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NATURE 
 SONGS 
 
 By David Cl Nimmo 
 

 Copyrighted 1915 
 By David C Nimmo 
 
 CI.A410013 
 
 Times Printing Co., Detroit, Mien, 
 
 JUL 22 1915 
 
T^vrftxtt 
 
 N PUTTING forth a fifth book of verse that 
 cannot find a publisher, reader or a 
 friend, perhaps the plain, blunt truth 
 again is best. All the votes that really 
 count are adverse. It can't get across. 
 Perhaps it is not worth it. Perhaps it has performed 
 its highest service in giving the author mental occu- 
 pation at a time when most needed, but in a country 
 and nation that has none of the first class and very 
 little of second class poetry, it ought not to be so hard 
 to find a publisher and more important, a person 
 capable of judging who will even read. 
 
 This is the first classified collection of my songs. 
 They are a lyrical contribution to a subject that ought 
 to have a large and inspiring volume. It is surprising 
 that we have no great book of such a character. Why 
 has no genius been born and consecrated to this sub- 
 ject! The scattered fragments in the singers are mere- 
 ly incidents and illustrations. Byron, Wordsworth and 
 Shelley may give us an utterance here and there, but 
 we have no great songs on the sea, the mountains, the 
 plains, ithe forests, the sun, the moon and the midnight 
 heavens. The vast panorama of the seasons goes on 
 and yet we have no great lyrics on the passion of 
 spring, the ripeness of summer, the magnificence of 
 autumn and the polar virility of winter. In nature there 
 is a fountain of infinite song that ought to be more 
 and more delightful to men as they are being bound up 
 in a social organism that is unkind to all the pure 
 influences and inspirations of the first great mother. 
 These songs are just a little contribution in that direc- 
 tion and an invitation to the singer, the apostle and 
 prophet of nature to appear. 
 
 A great deal more in this book than the mere poetic 
 forms will instantly compel comparisons with the poet 
 Shelley It is the right place to acknowledge the re- 
 lationship which is none other than that of poetic 
 fatherhood. When attending McMaster University m 
 
Toronto my first real interest was aroused in lyrical 
 verse by our studies in Palgrave's "Golden Treasury of 
 Songs and Lyrics." In this book I was especially at- 
 tracted to Shelley and read, out of class, all the shorter 
 and most of his longer productions. My delight was so 
 great that on one occasion I skipped the mathematical 
 lectures and memorized the "Adonais." This was no 
 doubt a grave university sin but I have ever considered 
 it, apart from nature's endowment, as one of the best 
 inspirations of the spirit of poetry in me. With the 
 poems continually singing themselves in my ears and 
 the visions flashing across my eyes it is but natural 
 that both the inner spirit and the outer form should 
 take something from the soul that nursed them into 
 being and in some measure gave them their ideal. In 
 view of this I have sometimes thought to write a song 
 of appreciation as I have done for other persons in 
 "Civic Songs," but there are so many conscious and 
 unconscious evidences of my obligation that it seems 
 hardly necessary. 
 
 Some of these songs might be placed under another 
 head, but the imagery, viewpoint or book interest 
 justifies their appearance here. There is already 
 enough matter in print and some yet to come for a good 
 sized book of "Civic Songs." I trust I shall be permitted 
 to gather and correct the old and produce some better 
 new material in the near future for a book of "Soul 
 Songs." A later and smaller book, but perhaps more 
 appealing, would be "Home Songs." 
 
 It is not quite an inspiration to earn money with 
 the hands and then throw it away in producing books 
 that no one will read, but if the verse has any real 
 merit, and I still think it has, it ought to be done. 
 "They've all got through" and so shall I. 
 
 In sending forth these songs there is nothing asked 
 or expected but just a reading. Give them the reality 
 and brutality of nature. All must have their judgment 
 day and the sooner the better, but it is well to re- 
 member that in judging others we are writing the last 
 and final sentence on ourselves. D. C. N. 
 
 March 1st, 1915. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Nature's First Song 7 
 
 The Azure Dome • • 14 
 
 The Northern Lights 21 
 
 Passed But Never Passed 25 
 
 Sunrise • • 2G 
 
 A Dot ■■ 28 
 
 Night 28 
 
 Consider the Lilies 33 
 
 Song of the Green Tree 34 
 
 The Pansy • • • • 38 
 
 A Flower • • 42 
 
 The Sense of Morn 43 
 
 Sweet Peas 45 
 
 The Boy's World 46 
 
 The Constellations 47 
 
 The Echo • • 50 
 
 Down and Out 54 
 
 Spring 57 
 
 The Rose • • -61 
 
 The Dandelion • • 64 
 
 Among the Stars 68 
 
 Nature's Songs 74 
 
 Meteors and Stars 77 
 
 A Morning Song for Sense 79 
 
The Mocking Bird • • 80 
 
 When Shall My Soul-Summer Come? 85 
 
 To Astronomy 86 
 
 Detroit River • • 88 
 
 The Sphere Supreme 91 
 
 Nature's Peace 97 
 
 The Robin 98 
 
 A Saucer of Pansies • • 100 
 
 The Pioneer's Song 102 
 
 The Sky and Sea Line 103 
 
 Nature's Bouquet 104 
 
 The Autumn Wind 105 
 
 Summer • • 108 
 
 Spring Hymn • • 112 
 
 The Stream • • 113 
 
 The Bride of the Sun 115 
 
 Fire 119 
 
 Morning Song for Mind 122 
 
 Winter • -123 
 
 A Boy's Ride 127 
 
 Oh Golden Sun 129 
 
 To My Nature's Songs 137 
 
 
NATURE'S FIRST SONGS. 
 
 Upon a golden morn I wandered forth 
 With vital hope uplifting heart and brain. 
 Cold death had passed and springtime's glorious reign 
 Was come, with just a breath out of the north 
 To fan the earth from every influence swart h. 
 
 Great nature's heart did overflow 
 
 And with its white, contagious glow 
 Fed life's delight. A visionary train 
 
 Seemed ever breaking on my sight, 
 
 Just curtained by the splendors bright. 
 From all around, earth, wind and cloud and skies 
 With latest life of life my powers did energize. 
 
 Hark! Hark! The sound of music struck my ears, 
 And music great at such an hour is fire 
 That feeds the soul and doth divine inspire 
 As mortals make victorious o'er the years. 
 I turned and listened. They were my kindred peers, 
 
 Twin hierarchic souls, a band 
 
 Of sound creating sprites, as grand 
 A concourse as musician could desire 
 
 Advanced and pouring into time 
 
 Some echoes from the world of chime. 
 They were marching and playing down the street 
 And the city's mighty heart in union with them beat. 
 
 And then, a vision swept across my brain; 
 A sudden flood burst up within my heart 
 As fountains from the ocean deep will start. 
 The whole world disappeared as a vain 
 And phantom presence. Instead another strain 
 
 Of music with its vital spell 
 
 Upon my heart with magic fell; 
 Another band and instruments and art 
 
 Began a new, unusual sound 
 
 Whose nature instant spirit found 
 And took me in captivity. My eyes and ears 
 Went traveling with that train that traveled down the years 
 
 The musicians were enfolded in a cloud 
 Of darkness with something like a formless form, 
 Like something at a distance through a storm 
 That beats a blindness. Wrapped in a windy shroud 
 
Each individuality did crowd 
 
 Into another's on the visions. 
 
 Titanic shadows, dark derisions 
 And columned fragments of the glorious norm 
 
 Of man were they; forces new bound 
 
 By flesh and blood, intense, profound 
 And massive spirits, travailing in distress, 
 Beating their battling way through storms that round them press. 
 
 Hugest incarnations of nature's force, 
 Distortions and vast monstrosities of men 
 Those first musicians were that did unpen 
 The world's first songs from their chaotic source. 
 Their only instruments were trumpets hoarse — 
 Huge, massive drums and hammers great 
 That could the deep reverberate- 
 Deep battered cymbals — voices and lungs of ten- 
 Fold strength, and the great basal tones 
 That nature to the giant loans; 
 The first band organized to march and sing 
 In that first chaos world, themselves a chaos thing. 
 
 They played. I heard the sound, the vast, voluminous sound 
 Of the original, disorganized 
 And heterogeneous elements that comprised 
 The yet unfashioned worlds. Above, around, 
 And far beyond unto the boundless bound 
 
 Of chaos was the mighty discord 
 
 Of those titanic forces poured 
 In space and time and infinite energized; 
 
 Solar attractions and repulsions, 
 
 System-making mad convulsions; 
 Explosions great that tore with rending sound 
 As earthquakes sudden tear the kingdoms underground. 
 
 Then was the fierce and blind and stark contensions 
 Of nature and her powers all inorganic. 
 Her lightning and omnipotent dynamic 
 Tore swift the forms an unseen hid invention 
 Forever made to bind the mad dissension. 
 
 The strife of those resistless powers 
 
 In ante-geologic hours 
 Seemed centered at all base and forms mechanic. 
 
 Earth's cosmic passion, solar white 
 
 Rebelled in sheer resistless might 
 Till oft it seemed a million asteroid 
 Would chart the planets' paths around the darkened void. 
 
 That mighty strife was by itself abhorred 
 And fled through dark, illimitable night 
 
Like some most monstrous dragon. Driven by fright- 
 Ful terror or unpastured for some stored 
 Supply it went blindly bellowing forward. 
 
 Like young volcanoes' roars of thunder 
 
 Itself and all it tore asunder. 
 Reverberating with expansive might 
 
 It echoed on from cloud to cloud, 
 
 Till the world-soul within her shroud 
 So dead from long eternal slumbers rose, 
 Was tortured, twisted, torn and fled with groans and woes. 
 
 That cataclysmic and anarchic noise 
 Of the travailing soul of chaos appalled 
 Creation's hope. The very chaos it enthralled 
 To worse of its own measure and destroys 
 The germs of life that might rise out of poise. 
 The chaos of the universe 
 Did ever new destruction nurse 
 And forming worlds against each other called. 
 The vast explosions of that force 
 The planets tore. In another course 
 The worlds did round their lawless orbits dash 
 Or later did unite with another thundering crash. 
 
 r 
 
 Music discordant, yet massive and sublime 
 From nature's mighty and colossal powers 
 Burst from the fierce antagonism that devours 
 All others. The four elements that rhyme 
 The system's first creations many a time 
 
 Rent from the earth gigantic groans 
 
 When fiery seas dug out the bones 
 Of solid forming earth. The arching bowers 
 
 Around the globe were sounding boards 
 
 For the all dismembering discords 
 And they threw back the elemental sound, 
 Prolonging the great rhymes with which young worlds abound. 
 
 Continued storms and tropic earthquake thunder 
 Shook the slow foundation. The first high height 
 Of ranges fell. Continents were torn right 
 From continents. The poles were rent asunder, 
 And first formations plowed in anger under. 
 
 From ocean beds to mountain peaks 
 
 The lightnings flash and thunder speaks 
 Till pillared heaven seems trembling with affright. 
 
 The earth like a great drunken thing 
 
 No builder to his dream could bring. 
 Staggers on through the dark chaotic storm 
 That slowly moulds the ma,ss to some far undreamed form. 
 
 9 
 
From those long, long contentions sprang the laws 
 Of mighty nature, the first low forms of life, 
 Later ponderous monstrosities of strife 
 And all the breeds whose lack of solemn awes 
 The hungry deep into her bosom draws. 
 
 Through all the changes of the fJood 
 
 The lower dynasties of blood 
 Reigned o'er the scene as astronomic ages rite 
 
 Passed slowly by. Cosmology, 
 
 World creations, biology, 
 World populations, through long eonic times 
 With mighty storms and change rang out the ancient rhymes. 
 
 So reigned for long the dark, primeval strife; 
 So groaned and groaned the fundamental base 
 Ere the giant elements could find their place 
 And support the everlasting song of life. 
 Rich potentialities most rife 
 
 Were in the biologic forms 
 
 And slowly rose above the storms, 
 Hinting the dreams that might creation grace. 
 
 Whenever time struck off an eon 
 
 There sounded forth a strain of paeon, 
 A note of prophecy, a promise high, 
 Of heaven climbing song that dawn was drawing nigh. 
 
 Sudden another sight and sound appears; 
 The musicians marched into the golden light 
 Like visitors descending from the height 
 And clothed with hope instead of stormy fears. 
 They were immortals, princes from the highest spheres 
 
 Of vision, young, fresh and strong 
 
 As morning undefiled w r ith wrong. 
 They came upon my long oppressive sight 
 
 As virtues, hopes and joys and dreams 
 
 On whom the morning splendor beams; 
 They came as from high heaven's lofty station 
 To hail the glorious dawn of rational creation. 
 
 Their instruments were like themselves divine; 
 There were basses, cornets, trumpets and trombones, 
 Cymbals and. drums, clear clarion megaphones 
 And stranger forms which their invention fine 
 Formed to express the passions' lyric wine. 
 
 Some were encased in cumbrous coils 
 
 Of strange contortions, others were foils 
 For straighter tubes, but all of magic tones. 
 
 These were long, single, tapering horns; 
 
 Those a branching octave form adorns; 
 
 10 
 
The musicians and their instruments were bright, 
 In snowy whiteness robed or splendor dazzling light. 
 
 Nor was the hope and promise disappointed; 
 The band had scarcely marched into my eyes 
 Before I heard a cosmic theme arise 
 And such a sound the instruments anointed 
 The present from the past was clean disjointed. 
 
 The song of chaos passed away 
 
 And notes of high prophetic lay 
 Upon me burst and did re-energize, 
 
 Forgot the players as the play 
 
 Came on my soul with mighty sway, 
 Scenes and songs of the cosmic evolutions, 
 Order, brightness and strength of nature's institutions. 
 
 It was the dawn, the promised, golden dawn; 
 The promise bound in that chaotic night 
 Burst on the hour and from the cloudy height 
 The night and strife were suddenly withdrawn 
 And all the hosts of their reptilian spawn. 
 
 Morning dawned and a fresh, green earth 
 
 Slept underneath her smile of mirth 
 And dreamed of life and progress and delight. 
 
 The ocean deep around her feet 
 
 Did glisten and its rythmic beat 
 Was to her frame a soft and summer bath 
 And life unto her heart after the tempest's wrath. 
 
 What majesty and splendor did bedight 
 Those morning skies when golden radiations 
 Leaped from the sun and lightning emanations 
 Passed to and fro with infinite delight 
 And life to all creation. Oh what a sight! 
 
 Oh what a most majestic march 
 
 The morn makes through the azure arch 
 And publishes these glorious new creations! 
 
 Day and night made processional pomp 
 
 And the inexperienced seasons romp 
 And wanton in youth's luxurious dream, 
 Glowing with boundless life that in their fountains teem. 
 
 A polyphonic and most triumphant measure 
 Upon that morn burst from the wide creation 
 When harmony and shining transformation 
 From chaos rose. World-spirits filled with pleasure 
 Did contemplate and listened at their leisure. 
 
 The morning sun in splendor bright, 
 
 The constellations of the night, 
 The fields and floods and mounts in jubilation 
 
 11 
 
Shouted their inconceivable joy 
 And in the service of employ- 
 Filled out a bar of the vast eonic sound 
 That from the climbing universe upon that morn did bound. 
 
 It planted soul beneath the dome of night 
 To watch the splendors that forever shine, 
 And harken to the mighty song divine 
 That rolls sublime on the established height 
 Of wisdom, glory, solemnity and might. 
 
 Oh what an inconceivable song 
 
 Preserveth all those worlds from wrong 
 And marches on to match some vast design! 
 
 Oh hark! Oh hark! Upon the ears 
 
 Some echo from those sceptered spheres 
 
 With power and passion and delight now break 
 
 And all the new-born earth with gratulations shake. 
 
 It planted soul before the dawning morn 
 To hear the song that ushers in the light, 
 The song the sun lifts from the starry night, 
 Exalting with his strength and bright adorn 
 The great creation that new each day is born. 
 
 Oh what a hymn strong and sublime 
 
 Rolls down the corridors of time 
 And climbs the steep as morn climbs up the height! 
 
 It carries up the universe 
 
 In mighty march and does unpurse 
 The promises and prophet inspirations 
 Of something more divine to crown these sense creations. 
 
 Then came man, creation's final crown, 
 An image of the Life and Light eternal, 
 Eclipsing for a time day and night's supernal 
 Splendors. Nobility was like a gown 
 Of majesty upon him flowing down. 
 
 Thought, virtue, strength and reverence 
 
 Look up the lofty eminence 
 And heaven looked down with passion most paternal. 
 
 A transcendental, rich creation 
 
 To crown the world's divinest station; 
 The rational, the Infinite had nursed 
 And bringing him to birth all riches in him pursed. 
 
 His form was in creation's highest mould, 
 Nature's design, her masterpiece and cast, 
 And its full lines forever far surpassed 
 The noblest dreams that poets ever told. 
 But, Oh the soul, the soul that it did hold 
 Was heaven's breath, her best desire, 
 
 12 
 
God's own, immortal flames of fire 
 Out of his breast which parenthood unclasped! 
 
 Man's powers did dominate the earth; 
 
 His strength was like her ribs of mirth; 
 His spirit soared beyond the azure skies, 
 To highest ends impelled for their immortal rise. 
 
 When that imperial, heaven-erected form 
 Came on the scene the splendors of his face 
 That unseen worlds of virtue seemed to grace 
 Aroused the world-soul, and nature felt a warm 
 Delight that did communicate a storm 
 
 Of universal gratulation. 
 
 Her members with intoxication, 
 With all their strength, each in his gift and place, 
 
 With their unconscious, deep devotion, 
 
 Air, beast and bird, forest and ocean, 
 Beholding thus the world's prophetic sire 
 Calm walking in the light burst out in sevenfold choir. 
 
 How could the praise but take another flight 
 When it beheld the crown upon the years! 
 The world and what the evolution rears 
 Is but the base for that immortal right 
 Supreme in man and destined for the height; 
 
 So nature's vast eonic sound 
 
 Rose up as with an eagle's bound 
 She never knew when moulding out the spheres. 
 
 The past was but the opening prelude 
 
 To usher in the more subdued, 
 Intensified and complicated strain 
 That echoes from the worlds where the ideals reign. 
 
 The band was clothed in raiment spotless white 
 And marched as with the marches of the sun. 
 All earth-born souls unto their ranks were won 
 And joined the bright procession on the height 
 That skirted paradise. In sounding their delight 
 It. seemed that Life and all her powers 
 Were crowning man's prophetic hours 
 With measures of victorious exultation. 
 The strains of that prophetic band 
 Were led by Hope in full command. 
 The rational the future did invite, 
 Nature divine did hear and with them did unite. 
 
 The musicians rose with Hope to full command. 
 The great eternal hopes at reason's birth 
 Descended from their stations; with drunken mirth 
 Drank in the strain and fell before the band 
 
 13 
 
That heaven filled so bright and glorious spanned, 
 
 Ideals, visions, joys and hopes 
 
 On either side did crown the slopes 
 And wept and laughed as this old mother earth 
 
 With passion swept the wide extremes 
 
 Of this the dream of all her dreams. 
 They played the song of rational creation 
 And Life and all her dreams did crown each golden station. 
 
 Oh it was music, glorious, glorious music! 
 Earth's bosom swelled with rapt, divinest passions 
 Her frame was clothed in rainbow beauty fashions 
 And every life unto the impulse quick 
 Did march and sing, did make and drank prophetic 
 Measures of most immortal strain 
 That fell upon the heart and brain 
 As if they were the spirit's highest rations. 
 
 It spread and climbed, it soared and soared, 
 Till Life was bent, admired, adored, 
 And in the center of the glorious sound 
 Was silence most divine, an awe the most profound. 
 
 — From "The Band March." 
 
 THE AZURE DOME. 
 
 Oh the azure dome! Oh the azure dome! 
 
 My first and my last and my noblest home! 
 The home of my spirit's immortal birth 
 
 Far above the strife and the stain of earth. 
 
 Around me it lays like a world of dream 
 And its vital powers ever on me stream 
 
 To waken the thought and the sense divine 
 That will beauty see and with it entwine. 
 
 Through my meteor years it has stretched to view 
 A vision as great as the soul when true. 
 
 Its fulness and all on the eyes have grown 
 As my nature has with the strife and moan. 
 
 The blue of the birds, the flowers and the sea, 
 The mountain jewels, or whatever may be 
 
 By the art of man or his wisdom dyed 
 
 Are buried in shame in their hour of pride. 
 
 Unfocus the light! Could a rainbow tint 
 
 Such a shade on the curtains of noonday print? 
 
 14 
 
Or prism divide a serener blue 
 
 From the hidden heart of the white so true? 
 
 Oh summon the dreams, all the dreams of delight 
 From the height of day and the depth of night! 
 
 Could the mingled light of a magic dream 
 Throw a rival hue from the weaver's beam? 
 
 Could the poet soul with the eye divine 
 
 That can brighter see than the lights that shine, 
 
 From the worlds of his love and joy and hope 
 Bring a beam like that on the morning slope? 
 
 All of earth and art and dream were a patch, 
 As a ragged cloud on that breast would match. 
 
 And though blending near to the matchless blue 
 Oh what is a scrap to the deeps we view! 
 
 What a glorious deep of impassioned sky! 
 
 Now the heart leaps up with a joyful cry; 
 Should we pause and look on a May time morn 
 
 What a life and love and a dream are born? 
 
 What a life and love when the springtime breath 
 Have the blossoms kissed from their graves of death! 
 
 And the rain-washed sky doth embosom the earth 
 As a mother does her beloved birth. 
 
 Though the waves are bright and the grass is green, 
 More vital than ever the eyes have seen, 
 
 All the dreamlike earth though we feel it nigh 
 Is lost to the heart when we look on high. 
 
 What a rest and peace when the summer heat 
 
 Has pulsed the air to a quivering beat! 
 And motionless, silent, serene and deep 
 
 Are the infinite calms that are there asleep. 
 
 Not a fleecy cloud in the hemisphere; 
 
 Not a phantom, shadow or nameless fear; 
 Not a sign of storm or a sound profane 
 
 On that windless, tideless and landless main. 
 
 What a pride and power when the autumn's wealth 
 Into all forms press with perfection's health! 
 
 And around the ripened and rainbow globe 
 Is the azure deep as a royal robe. 
 
 15 
 
A majesty, splendor, pomp and repose 
 On the atmosphere and horizon glows: 
 
 As a dream they move all in stately march 
 
 To the land of dreams through the purple arch. 
 
 What a hope and joy on a winter day 
 
 When a month of clouds has been blown away! 
 
 And the sky though pale from the icy air 
 We hail with delight as a vision rare. 
 
 Though the dark storm clouds and the sworded ice 
 Blast all our dreams of an earth paradise, 
 
 Despite of the frost they float on our eyes 
 Through the opening rifts of the azure skies. 
 
 When the morning sun from the deep of night 
 With his front and eyes of effulgent light, 
 
 First rose to the earth for his daily race 
 He smiled to behold such a matchless grace. 
 
 When the noonday sun first became a king 
 And created things did beneath him swing, 
 
 He enrobed his breast with the morning blue 
 Though he first baptized to a deeper hue. 
 
 When the evening sun first descended deep 
 
 That the day, the earth and her babes might sleep, 
 
 'Twas the robe of noon but with stars divine 
 He spread on the pain of their aching eyne. 
 
 When the midnight sun doth his circles fill 
 And leaves us to night and the nurse's skill, 
 
 He inspires the dreams of the golden skies 
 And with azure hope fills our wak'ing eyes. 
 
 The sun-born daughters with their rainbow dress, 
 Their splendor, their motions and joyousness, 
 
 How they rise from earth and to heaven cling 
 Or sail on the blue with an eagle wing! 
 
 What a home so fit for their spirits free 
 As the deepless deeps of the sky and sea? 
 
 Is the blue more soft than the fleecy dress 
 Which their golden sire does upon them bless? 
 
 What a stainless course and how free from noise! 
 
 What a changing form and a bird-like poise! 
 Though they need it not they forever rest 
 
 As they rise and fall on that passioned breast. 
 
 16 
 
How they rise and fall, how they come and go 
 In the azure fields like the isles of snow! 
 
 All earth's flowing streams with delightful eyes 
 Watch the sun and clouds in the azure skies. 
 
 That divinest dome and her infinite deep, 
 
 That heightless height and her boundless sweep, 
 That nature of passion and purity 
 Is a royal nurse of the best we be. 
 
 The immortal soul with the sense divine 
 
 That is drugged to sleep with this earthly wine 
 
 Of the sorrow, sin and the selfish greed 
 
 That each to himself and to others feed, 
 
 Awakes with joy and supreme delight 
 Prom the trances deep of this awful night 
 
 And enraptured looks with a vast surprise 
 At the beauty throned on the azure skies. 
 
 Her hue and her height, and breadth and length, 
 Her victory, splendor and royal strength, 
 
 Feeds into the soul the immortal sense 
 
 Till the heart and mind light tne countenance. 
 
 With the glowing heats of a spirit's flame 
 She aspires to rise with celestial aim 
 
 So she soars on high with majestic sweep 
 To the native spheres that her virtues keep. 
 
 Those celestial spirits of purity 
 
 Are the vital draughts of futurity; 
 And when drinking there we forever soar 
 
 With eternal life though we pant for more. 
 
 When we live on high, when we drink that life, 
 How our fountains flow; and our fancies rife 
 
 Are full as the heart of poetic thought 
 
 And leaps from the lips of the least untaught. 
 
 There all that we see and can think or find 
 Feed a raptured joy to the heart and mind 
 
 As we sail and soar through the azure skies 
 And forget the earth that beneath us lies. 
 
 What eons as waves have beneath thee rolled 
 The mountains, the seas or the stars ne'er told, 
 
 For before their birth was spread thy adorn 
 As a mother's love round the babe unborn. 
 
 17 
 
What a fresh young life and a new born grace 
 Is mirrored to earth in thy cloudless face! 
 
 Old, old as thou art, thou art ever new 
 
 When we lift our hearts for another view. 
 
 What a granite strength like the strength of truth 
 When young with the life and the hope of youth! 
 
 Though the mountain range long the storms defy 
 It is whirlwind dust to the girdled sky. 
 
 What an unrobed nature of purity, 
 
 Too pure for the eyes of the most to see, 
 
 Doth circle us round and on conscience streams 
 Both a silence deep and most solemn dreams! 
 
 What a changeless love round a world of stain, 
 Where the moral hopes in their birth are slain! 
 
 Over human sin thus so crimson crowned 
 It has never darkened or wrinkling frowned. 
 
 What a nature pure and what matchless grace 
 Is around his breast and upon his face 
 
 And is opened here unto mortal eyes 
 
 In the solemn deeps of the azure skies! 
 
 Oh what and where is the mortal hour 
 
 With its boast and pride and its works of power, 
 
 When the solemn sight of the azure sky 
 Doth attract the flesh and the spirit's eye! 
 
 Oh what is the strife and the greed of gain 
 With its Cain-like brow of a brother slain, 
 
 When we look aloft at the solemn sight 
 And silent stand in her floods of light! 
 
 Oh what is time and her fevered dream 
 Of the mighty hosts that forever stream 
 
 When we pause and gaze wth prophetic look 
 At the symbols spread on that opened book! 
 
 Oh men of the city whose skiey strips 
 
 The crowd and the noise and the smoke eclipse, 
 With eclipse so dark that the heart and eye 
 
 Is blind to the earth and the powers on high: 
 
 In thy day of strength and the greed of gain, 
 In the hour of grief and of loss and pain, 
 
 Go up to the towers and just take a view 
 Of the hemisphere and the boundless blue. 
 
 18 
 
Does the breath of spring and the dew of youth, 
 The rapture of hope and the strength of truth 
 
 Seem forever fled? Oh the Spirit there 
 
 But waits with his gifts for the look of prayer! 
 
 Is day as the night and night as the,.; deep 
 When chaotic storms en her bosom leap? 
 
 The night shall be day and day be as bright 
 As the heavens above and her seas of light. 
 
 Has death in his arms bore thy love away 
 And left thee alone to the beasts of prey? 
 
 There is peace and calm and a higher love 
 To fall in thy heart from the skies above. 
 
 Does the mighty strife of eternal greed 
 
 A revulsion vast to thy being feed? 
 The sun and the skies will forever give 
 
 And who takes their life will revive and live. 
 
 Whatever the sorrows that make thee lean 
 Go forth and stand where the skies are seen; 
 
 Just stand and behold and the azure towers 
 Shall lift thy heart with divinest powers. 
 
 For the spirit's home is the azure dome 
 
 Where e'er in the deserts of earth he roam, 
 
 As the gardened bowers and their perfumed flowers 
 Is the home of birds and the summer hours. 
 
 As the bridal isles and their golden smiles 
 Is the lovers' home and their heart beguiles, 
 
 So the sky above and her purity 
 
 Is the home of love and her spirits free. 
 
 'Tis the home of all, but the poet heart 
 There finds himself and the noblest art; 
 
 For the art and the artist are undivine 
 
 Till they lose themselves and in others shine. 
 
 Oh poetic soul of celestial birth! 
 
 There is naught for thee in the greed of earth, 
 But the earth herself which her sons despise 
 
 And the heavens above and her azure skies. 
 
 There the atmosphere can so vitalize, 
 
 That the heart and mind with a vast surprise 
 
 Will behold with awe yet delirious mirth 
 The natures divine of prophetic birth. 
 
 19 
 
For the worlds that swim in that azure dome 
 Mock Egypt, Assyria, Greece and Rome; 
 
 This was only made for an infant's time, 
 But those to the scale of a manhood's prime. 
 
 The beauty there that we worship must 
 Of the rainbow cloud and the starry dust, 
 
 Of the golden suns and the moons of light 
 Will enrobe thy song in their beauty bright. 
 
 And the music there of the crystal spheres 
 That is only heard by immortal peers 
 
 Will around thee ring, and inspire thy verse 
 With harmonies based on the awful curse. 
 
 Those impassioned powers oft will palpitate 
 Rich into thy heart the ecstatic state 
 
 That forms the divine to forever stay 
 
 When the phantom man and his works decay. 
 
 Then Oh for- the plain and the hemisphere 
 Where the earth is bare and the heavens clear, 
 
 With naught on the heart to obscure the view 
 Of pavilioning, deep and redeeming blue! 
 
 And Oh for the summit of mountain height 
 Where the soul is bathed in the liquid light, 
 
 And the visions and pleasures and powers intense 
 Are felt in the tissues of mortal sense! 
 
 And Oh for the days of aerial skill 
 
 When his cloud-like car he can mount at will, 
 And at morning, noon and at twilight dim 
 
 In that ocean deep will delight to swim! 
 
 And Oh for the days when this mortal chain 
 By a mighty hand will be rent in twain, 
 
 And my spirit free as the eagles are 
 
 Shall drink from the noon and the midnight star! 
 
 And Oh for eternity's lightning wings 
 When the spirit soars and forever sings! 
 
 Oh forever soars with eternal rise 
 In the life and the love of the azure skies! 
 
 20 
 
THE NORTHERN LIGHTS. 
 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 
 Spirits pure and bright! 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 Round a court of light, 
 A host of spirits blest and fairy-like to sight. 
 
 Where are these dancers gay? 
 
 Where is this court you spy? 
 This spirit, elf and fay 
 
 That on your vision fly, 
 And raise out of your heart this glad ecstatic cry? 
 
 Where? Yonder where from olden, 
 Time built old winter's throne ; 
 
 Where summer summer golden 
 Is never never known, 
 But Iceland's ancient king rules all the polar zone? 
 
 Yonder where night's curtain 
 The storms in anger blow; 
 Where never is uncertain 
 Vast field of ice and snow, 
 And clear and frosty nights and furry Eskimo. 
 
 Yonder where the mountains 
 
 Pure ices diadem; 
 Where the crystal fountains 
 Mount geyser-like to them; 
 And where the glacier flows and icebergs ocean gem. 
 
 Yonder on the summit 
 
 Around the polar star; 
 Climbing up the plummet 
 And coming from afar, 
 See, see the dancers come in reindeer driven car! 
 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 
 Fairy, elf and sprite! 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 Phantoms of delight! 
 Nature's dreams from far in poet robes bedight. 
 
 These in white enrobe, 
 
 As if floretted snow 
 Prom yon pure silver globe 
 Around their forms did blow, 
 To rival and to shame all gowns others bestow. 
 
 21 
 
These in blue are clad, 
 
 As if the azure deep 
 A portion of his plaid 
 
 Had cast round them to keep, 
 To be in royal style at that ecstatic leap. 
 
 That in green is dressed, 
 
 As if the flowers and grass 
 Nature wove and pressed 
 
 And gave to some sweet lass, 
 And laughed unto herself that she would all surpass. 
 
 That in red is tinged, 
 
 As if the setting sun 
 A straying fleece had singed 
 
 And sent it on the run 
 To fashion's famous ball and dared to be outdone. 
 
 Here comes the poet's sons, 
 
 Clad in robes divine; 
 The royal purple ones 
 
 He sent to lead the line 
 And knew within himself that none would them outshine. 
 
 Here comes the maiden's race, 
 
 Dreams from her heart and mind; 
 Oh the pansy pansy grace 
 
 That round them has been twined, 
 And brighter beauties still upon their faces kind! 
 
 Others rainbow tinted, 
 
 As stalactites of ice 
 The liquid waters printed 
 
 With their prismic device 
 And gave a magic robe a joy could never price. 
 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 
 What a mazy flight! 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 On our mortal sight 
 Every motion, style and grace dream ever dreamed at 
 
 [night. 
 Forward with a bound; 
 
 Backward with a glide; 
 Then turning round and round 
 Till the head does dizzy ride; 
 Then promenading up, and in from side to side. 
 
 22 
 
Now hand in hand they go; 
 
 Now swinging left and right; 
 Now up the center so; 
 
 Now spinning swift as sight; 
 Oh it is a mazy crowd and drunken with delight! 
 
 Fantastic, straight and fair, 
 
 Sudden, now and then, 
 Yonder, here and there, 
 Unseen and in our ken; 
 Mocking us and all our what and why and wher 
 
 Rising high and oft, 
 
 Frosty, straight and strong, 
 Sinking, silent, soft, 
 Narrow, thin and long, 
 And if our sense could hear, Oh singing what a song 
 
 Moving, quick and mad, 
 
 Crystal, pure and clear, 
 Conical and glad, 
 
 Enthroned and far and near, 
 Celestial and divine as heing can appear. 
 
 Oh round and round and round 
 
 Like figures in a dream 
 These poet spirits bound 
 To music like a stream 
 That bursts within the heart with overflowing teem 
 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 
 Souls of electric light. 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 Essential natures bright! 
 Bodiless and beautiful as ever met the sight. 
 
 How we sluggish mortals 
 
 Wonder and admire 
 When these kingdom portals 
 
 Are opened, and its fire 
 Is flashed upon our sight with dreams of something higher! 
 
 How earth and sea and sky 
 
 Are lifted with delight 
 When yonder there on high 
 
 They rise upon the sight; 
 And draw all nature up as moons the ocean bright! 
 
 How the stars that sprinkle 
 All the dome of space, 
 
 23 
 
Twinkle, brighter twinkle 
 In their nocturnal race, 
 When beauties so divine are circling in their grace! 
 
 How youth and maid on pinions 
 
 Here hasten with entrance! 
 Flaming sword dominions 
 Nor hinder their advance; 
 Welcome, welcome, welcome youth! Come! Mingle in the 
 
 dance. 
 How the poet's pleasure 
 
 Is passing into pain! 
 His joys like their own measure 
 Is swelling every vein, 
 Inspiring fancy's fairy forms around his heart and brain. 
 
 How, how his very dreams 
 
 Grow passionate and faint! 
 Grow thirsty for new streams 
 To drink away complaint 
 Which these on high inspire and perfect blessing taint! 
 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 
 With the vision caught; 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 Till we are lost in thought, 
 In brighter dreams divine and higher wisdom taught. 
 
 What revelry and sports 
 
 Upon that mountain height! 
 What carnival that courts 
 Such spirits of delight! 
 Oh what ecstatic bliss of touch and sound and sight! 
 
 That scene it is the joy 
 
 That filleth nature's heart; 
 The height of her employ 
 
 Is without a price to bart 
 Her happiness of life to all that of her art. 
 
 "What divinest glory 
 
 Before the eye has sailed? 
 What harmony or story 
 Or prophecy been hailed? 
 What life and love and light and truth have been unveiled? 
 
 That beauty does entrance, 
 
 That love their hearts inflame, 
 
 That song impel to dance, 
 That hope and starry fame, 
 Which we have seldom felt and never think or claim. 
 
 24 
 
Where the souls are purest 
 
 They dwell above the spheres; 
 There freedom is securest, 
 And life exempt from fears, 
 And joy contagious, quick and sweet as that which here 
 
 [appears. 
 Where a love is living 
 
 'Tis full and sweet and pure; 
 Rejoicing in its giving 
 And thus is most secure; 
 The heart that gives its all and self forever shall endure. 
 
 Where the life is deepest 
 
 Is mountings oft and high; 
 And as it upward leapest 
 With joy's ecstatic cry 
 It finds and lives within the life that fills the azure sky. 
 
 Where the light is brightest 
 Appears the most divine; 
 Wherever beauty lightest 
 It is a rainbow sign, 
 That God is seeking thus to draw thy heart with his to 
 
 [twine 
 Dancing! Dancing! Dancing! 
 Through the live-long night. 
 Entrancing! Oh entrancing 
 With magic magic might; 
 For mortal and immortal are the dreams of love and light ! 
 
 PASSED BUT NEVER PASSED. 
 
 A maiden and her flower 
 With rainbow beauty bright 
 
 Just passed me and an hour 
 Was filled with pure delight. 
 
 Quick, quick they passed away. 
 
 Oh never, never more 
 Shall their beauty on me play 
 
 Along this mortal shore! 
 
 
 But the maiden and her flower 
 Forever more will gleam 
 
 In every rainbow bower 
 I ever see or dream. 
 
 25 
 
SUNRISE. 
 
 Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
 When the heavens and earth are in beauty born; 
 Are in beauty born with creations new 
 On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 
 
 First the king of kings through the mighty deeps 
 That the worlds, the dreams and all silence keeps, 
 Flings a shaft of light through the fading stars 
 Ere the early hour swings the portal bars. 
 
 "With a tinge of gray he doth gently rise 
 Lest he blind the earth and her mortal eyes; 
 But it gently lights and both wide and high 
 As his fiery steeds and his car draws night. 
 
 The phantoms, the fears and the foes of night, 
 Each is stricken through with a lance of light; 
 They fly to their hope in the distant west 
 And bury themselves in their mother's breast. 
 
 Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings! 
 His glory around the horizon flings; 
 Oh the promise bright that is bursting forth 
 To the heights above and the south and north! 
 
 A promise of splendid effulgence bright, 
 
 Of softest, celestial and saving light 
 
 On the heavens above and the earth doth break 
 
 Till her children out of their slumbers wake. 
 
 See the mountain peaks! There earth spirits first 
 Awake as the lights of the morning burst. 
 Oh the granite souls in their robes of snow 
 Are awakened now and with beauty glow! 
 
 Far along the range to their brother peaks, 
 What a smile each throws and in silence speaks! 
 What celestial peace and majestic power 
 Does the morning give in her op'ning hour! 
 
 See the sea-born souls of the ocean deep 
 Arise from the dreams of their starry sleep! 
 On the ocean's breast how they watch the plays 
 Of the white, red, purple and golden blaze! 
 
 On that trembling breast is a pavement glass 
 Where processional troops in their pomp might pass; 
 Oh the ocean souls from their rest below 
 Do they travel there on that burnished glow? 
 
 26 
 
Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings 
 Of lig'ht and of life and of all great things, 
 In the ocean salt he doth first baptize 
 And out of the waves with reviving rise. 
 
 His rainbow robes he doth fling aside 
 And leaves them below on the waves to ride. 
 With majestic power he looks to the height 
 An ascent most sheer of the bluest light. 
 
 See the lower souls of the mother earth 
 With the morning wake to a higher birth! 
 They from trance awake with a vast surprise 
 As the morning dawns on their op'ning eyes. 
 
 By the lake and stream, by the forest green, 
 By the mount and vale are her spirits seen; 
 They people the plains to the billowy beach 
 And to morning turn with a vast outreach. 
 
 The beasts of the field all rise to the morn 
 
 And renew the strength which the night had shorn. 
 
 The birds in a song of enraptured praise 
 
 Fill the earth and sky with their lyric lays. 
 
 This immortal race that doth crown the earth 
 Are again renewed in divinest birth, 
 Are climbing the hills to the golden east 
 And their being, purpose and passion feast. 
 
 Now the king of kings, Oh the king of kings! 
 Cloud, curtain and mist from his being flings; 
 An infinite soul with infinite streams 
 Of infinite life with infinite dreams. 
 
 Far up to the height and round to the west, 
 What radiant floods from his burning breast! 
 All space and the gulfs now are filled with light 
 And the planet souls are enrobed with might. 
 
 What sublimest splendors are now unfurled 
 
 On the eyes, the breast and the heart of the world! 
 
 What glorious, effulgent and blinding blaze 
 
 Like an infinite million of lightning rays. 
 
 Now the great world-soul feels new passions rise 
 In her bones and blood, in her breast and eyes. 
 Sky, mountain and treen, sea, city and plain 
 Are swept in the sweep of a choral strain. 
 
 27 
 
Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
 When the heavens and earth are in beauty born; 
 Are in beauty born with creations new 
 On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 
 
 A DOT 
 
 How great to man is man; 
 
 In nature's vast design 
 The worlds and all we scan 
 
 Just punctuates a line. 
 
 NIGHT. 
 
 Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
 Presence divine! Nature of softest power! 
 Being benign above what noonday's height 
 In any dream conceives! Spirit with endower 
 Of infinite benevolence on our 
 Darkened, doubtful immortality! 
 Oh soul of vast and altitudinal tower- 
 ing majesty in the wide portality 
 Of heaven 'neath thy resplendent bower 
 Thou seemest like a living personality, 
 Present, near and pure and kind to this mortality. 
 
 How could the weary disappointed earth 
 Refuse to rest beneath thy blessed feet 
 When she herself and all she brings to birth 
 Has been but fuel or demon-rended meat? 
 On her hot heart and pulses' burning heat 
 Thy hand is placed, and potent spells doth cease 
 The torrid storms that through her members beat. 
 Oh what a calm! Oh what a wonderous peace! 
 Oh what divine tranquilities replete 
 With heaven's gift! Oh what a rich release 
 Upon the weary world with every day's decease! 
 
 Nature is like a wearied child the nurse 
 Cast into slumber. She lies down to rest 
 Unmindful of her ancient ancient curse. 
 The azure sky is of its power undressed; 
 The mountains high diminish on earth's breast; 
 The boundless plains unconscious lie asleep; 
 And the mighty sea forever in unrest 
 Doth rock the earth like a cradle on the deep. 
 Earth, sea and sky, bird, beast and all are blest 
 As they decline into thy sacred keep. 
 Oh what a wonderous sense around the world doth creep! 
 
 28 
 
Worn out and sheer exhausted by the strife 
 And splendors of the day, this mortal host 
 Behold and hail thee as the nurse of life. 
 Turning from time's contentious lists, the ghost 
 Of what each might have been, they seem almost 
 To disrespect the throned and golden sire 
 Of all the world. They to thy presence post 
 To find life's balm as unfulfilled desire 
 Thinks such to find on some enchanted coast. 
 As the sun does down the western steep retire, 
 Thou comest as a nurse with all the worn require. 
 
 Thou givest gifts that more than life embalms, 
 A truce to war — an interval of rest — 
 A valley deep — a season of sweet calms 
 When each lies down upon his mother's breast — 
 A voice with sweetest nursery songs addressed 
 To worn-out, jaded senses and a hand 
 Soft laid upon the burning brow oppressed 
 To charm the thoughts to an enchanted land. 
 From thy pure heart are benedictions blest 
 And restorations for mortals so unmanned 
 From that exalted state high heaven for them planned. 
 
 Sleep! Sleep! The most mysterious gift to earth! 
 Life's commonest, yet most profoundest change; 
 After our death as it is round our birth 
 And nightly under, when, where or how we range. 
 'Tis a celestial anodyne with strange- 
 Est therapeutic virtues — an immersion 
 Of exhausted body in the fresh grange 
 Spirit of the world — a calm reversion 
 To being's primal reservoirs, exchange- 
 Ing loss for life; and a complete insertion 
 In the infinite for to-morrow's high excursion. 
 
 Sleep! Sleep! The most supremest gift to earth 
 Great nature's touch for body and for mind; 
 Sinking in the deep unconsciousness of birth 
 As thou, Oh Night! doth with thy magic bind. 
 Upon that breast so infinitely kind, 
 Oh mother of this worn humanity! 
 Thou placest each and drawest soft the blind 
 Unconsciousness upon his wild insanity. 
 Oh where in all the world can mortals find 
 A gift like sleep on time's profanity 
 And this most blinded strife and still more blind inanity? 
 
 2.9 
 
Sleep! Sleep! The most divinest gift to earth! 
 A stay of strife, deliverance from care, 
 Oblivion soft upon the grief of mirth, 
 Changed, changed so soon to madness and despair. 
 Peace, peace to those ancestral strifes that wear 
 The weary world! Peace, peace to the wild 
 And raging beasts of life that never spare 
 Humanity! Peace, peace to dark defiled 
 And self-consuming passions that ever tear 
 The breast! And peace, peace to fears beguiled 
 Out of the night before and round our pathway piled! 
 
 Sleep! Sleep! The most supremest gift to earth! 
 The deep of man, conscience and guilt and sin 
 Amid fierce storms have ever held thy worth 
 Above all joys that ever yet have been. 
 Peace, peace to the dark accursed kin 
 Our evil deeds bring forth! Peace, peace to the hoarse 
 And infinite-like curse that loud within 
 Calls up for judgment! Peace, peace unto remorse, 
 The angel dread that lashes mortals to in- 
 sanity! And peace, peace to all that force 
 Life's heavy burdened round time's deepest, darkest course! 
 
 Upon these restless, restless hours of sleep 
 When vanquished and defenseless as a child, 
 Thou keepest watch above his slumbers deep 
 And wardest off the dangers round him piled. 
 Dost thou not sorrow upon him time defied 
 And on his moans does not thy hand entwined 
 With velvet kindness smooth down his riled 
 And blighted spirits? Should a visit blind 
 With golden visions be on his eyes beguiled 
 And he awake to grasp the promise kind, 
 What nature rich but thine such blessing did unbind? 
 
 But thy greatest ministrations embrace 
 The soul so sunk in time's unconscious sleep. 
 The mere machine that yokes him to this base 
 Of nature, thou nursest but to reap 
 A thinking spirit out of the thoughtless heap. 
 Thy overshadowing presence, thy speech 
 Of silence vast, and the magnetic sweep 
 Of thy soul over his — when they reach 
 The slumberer, he riseth with a leap 
 And blank astonishment that doth impeach 
 The wisdom of the schools and all the day doth teach. 
 
 30 
 
Thou art the teacher of the good and wise, 
 And makest books and colleges a scorn 
 To life — a presumptuous contempt to eyes 
 That in time's travailing agonies are born. 
 Who walks with thee after the day has torn 
 Thou teachest what these pedants never dream; 
 And books of lore sublime as is the unworn 
 Volumns of eternity open and gleam 
 Upon the sight like thy starry deep unshorn. 
 From these great books and from thine eyes there stream 
 An infinity of thought that strength alone can theme. 
 
 Forth from the deep of thy maternal heart 
 Into the deep of man so caught between 
 The meshes of the worlds something doth start 
 With high new-conscious sense. His spirit lean 
 Of life, now hungers with desire for the scene 
 That being opes before him. Upon the brink 
 Of matter dark thou drawest off the screen 
 From the mighty worlds that forever shrink 
 From sight by their effulgent brightness. They wean 
 Him from himself, and as his soul doth drink 
 The vision of the worlds he rises hence to think. 
 
 Thou art the mother of divine inspire! 
 The anointing horns are in thy sacred keep 
 And free thou art in pouring out their fire. 
 Forth from the earth life's mighty passions leap 
 To walk with thee beneath the blazing deep 
 Of heaven. The soul unto its height and reach 
 Is drawn out by the visions thou dost heap 
 Upon the eyes, the rich poetic speech 
 Of lofty conversation, and the sweep 
 Of mighty thoughts beyond the starry beach, 
 Which thou and thine to men in solemn silence teach. 
 
 Thou bringest up this soul to front itself; 
 And fronting self it looks straight in the eyes 
 Of some far higher Soul who projects his wealth 
 Of life in personalities that rise 
 In vast proportions. The soul that lies 
 In slumber bound thou bringest up to feel 
 Its undimensionedness, and strength supplies 
 To front the universe. Oh what unseal 
 Of passion pure that with expansion flies 
 To being's farthest bounds! Calls the ideal 
 To earth and answers man the reverberating peal. 
 
 31 
 
Thou nursest into the immortal mind 
 The ruling concepts of the universe, 
 The indestructible, established kind 
 For which the worlds are void unless they nurse. 
 Thou bringest God and right and law, the curse 
 And blessing, good and ill, the mighty poles 
 That swing creation and the ages verse 
 Unto their noblest song. Small circled souls 
 Thou liftest from the deep and dark immerse 
 Of sense to fellowship the life that rolls 
 Through this vast universe unto its distant goals. 
 
 Upon the sun-paved heightless, heightless height 
 The spirit stands, looks far below and round; 
 Then is a moment's vain and proud delight 
 And then an awe and solemness profound 
 Like massive worlds that weight it to the ground. 
 Then slowly comes a recreation new 
 That recreates the spirit to the mound 
 And from the vast are powers and passion true 
 That fill the soul unto its boundless bound. 
 Conscious and wise and bold to dare and do 
 The cosmic spirit stands and doth his empire view. 
 
 With thee, Oh Night! along the starry height 
 The spirit walks among the constellations, 
 Engirded with omnipotential might 
 And dowered with supremest dominations. 
 The noblest, most prophetic of creations 
 And sceptered by all intellectual moral power 
 Soul rules and guides the mighty congregations 
 Of golden suns and worlds that round them flower. 
 From star to star soul mounteth up the stations 
 And on the height doth stand a godlike tower 
 The hope of all the globes, almost a god in dower. 
 
 There to the soul thou dost most free unroll 
 The camera films of ancient ancient time 
 And there upon thy moving picture scroll 
 The evolutions from their beginnings prime. 
 The golden suns and worlds that around them chime, 
 The vast biologists of monstrous form and might, 
 The savage brutes that to the human climb, 
 Creations high of intellectual light, 
 In all their struggles, change and growth sublime, 
 They all are flashed in images most bright 
 Out of the darkness past upon the burning sight. 
 
 32 
 
When thou dost draw the curtains of the morn, 
 In, in these stream effulgencies of splendor; 
 The heart and mind are by the vision torn 
 And all the powers unto the dreams surrender. 
 The soul sublime with glorious train attender 
 Doth mount and climb the undeveloped spheres 
 And Science wise and Virtue doth commend her 
 To nature and the rich revolving years. 
 The future dreams which thou, Oh Night! doth tender, 
 Doth blot thee out, thy presence disappears; 
 On, on, we onward march life's high divine careers. 
 
 Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
 Mother and nurse and prophet of the child 
 Designed to rise to being's awful height 
 Upon this base thou hast so glorious piled. 
 Oh Magnanimous! Majestic! Undefiled! 
 The solitude and silence is delight 
 In thy society, and man so time beguiled 
 Becomes with thee the true cosmopolite 
 In the universe that has upon him smiled. 
 Few, few are dearer than thou unto our sight, 
 Oh most beloved Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
 
 CONSIDER THE LILIES! 
 
 Look yonder on the lilies! 
 
 They toil not neither spin; 
 Yet kings in royal splendor 
 
 Like them can never win 
 Such robes of flowing loveliness, 
 
 Such purity within. 
 
 They grow in foul and merky soil, 
 Mid slime and stones and root; 
 
 Mid crawling thongs of loathsome name, 
 The kindred of the newt; 
 
 Where one would never dream to find, 
 Life, flower and such a fruit. 
 
 Their looms of life they ever ply, 
 
 No worry, toil or fear; 
 They never feel our fever haste 
 
 And never shed a tear, 
 Nor fade in beauty dreading lest 
 
 The autumn frosts be near. 
 
 33 
 
They simply live and dreanfupon 
 
 Their nurse's beating heart, 
 Who sends through all their gentle frame 
 
 A love that does impart 
 A peace that stilleth every fear 
 
 Life, dream or death may start. 
 
 So living daily in this trust 
 
 From their unkindly mould, 
 Their crystal souls are nourished 
 
 And to our eyes unfold 
 A body of snow purity 
 
 Around a heart of gold. 
 
 Oh soul, live like the lilies! 
 
 Just trust thyself to life! 
 Why battle nature's ancient way 
 
 And fight with sword and knife? 
 Fight nature, nature will thee plunge 
 
 Still deeper in the strife. 
 
 Oh let these thoughts the lilies sow 
 
 Fall deep in thy dark mould! 
 The good in soul will sure uprise 
 
 And life may then unfold 
 In robes of noble purity 
 
 Around a heart of .gold. 
 
 SONG OF THE GREEN TREE. 
 
 My evergreen soul of celestial birth 
 At the dawn of life descended to earth 
 From the heavens above where the best is born 
 To mantle the earth with a bright adorn. 
 
 There the soul divine that is full of life 
 Breathed into me strength for a mortal strife; 
 With the greenest hope of an azure birth 
 For a place and power I came to the earth. 
 
 A germ with the laws and the rights of life 
 I was planted deep in the midst of strife. 
 The great from the least have been ever grown 
 And round and beneath are the overthrown. 
 
 Then the vital heart of the world-soul sent 
 Such an impulse quick that the night was rent 
 And the infant germ sprang swift to the light 
 As a life that grows with a spirit's might. 
 
 34 
 
 
The passionate powers of that vernal clime 
 Soon nourished the birth to a noble prime. 
 Behold! In the world now I stand with pride 
 While all other growths are shamed from my side. 
 
 Both the heavens above and the earth below 
 And the stores between with the overflow 
 Of a generous heart and exhaustless wealth 
 Have poured in me gifts of abounding health. 
 
 My loom is the darkest and softest kind 
 That ever a soul in the earth did bind; 
 Around me it lays with a tender press, 
 Brotection and warmth of an under dress. 
 
 The green grass above doth carpet me round 
 With its velvet touch and its murmuring sound; 
 There is always a soft and a bright adorn 
 Where the roots and knots of strength are born. 
 
 My out-reaching roots with a sacred thirst 
 Press into the dark and a way doth burst 
 Till the moisture cool and the water's sound 
 Both quicken and guide where the life is found. 
 
 Deep rejoicing then at the river's brink 
 Her being so crystal my own doth drink; 
 I drink to the full of immortal life 
 And renew my strength for the daily strife. 
 
 The tropical breeze with their laden breath, 
 So vital they quicken the winter's death, 
 Their spirit and passion through every pore 
 Flows into my heart to the very core. 
 
 The temperate winds with their zonal strength 
 Have blown on my breast and my breadth and length 
 Have expanded rich as the middle clime 
 Doth the spirits nurse to the noblest prime. 
 
 When the Arctic blasts with their fury burst 
 I was roused to strength as their spirits versed; 
 Like a wrestling giant through the midnight hours 
 I girdled my loins with their ancient powers. 
 
 The unkindled sun with his vital heat, 
 His rainbow spirits and his rythmic beat: 
 Is there aught in earth or the heavens above 
 So bright as the smile of his morning love? 
 Or deep as the calm of Ins good-night kiss 
 As it falls on my heart with its lingering bliss? 
 
 35 
 
What a magic strange is the chemic power 
 
 That changeth all ill to his bright endower? 
 
 He taketh the world as a sacred birth 
 
 And feeds her with strength and with azure mirth; 
 
 And out of the deep with his golden might 
 
 He has raised me up in my towering height. 
 
 The radiant beams of his lightning glance 
 Shoot into the heart like a vital lance: 
 And my spirits rise as a dream doth leap 
 Like a breath of life from the land of sleep, 
 Then it spreads its face to the morning sun 
 And feels that its course has but just begun. 
 
 When the kingless king has retired to rest 
 And the twilight curtains are round his breast, 
 The night with the moon and her silver spheres 
 Hourly bathe my brow with their dewy tears. 
 
 Their coolness revives as an icy draught 
 Which the slumb'ring day doth rejoice to quaff; 
 Doth rejoice to quaff with a large desire 
 In his slumber dreams of tomorrow's fire. 
 
 So the dewy night and the icy stars 
 From their lucid urns and their crystal jars, 
 Pour upon my head their divinest dew 
 Till the morning dawns on the seas of blue. 
 
 Oh that azure dome, Oh that azure dome 
 That circles me round and afar doth roam! 
 What a fulness of life doth her silence keep 
 For the earth and the stars she embosoms deep! 
 
 To but feel that sense round the spirit roll 
 Is infinite life in the finite soul. - 
 
 Who could live with her in a fresh inspire 
 And wish aught else in his best desire! 
 
 There is room, vast room in the azure height, 
 Vision, gladness, strength and a keen delight; 
 There is victory, song and a mighty glow 
 For souls that to her in their natures grow. 
 
 There is life divine in the azure skies 
 That diviner grows as we higher rise; 
 On my only home is that azure dome 
 And the earth beneath with its sacred loam! 
 
 36 
 
I uncrown my head to her liquid light; 
 
 I outstretch my arms to enfold her might; 
 
 I open my all to her rich bestow; 
 
 As her spirits fall to the height I grow. 
 
 The covetous clouds from the ocean's breast 
 From her scooped trough and her white-capped crest, 
 From the mountain height and her snowy gleam, 
 And the fountain there and her icy stream, 
 
 From the sun-crowned morn that so quick distils, 
 And the billowy west with her dewy hills, 
 From the Arctic zone and the south more warm, 
 The spirit so vital in every form, 
 
 They unfold most deep in their fleecy dress 
 And circle around as no mind can guess, 
 Till the filters pure of the upper air 
 Doth embalm the rain as a treasure rare: 
 
 Then the fanning winds to a marching strain 
 Blow their shadow sweep o'er the sea and plain, 
 Till they seek me out and at noontide hour 
 Long bathe my soul with reviving power. 
 
 Then the circling veins and the tissues dry 
 Drink, drink to their full with a thankful sigh; 
 As in me it flows with a pulsing pain 
 I can hear it sing with a joyful strain. 
 
 Then the rib-like mail that is round my breast 
 Peels the strength of life and its joints are pressed 
 By resistless force, and the new expand 
 Forms another rib with a tighter band. 
 
 Then my knotted roots deeper sink from sight 
 And my brow ascends to a higher height. 
 My arms reach again farther east and west 
 And my branches all are with freshness dressed. 
 
 Then my joyous leaves in their life of bliss, 
 Like spirits in love with each other kiss, 
 Till my central heart feels a vital glow 
 And a greener gladness to each I throw. 
 
 Is another form on the mother's breast 
 
 So sound in heart and with strength so dressed? 
 
 Is another birth of our mother earth 
 
 With a greener hope and more glowing mirth? 
 
 37 
 
Ye heavens and earth that doth all renew 
 Look upon me now and my greatness view! 
 Is there aught in life that was ever born 
 Adds more to her pride and her bright a*dorn? 
 
 THE PANSY. 
 
 Oh pansy, pansy bright! 
 
 Oh most divinest flower! 
 Thy presence on the sight 
 
 Is a magic magic hour, 
 Enthralling us with strange, enchanting spell and power. 
 
 Oh Spirit the divinest! 
 
 Most beautiful on earth! 
 The being thou enshrinest 
 Is a heav'n smiling mirth, 
 An angel princess' dream or a royal poet's birth. 
 
 There's beauty in the spring, 
 
 On treen and seas and skies, 
 Round every living thing 
 That blossoms, sings, or flies; 
 But in thy measure more, more, more within thee lies. 
 
 The Artist of all art 
 
 In b.ringing thee to birth, 
 Took thee from out his heart 
 And breathed in thee with mirth 
 The essence of his life and thought thee just as worth 
 
 As golden suns on high 
 
 Whose splendors rich and bright 
 Forever blinding fly 
 To worlds of noon and night 
 Inviting us to see all rainbow souls of light. 
 
 All beauty loving hearts, 
 
 All beauty loving eyes, 
 All artists and all arts 
 
 First see thee with surprise, 
 A vision all divine from spheres beyond the skies. 
 
 The azure souls on high, 
 
 The spirits of the morn, 
 Delights that sing and fly 
 
 With more than earth adorn 
 With pleasure gaze on thee and new they all are born. 
 
 38 
 
The children, oh the child, 
 Life's uncorrupted heart! 
 In garden, park or wild 
 
 For thee they all would bart, 
 And oft with screams of joy swift toward thy presence 
 
 dart. 
 The maidens, oh, the maids! 
 The flowers of life divine! 
 The modern glowing naiads 
 That never fade or tine! 
 The happy dreams of life in whom life doth enshrine! 
 
 They look on thee and cry: 
 
 "Oh roots, flowers and vine, 
 Poetics on the eye , 
 Beauty, life and love and wine 
 Be planted in my heart and be forever mine!" 
 
 A lovely drunken boy 
 
 "When dew upon thee lay, 
 Plucked thee in frenzied joy 
 And what he could not say 
 Felt in your passion deep the love that did him sway. 
 
 Then trusting his delight 
 
 Upon thy magic fame 
 He sent thee to the sprite 
 
 Who did his spirit flame, 
 And waves of warmest life across his being came. 
 
 She bound thee on her breast; 
 
 She often stooped to kiss; 
 She heard thy whispers blest 
 And felt a lover's bliss 
 And saw the visions bright the lovers never miss. 
 
 Then deep within her heart 
 
 She folded thee to rest, 
 As in poet books thou art 
 
 In visions folded blest, 
 Till memory's golden leaves were in thy essence dressed 
 
 The poet looked on thee 
 
 And pasesd into a trance; 
 Beauty and purity 
 
 Did blind his mortal glance, 
 And whirled him in a round of high ecstatic dance. 
 
 39 
 
Then, then ye calmed him down 
 
 And fed the deep desire 
 That beneath his singing gown 
 
 Was like a heart of fire, 
 But infinitely calm with the love it did desire. 
 
 Again ye hear him far 
 
 With flight divine and bold 
 To evening's shining star 
 That new Eldorados hold 
 And where the sunny mountains he climbs for purest gold. 
 
 From evening's dream and rhyme 
 
 Thy magic doth deliver; 
 Thou bearest to the clime 
 Of morning and its giver; 
 And set him sailing down a golden-breasted river. 
 
 Thou changest time and place 
 
 And man and life and all; 
 Thy beauty doth displace 
 
 The things that us enthrall, 
 So divine art thou and thine on creatures of the "fall." 
 
 Oh pansy, pansy bright! 
 
 Oh most divinest flower! 
 Thy presence on the sight 
 
 Is a magic magic hour, 
 Enthralling us with strange, enchanting spell and power. 
 
 Thy colors are divine 
 
 In every place and time. 
 Color to a spirit fine 
 Has spells of magic prime; 
 But thou surpassest all within this earthly clime. 
 
 The purple of the kings, 
 
 The purple of the arts, 
 The purple deep that flings 
 
 An enchantment on all hearts, 
 Is thine the first of all with the solemness it starts. 
 
 When thou art gold, the gold 
 
 Is more golden than the sun; 
 The bullion kept from old 
 
 And never yet been run 
 Was poured into thy heart when morning first begun. 
 
 40 
 
When white, thy stainless white 
 
 Is like a flake of snow, 
 A fitting robe to dress 
 Thy spirit here below, 
 For wtite is most divino in worlds of sin and woe. 
 
 And blue, Oh blessed blue! 
 
 Oh nursling of the sky! 
 A patch to lift the view 
 
 Unto the stretches high, 
 From whence we weak return to rest on thee the eye. 
 
 All rainbow light and shade 
 
 Is on thy gentle breast. 
 The plushes on thee laid 
 No poet ever guessed; 
 No beauty, bride or dream such velvet cheeks have blessed. 
 
 Beneath thy beauty fine, 
 
 Beneath thy magic light, 
 'Neath the images divine 
 
 That round thee shineth bright 
 Is something richer far for pilgrims of the night. 
 
 Thou has passion the divinest 
 
 We mortals ever feel, 
 Though the body it enshrinest 
 
 And its spiritual appeal 
 Is lost upon the heart the selfish world doth seal. 
 
 Thou hast passion the supremest 
 
 Of all that love or pine; 
 Within thy bosom seemest 
 
 A beauty that doth shine 
 Out of a paradise when love is most divine. 
 
 Thou has passion the intensest 
 
 The world doth ever see. 
 The spirit thou infencest 
 The infinite must be; 
 His very heart of purity he has enshrined in thee. 
 
 Thou hast passion the serenest, 
 
 The deepest, rich and pure, 
 That no sorrow ever leanest 
 And no mortal can secure, 
 And which we never dream but when we grief endure. 
 
 41 
 
When gazing on thy grace, 
 
 When looking in thy heart, 
 Thou dost change our time and place, 
 
 Thou doth swing the gates apart 
 Between the world that is and that from whence thou art. 
 
 When gazing on thy grace 
 
 We are ushered out of sense, 
 Ushered, ushered to the place 
 That is far beyond us hence, 
 And the heart within us melts from its stony hardness 
 
 deDse. 
 
 When gazing on thy grace, 
 
 What sorrow, grief and tears 
 Sometimes bedew the face 
 And wash our guilty years 
 That were flung to sin and waste from the summit of the 
 
 spheres! 
 
 Wlien gazing on thy grace, 
 
 When looking deep in thee 
 We are borne out of the race, 
 
 And with warm tears flowing free 
 Are lost to time and sense in a pure eternity. 
 
 A FLOWER. 
 
 A blossom burst at dewy morn 
 
 And died before the night. 
 A beast that did all beauty scorn 
 
 Fierce trampled out its light. 
 
 But not before a passerby 
 
 Did on its beauty feed 
 The passion of a poet's eye, 
 
 The hunger of his need. 
 
 He turned the passioned rainbow light 
 
 And beauty most divine, 
 To words and images as bright 
 
 As love could see or sign. 
 
 Then, then he flung them to the wind, 
 To wind and earth and sky; 
 
 Now up and down before mankind 
 They live and cannot die. 
 
 42 
 
THE SENSE OF MORN. 
 
 Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
 When the heavens and earth are in beauty born, 
 Are in beauty born with creations new 
 On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 
 
 All things in earth, from her heart to her frame, 
 From her outer robes to her spirit's flame, 
 Rise up with a sense and a soul divine 
 Till the very flesh with the light doth shine. 
 
 All things in the skies, the seas and the earth 
 Now are born and robed and are crowned with mirth; 
 Are singing, shining, soaring and glowing 
 With the morning sun that around is flowing. 
 
 The heavens above to its heightless height 
 Is bluest, serenest and softest light; 
 And the earth below is as bright and green 
 As the springtime morning has ever seen. 
 
 The beasts of the field all rise to the morn 
 And renew the strength which the night had shorn. 
 The birds in a song of enraptured praise 
 Fill the earth and sky with their lyric lays. 
 
 The arms and the heads of the forest treen 
 Are dressed in a new and vital green. 
 The grass and the vines now are wet with dew 
 And each sparkling drop is a diamond new. 
 
 The flowers in their beauty and rainbow di.eht 
 Now their inmost hearts unfold to the light; 
 As some to the sight so some to the sense, 
 But all from the heart are impassioned tense. 
 
 See the fountain streams from the mountain steep 
 Toward the rising sun in their gladness leap! 
 And the placid lake is a polished glass 
 Where the sun sees himself as a molten mass. 
 
 See the silver mists swift evaporate 
 
 And form into clouds on their high estate! 
 
 How their festooned robes and their feathery wings 
 
 Are embroidered bright by the king of kings! 
 
 How the atmospheres are renewed divine 
 And all nostrils sniff with a pleasure fine! 
 The morning breeze as it flies from the west, 
 It quickens the heart with a vital zest. 
 
 43 
 
"What infinite reaches of azure sky! 
 
 What infinite powers in her bosom lie! 
 
 What infinite measures doth nature ope 
 
 From the earth's quick heart to the summit's cope! 
 
 What infinite beauty doth crown the height! 
 What infinite calms and supreme delight! 
 What infinite hope and infinite mirth 
 Does the morning feed to each bosomed birth! 
 
 The heavens above and the earth below 
 
 And the breath between with its ozone glow, 
 
 All turn with delight to the golden east 
 
 And their being and purpose and passion feast. 
 
 They turn and they look and they drink and glow 
 As the life of life does around them flow; 
 As the life of life does within them burst 
 They have found for what all creations thirst. 
 
 What a flow of life and each burning breast 
 Feels the hours as one most supremely blest! 
 They are winged above and the overflow 
 Bursts from common things with a glorious glow. 
 
 What a sense of strength in material things! 
 For the earth's backbone and her rib-like rings, 
 And the giant muscles upon her bound 
 Overflow with life which the hour has found! 
 
 What a sense of peace like a vision bright, 
 Like a silver lake, like a rainbow sight, 
 Like a music sweet of the sweetest things, 
 That can find no note so in silence sings! 
 
 What a sense of joy and of boundless hope 
 Does the golden morn to all being ope! 
 Beast, forest and field and to all mankind 
 Life is pulsing streams that are passion wined. 
 
 What a self-sufficient, sustaining sense, 
 Expansion, fulness and passion intense, 
 Of harmony, beauty, victorious power 
 Breathes into and makes the immortal hour! 
 
 With most generous heart both the heavens and earth 
 Are taking and giving each others mirth. 
 Soul, senses and gifts but for words too fine 
 Make the hour and place as an altar shrine. 
 
 44 
 
Is this the return of creation's hour 
 
 When the world came forth like a perfect flower, 
 
 And the Artist's eye with a joy divine 
 
 Looked upon the scene with a pleasure fine? 
 
 Is this the season's appointed time 
 When nature and all to their summits climb, 
 And with solemn joy here their worships lift 
 To the Giver great for their being's gift? 
 
 Is this the hour that doth resurrect 
 
 Time's impassioned births that the graves select, 
 
 When beauty, perfection and glory arise 
 
 To a height undreamed 'neath the former skies? 
 
 Or is this the bright and prophetic dream 
 Which the prophet saw on his vision stream, 
 When material change and millennial day 
 On his spirit burst with immortal sway? 
 
 Or is this a glimpse of the happy land 
 O'er the crystal sea on the golden strand, 
 Where the life of all is forever love 
 And forever rise in a course above? 
 
 'Tis the nature rich of the universe; 
 'Tis the golden glory all things unpurse; 
 'Tis the lower real that delights to nurse 
 A prophetic race to a royal verse. 
 
 'Tis the face of Life that doth us invite; 
 'Tis the smile of Love to a course of right; 
 'Tis the physic Soul that doth bid arise 
 The nature divine that within us lies. 
 
 Oh the golden morn! Oh the golden morn! 
 When the heavens and earth are in beauty born, 
 Are in beauty born with creations new 
 On the fields, the seas and the azure blue. 
 
 SWEET PEAS. 
 
 Sweet peas and sweet peas 
 And hosts of butterflies 
 
 Drunken on the summer breeze 
 Intoxicate the eyes. 
 
 45 
 
THE BOY'S WORLD. 
 
 1 wish I were a boy again! 
 
 Oh unforgotten days! 
 Ye differ from the stifling fen 
 
 That now around me lays. 
 The world was every dawning new; 
 
 Suns pure and bright as gold; 
 At noon or night the azure blue 
 
 Rained pleasures most untold. 
 The grass was green and dear the trees, 
 
 The flowers and birds divine; 
 The stream did sing and on the breeze 
 
 Was more than poet's line. 
 Then nature's heart pulsed music deep 
 
 To me upon her breast; 
 My life to hers did swiftly leap, 
 
 I danced her round with zest. 
 I did but live, I did not dream 
 
 Of now, then, that or this; 
 Life so intense was like a stream 
 
 Of most ecstatic bliss. 
 Far more than ever now it seems; 
 
 With dark clouds for its foil 
 The sun is clothed with beauty's dreams 
 
 And round her rainbows coil. 
 Here in the city's heartless heart, 
 
 No nature nor her grace; 
 In street or hall or shop or mart, 
 
 Her soul can none embrace. 
 Oh who would live on floors of stone 
 
 With iron walls around! 
 His strips of sky unseen, unknown, 
 
 And strife the spirit bound. 
 Oh who would live beneath the dome 
 
 Of manhood's iron care! 
 From paradise to chaos roam 
 
 And on his spirit bear 
 The scenes that once from morn till eve 
 
 He moved through with delight 
 And not his loss with envy grieve 
 
 And wish return they might. 
 I pine to be a happy boy 
 
 Harmonious with the morn, 
 With every hour a jeweled joy 
 
 And care and grief a scorn. 
 I pine, Oh nature! for thy life 
 
 Pulsed rich into my breast, 
 
 46 
 
Thy mingling powers, but none at strife, 
 
 All action, yet all rest. 
 I pine, I pine at night and morn 
 
 To be as once with thee, 
 Again a boy with heart untorn, 
 
 Young, strong and pure and free; 
 To be again a happy boy, 
 
 Full, full of life and wine, 
 Himself and all the world a joy, 
 
 A promise and divine. 
 
 THE CONSTELLATIONS. 
 
 Oh Night, Oh Night! Oh glorious, glorious night! 
 Though born and bred and destined for the day 
 Man's spirit leaps with infinite delight 
 When he is caught by thy resistless sway 
 And walks with thee along thy starry way. 
 Mother and queen and goddess most divine, 
 A matchless grace doth round thy presence play 
 And atmospheres we mortals drink as wine. 
 Thou liftest soul and girdest up this clay 
 To stand and think as Time's hand doth untwine 
 The universes vast that round these portals shine. 
 
 Oh what a sight for lofty contemplrtion, 
 For intellectual strength, archangel thought, 
 Silence, passion, wonder, admiration, 
 And all the powers of being over fraught! 
 What boundless elements are here together brought 
 To mind destroy and nobler recreate 
 To something like the Infinite! All nought 
 And insignificant is man's estate 
 Of genius-ripe conception, when he is caught 
 Into the starry heavens to contemplate 
 The vast establishments that round him roll in state. 
 
 Oh what a sight for admiration's eyes 
 Is high enthroned on everlasting stations! 
 What white intensities within the skies 
 Here radiate their lightning scintillations! 
 What majesties of light! Illuminations 
 Of magnificence! Effulgencies of bright- 
 Est splendor and flashing coruscations 
 Athwart the answering canopy of night! 
 What immensities and vast creations 
 Of solar brightness and incandescence white 
 Are flaming round the dome on all created sight! 
 
 47 
 
Spirit of night, I see thy glorious 
 Constellations, thy constellations bright 
 And so supremely poised on their victorious 
 Stations like thrones in prominential sight 
 Upon creation's lofty heightless height. 
 Thy constellations, like world divinities, 
 Are with such striking majesty bedight 
 They rise among the vast infinities 
 That crown the universe with an effulgent light. 
 These spirits seem clothed with sublime sublimities 
 That more than equipoise all mortal magnanimities. 
 
 These high celestial pageantries, the marches 
 Of these splendors and bright majestic dowers 
 O'er the else unpictorial walls and arches 
 Are like creation dreams marching amid the hours. 
 The procession of these congregated powers 
 Crossing the expanse in their nocturnal 
 Courses, these circles round their annual bowers 
 Were all burst forth in bright hibernal 
 Brilliancy or pale as summer heat devours, 
 These marches of processional pomp supernal, 
 'Tis but the universe along its path eternal. 
 
 Spirit of Night, I see thy glorious 
 Constellations, a noble consanguinity 
 And ancient fellowship in victorious 
 Exaltation circling the vast infinity 
 Of being. These in their high sublimity 
 Flash recognition to all the kingly race; 
 Or the esemplastic spirit of affinity 
 Flaming through all the hemispheral space 
 Answers each or some enthroned divinity. 
 What incandescent eyes and lightning grace 
 Each has and flaming throws upon each others face? 
 
 Behold, Behold! Here is the most supremest 
 Reach of beauty in nature's plastic arts, 
 A perfect vision of the life that streamest 
 Within the deep of her deep heart of hearts. 
 The spirit of sublimest beauty starts 
 Into virtue here, and round each presence high 
 Nature casts a fashion that imparts 
 Rich overflowing glories on the sky. 
 The beautifuls on these celestial charts 
 Enchant the strength of Life's poetic eye, 
 Sustain her passioned heart as they poise and swing and fly. 
 
 Spirit of Night, I love thy glorious 
 Constellations, established on the height 
 
 48 
 
Of time and forever more victorious 
 Above the gulf. Ye are a vast delight, 
 And what mysterious transcendencies of might 
 Sustain ye on the blank and hungry void 
 As the world's best stability! Thy bright 
 Illuminations could seem to be destroyed 
 By breath, but this emblazonry of night, 
 So blessed, so beatific and enjoyed 
 Is more than is the world by firm foundations buoyed. 
 
 What high and pure sublimities shine here, ,.', 
 Of mystery, of wonder and of awe, 
 And of those breathless contemplations dear 
 Where time's creations unto their highest draw! 
 What majesty and sovereignty of law! 
 What incarnations of almighty power! 
 What transformation from the rude raw 
 Elements of chaos into this bower 
 Of firmamental brightness; Life saw 
 The garnished heavens and humbled in that hour 
 Loves more thy solemn dome than noonday's golden tower. 
 
 ""Spirit of Night, I love thy glorious 
 Constellations in that ideal state 
 Designed for them ere their victorious 
 Emergence from the dark contentious gate 
 Of chaos. Supernity is like a weight 
 Of glory on them and the immortal 
 Is burning in their exaltations great. 
 In the else black concave they make a courtal 
 Majesty and magnificent estate. 
 What strength conceives a more emblazoned portal 
 Around this travailing earth, around her courses mortal? 
 
 Yonder the Great Bear prowls around the pole; 
 There Cassiopeia and her family reign; 
 Here Taurus with his brilliant clusters roll; 
 Near Orion's belted strength is a plain 
 Triangle of three glorious stars. The strain 
 Of the Harp and Aquila's boundless flight 
 Hear and behold. See! Sagittarius has lain 
 His arrow to the Serpent's heart and white 
 Arcturus lights the maid without a stain. 
 The classic symbols dwindle left and right; 
 The poles are scant of stars, the center crowded bright. 
 
 Right through these constellations high, the moon, 
 An earth-born child adopted by the night, 
 Swift circles like a princess of the noon 
 Though with some veil upon her face of light. 
 
 49 
 
That soul of splendor across the bright 
 Concave is to the world a warm desire 
 And forevermore a passion and delight. 
 Oh Virgin Soul of pure and palest fire, 
 Sail on thy course and on earth's lifted sight 
 Thy smile shall rain the magic of inspire 
 And every wax and wane shall make thy presence nigher! 
 
 As long as I shall tread this mortal sphere 
 Oh let me rise unto some tower or hill! 
 Divorce my heart from toil and strife and fear 
 To gaze upon the constellations till 
 This finite void that infinite doth fill! 
 Let the great dreams of my departed prime, 
 The cosmic passions that once with awe did thrill, 
 The ripest thoughts Astronomy can chime 
 All mingle and upon my spirit spill 
 The contemplations of majesties sublime 
 Eternity hath spread around these doors of time! 
 
 THE ECHO. 
 
 Hush, hush my heart, be still! 
 
 Listen with bated breath! 
 Silence thy being fill 
 As motionless as death! 
 A soft celestial voice; a world for what she saith! 
 
 Oh hush my heart! The birth 
 
 And being most divine 
 I ever heard on earth, 
 Between her world and mine 
 Is singing, and my life for hers I would resign. 
 
 Oh matchless soul of song! 
 
 Spirit of melody! 
 The leader of the throng 
 
 Of lyric natures free: 
 The most divinest life inspires the heart in thee. 
 
 Thy spirit Nature greets; 
 
 Her singers silent be; 
 Wave, stream and tree entreats 
 
 Thy music rich and free, 
 And drink and drink and drink thy living melody. 
 
 Unseen, enchanting fairy! 
 Unknown, beloved sprite! 
 
 50 
 
On ether wings most airy 
 With far encircling flight, 
 Round lake and o'er the hills thy song rolls with delight, 
 
 Awaking joy so pure 
 
 The souls that hear thee sing, 
 The strain cannot endure 
 
 And from their hearts they fling 
 Their love and joy and praise and toward thee nearer 
 
 spring. 
 Joyous, intense and clear, 
 
 A song new come to birth; 
 A singer from a sphere, 
 A bright and lyric mirth, 
 Who sings to ease her heart and not for ours of earth. 
 
 Pure and liquid soul: 
 
 Dewy and rich and deep! 
 Winds, clouds and azure roll 
 The notes they cannot keep, 
 And now they forth through thee to vocal being leap. 
 
 Oh soft and dying tone! 
 
 More far and faint and dear! 
 A music seraph's moan 
 
 In his beloved's ear 
 Is mingled with the breath which now I faintly hear. 
 
 Fainter and more faint, 
 
 Softer and more sweet, 
 As a maiden saint 
 
 Breathes when the angel feet 
 Bear her lily, lily soul far down earth's shadowed street. 
 
 Painter and more faint, 
 
 Your music is no more. 
 As last words of a saint 
 Speak to our spirit's core, 
 Your silence is a song of sweet and lasting lore. 
 
 Now silence girdeth round 
 But spirits listening be, 
 Straining in the calm profound 
 To hear the measures free 
 That ever rise and ring as memory thinks of thee. 
 
 Oh clear and crystal singer! 
 
 Again to life awake! 
 Oh clear and crystal singer! 
 Across the moon-light lake 
 Your happy happy elfin horns, shake out again, Oh shake! 
 
 51 
 
Awake again, Oh wake! 
 
 My heart for song doth pine! 
 Thy lips again unbreak, 
 
 And thy sweet voice divine 
 Will be a lasting strain as on me ye untwine! 
 
 Hark! Does the deepest fountain, 
 
 The lake's divinest daughter, 
 Love the snowy mountain, 
 The soul above the water, 
 And whispers now a song as fervent love has taught her? 
 
 Does now some silver dream 
 
 From icy summits free 
 Through rocky gorges stream 
 With fall and foam and glee 
 And sing his bridal song as happy as can be? 
 
 Does the moon's bright soul 
 
 Touch her golden lyre , 
 And drink night's dewy bowl 
 
 A new song to inspire 
 For her other soul of deep and pure desire? 
 
 Is heaven's world of love 
 
 Here the nearest earth? 
 Does some warm turtle dove, 
 
 O'er her dearest birth 
 Now throw upon our ears her first, sweet, mother mirth? 
 
 Has some sweet fairy sprite 
 
 From Paradise just fell? 
 In her descending flight 
 
 Tinkles her fairy bell 
 In silver silver tones that swell and ever swell? 
 
 Oh spirit, who art thou? 
 
 Whence and what and where? 
 Could I but see thee now, 
 Thy being pure and fair 
 Would be a sight divine which love would treasure rare. 
 
 But better thus unseen 
 
 Like all things most divine; 
 For nothing comes between 
 
 Thy heart and hungry mine, 
 And that encircling heart which all our hearts enshrine. 
 
 52 
 
Oh echo, thy refrain 
 Is like a life to me! 
 It passes through my brain 
 And kindred finds to thee; 
 Waking the sleeping dreams in coldest memory. 
 
 I listen, yes I listen! 
 
 I know! I know! I know! 
 Mine eyes with sorrows glisten, 
 
 My heart doth overflow, 
 Spirit of innocence from paradise, I trow! 
 
 Thy spirit once was mine, 
 
 And I was like to thee; 
 We both were then divine 
 And loved with purity; 
 But life divorces hearts that in each other be. 
 
 Soul of celestial dower! 
 Angel of early years! 
 The music of that hour 
 That hour still more endears; 
 To hear thee once again now melts my frozen tears! 
 
 Oh hear me as I cry! 
 
 Come to me once again! 
 Leave thy blue native sky! 
 
 Abide with mortal men! 
 Forgive and lead me from this dark and stifling fen ! 
 
 Oh dost thou turn away? 
 
 I hear thy velvet feet 
 More faintly as I pray. 
 
 Shall this new warming meet 
 No hope that here or hence thy spirit I shall greet? 
 
 More fainter and more faint 
 
 I hear thee die away, 
 As dieth my complaint 
 
 For lack of words to pray 
 For thee and thine and all of that eclipsed day. 
 
 Beyond the hills afar 
 
 I hear thee going fleet, 
 Go, going to the star 
 
 Of morning, morning sweet 
 And I would follow fast in hope we there may meet. 
 
 Sing, sing Ye Echo Souls! 
 Oh often sing to me! 
 
 53 
 
Divinest music rolls 
 
 And leads where none can see 
 When e'er I hear your sweet, celestial melody. 
 
 Sing, sing Ye Echo Sprites! 
 
 Your silence oft unbind! 
 From heaven's golden heights 
 
 Ye open on my mind 
 Such dreams of purity as lift and cleanse and blind. 
 
 Sing, sing Ye Echo Hours! 
 
 Although ye wake the tears 
 Ye lift me to the towers 
 With virtue of the spheres, 
 And life's golden summits pure to the spirit far appears. 
 
 DOWN AND OUT. 
 
 Oh world and all ye elemental powers 
 Of nature! Ye titanic incarnations 
 Of unembodied being! Ye vast endowers 
 Of energy and passioned imputations 
 Form the great soul of cosmic circulations! 
 All organic and inorganic forces 
 Forever fresh and leaping with elations! 
 All breath and life from your eternal sources 
 Destroying worlds for greater new creations! 
 Vast universe upon your endless courses, 
 Oh listen to the song when age our youth unhorses! 
 
 Oh day and night! Ye seasons and successions! 
 Majestic powers whose panoramic round 
 Sweeps over earth as pageantry processions! 
 Pulsating earth whose mighty passions bound 
 With earthquake throes far in their deep profound! 
 Old ocean's vast immeasureable might 
 Girding the globe with thunder singing sound! 
 Ye mountain ranges forever more bedight 
 With solemness and majesty encrowned! 
 Canyons, rivers, falls, forests, plains and height, 
 Oh listen to the song that man doth often write! 
 
 Ye wild and lawless elements of storm, 
 Nature's maniacs in their delirious mirth, 
 Night, rain and clouds with angry passions warm 
 That rise and drive like furies over earth! 
 Ye whirling winds that some convulsive birth 
 Sets fiercely free with sweeping rage and snort! 
 Ye lightning bolts black heaven's tempestuous girth 
 Rains like a fire from an artillery fort! 
 
 54 
 
Ye thunders vast like chaos bellowing forth 
 Globe rending sounds that rock each cave and court, 
 Oh listen to the song time's changes fierce extort! 
 
 There was a time, glorious, memorial time! 
 When ye were all my passion and delight. 
 More elemental than your own souls sublime 
 I found in ye the kindred of my sprite. 
 Like and unlike your essences so white 
 I felt the pulse of this vast universe, 
 And from the gulf of boundless day and night 
 Ye passed in me and did my spirit nurse. 
 The chaos and the cosmic powers that fight 
 Did girdle me, and often did immerse 
 In those contentions vast that war against the curse. 
 
 I was the chiefest element of life. 
 The cosmic passions my being thrilled and thrilled. 
 Nature's fountains with measures rich and rife 
 Flowed into me with floods that over-filled. 
 Drunken, insane, delirious and unstilled, 
 One of nature's infinite successions, 
 And subject though intelligent and willed, 
 To their enchantment, magic and impressions. 
 The reddest life her spirit ever spilled 
 Burst into me with impulse and transgressions 
 
 That spurned the common course, possessed by high 
 
 possessions. 
 Ye mighty powers, my kindred and my song! 
 I call ye now to witness to the truth. 
 When I was young, impulsive, swift and strong, 
 Did I not leave man's safe and shelt'ring booth 
 To greet the storms that burst with fierce unruth? 
 When lightning deluged both the heavens and earth, 
 When thunders roared like monsters most uncouth, 
 When hurricanes swept raging round the girth, 
 Bare-browed and open breasted did my youth 
 Not wander forth and centered in the dearth, 
 
 Mingled my life with thine in most delirious mirth? 
 
 Have I not climbed and traveled round and round 
 These azure deeps of palpitating skies? 
 In ocean's pure and fathomless profound 
 Did I not sink and another man arise? 
 These mountain ranges on my astonished eyes 
 Subdued and filled with transcendental might. 
 Nature's convulsions and impassioned cries 
 Were reproduced within my narrow sprite. 
 The great dynamic souls that energize 
 The universe with my soul did unite 
 And shocks and shocks of life sent through me with deligh 
 
 55 
 
Oh power sublime, thou wert my element. 
 I lived and moved and had my life in power. 
 My spirit felt the touch of the omnipotent 
 As passions vast my being did endower. 
 These more than infinite energies that tower 
 On glorious night I loved to contemplate 
 And sometimes sunk out of the mortal hour 
 And rose into the forces that create. 
 This glorious, effulgent, constellated bower 
 With momentums of eternity and fate 
 I yielded to and breasted till power did satiate. 
 
 But now, oh now, oh woeful, woeful now! 
 All I can do is sit and just remember; 
 A ghost of life upon time's leafless bough 
 Dreaming of June in cold and sleet November. 
 Once I was fire; now I'm a dying ember; 
 There brilliant flame; here but a flickering light 
 Before the long and black nights of December. 
 My youth, my strength, my passion and my right, 
 Are gone, all gone, and now a dying member 
 Earth soon will fling far down the pits of night 
 The cold and icy corpse out of her living sight. 
 
 All summer long I'm worn out with the heat; 
 I've hardly strength to go the rounds of toil; 
 I scarce can stand ten hours upon my feet 
 To do the work that hath and doth despoil. 
 The wine of life, the precious, priceless oil 
 Is all burned up. I'm fallen down! I can't 
 Come back! I'm spent! I'm all in! The petty broil 
 For just my bread is strife that I would scant. 
 Each day I drag from the exhausting moil 
 Too tired to think the old unbraiding rant, 
 But sit beside the door and pant and pant and pant. 
 
 The bright, autumnal season circles round 
 That once did lift unto the summits high; 
 Great pageantries in golden splendors gowned 
 March over earth, the mountains, seas and sky. 
 My heart leaps up. Visions upon me fly 
 And mighty dreams invite the singer's song. 
 I fain would rise to write and often try, 
 But back I fall to the oblivious throng. 
 I have not strength; the passions flame and die; 
 Great poetries are only for the strong. 
 A leaf, a wave, a cloud, I'm swept by time along. 
 
 Winter, winter, thou overwhelming dread! 
 Beholding thee I'm cold and dark and sere; 
 
 56 
 
An influence from the kingdom of the dead 
 Surrounds me like a poisoned atmosphere. 
 The last strength of this bowed and broken peer 
 Beholding thee doth almost stand aghast. 
 I tremble at thy coming swift and near, 
 For life's assassins are round thy presence massed. 
 I'm marked for death. I'm struck. I'm on the bier. 
 Oh Life! Perhaps this winter is thy last; 
 Ere spring revives the flowers thou shalt away have passed. 
 
 There's nothing now before me but the "If," 
 "The great perhaps," the vast interrogation, 
 The pause, emphasis and silence on the cliff 
 Of being as the spirit's contemplation 
 Stands up to scan this infinite creation. 
 The earth and man and all that live and die, 
 The splendors of night's flaming congregation, 
 The golden sun and solar passion high, 
 Eternity and blank annihilation 
 Now write upon the dark'ning western sky 
 A vast interrogation of "what?" and "where?" and "why?" 
 
 July, 1911. 
 
 SPRING. 
 
 Oh happy, happy, happy Spring! 
 
 Oh child of light and love! 
 Thou art a fairy angels bring 
 
 Down from the worlds above 
 Thou art a life supremely fair 
 
 As time did ever bring; 
 No wonder song is on the air 
 
 And sunshine on the wing. 
 The earth looks up and heav'n looks down, 
 
 Both crying: "Mine, Oh Mine!" 
 And spirits green and golden gown 
 
 Doth envy them and pine. 
 All lovers dream just such a dream 
 
 Will crown their love's delight. 
 On me the poet's visions gleam 
 
 When thou art in my sight. 
 
 Thou art the very soul of life, 
 
 In these she lives and leaps; 
 Thy fountains are with fulness rife, 
 
 The crimson current sweeps. 
 Thy very form doth burn and glow; 
 
 I almost see the stream 
 Beneath the mortal tissues flow 
 
 With overflowing teem. 
 
 57 
 
From head to foot thou seemest to he 
 
 A wild impassioned dance; 
 The spirit seems from body free 
 
 And rides it in a trance. 
 Such fountain floods and crimson tides 
 
 Contagion wide doth fling; 
 Thy kindred forms of life and light 
 
 Swift into being spring. 
 
 Come, let us walk, My Little Miss! 
 
 I've shorn away my age. 
 A better world I've found in this, 
 
 Thou dost my heart engage. 
 Here, here among the buds and flowers, 
 
 Where sing the birds divine, 
 Where dewy sunshine fills the bowers 
 
 And perfumes are like wine. 
 See how the morning does invite! 
 
 The heavens are serene; 
 The grass is green; the sun is bright; 
 
 The air is fresh and keen. 
 I'm young again, swift, wild and free; 
 
 Come, let us gently walk! 
 I'll weave a royal crown for thee 
 
 As we together talk. 
 
 Thy countenance of happiness — 
 
 Oh who could ever dream 
 Right through the vest of mortal dress 
 
 Such beauty could outstream? 
 I've seen some children fair I vow 
 
 Where poets wander far 
 But fairest of the fair art thou, 
 
 The nursling of a star. 
 No shadow of the world of time, 
 
 No wrinkle of its age, 
 No spot or blemish of its crime, 
 
 Pain, sorrow, greed or rage 
 Is on thv face, but such a face, 
 
 Such life of life intense, 
 Such purity and might and grace 
 
 As smites our mortal sense! 
 
 Your eyes are blue as yonder sky 
 
 And deeper than its deep; 
 Great worlds of promise on them lie 
 
 And hopes around them leap. 
 How like the new awakened eyes 
 
 Of new created life, 
 When pure and powerful passions rise 
 
 58 
 
From fountains overrife! 
 I never saw such shining hair, 
 
 Such silken, flossy curls, 
 Though in enchanted islands fair 
 
 I've seen wee fairy girls. 
 These wind-combed locks, Oh how they seem 
 
 Like liquid flowing gold, 
 Like sunbeams flowing in a stream, 
 
 Like sunlight soft and old. 
 
 Oh such a smile! Oh such a smile! 
 
 It rests upon my heart 
 As when dark storms by magic wile 
 
 The sun tears wide apart. 
 Thou art the first of womankind 
 
 Whose smile of life divine 
 The soul within the soul did find ! 
 
 And fed me like a wine. 
 If I had jewels, lands and gold 
 
 I'd heap them in a pile 
 And barter them with joy untold 
 
 For just that happy smile. 
 Hark! If you had just a few more years 
 
 And I the dream once seen, 
 I'd be the king of all earth's peers 
 
 To crown thee as my Queen. 
 
 Your voice is sweet and more divine 
 
 Than yonder singing bird, 
 Though now they sing with fire and wine 
 
 As man has never heard. 
 Your music like an echo clear 
 
 Sounds o'er me and around. 
 The dreams and visions that appear 
 
 Are drunken with the sound. 
 And drunken with the atmospheres 
 
 That round thy presence play, 
 There comes from sky and hills and meres 
 
 Bright troops of fairy fay, 
 They circle here and dance and sing; 
 
 Oh give the spirit sway! 
 A wild caprice is on the wing 
 
 And life swept clean away. 
 
 But stay, just stay! These violets sweet, 
 
 Whose whispers you can guess, 
 I'll pin them on your bosom neat 
 
 So each will other dress. 
 Here, hold your hand! This bunch of flowers 
 
 A royal bride would grace. 
 
 59 
 
My! All the beauty of the bowers 
 
 Would pale before your face. 
 Now let me place these roses bright 
 
 Here in your golden hair. 
 If thou art not a pure delight, 
 
 There's none in life, I swear. 
 This flaming rainbow ribbon band 
 
 Around thee now I'll tie. 
 You are a dream for artist's hand 
 
 Or I've no poet's eye. 
 
 Now, now, My Dear! Why is your face 
 
 So sad with sudden clouds? 
 Why did that golden smile give place 
 
 And shadows come in crowds? 
 There, there, My Little Honey Dear, 
 
 Dry up, dry up your tears! 
 I never dreamed that you had fear 
 
 Or sorrow like my years. 
 You're just a "Little Woman True!" 
 
 So do not sigh or weep! 
 These clouds will pass away from view 
 
 And sunshine on you leap. 
 There! I told you so. Clouds pass away. 
 
 The sun has sudden smiled; 
 Now down he looks; I hear him say: 
 
 "This is my sweetest child." 
 Then I look up to see him smile 
 
 On thee with love divine, 
 And say to him without a guile: 
 
 "I wish that she were mine." 
 
 The earth below is green for thee; 
 
 The skies above are blue; 
 The birds and flowers, tree, field and sea 
 
 Around thee circle true. 
 Old nature, mother of all life, 
 
 The sun that all doth sire, 
 Are nursing thee and feeding rife 
 
 The passions full of fire. 
 All lovers true of youth and maid 
 
 Have smiled and smiled on thee 
 And dreamed and dreamed and wished and prayed 
 
 One such to them might be. 
 Keen poets with the eye divine 
 
 Have scanned all heaven and earth 
 Then turned and with the frenzy fine 
 
 Have found in thee their mirth. 
 
 60 
 
Dli joy of life! Oh joy of life! 
 
 Thou art a fount of bliss. 
 I'll sing thy. praise through mortal days 
 
 If thou will grant a kiss. 
 Yes, I must have a kiss, My Dear. 
 
 One both that takes and gives; 
 Through only such in this dark sphere 
 
 The lover loves and lives. 
 There, there, My Own! Within my breast, 
 
 Sunbeam in winter's heart, 
 I feel thee thus my spirit bless 
 
 And life immortal part. 
 Oh child divine! Dear child divine! 
 
 Thy kiss has thawed my years. 
 Oh let me weep! I cannot keep 
 
 The fountain of my tears. 
 
 Go on your way! Go on your way, 
 
 Oh happy, happy Spring! 
 A bursting, bubbling, blossoming fay 
 
 Almost upon the wing! 
 So fresh and sweet, so clear and bright, 
 
 Smiling and undefiled, 
 So glad and glowing, pure and white 
 
 And singing as if wild! 
 A something melts and flows in me; 
 
 My heart leaps with a. bound; 
 My perished dreams arise in thee, 
 
 My lost again is found. 
 'Tis joy supreme as thus we meet, 
 
 But joy to grief gives way. 
 I gaze far down eanh's shadowed street 
 
 And as you go I pray. 
 
 THE ROSE. 
 
 A maiden fair as morning birth 
 
 And pure as morning snows, 
 In gratitude for truth I taught 
 
 Placed in my hand a rose. 
 When she gave me her simple gift 
 
 A tear her eye did wet; 
 The soul that blossomed in her face 
 
 I never can forget. 
 For she was not like other maids, 
 
 But deep and glad and true; 
 God's purity still shed on her 
 
 Its sweet divinest dew. 
 
 61 
 
This rose which she had given me 
 
 I bore it to my room; 
 Its love and light that lonely place 
 
 Did clear of every gloom. 
 Its beauty was a soul that sent 
 
 Enchantment through the air, 
 Which by the strength of its pure life 
 
 Afar did banish care. 
 With such a sight before mine eyes 
 
 And such an air to drink, 
 I only could give up myself 
 
 With joy and love to think. 
 
 This rose was robed in purest white, 
 
 Just tinging into cream; 
 And silvered with the early dew 
 
 Sprinkled from morning stream. 
 The Queen of beauty came to her 
 
 From paradise above 
 And brought a garment for her child, 
 
 Rich folds of light and love. 
 Such flow of dress the chosen maid 
 
 Has wished for in her dream 
 But never such for happy bride 
 
 The golden sun did stream. 
 
 The soul of this sweet rose breathed forth 
 
 A most delicious breath; 
 So calm, so sweet, so rich, so pure, 
 
 It o'ercame envious death; 
 It spread itself around the room 
 
 And on my dear loved books, 
 The souls of poets traveling on 
 
 Turned round with wondering looks. 
 That breath was far too strong for me 
 
 As warmth is for the snow; 
 I felt it pierce through all my frame 
 
 And to my dead heart go. 
 
 Because in her pure world of love 
 
 There is no thought of sin 
 She bared her bosom to the air 
 
 To fan the love within. 
 Her bodice folds were gently turned 
 
 And in her heaving breast 
 The soul of beauty was laid bare 
 
 Most modest and most blest. 
 No blush upon her cheek did burn, 
 
 Pure light and love divine; 
 Through all her frame her crystal soul 
 
 Upon my soul did shine. 
 
 62 
 
That glowing breast a love revealed, 
 
 A passion most intense; 
 It kindled in my frozen heart 
 
 A love too strong for sense. 
 The gentle rose did not reject 
 
 This growing love of mine, 
 But whispered as love only can: 
 
 "I seek that heart of thine." 
 So I drew near this living soul 
 
 And looked down in her breast; 
 Such love and beauty and delight 
 May never be expressed. 
 
 Her gentle breath upon my cheek 
 
 Was warm as summer rain; 
 Her presence thus so near to me 
 
 Was cleansing every stain. 
 Her love had kindled mine so strong 
 
 My fears passed in eclipse; 
 My head bent down, hers gently rose 
 
 To meet my offered lips. 
 They meet, and from her soul there flowed 
 
 A life ne'er known before; 
 It swept me from this world of crime 
 
 To some enchanted shore. 
 
 A lover never kissed a maid 
 
 And through his bosom thrilled, 
 As from thy heart, Oh happy rose! 
 
 My empty heart was filled. 
 It seemed as on thy lips most pure 
 
 Were sprinkled sacred dews, 
 So thee alone of things divine 
 
 The All in all could choose 
 To send into my empty soul 
 
 A throb of His own life 
 And thus through thy sweet purity 
 To calm my mortal strife. 
 
 Then gently down I sat and dreamed 
 
 The dreams of life divine. 
 A stream of life and love flowed out 
 
 And fed me like a wine. 
 I mounted to a higher plane 
 
 And walked into the sun: 
 Beside me soon a spirit came 
 
 And soon the two were one. 
 We strayed along life's golden way 
 
 Unto the evening's close 
 And then I found the maiden dear 
 
 Was that sweet morning rose. 
 
 63 
 
So this is why I love the rose 
 
 The queen of all the flowers. 
 The love that in her hosom glows 
 
 Is never matched by ours. 
 That purity deep and divine, 
 
 Beauty supremely blest, 
 The dreams that round her rise and shine 
 
 Rebukes us at our best. 
 Yet something kindred to her heart 
 
 With hunger oft devours 
 For that within and that beyond 
 
 The Virgin Queen of flowers. 
 
 THE DANDELION. 
 
 In the spring there rises up 
 
 A spirit green and glad. 
 Nature giveth him to sup 
 
 The wines that cure the sad, 
 The foaming, sparkling, brimming cup 
 
 That sends him on as mad. 
 
 On, on along the way 
 
 Where buds and blossoms burst, 
 Where vital perfumes play 
 
 And flowers for beauty thirst, 
 I go dancing, dancing and as gay 
 
 As song with music versed. 
 
 Then the Mother says to me: 
 
 "There is the dandelion. 
 Could you picture what I see, 
 
 Put in form the grace divine, 
 The passion feel and free 
 
 With images that shine, 
 A royal poet thou wouldst be, 
 
 A joy to me and mine." 
 
 Dandelion, Oh Dandelion 
 
 That doth from earth awake! 
 
 Warming airs are like a wine 
 And doth thy trances break. 
 
 The breath of spring is life divine 
 That life doth drunken make. 
 
 64 
 
It yet is early spring, 
 
 The vines are scarcely green, 
 The blossoms hardly wing, 
 
 The gardens yet are lean, 
 But if the sun his life should run 
 
 Then thou art sudden seen. 
 
 Thou springest out of earth 
 
 As by a magic feat; 
 A golden, golden birth 
 
 That Nature loves to greet; 
 Both heaven and earth with drunken mirth 
 
 Into thy bosom beat. 
 
 Soon thou art everywhere 
 
 In field and street and lawn, 
 Drinking deep the vital air 
 
 That fills the dewy dawn 
 And op'ning bare the sun to snare 
 
 And closing if withdrawn. 
 
 A host of circles bright, 
 
 More yellow than our gold, 
 Op'ning in our very sight 
 
 A soul that doth unfold 
 Joy, pleasure and delight 
 
 To natures young and old. 
 
 Ten thousand seem to shine 
 
 Wherever we may go. 
 We forget, the earthly tine 
 
 And when sight is leveled low 
 A sheet of golden light divine 
 
 Along the grass ye throw. 
 
 Thy sire was sure the sun; 
 
 Could such a golden round, 
 Such spirits golden run, 
 
 Such golden lances bound, 
 Lnless in him they first begun 
 
 Before they burst the ground? 
 
 Thy mother is the earth; 
 
 Thou art of her a part; 
 Her springtime mother mirth 
 
 Is flowing in thy heart; 
 She more rejoices in thy birth 
 
 Than in our mine and mart. 
 
 65 
 
Thy sisters are the flowers 
 That grace the tangled wild; 
 
 Violets in their sheltered bowers, 
 Rich pansies sun-beguiled, 
 
 Bright buttercups on slender stalks 
 And daffodillies mild. 
 
 Thy playmates are the winds, 
 
 The birds and honey-bee, 
 The butterfly that finds 
 
 Her drunken way to thee, 
 Bright buzzing flies and winged kinds 
 
 Of creatures young and free. 
 
 Oh Spring, divinest Spring! 
 
 Life panteth with desire, 
 The fountains thou dost fling 
 
 Are mounting high and higher 
 And dreaming as upon the wing 
 
 Where fed with purest fire. 
 
 Dandelion, Oh Dandelion, 
 
 Her life within thee streams! 
 
 Earth is drunken with a wine, 
 Her passion glowing gleams; 
 
 How could around ye fail to shine 
 The images of dreams? 
 
 Old Nature in her sport 
 
 Went down the way of kings; 
 All the tinsel gold of court, 
 
 All the purple plush of things, 
 'Twas just a royal wort 
 
 And out her hands she flings, 
 Ye, ye are jewels of the sort 
 
 That to her breast she brings. 
 
 The little martinet, 
 
 Oh see him in parade! 
 Your golden buttons set 
 
 The man out of his grade; 
 His fringy epaulette 
 
 And heavy corded braid 
 Are only seen when we forget 
 
 How ye are first arrayed. 
 
 The banker, how he smiled; 
 The minter paused to see; 
 
 66 
 
The jeweler was beguiled; 
 
 The miser was in glee; 
 They all dreamed and dreamed and dreamed 
 
 Old nature was insane 
 Or heaven on their visions streamed 
 
 In such a golden rain. 
 
 The peacocks of the town, 
 
 They met a simple lass; 
 She wore a flow'ry crown 
 
 And robe spun out of grass 
 Buttoned round and up and down 
 
 She did them all surpass. 
 The fashioned peacocks of renown 
 
 With envy cried: "Alas!" 
 
 Life's little fairy elves 
 
 That are untouched by sin, 
 With sly thoughts to themselves 
 
 Hold ye beneath the chin, 
 If butter patties shine, then delves 
 
 The yellow metal in. 
 
 The elder children blest 
 
 With happy fancies roam, 
 Adorn the head and breast 
 
 Like kings and queens at home; 
 So pouring dust upon the lust 
 
 Of every golden Nome. 
 
 Your Strength and Beauty fair 
 Went down thy bordered lane. 
 
 Golden was the pavement there 
 Before them and in train. 
 
 They were a royal, royal pair 
 With riches and domain. 
 
 Oh common wayside weed! 
 
 Oh birth that many scorn! 
 The Mother and her breed. 
 
 See magic in ye born 
 And from thy heart doth something start 
 
 That giveth grace to morn. 
 
 Down, down into thy heart 
 
 Soul sinketh out of time; 
 Lost, lost unto the mart 
 
 And found in life sublime 
 That from the center soul doth start 
 
 Forever to its prime. 
 
 67 
 
Down, down out of the world 
 From loss and strife and stain, 
 
 Out of the madness hurled 
 By selfishness insane, 
 
 Into the dreams divine and pearled 
 That Love builds for her reign. 
 
 Down, down out of the world 
 And give myself to dreams; 
 
 The thinker free can think 
 Life other than it seems 
 
 And for a moment drink divine 
 The vision pure that streams. 
 
 Down, down into thy life! 
 
 Down, down into thy soul! 
 Thy spirits rich and rife 
 
 Doth through and through me roll 
 And for an hour I tread the course 
 
 To being's starry goal. 
 
 But Oh how soon, how soon 
 
 Decay doth on ye grow! 
 Your golden robes of noon 
 
 Are changed to white as snow 
 And lighter than a gauze festoon 
 
 And winged hence ye go. 
 
 Then just a puff of wind, 
 
 Without a fear or sigh, 
 The earth ye leave behind 
 
 And sail the azure sky, 
 Unto your course and end resigned, 
 
 Unlike to us who die. 
 
 Sail, sail the azure deep! 
 
 Wing, wing ye through the sky! 
 On, onward ever sweep! 
 
 High, higher still on high! 
 Your stainless courses onward keep, 
 
 Unlike to us who die. 
 
 AMONG THE STARS. 
 
 Oh lofty and sublimest dome of night! 
 Emblazonery with images divine! 
 Eternal dreams upon the stainless height 
 That wake and feed and fill our mortal pine! 
 How oft, how oft we lift our stretching eyne 
 Unto the deeps whence down into us stream 
 
 68 
 
The floods of life like crimson cosmic wine! 
 How oft we soar with vigor most supreme 
 Straight up to thee and large as thy design! 
 Led by thy power, kindled by sight and dream 
 We think the mighty thoughts of this vast starry scheme. 
 
 What undreamed revelations here! What surprise 
 Of distances and reaches into space! 
 What stretching out of heart and mind and eyes 
 To the fixed stars as if our strength could trace 
 Infinity! Boundless amplitudes embrace 
 Us round in unimagined measures, which scorn 
 Time's mathematic and astronomic race 
 Of giants. At ninety million miles is born 
 The sun; at two hundred thousand times the base 
 The nearest star; at thirty thousand unshorn 
 Years of lightning motion the faintest stars forlorn. 
 
 Oh unconquerable and inconceivable 
 Reaches of the heavens! The powers of thought 
 Are stunned, staggered, stimulated and full 
 Of drunken inspiration when first are taught 
 These distances so infinitely fraught 
 Beyond all human nature. The awful deep 
 And length and breadth and height, is there aught 
 In the wide universe whose pinions sweep 
 The trackless regions which yonder have been wrought? 
 See earth-born genius forth impassioned leap! 
 See yonder on the moon that soon exhausted heap! 
 
 What volumes and inconceivable masses 
 Are floating in yon sky? This granite frame 
 With mountains, forests, seas, land and all, glasses 
 The worlds as a soap bubble in a game. 
 Of childhood images the thing we name 
 The earth. Uranus, icy Neptune, 
 Ringed Saturn and Jupiter of belted fame, 
 These magnitudes with whom ourselves commune, 
 Are mighty globes whose shadows mere might shame 
 Our bloated size. Dimensionless the king of noon 
 Could hide the solar system in spots on his illume. 
 
 This thirteen hundred thousand times the earth 
 Is but a baby world to some of these 
 First seen thousands of years aiter the birth 
 Of light. Before the spectroscope there flees 
 Swift flashes of such globes. Enormities 
 Of size we know exist but cannot climb 
 By any strength or dreams that fancy please; 
 Millions of miled diameters, with prime 
 
 69 
 
Circumferences broken by the seas, 
 Mountains, land and storms and everything to rhyme 
 The vast gigantic scales where nature works sublime. 
 
 Omnipotence is but a word elsewhere, 
 But here, here are the infinities of power — 
 The vast almighty energies that dare 
 From nothingness create this flaming bower 
 Of dynamic, wonder-crowded suns. How our 
 Little earth confounds our strength and shakes 
 Us into fear by earthquakes that devour 
 Our element-defying weakness! Who makes 
 These stupendous lightning motors that drive the towe 
 Of day and night? Omnipotence expiates 
 In infinite infinities of suns and planet mates. 
 
 A horse-power! A horse-power must be multiplied 
 A billion times, and then be cast away 
 For a solar unit which doth but hide 
 The almightiness that round us has its sway. 
 These centripetals and centrifugals stay 
 The first archangel's visions and confound 
 Man's speech, his dreams and figures of display. 
 Nature's reservoiral energies abound 
 Still unexhausted and fresh creations dismay 
 The magnitudes that circle here around, 
 In constellated march, forever more renowned. 
 
 Equal or past the volume, power and space, 
 Is the expansion of the sense of time. 
 How contemptuous the periods of our race 
 Unto the age that with the world doth rhyme! 
 These astronomic ages, now sublime 
 The mighty roll of these celestial spheres 
 Whose million years upon each other climb 
 As waves climb up the murmuring shores! The years 
 Before the moon, the earth, the planets prime, 
 As rending thunders strike upon the ears, 
 Pause as with solemn awe and shadow us with fears. 
 
 How old is the golden vestured king of noon? 
 How vain the symbols in the answer told! 
 Figures are as empty as a gauze festoon 
 Which on the moon a summer breath has rolled. 
 Twenty million years is estimate not bold, 
 And even this some multiply a score; 
 But this or that what spirit can it hold? 
 Our sun is young; others have vastly more 
 Of age upon them. Most solemnizing old 
 These flickering stars upon night's purple floor! 
 Almost to everlasting our spirits onward soar. 
 
 70 
 
Thus we are lifted above life and time. 
 A mighty spirit sweeps us o'er the earth, 
 Over time's changes, over nature's prime, 
 And past the hour of her sunlike glorious birth. 
 Intensities of awe and noblest mirth 
 Bear us on to the distant fire creations 
 Of nebulosities of extended girth. 
 Incarnate in the very condensations 
 We slowly live up to the present worth, 
 Through the times, process and differentiations 
 That builds the universe up to its glorious stations. 
 
 Thus bound along the mighty evolutions 
 From heterogeneous elements most raw, 
 We see the growth of nature's institutions, 
 Matter, biologies, intelligence and awe. 
 The reach and sweep of everlasting law 
 Inspire and light imagination's eyes 
 To see worlds born, and then sink in the maw 
 Of what might seem annihilation. They rise 
 Through geologic dynasties, though they draw 
 Some of the past entail; but promise ever cries 
 A still diviner course along the azure skies. 
 
 Still onward we are bound by flight benign 
 Though earthquake shocks of conflict round us ring, 
 As the higher powers with victory divine 
 Sloughs off the old that doth around it cling. 
 The earth decays; a burnt out cinder the king 
 Of noon dissolves to nought, and another mass 
 With potentialities more rich doth spring 
 Into its place. The constellations pass 
 Like panoramic scenes and others fling 
 A brighter splendor and another glory glass 
 Of something more sublime as these the earth surpass. 
 
 Changes to higher transformation is the line 
 By which the universe doth upward wing. 
 There must be ideals more splendid and divine 
 Than those whose lift unto this height did bring. 
 Ends of vast, vaster majesty must king 
 The long ascension, for on each higher plane 
 Bonic and celestial song doth fling 
 Eclipsing visions on the heart and brain. 
 What can exhaust the starry globes! This thing 
 Of briefest earth? Shall not the ideals reign 
 Nor the evolutions bring our dreams in all their train! 
 
 It must be so. Man's infinite eternal deep 
 Cries out against a blinded evolution, 
 
 71 
 
And infinite, eternal life doth sweep 
 When he believes even a dream solution 
 To these vast globes in strife and rank pollution. 
 In spite of sight great glorious visions leap 
 Upon the heart and brain, and times of restitution 
 In pageantry and high procession sweep 
 Through all the years and crown each revolution. 
 These spirits vast courses eternal keep, 
 Hope, Life and Love and Truth great dreams before them hea>>. 
 
 Lost, lost amid the future contemplations 
 We find ourselves within the distant age, 
 After vast change, within the new creation 
 The prophet scarce dare tell unto his page. 
 With a divine intensity of rage 
 We're lifted up and borne by dream along 
 The glorious evolution that assuage 
 The passions slain, yet fed by greed and wrong. 
 The reign of science, of poet, priest and sage, 
 The incarnation of spirits pure and strong 
 Around us rise sublime crowned with eternal song. 
 
 The contemplation high doth wear the strength 
 Of frail humanity that must descend 
 
 From all the stars. The height and breadth and length 
 Of those rich dreams into the mortal lend 
 The passions great that being doth distend 
 And glorify with splendors like the morn. 
 Failing and worn though high and far the end 
 We calm descend but feel we are upborn 
 To other thoughts that fit the present trend. 
 Upon the earth, beneath the bright adorn 
 Thy powers and works and dreams no living soul can scorn. 
 
 The dumb, unconscious beast beholds thee not 
 And multitudes of more unconscious men 
 Storm o'er the earth with blindest fevers hot 
 And through their course of three -score years and ten 
 Not once, so much as once lift up the ken 
 To view thy flaming glories. But if the sight 
 Falls on the heart the universe again 
 Brings forth the heir. A new cosmopolite 
 Emerges frcm the beasts amid the fen; 
 Emerges with his face unto the height, 
 Receives and back reflects the distant splendors bright. 
 
 There is no mechanician in the world 
 But looks with vast astonishment on high. 
 The huge machine by huger forces whirled 
 Intoxicates the true machinist's eye. 
 
The revolutions along the azure sky 
 Of circles and ellipses, the rotation 
 Directed and reverse of masses as they fly 
 Undeviating orbits, the inclination 
 Of the axes to the plane and the perfect ply 
 Of every cog throughout the wide creation 
 Is a mechanic's joy and lasting contemplation. 
 
 Physical scientists and philosophers 
 Of mind, men of the noblest sweep and height 
 Of thought, the intelligence that delivers 
 The world from plane to plane, with rich delight, 
 Most solemn awe, and inspirations white, 
 Oft contemplate this galaxy of splendors, 
 These processional majesties, these bright 
 Prodigalities of power and sunlike spenders 
 Of infinite generosity. The height 
 Of passion this vision to earth tenders 
 Gives victory over time and space asunder renders. 
 
 Noblest of all, the community of saints 
 Have loved thee, Night, and thy exalted bowers, 
 So uncontaminated by the taints 
 Of life and time and all that man devours. 
 The infinite and high eternal Powers 
 Of purity with thee hold habitation 
 And from thy starry elevations great showers 
 Drench the spirit, till we become incarnations 
 Of noblest character. Thy solemn hours 
 Are sacred to his Spirit's ministrations, 
 .aptisms in his life and moral exaltations. 
 
 Oh what a spacious, all-sustaining base 
 Is this vast culminating universe 
 For a rich and multitudinous race 
 Of intellect and morals! Oh who could nurse 
 The thought that moral beings never verse 
 The worlds out of impeachment to intelligence 
 Vast, vast beyond our own! Is this disburse 
 Of mighty worlds a spectacular pretense 
 And empty vanity? On this atom what unpurse 
 Of vastest elements? More noble and intense 
 Must be and rule the spheres of such magnificence. 
 
 There must be others ! Hierachal reigns 
 Of love and purity, of triumphant power 
 And beauty must exist in those domains 
 Of starry splendor. The immortal tower 
 Yonder in their strength and golden dower; 
 The ripe perfections within the prophet's sense 
 
 73 
 
Flower from within and round them. No sins devour 
 Nor light upon them any of the dense 
 And blind idolatries of earth. There shower 
 Life's shining gifts and virtues most immense 
 And all the generations go singing, soaring hence. 
 
 This starry scheme doth shame all architectural 
 G'enius and dwindles this planet of the sun 
 To a mere vestibule for intellectual 
 Being. The architectonic power doth run 
 This temple-like construction as to stun 
 All heaven's visions. A vast sublimity 
 Arches our entrance to creation 
 And ushers us to a high infinity 
 Of solar systems. The universe has won, 
 Adopts us, and within a new divinity 
 Awakes and finds and claims, life, kindred and affinity. 
 
 Oh Night, as long as I shall circle here 
 Lead, lead me out and lift me to thy height! 
 Nurse, nurse my soul from this repressive sphere 
 Unto thy greatness, majesty and might! 
 Feed to my eyes the constellations bright, 
 To heart, the life of the vast universe, 
 To mind, the splendored sunlike visions white 
 Of great immortals riding on the curse, 
 And to the future feed the glorious sight 
 Of recreating globes that rich unpurse 
 The dreams beyond all dreams, the verse beyond all verse. 
 
 NATURE'S SONGS. 
 
 I love to hear old nature sing; 
 
 There's music in her heart. 
 An ocean feeding crystal spring 
 
 Doth in her bosom start. 
 The oldest, richest melody, 
 
 From her it ever flows; 
 From sky and forest, mount and sea 
 
 Around the world it blows. 
 
 With mighty tramp the thunders march 
 
 Along the cloudy height, 
 As Liberty upon the arch 
 
 Were marching in her might. 
 What majesty and solemn song! 
 
 What trembling awful sound! 
 Like armies cannonading strong 
 
 74 
 
When thunders march around. 
 
 The loud reverberations sate 
 
 And chain the raptured ear; 
 The dying of the battle great 
 
 Is muffled music dear. 
 Prom cloud to cloud it dies away 
 
 As dies away a song; 
 It never seems to die, but stays 
 
 In echoes ling'ring long. 
 
 The wind in mountain or in trees, 
 
 Oh, who hath ever heard 
 These solemn sweeping melodies 
 
 And not with passion stirred? 
 The elemental breath of earth 
 
 When driven with a sweep 
 Doth bring in man another birth 
 
 Whose raptures forward leap. 
 
 The forest to the northern blast 
 
 Doth answer with a sound 
 That sweeps man's mighty passions fast 
 
 In her resistless round. 
 Autumnal breath! Spirit of life! 
 
 Blow, blow, forever blow! 
 When sweeping with the glorious strife 
 
 The spirit white doth glow! 
 
 What mighty sound around the shore 
 
 When earth the tempest rocks? 
 The awful ocean's angry roar 
 
 The mountain bases shocks. 
 White foaming waves! Deep yawning caves! 
 
 High heaven climbing sound! 
 The fearless ear delights to hear 
 
 Your music poured around. 
 
 An even when the tempests sleep 
 
 A loud triumphant strain 
 Victorious marches o'er the deep 
 
 Like spirits of domain. 
 Thousands of miles with mighty voice 
 
 The victors singing go. 
 The paean doth the earth rejoice; 
 
 Blow, blow ye trumpets, blow! 
 
 And every gentle breath that blows 
 
 O'er spring or summer time, 
 Shakes out on earth or brings to birth 
 
 Some snatches of sweet chime. 
 
 • 75 
 
Who has not felt the zephyr rise 
 And from the fanning strain 
 
 Received a something that revives 
 Song in the heart and brain? 
 
 Often the silver singing streams 
 
 Gush fountain-like from earth, 
 And like a child with happy dreams 
 
 Sings with a growing mirth. 
 Ten thousand placid crystal lakes 
 
 Wash up the silver beach, 
 And shame the schools and all the rules 
 
 Of rich poetic speech. 
 
 The fountains and the waterfalls 
 
 From rock to rock they fling 
 The echoes and the fairy calls 
 
 Each to the other sing. 
 The rain, the rain, the slanted rain 
 
 Comes patt'ring all around; 
 The sad and sweet pathetic strain 
 
 The heart has often found. 
 
 The morning never yet did rise 
 
 Without a burst of praise. 
 The forest green, the azure skies 
 
 Are lyrical with lays. 
 Ten thousand plumaged singers sweet 
 
 That live upon the wing 
 Doth hail the morn with passion heat 
 
 And all in rapture sing. 
 
 A deep and spirit-nursing hum 
 
 Fills every summer vale; 
 The hives, the insects and all come 
 
 And murmur as they sail. 
 The song of low ephemeral life 
 
 Is soft and rich and clear; 
 And like a balm on life and strife 
 
 To all that hark and hear. 
 
 And in the pauses of the strain, 
 
 The flowers, cloud and sky 
 And Beauty with her rainbow train 
 
 Swift flashes on the eye. 
 Then golden, crimson, purple sprites, 
 
 Like maidens pure and fair, 
 Like me, seem listening with delights 
 
 To nature's ancient air. 
 
 Oh Nature strong! Oh Soul of song! 
 Thy music o'er me fling! 
 
 76 
 
Pd barter all the poet's art 
 
 But just to hear thee sing. 
 There's pleasure in thy presence sweet 
 
 And hopes around thee throng; 
 There's strength where thou and man doth meet 
 
 And virtue is thy song. 
 
 METEORS AND STARS. 
 
 A blazing rocket mounting to the air, 
 Leaves in its wake a line of crimson light; 
 Aloft it bursts, and colored streams most fair 
 Play as a fountain 'gainst the dome of night. 
 This sudden, brilliant and fantastic sight 
 Draws every eye, and while its bosom burns 
 Pales the eternal stars; then from its height 
 In that same gaze to earth it quick returns, 
 Plunging to sightless sink where none the spot discerns. 
 
 As men are born, so each dynamic life 
 Is winged to mount this firmament of fire; 
 In that majestic peace which mocks our strife 
 Find the bright place for which high hearts aspiro. 
 In our quick, mortal, blind and mad desire 
 For yonder vacant thrones, wings of feeble flame 
 Are stricken dumb by storms of jealous ire; 
 And millions fall to darkness whence they came, 
 To watch with envious eyes the few swift souls of fame. 
 
 These souls mount up, and as warm dizzy flights 
 Kindle bright dreams within the meteor's trance, 
 So their being burns anew. Golden delights 
 Around them shine and their celestial dance, 
 Almighty power and solar lightning glance 
 For one short hour dims e'en the light of noon; 
 Then weakness does each quick, glad, silver lance 
 Of spirit light eclipse, while star and moon 
 Watch their descending flight to some foul dark lagoon. 
 
 For souls burning from self may burn most bright; 
 Spread heaven's light, and herald earth's late morn; 
 But selfishness, time's deadly, coldest blight, 
 The vital spark from seraph souls has torn; 
 For glowing heart and flaming mind has borne 
 The light that clove their dark and natal gloom, 
 And hissing in sin's salty sea of scorn 
 Plunged them down, and gave the vacant room 
 To souls of purer fire bursting from death's last tomb. 
 
 77 
 
Those spirits scorched by life's quick fiery scorn 
 Till selfishness is cindered, cold and dead, 
 With an immortal life anew are born 
 And from the heart of primal fire are fed. 
 Fire soft, pure, sweet, swift and strong as ever sped 
 The electric currents through archangel's wings 
 Is theirs; and since to life and love is wed 
 The high ideal, their inmost being springs 
 From tombs of death to life and thrones that wait their kings. 
 
 Through mortal night with lightning woven storms, 
 Through thunder crash and elemental wrath, 
 Through swarming hosts of demoniac forms 
 Whose envious hate resists their destined path 
 Skyward, love's pure resistless heart which hath 
 A robe of strength and motion round her flung, 
 Burns her bright way and leaves no aftermath 
 Through their deep belt of foes; and all that clung 
 Around their new-born souls before their flight are stung. 
 
 Then as a globe and comet train of fire, 
 In most majestic curves toward heaven's height 
 Sweeps her bright way, and brighter as she higher 
 Mounts the path through constellated night, 
 So souls of love, with splendor, joy and might 
 Pinion aloft to life's awaiting skies; 
 While mid our flames of flickering, lurid light, 
 A million hearts with their sad filmy eyes, 
 Behold their age's sight with hate or glad surprise. 
 
 From golden, poised and never wearied wings, 
 Upon that mass of helpless death below 
 The Spirit's best and purest gift she flings: 
 The light of love upon their selfish woe; 
 The love of light to feed their hearts' faint glow; 
 On their dark minds and shadowed countenance 
 A living dream which beckons them to go 
 Toward that pure Soul whose love and gladness dance 
 In these soft saving beams upon their mortal glance. 
 
 Then far above on heaven's destined thrones, 
 Firm set within the firmament which time 
 Pavilions round this darkness, death and groans, 
 They shine forever bright. From towers sublime 
 They scatter light which neither curse nor crime 
 Can long eclipse, nor if they would, not see. 
 Though age on age like waves each other climb, 
 And selfishness her dark clouds still set free, 
 High throned the lights of love shine to eternity. 
 
 18 
 
A MORNING SONG FOR SENSE. 
 
 Oh ye sons of force! Oh ye sons of force! 
 That the storms defy and the elements' course, 
 That are formed by the lightning, plain and rock 
 For the lists of power and the earthquake shock, 
 
 How can ye arise and haste on your way 
 Like the blinded beasts that in darkness prey! 
 How dare ye to toil ere ye lift your eyes 
 To the majesties of the morning skies! 
 
 Oh pause on the tramp of your early march 
 
 And behold the gates and the eastern arch! 
 
 Oh pause on the tramp that doth shake the earth 
 
 And look where the day and its strength have birth! 
 
 On the Campus pause, on the crested hill, 
 At the vista wide which the morn doth fill, 
 By the mine or mart, plain or dew-clad mount, 
 By the billowy beach or the singing fount, 
 
 Just a moment pause, and a moment's sight 
 Of that golden sun and those splendors bright 
 Shall become a dream and a vision high 
 On the hours of toil as they slowly fly. 
 
 Take a deep, a deeper, diviner breath 
 For this vital air is the bane of death 
 And the crimson pulse of the morning hour 
 Will thy heart engird for the day's devour. 
 
 Oh lift thy brow to the silent awes 
 Of the upper spheres and the solemn laws! 
 For the sight divin> with its passions tense 
 Will thy spirit lift from the bonds of sense. 
 
 Oh drink to the full of the royal sight! 
 
 Let these golden splendors, effulgent bright 
 
 And the tides of life that forever stream 
 
 Fill the heart and brain that with hungers teem! 
 
 When the key is turned in the factory gates 
 And thy free soul bound with their heavy weights, 
 Then a dream of life and supremely bright 
 Shall burst like the blaze of this golden light. 
 
 The dawn of the day it was made for thee 
 
 It was made to lift and to make thee free. 
 
 If thou wilt pause at the morning dawn 
 
 Thou wilt find thou'rt more than a mass of brawn. 
 
 79 
 
Oh ye sons of force! Oh ye sons of force! 
 Here renew your strength for your mortal course! 
 If ye will pause at the morning portal 
 Ye will find yourselves and the Soul immortal. 
 
 THE MOCKING BIRD. 
 
 Mocking Bird, Oh Mocking Bird! 
 
 The mention of thy name 
 Deep desire within has stirred 
 And from the north I came 
 To hear the magic song that gives thy spirit fame. 
 
 I harken now for thee; 
 
 Sing, sing to me a strain! 
 Thy music full unfree 
 
 Into my heart and brain! 
 I'm kindred unto thee and list'ning as in pain. 
 
 Hark! Hark! Is that the measure 
 
 Now bursting on my ear 
 Too high for sense of pleasure, 
 Too deep for doubt or fear, 
 Quick'ning soul that reaches out with hunger vast to hear. 
 
 Forth leaps the strain of life; 
 
 Out shoots the stream of fire; 
 It pierces like a knife; 
 
 It quickens like inspire; 
 Waking, waking, waking soul with infinite desire. 
 
 I cannot think or dream, 
 
 I can only hark and hear. 
 All powers that in me stream 
 
 Are straining at my ear; 
 To lose a single note is growing pain and fear. 
 
 On flows the thrilling sound; 
 
 On sweep the flood of song; 
 Life riseth with a bound 
 
 Of passion swelling strong, 
 Enchanted, chained and held though sweeping swift along. 
 
 New fountains in me burst; 
 
 Life mounteth up the steep; , 
 Soul has drunk away her thirst 
 And can walk and run and leap; 
 Something strange, divine, and swift doth through her 
 
 being sweep. 
 
 80 
 
Oh Music, the divinest 
 
 Of all the muses fine! 
 Oh Spirit that enshrinest 
 
 The songs for which we pine, 
 Ever still the Queen of life, supremest and benign! 
 
 Out, out thou now art flinging 
 
 The fulness of thy heart, 
 To earth and heaven singing 
 
 The lyrics of an art 
 That feedest full the passion of a life's immortal part! 
 
 Far, far thou now art throwing 
 
 A thousand notes of fire! 
 As the soul the song is glowing, 
 
 Thou art lost in thy inspire, 
 Crimson life is sweeping through thy heart so like a lyre. 
 
 Forth, forth thou now are pouring 
 
 The spirit-quick'ning strains! 
 All drinketh and go soaring 
 Forgetful of their pains, 
 After every vital draught more thirsty still remains. 
 
 'Tis a glowing, glowing passion, 
 Pure, flaming, swift and bright. 
 
 The music take the fashion 
 Of the spirit burning white, 
 Every note intense and iound and piercing with delight. 
 
 'Tis a wild ecstatic measure, 
 
 A swift delirious strain, 
 The youngest youngest pleasure 
 
 With a drunken heart and brain, 
 That never knew a sorrow and never dreamed a pain. 
 
 'Tis a lyric lyric rapture 
 Of a lyric spirit glad, 
 With the lyrics that doth capture 
 The soul of sorrow sad, 
 Restoring it the happiness no dreams have ever had. 
 
 Here Nature sits and nurses 
 
 Her children gathered round. 
 She feedeth them the verses 
 That in her bosom bound, 
 And to her youngest singing soul has taught the glorious soun 
 
 Here beauties, dreams and visions 
 Are crowding hill and dale; 
 
 81 
 
Loud laughing with derisions 
 Or intense and still and pale; 
 Spirit lifted up on high and swept on like a gale. 
 
 Here song and joy and story- 
 Are list'ning as in trance; 
 
 Tnere is a flash of glory, 
 Of splendor and romance 
 Every time the wild caprice sweeps the ecstatic dance. 
 
 Here poets of all orders 
 
 Come running from afar. 
 Thy song has crossed the borders 
 
 And swings the gates ajar, 
 The past and future singers around thy presence are. 
 
 They forward lean and listen 
 
 All straining and intense. 
 Some eyes with sorrows glisten, 
 
 Some swell with power immense 
 Some white and glowing glow and all are free from sense. 
 
 Between the breathing pauses 
 Each smothers down his lyre, 
 
 Eut the pulsing pulsing causes 
 A bursting out of fire; 
 One by one they sing to thee a snatch of their desire. 
 
 "I have heard the lyric chorus 
 
 Of the early dewy morn 
 When before and round and o'er us 
 
 As the sun again was born, 
 Every winged singing soul with gladness new was torn. 
 
 As I listened to that singing 
 
 Up I mounted to the height; 
 There were dreams before me winging 
 That did capture my delight, 
 Till forgotten was the song in the images so bright. 
 
 But the song that now is sweeping- 
 Flings enchantment on the ear; 
 
 With the high crescendoes leaping 
 I am climbing up the sphere, 
 But abounding with the passion that is binding me to hear. 
 
 As I circle round the pleasures 
 Of the forest, sea and sky, 
 
 I will never hear such measures 
 As this wild ecstatic cry; 
 But the echoes, Oh the echoes, they will never never die." 
 
 82 
 
"I have heard the strings of life 
 
 Arid the fingers full of fire; 
 Though entangled in the strife 
 
 I did answer the inspire, 
 Leaping with a life divine and panting with desire. 
 
 But this passion more intense, 
 
 More intense and pule and white, 
 Delivers from all sense 
 And spirit doth bedight 
 In singing singing robes that bear me with delight, 
 
 Where priests and prophets sing 
 
 Their visions, dreams and lays, 
 And flaming echoes fling 
 Down the enchanted ways 
 Where Life and Love and Truth the scepter swings and swa 
 
 As I go upon my way 
 
 I will listen to the lyre, 
 But my hand will often stay 
 
 Its throbbing strings of fire, 
 Dreaming of this soul of song that captures my desire." 
 
 "I have felt the hungry tooth 
 Of the dragon of remorse 
 Bite, bite unbitten youth 
 With the fury of its force, 
 Driving blinded and insane the mortal on its course. 
 
 The spirit of the morn 
 
 In rainbow beauty dressed 
 Was torn as clouds are torn 
 
 Before the storm's unrest, 
 Pitching down the ruined night from heaven's highest crest. 
 
 Life now has clean forgot 
 
 The poison of the pain; 
 The spirit so besot 
 
 Is rising without stain, 
 Binding tight the glorious song upon its heart and brain. 
 
 As I go upon my course 
 
 I will sing as sorrow sings. 
 As sorrow is the source 
 
 Of song that sweetest rings 
 I will mingle it with this in the fountain head of springs." 
 
 "I have heard the systems swinging, 
 Sing the echoes of the spheres. 
 
 83 
 
I have heard the ages winging, 
 Ring the choruses of years, 
 And these broken-hearted mortals in the tragedy of tears. 
 
 But the high eonic measures 
 
 Of the universal score 
 Are forgotten in the pleasures 
 
 Of the strains that on me pour, 
 In the panting panting rapture of this lyric lyric lore. 
 
 Sublime in their sublimity 
 
 They go upon their way. 
 Divine in thy divinity 
 The raptures of thy lay 
 Createth new the world of life and sweep them down the day. 
 
 When I sweep along the ages, 
 When I soar above the spheres, 
 
 When the battle fiercest rages, 
 There will ring within my ears 
 This passioned, passioned measure that is laughing at all fears," 
 
 "I have heard the poet's lark 
 
 Soar singing to the sun; 
 All the world doth pause and hark 
 As the stream adown doth run, 
 Lost, lost and found in dreams when it is but begun. 
 
 The beauty, bird and strain 
 Doth lift Life out of earth. 
 It pierces heart and brain 
 
 Till dreams come unto birth, 
 Singing, singing, singing songs delirious in mirth. 
 
 Now far across the sea 
 
 I bend a listening ear; 
 And now I turn to thee 
 
 Deep thrilling as I hear, 
 Yielding thine the palm of song, perhaps because so near. 
 
 Those poets and their lark, 
 
 These and their mocking birds, 
 
 To each other bend and hark, 
 By each other vast are stirred, 
 More impassioned passioned praise was never never heard." 
 
 "Unto the golden spheres 
 
 From whence we came we turn. 
 Not one of our compeers 
 
 84 
 
Thy song would dare unlearn, 
 For through the future's lyre thy soul and song shall burn. 
 
 Mocking Bird, Oh Mocking Bird! 
 
 Oh Music wild and free! 
 Though images and word 
 
 Are pleasures unto me, 
 Vaster, vaster is the joy of listening unto thee. 
 
 WHEN SHALL MY SOUL-SUMMER COME? 
 
 The winter storms away have passed; 
 
 The cold and ice and snow, 
 The frosty cloud, the whirlwind blast, 
 
 Night, hunger, fear and foe! 
 Away! Away! As far they bound 
 As sorrow does when joy is crowned. 
 
 The sky again is soft and bright, 
 
 These ether oceans blue; 
 The air is cleansed with liquid light 
 
 And vital to renew. 
 The golden, chemic, vital sun 
 A life in death has now begun. 
 
 All things now bear and give their gain, 
 
 South winds an odor sweet, 
 The soft clouds come with warming rain, 
 
 Light with expanding heat; 
 The morning feeds earth with her beams 
 And evening nurses with her dreams. 
 
 Each plumaged bird her rapture sings, 
 Streams murmur o'er the stones, 
 
 The forest's bannered branches fling 
 Her sweeping undertones; 
 
 Measures from mountains, plain and sea 
 
 Build up a mighty hymn to me. 
 
 A softest green now carpets earth, 
 
 The dome a deep of blue; 
 Rich rainbow hearts open to birth 
 
 In contrasts sweet and new; 
 Golden and red, purple and white. 
 And mingled colors woven bright. 
 
 With bursting life all things abound, 
 
 With hopes and joys divine; 
 The mighty world-soul circles round 
 
 85 
 
Life, fire and joy and wine. 
 Ten thousand times her soul did wake 
 But never from her heart did break 
 The life that thrills and all things shake. 
 
 The veil is drawn from off her heart; 
 
 I see life's ebb and flow; 
 I hear the sound her pulsings start, 
 
 Oh what a fervid glow! 
 Now nature's form is full of life 
 Expanding with all passions rife. 
 
 But J am clouded o'er with fears, 
 
 Nor sun nor soul I hail; 
 Desire nor hope nor grief nor tears 
 
 Against the fates avail. 
 I'm dark and sick, bleeding and numb; 
 Oh when shall my soul-summer come? 
 
 Oh when shall my soul-summer come? 
 
 Oh shall it come at last? 
 I've hoped and hoped but life is dumb; 
 
 My fears oft stand aghast, 
 Oft stand aghast, lest I stay numb 
 And my soul-summer never come. 
 
 TO ASTRONOMY. 
 
 Oh Astronomy! Astronomy! 
 Thou art the Queen of sciences. The universe 
 Is thy boundless empire, and eternity 
 Thy throne of majesty where thou dost unpurse 
 An infinity of fulness and disburse 
 Thy blessings unto the wide creation. 
 The worlds thou liftest from chaotic curse 
 And round thy everlasting station 
 Spiritlike they congregate. They glorious verse 
 Thy presence, splendor and exaltation 
 Which round the heavens casts sublimest fascination. 
 
 Thou art the mother of intellectual 
 Being. Thou bringest forth the passioned hour 
 Of intensities in man and time's usurping spell 
 Destroyest in his heart. Thou art the power 
 Whose expansion recreates with vast endower 
 These faculties, and communicates to soul 
 The transcendental elements that tower 
 On high. The mighty amplitudes that roll 
 
 86 
 
Through thy uncircled spirit becomes our 
 
 Temperamental quality, and to the whole 
 
 Created universe thou dost our spirits pole. 
 
 Oh mother of this heaven soaring mind! 
 Oh mother of this godlike breasted heart! 
 Oh parent of divine begotten kind 
 Which thee and thine within our beings start! 
 What creations to a shining chart 
 Sublimer than the worlds! What intensities 
 Of passion which thy spirits free impart! 
 What expansion beyond the cumberous densities 
 Of earth! and what idealisms dart 
 Upon us changing time's propensities. 
 As we are face to face with thee and thy immensities! 
 
 Oh imperial passioned mother of the great! 
 What mean these strange experiences of time? 
 Why are we led to bound this incommensurate 
 Creation? Why are we forced to the prime 
 Battle of being and with elements sublime 
 Contend until the mastery we gain? 
 Why thus impelled these awful heights to climb? 
 And inspired to understand the strain 
 The systems round, forever on us chime? 
 Why conflict, conquest, triumph and a plane 
 Where these mechanics vast go circling in the brain? 
 
 What means this most memorial sacrament 
 To life's intelligence and the significance 
 Of this baptism into the element- 
 Al powers of being? What means this inductance 
 To the vast estates that base the super-sense 
 Abilities? and this domestication 
 Of a child of time in the wide immens- 
 ities of uncircumscribed creation? 
 What means this capacity of immanence 
 And transcendency o'er matter and mutation 
 By the earth-born, mortal, and prisoner to his station? 
 
 Does it not mean there is a living breath 
 And being shaped upon the Infinite? 
 Something unkindred to space and time and death, 
 And in its element upon the summit 
 Of creation, drinking in most passionate 
 The splendors of intelligence and power 
 And life and beauty that forever flit 
 Across its bosom? Is not the glorious hour 
 Out of the deep and from the heights of spirit? 
 Does it not prophet-like announce our 
 Certain immortality as fruit foretells the flower? 
 
Can this being of intensest consciousness? 
 Of length and breadth and height and depth and sweep 
 Beyond all limits that upon us press, 
 Return again into its native deep 
 Of nothingness? Can this heart and mind that keep 
 The universe within its compass drink 
 Annihilation? Will it not rather leap 
 When it doth come to nature's awful brink, 
 To freedom, power and glory on the steep 
 Of heaven? How impossible to think 
 Creation's crown of life in death can ever sink! 
 
 Oh Nature, Night and Astronomic Soul! 
 Oh infinite and most eternal power 
 That through mankind and all creations roll 
 The fulness that thy being doth endower! 
 Is not this where ye bring the narrow hour 
 Of our mortality and it baptize 
 Into eternity that doth devour 
 The bondage sense that on this mortal lies? 
 Another consciousness comes up to tower 
 Commandingly upon the azure skies 
 And round the starry spans casts her imperial eyes. 
 
 Oh Night! Oh Night! Oh most beloved Night! 
 Mother and nurse of being's power divine! 
 Oh cast thy spells of starry magic might 
 Upon cur minds and still more make them thine! 
 Under thy constellations, Oh pour the wine 
 Of living thought upon this thirsty mortal 
 And fellowship our low, unworthy line! 
 Oh lead us through each starry flaming portal 
 And lift us to the height of thy design! 
 Oh clothe us with thy character so courtal 
 &nd like thy splendors bright, Oh march us on immortal! 
 
 DETROIT RIVER. 
 
 Oh rivers famed in history 
 
 With magic light and song, 
 With wonder, grace and mystery 
 
 Of ages buried long! 
 Shine, shine in all your glory! 
 
 Robe, robe you like a dream! 
 Flow, flow and tell your story 
 
 As round the world ye stream! 
 
 Burst, burst up from your fountains 
 Of gold and silver sands! 
 
 88 
 
Dance, dance adown your mountains 
 Like youth and maiden bands! 
 
 Your hoary tales the choicest 
 On time and tide, Oh fling! 
 
 Far better songs unvoicest 
 The river that I sing. 
 
 Old Nature in her riches 
 
 Of nations dreamed the health. 
 She dug these noble ditches 
 
 To flood them with her wealth. 
 "Flow, flow ye inland oceans! 
 
 Flow, fountains of the north! 
 Ye floods with rushing motions, 
 
 I bid you to come forth!" 
 
 Then instantly a river, 
 
 Deep, wide and pure and strong, 
 Came rushing like a giver 
 
 Of mighty life and song. 
 A mile wide and glorious 
 
 And blue as is the sea, 
 Forever more victorious 
 
 The flood came flowing free. 
 
 Down, down it came down sweeping 
 
 With life upon its breast; 
 Swelling, surging, foaming, leaping, 
 
 Bright, beautiful and blest. 
 Above it shone the morning, 
 
 Before it sang the wind 
 And within it was the scorning 
 
 Of life with passion blind. 
 
 Right at the bank intended 
 
 The dwelling of a queen 
 The billows high ascended 
 
 And foamed the flowering green. 
 Then softer on for ages 
 
 While waiting for the man 
 She sang and ran her stages 
 
 With nature and her clan. 
 
 Then came the early builder 
 
 And laid foundations fine; 
 After the cunning guilder 
 
 With skill and arts divine. 
 Now, near a million mortals 
 
 In life and health and glow 
 Would dwell within these portals 
 
 And have thee through them flow. 
 
 89 
 
When winter in his rigor 
 
 Rides down thy icy breast 
 Thou feedest frame with vigor 
 
 And spirit keenest zest. 
 The northern virtue courses 
 
 Around our crimson hearts; 
 We are panting with the forces 
 
 Tnat thy being free imparts. 
 
 When spring again is turning, 
 
 Down, down unto thee stray 
 The masses with a yearning 
 
 To see the ice away. 
 The eyes are feast delighted; 
 
 The nostrils sniff the air; 
 With whiskey-sense bedighted 
 
 We dance upon our care. 
 
 All, all the summer golden 
 
 The hosts that here abound 
 Leave toil and bondage olden, 
 
 Sail up and down and round. 
 The heavy freighted steamers 
 
 Low laden down with life, 
 With music and bright streamers 
 
 Sail out of mortal strife. 
 
 Down, down the autumn splendor 
 
 Thou ridest like a dream; 
 Detroit fair doth tender 
 
 Her visions down the stream. 
 Was ever such a story, 
 
 Such sense and sound and sight 
 As the river and her glory 
 
 That rides the autumn bright! 
 
 The traffic of the traders 
 
 Is ever up and down 
 Iron, coal and copper freighters 
 
 Are clothed with thy renown. 
 Gay Pleasure's pigmy-shallops 
 
 Are rocking on thy might 
 And the water auto gallops 
 
 With a frenzy of delight. 
 
 There's a majesty in flowing, 
 Splendors ripe upon thy breast, 
 
 Life, virtue and bestowing 
 Out of thy bosom blest. 
 
 90 
 
There's a crown upon thy glory, 
 
 A scepter by thy side, 
 And a magic telling story 
 
 To the dwellers far and wide. 
 
 Courts, pageantries, romances, 
 
 Sweet singers of delight, 
 Princess and knightly dances 
 
 Are on thy bosom bright. 
 Dreams, prophecies and visions 
 
 In pomped procession go; 
 And their marches pour derisions 
 
 On the brightest dreams we know. 
 
 Thou art beauty to beholders, 
 
 Power pulsing to the breast 
 As we tower a head and shoulders 
 
 And are snorting in our zest. 
 As a boy within thee sported, 
 
 The man upon thee dreams, 
 By old age thou wilt be courted 
 
 As a rainbow river gleams. 
 
 There are rivers from the mountains 
 
 With classic dream and song; 
 But the mighty lakes are fountains 
 
 That make a river strong. 
 There are rivers more attended 
 
 By classic dream and lore; 
 But none can be more splendid 
 
 Than the river at my door. 
 
 THE SPHERE SUPREME. 
 
 Oh sphere supreme! Oh golden mass divine! 
 Vast globe enthroned within the azure skies! 
 Greet solar soul transcendently benign 
 With infinite, most infinite supplies 
 Of light and life! If not upon the eyes 
 And heart's unsatiation how could we dream 
 Of such a world? Did being ever rise 
 To match thy height or passion ever stream 
 The images that fully symbolize 
 
 Thy glorious nature? No heav'n of heav'ns could seem 
 Diviner in our sight with splendors more supreme. 
 
 Oh what art thou, thou world divinity, 
 So high enthroned upon the heightless height, 
 
 .91 
 
With such an infinite infinity 
 Of golden splendors as doth illume and dight 
 The wide celestial hemisphere as a bright 
 Habitation! What art thou resplendent 
 Spirit of life's omnipotent delight 
 That all creations of low or train attendant 
 Greatness worship thee with solemn lifted sight! 
 Oh what art thou, so mighty and transcendent 
 O'er nature and her hosts so helpless and dependent! 
 
 Thou art a mass of pure effulgence — 
 An unveiled and unapproachable sphere of light 
 Whose blinding brightness makes indulgence 
 Safe only in the distance — a dazzling sight 
 And eye-destroying vision on the might 
 Of even nature's strength — an incandescence 
 Of unendurable brilliancy and white 
 Incinerations before appalled sense — 
 A glowing concentration of the bright 
 Unkindled fires of nature, with a fence 
 Of mighty distance round her furnaces intense. 
 
 Thou art the earth's life. Thy distant presence 
 A fountain is that doth forever stream 
 The floods of life impassioned and immense. 
 Great golden tides that only dream can dream 
 Forever flow with gifts of life supreme 
 To feed the soul of this decaying world. 
 Her frame, her heart, her pumping veins doth teem 
 With energies ^nd latent powers uncurled 
 To glowing sensibility. All earth doth seem 
 Alive and quick. The spirit blind and whirled 
 Comes up to consciousness and rules the masses hurled. 
 
 There is no thing or creature in the earth 
 But what thou liftest into life and brightness. 
 Thou baptizest thy daughter's every birth 
 Deep in thy heart so glowing with delightness. 
 Empty, blind and deaf, cold and deacT and sightless 
 Are they themselves, but thy smile on them brings 
 The spirit forth in beautiful bedightness. 
 All nature is divined and upward springs 
 To live with thee upon the planes so heightless. 
 Thou givest earth these golden golden wings 
 And every mighty birth forever soars and sings. 
 
 Each softest lamp that twinkles through the night 
 Or glowing fire that flashes thwart the day 
 Was kindled first by some keen point of light 
 That sped from thee and wandered far astray. 
 
 92 
 
The fierce internal fires that often sway 
 The passions of the earth's volcanic heart 
 But image forth the mighty storms that play 
 Upon thy breast and makes thee what thou art. 
 A line of lightnings coruscate the way 
 From earth to thee and lightens up the chart 
 With bright elliptic lines as round thee she doth dart. 
 
 All organic and inorganic earth 
 Responds to thee and palpitating pants 
 With passionate regenerated birth 
 As thou dost rise on her beholding glance. 
 The hopes and dreams that slumber in the trance 
 Unconsciousness wakes from a dreamless night 
 And like spring births before thee madly dance. 
 Both sense and soul wild drunken with the sight 
 Of thy transcendent glories doth advance 
 Until their strength is blinded to thy might 
 And their enraptured song doth rise unto the height. 
 
 All summer long from thy supremest throne 
 Thou dost immortalize the golden hours 
 And rulest o'er an empire all thine own, 
 Of bluest seas, isles, continents and towers 
 Where being in its perfect glory flowers. 
 The world and life is cast into a trance 
 Beneath the splendors of thy effulgent dowers 
 And in the ardor of each passion pants 
 Between desire for soft enshading bowers 
 And another view of the blinding blinding glance 
 That all created things with beauty doth enhance. 
 
 All summer long from thy sublimest throne, 
 Perpendicular upon the heightless height, 
 In radiances the spheres responsive own 
 Thou pourest forth super-celestial might. 
 Thy king-like generosity doth delight 
 To flood the boundless reaches of the skies 
 With infinite transparencies and bright 
 Impassioned beautifuls. Thy rich supplies 
 Of transcendental life and love and light 
 Renew all strength and ever energize 
 All things that dwell on earth for their immortal rise. 
 
 In the autumnal season of the year, 
 Upon these awful cupolas of light, 
 Around the boundaries of the hemisphere 
 And up, far up the heaven's supremest height 
 Thou dost create the worlds that seem the bright 
 Transfigurations of the earth and designed 
 
 93 
 
To steep her soul in infinite delight. 
 What tranquilities the vast horizons bind! 
 What sublimities the arches blue bedight! 
 What passions pure of an immortal kind 
 Are in the atmospheres and all in thraldom wind! 
 
 In the autumnal season of the year 
 Thou bringest on a glorious progeny. 
 Like visitors from thine own golden sphere 
 Thou leadest forth in noblest majesty, 
 Magnificence and pomp the days that be 
 In ripe perfection. As a mighty train 
 Of golden incarnations or the free 
 And disembodied spirits of domain, 
 In pageantries enthralling all who see 
 Thou leadest them with high prophetic strain 
 Across the earth and sea and up the azure plane. 
 
 Thou dost awake man's dead and groveling spirit 
 And frontest him in all thy splendors bright. 
 At thy arise and bright approaches near it 
 Time's blinding scales are torn from off his sight. 
 Lost in a most bewildering delight 
 Man cannot see for blind the vision renders 
 Ere it creates the consciousness of might. 
 Brief is the night; soon, soon thy glory tenders 
 The strength to mount to contemplation's height. 
 Oh what a change when forth from nature's fenders 
 Our spirits rise to view thy heaven crowning splendors! 
 
 Strange, strange and inconceivable it seems, 
 That though thou art the parent of the earth 
 And nursest up this mortal mind with streams 
 Of life and light that from thy heart have birth, 
 How few, how few amid their selfish mirth 
 E'er pause before the high sublimities 
 With which thy glorious being doth engirth 
 And strike this blind intelligence! Why is 
 This lightning eye so blinded to thy worth 
 As never once unto the grave to see 
 The most divinest sight the Infinite can free? 
 
 The pastured spirit of the field is blind 
 And though thy presence on the eyeballs rest 
 No motions rise of an immortal kind 
 Like mighty tides in its unpassioned breast. 
 But why should man whom heaven's high behest 
 Bids to ascend the vast ascensive scale 
 Of life see not the gloriousness expressed 
 In thee? Oh this is mystery strange to pale 
 
 94 
 
The countenance and wisdom of the best! 
 Is man a beast that time and sense so veil 
 What all the world but man with venerations hail? 
 
 Why should the trifles of the hour — the pleasures 
 Of the phantom passing moments — the gain 
 That selfishness unto her hunger measures' — 
 The change and loss and spirit killing pain 
 So fill the hearf and blind the sightless brain 
 To where and what thou art? Though thou dost ride 
 The heavens and the summer noon, sustain- 
 ing all, the only uneclipsable, the wide 
 Generations that but an hour remain 
 Behold thee not, but in the darkness hide, 
 The darkness of the light intense from every side. 
 
 What are the vain and dazzling pageantries 
 Which women, children, presidents and kings 
 Throw round the hour of their ephemeralities 
 That pass away swifter than lightning wings? 
 What are earth's processional pomps and things 
 Of bright spectacular that so array 
 Themselves unto the senseless heart that springs 
 To every flash athwart the strength of day? 
 What are brilliant demonstrations and rings 
 Of thunderous applause when just before us lay 
 Thy purities and splendors to lead us on our way? 
 
 If one should stand to contemplate and pause 
 By city, mountain, forest, plain or sea, 
 At the first glance a sudden spasm draws 
 Protecting shields upon the eyes and the 
 Universe is kinged with infinite majesty. 
 The vision with intensity so burns 
 The living spirit that thy sublimity 
 Of dazzling brightness he never more unlearns. 
 Thou settest free the magnanimity 
 In men. Unto its kindred soul it turns, 
 Awed by the solemn sight the multitude so spurns. 
 
 He looketh up with infinite contemplation. 
 Thy spirits pure from the heights of heaven fall 
 And he responds to thy regeneration. 
 He feels the mighty ministries that call 
 The living personality — that install 
 Him in his right inheritance — that enthrone 
 Him on his own intelligence and enthrall 
 Him to the moral that is most and not his own. 
 Like fellowship with an archangel tall, 
 Great passions, powers and elements unknown 
 Come up to consciousness and mount to being's throne. 
 
 95 
 
No wonder man has often worshipped thee; 
 Thou so transcendest every earthly thing 
 And all impassioned dreams of purity 
 That from the height upon our visions wing 
 That the wise and good but hesitate to sing 
 Thee as divine. The universal source 
 Of life — unfailing — unreplenished — king 
 Of all creations — the sustaining force 
 Of worlds and men that in succession spring 
 To haste around this transitory course — 
 Thou seemest like a god to guilt, grief and remorse. 
 
 What wonder then that spirits so surrounded 
 By this contentious unresponsiveness 
 To questions stark which being has propounded 
 Should in its strife give one prophetic guess 
 Unto the soul that heaven and earth doth bless 
 With new and pure creations! Thou dost sign 
 By thy effulgeneies, spotless, spotless 
 Purities and inspirations all divine 
 The highest that before us finds express. 
 The strength of life's unsatiated pine 
 Well might it worship thee till brighter on them shine 
 
 When standing on the unresponsive earth, 
 When gazing with a worship on the dawn, 
 When thou dost rise in all thy solemn mirth 
 And night dark veils are off thy face withdrawn 
 As shadows from the rain awakened dawn, 
 When life and hope and joy and truth and right 
 Thou givest, when Life's profoundest thought is gone 
 And long been lost in the surrounding night, 
 How natural that spirits bound by brawn 
 Should homage lift and offer in thy sight 
 The reverence of the heart, its service and delight? 
 
 Thou goest forth and who can follow thee! 
 What heart and mind of vastest amplitude! 
 What nature, strength and white intensity 
 Inhabiting the azure altitude! 
 What virtue with its passions deep imbued 
 With majesty, solemnity and might! 
 What spirit that creation has endued 
 With noblest gifts of fulness and delight! 
 What glorious genius that ever is renewed 
 By thy creating soul and is as bright 
 As if thy very life were in his soul and sight! 
 
 Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
 Thou sailest on, the world's divinest dream, 
 An incarnation to boundless space and time 
 
 96 
 
Of purity and splendor all supreme. 
 Thy radiant emanations ever stream 
 With lightning pinioned passions, and frees 
 Such effulgencies derisions gleam 
 On all magnificence, pomp and idealities 
 Of genius, for thy solemn visions seem 
 The sphere, the empire of sublimities, 
 Of splendor winged dreams and their enthroned divinities. 
 
 Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
 Thou sailest past the empires of the earth, 
 Unmindful of the mighty works of time, 
 Of civilizations and this immortal birth. 
 Man and his sciences of long historic worth 
 Have birth and death before thy presence bright 
 But still thy course and countenance of mirth 
 Are shadowless with infinite delight. 
 Worlds glowing hot from center to their girth 
 Burn out and vanish from our mortal sight 
 But thou dost brighter grow upon the heightless height. 
 
 Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime, 
 As glorious or more than at creation's dawn 
 Thou sailed down the course of space and time 
 And the swift hours and their ephemeral spawn 
 A moment gaze and thou art onward gone. 
 Dynasties, eons and millions mantled years 
 As spectators stand upon the lawn 
 Of morning and instantly blank disappears 
 The universe into the darkness drawn. 
 Thou sailest on thy circles wide careers 
 The only uneclipsable, unvanquished of the spheres. 
 
 Far, far aloft upon thy course sublime 
 Thou sailest on to far eternity, 
 And ages vast of strife and change and crime 
 Are rising up to question what may be 
 This glorious dream approaching now is thee; 
 But past them all upon the heightless height 
 Blinding all with the infinite generosity 
 Of thy being, thou sailest with delight, 
 Effulgent brightness, sublimest majesty, 
 Lightning emanations, omnipotential might 
 And transcendental splendors on all creation's sight. 
 
 NATURE'S PEACE 
 
 Dost thou seek nature's peace 
 
 Upon thy weary strife? 
 Vain is the wished release 
 
 For thou art nature's life. 
 
 97 
 
THE ROBIN. 
 
 Oh crimson breast! Oh crimson breast! 
 
 Oh crimson crimson heart! 
 Oh welcome guest! Oh welcome guest! 
 
 Thou dost my fancies start. 
 Inspire and rapture and employ- 
 Are born in nature's peace and joy. 
 
 Thy sisterhood of brighter plume 
 
 And lyric hearted song, 
 Have left the city to its doom 
 
 And in green forests throng. 
 But city parks and garden trees, 
 Thy human heart doth equal please. 
 
 What human heart, what human heart, 
 
 After a winter's reign. 
 Has never leaped with joyful start 
 
 At thy first springtime strain? 
 At thy first note we lift our eyes 
 As after rainbows in the skies. 
 
 And when at night they all come home 
 
 From worry, toil and strife, 
 When strength and hope that daily roam 
 
 At eve join babe and wife, 
 Thy crimson breast our eyes have seen 
 With these pure loves is mixed between. 
 
 Across our spring and summer light 
 
 Thy bosom glad we see; 
 We sorrow when the autumn's blight 
 
 Afar doth banish thee. 
 In winter storms we sometimes yearn 
 For thee to hail the spring's return. 
 
 Thou hast no strength or speed or skill, 
 
 No weapon for the fight; 
 No eagle talon, sworded bill 
 
 Or war enkindling sight; 
 Thou wast not made for hate or strife, 
 For selfishness or mortal life. 
 
 But thou art rest and peace and love 
 
 And close to human heart; 
 Thou dost incarnate from above 
 
 A small divine impart 
 Of that one love which does divide 
 In all pure loves through time and tide. 
 
 98 
 
Thou hast no plumage of delight, 
 As sun-kissed clouds on high; 
 
 As tintings of the flower beds bright 
 Or iris-colored eye; 
 
 Rich beauties that from heaven shine 
 
 Are not a heritage of thine. 
 
 But beauty oft is shining form 
 
 Without a soul within; 
 Thy life domestic, pure and warm 
 
 Is far away from sin. 
 The stainless, pure and passioned heart 
 Needs not the rainbow hues of art. 
 
 Thy soul hast no delirious strain 
 That wakes my sleeping dreams, 
 
 That bears me to a golden plane 
 Of odors, sounds and gleams; 
 
 No music matchless and divine 
 
 That fills all hearts till more we pine. 
 
 Thy one and simple pleasing song 
 
 Is calm and faith and love; 
 Divorcing from the earthly throng, 
 
 Uniting us above. 
 All simple loves from ill divide 
 And join with all beyond the tide. 
 
 Thy cheery song that greets the morn, 
 Thy plaintive evening psalm, 
 
 -Upon a world by sorrow torn 
 It falls as healing balm. 
 
 Oh what is earth's most peerless song 
 
 To love most pure on sinful wrong? 
 
 As is the lay of a child or wife, 
 
 As is the song of home, 
 Unto the measures vast of life 
 
 And classic airs of Rome, 
 So is thy music to the heart 
 With something these could never bart. 
 
 Then build beside my crowded home, 
 
 The blue eggs softly nest; 
 The gardens round for forage roam 
 
 But turn thee to thy nest. 
 To see thee and thy happy mate 
 Is more than earth's high gilded state. 
 
 Through fever day and dewy night, 
 Extreme of calm and storm, 
 
 99 
 
Thy nature with a deep delight 
 
 Beats through thy bosom warm 
 The rich pre-natal mother mirth 
 That nourishes thy eggs to birth. 
 
 A hunger cry, four mouths of need, 
 
 A parent's tireless toil; 
 A ruthless hand, a heart's implead, 
 
 Though weak, defense in broil; 
 A hundred lessons for the heart 
 Thy actions to the wise impart. 
 
 The smaller fruits we give to thee; 
 
 The grapes and currants win; 
 The larger luscious taste them free 
 
 Though some would call it sin. 
 Why should'st thou lack thy frugal meal 
 From thy own father's boundless weal? 
 
 The berry man may call a curse 
 
 And guard his juicy wealth; 
 The cherry man may rave still worse 
 
 And shoot thee down by stealth. 
 Woe, woe to us! Who, who could live 
 If greater theft none did forgive? 
 
 With all thy sins, thy depth of breast, 
 
 Thy bosom's sinless beat, 
 Thy purity and faith and rest 
 
 I would my heart could greet. 
 There's naught within the world I see 
 Like peace and love and purity. 
 
 For thou and all things like to thee 
 
 Of nature, man and art 
 A longing of intensity 
 
 Wakes up within the heart, 
 To be and love and live like thee 
 In that great heart where all are free. 
 
 A SAUCER OF PANSlES. 
 
 In the spring my mother plants 
 A bed of pansies fine; 
 
 Then with a gardener's art 
 She nurses them divine 
 
 Until the blossoms burst 
 And beauty forth doth shine. 
 
 100 
 
Then every other day 
 
 A saucerful as bright 
 As beauty ever lay 
 
 Before the poet's sight, 
 She plucks and bears away 
 
 My simple room to light. 
 
 When I come home and dress 
 
 And call my own an hour, 
 I note the kindliness 
 
 That placed the rainbow flower 
 And in it breathed I guess 
 
 Another heart and dower. 
 
 Today the purple deep 
 
 The yellow beauties fringe; 
 
 Blue and white tomorrow sleep 
 On a bank of velvet singe; 
 
 And the very rainbows leap 
 
 Where their tender edges hinge. 
 
 Upon the pansies bright 
 
 I dream and dream and dream 
 
 Of visions of delight 
 
 With which my youth did teem, 
 
 But life with deadly blight 
 
 Has flung on autumn's stream. 
 
 I see the heights divine 
 
 That are throned above the spheres; 
 And I pine and pine and pine 
 
 Mid my loss and grief and fears 
 And my heart bursts in my eyne 
 
 With the language of our tears. 
 
 That world upon me flies 
 
 That sorrow brings to birth. 
 The thinker doth arise 
 
 That looks beyond the earth 
 And virtue true that cries 
 
 For life and love and worth. 
 
 Oh flowers of purity! 
 
 Oh dreams of life and light! 
 In the saucer I can see 
 
 Our being's heightless height 
 And all that is beneath 
 
 Struck through and through with blight. 
 
 101 
 
THE PIONEER'S SONG. 
 
 My young soul left the haunts of men 
 
 And faced the ancient wood. 
 With axe and strength and honest ken 
 
 Amid the wild I stood. 
 My frosty steel with echoes loud 
 
 Did blaze the nation's way; 
 The maple, pine and oak were bowed 
 
 Though some were left to stay. 
 
 But row or clump or single tree 
 
 If left alone to stand 
 To shelter from the north or sea, 
 
 Home, hope and virgin land, . 
 Though it were sound from girth to heart, 
 
 From root unto the skies, 
 Some hidden blight would on it dart 
 
 And life withdraw supplies. 
 
 With other trees it might despise 
 
 The storms that round did rage, 
 Both deeper sink and higher rise 
 
 And greener grow with age. 
 But once alone and when all seemed 
 
 To nurse it to its height 
 The strength of life and while we dreamed 
 
 Was blasted in our sight. 
 
 We mortals are like forest trees, 
 
 Not made to stand alone; 
 Disease and death upon us seize 
 
 If others we disown. 
 But purple strength and greenest life 
 
 That nature ever gives 
 Shall more abound and conquer strife 
 
 If each in other lives. 
 
 Then let our roots in mother earth 
 
 More intertwist below 
 Where knots of rugged strength and worth 
 
 In hidden darkness grow. 
 Since earth and all her sons are one 
 
 More interlock our roots, 
 Each feeding each, together run 
 
 And reap life's riper fruits. 
 
 Then let our branches far above, 
 
 Like wide encircling arms, 
 Like all embracing sheltering love 
 
 Against life's selfish harms, 
 
 102 
 
Be opened wide and farther reach 
 And locked as naught unbreaks. 
 
 The soul that gives its best to each, 
 From all more boundless takes. 
 
 So back to back and heart to heart 
 
 Life's storms we may defy. 
 The ancient virtues undepart 
 
 And man be lifted high. 
 Then young and green and rich in song, 
 
 With pure arboreal rage, 
 The brotherhood will grow more strong 
 
 And rise from age to age. 
 
 THE SKY AND SEA LINE. 
 
 I never gaze upon the sky 
 
 Where it doth meet the sea 
 But something from the sight of it, 
 Some beauty from the light of it, 
 Some tension from the might of it 
 Deep enters into me. 
 
 I grow oblivious to the world 
 
 And give the spirit sway. 
 A strange, mysterious drift of life, 
 A rare, celestial gift of life, 
 Power, passion, pulse and lift of life 
 
 Doth bear me far away. 
 
 I give my sails unto thy breeze, 
 
 Oh boundless ocean wide! 
 The vast, profound and deep of thee, 
 Majestic course and sweep of thee, 
 Momentum, tides and leap of thee 
 
 I never dreamed to ride. 
 
 Lost to myself I fly away 
 
 Where mortals never sail. 
 The man that dreams is found in me, 
 He leaps up with a bound in me, 
 I feel him crowned and gowned in me, 
 
 And doth the prospect hail. 
 
 Oh ocean rich and deep and wide, 
 
 Roll, roll into my soul! 
 Unto the dream and dulse of life, 
 The passion, poise and pulse of life, 
 
 103 
 
The earthquake and convulse of life 
 Thou dost my spirit pole. 
 
 Sail on! Adventure forth! Oh sail! 
 
 Thy bark is on the sea. 
 These skies upon the heights around, 
 These worlds that lend their lights around, 
 These prophet songs and sights around, 
 
 Proclaim eternity. 
 
 NATURE'S BOUQUET. 
 
 Old Nature smiled and sent to me 
 
 A rare bouquet of flowers. 
 She knew I loved the beautiful, 
 But bound in courses dutiful, 
 Still loved her though so sootyful 
 
 I battled with the hours. 
 
 When I came in and saw the sight 
 
 I stood in blank surprise. 
 Something within the deep in me, 
 A higher soul asleep in me 
 With sudden start did leap in me . 
 
 Like visions on the eyes. 
 
 Quick down I sat with hungry greed 
 
 Before the banquet feast. 
 I drank the most divine in life; 
 It seemed the very vine of life 
 Was crunching out the wine of life 
 
 Unto a poet priest. 
 
 The green was gladdest, growing green, 
 The white was heaven's white, 
 
 The red, purple and golden hues, 
 
 Pinks, lavenders and olden blues, 
 
 All vital with unfolden dews 
 Did quicken with delight. 
 
 The fragile, fair and fondest forms 
 
 Seemed summer elfins nigh; 
 And soon the fairies dancing gay, 
 With backward, sideward prancing gay, 
 And singing, smiling, glancing gay, 
 Waltzed right across my eye. 
 
 But Oh, the fragrance, fragrance sweet! 
 It seemed the breath of life. 
 
 104 
 
I passed beyond the portal dreams, 
 Beheld the high, immortal dreams, 
 Lived in majestic, courtal dreams 
 With passions rich and rife. 
 
 With magic soon the flowers divine 
 
 Took on a rarer grace. 
 The dr^am of all the dreams of life 
 Eclipsed all rainbow gleams of life, 
 With smiles that were the creams of life 
 
 Stood with me face to face. 
 
 And then I gathered up the flowers 
 
 That had my spirit blest; 
 And with a smile, a touch, a bliss, 
 No lover thinks too much amiss, 
 And crimsoned with just such a kiss 
 
 I pinned them on her breast. 
 
 THE AUTUMN WIND. 
 
 Autumnal wind! Swift, swift resistless force! 
 Keen breath of life! Spirit of dominations! 
 Great nature's birth from the eternal source 
 Where being drinks this drunk exhileration ! 
 Vast, disembodied, senseless impulsation 
 And elemental passion of the earth! 
 Dynamic swift and glorious exaltation 
 Circling the globe, panting from heart to girth! 
 Quick'ning, piercing, lifting, sweeping inspiration, 
 Scorning all things of stagnant death and dearth, 
 Renewing all in life and breathing strength and mirth! 
 
 All nature doth rejoice in thee. Her glow 
 And swift impetuosity did sire 
 Thy boundless soul. The solar cosmic "go" 
 Driving the globes feeds thee the vast inspire 
 That headlong drives with infinite desire. 
 The mighty seas foaming to heaven leap; 
 The awful dome is charged and full of ire; 
 The mountains rock, the plains thrill to the deep; 
 And forests are a thunder flinging lyre; 
 All things on earth feel thy contagious sweep! 
 Oh vast unbodied wind, on, on your courses keep! 
 
 Beat on me, Wind! I love such passions rife. 
 Thy resurrection breath sweeps o'er the dead, 
 
 105 
 
Then instantly one with dynamic life 
 Leaps up and in his breast and flaming head 
 The white steel strength thou hast so generous fed. 
 Is he not thine? Not boundless, strong and free, 
 Organic and heroic as is bred 
 Out of the earth, the mountains, sky and sea? 
 With whom of all the earth can such be wed? 
 The hungers of a starved infinity 
 Can find alone a hope and glorious life in thee. 
 
 No wonder I am filled with wild delight, 
 Expansion feel and palpitate with power! 
 No wonder loined and harnessed with a might 
 That only once this mortal can endower! 
 Off, off I fling all memories that devour, 
 Scorn to the dust the customs that engage, 
 Breathe virtue new and who can cringe or cower 
 When thy great soul doth feed the spirit's rage? 
 Disembodied and lifted to life's tower 
 The infinite thirst of being I assuage 
 And find the cosmic self, space, time, nor things can cage. 
 
 Oh what a joy to front thee to thy face, 
 To breast thy strength and stay thee on thy course, 
 To lock with thee in that divine embrace 
 Earth's giant sons have in their primal source 
 And glad renew when time doth them divorce! 
 'Tis life to meet; 'tis more than life to tussle 
 As matchless men each other would unhorse, 
 As angry seas the sailor would unvessel, 
 As cosmic minds battle chaotic force, 
 As structure men fight on the airy tressle, 
 So with thy fighting soul my soul doth hug and wrestle. 
 
 I'm lifted high; driven and swept along; 
 Strange loaded up and overcharged with life; 
 One with the one; as many as the throng 
 And multiplied with measures rich and rife. 
 I'm a newer incarnation of the strife, 
 But swifter, fiercer, more intense and free 
 Than tempest souls cut by the lightning knife 
 And chainless forth with wildest passions flee. 
 Trampling the earth, screaming like insane fifes, 
 Soaring above, tempestuous in my glee, 
 I mount the darkened dome and ride the billowed sea. 
 
 Now I am like a fearless charioteer 
 Upon a course of glorious celebration; 
 Standing erect I ride the hemisphere 
 Thrice drunken with insane exhileration. 
 
 106 
 
These fiery steeds of furious imputation, 
 So rearing, plunging, galloping uncontrolled 
 Defy my muscled strength and domination 
 And bind me in their struggles manifold 
 Before I curb their blind and fierce elation. 
 Drive on, drive on, Oh courses swift and bold 
 For still more elemental thy spirits mine shall hold! 
 
 Now I am like an aviator swift, 
 Adventurous I dare the frail machine, 
 The lever pull and with a sudden lift 
 Soar up the height with passions rich and keen. 
 On, on I drive o'er stream and field and treen; 
 Now up the dome of vast immensity, 
 Now plumb descend almost unto the green, 
 Now fighting with a white intensity 
 A sudden foe almighty and unseen, 
 Victorious now life's new propensity 
 Doth far outride the storm and scorns yon darkened density. 
 
 Now I am like a youth upon a horse, 
 But long restrained from mingling in the fight; 
 With vast desire, mcmentum, sweep and force 
 ,1 rush unto the field that is in flight. 
 Up, up doth surge the elemental might 
 Of nature, and with a. thunderous shcut, 
 And with a sword swift as the lightning white, 
 And straight against the mightiest of the bout 
 At dead full speed I plunge me with delight. 
 Down, down they go! Down, down and down and out 
 Life drives the mighty host in dark precipitous rout. 
 
 Now I am like the genius of the hour, 
 A spirit of unvanquishable force, 
 Sweeping my way with glorious endower 
 And charged and charged from the eternal source. 
 High, high in heav'n on my triumphant course 
 I sweep around the vast terrestial girth. 
 And this old globe, death doth from life divorce, 
 Doth shake and shake and spring again to birth. 
 The great world-soul, forgetful of remorse, 
 Comes up asrain and scenters all the earth 
 As I inspire the globe and feed it strength and mirth. 
 
 Oh mighty wind, through thee I once looked forth 
 To winter storms and all that earth devours 
 As the unconquered eagle fronts the north 
 And screams defy to -all consuming powers. 
 Thy elemental and dynamic dowers 
 Of life did girdle with victorious might 
 
 107 
 
And planted soul on time's unvanquished towers, 
 Supremely poised and empired in her right. 
 I was the man of life's immortal hours; 
 The cosmic soul burned in me glowing white 
 And this vast universe I fronted with delight. 
 
 But now, omnipotential Breath of life! 
 What was is dream and never more can be; 
 Decaying frame and toil and grief and strife 
 Have shorn the strength of my young spirit free. 
 Thy quickening soul I yet can feel and see 
 But the fierce impetuosity and sweep 
 Of glorious life no more enfoldeth me. 
 Oh boundless loss! I stand and think and weep 
 When on some height I felt thee onward flee; 
 Then wise and strong I watch thee from the steep, 
 Choke down the vain regret and calm descend the deep. 
 
 Nov. 1913. 
 
 SUMMER. 
 
 Oh! This is the famous Miss Summer I see, 
 Who was mentioned by poets and lovers to me; 
 And mentioned in music and passionate praise 
 As the vision divine in the midst of our days. 
 
 When hearing thy fame by the hearing of ears, 
 Then a vision arose or came down from the spheres; 
 But spirit and dream must forever more pine 
 For the heart's very presence and beauty divine. 
 
 As now unexpected and sudden we meet 
 
 How my heart gives a bound and a double-quick beat! 
 
 My passions like fire in their ardors arise 
 
 By the kindling sparks that are fed from thy eyes. 
 
 Thou art flesh, blood and bone, but something more rare 
 
 Than the fairest of women did ever yet wear; 
 
 A something that hovers around the ideal 
 
 Which we never can name but we always can feel. 
 
 A beauty embodied, a vision divine 
 
 Are thy physical graces in equipoise fine; 
 
 Thy cheeks and thy brow and thy eye and thy lips 
 
 Doth the poet's bright song and the lover's eclipse. 
 
 Thy face is a splendor of golden delight 
 
 Baptized in the sun when the morning was bright; 
 
 108 
 
No! Born in the sun and the spirits of gold 
 Were poured in thy frame the divinest of mould. 
 
 Thy brow like a marble is spotless and white, 
 Unwrinkled, unblemished and circled with light; 
 Adornment for grace or a goddess of art, 
 It is infinite more when enthroned on a heart. 
 
 Thy cheeks are as soft and as rich as the wealth 
 That has ever yet shined from the fountain of health; 
 No pansy, no violet, no lily, no rose, 
 Could image or add to thy deep vital glows. 
 
 Thy crimson-fed lips, how they tremble with bliss 
 From the spirit of Life and her last burning kiss! 
 Thy spirit I see at those portals doth yearn 
 "With a rapture divine for that spirit's return. 
 
 Thy eyes. Oh thy eyes! Was there e'er such a sight 
 
 In the gleam and the glance of the stars of the night! 
 
 The planet-like fires and the lovers' bright eyne 
 
 Are but the stray beams from the brightness of thine. 
 
 But thy spirit, thy spirit, thy spirit of grace 
 Is richer by far than the signs of thy face. 
 'Tis only life's strongest and longest that seal 
 On the physical frame that resists the ideal. 
 
 Thy love is as golden and full as the sun, 
 
 Through thy heart and thy veins I can see it now run. 
 
 A spirit as rich and as free to impart 
 
 As the sun in the sky is the soul that thou art 
 
 In love all the virtues in richness abide, 
 
 As beautiful dreams in the flowers of a bride. 
 
 The graces are born and in love ever live, 
 
 And grow as themselves in their giving they give. 
 
 Thou lovest all things be they low or be high, 
 Prom the flowers in the grass to the Soul in the sky. 
 Thine is the true love for thy heart's overflow 
 Gives the given himself and thyself and thy glow. 
 
 In heart nor in mind has the body of sense 
 Wrought in thee its power or its darkness intense; 
 Thy spirit divine is dominated in might 
 And its energies rule all the fleshly bedight. 
 
 Was ever a heart with the passions of love 
 Not pure as the skies, and the spirits above? 
 
 109 
 
The selfish that hides in the earth's honeyed praise 
 Is not in thy motives, thy words or thy ways. 
 
 Ideals sublime that are far out of sight 
 
 Keep pure most the cause of life's blasting and blight 
 
 Not the salt-savored sea nor tne blue azure sky 
 
 Is as pure as the heart which now feedeth thine eye. 
 
 Thou art peaceful and calm, soul centered and still, 
 Though the chambers of life are at more than their fill. 
 Thy multiplied gifts are in balance divine, 
 Overflow and at rest in the midst of our pine. 
 
 As gentle and soft and as tenderly kind 
 As the sorrows and wounds of the world ever find; 
 The sickness and sin and our mortal disease 
 Find a cure in thy hand when no other can ease. 
 
 So patient, compassioned and sympathied deep, 
 All high spirit hearts in thy virtues are steeped. 
 Domestic, contented and all that endears 
 To the home-loving heart mid the turbulent years. 
 
 How happy thou art! All our words of delight 
 With their passioned filled souls give no image to sight; 
 A maiden with flowers in her hands and her breast 
 From winter's wild heart would faint symbol thee best. 
 
 A drunken, delirious and ecstatic joy 
 Soon intelligence, morals and all will destroy; 
 But happiness, gladness, rejoicing and song, 
 Are sandals and crown and a girdle most strong. 
 
 As flowers in the field or the birds in the sky, 
 
 As the moutain-fed streams or the clouds as they fly, 
 
 As the earth-kissing winds or the innocent heart, 
 
 So glad and much gladder Miss Summer thou art. 
 
 As bright as a dream of the dawn or the cope, 
 As rich as a joy and as young as a hope, 
 True, sweet and as kind as a dream of the heart 
 So fine and diviner Miss Summer thou art. 
 
 Thy virtues in union or each one alone 
 I could sing the whole day with a still rising tone; 
 What thou art and what like, what done and could be 
 Would be songs to my harp till from hence I shall flee. 
 
 110 
 
Such women as thou art the soul of man's dreams. 
 Thou unsealest the fountains and feedest the streams 
 That feedest his heart with the measures of life 
 And buildest in virtue in spite of the strife. 
 
 So thee will I tell, for the truth ever springs 
 Unto such as thou art with the lightest of wings; 
 I'll whisper it now, though I buried it deep 
 For in spite of my heart to tny heart it doth leap. 
 
 In far behind days, in the vision of dream, 
 
 Then an image arose with thy summer soul gleam: 
 
 All, all of thy soul in her spirit did shine 
 
 And like thee in form as is my dream to thine. 
 
 With passion, delight and the rapture of youth 
 I pledged her myself at the altar of truth; 
 When waking I said to the phantoms that stream: 
 "I will wait till I meet with the soul of my dream." 
 
 While waiting for thee then the storms of the north 
 With their night and their winter and fury burst forth; 
 As through the long hours as I waited for morn 
 I was caught and was driven and beaten and torn. 
 
 I was wounded and scarred and the time-spirit filled 
 Till the image divine in my spirit was killed; 
 I have been baptized in the earth's bloody gores 
 And am now only fit for the service of wars. 
 
 Now a rock-hewn image of winter I stand; 
 
 Though a smile has my face and a flower holds my hand, 
 
 Down deep in my heart are the farthest extremes 
 
 To the soft summer soul that upon me now beams. 
 
 So what I once dreamed I will leave now unsaid 
 
 Though I utter one blessing upon thy fair head: 
 
 In eastern dominions where suns ever shine 
 
 May thy soul meet and wed with the heart that is thine! 
 
 "My spirit fountains overflow; 
 
 Thy music does impart 
 A crown that has a crimson glow 
 
 To both my head and heart. 
 Ere each doth on their journey fare 
 
 I'll cast from off my mind 
 An image I have treasured there 
 
 That doth the moment blind." 
 
 ' 111 
 
"When but a little trippling slip, 
 
 As bright as sunny May, 
 With April eye and laughing lip 
 
 I met thee on my way. 
 Thy arms of strength with tender might 
 
 Did fold me in thy breast; 
 Did fold me deep, deep out of sight 
 
 In love and gladness blest." 
 
 "Then on my ears there fell a song 
 
 That love sings to the heart; 
 The murmurs of thy passion strong 
 
 And echoes ne'er depart. 
 I know, I know by those warm tears, 
 
 Those kisses most divine, 
 There's more in thee than winter's years, 
 
 Or summer's heart of wine/' 
 
 "Before us yonder shines the sun; 
 
 The morning doth invite; 
 Your journeys to the 'sunrise run, 
 
 Oh come! for my delight 
 Is just to hear thee sing life's songs 
 
 And those that are to be 
 When life has triumphed o'er all wrongs 
 
 With love and purity." 
 
 Oh yes I will go! I can walk, run or fly 
 
 And sing thee the songs that can never more die. 
 
 The hearts that love hearts with no self-seeking pine 
 
 Find others, themselves and the heart most divine. 
 
 SPRING HYMN. 
 
 Hail springtime, Oh hail! 
 
 Hail soul of the year! 
 The winter's wild wail 
 
 Has passed from the sphere, 
 Has passed and thy glory 
 
 Streams bright on the earth, 
 Which cold, weak and hoary, 
 
 Renews her young birth. 
 
 The dome of deep blue, 
 With sun on his throne, 
 
 Rains pure golden dew 
 Which all things now own. 
 
 The earth doth unfolden 
 
 112 
 
Her bosom's warm glow, 
 And life with a golden 
 Reviving doth. flow. 
 
 The flowers doth unfold 
 
 Their rainbow hearts deep; 
 Birds plumaged with gold 
 
 Their songs cannot keep; 
 The forests and oceans, 
 
 The fountains and fields 
 Are glad with emotions 
 
 Thy presence unseals. 
 
 All nature is green; 
 
 Her skies are more blue 
 Than mortals have seen 
 
 Since Eden was new. 
 The beauty of story 
 
 And heavenly mirths 
 Now mirror their glory 
 
 In green singing births. 
 
 Life now is all love 
 
 And love is all life; 
 Like heaven above 
 
 It healeth all strife. 
 In love's vital passion 
 
 Are powers which unfold 
 The lowest in fashion 
 
 We joy to behold. 
 
 Hail soul of the spring! 
 
 Oh breathe thy warm breath! 
 To breathe, shine and sing. 
 
 Thou wakest all death. 
 Away my heart's sin sense 
 
 And sorrow's wild wail! 
 Thy beauty and music 
 
 And glory, all hail! 
 
 THE STREAM. 
 
 High up in the mountains 
 Far above the earth 
 
 'Mong the silver fountains 
 First I had my birth. 
 
 Where all things are olden, 
 Purest, vital, best, 
 
 113 
 
To the morning golden 
 Nature brought me blest. 
 
 Like a poet's vision, 
 
 Like a beauty's dream, 
 Like a glad derision 
 
 To all things that seem; 
 Leaping, flashing, singing, 
 
 Throwing echoes sweet, 
 I am more for winging 
 
 Than swift gliding feet. 
 
 Over rocks the coldest 
 
 Leaping as if mad; 
 Through the forest oldest, 
 
 With the fairies glad; 
 Dancing in the brightness 
 
 Of the golden sun; 
 Oh there was delightfulness, 
 
 Singing, on the run! 
 
 Past the greenest tillage, 
 
 Meadows, flocks and flowers; 
 Past the country village, 
 
 Past my mother's bowers, 
 Wide and deep and stronger, 
 
 Looking far before, 
 Longer, Oh no longer 
 
 Stream the mountain bore! 
 
 A city's flaming lurage 
 
 Bade me onward go; 
 Soon her vilest sewerage 
 
 In my heart did flow. 
 Viler grew the fashion 
 
 Round old nature's dream; 
 Viler grew the passion 
 
 That my heart did stream. 
 
 Oh how I did sicken 
 
 From that dread disease! 
 Blow, blow ye winds that quicken! 
 
 Blow me far from these! 
 Past the deadly nation, 
 
 Host and sewer and death; 
 Past, past and with elation 
 
 Drinking nature's breath. 
 
 Flowing, downward flowing, 
 Deep and rich and bright; 
 
 114 
 
Ripest splendors glowing 
 On my breast of might. 
 
 Downward I am going, 
 Going to the sea; 
 
 Life and virtue throwing, 
 Throwing wide and free. 
 
 Yonder is the ocean, 
 
 Yonder is my rest. 
 I feel her migTity motion 
 
 Waking in my breast. 
 Measureless and boundless 
 
 The circles of the sea; 
 I plunge in the profoundness 
 
 Forever there to be. 
 
 THE BRIDE OF THE SUN. 
 
 Oh hail, bright maiden, hail! 
 
 From thy mortal swoon 
 What spirit rent the veil? 
 What life restored the boon 
 And sent thy queenly soul to seek thy lover noon? 
 
 Who nursed thee from the trance? 
 
 Who broke the shadowed spell 
 That in the hour of dance 
 
 Upon thy being fell? 
 Who brought thee to the light where starry splendors dwel 
 
 Oh hail, bright maiden, hail! 
 
 What life reviving dream 
 O'er thy brain did sail, 
 
 Upon thy heart did stream, 
 That from thy liquid rest thy soul it should redeem? 
 
 Hast thy mother earth, 
 
 The mother most divine, 
 Brought thee again to birth 
 And with the infant shine 
 That glowed upon thy face upon that morn benign? 
 
 In thy soul's eclipse, 
 
 Did the love beguile 
 Thy lover to thy lips 
 
 There to rest awhile 
 And did his burning kiss awake this rapturous smile? 
 
 115 
 
Or hast thou been above 
 
 In thy bower so bright 
 To gaze upon thy love 
 
 Across the cone of night 
 And is this smiling life his answering delight? 
 
 In this evening's hush 
 
 What breath of love or wine 
 Upon thy cheeks do flush 
 And glows with joy divine 
 Like some celestial fire that through and through doth shine. 
 
 Perhaps some summer soul 
 With magic magic flowers 
 Whose living perfumes roll 
 To heaven's highest towers 
 Is reaching up to thee the glory of the hours. 
 
 Perhaps a strain of life, 
 
 The echoes of the spheres 
 Has healed thee of the strife, 
 
 Is raining on thy ears 
 The fancies, joys and hopes that fed thy heart for years. 
 
 Perhaps love's intensity, 
 
 High as starry height, 
 Deep as is the sea, 
 
 Warm as summer night, 
 Pure as whitest fire, circles thee like light. 
 
 Perhaps the dream of dreams 
 So fills the heart and brain 
 Thy being over teems 
 With sweet delicious pain 
 That thou must wander forth where nature doth sustain. 
 
 But why art thou so cold 
 
 That thou dost fly apace 
 From hearts that do unfold 
 
 The fulness of their grace 
 And ask but in return a smile of thy bright face? 
 
 The dancing spirits gay 
 
 Who love thee, in the wood 
 Have left their fairy play 
 
 And near the edge have stood, 
 Have turned from watching thee to hide in solitude. 
 
 A maiden like to thee, 
 A pure and fragile cloud, 
 
 116 
 
Who came up from the sea 
 In her soft silver shroud 
 Has gone away to weep, heart-broke by thee so proud. 
 
 Thy sisters in the sea 
 
 In face and form and light, 
 Twin spirits like to thee, 
 
 Are trembling through the night 
 With hope that thou wilt turn and feed their longing sight. 
 
 Stars and planets pale 
 
 For thy love do pine; 
 
 Their sweet lights do fail 
 
 For their eyes divine 
 
 Are wearied with the watch they ever keep on thine. 
 
 Thy presence bright awakes 
 
 The meteor from her trance 
 So glad her sleep she shakes 
 
 In her swift shining dance, 
 Whose joyous love for thee now kills thy scornful glance. 
 
 Like the very queen 
 
 Of heaven's starry height 
 Crowned with golden sheen, 
 
 Clad in robes of light, 
 Thou ridest past the earth and all that lift the sight. 
 
 Thy faith has never doubt 
 
 That thou shalt ever miss 
 His smile which streameth out, 
 
 Embalming many a kiss 
 That rests upon thy heart prophetic of thy bliss. 
 
 That blest and bridal day 
 
 Must be drawing near 
 That night should so array 
 
 Her dark and cloudy sphere 
 In such a flood of light, serene and pure and clear. 
 
 All lovers on the earth 
 
 Look up with deep delight. 
 The dreams that come to birth, 
 
 The passion pure and white, 
 Are kindred unto thee, thou goddess of the night. 
 
 Out, out of thee are dreams; 
 
 Deep, deep in them desires; 
 Down, down from thee are streams 
 
 Of pure celestial fires 
 And dreams, desires and hopes are dancing to the lyres. 
 
 117 
 
Thou leadest forth the swain; 
 Thou callest forth the maid; 
 Was every such a twain 
 As wandered down the glade 
 And such another bride in golden light arrayed? 
 
 Thy overflowing joy 
 
 Shoots down a piercing dart 
 On youth and maiden coy 
 Till thy celestial art 
 Has nourished into life the best within the heart. 
 
 Thou pourest soft thy rain; 
 
 They dream and dream and dream. 
 Life nearly is insane 
 
 Such fountains in them teem, 
 And brighter than thyself the earthy bride doth seem. 
 
 Beneath thy magic spell 
 
 The magic word is found; 
 Two fountain spirits well; 
 Two hearts in one are bound 
 And thou hast seen and heard, and both with gladness 
 
 crowned, 
 Through the window light 
 
 Thou dost upon them stream; 
 Thy rays of magic might 
 Within their beings teem — 
 A bridegroom and a bride, a dream within a dream, 
 
 But Oh that passing cloud 
 
 Upon thy breast and face, 
 That wraps thee like a shroud 
 As round a mortal race, 
 To disappoint the hope that life and love embrace! 
 
 Like ours, Oh radiant maid! 
 
 Hast thy love a moan? 
 Art thou e'er afraid 
 
 Lest the earth's dark cone, 
 Like death will come between, and leave thee all alone? 
 
 Fear not! He an urn has filled 
 
 With vital vital dew, 
 That has been distilled 
 
 From his dome of blue 
 To sprinkle on thy heart and thy young life renew. 
 
 He will send as now 
 Fleecy sandals rare, 
 
 118 
 
Stars to gem thy brow, 
 Veils of misty air, 
 And rainbow ribbon bands to bind thy streaming hair. 
 
 His chariot of the wind, 
 
 His steeds of swiftest time, 
 Along the zodiac signed 
 With images sublime, 
 Bear thee all heaven's queen while starry echoes chime. 
 
 In the golden dawn 
 
 The god of life and light 
 Awaits. Thou wilt be drawn 
 Into his bosom bright 
 And in the deep embrace be lost an hour to sight! 
 
 Oh pure celestial maid! 
 
 Oh bride the most divine! 
 There never was displayed 
 
 Such beauty to our eyne, 
 And thou hast fed the heart of life's eternal pine, 
 
 Farwell, chaste bride, farewell! 
 
 May joy attend thy flight! 
 My heart songs ne'er can tell 
 Its wish for thy delight 
 When thou ha c i- oined thy love in the bowers of morning 
 
 bright. 
 
 FIRE. 
 
 Thou Spirit of Fire! Thou Spirit of Fire! 
 Thou nature of passion and deepest desire! 
 Thy essence divine and thy high purity 
 Enchanteth the heart into union with thee. 
 
 As lovers will trace from the time they first met 
 To the hour the seal on their rapture was set, 
 For pictures must rise with the fondest desire 
 From hearts that are fed with the passions of fire. 
 
 So life will now trace from the time it was born 
 A few passing pictures though they have been shorn 
 Of the beauty and brightness and glow of the heart 
 And the something divine that eludeth all art. 
 
 When unconscious I came as a nursling to earth 
 Thou, thou wert the first that within me had birth, 
 For before there was sound was the lamp of thy power 
 And my soft shining eyes were enchained by the hour. 
 
 119 
 
When older I grew round the hot steaming stove 
 And bright burning grate would my young fancies rove; 
 Till tempted, how tempted, thy law I did learn 
 With the loud screaming pain of the blistering burn. 
 
 The swimming hole there in the years that are far 
 Beneath the new moon and the young opened star, 
 The roaring old stump and her blazes did feed 
 The eyes and the heart of a young naked breed. 
 
 The foundry and forge with their iron, wood and coal 
 Fed into me fuel for a still fiercer soul; 
 Both the spark-shooting weld and the cupola stream 
 Leaped into my heart like the birth of a dream. 
 
 Some cottage or barn of that young Forest town 
 Was wrapped in thy splendor and quick-fleeting gown; 
 Cheap, cheap were the loss to the vision of power 
 And the spirit so passing that all would devour. 
 
 In London more large I can see down the street 
 
 The lamplighter pass to his posts on his beat. 
 
 Zigzag down the way we behold them flash bright, 
 
 That long line of lamps that now pass from our sight. 
 
 From college I came to my home in the west 
 And beheld the high towers on night's shadowy breast 
 Throwing splendors and dreams from the centers of light 
 For miles and for miles through the deeps of the night. 
 
 And still farther west en the wheat-billowed plain 
 When the harvest was passed and was gathered the grain, 
 All around was the straw and enkindled at night 
 Were hundreds of flames leaping up on the sight. 
 
 Still farther behind and still farther before 
 The mind by its gift and its ardor doth soar; 
 And visions of fire leaping forth on the sight 
 Swift capture the soul and its passions delight. 
 
 Our center-most city and just in its prime 
 
 Consumed was with hunger and fury sublime; 
 
 The church, school and home, street, store, tower and frame 
 
 Cnased panic struck men as they burst into flame. 
 
 Away to the north where the pine forests grow, 
 What place for a spark and what fuel for a glow? 
 The spark it has flashed and intense roaring fires 
 Consume sky and earth in their hungry desires? 
 
 120 
 
Away to the west was the grass-covered plain, 
 Through the summer and autumn it dried to the grain; 
 Just a glance from the sun and a wind-sweeping tide 
 Of ten thousand flame tongues in their gallopings ride. 
 
 Round, round the earth's center are mountains of fire 
 That ever belch forth with the fiercest desire; 
 Smoke, flame, stone and ashes in mass mount the sky 
 While man in his terror and blindness must fly. 
 
 Down, down in the earth, down, down far below 
 What fierce furnace fires in her bosom must glow? 
 Where all scattered fires that around us have birth 
 Are focused and fixed in the heart of the earth. 
 
 But what was she then e'er the cold round her grew, 
 
 With fires so intense that a baby world flew 
 
 Right out of her heart to become the full moon 
 
 When mother and child shall have passed to their noon. 
 
 All planets and moons have their birth in the fire, 
 Even icy Neptune on the cold frozen tire; 
 And some are yet burning from center to rim 
 Though all must grow cold as their circles they swim. 
 
 Oh what of the sun! Oh what of the sun! 
 Where all thou has been and all thou has done, 
 And all that thou art and a billion times more 
 Are all gathered up in the bosom that bore. 
 
 What storms, fiery storms where the elements pass 
 From the white foaming flood into high pressured gas? 
 Our earthquake, volcanic and cyclonic fires 
 Are trifles to those that that bosom inspires. 
 
 What continents, mountains and oceans of fire 
 Forever burn there with the fiercest desire? 
 The world all in glow from her rim to her heart 
 To thee were a spark and as quick v/ould depart. 
 
 What million of millions electrical bolts 
 
 And each of them charged with no earth-measured volts 
 
 Together are bound by the circling sash, 
 
 Blinding earth and the stars as forever they flash. 
 
 A radium soul in an infinite mass 
 
 Of motionless, glowing and fluid-like glass; 
 
 A purified, glorified nature of fire 
 
 Thou feedest the heart of all beings' desire. 
 
 121 
 
Thou Spirit of Fire! Thou Spirit of Fire! 
 Thou nature of passion and deepest desire; 
 Thy essence divine and thy high purity 
 Enchanteth the heart into union with thee. 
 
 MORNING SONJ FOR MIND. 
 
 Oh ye sons of thought! Oh ye sons of thought! 
 On a higher scale and of elements wrought 
 As a head and crown and a glorious grace 
 For the body strong of this brawny race. 
 
 Oh arise, arise! Come forth to the morn 
 And stand in the midst of the hour's adorn! 
 Come forth to the dawn for thy place of right 
 Is the morning's face and her splendors bright! 
 
 Here the life of life. Oh the life divine! 
 
 The richest and fullest for which we pine 
 
 Is bursting and teaming and overflowing 
 
 And would fill all hearts with its crimson glowing. 
 
 The powers of the infinite universe, 
 Eternal, triumphant and 'gainst the curse 
 Is bursting in all and in all will pour 
 The girdling strength that can wish no more. 
 
 There is victory now and a glorious strain 
 O'er the earthly hour and its loss and pain, 
 O'er all the years that have heavy fled 
 And the things dark buried and with the dead. 
 
 There is heavenly hope and the boundless heart 
 And the lightning joy that her eyes impart. 
 The contagious life of the golden morn 
 Treats all life and death of the gulf with scorn. 
 
 Open, open thy soul to the spirits round! 
 Open heart and mind oy the senses bound! 
 Open every pore and the dawn divine 
 Will thy veins pulsate with the purest wine. 
 
 The hours of the dawn has the day's inspire 
 And baptisms new in new rivers of fire; 
 Has vision and dreams and ideals sublime 
 As bright as the sun in his splendored prime. 
 
 122 
 
Stand, stand to the east, to the glorious east! 
 And the hungry heart that is in thee feast 
 With the deep delight and the visions vast 
 That the beautifuls on all spirits cast. 
 
 Look, look to the morn! Such a flood of light 
 On thy mortal course never burst to sight; 
 And her granduer, greatness and glory divine 
 Awakes the soul and her infinite pine. 
 
 Drink! Drink of the dawn through thy every pore! 
 Drink! Drink of the hour to thy being's core! 
 Drink! Drink of the life till you sigh no more! 
 You can drink inspire to a boundless store. 
 
 Thy mind shall become like a world of light, 
 Like the sun itself in his splendors bright; 
 And the dreams divine which the prophets pale 
 Shall thine eyes behold and with gladness hail. 
 
 Thy invention, science and tale and rhyme 
 Shall come like the souls from a higher clime. 
 They shall promenade in the golden dawn 
 Or like children sport on the dewy lawn. 
 
 Thy creations then shall from earth arise 
 As if born and clad with the morning skies. 
 With morn in their hearts and poured on their heads 
 They will be the choice whom the future weds. 
 
 The require most vast of all mind today 
 Is passion deep that the elements sway, 
 Life, intelligence, truth that doth only flow 
 Prom the highest hearts in their morning glow. 
 
 This glow thou shalt find in the golden dawn 
 When the veils of sense off the soul are drawn 
 And the atmospheres of morn's high estate 
 Shall thy spirit fill and her satiate. 
 
 Oh ye sons of thought! Oh ye sons of thought! 
 
 There are infinite worlds to be dreamed and brought. 
 
 If thou wilt pause at the morning's portai 
 
 Thou wilt see the dreams and the worlds immortal. 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 The father of the year has come 
 Straight from the Arctic seas. 
 The rivers, fields and streams are dumb, 
 
 123 
 
And death is on the trees. 
 December days and Christmas tide 
 
 Now brings him to his throne. 
 Behold him mounting in his pride 
 
 Resistless and alone! 
 
 Oh welcome, welcome, noble Sire! 
 
 All welcome loud we sing! 
 Thou wakest up our dying fire, 
 
 Of life thou art the king. 
 Thy presence is an atmosphere 
 
 That soul doth vitalize; 
 Our spirits keen to see and hear 
 
 To greet thee doth arise. 
 
 Though thou art old yet thou art young, 
 
 Straight, true and bright and free, 
 A giant mid our pigmy throng, 
 
 A mighty spirit thee; 
 An immortality of age 
 
 And yet with age uncrowned, 
 Youth, action, strength and kingly rage 
 
 Within thy bosom bound. 
 
 Thy countenance is like the face 
 
 Of Iceland's ancient king, 
 Strong, shaggy, great, a glowing grace, 
 
 A living granite thing. 
 Unwrinkled by a trace of fear; 
 
 Unsigned by mortal hour; 
 Like, like the ruler of a sphere 
 
 With majesty and power. 
 
 Bright icy crowns of rainbow gems 
 
 Upon thy head doth glow, 
 Far shaming jeweled diadems 
 
 The sun struck icebergs show. 
 A very mountain head of light 
 
 Where frosty splendors dance! 
 If standing in the sun a sight 
 
 Forever on the glance. 
 
 Thy lightning eyes of intense joy 
 
 Shoot arrows swift and keen; 
 All weakness piercing with destroy, 
 
 They flash with happy sheen. 
 Thy bosom like an engine pants, 
 
 Thy breath is like the steam; 
 With loud exhaust and measured chants 
 
 Its clouds around thee stream. 
 
 124 
 
Thy brow is like a marble white, 
 
 A majesty at rest; 
 A snowbank like a stream of light 
 
 Sweeps ever down thy breast. 
 Thy cheeks are of a crimson glow, 
 
 A double rose of life. 
 Oh what a rose upon the snows 
 
 Of age and strength and strife! 
 
 Thy snowy flowing locks of age 
 
 Is harp for northern wind 
 That coming oft with shaggy rage 
 
 Doth toss them far behind; 
 And as they round thy shoulders flow 
 
 A music is unbound 
 That only polar winds can blow 
 
 And polar souls can sound. 
 
 Thy swift lips of lurid blue 
 
 The midnight moon has known, 
 A storm of frozen pointed dew 
 
 Thy hurling hands have thrown. 
 Thy breast so like a rampart wall 
 
 Guards thy immortal heart, 
 Thy belt did from Orion fall 
 
 To gird thee as thou art. 
 
 Thy strong right arm could bear the sword 
 
 As bright and keen and swift 
 As free men ever have adored 
 
 Or heroes old did lift. 
 Whoever claspeth hands with thee 
 
 Thrills, thrills into the heart 
 Electric lightnings, passions free 
 
 Doth through and through him dart. 
 
 Thy sandles cold of keenest frost, 
 
 With glist'ning edge and tips, 
 White frozen kisses them embossed 
 
 From Arctic ocean's lips. 
 Thy feet like sharpened hammer blows 
 
 Fall on the icy glass, 
 Or muffled in the fluffy snows 
 
 One scarce can hear them pass. 
 
 Thy silver robe of royal state 
 
 Was woven out of light. 
 The web when made with thee to mate 
 
 Was shot with sunbeams bright. 
 When spread on thee in morning time, 
 
 125 
 
Oh what a glorious sight! 
 Thou art a high defender prime 
 Of kingdoms rich and white. 
 
 An icicle thy scepter is 
 
 From cave of stalactites, 
 Where prism waters trickle clear 
 
 Down from the northern lights. 
 Long, straight and strong and crystal pure, 
 
 Topped with the polar star 
 Swift lightnings from thy hold secure 
 
 Fling challenges afar. 
 
 The chariot thou dost use in war 
 
 Was carved from iceberg blue, 
 Has dreadful scythes of keenest frore 
 
 And wheels of sparkling view. 
 Night storms are black and blinded steeds, 
 
 Wild, plunging, fierce and white, 
 All raging on with lightning speeds, 
 
 Earth trembles with affright. 
 
 Sometimes thou ridest on the blast 
 
 That circles from the pole, 
 Cyclonic, howling, black and vast. 
 
 Resistless in its roll. 
 The blizzard is an instant death; 
 
 All powers that rule the light 
 In fearful thunder moanings saith: 
 
 " 'Tis Winter in his might!" 
 
 And sometimes thou dost ride the wind 
 
 As glorious as a dream 
 For thou art then the hero-kind 
 
 That rarely on us gleam; 
 For thou art then great nature's king 
 
 And then we joyful scan 
 A noble soul that up doth bring 
 
 The greater man in man. 
 
 Oh Winter live! Forever live! 
 
 Come with the circles round! 
 Out of all strife we cry for life 
 
 And life in thee is found. 
 Oh Winter live! Forever live! 
 
 Forever crown the year! 
 Thou gavest, givest and shall give 
 
 Strength, health and boundless cheer. 
 
 126 
 
A BOY'S RIDE. 
 
 I've just had a wonderful horseman's ride; 
 
 When I was away from town 
 I behond a steed that was all untried 
 
 And wished I could bring him down. 
 'Twas a massive steed of a noble breed; 
 
 He was nature's ancient pride 
 And was shining bright with the passions white 
 
 That life to his frame supplied. 
 
 This earthquake horse had a nature of fire 
 
 And breath like a furnace flame, 
 And many a flash like the lightning's ire 
 
 From his eyes and nostrils came. 
 I could see life's tide and the passioned pride 
 
 Swift leaping through the veins. 
 Oft he neighed and sniffed and his head did lift 
 
 'Gainst man and his guiding reins. 
 
 This spirit of earth no mortal could dare 
 
 Or dream that the deed could be, 
 To mount on his back and a bridle snare 
 
 On the passions like the sea. 
 Since wish and desire and the deed are one 
 
 In poets and men like me 
 I leaped on his back and the dream was done, 
 
 To bridle the strong and free. 
 
 When he was aware how he shook and gnashed 
 
 With many a mighty jolt! 
 While through and around was flashed and flashed 
 
 His electrical lightning bolt. 
 How he plunged and kicked! How he roared and 
 
 And rubbed his sides on the rocks! reared! 
 
 He was wet with foam or was lather smeared 
 
 And white with his glowing shocks. 
 
 But old wisdom then did my place maintain 
 
 And held me there on his back. 
 The immortal here must the beast domain, 
 
 The guide of his blinded track. 
 'Twas a struggle vain for I firmer grew 
 
 To his back with the mighty shocks; 
 At last to the rein straight he onward flew 
 
 As a storm when the cave unlocks. 
 
 Full a score of miles down into the earth 
 I plunged with a single leap, 
 
 127 
 
Where neither the night nor the day has birth 
 
 And all are forever asleep; 
 Where the only lights were his flashing eyes, 
 
 Were his nostril puffs of flame 
 And the bickering sparks that did instant rise 
 
 When his feet to the granite came. 
 
 Through the solid walls of earth's prison keep 
 
 I passed as the spirits do; 
 And some glimpses caught of the treasures deep 
 
 That poets and science view. 
 There copper and silver and golden vein, 
 
 Here jewels did round me blaze 
 But the mighty life in the breast and brain 
 
 Scorned all with a passing gaze. 
 
 Through the mammoth caves and the cloven gorge 
 
 Of sunless rivers and lakes, 
 Through the under space by the mighty forge 
 
 Where the earth her back-bone makes, 
 Both around and down the volcano throat, 
 
 Through the lava and flame and fire, 
 Down, down to the deep and the gulfs so steep 
 
 I drove to my steed's inspire. 
 
 'Neath the cities vast where a million men 
 
 Grew pale at the rumbling sound, 
 Where the golden spire and the chimney fen 
 
 As their hearts fell to the ground; 
 Under the forests and rivers and lakes 
 
 That were danced beneath my shocks, 
 Through the under-world as the mountain shakes 
 
 I rode on the fiery rocks. 
 
 Down the mountain range like a phantom strange, 
 
 Like a man and horse of fire, 
 By the zigzag course as the peaks might change 
 
 I sped to my heart's desire. 
 As his mighty feet on the summits bound, 
 
 What a mass of rock would break! 
 And the hollow gorge with a thunder sound 
 
 And with echoes long did wake. 
 
 Through the purple deep of the ocean blue 
 
 I rode but the light beguiles; 
 Just where I arose for a moment's view 
 
 Is one of a thousand isles. 
 I plunged sheer down to the plumbless deep, 
 
 128 
 
Down, down with a fierce desire. 
 Can the ocean drench? Can her waters quench? 
 I shot like a soul of fire. 
 
 Whenever I rode from land to land, 
 
 All creatures stood aghast; 
 The earth would be rocked and the waves upstand 
 
 Where my horse with violence passed. 
 The powers of peace that inhabit the earth 
 
 Would asudden fly before 
 And the legion storms then awoke to birth 
 
 And behind me madly tore. 
 
 With the lightning steeds of the morning hours 
 
 For empire I laid a race; 
 I gave them a course through the azure bowers 
 
 But mine through the earth would pace. 
 Straight over the deserts and boundless plain 
 
 I drove like a crazy witch, 
 But the wage I won; the dirt from my train 
 
 Was path for a river's ditch. 
 
 The equator line was my chosen course, 
 
 So a dozen times around 
 I drove with no end but the mighty force 
 
 I felt within me bound. 
 Just a moment gone as I passed this place, 
 
 I heard your familiar sound; 
 So I threw the reigns on his dying pace 
 
 And sprang to my native ground. 
 
 OH GOLDEN SUN! 
 
 Oh golden sun! Oh bright celestial sphere! 
 Oh kingless king of heaven's wide expanse! 
 Oh most divine of all that doth appear 
 Within the range of earth's impassioned glance! 
 No noonday dream, no vision-splendored trance 
 Of morn, no flaming images of bright 
 Creation's prime, nor golden forms that dance 
 Upon the far off, high millenial height 
 Eclipse thy glory. As thou dost advance 
 On the beholding world thy glorious sight 
 Her being more than fills with infinite delight. 
 
 Thou art a boundless, boundless mass of fire — 
 A furnace than our boldest dreams immense, 
 And never measured in the white desire 
 
 129 
 
Of instant fierceness — an incandescence 
 Right down to the infinite heart intense 
 And out unto the elemental gas 
 
 That flames in mighty storms. The world's first essence 
 From some sustaining radium heart doth pass 
 With energy omnipotent through the dense, 
 Intensest elements, and makes thy mass 
 Like burnished, burnished seas of molten glowing glass. 
 
 Thy being and thy nature are divine. 
 Thy lightnings and thy high sublimities 
 Around thy presence forever brightly shine 
 As makes thee like a soul of magnanimities. 
 Thy beauties, glories and divinities 
 Of majesty — thy magnificence, 
 Effulgent purities and their affinities 
 Of glorious brightness — thy pre-eminence 
 That fills the azure consanguinities 
 With more than spheral fulness — thy dominance 
 And king victoriousness are splendors of transcendence. 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors pure that crown 
 The unattainable, unvanquished thrones 
 Of heav'n with glory surpassing the renown 
 Of mighty stars and palpitating zones 
 Of flaming breasted night! The universe loans 
 Itself as a mere background of darkness 
 From which thou bursteth and all creation owns 
 Thee Lord, for the lightning splendors that dress 
 Thy living soul each globe with joy entones, 
 And their own souls with higher life possess 
 While basking in the splendors no dreamers' dreams express. 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors rich that radiate 
 The golden floods into the boundless sphere 
 With generosities that satiate 
 The darkened, the empty and the hungry mere, 
 So measureless, so vast, unknown and near! 
 The mighty voids in which the worlds are mersed 
 Are by thy presence disendowered of fear 
 And through its length and breadth has burst 
 The splendors, the splendors that career 
 Forever on, and thus the voids so cursed 
 Are peopled by thy births and by thy presence nursed. 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors thou dost fling 
 Upon the broad monarchal brows of day 
 As on the head of some archangel king 
 Descended now in heaven's best array! 
 These splendors and their infinite display 
 
 130 
 
Aij traveling down the march of space and time 
 Now fill and flood that long enchanting way 
 With images of most immortal prime. 
 The splendors that no space or time can stay 
 Nor night eclipse nor retain all heav'n's clime 
 Are pouring floods and floods sublime and more sublime. 
 
 Thou motherest this palpitating earth 
 And bore her long beneath thy passioned heart. 
 Thy elements, youth, hope and strength and mirth, 
 And all thy life to her thou didst impart. 
 When that omnipotential hour did start 
 The mingled song of her own separate race 
 Thy motherhood both then and since did dart 
 Thy lightning smile on her reflecting face. 
 Thou gavest her two mighty wings to chart 
 A shining orbit through the voids of space 
 And on she ever flies on her elliptic race. 
 
 Across the bridgeless, hollow, hungry void 
 Thou nursest her. Thy kisses of delight 
 And their communications hast enjoyed 
 Her spirit and the flesh that doth bedight. 
 Thy maternal divinations doth sight 
 Her in the void and uncontainable endower 
 Doth replenish her impoverished might 
 Against the gulf that instant would devour. 
 Perennial streams embosomed golden bright 
 Before all heaven flow to her hour by hour 
 And on the empty waste sustain her failing power. 
 
 What time she turns out of thy saving sight 
 Oh what eclipse of youth and joy and hope! 
 Oh what a swift paralysis doth smite 
 The crimson life in that warm envelope! 
 A blind and staggering world-soul doth grope 
 Amid a wide chaotic desolation 
 Or lieth senseless 'neath the darkened cope 
 Of angry heaven. This fond and fair creation 
 To which thy bosomed fulness did unope 
 Lies thwart the night in naked mutilation 
 And all her mighty births are loud in lamentation. 
 
 What time she turns out of thy saving sight 
 Black howling storms burst on the palsied earth. 
 Out of the killing, frosty, raven night 
 The brood of death come with chaotic dearth 
 And blast tne globe from center to its girth. 
 Across this breast, warm as a summer bride's, 
 Great tempests rave in wild blaspheming mirth 
 
 131 
 
That blasts all love and life. Dread winter rides 
 Around the globe and tramples every birth 
 And hope in whom thy spirit still abides 
 And naked, hungry death a ruined earth bestrides. 
 
 But Oh what times again to thee she turns. 
 Her wood and stream and field and hill and ocean 
 Is quickened from the heart that in thee burns 
 As is a birth by motherhood's devotion! 
 Thy golden smile is like a liquid lotion 
 Bathing the limbs and breast and brow of earth, 
 And vernal atmospheres are like a potion 
 That vitalize her heart. Every nature birth 
 Doth break its trance, awakes to rise and sing 
 And looks to thee the giver of the mirth, 
 Reviving all the world from her heart unto her girth. 
 
 But Oh what time again to thee she turns 
 Her inmost heart again with summer teems 
 For that regenerating life that burns 
 In thee flows in voluminous streams 
 Until the earth is drunken with the dreams 
 Of life and love! The emaciations 
 Are glowing with the rich and fatty creams 
 Thou feedest to her heart and creations 
 Doth arise whose boundless life diviner seems 
 Than earth herself dare claim. These palpitations 
 Are straight from thine own heart and drunk with gratulations. 
 
 Bpt Oh what time again to thee she turns 
 The very world-soul rises with amaze 
 The memories of her happy childhood burns 
 And she is lost in that supernal blaze 
 Of splendors pure that captivate her days. 
 Her mountains, oceans, forest, plain and stream 
 And every living beast upon their ways 
 Worships the infinite celestial dream 
 That round thy soul with lightning glory plays. 
 Dream of all dreams, vision of visions supreme 
 The world's diviner self within thy glories gleam! 
 
 Thou art in all things beauty, soul and power 
 For by thy presence plant and shrub and vine 
 Bright blossom forth and royally endower 
 The earth. Unto the birds thou dost resign 
 Some portion of thy rainbow light and shine 
 Some beauty into the lowest earthly beast. 
 All things that are and that with passion pine, 
 The worms and even unconscious things have leased 
 To them some portion of thy glory. Thy divine 
 
 132 
 
Communications forever rich increased 
 Bid all arise to thee and front the dawning east. 
 
 Boundless amplitudes of stretching prairie 
 Rest under thee with infinite repose. 
 Majestic forests upon their summits airy 
 Grow gr^en and glad as light their life bestows. 
 Ponderous sublime like mountains with snows 
 On their eternal heads by thee are bright 
 Beyond all dreams imagination knows. 
 Out oh the sea! The sea divine to sight! 
 The mirror that is polished as it flows; 
 Dost thou not fill in depth and width and might 
 With thine own golden soul and radiant streams of light! 
 
 Out of that glorious, soundless, saving sea 
 Thy noonday hand doth lift a sparkling bowl 
 And scatt'rest it with blessing on the free 
 And azure dome. Then instantly the whole 
 Concave is flecked with living clouds that roll 
 Their high fantastic course along the blue 
 And vaulted arch of heaven. When now thy soul 
 Of dazzling, blinding whiteness bursteth through 
 The fragile veil, what rainbow beauties stroll 
 Thy bright dominions and buildeth up anew 
 A rich enchanted land as dreams desire to view! 
 
 All that thou hast, Oh infinite desire! 
 All that thou art, Oh infinite delight! 
 Thy glowing, flowing, warming, forming fire 
 Is given earth and thy very heart so bright 
 Doth recreate her being with a white 
 And glowing passion. Thy blessings penetrate 
 Her spirit, circle like life her frame, bedight 
 In royalist robes, inspire all passions great 
 And crown, crown her with thy glorious light 
 In heaven in most magnificent estate; 
 What she can dare to dream thy gif tings more than mate. 
 
 Thou dost out-dream the vital hopes that rise 
 When she spring forth from slumb'ring with the dead 
 And raptured looks upon the azure skies 
 With better dreams than any dream that fled. 
 Her green and vernal heart so passion fed 
 With joys and hopes of life, her happy mirth, 
 Songs of delight and promises that breed 
 A summer tide on winter's blasted dearth — 
 All her passions, joys and dreams but need 
 One glorious morn to burst upon the earth 
 To more than over-feed herself and every birth. 
 
 133 
 
Oh the morn! The morning most divine! 
 The bursting dawn! The fulness of delight! 
 The storm-like flood effulgencies that shine 
 Upon the dark and fear enphantomed night! 
 Thou art the morn and thy creating might 
 Renews the earth like visions of a dream 
 Upon the heart of life's enraptured sight. 
 Oh what a vital, golden, golden stream 
 On mountain, plain and ocean doth alight 
 With joys and hopes that with life over-teem 
 With sweetest liquid life, with life of life supreme! 
 
 Oh the morn, the morning most divine! 
 The dawn of life, redemption, glory, power, 
 Peace, praise and all for which the world doth pine! 
 Earth's regeneration — recreating hour — 
 Awaking — baptism — crowning and endower 
 Of beatific blessedness! The morn thou art 
 And the chambers of the east that doth embower 
 Thy presence bright forever holds the heart 
 Of the World Soul. The world's great natures tower 
 In nobleness and yet they ever start 
 With more augmented being when thou dost on them dart. 
 
 What a more than infinite majesty 
 Of splendor, magnificence and repose 
 When thou upon thy noonday throne dost free 
 The full resource that in thy bosom glows! 
 The whole celestial sphere drinks in the flows 
 Of glorious sheen as the wide creations 
 Open their deeps to thy divine bestows. 
 The glory of thy golden radiations, 
 More pure and white than sifted mountain snows, 
 Crowd the expense and crown the exaltations 
 With infinite delight and nooday satiations. 
 
 What spherical effulgencies of light 
 When thou art throned upon the nooday hour! 
 What millions of electric lightnings white 
 Thy countenance doth ever shoot and shower! 
 What omnipotential brightness of endower 
 Dost thou unveil on the receptive earth, 
 Passions, grandeur, sublimity and power 
 Of purest light unto creations' girth! 
 King of all worlds upon thy nooday tower, 
 Supremest and most infinite in worth, 
 Thy transcendental splendors blinds this immortal birth. 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors that doth blaze 
 Upon the new born infants of the earth 
 
 134 
 
And burst upon its first, fresh opened gaze 
 As it doth enter through the gates of birth! 
 The splendors rich of hope and strength and mirth 
 That first baptize and welcome to the light 
 The inheritors of all existent worth 
 Is ever throned upon the heightless height! 
 Oh the splendors that no chaotic dearth 
 Can blind or stay upon our opening sight 
 But shinest clear and pure and girdest us with might! 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors pure that crown 
 Our younger prime and vital energize 
 Our mortal strength against time's dark'ning frown 
 And circumstance that oft upon us lies! 
 Oh the splendors that inspire the eyes 
 Of this intelligence when e'er it wakes 
 To look upon the solemn breasted skies 
 That feed the strength with which this being breaks! 
 Oh the splendors that ever rich supplies 
 The ideal and the energy that makes 
 The future ever new, the past forever shakes! 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors all divine, 
 That feed the ripest visions of all time 
 Though vast immortal passions reach and pine 
 For those extremes unto this world of crime! 
 Oh the splendors more glorious and sublime 
 Then men see here, or those they dare to dream 
 Within the dreams which thy celestial clime 
 Builds up in them like empires most supreme! 
 Oh the splendors that poets in their prime 
 Forever shame and yet forever stream 
 The crown and robe and heart into his every theme! 
 
 Oh the splendors, the splendors ripe that blind 
 The nurslings of this immortality 
 And nurture up the mortal heart and mind 
 Above the plane of nature's dead formality! 
 Oh the splendors that fill the wide portality 
 Of heaven and vastly more than beautify 
 The solemn deeps which this finality 
 Feels kindred most to that which cannot die! 
 Oh the splendors that crown this reality 
 Of infinite significance where we 
 Are welcomed into life if we could only see! 
 
 What an invitation to this blind earth 
 Doth blaze out of the wide portality 
 Of being to usher into virtuous birth 
 This mortal and the hope of immortality? 
 
 135 
 
Could the heav'n of heav'ns with its courtality 
 Of infinite magnificence and station 
 Invite more glad the family of finality? 
 Man must be the heir of the creation, 
 Son of eternities, reality 
 For which thy white effulgent radiation 
 Doth but exist to light his soul to exaltation. 
 
 Thou revealest the nature vast of man; 
 The attributes of his essential heart 
 An kin to thine when the lightning scan 
 Doth look on him and purge soul of the mart. 
 How supreme, sublime and glorious is the chart 
 Engraved upon this immortality? 
 Could the energies that upward in us start, 
 Conscious of this infinite finality, 
 Find any image but thy powers that dart 
 And light him to an ideality 
 Of being? Could the nature of this reality 
 
 So vast, could this inextinguishable hope, 
 Could this ambition and climbing domination, 
 Could this moral sense sublime as is the cope 
 Above us and the dreams that there we station, 
 Could this ideal that crowns the wide creation 
 And that invites the searching lightnings white 
 Find any sign or symboling manifestation 
 But thy great soul of majesty and might? 
 Could the crowded and golden congregation 
 Of his flaming mind, could his passions white 
 Of infinite like sweep of length and breadth and height, 
 
 Could the godlike action of his creating will, 
 Full clad in deeds archangels match or pale, 
 Could earth and all environment outfill 
 His bright ideal, Oh Soul! would he not sail 
 Among the stars and all creation hail 
 The glorious dream as all now haileth thee? 
 Tear off, tear off the blind and selfish veil! 
 Burn into him his own reality! 
 Bring up the soul thai being's height can scale! 
 Magnificent with thy courtality 
 Forever robe him bright in conscious immortality! 
 
 Oh golden sun! Oh bright celestial sphere! 
 Oh kingless king of heav'ns' wide expanse! 
 Oh most divine of all that doth appear, 
 Within the range of earth's impassioned glance! 
 No noonday dreams, no vision-splendored trance 
 Of morn, no flaming images of bright 
 
 cation's prime, nor golden forms that dance 
 
 136 
 
Upon the far off, high millennial height 
 Eclipse thy glory. As thou dost advance 
 Upon the worlds and man thy glorious sight 
 Their beings more than fill with infinite delight. 
 
 TO MY NATURE SONGS. 
 
 Go, my Nature Songs, to the world's dark frown, 
 To the wealth and power that so oft turned down, 
 To neglect and scorn, to the strife and greed 
 That the World and Life to each other feed! 
 
 Not a friend have ye in the wide wide world; 
 
 Can ye stem the floods where the gods are hurled? 
 
 If from nature born she will not disown 
 
 Though the rending globes are against ye thrown. 
 
 In some seven years ye have not found one; 
 In some seven more there may still be none; 
 But there's something leaps from my heart to ye 
 And a something forth from your hearts to me. 
 
 Perhaps it is only the father's pride; 
 Perhaps it is nature that both doth ride; 
 The great psychic soul of the universe 
 That sings to the all as sue all doth nurse. 
 
 Now to Nature stern that doth know no self, 
 Who is neither for nor against our pelf 
 But eternal change and forever flow 
 Of a boundless life in intensest glow, 
 
 Ye are now cast forth to the flood of life, 
 To remorseless fate and destroying strife 
 And thy parent reads on the earth and sky: 
 "From themselves alone all must live or die." 
 
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