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 ^ he Man wich the Hoe 
 
 /vND OJHKK POF'AIS 
 
 EDWIN MAKKHAM 
 
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 The Man with the Hoe 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
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 EDWIN MARKHAM 
 
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 NEW YORK 
 DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE COMPANY 
 
 1899 
 
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 6* 1*977 
 
 CoPVBIf.MT, 189)), BV 
 
 EDWIN AIARKHAM 
 
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 SAN KRANCJSCO EXAMINEK 
 
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 Astor riace, New York 
 
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 FIRST TO HAIL AND CAUTION MK 
 
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 Prefatory Note 
 
 Many of these poems have appeared in 
 Scribner's, The Century, The Atlantic, and 
 the San Francisco Examiner, and my thanks 
 are due them for permission to republish. 
 
 Edwin Markham. 
 
 Oakland, California. 
 
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The Man with the Hoc 
 
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The Contents 
 
 The Man with the Hoe 15 
 
 A Look into the Gulf 19 
 
 Brotherhood 21 
 
 Song of the Followers of Pan 22 
 
 Little Brothers of the Ground 23 
 
 Wail of the Wandering Dead 25 
 
 A Prayer 28 
 
 The Poet 30 
 
 The Whirlwind Road 32 
 
 The Desire of Nations 33 
 
 The Elf Child 39 
 
 The Goblin Laugh 40 
 
 Poetry 41 
 
 A Meeting 42 
 
 Infinite Depths 43 
 
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The Contents 
 
 II !« 
 
 m 
 
 fit 
 
 Ml I 
 
 A Leaf from the Devil's Jest-Book 44 
 
 The Paymaster 46 
 
 The Last Furrow 47 
 
 In the Storm 49 
 
 After Reading Shakspere 50 
 
 The Hidden Valley 52 
 
 The Poets 53 
 
 Love's Vigil 54 
 
 Two at a Fireside 56 
 
 The Butterfly 57 
 
 To William Watson 58 
 
 Keats A-Dying 59 
 
 Man 60 
 
 The Cricket 61 
 
 In High Sierras 62 
 
 The Wharf of Dreams 63 
 
 To Louise Michel 65 
 
 Shepherd Boy and Nereid 66 
 
 A Song at the Start 68 
 
 My Comrade 70 
 
 n 
 
The Contents 
 
 44 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 71 
 
 Joy of the Morning 80 
 
 The Waning Lamp 81 
 
 A Satyr Song 83 
 
 A Cry in the Night 84 
 
 Fays 85 
 
 In Death Valley 86 
 
 Business 87 
 
 "Follow Me" 88 
 
 In Poppy Fields 89 
 
 The Joy of the Hills 90 
 
 The Invisible Bride 92 
 
 The Valley 94 
 
 The Climb of Life 95 
 
 The Tragedy 97 
 
 Divine Vision 98 
 
 Midsummer Noon 99 
 
 One Life, One Law 100 
 
 Griefs 10 1 
 
 An Old Road 102 
 
 i. 
 
■MIHIPRmmpniBF' 
 
 The Contents 
 
 The New Comers 103 
 
 Music 104 
 
 Fay Song 105 
 
 The Old Earth 106 
 
 Divine Adventure 107 
 
 Song Made Flesh 109 
 
 To High-born Poets no 
 
 The Toilers 112 
 
 On the Gulf of Night 114 
 
 A Harvest Song 116 
 
 Two Taverns 118 
 
 The Man under the Stone 119 
 
 Song to the Divine Mother 121 
 
 The Flying Mist 127 
 
 From the Hand of a Child 129 
 
 At the Meeting of Seven Valleys 131 
 
 The Rock-Breaker 132 
 
 These Songs Will Perish 133 
 
 H 
 
i 
 
 The Man with the Hoe 
 
 Written after seeing Millet's World-Famous Painting 
 
 God made man in His own image, 
 
 in the image of God made He h\m.— Genesis. 
 
 Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans 
 Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground, 
 The emptiness of ages in his face, 
 And on his back the burden of the world. 
 Who made him dead to rapture and despair, 
 A thing that grieves not and that never 
 
 hopes. 
 Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox ? 
 Who loosened and let down this brutal 
 
 jaw ? 
 
 Whose was the hand that slanted back this 
 
 brow ? 
 Whose breath blew out ti 
 
 brain ? 
 
 light within this 
 
 
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The Man with the Hoe 
 
 Is this the Thing the Lord God made and 
 
 gave 
 To have dominion over sea and land ; 
 To trace the stars and search the heavens 
 
 for power ; 
 To feel the passion of Eternity ? 
 Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped 
 
 the suns 
 And pillared the blue firmament with light ? 
 Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf 
 There is no shape mere terrible than this — 
 More tongued with censure of the world's 
 
 blind greed — 
 More filled with signs and portents for the 
 
 soul — 
 More fraught with menace to the universe. 
 
 What gulfs between him and the seraphim ! 
 Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him 
 Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades ? 
 What the long reaches of the peaks of song, 
 The rift of dawn, the reddening of the 
 rose ? 
 
 i6 
 
ade and 
 
 heavens 
 
 shaped 
 
 I light ? 
 
 St gulf 
 this — 
 world's 
 
 for the 
 
 verse. 
 
 .phim ! 
 him 
 ? 
 
 :>i song, 
 of the 
 
 The Man with the Hoe 
 
 Through this dread shape the suffering ages 
 
 look ; 
 Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop ; 
 Through this dread shape humanity betrayed, 
 Plundered, profaned and disinherited. 
 Cries protest to the Judges of the World, 
 A protest that is also prophecy. 
 
 O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
 Is this the handiwork you give to God, 
 This monstrous thing distorted and soul- 
 quenched ? 
 How will you ever straighten up this shape ; 
 Touch it again with immortality ; 
 Give back the upward looking and the light ; 
 Rebuild in it the music and the dream ; 
 Make right the immemorial infamies, 
 Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes ? 
 
 O masters, lords and rulers in all lands, 
 
 How will the Future reckon with this Man ? 
 
 How answer his brute question in that hour 
 
 When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the 
 
 world ? 
 
 2 17 
 
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The Man with the Hoe 
 
 How will It be with kingdoms and with 
 
 kings — 
 With those who shaped him to the thing he 
 
 is- 
 
 When this dumb Terror shall reply to God, 
 After the silence of the centuries ? 
 
 l8 
 

 A Look into the Gulf 
 
 I looked one night, and there Semiramis, 
 With all her mourning doves about her head, 
 Sat rocking on an ancient road of Hell, 
 Withered and eyeless, chanting to the moon 
 Snatches of song they sang to her of old 
 Upon the lighted roofs of Nineveh. 
 And then her voice rang out with rattling 
 
 laugh : 
 " The bugles ! they are crying back again — 
 Bugles that broke the nights of Babylon, 
 And then went crying on through Nineveh. 
 
 • ••••«« 
 
 Stand back, ye trembling messengers of ill ! 
 Women, let go my hair : I am the Queen, 
 A whirlwind and a blaze of swords to quell 
 Insurgent cities. Let the iron tread 
 Of armies shake the earth. Look, lofty 
 towers : 
 
 19 
 
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 A Look into the Gulf 
 
 Assyria goes by upon the wind ! " 
 And so she babbles by the ancient road, 
 While cities turned to dust upon the Earth 
 Rise through her whirling brain to live again— 
 Babbles all night, and when her voice is dead 
 Her weary lips beat on without a sound. 
 
 90 
 
road, 
 e Earth 
 e again — 
 :e is dead 
 >und. 
 
 Brotherhood 
 
 The crest and crowning of all good, 
 Life's final star, is Brotherhood; 
 For it will bring again to Earth 
 Her long-lost Poesy and Mirth ; 
 Will send new light on every face, 
 A kingly power upon the race. 
 And till it come, we men are slaves, 
 And travel downward to the dust of graves. 
 
 Come, clear the way, then, clear the way : 
 Blind creeds and kings have had their day. 
 Break the dead branches from the path ; 
 Our hope is in the aftermath — 
 Our hope is in heroic men, 
 Star-led to build the world again. 
 To this Event the ages ran : 
 
 Make way for Brotherhood— make way for 
 Man. 
 
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 31 
 
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 Song of the Followers of Pan 
 
 Our bursting bugles blow apart 
 The gates of cities as we go ; 
 
 We bring the music of the heart 
 From secret wells in Lillimo*. 
 
 We break in music on the morns — 
 Sing of the flower to stirring roots ; 
 
 Apollo's cry is in the horns, 
 
 And Hermes' whisper in the flutes. 
 
 We come with laughter to the Earth, 
 And lightly stir the heading wheat : 
 
 Our God is Poesy and Mirth, 
 
 And loves the noise of woodland feet. 
 
 When dancers beat the air to sound, 
 After the time of yellow sheaves, 
 
 He stops to watch the merry round, 
 His pleased face looking through the 
 leaves. 
 
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 : flutes. 
 
 Earth, 
 wheat : 
 
 Hand feet. 
 
 sound, 
 ;aves, 
 ound, 
 rough the 
 
 Little Brothers of the Ground 
 
 Little ants in leafy wood, 
 Bound by gentle Brotherhood, 
 While ye gaily gather spoil, 
 Men are ground by the wheel of toil ; 
 While ye follow Blessed Fates, 
 Men are shriveled up with hates. 
 Yes, they eat the wayside dust, 
 While their souls are gnawed by rust. 
 
 Ye are f raters in your hall. 
 Gay and chainless, great and small ; 
 All are toilers in the field. 
 All are sharers in the yield. 
 But we mortals plot and plan 
 How to grind the fellow-man ; 
 Glad to find him in a pit. 
 If we get some gain of it. 
 So with us, the sons of Time, 
 Labor is a kind of crime, 
 
 23 
 
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 Little Brothers of the Ground 
 
 For the tollers have the least, 
 While the idlers lord the feast. 
 Yes, our workers they are bound, 
 Pallid captives to the ground ; 
 Jeered by traitors, fooled by knaves, 
 Till they stumble into graves. 
 
 How appears to tiny eyes 
 All this wisdom of the wise ? 
 
I «■ 
 
 i 
 
 Wail of the Wandering Dead 
 
 Death, too, is a chimera and betrays. 
 And yet they promised we should enter 
 rest ; 
 
 Death is as empty as the cup of days. 
 And bitter milk is in her wintry breast. 
 
 There is no worth in any world to come, 
 Nor any in the world we left behind ; 
 
 And what remains of all our masterdom ? — 
 Only a cry out of the crumbling mind. 
 
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 We played all comers at the old Gray Inn, 
 But played the King of Players to our 
 cost. 
 
 We played Him fair and had no chance to 
 win : 
 
 The dice of God were loaded and we lost. 
 
 35 
 
 
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 Pf^ail of the Wandering Dead 
 
 We wander, wander, and the nights come 
 down 
 With starless darkness and the rush of 
 rains ; 
 We drift as phantoms by the songless town, 
 We drift as litter on the windy lanes. 
 
 Hope is the fading vision of the heart, 
 A mocking spirit throwing up wild hands. 
 
 She led us on with music at the start. 
 
 To leave us at dead fountains in the sands. 
 
 Now all our days are but a cry for sleep, 
 For we are weary of the petty strife. 
 
 Is there not somewhere in the endless deep 
 A place where we can lose the feel of life ? 
 
 Where we can be as senseless as the dust 
 The night wind blows about a dried-up 
 well ? 
 
 Where there is no more labor, no more lust, 
 Nor any flesh to feel the Tooth of Hell ? 
 
 (I I 
 
he rush of 
 
 fVail of the PFandering Dead . 
 
 Our feet are ever sliding, and we seem 
 As old and weary as the pyramids. 
 
 Come, God of Ages, and dispel the dream, 
 Fold the worn hands and close the sinking 
 lids. 
 
 There Is no new road for the dead to take : 
 Wild hearts are we among the worlds 
 astray — 
 
 Wild hearts are we that cannot wholly break, 
 But linger on though life has gone away. 
 
 We are the sons of Misery and Eld : 
 
 Come, tender Death, with all your hushing 
 wings, 
 
 And let our broken spirits be dispelled — 
 Let dead men sink into the dusk of things. 
 
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 A Prayer 
 
 Teach me, Father, how to go 
 Softly as the grasses grow ; 
 Hush my soul to meet the shock 
 Of the wild world as a rock ; 
 But my spirit, propt with power, 
 Make as simple as a flower. 
 Let the dry heart fill its cup, 
 Like a poppy looking up ; 
 Let life lightly wear her crown, 
 Like a poppy looking down. 
 When its heart is filled with dew, 
 And its life begins anew. 
 
 Teach me. Father, how to be 
 Kind and patient as a tree. 
 Joyfully the crickets croon 
 Under shady oak at noon ; 
 
 28 
 
A Prayer 
 
 Beetle, on his mission bent, 
 Tarries in that cooling tent. 
 Let me, also, cheer a spot, 
 Hidden field or garden grot — 
 Place where passing souls can rest 
 On the way and be their best 
 
 
 
 29 
 
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 The Poet 
 
 His home is on the heights : to him 
 Men wage a battle weird and dim, 
 Life is a mission stern as fate, 
 And Song a dread apostolate. 
 The toils of prophecy are his, 
 To hail the coming centuries — 
 To ease the steps and lift the load 
 Of souls that falter on the road. 
 The perilous music that he hears 
 Falls from the vortice of the spheres. 
 
 He presses on before the race, 
 And sings out of a silent place. 
 Like faint notes of a forest bird 
 On heights afar that voice is heard ; 
 And the dim path he breaks to-day 
 Will some time be a trodden way. 
 
 30 
 
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The Poet 
 
 But when the race comes toiling on 
 That voice of wonder will be gone — 
 Be heard on higher peaks afar, 
 Moved upward with the morning star. 
 
 
 O men of earth, that wandering voice 
 Still goes the upward way : rejoice ! 
 
 *** 
 
 31 
 
The Whirlwind Road 
 
 The Muses wrapped in mysteries of light 
 Came in a rush of music on the night ; 
 And I was lifted wildly on quick wings, 
 And borne away into the deep of things. 
 The dead doors of my being broke apart ; 
 A wind of rapture blew across the heart ; 
 The inward song of worlds rang still and clear ; 
 I felt the Mystery the Muses fear ; 
 Vet they went swiftening on the ways untrod, 
 And hurled me breathless at the feet of God. 
 
 I felt faint touches of the Final Truth — 
 Momentsoftremblinglove, moments of youth. 
 A vision swept away the human wall ; 
 Slowly I saw the meaning of it all — 
 Meaning of life and time and death and birth, 
 But can not tell it to the men of Earth. 
 I only point the way, and they must go 
 The whirlwind road of song if they would 
 know. 
 
 32 
 
y. 
 
 •».ll 
 
 The Desire of Nations 
 
 And the government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name 
 shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty Go<l, The cvtr- 
 lasting Father, The Prince of Peace. — Isaiah. 
 
 Earth will go back to her lost youth, 
 
 And life grow deep and wonderful as truth, 
 
 When the wise King out of the nearing 
 
 Heaven comes 
 To break the spell of long millenniums — 
 To build with song again 
 The broken hope of men — 
 To hush and heroize the world, 
 Under the flag of Brotherhood unfurled. 
 And He will come some day : 
 Already is His star upon the way ! 
 He comes, O world. He comes ! 
 But not with bugle-cry nor roll of doubling 
 
 drums. 
 
 Nay, for He comes to loosen and unbind, 
 To build the lofty purpose in the mind, 
 
 3 33 
 
 
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 The Desire of Nations 
 
 To Stir the heart's deep chord. . . . 
 No rude horns parleying, no shock of shields; 
 Nor as of old the glory of the Lord 
 To half-awakened shepherds in the fields, 
 Looking with foolish faces on the rush 
 Of the Great Splendor, when the pulsing hush 
 Came o'er the hills, came o'er the heavens afar 
 Where on liieir cliff of stars the watching 
 seraphs are. 
 
 Nor as of old when first the Strong One trod. 
 The Power of sepulchers — our Risen God ! 
 When on that deathless morning in the dark, 
 He quit the Garden of the Sepulcher, 
 Setting the oleander boughs astir, 
 And pausing at the gate with backward 
 
 hark. — ' 
 
 Nay, nor as when the Hero-King of Heaven 
 Came with upbraiding to His faint Eleven, 
 And found the world-way to His bright feet 
 
 barred. 
 And hopeless then because men's hearts 
 
 were hard. 
 
 34 
 
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 The Desire of Nations 
 
 Nor will He come like carnal kings of old, 
 I With pomp of pilfered gold ; 
 Nor like the pharisees with pride of prayer ; 
 Nor as the stumbling foolish stewards 
 
 dream 
 
 In tedious argument and milkless creed, 
 But in the passion of the heart-warm deed 
 Will come the Man Supreme. 
 Yea, for He comes to lift the Public Care — 
 To build on Earth the Vision hung in air. 
 This is the one fulfillment of His Law — 
 The one Fact in the mockeries that seem. 
 This is the Vision that the prophets saw — 
 The Comrade Kingdom builded in their 
 
 dream. 
 
 
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 No, not as In that elder day 
 
 Comes now the King upon the human way. 
 
 He comes with power : His white unfearing 
 
 face 
 Shines through the Social Passion of the 
 
 race. 
 He comes to frame the freedom of the Law, 
 
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 The Desire of Nations 
 
 To touch these men of Earth 
 
 With a feeHng of life's oneness and its 
 
 worth, 
 A feeling of its mystery and awe. 
 
 And when He comes into the world gone] 
 
 wrong, 
 He will rebuild her beauty with a song. 
 To every heart He will its own dream be : 
 One moon has many phantoms in the sea. 
 Out of the North the norns will cry to| 
 
 men : 
 " Balder the Beautiful has come again ! " 
 The flutes of Greece will whisper from the| 
 
 dead : 
 "Apollo has unveiled his sunbright head!" 
 The stones of Thebes and Memphis will 
 
 find voice : 
 ** Osiris comes : O tribes of Time, rejoice ! " 
 And social architects who build the State, 
 Serving the Dream at citadel and gate, 
 Will hail Him coming through the labor- 
 hum. 
 
 36 
 
 ■ili 
 
The Desire of Nations 
 
 And glad quick cries will gc from man to 
 
 man : 
 *' Lo, He has come, our Christ the Artisan — 
 The King who loved the lilies, He has 
 
 come ! " 
 
 
 He will arrive, our Counselor and Chief. 
 And with bleak faces lighted up will come 
 The earth-worn mothers from their martyr- 
 dom, 
 To tell Him of their grief. 
 And glad girls caroling from field and town 
 Will go to meet Him wiih the labor-crown, 
 The new crown woven of the heading 
 
 wheat. 
 And men will sit down at His sacred feet ; 
 And He will say — the King — 
 "Come, let us live the poetry we sing !" 
 And these. His burning words, will break 
 
 the ban — 
 Words that will grow to be, 
 On continent, on sea. 
 The rallying cry of man. . , • 
 
 37 
 
 
 ^ 
 
The Desire of Nations . 
 
 He comes to make the long injustice right — 
 Comes to push back the shadow of the 
 
 night, 
 The gray Tradition full of flint and flaw — 
 Comes to wipe out the insults to the soul, 
 The insults of the Few against the Whole, 
 The insults they make righteous with a law. 
 
 Yea, He will bear the Safety of the State, 
 For in his still and rhythmic steps will be 
 The power and music of Alcyone, 
 Who holds the swift heavens in their starry 
 
 fate. 
 Yea, He will lay on souls the power of 
 
 peace, 
 And send on kingdoms torn the sense of 
 
 home — 
 More than the fire of Joy that burned on 
 
 Greece, 
 More than the light of Law that rose on 
 
 Rome. 
 
 38 
 
% 
 
 9 
 
 The Elf Child 
 
 I am a child of the reef and the blowing spray, 
 
 And all my heart goes wildly to the sea. 
 
 I am a changeling : can you follow me 
 Through hill and hollow on the wind's dim 
 
 way ? 
 Yes, at the break of a tempestuous day 
 
 They bore me to the land through starless 
 storm, 
 
 And laid me in the pillow sweetly warm 
 And broken by the first one's little stay. 
 
 The elf kings found me on an ocean reef, 
 A lyric child of mystery and grief. 
 Then need I tell you why the trembling 
 start — 
 Why in my song the sound of ocean dwells — 
 Why the quick gladness when the billow 
 swells, 
 As though remembered voices called the 
 heart? 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 ^^: 
 
 
 ,{fr% 
 
 "jii*' 
 
 M 
 
 #*. 
 

 ,!( 
 
 The Goblin Laugh 
 
 When I behold how men and women grind 
 And grovel for some place of pomp or 
 
 pow^jr, 
 '"" '- Ine and circle through a crumbling 
 iiOur, 
 Forgetting the large mansions of the mind, 
 That are the r< s' and shelter of mankind ; 
 And when I see them come with wearied 
 
 brains 
 Pallid and powerless to enjoy their gains, 
 I seem to hear a goblin laugh unwind. 
 
 And then a memory sends upon its billow 
 Thoughts of a singer wise enough to play, 
 Who took life as a lightsome holiday: 
 Oft have I seen him make his arm a pillow. 
 Drink from his hand, and with a pipe of wil- 
 low 
 
 Blow a wild music down a woodland way, 
 
 40 
 
1 
 
 .rt; 
 
 
 . s 
 
 ' Poetry 
 
 She comes like the hush and beauty of the 
 night, 
 
 And sees too deep for laughter ; 
 Her touch is a vibration and a light 
 
 From worlds before and after. 
 
 i^-l. 
 
 
 11. '*' 
 
 J»- 
 
 't 
 
 4t 
 
I) 
 
 A Meeting 
 
 Softly she came one twilight from the dead, 
 And in the passionate silence of her look 
 Was more than man has writ in any book : 
 
 And now my thoughts are restless, and a 
 dread 
 
 Calls them to the Dim Land discomforted ; 
 For down the leafy ways her white feet 
 
 took, 
 Lightly the newly broken roses shook — 
 
 Was it the wind disturbed each rosy head ? 
 
 God ! was it joy or sorrow in her face — 
 That quiet face ? Had it grown old or 
 
 young? 
 Was it sweet memory or sad that stung 
 Her voiceless soul to wander from its place? 
 What do the dead find in the Silence — grace ? 
 Or endless grief for which there is no 
 tongue ? 
 
 42 
 
43 
 
 1 
 
 "»'•«. 
 
 Infinite Depths 
 
 »* 
 
 Vit 
 
 The little pool, in street or field apart, 
 
 Glasses the deep heavens and the rushing 
 storm ; 
 
 And into the silent depths of every heart, 
 The Eternal throws its awful shadow-form. 
 
 *4 '•Hi'1 
 
 f 
 
w^ 
 
 A Leaf from the Devil's Jest-Book 
 
 Beside the sewing-table chained and bent, 
 They stitch for the lady, tyrannous and 
 
 proud — 
 For her a wedding-gown, for them a 
 shroud ; 
 They stitch and stitch, but never mend the 
 
 rent 
 Torn in life's golden curtains. Glad Youth 
 went, 
 And left them alone with Time ; and now 
 
 if bowed 
 With burdens they should sob and cry 
 aloud, — 
 Wondering, the filled would look from their 
 content. 
 
 And so this glimmering life at last recedes 
 In un'mown, endless depths beyond recall ; 
 
 
I 
 
 A Leaf from the DeviVi Jest-Book 
 
 And what's the worth of all our ancient 
 creeds, 
 If here at the end of ages this Is all — 
 A white face floating in the whirling ball, 
 
 A dead face plashing in the river reeds ? 
 
 ,»/■' 
 
 s^i 
 
 45 
 
i. 
 
 The Paymaster 
 
 There Is a sacred Something on all ways — 
 Something thi: watches through the Uni- 
 verse ; 
 One that remembers, reckons and repays, 
 Giving us love for love, and curse for 
 curse. 
 
 46 
 
•V^ 
 
 
 for 
 
 The Last Furrow 
 
 The Spirit of Earth, with still restoring 
 / hands, 
 'Mid ruin moves, in glimmering chasm 
 
 gropes, 
 And mosses mantle and the bri Jit flower 
 opes ; 
 But Death the Ploughman wanders in all 
 
 lands, 
 And to the last of Earth his furrow stands. 
 The grave is never hidden ; fearful hopes 
 Follow the dead upon the fading slopes, 
 And there wild memories meet upon the 
 sands. 
 
 If 
 
 
 When willows fling their banners to the plain. 
 When rumor of winds and sound of sudden 
 showers 
 
 47 
 
 j^ 
 

 '•11 
 
 ; !^>. 
 
 't'k 
 
 
 1 
 
 n, .;■' 
 
 The Last Furrow 
 
 Disturb the dream of winter — all in vain 
 The grasses hurry to the graves, the flowers 
 Toss their wild torches on their windy 
 towers ; 
 
 Yet are the bleak graves lonely in the rain. 
 
 48 
 
■'p 
 
 y^i-^ 
 
 f. ""'■ 
 
 f1.i 
 
 6"vS ' 
 
 In the Storm 
 
 I huddled close against the mighty cliff. 
 A sense of safety and of brotherhood 
 Broke on the heart : the shelter of a rock 
 Is sweeter than the roofs of all the world. 
 
 
 I "^ 
 
 
 1:. 
 
 49 
 
f rr 
 
 f-n 
 
 After Reading Shakspere 
 
 Blithe Fancy lightly builds with airy hands 
 Or on the edges of the darkness peers, 
 Breathless and frightened at the Voice she 
 hears : 
 Imagination (lo ! the sky expands) 
 Travels the blue arch and Cimmerian 
 sands, — 
 Homeless on earth, the pilgrim of the 
 
 spheres. 
 The rush of light before the hurrying 
 years, 
 The Voice that cries in unfamiliar lands. 
 
 Men weigh the moons that flood with eerie 
 light 
 The dusky vales of Saturn — wood and 
 stream ; 
 
■m 
 
 '■if>* 
 
 After Reading Shakspere 
 
 But who shall follow on the awful sweep 
 Of Neptune through the dim and dreadful 
 
 deep ? 
 Onward he wanders In the unknown night, 
 And we are shadows moving in a dream. 
 
 K 
 
 t .•■;.''i 
 
 ■i _ '1,1 
 
 ■ J 
 
 ^itT" 
 
 
 
 ■""% 
 
 ; 1 
 
 It 
 
The Hidden Valley 
 
 I stray with Ariel and Caliban : 
 
 I know the hill of windy pines — I know 
 Where the jay's nest swings in the wild 
 gorge below : 
 Lightly I climb where fallen cedars span 
 Bright rivers — climb to a valley under ban, 
 Where west winds set a thousand bells 
 
 ablow — 
 An eerie valley where in the morning 
 glow 
 I hear the music of the pipes of Pan. 
 
 Mysterious horns blow by on the still air — 
 A satyr steps — a wood-god's dewy notes 
 Come faintly from a vale of tossing oats. — 
 But ho ! what white thing in the canyon 
 
 crossed ? 
 Gods ! I shall come on Dian unaware, 
 Look on her fearful beauty and be lost. 
 
 5a 
 
■m, 
 
 ■ ' if- 
 
 The Poets 
 
 Some cry of Sappho's lyre, of Saadi's flute, 
 Comes back across the waste of mortal 
 things : 
 
 Men strive and die to reach the Dead Sea 
 fruit — 
 Only the poets find immortal springs. 
 
 »< 'S' J, 
 
 ,'• i 
 
 ^^ijiif'! 
 
 %3 
 

 1.' 
 
 Love's Vigil 
 Love will outwatch the stars, and light the 
 
 sk 
 
 le; 
 
 When the last star falls, and the silent 
 
 dark devours ; 
 God's warrior, he will watch the allotted 
 hours, 
 And conquer with the look of his sad eyes : 
 He shakes the kingdom of darkness with his 
 sighs, 
 His quiet sighs, while all the Infernal 
 
 Powers 
 Tremble and pale upon their central 
 towers. 
 Lest, haply, his bright universe arise. 
 
 All will be well if he have strength to wait, 
 Till his lost Pleiad, white and silver-shod, 
 Regains her place to make the perfect 
 Seven ; 
 
 S4 
 
■**t' 
 
 Love's Vigil 
 
 Then all the worlds will know that Love is 
 
 Fate — 
 That somehow he is greater even than 
 
 Heaven — 
 That in the Cosmic Council he is God. 
 
 N. 
 
 
 (•■ 
 
 
 ss 
 
 *«^. 
 
 1 1.!-;, 
 I*. 
 
Two at a Fireside 
 
 I built a chimney for a comrade old ; 
 
 I did the service not for hope or hire : 
 And then I traveled on in winter's cold, 
 
 Yet all the day I glowed before the fire. 
 
 56 
 
 ;**" 
 
The Butterfly 
 
 O wingM brother on the harebell, stay — 
 Was God's hand very pitiful, the hand 
 That wrought thy beauty at a dream s de- 
 mand ? 
 
 Ves, knowirig I love so well the flowery way. 
 
 He did not fling me to the world astray — 
 He did not drop me to the weary sand^ 
 But bore me gently to a leafy la^td : 
 
 Tinting my wingSy He gave me to the day. 
 
 ^. 
 
 ^ V-.;, 
 
 
 Oh, chide no more my doubting, my despair ! 
 
 I will go back now to the world of men. 
 Farewell, I leave thee to the world of air, 
 
 Yet thou hast girded up my heart again ; 
 For He that framed the impenetrable plan, 
 And keeps His word with thee, will keep with 
 man. 
 
 S7 
 
rm 
 
 ■!?f' '' 
 
 r^\ 
 
 To William Watson 
 
 /l/^er reading '*The Purple East.** 
 
 That hour you put the wreath of England by 
 To shake her guilty heart with song sub- 
 lime, 
 The mighty Muse that watches from the sky 
 Laid on your head the larger wreath of 
 Time. 
 
 S8 
 
<«< 
 
 Keats A-Dying 
 
 Often of that Last Hour I lie and think ; 
 I see thee, Keats, nearing the Deathway 
 dim — 
 
 See Severn in his noiseless hurry, him 
 Who leaned above thee fading on the brink. 
 
 What is that wild light through the window 
 chink ? 
 
 Is it the burning feet of cherubim ? 
 
 Or is it the white moon on western rim — 
 Saint Agnes' moon beginning now to sink ? 
 
 How did Death come— with sounds of water- 
 stir ? 
 
 With forms of beauty breaking at the lips ? 
 With field pipes and the scent of blowing fir ? 
 
 Or came it hurrying like a last eclipse, 
 Sweeping the world away like gossamer, 
 
 Blotting the moon, the mountains, and the 
 
 ships ? 
 
 <0^ 
 
 %. 
 
 ■.<V' 
 
 59 
 
Man 
 
 Out of the deep and endless universe 
 There came a greater Mystery, a Shape, 
 A Something sad, inscrutable, august — 
 One to confront the worlds and question 
 them. 
 
 %: 
 
 
 60 
 
•« 
 
 The Cricket 
 
 't' 
 
 The twilight is the morning of his day. 
 
 While Sleep drops seaward from the fad- 
 ing shore, 
 
 With purpling sail and dip of silver oar, 
 He cheers the shadowed time with roun- 
 delay, 
 Until the dark east softens into gray. 
 
 Now as the noisy hours are coming — hark ! 
 
 His song dies gently — it is growing dark — 
 His night, with its one star, is on its way ! 
 
 Faintly the light breaks over the blowing 
 oats — 
 Sleep, little brother, sleep : I am astir. 
 We worship Song, and servants are of her — 
 I in the bright hours, thou in shadow-time : 
 Lead thou the starlit night with merry notes, 
 And . will lead the clamoring day with 
 rhyme. 
 
 6j 
 
 *Ni 
 
 'iU^ 
 
 It r 
 
 „■:■ 1 
 
li ■'-> 
 
 In High Sierras 
 
 There at a certain hour of the deep night, 
 A gray cliff with a demon face comes up, 
 Wrinkled and old, behind the peaks, and with 
 An anxious look peers at the Zodiac. 
 
 62 
 
Budgets of dream-dust, merchandise of song, 
 Wreckage of hope and packs of ancient 
 wrong, 
 
 63 
 
 -m, 
 
 •''««». 
 
 -^ 
 
 The Wharf of Dreams 
 
 
 Strange wares are handled on the wharves 
 of sleep : 
 Shadows of shadows pass, and many a 
 
 light 
 Flashes a signal fire across the night ; 
 Barges depart whose voiceless steersmen 
 
 keep 
 Their way without a star upon the deep ; 
 And from lost ships, homing with ghostly 
 
 crews, 
 Come cries of incommunicable news. 
 While cargoes pile the piers, a moon-white 
 heap — 
 
 '**ip. 
 
 if 
 
 «» 
 
:'r- 
 
 IM'^' 
 
 The Wharf of Dreams 
 
 Nepenthes gathered from a secret strand, 
 Fardels of heartache, burdens of old sins, 
 Luggage sent down from dim ancestral inns, 
 
 And bales of fantasy from No-Man's Land. 
 
 % 
 
 64 
 
I cannot take your road, Louise Michel, 
 Priestess of Pity and of Vengeance — no : 
 Down that amorphous gulf I cannot go — 
 
 That gulf of Anarchy whose pit is Hell. 
 
 Yet, sister, though my first word is farewell. 
 Remember that I know your hidden woe ; 
 Have felt the grief that rends you blow on 
 blow ; 
 
 Have knelt beside you in the murky cell. 
 
 You never followed hate (let this atone) 
 Nor knew the wrongs of others from your 
 own : 
 Wild was the road, but Love has always 
 led: 
 So I am silent where I cannot praise ; 
 And here now at the parting of the ways, 
 I lay a still hand lightly on your head. 
 5 65 
 
 ■iP^ 
 
 %, 
 
 To Louise Michel 
 
 H<: 
 
4' 
 
 Shepherd Boy and Nereid 
 
 Ah, once of old in some forgotten tongue, 
 Forgotten land, I was a shepherd boy. 
 And you a Nereid, a wingM joy : 
 On through the dawn-bright peaks our 
 
 bodies swung, 
 And flower-soft lyrics by immortals sung 
 Fell from their unseen pinnacles in 
 
 air : 
 God looked from Heaven that hour, for 
 you were fair, 
 And I a poet, and the star was young. 
 
 % 
 
 You'd heard my woodland pipe and left the 
 
 sea — 
 Your hair blown geld and all your body 
 
 white — 
 Had left the ocean-girls to follow me. 
 
 66 
 
'(N 
 
 Shepherd Boy and Nereid 
 
 We joined the hill-nymphs in their joyous 
 flight, 
 And you laughed lightly to the sea, and sent 
 Quick glances flashing through me as I 
 went. 
 
 ^'^.,- 
 
 #: 
 
 Hi- 
 
 ^im 
 
 ,1! 
 
 4f' 
 
 67 
 

 
 V 
 
 A Song at the Start 
 
 Oh, down the quick river our galley is 
 going, 
 
 With a sound in the cordage, a beam on 
 the sail : 
 
 The wind of the canyon our loose hair is 
 blowing, 
 And the clouds of the morning are glad 
 of the gale. 
 
 Around the swift prow little billows are 
 breaking. 
 
 And flinging their foam in a glory of 
 light ; 
 
 Now the shade of a rock on the river is 
 shaking. 
 
 And a wave leaping upward grows sud- 
 denly white. 
 
 68 
 
■m- 
 
 A aong at the Start 
 
 The weight of the whole world is light as a 
 feather, 
 And the peaks rise in silence and westerly 
 flee : 
 Oh, the world and the poet are singing to- 
 gether, 
 And from the far cliff comes a sound of 
 the sea. 
 
 Mi^ 
 
 m 
 
 
pf ' 
 
 My Comrade 
 
 I never build a song by night or day, 
 Of breaking ocean or of blowing whin, 
 
 But in some wondrous unexpected way, 
 Like light upon a road, my Love comes in. 
 
 And when I go at night upon the hill. 
 My heart is lifted on mysterious wings : 
 
 My Love is there to strengthen and to still, 
 For she can take away the dread of things. 
 
 *^ 
 
 TO 
 

 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 "i 
 
 
 Alone I list 
 
 In the leafy tryst ; 
 Silent the woodlands in their starry sleep — 
 Silent the phantom wood in waters deep : 
 No footfall of a wind along the pass 
 Startles a harebell — stirs a blade of grass. 
 
 Yonder the wandering weeds, 
 
 Enchanted in the light, 
 Stand in the gusty hollows, still and 
 white ; 
 
 Yonder are plumy reeds, 
 Dusking the border of the clear lagoon ; 
 
 Far off the silver clifts 
 Hang in ethereal light below the moon; 
 
 Far off the ocean lifts, 
 Tossing its billows in the misty beam. 
 And shore-lines whiten, silent as a dream : 
 
 71 
 
 
 
<||l F 
 
 1 
 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 I hark for the bird, and all the hushed hills 
 
 harken : 
 This is the valley : here the branches darken 
 The silver-lighted stream. 
 
 
 f? 
 
 Hark- 
 That rapture in the leafy dark ! 
 Who is it shouts upon the bough aswing, 
 Waking the upland and the valley under ? 
 What carols, like the blazon of a king, 
 Fill all the dawn with wonder ? 
 
 Oh, hush, 
 It is the thrush, 
 In the deep and woody glen ! 
 Ah, thus the gladness of the gods was 
 sung, 
 When the old Earth was young ; 
 That rapture rang. 
 When the first morning on the mountains 
 
 sprang : 
 And now he shouts, and the world is young 
 
 agam i 
 
 •1. 
 
 72 
 
 .^i 
 
 «!> 
 
y-'tu 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 Carol, my king, 
 On your bough aswing ! 
 Thou art not of these evil days— 
 Thou art a voice of the Avorld's lost youth : 
 Oh, tell me what is duty— what is truth- 
 How to find God upon these hungry ways ; 
 
 Tell of the golden prime. 
 When bird and beast could make a man their 
 friend ; 
 
 When men beheld swift deities descend, 
 Before the race was left alone with Time, 
 Homesick on Earth, and homeless to the end; 
 
 Before great Pan was dead, 
 
 Before the naiads fled ; 
 
 When maidens white with dark eyes shy and 
 bold. 
 
 With peals of laughter on the peaks of gold, 
 
 Startled the still dawn — 
 Shone in upon the mountains and were gone. 
 Their voices fading silverly in depths of for- 
 ests old. 
 
 Sing of the wonders of their woodland ways, 
 Before the weird earth-hunger of these days,' 
 
 73 
 
 ^ < 
 "«.' 
 
 f 
 
 m 
 
 
 wiR 
 
'•^l^ 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 When there was rippling mirth, 
 
 When justice was on Earth, 
 And light and grandeur of the Golden Age ; 
 
 When never a heart was sad, 
 
 When all from king to herdsman had 
 A penny for a wage. 
 Ah, that old time has faded to a dream — 
 The moon's fair face is broken in the stream ; 
 Yet shout and carol on, O bird, and let 
 The exiled race not utterly forget ; 
 Publish thy revelation on the lawns — 
 Sing ever in the dark ethereal dawns ; 
 
 Sometime, in some sweet year, 
 These stormy souls, these men of Earth may 
 hear. 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 But hark again, 
 
 From the secret glen, 
 That voice of rapture and ethereal youth 
 
 Now laden with despair. 
 
 Forbear, O bird, forbear : 
 Is life not terrible enough forsooth ? 
 
 Cease, cease the mystic song — 
 
 74 
 
:m* 
 
 A Lyric of the Daiun 
 
 No more, no more, the passion and the pain : 
 It wakes my life to fret against the chain ; 
 It makes me think of all the aued wronir — 
 Of joy and the end of joy and the end of 
 
 all— 
 Of souls on Earth, and souls beyond recall. 
 
 Ah, ah, that voice again ! 
 It makes me think of all these restless men, 
 Called into time — their progress and their 
 
 goal ; 
 And now, oh now, it sends into my soul 
 Dreams of a love that might have been for 
 
 me — 
 That might have been — and now can never 
 
 be. 
 
 ¥'H 
 
 
 ' 'I 
 
 Tell me no more of these — 
 
 Tell me of tranced trees ; 
 (The ghosts, the memories, in pity spare) 
 Show me the leafy home of the wild bees ; 
 Show me the snowy summits dim in air ; 
 
 Tell me of things afar 
 In valleys silent under moon and star: 
 
 i-' 
 
 \r 
 
 75 
 
% 
 
 '»'1 
 
 A Lyric of the. Dawn 
 
 Dim hollows hushed with night, 
 Jhe lofty cedars misty in the light, 
 
 Wild clusters of the vine, 
 
 Wild odors of the pine, 
 The eagle's eyrie lifted to the moon — 
 High places where on quiet afternoon 
 A shadow swiftens by, a thrilling scream 
 vStartles the cliff, and dies across the wood- 
 land to a dream. 
 
 '^^ 
 
 Ha, now 
 
 He springs from the bough, 
 
 It flickers — he is lost ! . 
 
 Out of the copse he sprang ; 
 This is the floating briar where he tossed : 
 The leaves are yet atremble where he sang. 
 
 Here a long vista opens — look ! 
 
 This is the way he look. 
 Through the pale poplars by the pond : 
 Hark ! he is shouting in the field beyond. 
 
 Ho, there he goes 
 
 Through the alder close ! 
 
 76 
 
 « 
 
'im 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 He leaves me here behind him in his flight, 
 And yet my heart goes with him out of 
 
 sight ! 
 What whispered spell 
 Of Faery calls me on from dell to dell ? 
 I hear the voice — it wanders in a dream — 
 Now in the grove, now on the hill, now on 
 
 the fadinsf stream. 
 
 Lead on — you know the way — 
 Lead on to Arcady, 
 O'er fields asleep ; by river bank abrim ; 
 Down leafy ways, dewy and cool and dim J 
 By dripping rocks, dark dwrellings of the 
 
 gnome. 
 Where hurrying waters dash their crests to 
 foam. 
 I follow where you lead, 
 Down winding paths, across the flowery mead, 
 Down silent hollows where the woodbine 
 
 blows, 
 Up water-courses scented by the rose. 
 
 77 
 
'% 
 
 f 
 
 A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 I follow the wandering voice — 
 
 I follow, I rejoice, 
 I fade away into the Age of Gold — 
 We two together lost in forest old. — 
 O ferny and thymy paths, O fields of Aidenn, 
 Canyons and cliffs by mortal feet untrod ! 
 O souls that weary and are heavy laden, 
 Here is the peace of God ! 
 
 Lo ! now the clamoring hours are on the 
 
 way : 
 Faintly the pine tops redden In the ray ; 
 From vale to vale fleet-footed rumors run, 
 With sudden apprehension of the sun ; 
 
 A light wind stirs 
 The filmy tops of delicate dim firs. 
 
 And on the river border blows. 
 Breaking the shy bud softly to a rose. 
 Sing out, O throstle, sing j 
 I follow on, my king: 
 Lead me forever throug^h the or mson dawn — 
 Till the world ends, lead me a* I 
 
 ^8 
 
A Lyric of the Dawn 
 
 Ho there ! he shouts again — he sways — and 
 now, 
 
 Upspringing from the bough, 
 Flashing a glint of dew upon the ground, 
 
 Without a sound 
 He drops into a valley and is gone! 
 
 m 
 
 '«! 
 
 J 
 
 r 
 
 l«u 
 
 (iJSi 
 
 79 
 
%, 
 
 Joy of the Morning 
 
 I hear you, little bird, 
 Shouting aswing above the broken wall. 
 Shout louder yet : no song can tell it all. 
 Sing to my soul in the deep still wood : 
 *Tis wonderful beyond the wildest word 
 I'd tell it, too, if I could. 
 
 Oft when the white, still dawn 
 
 Lifted the skies and pushed the hills apart, 
 
 I've felt it like a glory in my heart — 
 
 (The world's mysterious stir) 
 
 But had no throat like yours, my bird, 
 
 Nor such a listener. 
 
 m 
 
The Waning Lamp 
 
 4<«. 
 
 ^i, 
 
 Once, I remember, the world was young; 
 The rills rejoiced with a silver tongue ; 
 The field-lark sat in the wheat and sang ; 
 The thrush's shout in the woodland rang ; 
 The cliffs and the perilous sands afar 
 Were softened to mist by the morning star ; 
 For Youth was with me (I know it now !), 
 And a light shone out from his wreathM 
 
 brow. 
 He turned the fields to enchanted ground, 
 He touched the rains with a dreamy sound. 
 
 But alas, he vanished, and Time appeared, 
 The Spirit of Ages, old and weird. 
 He crushed and scattered my beamy wings ; 
 He draqrged me forth from the court of 
 kings ; 
 
 6 8i 
 
 'ijs:-' 
 
 ' ^- 
 
 i 
 
 m 
 
 if 
 
w 
 
 "f * 
 
 
 '^.# 
 
 ^Kk^. 
 
 The Waning Lamp 
 
 He gave me doubt and a bloom of beard, 
 This Spirit of Ages, old and weird. 
 The wonder went from the field of corn, 
 The glory died on the craggy horn ; 
 And suddenly all was strange and gray, 
 And the rocks came out on the trodden way. 
 
 I hear no more the wild thrush sing : 
 He is silent now on the peach aswing. 
 Something is gone from the house of mirth — 
 Something is gone from the hills of Earth. 
 Time hurries me on with a wizard hand ; 
 He turns the Earth to a homeless land ; 
 He stays my life with a stingy breath, 
 And darkens its depths with foreknowledge 
 
 of death ; 
 Calls memories back on their path apace ; 
 Sends desperate thoughts to the soul's dim 
 
 place. 
 
 Time murders our youth and the griefs 
 
 begin, 
 As he pushes us on to the windowless inn. 
 
 32 
 
r, 
 
 M«Jt 
 
 A Satyr Song 
 
 I know by the stir of the branches 
 
 The way she went ; 
 And at times I can see where a stem 
 
 Of the grass is bent. 
 She's the secret and light of my life, 
 
 She allures to elude ; 
 But I follow the spell of her beauty 
 
 Whatever the mood. 
 
 I have followed all night in the hills, 
 
 And my breath is deep, 
 But she flies on before like a voice 
 
 In the vale of sleep. 
 I follow the print of her feet 
 
 In the wild river bed, 
 And lo, she calls gleefully down 
 
 From a cliff overhead. 
 
 I" 
 
 L 
 
 83 
 
T- 
 
 \ 
 
 j:>t 
 
 ■f 
 v. 
 
 <4|jji^ 
 
 
 A Cry in the Night 
 
 Wail, wail, wail, 
 
 For the fleering world goes down : 
 Into the song of the poet pale 
 
 Mixes the laugh of the clown. ^ 
 
 Grim, grim, grim, 
 
 Is the road we go to the dead ; 
 Yet we must on, for a Something dim 
 
 Pushes the soul ahead. 
 
 Where, where, where, 
 
 Through the dust and shadow of things 
 Will the fleeing Fates with their wild 
 manes bear 
 
 These tribes of slaves and kings ? 
 
 •^ 
 
 84 
 
; i 
 I' 
 
 Fays 
 
 One secret night, I stood where ocean pours 
 Eternal waters on the yellow shores, 
 And saw the drift of fays that Prosper saw : 
 (Their feet had no more sound than blow- 
 ing straw.) 
 And little hands held light in little hands 
 They chased a fleeing billow down the sands, 
 But turned in the nick o' time, and mad with 
 glee 
 
 Raced back again before the swelling sea. 
 
 85 
 
w 
 
 if *». 
 
 > 
 \ 
 
 m 
 
 ,^' 
 
 In Death Valley 
 
 There came gray stretches of volcar'c plains, 
 Bare, lone and treeless, then a bleak lone 
 
 hill, 
 Like to the dolorous hill that Dobell saw. 
 Around were heaps of ruins piled between 
 The Burn o' Sorrow and the Water o' Care ; 
 And from the stillness of the down-crushed 
 
 walls 
 One pillar rose up dark against the moon. 
 There was a nameless Presence everywhere ; 
 In the gray soil there was a purple stain. 
 And the gray reticent rocks were dyed with 
 
 blood — 
 Blood of a vast unknown Calamity. 
 It was the mark of some ancestral grief- 
 Grief that began before the ancient Flood. 
 
 86 
 
 ■'■^ 
 
•I«l" 
 
 frtl 
 
 Bu siness 
 
 Just then the branches lightly stirred. . . . 
 See, out o' the apple boughs a bird 
 Bursts music-mad into the blue abyss : 
 Rothschild would give his gold for this — 
 The wealth of nations, if he knew: 
 (And find a profit in the business, too.) 
 
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 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 

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 "Follow Me" 
 
 friend, we never choose the better part, 
 Until we set the Cross up in the heart. 
 
 1 know I can not live until I die — 
 Till I am nailed upon it wild and high, 
 And sleep in the tomb for a full three days 
 
 dead, 
 With angels at the feet and at the head. 
 But then in a great brightness I shall rise 
 To walk with stiller feet below the skies. 
 
 99 
 
■ 
 
 *-*ii 
 
 M^ 
 
 « 
 
 In Poppy Fields 
 
 Here the poppy hosts assemble: 
 How they startle, how they tremble! 
 All their royal hoods unpinned 
 Blow out lightly in the wind. 
 
 Men that in the cities grind, 
 Come before the heart is blind. 
 Here is gold to labor for ; 
 Here is pillage worth a war ! 
 
 % 
 
! T*!* 
 
 t'l -' 
 
 
 v^ 
 
 
 
 '4 
 
 The Joy of the Hills 
 
 I ride on the mountain tops, I ride ; 
 I have found my life and am satisfied. 
 Onward I ride in the blowing oats, 
 Checking the field-lark's rippling notes — 
 
 Lightly I sweep 
 
 From steep to steep : 
 Over my head through the branches high 
 Come glimpses of a rushing sky ; 
 The tall oats brush my horse's flanks ; 
 Wild poppies crowd on the sunny banks ; 
 A bee booms out of the scented grass ; 
 A jay laughs with me as I pass. 
 
 I ride on the hills, I forgive, I forget 
 
 Life's hoard of regret — 
 
 All the terror and pain 
 
 Of the chafing chain. 
 
 90 
 
m' 
 
 The Joy of the Hilh 
 
 Grind on, O cities, grind : 
 I leave you a blur behind. 
 I am lifted elate — the skies expand : 
 Here the world's heaped gold is a pile of 
 
 sand. 
 Let them weary and work in their narrow 
 
 walls : 
 I ride with the voices of waterfalls ! 
 
 lb, 
 
 I swing on as one In a dream — I swing 
 Down the airy hollows, I shout, I sing \ 
 The world is gone like an empty word : 
 My body's a bough in the wind, my heart a 
 bird! 
 
 
 9^ 
 
il> 
 
 •1 
 
 V ■ 
 
 til ^ 
 
 •• I ), 
 
 
 
 
 ■*... 
 
 -/ 
 
 The Invisible Bride 
 
 The low-voiced girls that go 
 In gardens of the Lord, 
 
 Like flowers of the field they grow 
 In sisterly accord. 
 
 Their whispering feet are white 
 
 Along the leafy ways ; 
 They go in whirls of light 
 
 Too beautiful for praise. 
 
 And in their band forsooth ! 
 
 Is one to set me free — 
 The one that touched my youth— 
 
 The one God gave to me. 
 
 She kindles the desire 
 
 Whereby the gods survive — 
 
 The white ideal fire 
 
 That keeps my soul alive. 
 
 92 
 
 ■m^' 
 
$» 
 
 The Invisible Bride 
 
 Now at the wondrous hour, 
 She leaves her star supreme, 
 
 And comes in the night's still power, 
 To touch me with a dream. 
 
 Sibyl of mystery 
 
 On roads unknown to men, 
 Softly she comes to me, 
 
 And goes to God again. 
 
 i«iil' 
 
 93 
 
w 
 
 \.\ 1 
 
 r 
 
 ?• 
 
 >•% 
 
 
 ■v5t 
 
 The Valley 
 
 I know a valley in the summer hills, 
 Haunted by little winds and daffodils ; 
 Faint footfalls and soft shadows pass at noon ; 
 Noiseless, at night, the clouds assemble there ; 
 And ghostly summits hang below the moon^ — 
 Dim visions lightly swung in silent air. 
 
 '.f 
 
 94 
 
 
#" 
 
 The Climb of Life 
 
 There*s a feel of all things flowing, 
 
 And no power of Earth can bind them ; 
 There's a sense of all things growing. 
 And through all their forms a glowing 
 Of the shaping souls behind them. 
 
 And the break of beauty heightens 
 With the swiftening of the motion, 
 
 And the soul behind it lightens, 
 
 As a gleam of splendor whitens 
 From a running wave of ocean. 
 
 See the still hand of the Shaper, 
 
 Moving in the dusk of being : 
 Burns at first a misty taper, 
 Like the moon in veil of vapor. 
 
 When the rack of night is fleeing. 
 
 95 
 
 11 
 I'll 
 
 1 i 
 
 i ■ 
 
"* 
 
 
 J 
 
 Tit/ CAVw* of Lifi 
 
 In the stone a dream is sleeping, 
 
 Just a tinge of life, a tremor ; 
 In the tree a soul is creeping — 
 Last, a rush of angels sweeping 
 With the skies beyond the dreamer. 
 
 So the Lord of Life is flinging 
 
 Out a splendor that conceals Him: 
 And the God is softly singing 
 And on secret ways is winging, 
 Till the rush of song reveals Him. 
 
 trt, -f 
 
 "Ji 
 
 r'A. 
 
 & 
 
 •*■'< 
 
 V 
 
 Jf 
 
 
 g6 
 
lW«i' 
 
 The Tragedy 
 
 Oh, the fret of the brain, 
 
 And the wounds and the worry * 
 
 Oh, the thought of love and the thought of 
 death — 
 And the soul in its silent hurry. 
 
 But the stars break above, 
 
 And the fields flower under ; 
 And the tragical life of man goes on. 
 
 Surrounded by beauty and wonder. 
 
 
pp 
 
 •1 
 
 r\ 
 
 ■■■/^ 
 
 1 '• 
 If ' 
 
 p^^ 
 
 w 
 
 Divine Vision 
 
 Can it be the Master knows 
 How the Cosmic Blossom blows? 
 
 Yes, at times the Lord of Light 
 Breaks forth wonderful and white, 
 And he strikes a chorded lyre 
 In a rush of whirlwind fire ; 
 And He sees before Him pass 
 Souls and planets in a glass ; 
 And within the music hears , 
 All the motions of all spheres, 
 All the whispers of all feet, 
 Cries of triumph and retreat, 
 Songs of systems and of souls, 
 Circling to their mighty goals. 
 
 
 
 So the Lord of Light beholds 
 
 How the Cosmic Flower unfolds. 
 
 98 
 
 .»fr 
 
Mli' 
 
 Midsummer Noon 
 
 Yonder a workman, under the cool bridge, 
 Resting at mid-day, watches the glancing 
 
 midge, 
 While twinkling lights and murmurs of the 
 
 stream 
 Pass into the dim fabric of his dream : 
 The misty hollows and the drowsy ridge- 
 How like an airy fantasy they seem. 
 
 m 
 
w 
 
 ft 
 
 ^i \ 
 
 
 M 
 
 % 
 
 
 I. 
 ( 
 
 ^l 
 
 One Life, One Law 
 
 What do we know — what need we know 
 Of the great world to which we go ? 
 We peer into the tomb, and hark : 
 Its walls are dim, its doors are dark. 
 
 Be still, O mourning heart, nor seek 
 To make the tongueless silence speak : 
 Be still, be strong, nor wish to find 
 Their way who leave the world behind — 
 Voices and forms forever gone 
 Into the darkness of the dawn. 
 
 What is their wisdom, clear and deep ? — 
 
 That as men sow they surely reap, — 
 
 That every thought, that every deed, 
 
 Is sown into the soul for seed. 
 
 They have no word we do not know, — 
 
 Nor yet the cherubim aglow 
 
 With God : we know that virtue saves,— 
 
 They know no more beyond the graves. 
 
 lOO 
 
Griefs 
 
 The rains of winter scourged the weald, 
 For days they darkened on the field : 
 Now, where the wings of winter beat. 
 The poppies ripple in the wheat. 
 
 And pitiless griefs came thick and fast- 
 Life's bough was naked in the blast- 
 Till silently amid the gloom 
 They blew the wintry heart to bloom. 
 
m 
 
 r»4 
 
 
 r 
 
 r\ 
 
 An Old Road 
 
 • 
 
 
 A host of poppies, a flight of swallows ; 
 A flurry of rain, and a wind that follows 
 Shepherds the leaves in the sheltered hol- 
 lows. 
 For the forest is shaken and thinned. 
 
 Over my head are the firs for rafter ; 
 
 The crows blow south, and my heart goes 
 
 after ; 
 I kiss my hands to the world with laughter — 
 Is it Aidenn or mystical Ind? 
 
 Oh, the whirl of the fields in the windy 
 
 weather ! 
 How the barley breaks and blows together ! 
 Oh, glad is the free bird afloat on the 
 
 heather — 
 Oh, the whole world is glad of the wind ! 
 
 I02 
 
. ItH!' 
 
 The New-Comers 
 
 Two swallows— each preening a long glossy 
 feather ; 
 
 Now they gossip and dart through the sil- 
 very weather ; 
 
 Oh, praise to the Highest— two lovers to- 
 gether — 
 
 Free, free in the fathomless world of air. 
 
 No fate to oppose and no fortune to sunder; 
 Blue sky overhead—green sky breaking un- 
 der ; 
 
 And their home on the cliff in the midst of 
 the wonder, 
 
 With never a thought of the morrow 
 there. 
 
 ■(fiii; 
 
 ' iifii 
 
 103 
 

 
 ■V 
 
 h- 
 
 T 
 
 
 
 "*^l 
 
 Music 
 
 It is the last appeal to man — 
 Voice crying since the world began ; 
 The cry of the Ideal — cry 
 To asoirations that would die. 
 The last appeal ! in it is heard 
 The pathos of the final word. 
 
 Voice tender and heroical — 
 Imperious voice that knoweth well 
 To wreck the reasonings of years, 
 To strengthen rebel hearts with tears. 
 
 i 
 
 104 
 
 .-s?/ 
 
min',l 
 
 Fay Song 
 
 My life is a dream — a dream 
 
 In the moon's cool beam ; 
 
 Some day I shall wake and desire 
 
 A touch of the infinite fire. 
 
 But now 'tis enough that I be 
 
 In the light of the sea ; 
 
 Enough that I climb with the cloud 
 
 When the winds of the morning are loud ; 
 
 Enough that I fade with the stars 
 
 When the door of the East unbars. 
 
 Hv 
 
 105 
 

 i' '1 
 
 :^. 
 
 
 I' j 
 
 I ''*, 
 
 "i*'' 
 
 The Old Earth 
 
 m f 
 
 'I 
 
 How will it be if there we find no traces — 
 There in the Golden Heaven — if we find 
 No memories of the old Earth left behind, 
 No visions of familiar forms and faces — 
 Reminders of old voices and old places ? 
 Yet could we bear it if it should remind ? 
 
 a 
 
 
 -/ 
 
 106 
 
Divine Adventure 
 
 At times a youth (so whispered legend tells), 
 Like Hylas, stoops to drink 
 By forest-hidden brink, 
 
 And fair hands draw him down to darkened 
 
 wells ; 
 Fair hands that hold him fast 
 With laughter at the last 
 Have power to draw him lightly down to be 
 In elfin chambers under the gray sea. 
 
 !>.. .^ 
 
 • liilUii 
 
 ii% 
 
 ..ti!'^ 
 
 And I, O men of Earth, I too. 
 When dawn was at the dew. 
 Was drawn as Hylas downward and beheld 
 Spirits of youth and eld- 
 Was swung down endless caverns to the 
 deep, 
 
 Saw fervid jewels sparkle in their sleep, 
 
 107 
 
f^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 I 
 
 
 hi 
 
 
 
 
 'I 
 
 t 
 
 Divine Adventure 
 
 Saw glad gnomes working in the dusty 
 
 light, 
 Saw great rocks crouching In the primal 
 
 night. 
 I was drawn down, and after many days 
 Returned with stiller feet to walk the upper 
 
 ways. 
 
 Xo8 
 
Song Made Flesh 
 
 I have no glory In these songs of mine : 
 If one of them can make a brother strong, 
 
 It came down from the peaks of the divine— 
 I heard it in the Heaven of Lyric Song. 
 
 The one who builds the poem into fact, 
 
 He Is the rightful owner of it all : 
 The pale words are with God's own power 
 packed 
 
 When brave souls answer to their bugle- 
 call. 
 
 
 •li.' 
 
 And so I ask no man to praise my song, 
 But I would have him build it in his 
 soul ; 
 
 For that great praise would make me glad 
 and strong, 
 
 And build the poem to a perfect whole. 
 
 109 
 

 y\. 
 
 I ri, 
 
 ■f'V 
 
 h.i • 
 
 
 I* .•' 
 
 ■"fi. 
 
 
 m 
 
 n* 
 
 I' \i 
 
 To High-born Poets 
 
 There comes a pitiless cry from the op- 
 pressed — 
 A cry from the toilers of Babylon for their 
 
 rest. — 
 O Poet, thou art holden with a vow : 
 The light of higher worlds is on thy brow, 
 And Freedom's star is soaring in thy breast. 
 Go, be a dauntless voice, a bugle-cry 
 In darkening battle when the winds are 
 
 high— 
 A clear sane cry wherein the God is heard 
 To speak to men the one redeeming word. 
 No peace for thee, no peace, 
 Till blind oppression cease ; 
 The stones cry from the walls, 
 Till the gray injustice falls — 
 Till strong men come to build in freedom- 
 fate 
 The pillars of the new Fraternal State. 
 
 no 
 
 
To High-born Poets 
 
 Let trifling pipe be mute, 
 Fling by the languid lute: 
 Take down the trumpet and confront the 
 Hour, 
 
 And speak to toil-worn nations from a 
 tower — 
 
 Take down the horn wherein the thunders 
 sleep. 
 
 Blow battles into men— call down the fire 
 
 The daring, the long purpose, the desire ; 
 Descend with faith into the Human Deep, 
 And ringing to the troops of right a cheer. 
 Make known the Truth of Man in holy fear; 
 Send forth thy spirit in a storm of song, 
 A tempest flinging fire upon the wrong. 
 
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 jl V 
 
 111 y* 
 
 <'-<^4 
 
 • \ 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 % 
 
 4^ 
 
 i 
 
 Si 
 
 
 The Toilers 
 
 Their blind feet drift in the darkness, and no 
 
 one is leading ; 
 Their toil is the pasture, where hyens and 
 
 harpies are feeding ; 
 In all lands and always, the wronged, the 
 
 homeless, the humbled 
 Till the cliff-like pride of the spoiler is shaken 
 
 and crumbled. 
 Till the Pillars of Hell are uprooted and left 
 
 to their ruin. 
 And a rose-garden gladdens the places no rose 
 
 ever blew in, 
 Where now men huddle together and whisper 
 
 and harken, 
 Or hold their bleak hands over embers that 
 
 die out and darken. 
 The anarchies gather and thunder ; few, few 
 
 are the fraters, 
 And loud is the revel at night in the camp of 
 
 the traitors. . , . 
 
 112 
 
The Toilers 
 
 Say, Shelley, where are you — where are you ? 
 
 our hearts are a-breaking ! 
 The fight in the terrible darkness— the shame 
 
 — the forsaking ! 
 
 The leaves shower down and are sport for 
 
 the winds that come after ; 
 And so are the Tollers in all lands the jest 
 
 and the laughter 
 Of nobles — the Toilers scourged on in the 
 
 furrow as cattle, 
 Or flung as a meat to the cannons that hunger 
 
 in battle. 
 
 Mil' 
 "If 
 
 ti3 
 

 \ 
 
 :^ 
 
 
 V 
 
 'I 
 
 f^ 
 
 '^ 
 
 
 On the Gulf of Night 
 
 The world's sad petrels dwell for evermore 
 
 On windy headland or on ocean floor, 
 
 Or pierce the violent skies with perilous 
 
 flights 
 That fret men in their palaces o' nights, 
 Breaking enchanted slumber s easeful boat, 
 With shudderings of their wild and dolorous 
 
 note ; 
 They blow about the black and barren skies, 
 They fill the night with ineffectual cries. 
 
 There is for them not anything before, 
 But sound of sea and sight of soundless shore. 
 Save when the darkness glimmers with a ray, 
 And Hope sings softly, Soon it will be day. 
 Then for a golden space the shades are 
 
 thinned, 
 And dawn seems blowing seaward on the 
 
 wind 
 
 114 
 
 f 
 
On the Gulf of Night 
 
 But soon the dark comes wilder than before. 
 And swift around them breaks a sullen roar ; 
 The tempest calls to windward and to lea, 
 And — they are seabirds on the homeless sea. 
 
 iiiji 
 iiij, 
 
 »l 
 
1 '■; . 
 
 S 
 
 Iti. ' 
 
 It5^ 
 
 A Harvest Song 
 
 :■■■:/ 
 
 ,.J 
 
 ^^ 
 
 The gray bulk of the granary uplooms 
 against the sky ; 
 
 The harvest moon has dwindled — they have 
 housed the corn and rye ; 
 
 And now the idle reapers lounge against the 
 bolted doors : 
 
 Without are hungry harvesters, within en- 
 chanted stores. 
 
 
 Lo, they had bread while they were out a-toil- 
 ing in the sun : 
 
 Now they are strolling beggars, for the har- 
 vest work is done. 
 
 They are the gods of husbandry : they gather 
 in the sheaves, 
 
 But when the autumn strips the wood, they're 
 drifting with the leaves. 
 
 xi6 
 
A Harvest Song 
 
 They plow and sow and gather in the glory 
 of the corn ; 
 
 They know the noon, they know the pitiless 
 rains before the morn ; 
 
 They know the sweep of furrowed fields that 
 darken in the gloom — 
 
 A little while their hope on earth, then ever- 
 more their tomb. 
 
 Ill- 
 
 i ii 
 
 ii, 
 
 iiiti 
 
 "7 
 
i^' 
 
 
 '^y 
 
 I 
 
 1 1 
 
 *< 
 
 r.<i 
 
 ?^^va< 
 
 Two Taverns 
 
 I remember how I lay 
 
 On a bank a summer day, 
 
 Peering into weed and flower: 
 
 Watched a poppy all one hour; 
 
 Watched it till the air grew chill 
 
 In the darkness of the hill ; 
 
 Till I saw a wild bee dart 
 
 Out of the cold to the poppy's heart ; 
 
 Saw the petals gently spin, 
 
 And shut the little lodger in. 
 
 Then I took the quiet road 
 
 To my own secure abode. 
 
 All night long his tavern hung; 
 
 Now it rested, now it swung ; 
 
 I asleep in steadfast tower. 
 
 He asleep in stirring flower; 
 
 In our hearts the same delight 
 
 In the hushes of the night; 
 
 Over us both the same dear care 
 
 As we slumbered unaware. 
 
 zx8 
 
 f 
 
The Man under the Stone 
 
 When I see a workingman with mouths to 
 feed, 
 
 Up, day after day, in the dark before the 
 dawn, 
 
 And coming home, night after night, through 
 the dusk. 
 
 Swinging forward like some fierce silent 
 animal, 
 
 I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up 
 
 an endless steep. 
 He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch, 
 
 Crouched always in the shadow of the 
 rock. ... 
 
 See where he crouches, twisted, cramped, 
 
 misshapen ! 
 He lifts for their life ; 
 The veins knot and darken — 
 Blood surges into his face. . , 
 
 "9 
 
 If' 
 
 III 
 
Sj 
 
 f 
 
 
 ■■..4 
 
 \ ! '' 
 
 ^\.i 
 
 The Man under the Stone 
 
 Now he loses — now he wins — 
 Now he loses — loses — (God of my soul !) 
 He digs his feet into the earth — 
 There's a moment of terrified effort. . . 
 Will the huge stone break his hold, 
 And crush him as it plunges to the gulf? 
 
 The silent struggle goes on and on, 
 Like two contending in a dream. 
 
 i 
 
 ,!• 
 
 120 
 
Song to the Divine Mother* 
 
 Come, Mighty Mother, from the bright 
 abode. 
 
 Lift the low heavens and hush the Earth 
 again ; 
 
 Come when the moon throws down a shining 
 road 
 
 Across the sea-come back to weary men. 
 
 But if the moon throws out across the sea 
 Too dim a Hght, too wavering a way. 
 
 Come when the sunset paves a path for Thee 
 Across the waters fading into gray. 
 
 * This song should be read in the iip-ht of th^ ^««„ j 
 able truth thit fh. r^; • t^ • ^ ^ '^^^P ^"^ memor- 
 
 aoie truth hat the Divme Leminine as well as the Divine Masculinn 
 
 Pnncple ,s m God-that he is Father-Mother. Two- n O " i, 
 
 follows from th,s truth that the dignity of womanhood is grounded 
 
 m the D,vme Nature itself. The fact that the Deity'^iT Man 
 
 Woman was known to the ancient poets and sages, and was grafted 
 
 mto the nobler religions of mankind. The idfa is imVHed'n ' 
 
 doctnne of the D.vine Father, taught by our Lord in the Gospe s ' 
 
 God said. Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness.' 
 • . . bo God created man in His own image, in the imaee of 
 God created He him ; male and female created He them.'' 
 
 J2I 
 
V* 
 
 ?1 
 
 -•v 
 
 Song to the Divine Mother 
 
 Dead nations saw Thee dimly in release — 
 
 In Aphrodite rising from the foam : 
 Some glimmer of Thy beauty was on 
 Greece, 
 Some trembling of Thy passion was on 
 Rome. 
 
 For ages Thou hast been the dim desire 
 That warmed the bridal chamber of the 
 mind : 
 Come burning through the heavens with 
 Holy Fire, 
 And spread divine contagion on mankind. 
 
 ;•' 
 
 *« 
 
 
 (M 
 
 Come down, O Mother, to the helpless 
 land. 
 That we may frame our Freedom into 
 Fate : 
 Come down, and on the throne of nations 
 stand, 
 That we may build Thy beauty in the 
 State. 
 
 122 
 
 '■i 
 
Song to the Divine Mother 
 
 Come shining in upon our daily road, 
 
 Uphold the hero heart and light the mind ; 
 
 Quicken the strong to lift the People's load,' 
 And bring back buried justice to mankind! 
 
 Shine through the frame of nations for a 
 light, 
 
 Move through the hearts of heroes in a 
 song : 
 
 It is Thy beauty, wilder than the night. 
 That hushed the heavens and keeps the 
 high gods strong. 
 
 I know. Supernal Woman, Thou dost seek 
 
 No song of man, no worship and no praise; 
 But thou wouldst have dead lips begin to' 
 speak. 
 
 And dead feet rise to walk immortal ways. 
 
 Yet listen, Mighty Mother, to the child 
 Who has no voice but song to tell his 
 grief- 
 Nothing but tears and broken numbers wild, 
 Nothing but woodland music for relief. 
 
 123 
 
 ff 
 
 III-: 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 
■v 
 
 i^ 
 
 /\ 
 
 ■-4 
 
 Song to the Divine Mother 
 
 His song is but a little broken cry, 
 Less than the whisper of a river reed ; 
 
 Yet thou canst hear in it the souls that die — 
 Feel in its pain the vastness of our need. 
 
 I would not break the mouth of song to tell 
 My life's long passion and my heart's long 
 grief, 
 But Thou canst hear the ocean in one shell. 
 And see the whole world's winter in one 
 leaf. 
 
 i 
 
 >i 
 
 i 
 
 nI' 
 
 So here I stand at the world's weary feet, 
 And cry the sorrow of the world's dumb 
 years : 
 
 I cry because I hear the world's heart beat 
 Weary of hope and broken through by tears. 
 
 For ages Thou hast breathed upon mankind 
 
 A faint wild tenderness, a vague desire ; 
 
 For ages stilled the whirlwinds of the mind, 
 
 And sent on lyric seers the rush of fire. 
 
 124 
 
Song to the Dhine Mother 
 
 And yet the world is held by wintry 
 chain, 
 Dead to Thy social passion, Holy One : 
 The dried-up furrows need the vital rain. 
 The cold seeds the quick spirit of the 
 sun. 
 
 ee 
 
 Some day our homeless cries will draw Th 
 down. 
 
 And the old brightness on the ways of 
 men 
 
 Will send a hush upon the jangling town. 
 And broken hearts will learn to love 
 again. 
 
 Come, Bride of God, to fill the vacant 
 Throne, 
 
 Touch the dim Earth again with sacred 
 feet ; 
 
 Come build the Holy City of white stone. 
 And let the whole world's gladness be 
 complete. 
 
 125 
 
It 
 
 
 "4 
 
 
 &»/ /fl Z/*^ Divine Mother 
 
 Come with the face that hushed the heavens 
 of old- 
 Come with Thy maidens in a m'st of 
 light ; 
 
 Haste for the night falls and the shadows 
 fold, 
 
 And voices cry and wander on the height. 
 
 
 i 
 
 ' > 
 
 Y 
 
 
 
 136 
 
 ■i 
 
The Flying Mist 
 
 I watch afar the moving Mystery, 
 The wool-shod, formless terror of the sea— 
 The Mystery whose lightest touch can 
 change 
 
 The world God made to phantasy, death- 
 strange. 
 Under its spell all things grow old and gray 
 As they will be beyond the Judgment Day. 
 All voices, at the lifting of some hand, 
 Seem calling to us from another land. 
 Is it the still Power of the Sepulcher 
 That makes all things the wraiths of things 
 that were ? 
 
 It touches, one by one, the wayside posts. 
 And they are gone, a line of hurrying ghosts. 
 It creeps upon the towns with stealthy feet, 
 And men are phantoms on a phantom 
 street. 
 
 137 
 
■1: 
 
 
 l:)5 
 
 :¥ 
 
 H 
 
 I' 
 
 The Flying Mist 
 
 It strikes the towers and they are shafts of 
 
 air, 
 Above the spectres passing in the square. 
 The city turns to ashes, spire by spire ; 
 The mountains perish with their peaks afire. 
 The fading city and the falling sky 
 Are swallowed in one doom without a cry. 
 
 It tracks the traveler fieeing with the gale. 
 Fleeing toward home and friends without 
 
 avail ; 
 It springs upon him and he is a ghost, 
 A blurred shape moving on a soundless 
 
 coast. 
 God ! it pursues my love along the stream. 
 Swirls round her and she is forever dream. 
 What Hate has touched the universe with 
 
 eld. 
 And left me only in a world dispelled ? 
 
 \ 
 
 f 
 
 tsS 
 
From the Hand of a Child 
 
 One day a child ran after me in the street, 
 To give me a half-blown rose, a fire-white 
 rose, 
 
 Its stem all warm yet from the tight-shut 
 
 hand. 
 The little gift seemed somehow more to me 
 Than all men strive for in the turbid towns, 
 Than all they hoard up through a long wild 
 
 life. 
 
 And as I breathed the heart-breath of the 
 flower. 
 
 The Youth of Earth broke on me like a dawn. 
 And I was with the wide-eyed wondering 
 
 things, 
 Back in the far forgotten buried time. 
 A lost world came back softly with the rose : 
 I saw a glad host follow with lusty cries 
 Diana flying with her maidens white, 
 
 Down the long reaches of the laureled hills. 
 9 X39 
 
■V 
 
 r 
 
 fC 
 
 i 
 
 t 
 
 :•! 
 
 From the Hand of a Child 
 
 Above the sea I saw a wreath of girls, 
 Fading to air in far-off poppy fields. 
 I saw a blithe youth take the open road : 
 His thoughts ran on before him merrily ; 
 Sometimes he dipped his feet in stirring 
 
 brooks ; 
 At night he slept upon a bed of 
 
 boughs. . . . 
 
 This in my soul. Then suddenly a shape, 
 A spectre wearing yet the mask of dust 
 Jostled against me as he passed, and lo ! 
 The jarring city and the drift of feet 
 Surged back upon me like the grieving sea. 
 
 ■^ 
 
 I- A 
 
 130 
 
 -m. 
 
At the Meeting of Seven Valleys 
 
 At the meeting of seven valleys in the west, 
 I came upon a host of silent souls, 
 Seated beside still waters on the grass. 
 It was a place of memories and tears — 
 Terrible tears. I rested in a wood, 
 And there the bird that mourns for Itys 
 sang — 
 
 Itys that touched the tears of all the world. 
 But climbing onward toward the purple 
 
 peaks, 
 I passed, on silent feet, white multitudes, 
 Beyond the reach of peering memories, 
 Lying asleep upon the scented banks. 
 Their bodies burning with celestial fire. 
 A mighty awe came on me at the thought— 
 The strangeness of the beatific sleep, 
 The vision of God, the mystic bread of rest. 
 
 131 
 

 1 '! 
 
 
 The Rock-Breaker 
 
 Pausing he leans upon his sledge, and 
 looks — 
 A labor-blasted toiler; 
 So have I seen, on Shasta's top, a pine 
 
 Stand silent on a cliff, 
 Stript of its glory of green leaves and 
 boughs, 
 Its great trunk split by fire, 
 Its gray bark blackened by the thunder- 
 smoke. 
 Its life a sacrifice 
 To some blind purpose of the Destinies. 
 
 M 
 
 133 
 
These Songs Will Perish 
 These songs will perish like the shapes of 
 
 air- 
 
 The singer and the songs die out forever ; 
 But star-eyed Truth (greater than song or 
 singer) 
 
 Sweeps hurrying on: far off she sees a 
 
 gleam 
 Upon a peak. She cried to man of old 
 To build the enduring, glad Fraternal 
 
 State — 
 Cries yet through all the ruins of the world- 
 Through Karnak, through the stones of 
 
 Babylon — 
 
 Cries for a moment through these fading 
 songs. 
 
 On wlnghd feet, a form of fadeless youth, 
 She goes to meet the coming centuries, 
 
 133 
 

 * 
 
 These Songs IFill Perish 
 
 And, hurrying, snatches up some human 
 reed. 
 
 Blows through it once her terror-bearing 
 note. 
 
 And breaks and throws away. It is enough 
 
 If we can be a bugle at her lips. 
 
 To scatter her contagion on mankind. 
 
 % 
 
 % 
 
 Si 
 
 
 M 
 
 134 
 
human 
 bearing 
 mough