drifts, beats, tacks, and veers as winds are turned, Fighting to reach her harbor hardly earned When God please, if no wreckage give her stay — So is our teeming time to times grown old, Whose fitful feats gray braggarts chaunt with lies ; Times of much-baffled sailings scant of gold. Where foam our days o'er mains of rich surprise ; We reach a thousand ports oft longed for then, First op'ed to us — the bolder, happier men. OUR AGE Our day is bolder than all days of yore. Finding that courage such advantage earns, That with the eagles it takes wing to soar, And with the lions sooner fights than turns ; Thin ghostly terrors it disdains unharmed. Dragons, enchantments, fiends and angels scouts ; Jests at old gods and bibles unalarmed. And threats of future vengeance boldly flouts; Women it decks with freedom's fearless crest ; Exalts bold traders o'er gilt soldiers tall; Crowns Saint Success above saints east or west, And cheers new sports that grim ascetics gall ; All earthly things confronts and dominates. And all unearthly scornfully awaits. 48 DESIRE Uneasy, troublous rebel thou, desire! Thy mettlesome stir hath brought us all things better; Thy play along our nerves in streams of fire Hath ever rent in twain tradition's fetter; Yet Buddha bans thy cravings; Christians erst Scourged their sweet flesh to check thy yearnings sharp; Quakers bid strangle thee as one accurst, And doting elders at thine unrest carp ; Mere ape were man without thy rabid sting; Living mid nature's want, unclad and lean. Haunting tall trees where he might chatter and swing, While day dropped into day and left all mean ; But thine electric touch through his flesh shivers Till every fibre into wishes quivers. BRAINS MANY Millions of eager brains released from gyves, Wrestling the problems of our fearsome life Which challenge all to battle and hourly strife Make the democracy that now arrives; No leader orders it, no church contrives To set a dominant commanding key. But each unleashing his own faculty Strains towards his chosen goal with zeal that drives His million-fold, impatient energies Each to it special aim, with wondrous gain Of power where he but does her will in his; And passion with relish urges him amain. Mankind unfettered swells its streams of power By every person added to its dower. 4 49 CLASSES AND MASSES Wluit a mcnagery's din of growling cries Breaks on our noisy time! What howls and moans, What roars and cheers assault the neutral skies! Classes and masses fight ; the victim groans, The victor blows his trumpet long and loud ; Hearts bleed and hearts exult; the injured wail As 'neath scythed chariots tearing through the crowd; Shouts, screams, and shrieks peal up and many fail ; All iight for place; classes to keep, the mass To win ; the masses would be classes clean And rich and strong ; they tire of wallowing crass ; They wrestle for high prizes, nothing mean; Sublime ambition! Let it louder roar Tireless as breakers on the arrogant shore. FORECAST Round sheltered coves of aristocracy The world's good fortune cruised for many an age. When arts and wise inventions did engage But few amid the throngs of men that die; Now puts it forth the shoreless deep to try. Ventures its treasures where wild typhoons rage, Wrecking the barks of flamcn. king and sage, 'Mid lashing surges of democracy; How shall it fare upon that chartless main. What storm shall meet or happy voyage sail, We know not, who 'neath sun or driving rain In that adventure brave th' untrammelled gale; But this we know that man cannot be lost, So quick his wit however tempest-tossed. 50 DEMOCRACY Democracy! the thunder of thy tread Shakes this and other continents with fear; Thy shaggy legions trampling park and bed Like herds of rampant buffalo appear; But thy wild droves rush on toward objects new, Spuming small lives distressed by fortunes mean, Intent on nature's affluent residue, For welfare hot, with brains alert and keen; Thy march heads skyward up the human slope; Thy haste outpaces aristocracies; Man's standard thou wilt plant above the hope Of idler ages spent in plaintive sighs; Hail to thy daring, to thy cheery mood, And stormy progress, brother multitude! THE MAJORITY Thou many-headed ruler blindly feared By owls who dubbed their own view wise, and called Thee Cerberus and Hydra, when appalled They saw thy crescent power! How hast thou reared Thy nations to a dizzy height, and cleared The stigmas that thy slandered strength had galled! Since in thy handling man all disenthralled Deployed grand forces that the past outpeered ; Now shines thine orb above th' enkindled time Like some sky-scaling comet sun-enchained. That blazons astonished heaven with fires sublime. And draws all eyes e'en those with hate distained; Wiseacres scoff thy splendors, but wise laud And from thy raucous throat hear voice of God. 51 THE LION AND THE MOUSE Poor raggedness within the strangling net Of poverty, with grand limbs leonine Enmeshed ! Is there no straying mouse can set His teeth to gnaw thee from that webbing fine? Thou art so handsome, stalwart, manly, brave. Why should such tangling threads thy brain o'erpower And hold thee captive to small objects? Crave Quick release and to that bend each hour. Yet well we know, no mouse or mice will loose Thy sculptured strength from that entanglement ; But thoughtful industry will tear the noose To shreds ; till when, thou 'rt bound, though discontent ; And thou mayest struggle vainly, seeking good Till death come with his gray, oblivious hood. PROLETARIAT But one thing ails thee, commoner distrest! Thy poverty! From that all miseries creep; The rest were paltry, easy to arrest, Wouldst thou but penury's iron fence o'erleap ; Hast thou no friends? Good money friends would buy ; No talent? Gold would quite replenish wit; No beauty? Costly raiment would deny Thine ugliness, where coarse but strengthens it; Art sad? Lean poverty hath no resource; Art mad ? No vengeance can the beggar take ; Art sick ? Good medicine flies to a purse ; Art weary? Wealth can every task forsake. Go heal thy pocket ! Wisely use thy wage ; So canst thou surely every woe assuage. 52 HINDvS A grimy dwarf-folk at the forge of deeds, Despised and cuffed, befouled with sweat and dirt, Have toiled with horny hands and loins ungirt Through painful centuries for scanty meeds. Their bended backs have felt the scourge, and beads Of blood have dripped from harsh slave-masters' hurt, Yet plodding they could ne'er their task desert To get release from lowest primal needs. Scholars and kings and captains famed in fights Have deemed that welfare of themselves was bom, And seen with dour neglect the toilsome wights Whose needful labors touched their taste to scorn ; But graces, muses, warriors, wits combined, Without these dwarf-folk boors had caught but wind. 53 Vulcan 55 MACHINERY Briareus! Thou hundred-handed gnome, Best offspring of man's brain, his drudge all days, Rough nurse to young toil in his lowly home, Thy tireless strength and brazen voice amaze! Saviour of serf and slave art thou, and all Who in the frost of shivering want are chilled ; Whom apish ignorance and fear appal, Are by thy products taught, caressed, and filled. What heroes' arms, what martyrs' blood, what art. Learning, and laws had striven in vain to give. Thy hands with easy power to man impart Abundance, leisure, freedom, zest to live. Preachers could prose, and poets potter in vain, But thou dost fill and drive a high-piled wain ! II Thy fortunes, O Democracy the great ! Are bolted to machinery's whirling arms, Whose tireless flying fingers liberate Thy feeble limbs from toil's consuming harms; Machinery with its rigorous discipline Drills to precision labor's soldiery; The meagre dues of handcraft doth resign For speed of steam-craft whose rewards are high ; How manhood grows where glides the piston rod ! Whirr! Buzz! Roar! In sawmill, thresher, dynamo. In loom, forge, printing-press! Could any god Across poor earth with fuller gift-hands go? Let tired millions tossing hats in air Shout on its royal progress everywhere ! 57 SOCIALISM The half-world famished wails its toilsome path ; Greedy of goods with tempting pleasure rife, Masses contend like lowing bulls in strife With glowering eyes and clashing horns of wrath ; Each poor man claiming what a richer hath, And blaming partial gods that put a knife To one's young throat, and others grant long life, Would treat flush rivals to a bloody bath. But naught 't would boot were each day's products shared Among producers on terms brotherly ; Still would the clamors of sharp want be heard 'Mid the sparse yields of present husbandry. Naught can assuage the clamorous wants of all But larger yields from factory and stall. CUPID AND VULCAN Poets sing hymns to love, — love fond and deep, As man's redeemer who could right all wrong By making him a creature sweet and strong, His cruel instincts crooned to cradlc-slccp ; Yet mark they no clear path by which to creep From gnawing selfishness unpitying, long, To the fine idyl of love's rapturous song, Save that by loving, love to power shall leap; But love is aye a child and delicate. Craves body's weal and cannot live when bruised Where aching hunger makes men desperate, Or aching flesh of killing cold 's misused; So villein Vulcan first must Cupid house Ere he can kindle his divine carouse. S8 EZEKIEL Had'st thou prevision, oh thou flaming sccr! In thy wild dream of whirhng "wheels in wheels," (Which mystery in a darker mystery seals,) Of latter days when wiser men should gear Their fortunes to machineries and steer Toward plenty's day of God? Ah no! Who deals With thy enigmas but for spirit feels, And doth at creature comforts grandly sneer; Had the rapt visionary with saner views Disclosed what "spirit" in those wheels should dwell, He had not counselled temples to his Jews But swiftly-spinning factory-reels as well ; Good spindle-work liad saved the Hebrew state To thriving fortunes less disconsolate. THE LOCOMOTIVE Of old, great monsters bellowing frightful sounds And breathing flame from nostrils flery red Spread terror and smote coward people dead. Making a desert of their gruesome rounds. Now steel-mailed dragons, docile as good hounds, Snort steam and fire o'er leagues of iron bed. While flying on errands swift as swallows sped. Not breathing death nor hurt of baneful wounds. Ever these clanking monsters to and fro Roar through the continents with human spoil. Their might not direful, nor their ravin woe; But all enrichments gathered in their coil. This fire-eyed dragon in his burnished scale Kills countless miseries with his whirling tail. 59 THE FACTORY Clank most unbearable of whirling wheels! Walls most unbeautiful that make one sigh ! A dizzy maze of pulleys, belts, and reels, That wool or steel to crafty patterns ply ! Armies unarmed serve this bewildering gear, Sentries stand guard lest its swift work be marred; All cheery though their vigils be severe. Since sure their wage, from nature's freaks debarred. Their stint fulfilled, they swarm the doors like bees That in the flower-time spurn full parent hives; The streets and alleys choke like autumn leaves, On pleasure bent, — true end of human lives. Its prodigal dues this deafening factory yields In richer harvests than e'en fertile fields. REVEILLE What marshal drum-beat of mundane affairs That lull or swell the stress of human life Outbreaks in news-sheets that supplant mean cares With the vast rumor of man's earthly strife ! Following the noiseless sun the reveille rolls Round the large globe. There horrors groan, Mirth laughs, commerce, war, love, whate'er controls Man's life gets each a strident tone. Louder than Wagner's din of echoing strain. Shriller and grander, harsher, sweeter far Than trumpets, cymbals, flutes that wax or wane, Is man's wild clangor of law-molded war; And this resounding roll-call daily beat Discordant journals on each city street. 60 THE NEWSPAPER This crownless monarch, Czar of mob and mart, Whose trenchant words Hke well-aimed arrows fly, Piercing all souls with brilliant archery, Skulks in no fortress from mankind apart. Nor doth commands in secrecy impart ; Him every strange event from far and nigh, Each benediction, each catastrophe Concerns, with all that stirs the human heart. Never was autocrat to governed realm So open-eyed and -hearted as this Czar; Whom force, injustice, cruelties o'erwhelm, His palace doors forever find ajar. No guard of troopers doth his state require Whose throne is reason and the world's desire. MORSE'S TELEGRAPH "Attention, universe! By kingdoms right Wheel!" cried Morse exultant o'er his leagues of wire; A new field-marshal heralding, whose might Should order empires by a flick of fire ; Obedient continents he now commands ; With half a word the well-drilled globe constrains ; Kings, warriors, traders, to his master-hands Yield instant service ; no one him disdains ; The human mob is to an army drilled ; He keeps the nations' quick-step close inlocked; Precision reigns where late confusion filled The hemispheres, and tangled progress blocked; Blending their voices in one ringing cheer, Men come to love each other far and near 6i Crafts 63 ELECTRICITY Mercurial sprite ! Whose doublings here and there Outpace the flash of thought, — all masterless, And though so masterful yet baffled where Some alien fibre may thy flight repress! What playful Puck art thou to trap and keep, That now the tough-grained oak with ease dost shiver, And now an unbridged air-space durst not leap, Balked like a warlock by a running river! To cure, then kill ; to dart a blinding streak, Then slip away like faith and leave no sign ; To jog in harness, then in frenzied freak Split trees to ribbons is thy way malign ! Yet oft this tricksy electricity Dances attendance on a little key. THE MODERN DANCE OF DEATH The ticker stamps its tape from ten to three With figures changeful as a rippling bay, While sanguine crowds hang o'er it tremblingly To make their hundreds, thousands, in a day; And to and fro the figures fluctuate In dizzy maze as any firefly's flight. To "shorts" and "longs" alike a tempting bait Could skill but once devise to strike it right; But some sly goblin ever whisks aside The golden chance which all are hot to gain, Till beggared, angered, heart-sore on the tide Of gamesters ruined, they drift down the main; This flitter-dance with demon witchery Tempts souls to earthly hell unceasingly. 5 65 THE LIGHT-HOUSE Fair Luna is to evening lovers dear, And to brown mariners her rimpled light Fai--silvering angry billows dark with night; But tickle is she over land and mere. The light-house less romantic may appear. But when coy Luna hides, still glances bright. Where black, uprising hordes of surges smite Imperilled navies with foreboding fear. For nature tricks her children endlessly, Betrays with beauty, and betrayed destroys; Till they, grown wary of her antics sly, Safeguard their steps, distrusting fair decoys. Yet harried ever, they must fend their way Against her treacheries every transient day. PLANET AND LANTERN High o'er the hill doth Jupiter display The nightly silver luminous and mild Of his imperial orb afar enisled In crystal aether, chained to solar sway ; But lo! Beneath his large, eternal ray, Tipping the wave crests as if Dian smiled, A ship's light glances o'er the waters wild. Brighter and larger than the planet's may. The ship's poor lamp has but an earthly date, Which makes that men will praise the heavenly sphere Neglecting that which most concerns their fate Though it guard life forefending dangers near. For men like children set their vagrant eyes On splendors distant and near goods disprize. 66 THE MARINER'S COMPASS How sees the eyeless needle of wan steel The feeble lustre of yon polar star, That it should point its meaning finger there, As having some enigma to reveal? With trembling constancy on every keel It holds its glimmering spear forever true. Changeless amid all changes of earth's crew, And 'mid all tempests to one duty leal. What cosmic currents its fine sense control To keep direction on the freest poise! Or has it something daintier than a soul And more responsive to the secret laws? Do forces that through its thralled atoms wave Hold man's profounder being as their slave? WOOD'S HOLL A bell rings out, ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong. Across the darkling waters of the night. As were 't the death of some unhappy wight; Dolorous out-wails its iterate song. Now low, then loud, now rare, then fast and strong. Hath it some startling quest to expedite? Sounds it a call to conflagration bright That thus its peals reverberate so long? 'T is but the bell-buoy swinging to and fro. Storm-driven the sailor hears its mournful tongue. That warns him off from some reef -girdled woe. Whose breakers else might his death dirge have sung. He hears and jams his helm about in time T' escape long silence in the sea-weed's slime. r,7 POINT JUDITH The whistling buoy rocks on a lazy sea, And seldom blows its hoarsened, wordless note Monotonous as from a raven's throat; The lounging sailor hears it carelessly ; Anon a slow fog creeps along to be A blanket shrouding all sea-craft afloat. Till none knows whither drives his blinded boat; The whistle croaks, to be heard thankfully; A gale swoops down when night has fallen thick ; The surges clash with far- resounding shock; The anxious helmsman — now his ears are quick — Hearing that sea-crow on its dripping rock. Catches his breath, and blind with bitter spray Thinks of his children as he swirls away. THE MILLENNIUM Long dreamed the church of a millennium To fall abrupt from heaven ; but open eyes See it advancing in unscriptural guise Headed by men untonsured; without drum, Herald, or angel Gabriel does it come ; Its trump a whistle from steel machineries, Which keen inventors for mere gain devise. Oil-sprinkled by no priestly medium. It brings in plenty more than pieties, Short hours of labor, not long hours of prayer, Pleasures abundant, not austerities, And lives luxurious laughing at bleared care. Since easier toils an ampler substance win. Industrial bells millennial joy ring in. 68 Craftsmen 69 THE AMBULANCE The city pave re-echoes countless feet That haste all ways on various errand bent — A restless crowd, each lost in his intent, Counting as naught his fellows on the street ; When lo ! An ambulance with horses fleet And startling gong speeds by as it were sent A fast express to rescue some wretch spent By crime or accident or blistering heat ; And now what throng crowds close in sympathy With pitying face and eyes compassionate ! Until the sufferer on soft cushions lie And whirls away, they on his misery wait ; Such tender feeling in man's bosom springs To succor unbefriended sufferings. MANKIND How dear are men in their fantastic ways, Their passions, laughters, hatreds right and wrong; Their sinewy figures lusty, handsome, strong; Their quick flirtations and blood-curdling frays ; The bustling streets, the home of waifs and strays, Are made a picture changing all day long, Where lovely women light the common throng, And deeds heroic flash through common days. E'en crime, filth, cruelty — all sins enfleshed In living bodies have a subtle lure. Our mortal sympathies are so enmeshed We lose not fellowship with souls impure; And round the convict's neck some one throws arm With love's caress for pity of his harm. 71 THE MECHANIC The swart mechanic hath live days on earth, Where engines clatter, and machinery Brings the grand wonders of its arts to birth, Enlarging time's untiring novelty; Small is his house, but neighbors gather thick, Like blackbirds chattering in breezy flocks. Of strikes or wages, or how Tom and Dick Have won a fortune by their own shrewd knocks; Life's eager news flits like the flies through town, Where men concentre, and fresh works are seen. Where schemes buzz in the air, where trade and gown Learn a real world and what its actions mean; So is a pastime found in shop and street That stirs emotion and makes leisure sweet. THE ENGINE DRIVER Within his cab the engine driver stands Grimy and hale with nerve of tempered steel, The throttle lever near his well-trained hands, The air-brake ready to his thundering wheel ; Throbs his huge motor down the iron way ; His eye, unresting, scans the endless rail ; Watching the future through the livelong day Since him death shadows hot upon his trail; Swiftly he rounds a curve ; oh God ! just there An adverse train drives up his single track! One instant given, to save though by a hair The crowd of passengers behind his back; He sees himself or them the sacrifice, Then flings the throttle ere death glaze his eyes. 73 THE SWITCHMAN High in his noisy tower the switchman stands, Lord of the levers of compulsive fates, One forward bends, another backward brakes, Obedient to his rapid, careful hands; Below great trains rush roaring toward far lands, Express and local, passenger and freights. Nor noting where untouched of loves or hates He shunts as each time-table him commands. What issues hang upon his sure address ! One lever wrong, and sickening horrors fall. Where groans of mangled people in distress. Or fortunes wrecked and ruined lives appal ! But system on his hand her firm hand lays To guard the guardian of our threatened days. CUSTODES The large policeman of athletic form, Amid the hurrying throngs of mart and street Towers like an Amal, heeding sun nor storm, Hunts human monsters on his busy beat ; Like some horse-governing Achilles he Unwinds the tangled thick of fretting steeds, Guards timid beauty with calm chivalry. And nervous rustics on their business speeds; The thief he collars, and the rough he quells, Fells the assassin as he turns to flight; The small boy fearlessly with club compels, And scares the brown fruit-pedlar pale with fright; His Saul-like grandeur doth with strength adorn The highways where he succors wights forlorn. 73 THE FIREMAN I More glorious than a belted knight of old The fireman rides his steed of steel and flame 'Mid coruscating showers of fiery gold Throwing a halo round his stalwart frame. In a wild gale of speed his horses whirl Towards the fierce conflagration, whose broad light Flares heavenward in far-dancing flames that hurl Black smoke against the stars of wide-eyed night. Then cool and wary, with the eager joy Of perfect courage disciplined to deed. He trains his nozzle where his foes destroy, Despising dangers that the general heed ; And laughs to see his crackling floods o'ercrow The demon fires that glare and writhe below. II Now hiss the angry flames like serpents red. Swifter than boas, than live asps more fell ; Within whose coils all living fall as dead. Whose den is as the pit of sulphurous hell ; But see ! Amid their darting tongues on high A child's frail form leans from the casement's square And screaming tosses its small arms awry, Escape cut off! Now what brave soul will dare? Lo ! The rash fireman, swinging by his hands. Springs from the cornice to the window's ledge, And swift within the burning chamber lands To seize the child upon destruction's edge ; To seize, spring, save from that hot-leaping death, While round him curls the fiery dragon's breath. 74 THE FIREMAN III Now blackened, scorched, and faint in pale distress He pitches forward in a comrade's arms. Who fears a hurt the hero '11 ne'er confess, And swiftly bears him from the reach of harms ; But in a hospital retired he moans For many a day delirious on his cot, Tosses with anguish piercing all his bones ; Yet healed at last forgets his gruesome lot. Then to his post restored stands sworn again, A doughty champion dauntless toward his foe, To battle for his fellows, might and main Against the deadly bale that wrought him woe ; So ever warring on that enemy With tireless courage runs swift life away. THE TEAMSTER Upon his box high-held the truckster sits, No charioted Mars more grandly bold, Reining his Percherons champing on their bits, And threatening all doth vilely swear and scold; The street is deafening with sharp-ringing wheels, With shouts of drivers, hoofs of steeds that leer. Straining ahead or lashing out their heels. While cool mid-air the teamster rules austere. His brawny arms half-bare, his open throat Red with exposure, veined and thick with force, His insolent head and lusty glance denote The easy master ready of resource ; The huge-limbed brutes held in his wilful hand May fret and fume but catch his least command. 75 THE FARMER "What soulless leagues stretch out the yeoman's earth, Void save of cattle, fowl, and silly sheep ! Where one poor household month and year must keep To plodding drudgeries seldom touched to mirth ; What meagre recompense rewards their worth ! Seed-time means toil and toil the grains must reap ; A stinted pleasure and an ox-like sleep Are slim returns for such a tedious hearth ; The well-groomed poet city-nursed and fine Sings of the rustic's joy in nature's bloom, Of birds and brooks and fields of com and wine, Ignoring his worn face and changeless doom ; To live sequestered from one's kind sums all The sorest ills can human soul befall. THE FRONTIERSMAN Frank, natural man, democracy's first son. In garb uncouth on body lean and tough, His boots and pistols, bowie-knife and gun Give him a name for reckless hands and rough ; What lusty courage doth his tanned skin hold ! What swift resource 'gainst nature or mean men ! What fresh romance of action swift and bold! What lawless hazards dared in many a den ! A terror of loud boasts, threats, blasphemy, Soil-stained, well-mounted from the mines he tears, His pockets full of gold-dust ; for one day With harpy-loves he revels, gambles, swears. Then rambles back, a beggar; such his lot, All drunk with life, till in some fight he 's shot. 76 THE COWBOY A centaur when in saddle, man and horse One animal with one swift eager will, Herding a thousand neat he spurs his course, Dividing, rounding, branding, corralling still ; By day he lightly holds his bridle rein, But what a ride when in the pitch-dark night The two-horned herd stampedes across the plain In one resounding thunder of blind fright ! No carpet knight then serves to turn their head, Where one false step may hurl his steed to earth Before their trampling hoofs, and leave him dead, A mass of quivering flesh, a carrion's worth; Yet like a cyclone whirling on he fares. Nor for such peril half a farthing cares. THE NEWSBOY Light-footed Ganymede, — the messenger Of men than gods Olympian more busy, — Our tattered newsboy keeps the town astir Crying his papers through its uproar dizzy; All deeds, all doctrines, all divisions lie In friendly contact tucked beneath his arm. While he with voice impartial bawls his cry, "Times, Tribune, Herald, World," — thought's latest swarm. One flaunts the victory of its party fights ; One moans defeat, and doth all flesh upbraid; One champions workmen, one new woman's rights; One preaches tariff, one the freest trade; The impartial newsboy sells at equal rates. Then scampers off to craps and gambling mates. 77 THE PLACER MINER Armed with a nozzle spouting geyser streams, The placer miner storms an ancient hill, Gores its stone flanks to glut his greedy dreams, And tears it like a cataract fierce of will. The shining gold — a flake amid the wreck — With guileful art he collars as it flies, That not escapes him any skulking fleck Eluding his detective, Mercury's eyes. And when his vans are stufted with culprit gold Arrested in his sluiceways like some knave, He hies him to the town where bought and sold Are myriad pleasures that his heart may crave. There herded with the world-enjoying great He chuckles o'er his league with golden fate. THE LABORER A much abused and ever toiling man Whose woes cry out on deaf neglectful fate. Who ever seems too early or too late — The laborer has been, since old earth began. Looking on others whose achievements span A larger arc, he doth them hard berate, In false belief that they their wishes sate Upon his toil ; so fights the greater man. But not with man, with Nature in his strife, 'T is Nature's grudging makes him lean and sad ; She only with unmeasured wealth is rife. Alone can give him what he needs. When mad Let him rob her, as have the rich before. She can give all things, having all in store. 7S THE COAL-MINER Was 't an abhorrent plot of jealous gods That piled the measures of industrial coal In sunless caverns deep, 'neath rock and sods, Where man must burrow like an eyeless mole? Hid from the cheer of Sol's all-beauteous day, In noisome galleries he plies his tool. Boring and blasting drives his fearful way. And earns his bread, though losing there his soul. A sickly lamp his gruesome toil illumes, Where deadly vapors from each rift exhale ; Explosions lurk in every chamber's fumes. Or roofs cave in and bury him in shale. Yet loves he oft his owlish industry, And finds good sunlight garish to his eye. SERVANTS Turmoil of servants like a windy sea. Turmoil of households like a wind-tossed bark, And in the turmoil clamorous misery, Domestic concord lost as Noah's ark. Yet were contentment but a menial stain On souls enslaved to unambitious fates Unworthy of our century's glorious gain. Nor stepping with its march toward great estates. Now doth the servant aim for better things. Tired of the toil and moil of ruder days, Finds pleasure also in the pheasant's wing. And like my lady loves the street's bright ways. Master and man together scale the slopes That mount to crests whence gleam high human hopes. 79 JOHNNIE RAGS Shirt, hat, and trowsers held by wooden pin To one suspender, runs about the street. Our " Black-yer-boots " and future citizen, His box beneath his arm, sole tool to meet All life's great needs; pale, smutted face, bold eyes, A voice as shrill and clear as any crow's. "Shine, boss?" he cries, and "No" received, he flies To some new passer; swift as paper blows. He has no home, nor any school attends. Sleeps 'neath a truck, eats when he gets the scot. And like an Arab heeds not where he wends. The heavens his tent ; such is his friendless lot. So grows to be a voter, low, untaught. And helps elect his sort, all friends! Why not? ORGAN GRINDER What strain of march, or waltz, or lovers' songs The soiled Italian flings abroad each day Beneath all skies, all weathers as he may, Rehearsing naught that to his life belongs ! His sad heart may be breaking with deep wrongs, His wife be dying, and his babes a prey To hunger's pangs ; still peals the roundelay In festal cadences to cheery throngs. " Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay " the music sings; "Per god — a penna — sare, — my wife-a die," Poor Beppo wails with intermingling psalm, Then to a tripping waltz his organ wrings. Street children dance about the tragedy Played in his heart behind a screen of calm, 80 THE TENEMENT As blue-winged swallows from their nests below The friendly covert of o'erhanging eaves Round rural stables swarm and overflow, Content while them a home of mud receives, So in the tenement do human broods Seek crowded shelter for themselves and young Rather than scatter through the leafy woods Where niggard nature but scant good has flung. The well thronged tenement gives company, Which many a prouder home doth sadly miss, And merrier children on its stairways play Than on wide fields 'mid nature's loneliness. Bam swallows chirp and bicker as they fly, These human swallows brawl as cheerily. DELMONICO'S Within, bright lights and flashing jewels play! Without, a cold wind rudely raked the street; Where in a grated arch, whence puffed spent heat, A newsboy wedged was sleeping as boys may ; With cameo face, some cherub-waif-and-stray. Like one of Raphael's angels pure and sweet, Unconcious on the gruff policeman's beat. As in the cosiest chamber, snug he lay; Tranquil his breathing, unconcerned and deep. Rosy his cheek as is th' auroral mom. And poverty, his tattered chamberlain, did keep His body harmless as a young prince bom ; So slept he in the arms of blustering night As one of fortune made the favorite. 6 8i ORIENT AND OCCIDENT In dreams of dragons, colors, miracles. The East was nodding through somniferous hours, Devising porcelains, pictures, silks, and flowers. And grim austerities to save from hells; Comes the brisk West with breezy voice and tells Of miracles outdone by natural powers, Of quick release from present hells by hours With tools which uncomplaining steam compels; Breaks the new comer on the Orient's drowse. Troubling narcotic dreams and childish glees With fresh ambitions on earth's goods to browse And taste felicities that brains may seize ; And though the Orient lose some artist sense, It welfare gains in loss of impotence. THE TRAMP Betrayed by cozening nature who has made Him lazy without adding wealth, that he To get his living must make daily raid On strenuous labor, comes he tramp to be; His faded gannents tit him wretchedly, As whose would not, if gathered here and there — Cast-ofTs of small and tall, fat, lean, and wry? A scarecrow's plunder, elegance would swear. Were he but rich, he might the livelong day Beneath his own trimmed hedges lie, nor earn Contempt, sconi, obloquy, but now his way Is lined with foes — boys, dogs, and taunts that bum. Yet all he bears if he may slaver}' shirk Nor spoil his leisure with a menial's work. 82 SAMOANS Sons of hot tropics naked of disguise Stretch their large limbs on platted mats of palm Beneath the cocoanut thatch, and feel no qualm That lapsing time unused on swift wing flics; Doth strenuous nature them so highly prize That she provides their bread and brawny ease On the surf-girdled isles of thunderous seas Where grow self-raising fruits like paradise? Their rippled shoulders swell with virile force, Their mighty limbs betoken animal pleasure; Their eyes untroubled, and unfurrowed brows, Hint of life's gladness quaffed at primal source; Do anxious we transgress calm nature's measure, Who seek delight in labor or carouse? Property 85 PLUTUS Plutus had frigid service in the Pantheon Of sun-crowned gods that on Olympus dwelt, Disdained for grander deities, who won Allegiance from more worshippers, that knelt To cloudy Jove, sweet Venus, or fierce Mars; Their shrines with many a gift were sued. While Plutus, shining weakly 'mid such stars, Had victims scant for his beatitude ; But those crowd-reverenced gods, in latter days. Have paled their haloes in forgetfulness, Stript of their honors through time's changeful ways, While Plutus doth the thronged Exchange possess; For golden ingots Plutus bears in hand, And throned as money takes Jove's old command. PLUTUS AS JOVE Strongest of gods and yet the most abused, Plutus rules men in his indifferent way, Taking no counsel of grave wits or gay, His power like gravitation all-diffused ; Forever regnant, oft his strength misused. He handles human lives with tyrannous sway. Asking no worship, careless who gainsay. Or what fine morals, names, or nations be contused; Who spurn his sceptre only bruise their heel, Though men, the noblest, shout them loud applause ; At every turn they shall his godhood feel Baffled and wounded by his trenchant laws; And though men call on other deities They all mean him who most of wants supplies. 87 MAMMON God of this world as Mammon stigmatized ! Thy glittering face and glorious works disclose Th' all-powerful lord of heathen and baptized Wherever men o'er brute conditions rose ; Who scout thy name still at thine altar kneel ; Who scorn thy greatness at thy feet bow down ; Thine absence sages mourn, and king's thrones reel Before rich upstarts who have filched thy crown; Cowled priests declaim against thee, yet outstretch Their consecrated palms for gleaming gold ; Thy frown can make the happiest a wretch. Thy smile bring honor, love, and friends untold ; Hypocrisy feigns scorn to acknowledge thee, With lighter scorn thou see'st him at thy knee. WEALTH True motor of all progress, magic tool. Wealth stirs the deserts to an April bloom. Covers with conquering ships the seaways cool. Plants princely cities where furred brutes had room ; The subtile Greek it trained to wondrous arts; To mighty Rome, transformed a robbers' den; Where wild men in thick jungles slung their darts, Made footpaths highways, footpads gentlemen; It lifts mankind to every high emprise, Makes brotherhoods of nations battle-fain, Fosters fine letters till the dunce grows wise, Enlarges love till e'en sect-hatreds wane; And that man-eating tiger, penury Slinks cowed before it to his lair to die. 88 THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL Want of good money, of all evil root, Lures men to shames and crimes of blackest dye, Makes pirate, burglar, forger, prostitute, And tempts the good to basest treachery; Want sells fresh maids to hated lovers old. Nerves the assassin to his bloody rage; Emboldens liars to treasons manifold ; Robs helpless orphans of their heritage ; Want sells the politician's vote for cash, And private honor sells for public blame ; The judge's ermine with foul stains doth plash ; And all that wealth can give for wealth will shame ; For want of money is a ravening wolf That balks at nothing in its maw's behoof. TEMPLE AND TRAFFIC In vain men cry to blessed saint and shrine ! In vain beg benediction from the air ! These nothing to their sobbing vows consign; They starve, they drown, they ache, and they despair; But shrineless Traffic leads his flock to wealth ; Gives them long life and fatness of the earth. Clubs, motors, hospice, travel, means to health. Good roads and railways, books and social mirth; Therefore fair temple! they do well who turn To worldly markets from thy barren fane ! They gain a heritage and good days earn, They pass through life most happy, useful, sane ; And dead they rest in high-piled haughty tombs And none can prove they meet tmhappy dooms. ST. FRANCIS Most wanton of all vows is this That weds to poverty the novice, who Without such vow can silently pursue That tramp so cheap and old ; her blistering kiss Stings all our lips except a few whose bliss But makes the general lot a greater rue ; To vow one's life to wealth were task more true, Since wealth asks toil, of weal the genesis ; Untonsured drones are never dubbed to saints. And why should tonsured win an aureole ? Not drones but delvers lessen life's constraints ; Wealth-makers better fill his saintship's role; Her beggar's skinny hands o'er most of folk Wan Poverty extends ; contemn her yoke ! MERCURY The god of thieves was wind-winged Mercury, And god of traders too mid Rome's stout folk, As if those bloody robbers could not brook To honor theft save made with butchery ; So soon was gentle commerce held to be Less noble than grim war's all-murderous stroke, To slay one's fellows grander than work's yoke, As still's believed mid spangled soldiery; His simian brain so long mankind misleads On its long march in search of human good That plundering earls get more for plundering deeds Than laboring churls for leagues of ripening food; But now that wars consent of bankers crave. Mercury shows Mars to be a swaggering knave. 90 CAPTAINS TWAIN War-captains countless have been loudly hailed Who left pale heaps of dead upon the plain, And clamorous history cheers the dreadful bane Of their deeds called sublime even when they failed; But better captains of trade's ranks unmailed Whose conquests brought man affluence with their gain, Guiltless of orphan, and war's bloody stain, As rogues and soulless Shylocks are assailed. These add abundance to the human dower And heap the world's chest with life-cheering wealth ; Where drought did parch, their genius brings a shower; Where Generals blighted, they bring general health; Why "Ave Ccesar" to bad Captain Raid But "rogue and robber" to good Captain Trade? CAPITAL A mountain tarn, beneath whose darksome face The silenced rills of many a rivulet hide, Reveals not how its waters pour their tide Through city streets and burghers' homes apace; So is a hoarded wealth, whose glittering grace May gild one family's o'er-weening pride, A reservoir, whose far-off outflows glide Through countless households of the populace. Down every human haunt they ripple and sing Coursing the iron mains of enterprise, Refreshing rills of wage to labor bring, To fainting industry renewed supplies. Ungathered into lakes of cumulate force Those paltry rills had run a paltry course. 91 ENTERPRISES Absorbed in plans the chief of great affairs Scarce feels he lives, so is engrossed his mind ; He little recks of man or woman-kind, And much is pitied as o'erwhelmed with cares; But he like bright Apollo onward fares Guiding the flaming steeds of crescent day, Whose traces draw upon its gleaming way Success's golden car up heaven's stairs ; Himself as charioteer who shakes the reins And lashes forward that unbroken team, Glad of the mastery his hand retains, Doth not a moment of real hardship dream ; When headlong dashed he still hath made his race; If master, always like a star his face. THE ROGUE Mark well the rogue ! His smooth, unfaltering tongue, His innocent smile, his speech that naught denies, His nimble fancy quick with truth and lies, His changeless cheek to blushes never stung; He squanders flatteries and favors flung Profusely round thick as July flings flies, Aladdin tales, Munchausen prophecies, And virtue's praise by snatches loudly sung; He thinks — poor fool ! to cozen laws as well As men ; cheat nature to forego her pains ; To win by fraud 'gainst cards of fact, and sell His gilt for gold ; then when despoiled of gains And in the gutter rolled by angry fate Gnashes on truth that him doth macerate. ga HOMESTEAD Now on the golden shield of capital The roundhead Labor with unknightly sledge Rings an intrepid challenge tragical To battle for a prize of greater wage ; Rides forth Sir Capital with anxious grace Himself at deadly risk of losing all, Defies his scowling challenger, must face The mad kern down or ruin both will gall; Finds his antagonist a tedious foe, Untrained to arms but muscled well and tough. Unapt to flinch though cold and want bring woe, While wife and children give him wrath enough ; The battle ended neither side has won; Both finish poorer, heart-sore, spent, undone. STRIKES Redeemers ghostly have mankind adored Who promised them release from swarming woes: Confucius, Buddhas, Christs, Mahomets, — those Who thought by teaching bliss could be restored; Yet through man still sharp misery thrust his sword, When from the masses a new champion rose — Rough, noisy, stalwart, showering angry blows. And crying "Fight for wage! swell labor's hoard!" Fired by his words men rallying fiercely iought To win release through wages from duress. Shoulder to shoulder ranked their files and brought The averted world to admire their steadfastness; Yet want still haunts the striker's starving brood — Larger production only can his woes preclude. 93 CULPA Released by wealth from struggles all severe For mere subsistence, gilded youth forsake The thoughts and toils that did their affluence make, And to distempered sports give time and ear; So leave the masses to old miseries drear, Nor lend the costlier training of their mind To solve hard problems for the dull and blind, But rather scorn them as beneath their sphere. Far better were it, would they but devote Their easier lives to man's distressed estate, Thinking for masses they beneath them note, With helpful pity for their battered fate. But schooled in games they now too often muss Man's sober questions when they them discuss. THE SPECULATOR Man of a prophet's foresight most maligned, And like all prophets scorned as profitless, Who rather looks before him than behind, He finds his pleasure in a studied guess. The slow-worm seeing his fantastic mind Looks as an ass upon the panther's spring. And laughs within his stupid brain to find One so uncertain, risky, wandering; Till when the speculator bold succeeds, And counts his skekels where himself counts pence. Then "thief and pirate" bawls, nor ever heeds That foresight's fulness gives lean sloth offence. Loud laughs Success elate with his delights, And snaps his fingers at cross envy's wights. 94 THE CAVALIER Notes of romance about the cavalier Play like bird-songs round yeoman at the plough In fresh-turned furrows, giving his career A graceful charm, which wins us even now 'Gainst roundheads rude, whose austere discipline Bore down nice dukes and princes, and brought life To coarser commons; worth out-battled wine, Sad Cromwells foiled gay Ruperts in the strife. For those flush king's-men bright with madrigals And flowing ringlets, perfumed, airy, brave, Caught on the swords of fierier principles. With their false sovereign found a bloody grave ; Minstrel, fine nobles, and silk-stockinged court Yield place in battle to the ironside sort. 95 Sport 97 KINGS' REVIEWS Kings parade their soldiery for brother kings, As brindled tigers at their fellows smile Baring their threat of gleaming teeth, the while, For cheer or menace in their junketings ; Pompous their rifled ranks, — these underlings Glittering like myrmidons in polished file, Though much like playthings for a juvenile, And barely civil when one thinks of things; Such is the foppery of the childish earth, That scarcely yet men see the ampler strength And larger empire that would come to birth Where workmen trained, not warriors; then at length Warriors would show like tawdry harlequins, Or droop-mouthed bloodhounds mid clean citizens. YACHTING What frolic pleasure in the hollow sides Of a trim yacht may find its costly home ! Its wings outspread on any breeze to roam Towards any coast swept by th' alternate tides; Who to her keeping his stout soul confides Drinks airy gladness in the blown sea-foam. And nightly arch of heaven's star-spangled dome, While she on yeasty billows dips and rides ; And when a captive to freebooter gales She whirls away to unknown waters cast, While the gray master's cunning scarce avails To keep her sea-way mid the surges vast, Still will the yachtsman in his riotous fight Scarce envy landsman safe, though dire his plight. 99 BASEBALL In Caesar's Rome they glowered on that fell game Where Gaul and Goth hacked till red life-blood flowed, And o'er the butchery in mad pleasure glowed With thumb averted e'en the vestal dame ; Now toward the diamond, not for gore aflame. Our crowding citizens take the dusty road, Nor praise dishonor though defeat should goad, But each foul play of either team will blame ; 'T is but a lightning ball from pitcher's base To batsman flung with twisted cunning sly ; A club that flashes, then a headlong race. While wild hurrahs from throats ten thousand cry; The tiger dies from hearts where tradesmen rule, Though growling still where war-lord monarchs fool. THE BOAT RACE New London, 1892 Eight brawny athletes stripped to nature's bufE, More like Rome's gladiators than students pale, Sit in a light shell flagged for alma Yale To row eight muscled Harvards of like stuff; Swift at the word their oars the waters cufif. And bend as one their sun-tanned bodies hale To lusty strokes, that make an ashen gale. Hurling thin prows through waters smooth and rough ; Then to and fro their shoulders flash like steel ! One thought, ambition, purpose all controlling, They hotly urge the wave-dividing keel Mid maddening cheers and cannons' boom on-rolling; Yale's swinging stroke is crowned with fresher bay. While Harvard falters sore with new dismay. FOOTBALL Unblushing crowds, of college youth the flower, Steeped in the culture of our generous day. Gather to see the football's fearful play, Where gentles throng — barbarians for the hour. Eleven champions, shag-haired and dour, Striding colossal to the perilous fray Pit blue 'gainst yellow and black with ardor gay To prove their prowess in the crashing stour. Now range these athletes up; one rending shout Cheers the young giants to the lusty fight; Now back, now forward sways the writhing rout Tho' wounds and death mix in the test of might; Then who too gentle not to blow his horn When fluttering fortune puts one team to scorn? THE BICYCLE A curious toy born of the children's play. Skimming as swiftly as the swallow flies, Steals on the world unlauded of the wise. Unheralded, unvaunted, silently; Its balanced wheel man's radius amplifies, His social state expands in large array, Makes to good neighbors souls remote and stray. And with fresh thought through lonely hamlets hies. The clownish circle of sequestered swains It vivifies to clubs of social youth. Who loosed from bondage to their ox-drawn wains May meet and hear the later redes of truth ; And highways smoothed for their fleet journeying The round globe with new friendship will enwring. Virtues' Vices 103 CIRCE That Circe, Beauty, having charms enthralling, O'erpowers the enchanted world with spells so strong That like the drunken, men though suffering long Reel round her lovely feet with pains appalling, For pictures, statues, temples, ever calling, While bread, homes, garments, comfort still they lack, And lacking perish, stretched on want's tough rack, Unwitting what doth make life's trip so galling; So Phidias, Raphael, Rembrandt looked around Upon a ruck of wolves, goats, foxes, swine. That fought and wallowed, while fair art was crowned ; So drugged were men with Beauty's mantling wine; Yet still for Beauty's dizzy witcheries They give their honor, riches, virtues, lives. ECONOMY Nursed at the dugs of poverty, the scant. Uncertain fount of nature, grudging crone! And nipped in many a blight of famine gaunt, Man's much -maltreated tribes make plaintive moan. And seek in parsimony a refuge sore From dreaded stringencies that may assail; Paring some pittance from their daily store To hoard for straits when 'customed incomes fail; So pinch the hungry flanks of life, and shrivel Wan faces to worse-wrinkled misery ; And shrink their little to less by that mean drivel, Where larger outlay larger gains would buy. Not sparing but wise spending sows the seed Of harvests growing to fruitage beyond need. 105 CONSCIENCE A scowling tyrant oft is Conscience, who Will drone dull vetoes as from angry skies That learning, lavighter, love, and change taboo In favor of tradition's fantasies. He glues the savage to his fetish -creed, The Hindoo to his castes of various hate, The Moslem to Mahomet's sterile screed; Makes bigot, dunce and tory reprobate ; Oft drags to jail minds pleading to be free; Bludgeons bold reason with the clubs of fear; Handcuffs invention as his enemy, And thumbscrews virtue with an unctious leer; His voice is wrinkled custom's mumbling cry Stifling the sweet babe's voice of novelty. DUTY How often Duty like a falcon fierce Stoops down on Pleasure trimmed in plumage gay And rends her beauteous gauds all furiously. While to the heart his merciless beak doth pierce! Then with a strident voice infuriate He screams harsh orders, which whoe'er obey Will fall to black despondency a prey. And curse bleak life with unrelenting hate. The lissom dance and music's gleeful strain. Love's fiery yearning, field-sport's manly strife, The drama's recreation, all have lain In Duty's talons bleeding out their life ; So when this falcon screams his savagery, As birds from hawks, to Castle Joyance fly ! 1 06 IKON "'T is love that makes the world go round!" cry some Brave poets lost in fools' felicities ; A rougher despot hath this world to please Whose strident voice shouts courteous gallants dumb; Its charioteer is no curled lover come With dalliance sweet and thrilling minstrelsies, But whip-in-hand with autocrat decrees, That lightly reck of love's delirium. His name? Necessity! Whistles his lash O'er lovers all, that bids them dance his tune, Turn sailors, traders, soldiers for bare cash ; Blows bickering March through lovers' balmy June. His are the hands that drive the steeds of fate Knouting mankind to toils inveterate. CELIBACY Pale, bloodless daughter of ungenerous reins, Whose dry defiance to flush nature's fires Hath caught men's whimsy spite the fact that sires Of ruddier hue gave each his flesh and veins! What freakish craze is that which chaunts the strains Of laud to bare negation of desires As pleasing God whose lusty world aspires To swarm with life, — life that of death complains! Yet church and state have crowned thy flowerless snows With solemn consecrations, idle saint! As were thy barrenness some precious rose Of worth because without love's luscious taint. But nature thy sterility abhors And rather gloats o'er ways of sensual boors, 107 TROY AND TO-DAY As great Achilles won the highest fame By slaying glorious Hector spent with fight, And dragging his dead body, without shame, Around Troy's walls, within his townsmen's sight, While they grief-smitten wailed most bitterly ; So is it oft upon the plains of life Chief aim and triumph of man's industry To kill his foe and drag him from the strife Dishonored, soiled with dust before the eyes Of friends and lovers torn with grief who wail. Victors with swelling words their crime disguise, Jeering at pity with their ruffians' tale ; Then babbling ages hymn the braggart's praise Though he have slain the glory of his days. xo8 vices' Virtues 109 SELFISHNESS Thou sneaking pick-purse of the social state That loiterest everywhere with outheld dish, Intent on alms or stealings, bread or fish. Engorging all that comes, or soon, or late! Thou art a poor blind, fool insatiate Who makest a world averted to thy wish. And gracious men toward thee but winterish ; Thy shrewd disguise serves but a short-lived date! One thing thou doest of nature's prime behest, — Thyself thou keepest from complete decay ! Self-preservation — law of worst and best — Thou guardest well and so securest thy day ! But who would thrive, on that large plan will live Which for all good received as good will give. SELF-INTEREST A busy craftsman and Prometheus-wise Is keen self-interest that most sharply sees To its own welfare, and then well contrives Arts to attain it ! Yet what hypocrisies Play hide and seek this schemer to conceal. As were he quite disgraceful, protests loud Disclaim his clever guidance into weal, As were he craftsman better disavowed! But large self-interest is the shrewdest fool That can direct the steps of blundering man ; Though oft misleading still he knows his goal, Toils late and early to make good his plan ; Who rides without this leader for his course Risks wild disasters to himself and horse. SLANDER Thou hast been hated as a poisonous snake, A coiled, malignant rattler, quick to strike, To every hateful impulse still awake. That sparest no virtue, no good deed belike. But thou art often as a hornet keen, Whose buzzing flight acts as perpetual threat To keep sly feet from straying when unseen Towards paths of ill that aching griefs beset. A lurking spy, fear of whose guile forbids From boding ventures whence mean tongues might wag To poison reputation earned with pains, And open eyes whose watchfulness might lag. Too oft indeed thou workest deadly ill, As drugs that cure, too freely taken, kill. ENVY A passion much abhorred for hideous ill. Whose hand doth stitch a curious-mottled thread Into life's fabric, spun of thoughts that kill. And broideries of guilty line blood-red Is envy ; yet its angry, murderous spleen Oft kicks the leaden-witted clown to rouse And win the goods that stirred his hatred keen, Dragging to honors from his broken drowse ; Was 't not the laurels of Miltiades Whose rustling galled, e'en when he fain had slept, That man colossal, Greek Themistocles, Till he the Persians from blue sea had swept? Sooth ! without envy men might be as slow As fat, homed snails to gird their loins and go. EXTRAVAGANCE Free, silk-clad roysterer — distrusted sore By men too miserly, who late have found Thy lavish ways to be the key and door To larger wealth — thou scatterest the ground With germs of arts, inventions and all seeds of life! How has the open radiance of thy face Been scowled on by grim sages ever rife With envious sneers against thy liberal grace ! Day laughs before thee, and beneath thy hand The fields wax fertile; towns grow loud and thrive; The hut dilates to palace, and void land To human marts with bustling men alive. Plenty, which swollen Nile to Egypt lends. Thy prodigal floods oft bring to enrich thy friends. REVENGE Darkest of all the fiends that work to shape The fashion of the world's face so austere. Art thou, O fell Revenge ! too fain to drape In justice' stainless mask thy scowl severe. Doubtless thy snaky locks and maniac glare Have faltered rogues and frosted budding crimes. When desperate ruffians, whom no law could scare. Had else unleashed black horrors on the times. Man, hulking animal and Caliban, Like the gorilla framed, compact of mud, Not easily is bred to gentleman, Save his boor's temper first with spears be cowed. But black Revenge with savage heart to kill Blenches with terror his bloodthirsty will, 8 113 AVARICE A fine, old-gentlemanly vice, whose turn For solvency doth gild its hardness bright; Nor is it foreign to a kind conccni For others' good, and has some notions right. Not quite a flower, perhaps, nor yet all weed ; Since in its well-stored granaries men find Seed for new harvests and a store to feed Young enterprise. 'T were well to be assigned As infant to some family tree which counts One dreadful miser in its ancestry. Whose parsimony left some large amounts For his far-off descendents' wealth to be. So might one have advantage in two kinds — Of avarice dead, and liberal living minds. HATRED " Love all men ! " cries the creed, but hatred knows A part to play mid tortuous affairs. That nerves the will to greater things than prayers When evil men and evil deeds oppose. 'T were a sad world, were all the telling blows Left for the bad to strike, while goodness stares, And to the foe its smitten cheek still bares, Till evil throw its body to the crows. But hatred double-shots his guns, and fires To kill his enemies, both man and cause, To bury fathoms deep them and their ires. Or with a scowling brow their threats o'erawes. Shielded by Ajax Teucer shot his bow — Oft virtue must use hatred's valor so. 114 GREED A thirst for gain will sometimes parch a soul Till, like Sahara 'neath the Afric sun, 'T is burned to arid waste, where flourish none Of human virtues; truth nor love control. Nor groweth any fruit that men extol. Therefore from good Saint Paul hath sharp greed won 111 name as "root of evil" where begun; Which doth the lazy for greed's gains console. Yet greed doth spur to vast activity. Whirls laggard axles to a smoking speed, Spreads bellying canvas on the farthest sea, And saddles thought to serve complaining need. Where none are greedy, no one moves on want To drive that lean marauder from man's haunt. THE GAMBLER A pirate well disguised mid fleets that ply With precious merchandise from port to port, That spreads his snares with guileful industry. Is the sleek gambler ruthless in his sport. Forlornest creature that breathes wholesome air, A social Ishmael, his selfish hand 'Gainst every man is lifted, foul or fair. To him all friendship is a rope of sand ; Like the still pike mid minnows in a lake, He feigns to drowse as if indifferent ; Then sudden like a javelin darts to take Some vagrant fool on vacuous errand bent. No comrade for his ruin ever weeps. Nor grieves a mourner when his false soul sleeps. "5 DIVORCE How harsh a discord, as of dog and bear Tied by one galling cord within a ring, Is that of man and wife whose daily fare Is bread and wine of strife embittering ! Love soured to hate is such acute displeasure As cannot bide in cool indifference. But frets and chafes against the quondam lover Till even endearments kindle fresh ofifence. But dog and bear given unrestrained release Go each his rambling way in carelessness ; So these twain severed frisk in jocund peace, Like singing jongleurs 'scaped from sour duress. Life has too many thorns of nature's rearing For laws to add a new one past all bearing. THE WIT OF WEALTH Quick praise gets wit when its surprises flash Like a keen sword-blade whirled in jovial play To light a table whose replete array Assures the speaker's amplitude of cash ; But when ill-clad wit snaps his dangerous lash The dull pretentiousness of fools to flay, A scurvy welcome meets his bright display, Where shallow coxcombs every sally dash ; And if more genial be wit's merry vein, Neglected laughs its penniless, beaming face, Where half a jest from Midas' starveling brain Provokes a laughter would fresh woe erase ; The wit of Midas glitters with his gold Where wit ungilded gets a north wind cold. ii6 IGNORANCE ANNO DOMINI lOOO When dead low tide has left sea beaches bare, And ragged rocks deformed with smearing ooze, Mud-stranded barks their watery freedom lose Careened mid sea-fronds rotting in the air; What frowzy look the littered beaches wear Strown with torn shells which lazy waves refuse, And gray-green rushes moldy with salt dews ! Such were the days — days of unclean despair — When science's sparkling tides had ebbed away And left man sprawling in slug-harboring mire Befouled with filthy superstition's spray; While half-drowned reason gasped 'mid refuse dire, And minds were smothered 'neath the bitter slime That else had flashed like sunbursts o'er their time. WELT-SCHMERZ One cry of ages is a note of woe. Both man and animal have faces sad, Since battered of rough nature did all go Till nimble- witted men learned laughter glad; Which waxeth to a fashion now apace, Till gleams of frequent merriment will run Through most transactions of the Aryan race. Gilding e'en sombre arts with sparkling fun. The bright Caucasian so has changed his look From sombre masks of aborigines He seems not of the same ancestral stock, By crinkling laughter raised to gay degrees. For man's primeval visage of despair Grows debonair when comfort strokes his hair. 117 Philosophy 119 PHILOSOPHY High substitute for faith, thy genial strain Can deeply solace sore humanity, Amid the falling of the bitter rain That beats oft harshly on all Hves that be. The gusts of passion dost thou check with smiles, With hopes dost smooth the wrinkled brow of care, With humor bafHe folly's tedious wiles And enmities disarm with gracious air! Thou, lofty friend of man with mien elate! The peace of sanguine' strength dost give to me, Assuaging grief 'mid fortunes desperate, And showing sunshine o'er a stormy sea. Thy tranquil eyes restore my courage when My small world goes awry amidst of men. SIN'S SIN If to indulge the love of sin be sin. Then am I sin's most helpless bounden slave ; For though I sin not, yet I would not win Full victory o'er the wish to misbehave; But if to fight loved sin be virtue's crown, Then am I laurelled with her fullest leaf; For every day I turn my bad wish down, Though every moment its defeat brings grief So sin's desire indulged doth aye contend With sin resisted, to decide if I Am sinner lost or saint to be revered At that high court which doth all guilt descry; For whether 't is more sinful sin to love. Than saintly not to do, how can one prove? HAPPINESS Sought of all men is happiness, real aim Of love and marriage, strife and toil and play; It goads to ventures, lures to fame and shame. Tempts fool and wise man each his chosen way; Each in his objects seeks it, when in truth 'T is like a hare of which the hunt is more Than is the capture; little sport forsooth Has he who lounges idle round his door ; Our powers set on to something worth their strain Rouse the swift soul to such supernal joy That scarce it matters whether one attain The ends which his activities employ; For busy souls may die in ecstasies Though nought be caught of all they spurred to seize. IDEALS When o'er night-oceans throbs a steamer fast Tossing the starry spray starward in showers, Oft Dian rising scatters silver flowers Across its pathway on the darkling vast ; So driving forward from our troubled past Through towering surges that defy our powers. We see waves silvered midst of sullen hours With rays of splendor from ideals cast ; Sparkling their glimmer round our dull careers, Though less substantial than lost friends in dreams, They cheer us onward 'midst the clash of fears Towards futures brilliant in their ghostly gleams ; Frail phosphorescence ! most ideals made real Prove but thin moonshine; real 's the true ideal. ATTITUDE Some fume and fret the genial years away; Some gloom clear skies foreboding rainy hours; Some sharp misfortune curdles, or wholly sours; And many keep an angry tryst with day; 'T is better with bright thoughts to make delay, To gild the hateful, baptize weeds to flowers, Call drenching rains the skirts of passing showers, And each defeat an unimportant fray; Make what one must to what one always would; Treat hateful tasks as goodly exercise In manly arts involving what one should; So in each mel6e conquer some small prize; Without such make-believe life's harrowing care Might chill all months with climates of despair. DEPRESSION Sometimes athwart a bright September day Blue haze will creep, enwrapping its cool light In veils that thicken till they baffle sight, While shivering winds swoop down on hill and bay; So o'er hale spirits blithe with jollity May creep eclipsing glooms with plumes of night. From nothing's cave emerging recondite, But chilling mirth to haggard misery; Yet give not place to bodings born of whim! The mists will flee, and other suns be clear! Take what time brings ! Fill to its mantling brim Life's only cup! Cry " Hail, all Hail, good cheer!" Despair is but an ebb of nervous tide ! 'T will yield to flood! forego thy suicide! 123 HOPE How long above a swift ship's writhing wake The sea-gull hovers without faltering, Though all the winds of Eolus loosed may fling The bitter spray aloft and fiercely shake The bark's stiff shrouds ; like any white snow-flake She rides the blasts that ever shriek or sing; So doth the soul — a bird of ghostlier wing — Most rueful weathers in its world-flight take And still on vans of hope the stress o'ersoar, With energies that moult no feather of their quill; Trusting some fairy e'er brown locks grow hoar Will bring it safe to fortune's shining hill ; And though oft missing its supreme intents Finds its anticipations goodly recompense. INVOLUTION With every hour life complicates its course, Drawing our fortunes in as warp and woof. Till each one's liberty is lost perforce In the close fabric of the world's behoof; The lad at school naught complex feels in fate, The lover counts as slight its silken chain ; The husband, father, master, finds too late His powers laced close, all chance of freedom vain, And still on every side he 's meshed anew. Till hands, feet, tongue, eyes, ears, and soul are fast; His hours bespoken, notes are always due. And every movement harnessed to the past ; The growing tangle spins round brain and heart Till death's shears closing snip all knots apart. 124 MAN IN NATURE Nature brings man to birth, indifferent If it suits him or no, or what he tries; She gives a skin in which he smiles or cries. But lends no clothing briars to circumvent; Provides no shelter from the lightning's flame, No 'scape from earthquake, from dread plagues no ward, Bestorms with elemental terrors hard, And deaf to curse or prayer works on the same. No chance hath he to find felicity. Save as he masters well her methods rude. Wrings private use from her indifferent play And fashions good from her raw plenitude ; Who frets 'gainst nature frets as might wolf's cub Against his dam's rough peltry in the scrub. RIGHT AND BEST 'T were better far and saving of much wrong That one should steer his team of aim and wit Not by the fancied certainty so strong Of "This is right, I must adhere to it," But rather by the less coercing rule Of "This is best so far as I can see," Which far more subtly guides the human mule Than fighting his infallibility ; For then would many a strife rein in its wrath. And fierce disputes draw hard the cautious curb, Bold dogma falter on its twilight path, And reason's lamp be lit where doubts disturb; When right sets his stifE horn to push his way, Gored reason bleeding finds no word to say. "5 MATERIALISM Ages men spent upon their vaporous souls, Making poor progress in a human way ; Now all concern to earthly things they pay, And speed like racers toward the noblest goals. Yet cry the dreamers: "These are days of moles. All men are grubbing with a muck-rake base. Oblivious of the lordlier aims that raise True souls toward heaven above earth's wretched doles ; This crass material spirit ruins man!" O fools and blind ! that see not how past days Were poor and prostrate, slaves to phantoms wan, Because man wandered down those ghostly ways Where guidance was but guesswork ; and no soul Regarded earthly good as an all-worthy goal. FACT AND FAIRY Dearly we love the fairy realm where thought By fancy winged takes aimless flights through air, In butterfly courses glancing everywhere. Ignoring reason and the eternal ought ; Then prince or princess we step forth with naught To question claims to gifts beyond compare ; We walk as Croesus, Samsons, Solons, there. Young, handsome, great, in love and all-besought; Poor ploughman fact is 'mid these fairies hated ; Intruding clown that sweet illusion sours ; Avaunt coarse caitiff ! here thou art not waited ! Only fair falsehoods fit these elfin hours ! But fairies flee when morning's lark upsprings, And fact drives ploughshares through their ruined rings. 126 CHANCE As in an acorn hid from curious eyes A great oak nestles cunningly infolded, Which years may blight, or lift to favoring skies To spread its antlered boughs by storm-winds molded, So was on Nilus' flood, one long gone date, Amid thick bulrushes carefully concealed, In baby Moses Israel's sacred state Which his rare leadership to light revealed; So once in Genoa's port unguessed of men Our new world's destiny played unconcerned, The sport of countless accidents that then Had power to quench and leave it undiscemed. How many a nascent genius may foul chance Have in its cradle choked to impotence! WORD-CRAFT Bright scholars trained to the choice craft of words In their fine jugglery lost ignore that things As different are from words as singing birds From pictured wild-fowl wrought in garnishings; Then lead they through a maze of shadow-dances Their weightless phantoms, counterfeits of men, Whose wild-wood freedom like a charm entrances Child, youth and maid, and sober citizen; Their glittering words oft wreckers' lights become. Misguiding barks that fare o'er reef-strewn seas. And many a good ship rots 'mid fishes dumb, By reckless authors drawn toward treacherous lees; Yet men give fine words worship though they lie In love with phrases' fatal phantasy. 127 PITH How weak arc words, though most in evidence, To make society or good or great! Since deeds build social order, greatcn the state, Give root to morals, arts, intelligence; Demosthenes may hearten Greek defence In hot orations matchless for debate, But Greece is ruined while he still doth prate, "Where grand Themislocles by violence Had vanquished mightier foes of earlier time; So not smooth orators nor statesmen wise. Nor churches, journals, schools, nor books sublime Build the strong bulwark that assault defies; Enduring states are all of deeds compact. Words graceful shailows playing round wrought fact. ALTERNATIVE Twin artists deft wiiom Yes and No we call Paint changeful hues of every life we see. In tints that please, or tones that later gall. With firm, quick stroke depicting each decree; Whate'cr our thought these craftsmen stand alert To signal every judgment open or hid, Whether it make for credit or for hurt It still goes down, nor can the stars forbid. Like grows the portrait as the faithful years Lay stroke on stroke, till every man stands drawn And pictured in his history; whence appears His fate and fortune — often woebegone; For Yes or No to wisely cry is clever, And most are bunglers that scarce hit it ever. OUR OVERLORDS Two rightful lords hath life, and both are liege, Love hight the one, and Lucre his born twin; Both reign, Love in the heart with high prestige, But Lucre elsewhere to Love's deep chagrin. As queen and king these twain in reverence held, Both honored, heeded, served make bright one's fate, But either disobeyed one's peace is knelled, And good days doomed to terms that lacerate. Who Love despises risks a life forlorn, Who Lucre scorns risks life each day debased. And which is worse need no one well discern, Since both are woeful, each a different waste. Fanatic liegemen 'twixt these twain put strife. But both bear sceptres, both wear crowns of life. CORRESPONDENCE A crested surge breaks on the reef in spray. Breaks on the eye in waves of glancing light. Breaks on the unseen brain in further flight. And breaks to thought within its matter gray, Whose refluent wave may prompt its lord to weigh Giant Arcturus in the starry night, Or kindle patriot to a bolder fight, Or start explorer on some fearsome way; So by th' eternal interchange of waves Mere matter stirs the answering sea of mind, To be in turn tormented in its caves By viewless thoughts as by a chafing wind; For all the universe one motion thrills, The same in circling orbs and viewless wills. 9 129 NARROW-MINDEDNESS Small, narrow minds like rocky throats to streams Constrict the foaming torrents of great souls That nature pours through human loins, nor dreams Them dangerous, — sent to float the fools; But narrow minds will strangle household joy; Slay Romeos and Juliets with passionate pride; Red and white roses for hate's badge employ; And creeds of love to screeds of strife misguide ; How brightly flows the river of wide thought Flashing between low banks of liberty, Its tranquil bosom with all treasures fraught. The hopes, the works, the joys of men mind- free! Through sunless gorges sends the narrow mind Its shrill-complaining streams black-hued and blind. METAPHYSIC Stout is the thrall of metaphysic thread, That tangles facts and binds thin logic's school To theses barren as a convent's rule, Or the fixed vassalage of a leader dead. Who yields his mind will live by phrase, instead Of breezy thoughts born of the living times. Wear ancient virtues turned to modern crimes, And strangle truth with views inherited. But fact now trips up logic ; reasoners Go down before the shots of brisk reality ; Inventors brain slow schoolmen ; quick need stirs To do what theorists deny can be; Them no fact moves; as at her anchor chain A moored bark rides, so they hear winds in vain. 130 MONOTONY As croons a reedy bagpipe on the ear With even, buzzing note that on and on Makes melancholy plaint, and life more drear; Or as a bee's incessant undertone, When in a chamber prisoned he declares His tiny terror, longing for free sky. And bruises on the ceiling as he fares Declaiming to all earth his misery; So is monotony's all-wearying thrum, The iterate sound of custom's sentinel tread. That paralyzes action and wears dumb Hope's ringing voice to expectations wed ; Slowly life's music turns a mumbling drone More deadly than disaster's thunder-tone. DAVID AND GOLIATH When stripling David ruddy-cheeked and bold, Raw from the hills, strode forth with sling and stone To dare Philistia's braggart huge of bone, Whose brawny hand a beamy spear controlled. He but prefigured in his limber mold New truth's unarmored champions, who unknown Defy armed giant Prejudice, alone. And at his forehead fling facts, missiles cold. Ever are Israel's armies small though staunch, Ever within their tents withdrawn and slow; Till some young gallant stout of heart dare launch The hurtling word that lays mailed Error low. Then to their David raise they paeans loud, And charging rout Philistia's heathen crowd. 131 Sleep and Death M3 SLEEP By day, a prowling animal, man walks The earth, inventive, masterful, and shrewd; Riots in love, ambition, force, and talks Of gods as waiting on his wilful mood; By night unconscious in deep sleep he sinks Back to a foot-bound plant sans thought, sans will, One with ancestral flora; trailed by links Towards paltry sorrel, and poor daffodil. Such floral slumbers mark his cousinhood. Hint whence he sprang, and what his kind, ere yet The nursing years had given him veins and blood To make full man what erst was seaweed wet; Microbe's, plant's, animal's epitome He sums earth's life in his life's history. SLEEP AND DEATH Sleep rosy in his beauty binds with chains Ambitious, lordly man wrapped in a spell That locks each feeling prisoner in his cell. And every muscle of his force distrains; Death pale as snow in tighter bonds detains All motion, passion, hope, and warm desire, Dispels from hearts the terror of things dire, And every wretch benumbs to dreaded pains ; Sleep oft his bonds unbinds and leaves his ward To new exposures full of dangers grim ; Death like a sentry keeps perpetual guard, Nor can assault coerce the spear of him; Yet men who woo sound sleep's forgetfulness Death's sounder sleep shun as the worst distress. 135 ETERNAL LIFE Were it a boon forever to explore The long-drawn weariness and trite routine Of an existence aged to the core Whose stale experience makes the new day mean? Not few are they on whom our few years pall, Who tire of life's capricious changeful weathers ; Nor few who drugged with pleasure loudly call Slow death to cut them loose from earthly tethers; So they who promise everlasting hours And cycles endless but surcharge our woe ; Existence for ten decades numbs our powers, — Who then through eons could endure to go? But to lie down and cease all quietly Were 't not a finish most would like to be? AFTER AND BEFORE What if 't were true that death were dreamless sleep, Wherein the riotous flesh and sprightly soul Should find their last and everlasting goal In the concealing grave's untroubled heap! The bare suggestion sends a shudder deep Through every recess of the frightened spirit, Threat'ning the joy of all that we inherit, As did some masked assassin toward us creep. Yet let us think, how we knew no heart-beat, Being yet ungathered dust that felt no thrill. When Rome fell prostrate ncath Alaric's feet Or Washington held Cornwallis at his will; As little should we, dead and once interred. By all earth's wondrous clangor be perturbed. 136 LETHE What ails thee Death, that men should curse thy ways? Kind Nurse! Thy poppy drowsier than sleep The aching flesh doth soothe and sweetly steep In baths of painlessness; whom strife doth craze Thou bringest peace like Indian summer days; Who hath sown ill by thee escapes to reap ; Who much are wronged through thee may cease to weep ; And who are banned lose care for blame or praise. Yet men abhor thee utterly! and bear Time's rack and torture, go blind, deaf, lame, old, To shun thy quietude; craving still to share Earth's sunshine longer 'mid griefs manifold; Yet at the last all nestle to thy breast Like tired children to a cradled rest. NIRVANA Were there no death to open exit sure From life's perplexity and restless fret. Who could the nagging tongue of time endure, Its voice reproachful, its o'erwise regret? Now through death's open window we outpeer Into its brooding silence without break, That like a balm o'erbreathes the nerves of fear And like a music bids us care forsake. Were no such window pierced, did we but find Ourselves time's prisoners, shut up in flesh For aye, with its perpetual ills unkind. Who could his soul from such a bane refresh ? But now as busy day looks toward night's peace We living glance toward death's unbought release, 137 IMMORTALITY Dream of the dreamer who forgets earth's rack, Blowing gay bubbles of the glorious fates Awaiting him beyond the comet's track, Like one who, scorning thousands, millions waits! The church hangs round it painted tapestries. Wherein hell's flames and heaven's delights are wrought In colored threads of ancient fable-dyes Of signs and saints, and what its God hath thought. But broidered screens display no living things, Nor can grave church make quick her figured truth; We know for all his gaily painted wings The cherub is no living child forsooth; And what avails, though set with large display, Such picture-piece of immortality? THE MORGUE Lo ! nature to herself resumes for long The house she leased its tenant for life's course- The straight, full figure delicately strong, The pliant muscles stored with mobile force. This now is as a sculptured sea-shell cast Upon the strand for waves to pulverize, As little heeded for its greater past, As is a pauper for his ancestries. Yet subtle forces builded up its powers. Gave luminous beauty to its face of mind. Gave tireless heart to beat the sequent hours. Gave flexile limbs in finest lines designed. Millions of such doth nature yearly fashion. And other millions serve with dispossession. PESTILENCE Dread fury, whose insatiable maw Devours the tender folk as frost the flowers I Art thou an angel sent from heavenly towers To spread destruction as King David saw? Ah, no! No longer God's revengeful law Chastising sinners for their jocund hours We see, but rather filth's envenomed powers That catch at life through each unguarded flaw; Our minds we call the poisonous thing to slay, Not in the hope of supernatural aid To bring us victory in our keen foray, But trusting to our wit's thrice-sharpened blade; Destroying angels have but scanty chance When matched with men who give no tolerance. 139 Schoolmen 141 MEPHISTO That skeptic demon, Mephistopheles The questioner, hath snared our prosperous age With jesting at the faith-philosophies That in duress held earlier hind and sage; Little he recks of Credos old or new, Trusting his brave thoughts of the universe ; Snaps his blithe fingers at church-threats of rue, And laughs that pleasure hath no primal curse; So singing, shouting, round our highways stirs. Scattering blue devils with his airy mirth. Locks up the cloisters, opens theatres, Sends daily journals to the humdrum hearth; Empties the Pantheon of fancy's gods. And gives to common reason motor roads. CORNER-STONES For perfect trust naught is so good a base As myths fantastic and impossible. Which when baptized as "mysteries" outface Reason's five wits, and fact's well -proved apostle. As "sacred" soar above the scrutiny Of curious critics who their claims might question ; As "God-inspired" quite frankly can defy Mere argument as skeptics' vile suggestion. As " God's own Word" they threaten awful ruin To who their character investigates, And solemnly denounce as truth's assassin Who point out errors in their predicates. No broom yet made will brush a fog away; So myth disproved re-closes on the day. 143 CREDULITIES Are not all faith's credulities embalmed In pungent spices of perturbing fears, With curse and bogie to the pale lips crammed, Old folk-lore tales by firelight crooned? One hears Their far ancestral gossip babbled low From nurse to babe, from sire to wide-eyed son, As solemn truth and questionless, that no Good soul may doubt lest it should be undone. Yet men have lost their faiths without the loss Of aught that made their day-times glorious. And thrown off with them many a heavy cross Which tortured hearts with pangs notorious. Retreating myths like any mist exhaling Let in glad sunshine braver souls regaling. SEEKERS AFTER GODS Who seeks for gods will find them without fail; An hundred or a dozen shall he find. Or all he will; incarnate, or pure mind; In trinity or sole; female or male; Fathers with sons whom safely none assail; A virgin, mother, child, by love enshrined; No thought too wild, nor none too blind To fashion gods of — gross or in detail. And each alike is potent ; lives and reigns Supreme and loved by throngs of worshippers; Armed cap-a-pie to butcher who disdains To serve their god and other god prefers. Before his own each trembles, worships, bows, While each the other scoffs and disavows. 144 SECTS Caught by unproved assertions reckless, bold, Men think their safety lies within the pale Of their hereditary sect, whose special phrase Both priest and church declare has sure avail. Many their claims, each as his mother taught: "The Church," criesone; another, " Baptism right " A third, "Conversion" with salvation fraught; A fourth, "The Sacraments" have saving might. What furious hubbub rises from the throng! Each will convince another, each is sure His is the true way to the immortal song, His leads to heaven and peace that will endure. And reason asking "Wherefore say you so?" Gets answers many as down seeds that blow. BUDDHA "Om mani," drones the Buddhist, "padmi houm." Oh, the jewel in the lotus hidden! Nor why he cries it knows, nor why 't is bidden It to cry, nor what he cries; on the loom Of ages woven, piety gives it room; 'Mid magic, mystic phrases it is cherished As a charm, where meaning words had perished ; Such is its sacred, talismanic doom. Like is its spell with "Aves," "Paters," scattered In dead tongues by reasonless devotees; Or the "Allah illah allah," pattered By pale set lips of Muslim dervishes. "Jewels in the lotus hidden" serve as well As other phrase to save good souls from hell. lo 145 CALVINISM A network tough, as 'twere of hammered steel, With mesh of complex ignorance devised To wind men in its web of things unreal And verbal tangles by its prisoners prized, Did Calvin forge in his despotic brain; And as once Vulcan in a cunning trap Did Mars with Venus for the gods detain, So thought he love divine with wrath t' enwrap. And long as men gave faith to mysteries. Where premise, reasoning, and conclusion were Shielded from wit and warfare by new pleas 'Gainst human reason, bide they in the snare. But many-weaponed knowledge sets thought free And rends the logic network hopelessly. THE PURITAN Strange product of a melancholy creed. Framed like its articles to thoughts austere, His days fell lowering as a clouded mere. Mistaking gloom for duty, flower for weed; What sombre passion could him so mislead That he should blacken nature, and her cheer Look gruffly on, scowling at pleasure dear In dread that she his finer life should bleed? Were soul worth saving at such precious cost Of time's short hours deformed with tedious groans, While earth's vast splendor was accounted dross. And man's great secular movement seen with moans.'* His work as Puritan has paled of late. His work as freeman still keeps good the state. 146 THE QUAKER A man sincere in narrow lines we see ; In uncouth garb, on which he lays deep stress, The good Friend goes protesting against dress ; Of curious speech hard-strained to "thou" and "thee," Protesting against artifice goes he ; The spirit's freedom he in words doth bless. But holds such freedom must his views express, So keeps his way in calm persistency. To the deep silence of his soul confined, Secluded from the stormy world's debate, He listens for Heaven's voice to guide him blind. As were 't a task for gods on him to wait. Yet such success doth not with his work run As clearly shows Almighty supervision. THE SHAKER Grotesque believer in a God distrait, Whose creature, man, was foolishly designed To reproduce his unre generate kind. In hopes the race might stop itself some day By curious abnegation of that way! How limps thy worship in these scornful times, When thy fantastic dance seems like old mimes, Or Indian wizard's fetish mimicry! Are queer ancestral whimsies troubling thee, Obscure remembrances stored away in nerve By years when, fumbling round in savagery, The rude barbarian used such rites to observe? But what a drought ye start in our spare lot, Who love and wealth salute with "Thou shalt not"! 147 THE SECTARY As grows the unsightly cactus stiff and bare With prickly spines and graceless stalk of green Above a sandy waste wherein is seen No grass nor shrub but only wide despair, So grows the sectary upon the fair Green fields of nature which his creed makes mean, Rejecting generosities and e'en Sweet friendships and love's comradeships so rare And laughter's gleeful face and music's quires. So stands iamid the waste his thoughts have made, A grim endurance parched with torrid fires. Though time had proffered palms and elms of shade ; Then o'er life's bareness drones a lying moan. Not seeing the blight is his, and his alone. LIBERAL CHRISTIANS In vain good Christian spreads his sail to thought, In vain courts freshening breezes of the time Since he is chained, as poet to his rhyme. Chained to an ancient name and page with naught To mold our day wherein new truth is sought. About his mooring round and round he spins, And thinks because he changes place, he wins A voyage forward as good seamen ought. And much he fusses reefing in worn sails, New rent by new gales fresh from modem schools. Hoisting patched canvas that no whit avails Save for bold show, to keep moth-eaten rules. A spinning top as soon will win a race As he, still humming round the same old base. 148 THE AGNOSTIC How strange, that to avow one's ignorance, Where all in blanket-darkness blindly grope, Should lasso one as with a herdsman's rope Of shy distrust, while hardy insolence Of any bigotry gives less offence ! Yet has our ignorance the widest scope, Since knowledge finds short limits inside hope ; Nor can the wisest tell us plainly, whence We came to being on this casual globe, Nor whither go when from our place we drop, Slipping from out this radiant flesh, our robe; Or if we go at all and do not merely stop. This know all well, but to outspeak it loud Puts the confessor under social cloud. 149 Fairy Land 151 SPIRIT Is spirit but the fairy name of what Grows quick through grouping of material powers? Once was it thought to dwell in streams, stars, showers, A living person housed in grove, or grot. Of human strain but greater; 't is our lot To have discovered that this fancied being Is but the creature of imperfect seeing, And that in every place a spirit still is not. May not all spirits, demon, god, or man, Alike fade out from every human creed? Since these like other spirits never can Their separate being prove by separate deed. Then may mankind its highest good discover To lie in nature, — his eternal lover. SIN Portentous goblin homed and hoofed and tailed. Sired out of Terror by swart Ignorance, The nightmare Sin has ridden man who wailed O'er fen and brier — a madman's frantic dance; Then coward he, by ghoulish imps bestrid. Has rushed on hideous crimes his soul to purge. Tortured his flesh, slain wife and child unbid. And set his life to grim repentance's dirge. Little he dreamed that gods had small concern For poor profanities, but had him shriven, When they his birth decreed ; nor could they bum A soul to ambushed falsehoods blindly driven. That such high treason should the high gods please Were but blasphemer's view of deities. 153 THE FANATIC "What an uncivil heart-consuming craze Is that which, handcuffed to one isolate thought, Bends Nature's largeness and man's various ways To the gnarled flexure of one crabbed Ought ! And what a tortured demon-ridden wight Is he — the victim of that dinning elf That rides him through the vast complex of right Forever beating that one drum himself! His forehead stem, his wild and matted locks, His frosty aspect blight the flowers of spring; His iteration each new purpose blocks; He lives in prison where never sweet birds sing. Broad-minded Shakespeare were a better type, Who humored all thoughts, seeking wisdom ripe. OCCULTISM Sphinxes are vain pretenders who conceal, Enwrapt in riddles, some poor commonplace, Which being guessed their shallowness reveal But make no wiser who its knots unlace. Truths esoteric or occult are weak, — So weak that when the all-revealing light Their emptiness exposes, they must sneak Back into cover of the screening night. But living tnith shuns not the blazing day ; No beams too fierce, no scrutiny too keen For its brave face; it shirks naught men can say Secure in fact against tongue's bitterest spleen. Light of the public square each statue tries, Dispelling shadow shapes of mysteries. 154 THE QUESTION OF EVIL A God omnipotent, omniscient, good. Loves well His world! Yet under His decree Is sin, crime, wretchedness! What blind mystery Incredible ! Because a good God would Prevent such evil as a strong God could. For God say Nature; then the problem's free From empty questions as to what "should be," Since Nature 's dumb, nor owns to any "should. " This course of Nature heedless and austere Works out such potencies as ne'er could spring From unavenging forces less severe Of faultless virtue and no suffering; Resisted storms to oaks their fibre lend And conquered evil is man's staunchest friend. THE BLACK VEIL As troop the sooty crows across the sky At nightfall winging home their dusky flight, Nor utter note, nor turn to left or right, But drive straight onward, hastening silently; So dark-veiled vestals, that sweet love deny, Wing their sad way from vespers' dirge of night, With eyes cast down as fearing earthly blight. To seek the cloister's wan monotony. Poor victims of the curious creeds that hold, God sends some here to live averse to mirth. Delights to see them to men's pleasure cold. And alien to the children-haunted hearth ; What treacherous God it were that made a world And those that liked it to perdition hurled ! 155 BLACK FRIARS Why should Devotion drape her devotees In raven garments of despondency, Leaving bright colors to light souls that please Their days with nature's frolic gayety? Thinks she that God who in creation's song Applauded all his works and called them good Has since repented of bright hues as wrong And chosen gloomy for the pious mood ? The Quaker gray, the nun's robe of dull black, The monk's brown cowl, the preacher's mourning suit, What comment put they on the faith, alack! That so doth vestment every staunch recruit. Were not the pagan cults with feast and dance Nearer God's method of exuberance? 156 Supernatural 157 THEOLOGY As sits a parrot in her gilded cage, Forever conning one mechanic note, Nor ever wearies of her burden sage Long since outworn by her unmeaning rote ; And as that bird forever feels secure Upon its perch within a house of wire, Nor longs to see the world beyond its mure Lest it fall victim to some monster dire So sits theology within its round Of modern saws and affirmations old, Disputing novelties beyond its bound And screaming at discoveries as too bold. But what poor gains had mortal men procured, Had they the ancestral cages still endured. HEAVEN AND EARTH The ragged dervish whirling like one mad In the lewd frenzy of extinguished thought Feels sure to please some god with the poor fad Of buying heavenly good for earthly ; naught Heeds his fool-fancy that he dupes with cheats Poor present comfort, till he strips it bare; Drugs fruitful enterprise with counterfeits; And bustling work forsakes for drowsing prayer. As the pert jackdaw decks his nest with glass, Man chooses rubbish with disheart'ning zeal; Though starved and frozen hies him to a mass, And for his soul neglects his body's weal. But to be warmed, well fed and housed on earth Rears finer souls than piety mid dearth. 159 DEUS EX MACHINA They who abound in worldly goods and health, Having no strife with life, believe in God As good, the gracious fountain of their wealth, And to the suffering preach to kiss the rod. But they whose fortunes sourly crost are care, With toil, disease, and accidents perverse, Believe in demon princes of the air, And feel existence as that demon's curse. As lakes reflect whatever on the spot May stand — tree, castle, crag, a fence, or flowers- So mirrors each man's deity the lot Which he works out mid good or grievous hours. The fortunate a glorious God adore, While wretches galled a devil god implore. THE FALSE GOD Name for man's ignorance, yet more revered Than his best knowledge which all harvests reaps, To whom great fanes are built and altars reared That man may gi'ovel at them while he weeps! How far hath science pushed thee from our globe. Crowding thy spectres out through grove and glen. From star to star still seeking thine abode, And finding only phantom in each den. Wherever knowledge drills its tunnels in, Following the shining veins of golden truth, It drives thy ghost before it pale and thin Till thou 'rt left homeless unrevered forsooth. Illustrious day! When slow mankind shall be Released from thy fear by wise scrutiny ! 1 60 WORSHIP While listening to the organ's solemn sound, And robed choirs chaunting like wind-rustled sea, Who can but wish this soul-uplifting round To fruitful uses might have been and be? Whoe'er recalls its ageless industry- Must ask if aught has given less of gain Than worship, which hath held man's soul in fee And levied toll on all his hands have ta'cn? Are not the ships of faith now sinking low On the horizon's marge, as bound nowhere? Knows any one the port whereto they go ? Or trusts he costly cargo to their care? Ages of faith still left a world forlorn, Now days of action make an earth new-bom. SERMONS Fervid orations scintillate and flow From reverend pulpits down cathedral aisles, Like molten lava streams down dark defiles, Yet leave men empty as a dish of snow. For knowledge makes no portion of their glow ; Heating devotion to a torrid zeal They bar the mind to searching thought's appeal, No fresh horizons showing the flock below. Were half the eloquence but vented thus To scatter germs of knowledge fresh and new, That it might ripen to fruitage generous. Men had perhaps waxed wise and sane and true. The keys of heaven's kingdom knowledge guards; And faith's pretences ne'er unlock its wards. [ i6i AUTHORITY Who halters to old books his questioning thought Elects to dwell with primal ignorance, 'Mid baseless guesses made ere knowledge brought Its certainty to nature's random glance. 'T is wanton phantasy to make believe Our rude forefathers held great in God fee, And did from Him an express word receive Better than any later age should see. 'T is charming folk-lore swarms the sacred page, The buzzing fancies of grown children's brains, Which but for ancientry would ne'er engage The manly reason with one moment's pains. Their fairy talcs for God-given gospels taken Leave thought a prey to fond romance forsaken. GOD AND NATURE Why doth not God scourge blas])hemy? Or more. Reply to prayers to check a pestilence, That still stalks on though supplications pour Like rains in April? Is 't indifference? And though men curse His all-untroubled name, Profane His temples, or disown His Son, He takes no vengeance, visits with no blame, Nor harries sacrilege though often done. Now Nature lets none slight her majesty Without revenge taken quick as lightning flies; Yet some fear God, who with live Nature play As might a lamb with lions, — till he dies. And when she slays with prompt severity. They call on God with bitter useless cry. 162 A FLICKERING TORCH If 't were but sure a god did supervise The scheme of man's career and wisely steer The lame endeavor of his anxious fear Toward havens of divine felicities, Were 't not for blundering souls a high emprise To bear the brunt of all misfortunes drear, Trusting the issues to that vision clear Though ragged lightnings filled the stormy skies? But far too flickering is this torch of faith When held o'er empty cribs and homes of woe, With ghastly light on tragedies it playeth. Nor shows a recompense to those who sow Bad seed to barren years, and reach the grave In sobbing anguish fooled of all they crave. MYSTERY Within a cave a-smoke with fumes of fear, Mephitic with rank superstition's breath, Dwells mystery 'mid imps and dragons queer. With satans, fiends, and goblins loaned by Death; There too are glimmering flames of threatened hells, The Sheols, Tophets, Tartarus kindled of old To scorch the souls that feared no priest-born spells In the dread dark beyond this earthly wold ; Its terrors daunted each barbarian wight Whose blanched lips told his dreams for truth and scrawled Children's rude figures on blackboards of fright To which that tattooed savage trembling crawled ; Men shuddered more at formless ghosts of threat Than at real horrors in their life-haunts met. 163 THE POPPY The red rose speaks for love that soul elates, The mignonette for faithfulness, 't is said ; Should poppy stand for faith's sweet opiates That drug quick reason into drowsihead? For faith steals through the aggressive intellect With soothing balm that quiets thought like pain, Dulls its keen edge, and doth its sight deflect From novel truths that novel doubts unchain. Doubtless large poppy-beds wide beauty spread And faiths give color o'er great human fields, A Christian blue, gray Buddhist, Moslem red. Each to its own believers pleasure yields. And what asks faith but sleepy indolence And more of poppy to awakening sense. THE COFFINED PRIEST Cold, rigid, pale the tonsured priest doth lie Within the narrow bed for all once made, Nor plays there, golden, round his passive head Any bright aureole of sanctity. Scarcely less strait this casket I descry Than the cramped cell wherein the living priest, His mind immured, nor ever found the least Fault with his quarters in that custody. Perhaps his mind grows large in Paradise, If there he went; one thing is plain. That change from cell to coffin, though not nice, Gives him no cause its straitness to arraign. Who used but one close closet of broad earth Might find a casket large, too large in girth. 164 EARLY GODS "Dead are the old gods," cries the worshipper Who kneels to new in cults elaborate; But still old gods are gods compassionate, Whose native glories to devotion spur; The dazzling sun is man's great comforter; The full-orbed moon he sees with heart elate ; Huge branching trees, and hearthstone fires propitiate The universal heart ; one might aver These natural gods confer more pleasure Than all the deities of human name, Whose prophets promise blessings without measure, Though little come of their unblushing claim. But every day those woo our love again That feed, caress and hearten living men. MYTH AND SCIENCE As when new mom breaks in auroral dawn Through glimmering portals of far-arching sky, And mounts till coping leagues of hill and lawn One sea of rippling color glows on high, So was the heaven of human thought at first With gorgeous splendors of bright gods o'erspread. Whose glories into divers names disperst Dyed man's conceits to fables gold and red; Mom's brilliant coloring fades as grows the day To one wide sheet of all-revealing light, So myths dissolve before white science's ray In the clear splendor which unblindfolds sight ; But science leads to liberty and power With all that beauteous gods had failed to shower. i6s FULIGINOSUS Smoke of high altars, wreathing victims slain To heedless gods, for ages had upcurled Above poor human dwellings, all in vain, — The gods untouched disdained the writhing world ; Smoke of tall factories whirling wheels of speed Fumes now from chimneys where men forge and weave, Whence human welfare due to human deed Outpours 'mid smoke much misery to relieve. So prayers dispatched to move the hand of heaven As little win as did fat victims erst ; To him who doeth naught is nothing given. But all to him who reckons deed the first. Offerings and prayers sent by lean idleness Are beggars lame and blind that swell distress. THE HOLY COAT OF TREVES What wondrous sight is this our times behold, When myth and legend dry like dew away, When doughty miracles lose their mystic sway, That one frayed coat is prized above fine gold. And worshipped as a cloth of power untold ! Yet no such trophies can it boast to-day As steam and wire across the whale's path gray. Or chemistry's new gifts to nations old. But deep within ancestral halls of soul Cowled mysteries kneel before some relic prized. Or crooning, low-toned litanies uproll Emotions that keep cowed thought hypnotized; For fables with their wings of butterfly Outcharm dun fact in garb of earthly dye, 166 MILAN CATHEDRAL How like an anthem fraught with praise, toward heaven In spotless marble white as angel's face Above the plain where man is sharply driven, The great cathedral lifts its sculptured grace! The misty nave seems arching into sky, The pillared aisles dim woodland avenues; Great windows painted with the rainbow's dye Show Mary and the babe in roseate hues; To buy God's favor and reprieve from hell This oratorio in stone was sung; Each spire a note in that imploring swell By human terror towards God's pardon flung; Before its altars still men weep and pray Intent with words Christ's pity to waylay. KNOWLEDGE OF GOD By love, prayer, worship, is God ever sought. And reached in transports dewed with grateful tears. Wherein emotion swallows up all fears And feeling to an ecstasy is wrought. But God to knowledge more reveals His thought. Since knowledge widens its circles all the years. While through enlarging forces still He nears And to the student from all points is brought. What feeling feels were somewhat; what mind knows Is still the greater and to greater leads; Since God's face through fresh knowledge ever grows And ends in more than telling o'er monk's beads. Who knows, knows God in truth, since knowledge is Of God's works only in a universe all His. 167 THE WILL OF GOD Nature is God's first will; that's sure; and yet Rash, heady men, bom yesterday, berate This ancient nature, like a martinet. And dub it sinful, shameless, reprobate; Man's complex constitution they befoul With reckless words, as were 't man-m.ade; full sure They can much better it ; so scowl and howl At who prefers sound nature's dateless lure ; So preach that one should bow to principles That cross and vex his grain, and make accurst His life; then when he swears, inveighs, rebels, Call him the more a devil, bad as worst; Now God's will, nature, will all earth-life bless, But thwarted bring to maddened bitterness. EXPANSIONS When at the theatre of our troubled earth I view the play of all-adventuring man, Note his philosophies and cults, and scan His ways fantastic, harsh, and mean, the dearth Of wit and wisdom that sits by his hearth ; And that God humors all, withholding ban. Permitting each to thrive as best he can, I ponder if e'en badness hath not worth. Oh thou! who claim'st thy views are measure sure For all that should be in the rolling planet. That thy but late-born wisdom makes secure Thy bold decisions that get birth upon it. Unbuckle the girdle of thy home-grown wit And to all wandering thought throw open it! 1 68 Love 169 BELOVED O Wife! most loved, still dear, whose life did creep Into the shade of lonely death too soon, Before thy feet had climbed the height of noon, Or scaled the radiant crest of life's high steep ! How doth thy hand as 't were from heaven's blue deep Uphold my footsteps with a constant boon (As doth the shouldering seas the rolling moon) ; So far love reaches from death's house of sleep. Thy star receding shines with lessening beam As through time's lengthening avenues I gaze, Yet never fades from thought that distant gleam Whence comes the peace and strength of lingering days. Where'er the saints are is thy genial spirit. Whose seats thy goodness must for aye inherit. PAN AND ECHO Pan and his lovely Echo were a pair, 'Twixt whom was never discord, though the twain Were married when time started in his wain ; But Echo ever had considerate care To go rehearsing Pan's words everywhere, Attentive to his multiform refrain, And often changing voice, or mad, or sane. Still adding sweetness with responsive air. How many wives had thought peace dearly bought At cost of such attention to their lords. And rather give the loudest cry to thought Though household riot follow on their words ! Yet after ages of discoursing, who Of wives hath such sweet voice as shy Echo? 171 VENUS VICTRIX Most lustrous planet! Wanderer of the night, Serene and steadfast shine thy beauteous rays, Unmindful of the admiring deep amaze Of those who worship toward thy careless light. How far aloof from sympathy, thy bright Untroubled radiance in the heavenly ways! Remote from sorry earth whence men may gaze To glorify their piteous human plight. Bare are the skies when thou art hid from view, Though all the feebler stars their great array Spread o'er the hollow concave of the blue To charm our sight, beguiling care away. In vain ! Since ever dazzled are their eyes That once have seen thee in their heaven arise. DISPARTED Within the west the crescent moon hangs clear With Venus pendant to her sickle keen, As when but lately one large jewel's sheen Decked the white crescent of my lady's ear. But lovelier than the planet in her sphere. Far is the star, nor near the moon I ween Yet farther she with but one pace between Where pallid love endures the pall and bier. New moon and star part company erelong. Withdraw their mated beauty from the eve; Oft human fortunes suffer equal wrong And lives are severed beyond time's reprieve, Whose fates conjoined had burned with lustre bright Upon the arch of life's recurrent night. 172 DEAR DESPAIR Like Jove's large planet flashing in the sky, Thou keepest that sole place which nature gave, Nor stoopest down, whoe'er of men may rave. To lend to one thy peerless brilliancy. 'T is better so, since thus thy splendor high For all men shines, to no one made a slave; Since in one love thy light might find a grave, That shines a glory now to every eye. How my sight reels beholding all thy state. Attracted and repelled alternately!- Enchanted by that lofty mien elate That gives no hint of mortal destiny! Oft wretched in thy sight yet worsened far When from thy presence lost I lose my star ! SOLATIUM What were my refuge from foul fortune's spite When flowers distil me poisons rank with ill. When strange catastrophes my ripe hopes kill. And threats of worse disasters me affright, — What were in such an hour of rust and blight, Save hemlock in life's brimming cup to spill, And at one draught all miseries to fulfil. Were 't not that death would blot thy face from sight? For when I thee behold distresses fade, I nor remember nor believe in woe, Thy world of brightness brightens mine of shade, And in thy glory my eclipses glow; The sun that from a storm-cloud shows his face Not more irradiates sea than thou my case. 173 BROODING Dear Love! thy face before my troubled gaze In air-drawn outlines like a spectre rises, Or like a star veiled in obscuring haze, Whose seldom beam the darkling sea surprises; I call thy name in phrases manifold, Still pleased, though but an echo faint replies. To hear the gracious syllables retold Within whose circuit all my heaven lies. Thy absence makes the street a solitude Though full of rustling feet that onward press, And other friends seem but as strangers rude Whose kindly words accent my loneliness. Like the dear God thou fillest time and space With hovering visions of thy dearer face. WAKING AND SLEEPING I know thee absent through my waking hours, But sleeping dream thee present in full sooth ; To give sleep's vision all the joy of truth There fails but speech denied of heavenly powers. So near! So far! Yet still in slumber's bowers Th' illusion hovers touched with tender ruth. Bending on me its glance of glowing youth. Which flies when fatal mom upon me lowers. Yet would I not from thee in thought be free. The mourning day is still a tomb of love, And love hath joyance e'en in misery, So high is loving all delights above. Then haunt me still thou present, absent dear, Till when returning thy loved self appear. 174 DON GIOVANNI A score of times have I succumbed to love, Inflamed by his strange fires that reason sear; Each kindled me with flames that wise men fear Yet cannot quench, howe'er they disapprove; Each time sincere, from each I next did rove. And whirled away to charmers made more dear By fancy's shifting whimsies, waxed austere Toward old attractions that with new ones strove. But older now, love's ardor grows more frail; I know that each fresh glamour soon may fade, That beauty, grace, and spirit all may fail To bind me firmly to the charming maid. And yet the ancient, human fires will bum And raptures kindle where new loves concern. LOVE'S TREASON As when a lion springs upon his prey And with one stroke of talons lays him low. While he a trembling victim scarce doth know If yet he live or hath passed clean away, So is the heart that love doth once betray, Felled by the fury of his treacherous blow, So paralyzed it scarce can longer trow If still it keep the realms of sunlit day. The beauteous world that once was joy intense. Sunshine and song and hours but lately bliss, Turn to a faded dream upon the sense And all that thrilled but adds to wretchedness. And like the kid beneath the leopard's paw. Love cannot raise his head for love's foul flaw. 175 LUVINU AND LIKING With full-winged capcmcss love hotly flies; llatini^ the su.'iil-slow pace of foot-sure tliought, To stoop upon his quarry; calling enemies Whoe'er would make delay, resenting aught That warns; so often Ihuis liiniself caught fast On thorns that i)rick him thick with tortures grim; When married all his life is hourly cast Against a nature nettle-like to him; A liking starts as soon but slow of (liglit, Floats like a circling hawk nion* leisurely O'er its seen choice, nor doth alight Till it hath searched all coverts, ncath its eye; And \vlu>re love married oft is stung to hate A married liking grows to lover's mate. LOVE AND MARRIAGE Who praise love's passion in its foaming course, Impatient, hividstrong, liery, quick to blame, Hut faintly knt)W the all-surpassing force Of wedded love and what its larger flame. One like a meteor sends one ray through night; A sun, the other gilds all days with joy; No sorrow but will sjiarkle in its light. No hour but summer in its di'ar employ. One like a brooklet brawls and fumes along Waking the echoes with its riotous flow; The olher, like a river deep and strong. In silent waters drowns all ills below. Who loves yet never weds but sips the brink Of that rare wine well-wedded ilaily drink. I 7() HER NEW LOVER Yl'S, he is manly in his stalwart nujid, His face well turned, his neck a trifle bull, His supi)le waist and hips well set and full, His legs arc strong like any athlete bold. His glance is free, nor is his heart a-cold, Plays well at ball and well an oar can j)ull. And rides a horse as if to ride were null. No better all-round man is there I 'm told. Has money too, and keeps his yacht afloat. Takes wind and weather like a Viking bom. Nor is he vain, nor on himself doth doat Nor on less gifted creatures show his scorn. And if a little wit he had 'twould be A last perfection — vice tori)idity. THOUGHT AND LOVE Who deems that thought can love's warm place supply, Or who that love for thought's defect atone, Forgets his nature's twin comj^lexity, Nor heeds how light and fire botli fill life's zone; Yet love in love on thought's calm ways will rail. Will stormily cry that all shf;uld yield to her; And sturdy thought will quest his Holy Grail With headstrong zeal though pleading love demur; And each will rue his jjartial word at last; Lovers will think, for love will thinkers pine; Each have a surfeit of his nearest past, Anfl crave the father for its touch divine; Though mad with If^vc recall thought's starry skies, Yet not forget 'mid thouglits love's ecstasies! '77 REPENTANCE Dear heart ! When strolling on the high-cliffed shore That gracious afternoon mid-summer last, Recalling fatal errors of the past, The while the great sea sighed as grieving sore, Seemed it as easy as for waves to roar, That our weak falter should aside be cast And place again be found at love's repast For us who missed to that rare feast the door. But only seemed! The past laughed scornfully At our imploring cry to be reheard ; As touched with human pain in sympathy Again the sea in pensive murmur stirred ; And breathed: "Who once lets love's door close shall greet In outer darkness till slow death seem sweet." A FACE A sudden gleam of black Italian eyes, — A diamond flash starts on my vagrant sight, As lightning from a frowning cloud of night, Stirring my soul with tumults of surprise ; A sweet young mouth whose lips the red blood plies And paints a hue that kindles sense like fire, Lashing the nerves with whips of keen desire. Upon whose sting the voice of reason dies. A brown, ripe cheek, a softly dimpled chin. Small serried teeth, pearls of old ocean's caves. And half-closed eyelids stealthy as hid sin. With smiles like sea-foam breaking down dark waves. Such met me yesterday and with a glance Took me its prisoner with swift insolence. 178 LOVE IN A HORSE-CAR What twain are these, who in the crowded car Find such deHght within the golden day, That furtive smiles about their red lips play. As each towards each casts glances like a star? Nothing that haps can their devotion mar. Both wrapt in pleasure at what love doth say Through words that other import should convey. As that, "The day is bright!" "The distance far!" They went to Wall street, not to see th' Exchange, But still to see each other face to face, And all the day wherever they might range, 'T was still one presence did each new scene grace. Fresh from the country keeping honeymoon They sip love's fulness, like two bees at noon. 179 Friendship ELI KIRKE PRICE Friend of the sages, and 'mid sages friend, Whose living presence honored, loved, revered, Did like a benison thy house attend, How lapsing years thy memory have endeared ! Within thy city wert thou loudly praised, Thy silver hair was to thy townsmen pride. Thy calm words heard as wisdom's voice upraised. And sought thy counsel just on every side. Who shrewder was t' untwist law's tangled skein? Who had more foresight for the city's weal? Who of the newest learning was more fain ? Who less for human praises made appeal? Thy sweet serenity and courtly grace Must well become the heavens thy dwelling-place. INCESSU PATUIT DEA Within my time two women have I known. Two daughters of the blessed gods supreme : The one was dark and with night's stars did dream. The other fair like young Aurora shone ; The first released my plaintive youth from moan. The other did my cheerier age redeem ; But both so goodly, that one might esteem Himself full-blest were either made his own. Was it not fortune rare, twain to have found In cloth of gold amid the ruck of frieze ? Two friends that on life's ocean outward bound In hailing distance caught the selfsame breeze? So, lonely have I never found the wave Where all are sailing toward the lonely grave. 183 BEREAVEMENT When the procession of lost friends 1 call From glimmering halls of unrepentant death, What shromliiii; griefs tny mourning heart o'erpall As I rehearse tlieir charms while life gave breath! Some ricli in learning, some for genius choice ; Some prized for art, some for their bubbling mirth ; One for the rajiture of her glorious voice, For beauty some, some for their oft ])roved worth; All, all for love; each leaves a memory sad, A cureless loss wiiereat eyes dim with tears; New faces throng their places young and glad, Wliich also cheer in turn the lengthening years; But never on the unheeding earth's M'ide plain Shall those dear forms cross-bar the light again. FRIENDS' FRIENDS When in tl\e rapture of divine surjirise One meets a friend's friend praised beyond compare, And finds such praises were but worthless air Matched with the chann of sweet realities; Tlien thanks he all the gods, that Nature vies With his half-budded hopes, and makes one fair Richer in triumphs than his thoughts could dare, And iuiils the future with contented eyes. So when such fortime lately grasped my hand All things most feared fell fron\ my heart away; The earth fresh gilded seemed a sunnier strand For that new face that graced the later day. Long as her love in his love shall repose My friend enriched to me but clearer grows. 1S4 SIRENS Sirens that sang by Cajjrca's misty coast Till her brown beaches whitened with the bones Of sca-(lrownc(l mariners mid sca-washod stones, How many daughters have ye left to boast Of equal havoc wrought amid the host Of modern men, whose last breath spent in moans Accuses your per(idi(jus songs?— ye heartless ones Who faintly smile unheeding every ghost! Nor shall time fall that yn sh.'dl cease to sing, Sing in sweet voices and admired refrains, Sing while charmed victims their dear souls shall fling At your white feet and die uj)on your strains; And always on men's anguish will ye gaze With subtle smile through which pleased wonder plays. FROST As when a frost locks fast the silver streams, And sears the jjctals of belated flowers, When birds give place to silent, songless hours, Since in the south bright Titan sinks his beams, So thy long absence as a frost-breath seems That binds delights in winter's icy chains, And blighted thought of ancient joy restrains. While over all a flowcrlcss winter dreams. How changed the scene from those of earlier days, When we twain held one common course and still One common thought pursued, and in the rays Of one condition walked for good or ill : Should'st thou return, it were as summer came With balmy freshness and his flowers, aflame. i«5 A LOST FRIEND Perplexity, distress, and sore dismay- Like warning Sybils, robed in sullen black, Come forth to mock me on the wonted track Where Love was singing erst his roundelay. They thrust on me their bitter company. Recalling blithesome hours that now I lack, Since June to March her days hath beaten back, Frosting her roses with a surly day. Yet Love must always leave his flowers exposed To chilling blight and treason's secret ill; It were not Love that kept his garden closed. And Brutus sometimes will his Caesar kill. Yet those black three still coming to my gate Scourge me with misery too inveterate. DESERTED Like one who on a lonely sea alone, Afar from land, far from befriending barks, Drifts on a broken spar, nor ever marks The sea-mew's cry, nor waves' incessant moan, So spent is he with misery ; no groan Escapes his lips, since slow forgetfulness Steals o'er his fading sense with dull distress ; But Death sits waiting for him as his own. So losing thee I drift on time's wide wave, Where neither sight nor sound concerns me more ; All rest of life I care not now to save. As chilled with grief thy blindness I deplore. Day follows day unchanged, while I abide As one half-dead, and wholly stupefied. i86 FRIENDS IN NEED Than friends earth breeds no choicer dear resource, But only to the point where we need get Assistance for sharp wants that us may fret ; Then friendship balks like a sleek, peevish horse, And being pricked will kick with sullen force ; A friend whom carking cares like flies beset Is easier borne than helped to pay a debt, So seldom will he be relieved, of course. Therefore should friendship lounge within the bars Beyond which ravin the snarling beasts of need. Nor let the wrangle of their hungry jars Be heard amid its voices; for indeed True friendship is a kid too delicate To gambol far outside its garden gate. DIES IR^ Beats angry fortune on my head her worst, Chills dearest friendships, plucks good wealth away. With pains stout heart and body doth dismay, And throttling cherished plans makes days accurst ; Now knowledge fails to comfort, — once my first; Love erewhile friendly finds her blue skies gray ; Hope hides in fear the splendor of his ray, And wine, jest, song all fail, — so cheery erst; Now what remains but death's release to sue, That sponges clean the slate of cares at eve, Erasing problems study failed to do. And granting long recess from tasks that grieve ? Save that of earthly woes death is the sum Whose full disaster strikes all others dumb ! 187 Life i8q SOCIETY A silken salon trimmed with lustres bright, Where men and women their rare best display, In costly garments tricked for charming sight, That every sense may swim in gayety. Shows sunny Nature from her nurse, old Care, Slipt off to play like any child for glee, And sip of love's elixir mid the flare Of jewels, glittering eyes and laughter free. 'T is the high orgy of thrice-gilded life. The flower-crowned feast of senses, feeling, thought, Whence all is banned that wears the scowl of strife, Where all is bidden of love and friendship wrought; Even science, letters, fames are second here Where only genial persons first appear. CONVERvSATION Not more the songs of birds, nor varied more Their plumes and stroke of flight across the sky, Than conversations are, that evermore Fly through the haunts of men a-low or high. Some like the condor soar above the sight, Some like the sea-mew dive beneath the deep, More round man's daily business have their flight And near life's common level fluttering keep. But low or high, each whirs its human way In love's delight or hatred's murky air; Its stir diversifies the busy day. And hurries progress on its course of care. The lightest-winged may chirp the sweetest lay And to the heart speak what hearts love to say. 191 WALT WHITMAN I I too, a man, sum up the ages past, In blood, flesh, soul, one outcome of the stress Of universal nature ; I at last. If small or large, if mean or grand, express The general whole; for me have cycles rowed Their skiffs across the darkling gulfs of time. Like cheerful boatmen easy with their load ; For me the stars their circuit kept in rhyme ; For me did nebula cohere to orb, And the slow strata build their mountain mass; For me did protoplasmic force absorb The mineral dust and grow to saurian crass. In the first nothing slept I all secure, Sure of my birthday as tiie stars were sure. II At last arrived I hail my manliood's play Of llesh with force, of sense witli beauty stung, Of heart that bounds towards each new comrade flung Across my patli to love me or betray; A harp Eolian where all winds foray Not more responsive sings to every breeze, Boreas or Zephyr, as the stray hours please. Than sings my nature to each changeful day. Wliat clashing tumults in my fortune meet! What pulses throb to love's divine caress! Wliat joyous muscle springs to motion fleet! Wliat eager brain doth eager thoughts possess! Heart's love I give, and find in many souls, Hands locked in hands we wend toward common goals. YOUTH AND ELD As May hath flowers and flush October fruit, So youth hath love, and age his wisdom tried ; Yet age in wisdom takes a lesser pride Than youth tloih eherish f