IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 // 
 
 
 
 /^ %£ M 
 
 f/ 
 
 f/j 
 
 fe 
 
 1.0 
 
 I.I 
 
 11.25 
 
 112 
 
 '« IIIM 
 
 si- 
 
 ti _^ 
 
 1^.5 
 
 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 o^. 
 
 
 / 
 
 'a 
 
 
 %:'^^^'* 
 
 % "/' 
 ^^>. ' 
 
 /^ 
 
 % 
 
 071 
 
 -(^ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 s 
 
 V 
 
 ^> 
 
 V 
 
 9> 
 
 
 o 
 
 ^^^ 
 
 S^ 
 
 rJr 
 
 33 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 872-4503 
 
 '% 
 
CIHM/ICMH 
 
 Microfiche 
 
 Series. 
 
 CIHIVI/ICMH 
 Collection de 
 microfiches. 
 
 Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions Institut Canadian de microreproductions historiques 
 
 1980 
 
Technical and Sibliographic Notes/Notes techniquee at bibliographiques 
 
 Th 
 to 
 
 The Institute has attempted to obtain the best 
 original copy available for filming. Features of this 
 copy which may be bibliographically unique, 
 which may alter any of the images in the 
 reproduction, or which may significantly change 
 the usual method of filming, are checked below. 
 
 L'Institut a microfiimd le meilleur exemplaire 
 qu'il lui a 6t6 possible de sj procurer. Les details 
 de cet exsm|:laire qui sort peut-dtre uniques du 
 point de vue bibliographique, qui peuvent modifier 
 une image reproduite, ou qui peuvent exiger une 
 modification dans la methods normale de filmage 
 sont indiqu6s ci-dessous. 
 
 Th 
 po 
 of 
 fill 
 
 D 
 
 D 
 
 Coloured covors/ 
 Couverture de couleur 
 
 r i Covers damaged/ 
 
 Couverture endommagde 
 
 Covers restored and/or laminated/ 
 Couverture restaur6e et/ou pellicul6e 
 
 □ Cover title missing/ 
 Le titre de couverture manque 
 
 □ Coloured pages/ 
 Pages de couieur 
 
 □ Pages damaged/ 
 Pages endommagdes 
 
 □ Pages restored and/or laminated/ 
 Pages restaur^es et/ou pellicul6es 
 
 n Pages discoloured, stained or foxed/ 
 Pages d^colordes, tachet6es ou piqudes 
 
 Or 
 be 
 th( 
 sic 
 oti 
 fir 
 sic 
 or 
 
 ! I Coloured maps/ 
 
 D 
 D 
 
 n 
 
 D 
 
 Cartes g^ographiques en couleur 
 
 Coloured ink (i.e. other than blue or black)/ 
 Encre de couleur (i.e. autre que bleue ou noire) 
 
 Coloured plates and/or illustrations/ 
 Planches et/ou illustrations en couleur 
 
 Bound with other material/ 
 Relid avec d'autres documents 
 
 Tight binding nay cause shadows or distoi ion 
 along interior margin/ 
 
 La reliure serr6e peut causer de I'ombre cu de la 
 distortion le long de la marge intdrieure 
 
 Blank leaves added during restoration may 
 appear within the text. Whenever possible, these 
 have been omitted from filming/ 
 I! se peut que certaines pages blanches ajoutdes 
 lors d'une restauration apparaissent dans le texte, 
 mais, lorsque cela dtait possible, ces pages n'ont 
 pas 6t6 filmdes. 
 
 □ Pages detached/ 
 Pages d(§tach6es 
 
 □ Showthrough/ 
 Transparence 
 
 □ Quality of print varies/ 
 Quality indgale da I'impression' 
 
 r~~7^ Includes supplementary material/ 
 
 I I Comprend du materiel supplementaire 
 
 □ Only edition available/ 
 Seule Edition disponible 
 
 n 
 
 Pages wholly or partially obscured by errata 
 slips, tissues, etc., have been refilmed to 
 ensure the best possible image/ 
 Les pages totalement ou partiellement 
 obscurcies par un feuillet d'errata, une pelure, 
 etc., ont 6t6 film6es d nouveau de fagon d 
 obtenir la meilleure image possible. 
 
 Th 
 sh 
 TH 
 wl 
 
 M) 
 dif 
 en 
 be 
 
 rig 
 rei 
 m( 
 
 D 
 
 Additional comments:/ 
 Commentaires suppl6mentaires: 
 
 ■7 
 
 / 
 
 This item is filmed at the reduction ratio checked below/ 
 
 Ce document est film6 au taux de reduction indiqud ci-dessous. 
 
 10X 
 
 
 
 
 14X 
 
 
 
 
 18X 
 
 
 
 
 22X 
 
 
 
 
 2bX 
 
 
 
 
 30X 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v/ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12X 
 
 16X 
 
 20X 
 
 24X 
 
 28X 
 
 32X 
 
The copy filmed here has been reproduced thanks 
 to the generosity of: 
 
 National Library of Canada 
 
 L'exemplaire filmd fut reproduit grSce d la 
 g6n6rosit6 de: 
 
 Bibliothdque nationale du Canada 
 
 The images appearing here are the best quality 
 possible considering the condition and SegibfMty 
 of the original copy and in keeping with the 
 filming contract specifications. 
 
 Les images suivantes ont 6t§ reproduites avec le 
 plus grand soin, compte tenu de la condition et 
 di9 la nettetd de l'exemplaire film6, et en 
 conformity avec les conditions du contrat de 
 filmage. 
 
 Original copies in printed paper covers are filmed 
 beginning with the front cover and ending on 
 the last page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, or the back cover when appropriate. All 
 other original copies are filmed beginning on the 
 first page with a printed or illustrated impres- 
 sion, and ending on the last page with a printed 
 or illustrated impression. 
 
 Les exemplaires originaux dont la couverture en 
 papier est imprimde sont film^s sn comrnenpant 
 par le premier plat et en terminant soit par la 
 dernidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impression ou d'illustration, soit par le second 
 plat, selon le cas. Tous les autres exemplaires 
 originaux sont filmds en commenpant par la 
 premidre page qui comporte une empreinte 
 d'impre.Jsion ou d'illustration et en terminant par 
 la dernidre page qui comporte une telle 
 empreinte. 
 
 The last recorded frame on each microfiche 
 shall contain the symbol — »> (meaning "CON- 
 TINUED "), or the symbol V (meaning "END "), 
 whichever applies. 
 
 Un des symboles suivants apparaitra sur la 
 dernidre image de cheque microfiche, selon le 
 cas: le symbole — ^> signifie "A SUIVRE", le 
 symbole V signifie "FIN". 
 
 Maps, plates, charts, etc., may b*> f' 'u: ■• -^ 
 different reduction ratios. Those too lai^ ~ be 
 entirely included in one exposure are filmed 
 beginning in "he upper left hand corner, left to 
 right and top to Lsottom, as many frames as 
 required. Tha following diagrams illustrate the 
 method: 
 
 Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent dtre 
 film6s d des taux de reduction diffdrents. 
 Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre 
 reproduit en un seul clichd, il est filmd d partir 
 de Tangle supdrieur gauche, de gauche d droite, 
 et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre 
 d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants 
 illustrent la mdthode. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
.W''^.> 
 
7 
 
 / 
 
 AMONG THE MILLET 
 
 AND 
 
 Ottier Poems. 
 
 BY 
 
 ARCHIBALD LAMPMAN. 
 
 imigQiJ 
 
 J. DURIE & SON. 
 1888 
 
«■ 
 
 
 1 ^^:'''i 
 
 o eos' 
 
 Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the 
 
 year 1888, by Archibald Lampman, at the 
 
 Department of Agriculture. 
 
 I'bkss of a. S. Wooibubn 
 36 Elgin St., Ottawa, Can.' 
 
TO MY WIFE. 
 
 Though fancy and the might of rhyme, 
 
 TJiat tumeth like the tide, 
 Have borne me many a musing time, 
 
 Beloved, from thy side, 
 
 Ah yet, I pray thee, deem not. Sweet, 
 Those hours were given in vain ; 
 
 Within these covers to thy feet 
 I bring them back again. 
 
CONTENTS : 
 
 I. 
 
 POEMS. 
 
 Among the Millet 
 
 April 
 
 An October Sunset 
 
 The Frogs 
 
 An Impression 
 
 Spring on the River 
 
 Why do ye call the Poet lonely 
 
 Heat 
 
 Among the Timothy. . . 
 
 Freedom 
 
 Morning on the Lievres 
 
 In October 
 
 Lament of the Winds . 
 Ballade of Summer's Sleep 
 
 Winter 
 
 Winter Hues Recalled . . 
 
 Storm 
 
 Midnight 
 
 Song of the Stream-Drops 
 Between the Rapids 
 New Year's Eve. 
 Unrest 
 
 1 
 2 
 5 
 6 
 
 9 
 10 
 11 
 J3 
 14 
 18 
 21 
 33 
 24 
 25 
 27 
 30 
 34 
 87 
 38 
 40 
 43 
 46 
 
^' ' CONTENTS. 
 Song 
 
 One Day .. ..*".."..* 
 
 Sleep 
 
 Three Flower Petals 
 Passion . . 
 
 • • • • , 
 
 A Ballade of Waiting . . 
 
 Before Sleep 
 
 A Song 
 
 Whai Do Poets Want With Goij> 
 The King's Sabbath 
 The Little Handmaiden 
 
 Abu Midjan 
 
 The Weaver 
 
 The Three Pilgrims 
 The Coming of Winter 
 Easter Eve . . 
 
 The Organist 
 
 The Monk 
 
 The Child's Music Lesson 
 An Athenian Reverie . . 
 
 . 46 
 
 47 
 . 48 
 60 
 61 
 69 
 68 
 66 
 68 
 60 
 61 
 64 
 67 
 69 
 78 
 74 
 83 
 87 
 103 
 105 
 
 II. 
 
 SONNETS. 
 
 Love- Doubt 
 
 Perfect Love 
 
 Love-Wonder 
 
 Comfort 
 
 Despondency 
 
 Outlook 
 
 Gentleness 
 
 A Prayer . . 
 
 Music 
 
 . . 123 
 
 124 
 ,. 125 
 
 126 
 . 127 
 
 128 
 . 129' 
 
 130 
 . 131 
 
CONTENTS. 
 Knowi.kdoe . . 
 
 8lO»T 
 
 An Old Lesson from the Fields 
 
 Winter-Thought 
 
 Deeds , . 
 
 Aspiration 
 
 The Poets 
 
 The Truth 
 
 The Martyrs. 
 
 A Night of Storm 
 
 -At the Railway Station 
 
 A Forecast 
 
 In November , 
 
 The City 
 
 Midsummer Night . . 
 
 Thu Loons 
 
 March 
 
 Solitude 
 
 The Maples 
 
 The Dog .. 
 
 133 
 133 
 134 
 135 
 136 
 137 
 138 
 139 
 140 
 141 
 142 
 148 
 144 
 146 
 146 
 147 
 148 
 149 
 160 
 161 
 
I. 
 
POEMS. 
 
 AMONG THE MILLET. 
 
 The dew is gleaming in the grass, 
 The morning hours are seven, 
 
 And I am fain to watch you pass. 
 Ye soft white clouds of heaven. 
 
 Ye stray and gather, part and fold ; 
 
 The wind alone can tame you ; 
 I think of what in time of old 
 
 The poets loved to name you. 
 
 They called you sheep, the sky your sward, 
 
 A field without a reaper ; 
 They called the shining sun your lord, 
 
 The shepherd wind your keeper. 
 
 Your sweetest poets I will deem 
 
 The men of old for moulding 
 In simple beauty such a dream. 
 
 And I could lie beholding. 
 
 Where daisies in the meadow toss. 
 
 The wind from morn till even 
 Forever shepherd you across 
 
 The shining field of heaven. 
 
APRIL. 
 
 Pale season, watcher in unvexed suspense, 
 Still priestess of the patient middle day, 
 Betwixt wild March's humored petulence 
 And the warm wooing of green kirtled May, 
 Maid month of sunny peace and sober grey, 
 Weaver ot flowers in sunward glades that ring 
 With murmur of libation to the spring : 
 
 As memory of pain, all past, is peace. 
 And joy, dream-tasted, hath the deepest cheer, 
 So art thou sweetest of all months that lease 
 The twelve short spaces d the flying year. 
 The bloomless days are dead, and frozen fear 
 No more for many moons shall vex the earth. 
 Dreaming of summer and fruit laden mirth. 
 
 The grey song-sparrows full of spring have sung 
 
 Their clear thin silvery tunes in leafless trees ; 
 
 The robin hops, and whistles, and among 
 
 The silver-tasseled poplars the brown bees 
 
 Murmur faint dreams of summer harve.-,tries ; 
 
 The creamy sun at even scatters down 
 
 A gold-green mist across the murmuring town. 
 
 (2) 
 
APRIL. 3 
 
 By the slow streams the frogs all day and night 
 Dream without thought of pain or heed of ill, 
 Watching the long warm silent hours take flight, 
 And ever with soft throats that pulse and thrill, 
 From the pale-weeded shallows trill r d trill, 
 Tremulous sweet voices, flute- like, answering 
 One to another glorying in the spring. 
 
 All day across the ever-cloven soil. 
 Strong horses labour, steaming in the sun, 
 Down the long furrows with slow straining toil. 
 Turning the brown clean layers ; and one by one 
 The crows gloom over them till daylight done 
 Finds them asleep somewhere in dusked !ines 
 Beyond the wheatlands in the northern pines. 
 
 The old year's cloaking of brown leaves,that bind 
 The forest floor-ways, plated close and true— 
 The last love's labour of the autumn wind- 
 Is broken with curled flower buds white and blue 
 In all the matted hollows, and speared through 
 With thousand serpent-spotted blades up-sprung. 
 Yet bloomless, of the slender adder-tengue. 
 
 In the warm noon the south wind creeps and cools, 
 Where the red-budded stems of maples throw 
 Still tangled etchings on the amber pools, 
 Quite silent now, forgetful of the slow 
 Drip of the taps, the troughs, and trampled snow. 
 
APRIL. 
 
 The keen March mornings,and the silvering rime 
 And mirthful labour of the sugar prime. 
 
 Ah, I have wandered with unwearied feet, 
 All the long sweetness of an April day. 
 Lulled with cool murmurs and the drowsy beat 
 Of partridge wings in secret thickets grey. 
 The marriage hymns of all the birds at play, 
 The faces of sweet flowers, and easeful dreams 
 Beside slow reaches of frog-haunted streams ; 
 
 Wandered with happy feet, and qu'te forgot 
 The shallow toil, the strife against the grain, 
 Near souls, that hear us call, but answer not, 
 The loneliness, perplexity and pain, 
 And high thoughts cankered with an earthly stain 
 And then the long draught emptied to the lees, 
 I turn me homeward in slow pacing ease, 
 
 Cleaving the cedar shadows and the thin 
 Mist of grey gnats that cloud the river shore, 
 Sweet even choruses, that dance and spin 
 Soft tangles in the sunset ; and once more 
 The city smites me with its dissonant roar. 
 To its hot heart I pass, untroubled yet, 
 Fed with calm hope, without desire or fret. 
 
 So to the year's first altar step I bring 
 Gifts of meek son^, and make my spirit free 
 
AN OCTOBER SUNSET. 
 
 With the blind working of unanxious spring, 
 Careless with her, whether the days that flee 
 Pale drouth or golden-fruited plenty see, 
 So that we toil, brothers, without distress, 
 7n calm-eyed peace and godlike blamelessness. 
 
 5 
 
 AN OCTOBER SUNSET. 
 
 One moment the slim cloudflakes seem to lean 
 With their sad sunward faces aureoled, 
 And longing lips set downward brightening 
 To take the last sweet hand kiss of the king, 
 Gone down beyond the closing west acold ; ' 
 Paying no reverence to the slender queen. 
 That like a curved olive leaf of gold 
 Hangs low in heaven, rounded toward sun, 
 Or the small stars that one by one unfold 
 Down the gray border of the night begun. 
 
THE FROGS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Breatliers of wisdom won without a quest, 
 
 Quaint uncouth dreamers, voices high and strange, 
 Flutists of lands where beauty hath no change, 
 
 And wintery grief is a forgotten guest, 
 
 Sweet niurmurers of everlasting rest. 
 
 For whom glad days have ever yet to run, 
 And moments are as a^ons, and the sun 
 
 But ever sunken half-way toward the west. 
 
 Often to me who heard you in your day. 
 
 With close wrapt ears,it could not choose butseem 
 That earth, our mother, searching in what way. 
 Men's hearts might know her spirit's inmost dream, 
 Ever at rest beneath life's change and stir. 
 Made you her soul, and bade you pipe for her. 
 
 II. 
 
 In those mute days when spring was in her glee. 
 
 And hope was strong, we knew not why or how, 
 
 And earth, the mother, dreamed with brooding 
 
 brow. 
 
 Musing on life, and what the hours might be, 
 
 (6) 
 
 I 
 
THE FROGS. 
 
 When love should ripen to maternity, 
 
 Then like high flutes in silvery interchange 
 
 Ye piped with voices still and sweet and strange, 
 
 And ever as ye piped, on every tree 
 
 The great buds swelled ; among the pensive woods 
 The spirits of first flowers awoke and flung 
 
 From buried faces the close fitting hoods. 
 And listened to your piping till they fell, 
 Xhe frail spring-beauty with her perfumed bell, 
 
 The wind-flower, and the spotted adder-tongue. 
 
 III. 
 
 All the day long, wherever pools miglit be 
 Among the golden meadows, where the air 
 Stood in a dream, as it were moored there 
 
 Forever in a noon-tide reverie. 
 
 Or where the birds made riot of their glee 
 
 In the still woods, and the hot sun shone down, 
 Crossed with warm lucent shadows on the brown 
 
 Leaf-paven pools, that bubbled dreamily. 
 
 Or far away in whispering river meads 
 
 And watery marshes where the brooding noon, 
 Full with the wonder of its own sweet boon, 
 
 Nestled and slept among the noiseless reeds, 
 Ye sat and murmured, motionless as they, 
 With eyes that dreamed beyond the night and 
 day. 
 
8 
 
 THE FROGS. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And when day passed and over heaven's height, 
 Thin with the many stars and cool with dew, 
 The fingers of the deep hours slowly drew 
 
 The wonder of the ever-healing night, 
 
 No grief or loneliness or wrapt delight 
 Or weight of silence ever brought to you 
 Slumber or rest ; only your voices grew 
 
 More high and solemn ; slowly with hushed flight 
 
 Ye saw the echoing hours go by, long-drawn. 
 Nor ever stirred, watching with fathomless eyes. 
 And with your countless clear antiphonies 
 
 Filling the earth and heaven, even till dawn, 
 Lr.st-risen, found you with its first pale gleam. 
 Still with soft throais unaltered in your dream. 
 
 And slowly as we heard you, day by day. 
 The stillness of enchanted reveries 
 Bound brain and spirit and half-closed eyes, 
 
 In some divine sweet wonder-dream astray ; 
 
 To us no sorrow or upreared dismay 
 Nor any discord came, but evermore 
 The voices of mankind, the outer roar. 
 
 Grew strange and murmurous, faint and far away. 
 
AN IMPRESSION. 9 
 
 Morning and noon and midnight exquisitely, 
 
 Wrapt with your voices, this alone we knew, 
 Cities might change and fall, and men might die, 
 Secure were we, content to dream with you, 
 That change and pain are shadows faint and 
 
 fleet, 
 And dreams are real, and life is only sweet 
 
 AN IMPRESSION 
 
 I heard the city time-bells call 
 Far off in hollow towers. 
 
 And one by one with measured fall 
 Count out the old dead hours ; 
 
 I felt the march, the silent press 
 Of time, and held my breath ; 
 
 1 saw the haggard dreadfulness 
 Of dim old age and death. 
 
SPRING ON THE RIVER. 
 
 O sun, shine hot on the river ; 
 
 For the ice is turning an ashen hue, 
 
 And the still bright water is looking through, 
 
 And the myriad streams are greeting you 
 
 With a ballad of life to the giver, 
 
 From forest and field and sunny town, 
 Meeting and running and tripping down, 
 
 With laughter and song to the river. 
 
 Oh ! the din on the boats by the river ; 
 The barges are ringing while day avails, 
 With sound of hewing and hammering nails. 
 Planing and painting and swinging pails, 
 
 All day in their shrill endeavour ; 
 
 For the waters brim over their wintry cup, 
 And the grinding ice is breaking up, 
 
 And we must away down the river. 
 
 Oh ! the hum and the toil of the river ; 
 
 The ridge of the rapid sprays and skips : 
 
 Loud and low by the water's lips, 
 
 Tearing the wet pines into strips, 
 
 (10) 
 
WHY DO YE CALL THE POET LONELY. 11 
 
 The saw mill is moaning ever. 
 
 The little grey sparrow skips andjcalls 
 On the rocks in the rain of the water falls, 
 
 And the logs are adrift in the river. 
 
 Oh ! restlessly whirls the river ; 
 
 The rivulets run and the cataract drones : 
 The spiders are flitting over the stones : 
 Summer winds float and the cedarjnoans ; 
 
 And the eddies gleam and quiver. 
 
 O sun, shine hot, shine long and abide 
 In the glory and power of thy summer tide 
 
 On the swift longing face of the river. 
 
 WHY DO YE CALL THE POET LONELY. 
 
 Why do ye call the poet lonely, 
 
 Because he dreams in lonely places ? 
 
 He is not desolate, but only 
 
 Sees, where ye cannot, hidden faces. 
 
HEAT. 
 
 From plains that reel to southward, dim, 
 
 The road runs by me white and bare ; 
 Up the steep hill it seems to swim 
 
 Beyond, and melt into the glare. 
 Upward half way, or it may be 
 
 Nearer the summit, slowly steals 
 A hay-cart, movmg dustily 
 
 With idly clacking wheels. 
 
 By his cart's side the wagoner 
 
 Is slouching slowly at his ease, 
 Half-hidden in the windless blur 
 
 Of white dust puffing to his knees. , 
 This wagon on the height above. 
 
 From sky to sky on either hand, 
 Is the sole thing that seems to move 
 
 In all the heat-held land. 
 
 Beyond me in the fields the sun 
 
 Soaks in the grass and hath his will ; 
 
 I count the marguerites one by one ; 
 Even the buttercups are still. 
 
 On the brook yonder not a breath 
 Disturbs the spider or the midge. 
 
 The'water-hugs draw close beneath 
 
 The cool gloom of the bridge. 
 (12) 
 
HEAT. 
 
 Where the far elm-tree shadows flood 
 
 Dark patches in the burning grass, 
 The cows, each with her peaceful cud, 
 
 Lie waiting for the heat to pass. 
 From somewhere on the slope near by 
 
 Into the pale depth of the noon 
 A wandering thrush slides leisurely 
 
 His thin revolving tune. 
 
 In intervals of drenms I hear 
 
 The cricket from the droughty ground ; 
 The grass-hoppers spin into mine ear 
 
 A small innumerable sound. 
 I lift mine eyes sometimes to gaze : 
 
 The burning sky-line blinds my sight : 
 The woods far off are blue with haze : 
 
 The hills are drenched in light. 
 
 And yet to me not this or that 
 
 Is always sharp or always sweet ; 
 In the sloped shadow of my hat 
 
 I lean at rest, and drain the heat ; 
 Nay more, I think some blessed power 
 
 Hath brought me wandering idly here : 
 In the full furnace of this hour 
 
 My thoughts grow keen and clear. 
 
 13 
 
AMONG THE TIMOTHY. 
 
 Long hours ago, while yet the morn was blithe, 
 Nor sharp athirst had drunk the beaded dew, 
 
 A reaper came, and swung his cradled scythe 
 Around this stump, and, shearing slowly, drew 
 Far round among the clover, ripe for hay, 
 A circle clean and grey ; 
 
 And here among the scented swathes that gleam, 
 Mixed with dead daisies, it is sweet to lie 
 And watch the grass and the few-clouded sky, 
 Nor think but only dream. 
 
 For when the noon was turning, and the heat 
 Fell down most heavily on field and wood, 
 
 I too came hither, borne on restless feet. 
 Seeking some comfort for an aching mood. 
 Ah, I was weary of the drifting hours, 
 The echoing city towers. 
 
 The blind grey streets, the jingle of the throng, 
 
 Weary of hope that like a shape of stone 
 
 Sat near at hand without a smile or moan, 
 
 And weary most of song, 
 (14) 
 
AMONG THE TIMOTHY. 
 
 15 
 
 And those high moods of mine that sometime made 
 
 My heart a heaven, opening like a flower, 
 A sweeter world where I in wonder stiayed, 
 Begirt with shapes of beauty and the power 
 Of dreams that moved through that enchanted 
 clime 
 With changing breaths of rhyme, 
 Were all gone lifeless now like those white leaves. 
 That hang all winter, shivering dead and blind 
 Among the sinewy beeches in the wind. 
 That vainly calls and grieves. 
 
 Ah! I will set no more mine overtasked brain 
 To barren search and toil that beareth nought, 
 
 Forever following with sorefooted pain 
 
 The crossing pathways of unbourned thought ; 
 But let it go, as one that hath no skill. 
 To take what shape it will, 
 
 An ant slow-burrowing in the earthy gloom, 
 A spider bathing in the dew at morn, 
 Or a brjwn bee in wayward fancy borne 
 From hidden bloom to bloom. 
 
 Hither and thither o'er the rocking grass 
 The little breezes, blithe as they are blind. 
 
 Teasing the slender blossoms pass and pass. 
 Soft-footed children of the gipsy wind, 
 To taste of every purple-fringed head 
 Before the bloom is dead ; 
 
16 
 
 AMOI^G THE TIMOTHY. 
 
 And scarcely heed the daisies that, endowed 
 With stems so short they cannot see, up-bear 
 Their innocent sweet eyes distressed, and stare 
 Like children in a crowd. 
 
 Not far to fieldward in the central heat, 
 
 Shadowing the clover, a pale poplar stands 
 With glimmering leaves that, when the wind comes, 
 beat 
 Together like innumerable small hands, 
 And with the calm, as in vague dreams astray, 
 Hang wan and silver-grey ; 
 Like sleepy maenads, who in pale surprise, 
 Half-wakened by a pro\.ling beast, have crept 
 Out of the hidden covert, where they slept, 
 At noon with languid eyes. 
 
 The crickets creak, and through the noonday glow, 
 That crazy fiddler of the hot mid-year, 
 
 The dry cicada plies his wiry bow 
 
 In long-spun cadence, thin and dusty sere : 
 From the green grass the small grasshoppers' din 
 Spreads soft and silvery thin : 
 
 And ever and anon a murmur steals 
 Into mine ears of toil that moves ahvay, 
 The crackling rustle of the pitch-forked hay 
 And la/y jerk of wheels. 
 
AMONG THE TIMOTHY 
 
 17 
 
 As so I lie and feel the soft hours wane, . 
 To wind and sun and peaceful sound laid bare, 
 
 That aching dim discomfort of the brain 
 Fades off unseen, and shadowy-footed care 
 Into some hidden corner creeps at last 
 To slumber deep and fast ; 
 
 And gliding on, quite fashioned to forget, 
 From dream to dream I bid my spirit pass 
 Out into the pale green ever-swaying grass 
 To brood, but no more fret. 
 
 And hour by hour among all shapes that grow 
 Of purple mints and daisies gemmed with gold 
 
 In sweet unrest my visions come and go ; 
 I feel and hear and with quiet eyes behold ; 
 And hour by hour, the ever-journeying sun,' 
 In gold and shadow spun, 
 
 Into mine eyes and blood, and through the dim 
 Green glimmering forest of the grass shines down, 
 Till flower and blade, and every cranny brown. 
 And I are souked with him. 
 
n 
 
 I 1 
 
 [I 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 Out of the heart of the city begotten 
 
 Of the labour of men and their manifold hands, 
 Whose souls, that were sprung from the earth in 
 
 her morning, 
 No longer regard or remember her warning. 
 
 Whose hearts in the furnace of care have forgotten 
 Forever the scent and the hue of her lands ; 
 
 Out of the heat of the usurer'b hold, 
 From the horrible crash of the strong man's feet; 
 Out of the shadow where pity is dying ; 
 Out of the clamour where beauty is lying. 
 Dead in the depth of the struggle for gold ; 
 Out of the din and the glare of the street ; 
 
 Into the arnis of our mother we come, 
 
 Our broad strong mother, the innocent earth, 
 
 Mother of all things beautiful, blameless. 
 
 Mother of hopes that her strength makes tameless, 
 
 Where the voices of grief and of battle are dumb, 
 
 And the whole world laughs with the light of 
 
 her mirth. 
 
 (18) 
 
FREEDOM. 
 
 19 
 
 Over the fields, where the cool winds sweep, 
 Black with the mould and brown with the loam, 
 Where the thin green spears of the wheat are 
 
 appearmg, 
 
 And the high-ho shouts from the smoky clearing ; 
 Over the widths where the cloud shadows creep; 
 Over the fields and the fallows we come ; 
 
 Over the swamps with their pensive noises, 
 Where the burnished cup of the marigold 
 gleams ; 
 Skirting the reeds, where the quick winds shiver 
 On the swelling breast of the dimpled river, 
 
 And the blue of the king-fisher hangs and poises, 
 Watching a spot by the edge of the streams ; 
 
 By the miles of the fences warped and dyed 
 With the white-hot noons and their withering 
 fires, 
 Where the rough bees trample the c:eamy bosoms 
 Of the hanging tufts of the elder blossoms, 
 
 And the spiders weave, and the grey snakes hide, 
 In the crannied gloom of the stones and the 
 briers : 
 
 Over the meadow lands sprouting with thistle. 
 Where the humming wings of the blackbirds 
 pass, 
 
20 
 
 FREEDOM. 
 
 (T 
 
 Where the hollows are banked with the violets 
 
 flowering, 
 And the long-limbed pendulous elms are towerin 
 Where the robins are loud with their voluble 
 whistle, 
 And the ground sparrow scurries away through 
 the grass, 
 
 Where the restless bobolink loiters and woos 
 Down in the hollows and over the swells. 
 Dropping in and out of the shadows, 
 Sprinkling his music about the meadows, 
 Whistles and little checks and coos. 
 And the tinkle of glassy bells ; 
 
 Into the dim woods full of the tombs 
 Of the dead trees soft in their sepulchres. 
 Where the pensive throats of the shy birds hidden, 
 Pipe to us strangely entering unbidden. 
 And tenderly still in the tremulous glooms 
 The trilliums scatter their white-winged stars ; 
 
 M! 
 
 Up to the hills where our tired hearts rest. 
 Loosen, and halt, and regather their dreams ; 
 Up to the hills, where the winds restore us, 
 Clearing our eyes to the beauty before us, 
 Earth with the glory of life on her breast, 
 
 Earth with the gleam of her cities and streams. 
 
MORNIXG OX THE LIEVRES. 
 
 21 
 
 Here we shall commune with her and no other ; 
 Care and the battle of life shall cease ; 
 Men her degenerate children behind us, 
 Only the might of her beauty shall bind us, 
 
 Full of rest, as we gaze on the face of our mother, 
 Earth in the health and the strength of her 
 peace. 
 
 MORNING ON THE IJEVRES. 
 
 Far above us where a jay 
 Screams his matins to the day, 
 Capped with gold and amethyst, 
 Like a vapour from the forge 
 Of a giant somewhere hid. 
 Out of hearing of the clang 
 Of his hammer, skirts of mist 
 Slowly up the woody gorge 
 Lift and hang. 
 
 Softly as a cloud we go. 
 Sky above and sky below, 
 Down the river, and the dip 
 Of the paddles scarcely breaks, 
 Wiiii the iiltlc silvery drip 
 Of the water as it shakes 
 
 in 
 
 
23 MORNING ON THE LIKVRES. 
 
 From the blades, the crystal deep 
 Of the silence of the morn, 
 Of the forest yet asleep, 
 And the river reaches borne 
 In a mirror, purple grey, 
 Sheer away 
 
 To the misty line of light, 
 Where the forest and the stream 
 In the shadow meet and plight, 
 Like a dream. 
 
 From amid a stretch of reeds, 
 Where the lazy river sucks 
 All the water as it bleeds 
 From a little curling creek. 
 And the muskrats peer and sneak 
 In around the sunken wrecks 
 Of a tree that swept the skies 
 Long ago. 
 
 On a sudden seven ducks 
 With a splashy rustle rise, 
 Stretching out their seven necks. 
 One before, and two behind, 
 And the others all arow, 
 And as steady as the wind 
 With a swivelling whistle go. 
 Through the purple shadow led. 
 Till we only hear their whir 
 In behind a rocky spur, 
 Just ahead. 
 
IN OCTOBER. 
 
 Along the waste, a great way off, the pines, 
 
 Like tall slim priests of storm, stand up and bar 
 The low long strip of dolorous red that lines 
 
 The under west, where wet winds moan afar. 
 The cornfields all are brown, and brown the 
 meadow> 
 
 With the blown leaves' wind-heaptjd traceries, 
 And the brown thistle stems that cast no shadows, 
 
 And bear no bloom for bees. 
 
 As slowly earthward leaf by red leaf slips, 
 
 The sad trees rustle in chill misery, 
 A soft strange inner sound of pain-crazed lips, 
 
 That move and murmur incoherently ; 
 As if all leaves, that yet have breath, were sighing, 
 
 With pale hushed throats, for death is at the door, 
 So many low soft masses for the dying 
 
 Sweet leaves that live no more. 
 
 Here I will sit upon this naked stone, 
 
 Draw my coat closer with my numbJid hands. 
 And hear the ferns sigh, and the wet woods moan, 
 
 And send my heart out to the ashen lands ; 
 
 (23) 
 
24 
 
 LAMENT OF THE WINDS. 
 
 I ! 
 
 And I will ask myself what golden madness, 
 What balmed breaths of dreamland spicery, 
 
 What visions of soft laughter and light sadness 
 Were sweet last month to me. 
 
 The dry dead leaves flit by with thin wierd tunes, 
 
 Like failing murmurs of some conquered creed. 
 Graven in mystic markings with strange runes, 
 
 That none but stars and biting winds may read ; 
 Here I will wait a little ; I am weary, 
 
 Not torn with pain of any lurid hue, 
 But only still and very gray and dreary. 
 
 Sweet sombre lands, like you. 
 
 LAMENT OF THE WINDS. 
 
 We in sorrow coldly wilting. 
 
 In the bleak world sitting, sitting. 
 
 By the forest, near the mould. 
 Heard the summer calling, calling. 
 Through the dead leaves falling, falling. 
 
 That her life grew faint and old. 
 
 And we took her up, and bore her. 
 With the leaves that moaned before her. 
 To the holy forest bowers, 
 
BALLADE OF SUMMER'S SLEEP. 
 
 Where the trees were dense and serried, 
 And her corpse we buried, buried, 
 In the graveyard of the flowers. 
 
 Now the leaves, as death grows vaster, 
 Yellowing deeper, dropping faster, 
 
 All the grave wherein she lies 
 With their bodies cover, cover, 
 With their hearts that love her, love her, 
 
 For they live not when she dies : 
 
 And we left her so, but stay not 
 Of our tears, and yet we may not, 
 
 Though they coldly thickly fall, 
 Give the dead leaves any, any, 
 For they lie so many, many, 
 
 That we cannot weep for all. 
 
 BALLADE OF SUMMER'S SLEEP. 
 
 Sweet summer is gone ; they have laid her away — 
 The last sad hours that were touched with her 
 grace — 
 In the hush where the ghosts of the dead flowers 
 play; 
 The sleep that is sweet of her slumbering space 
 
BALLADE OF SUMMER'S SLEEP. 
 
 I.ct not a sight or a sound erase 
 
 Of the woe that hath fallen on all the lands : 
 Gather ye, dreams, to her sunny face, 
 
 Shadow her head with your golden hands. 
 
 The woods that are golden and red for a day 
 
 (iirdle the hills in a jewelled case, 
 Like a girl's strange mirth, ere the quick death slay 
 
 The beautiful life that he hath in chase. 
 
 Darker and darker the shadows pace 
 Out of the north to the southern sands, 
 
 Ushers bearing the winter's mace : 
 
 Keep them away with your woven hands. 
 
 The yellow light lies on the wide wastes gray. 
 
 More bitter and cold than the winds that race. 
 From the skirts of the autumn, tearing away, 
 This way and that way, the woodland lace. 
 In the autumn's cheek is a hectic trace ; 
 
 Behind her the ghost of the winter stands ; 
 Sweet summer will moan in her soft gray place : 
 Mantle her head with your glowing hands. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 Till the slayer be slain and the spring displace 
 The might of his arms with her rose-crowned 
 bands, 
 
 Let her heart not gather a dream that is base : 
 Shadow her head with your golden hands. 
 
WINTER. 
 
 The long days came and went ; the riotous bees 
 
 Tore the warm grapes in many a dusty vine, 
 And men [;rew faint and thin with too much ease, 
 
 And Winter gave no sign : 
 But all the while beyond the northmost woods 
 He sat and smiled and watched his spirits play 
 In elfish dance and eery roundelay, 
 Tripping in many moods 
 With snowy curve and fairy crystal shine. 
 
 But now the time is come : with southward speed 
 
 The elfin spirits pass : a secret sting 
 
 Hath fallen and smitten flower and fruit and weed, 
 
 And every leafy thing. 
 
 The wet woods moan : the dead leaves break and 
 
 fall; 
 
 In still night-watches wakeful men have heard 
 
 The muffled pipe of many a passing bird. 
 
 High over hut and hall, 
 
 Straining to southward with unresting wing. 
 
 (37) 
 
 r 
 
 
28 
 
 WINTER. 
 
 And then they come with colder feet, and fret 
 The winds with snow, and tuck the streams to 
 sleep 
 With icy sheet and gleaming coverlet, 
 
 And fill the valleys deep 
 With curved drifts, and a strange music raves 
 Among the [\nes, sometimes in wails, and then 
 In whistled laughter, till affrighted men 
 Draw close, and into caves 
 And earthy holes the blind beasts curl and creep. 
 
 And so all day above the toiling heads 
 
 Of men's poor chimneys, full of impish freaks, 
 Tearing and twisting in tight-curled shreds 
 
 The vain unnumbered reeks, 
 The Winter speeds his fairies forth and mocks 
 Poor bitten men with laughter icy cold, 
 Turning the brown of youth to white and old 
 With hoary-woven locks, 
 And grey men young with roses in their cheeks. 
 
 And after thaws, when liberal water swells 
 
 The bursting eaves, he biddeth drip and grow 
 The curly horns of ribbed icicles 
 
 In many a beard-like row. 
 In secret moods of mercy and soft dole. 
 Old wsrpt'd wreck J and things of mouldering death 
 That summer scorns and man abandoneth 
 His careful hands console 
 W'lih lawny robes and draperies of snow. 
 
WINTER. 
 
 29 
 
 And when night comes, his si^irits with chill feet, 
 Winged with white mirth and noiseless mockery, 
 Across men's pallid windows peer and fleet, 
 
 And smiling silverly 
 Draw with mute fingers on the frosted glass 
 Quaint fairy shapes of ictid witcheries, 
 Pale flowers and glinting ferns and frigid trees 
 And meads of mystic grass, 
 Graven in many an austere phantasy. 
 
 But far away the Winter dreams alone, 
 
 Rustling among his snow-drifts, and resigns 
 Cold fondling ears to hear the cedars moan 
 
 In dusky-skirted lines 
 Strange answers of an ancient runic call ; 
 
 Or somewhere watches with his antique eyes. 
 Gray-chill with frosty-lidded reveries, 
 The silvery moonshine fall 
 In misty wedges through his girth of pines. 
 
 Poor mortals haste and hide away : creep soon 
 
 Into your icy beds : the embers die ; 
 And on your frosted panes the pallid moon 
 
 Is glimmering brokenly. 
 Mutter faint prayers that spring will come '^'erwhile. 
 Scarring with thaws and dripping days and nights 
 The shining majesty of him that smites 
 And slays you with a smile 
 Upon his silvery lips, of glinting mockery. 
 
 'I, 
 
 • . 'if 
 
 il 
 
 m 
 m 
 
 
 'f\ 
 

 i 
 
 IH; 
 
 WINTER HUES RECALLED. 
 
 Life is not all for effort : there are hours, 
 
 When fancy breaks from the exacting will, 
 
 And rebel thought takes schoolboy's holiday, 
 
 Rejoicing in its idle strength. 'Tis then, 
 
 And only at such moments, that we know 
 
 The treasure of hours gone — scenes once beheld, 
 
 Sweet voices and words bright and beautifiJ, 
 
 Impetuous deeds that woke the God within us. 
 
 The loveliness of forms and thoughts and colors, 
 
 A moment marked and then as soon forgotten. 
 
 These things are ever near us, laid away, 
 
 Hidden and waiting the appropriate times. 
 
 In the quiet garner-house of memory. 
 
 There in the silent unaccounted depth. 
 
 Beneath the heated strainage and the rush 
 
 That teem the noisy surface of the hours. 
 
 All things that ever touched us arc stored up. 
 
 Growing more mellow like sealed wine with age; 
 
 We thought them dead, and they are but asleep. 
 
 In moments when the heart is most at rest 
 
 And least expectant, from the luminous doors, 
 
 And sacred dwelling place of things unfeared, 
 
 (30) 
 
 
WINTER HUES RECALLED. 31 
 
 They issue forth, and we who never knew 
 Till then how potent and how real they were, 
 Take them, and wonder, and so bless the hour. 
 
 Such gifts are sweetest when unsought. To me, 
 As I was loitering lately in my dreams. 
 Passing from one remembrance to another. 
 Like him who reads upon an outstretched map, 
 Content and idly happy, these rose up. 
 Out of that magic well-stored picture house. 
 No dream, rather a thing most keenly real, 
 The memory of a moment, when with feet, 
 Arrested and spell bound, and captured eyes. 
 Made wide with joy and wonder, I beh ,ld 
 The spaces of a white and wintcry land 
 Swept with the fire of sunset, all its width 
 Vale, forest, town, and misty eminence, 
 A miracle of color and of beauty. 
 
 I had walked out, as I remember now, 
 
 With covered ears, for the bright air was keen. 
 
 To southward up the gleaming snow-packed fields, 
 
 With the snowshoer's long rejoicing stride, 
 
 Marching at ease. It was a radiant day 
 
 In February, the month of the great struggle 
 
 'Twixt sun and frost, when with advancing spears, 
 
 The glittering golden vanguard of the spring 
 
 Holds the broad winter's yet unbroken rear 
 
 In long-closed wavering contest. Thin pale threads 
 
 m 
 
 n 
 
 I 1 
 
 
 i-'i 
 
 ti 
 
 n 
 
 
 
ff 
 
 
 i 
 
 II 
 
 32 
 
 WINTER HUES RECALLED. 
 
 Like streaks of ash across the far off blue 
 
 Weredrawn, nor seemed to move. A brooding silence 
 
 Kept all the land, a stillness as of sleep ; 
 
 But in the east the grey and motionless woods, 
 
 Watching the great sun's fiery slow decline, 
 
 Grew deep with gold. To westward all was silver. 
 
 An hour had passed above me ; I had reached 
 
 The loftiest level of the snow-piled fields, 
 
 Clear eyed, but unobservant, noting not, 
 
 That all the plain beneath me and the hills 
 
 Took on a change of color si)lendid, gradual. 
 
 Leaving no spot the same ; nor that the sun 
 
 Now like a fiery torrent overflamod 
 
 The great line of the west. Ere yet I turned 
 
 With long stride homeward, being heated 
 
 With the loose swinging motion, weary too, 
 
 Nor uninclined to rest, a buried fence, 
 
 Whose topmost log just shouldered from the snow. 
 
 Made me a seat, and thence witn heated cheeks, 
 
 Grazed by the northwind's edge of stinging ice, 
 
 I looked fur out uf)^ the snow-bound waste. 
 
 The lifting hills and intersecting forests. 
 
 The scarce marked courses of the buried streams. 
 
 And as I looked lost memory of the frost, 
 
 Transfixed with wonder, overborne with joy. 
 
 I saw them in their silence and their beauty, 
 
 Swept by the sunset's rapid hand of fire. 
 
 Sudden, mysterious, every moment deepening 
 
 To some new majesty of rose or flame. 
 
WINTER HUES RECALLED. 
 
 33 
 
 The whole broad west was like a molten sea 
 Of crimson. In the north the light-lined hills 
 Were veiled far off as with a mist of rose 
 Wondrous and soft. Along the darkening east 
 The gold of all the forests slowly changed 
 To purple. In the valley far before me, 
 Low sunk in sapphire shadows, from its hills, 
 Softer and lovelier than an opening flower, 
 Uprose a city with its sun-touched towers, 
 A bunch of amethysts. 
 
 Like one spell-bound 
 Caught in the presence of some god, I stood, 
 Nor felt the keen wind and the deadly air. 
 But watched the sun go down, and watched the gold 
 Fade from the town and the withdrawing hills. 
 Their westward shapes athwart the dusky red 
 Freeze into sapphire, saw the arc of rose 
 Rise ever higher in the violet east. 
 Above the frore front of the uprearing night 
 Remorsefully soft and sweet. Then I awoke 
 As from a dream, and from my shoulders shook 
 The warning chill, till then unfelt, unfeared. 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 i:>' 
 
 in 
 
 ■r 
 
 1 1. 
 
 :■ 'i' 
 
I :'! .' 
 
 m 
 
 STORM. 
 
 Out of the grey northwest, where many a day gone by 
 Ye tugged and howled in your tempestuous grot, 
 And evermore the huge frost giants He, 
 
 Your wizard guards in vigilance unforgot, 
 Out of the grey northwest, for now the bonds are 
 
 riven. 
 On wide white wings your thongless flight is 
 driven. 
 That lulls but resteth not. 
 
 And all the grey day long, and all the dense wild 
 night 
 
 Ye wheel and hurry with the sheeted snow, 
 By cedared waste and many a pine-dark height. 
 
 Across white rivers frozen fast below ; 
 Over the lonely forests, where the flowers yet sleeping 
 Turn in their narrow beds with dreams of weeping 
 
 In some remembered woe; 
 
 Across the unfenced wide marsh levels, where the dry 
 
 Brown ferns sigh out, and last year's sedges scold 
 
 In some drear language, rustling haggardly 
 
 Their thin dead leaves and dusky hoods of gold; 
 
 (34) 
 
STORM. 
 
 35 
 
 dry 
 :old 
 
 'Old; 
 
 Across grey beechwoods where the pallid leaves 
 
 unfailing 
 In the blind gusts like homeless ghosts are calling 
 With voices cracked and old j 
 
 Across the solitary clearings, where the low 
 Fierce gusts howl through the blinded woods, 
 and round 
 
 The buried shanties all day long the snow 
 Sifts and piles up in many a spectral mound ; 
 
 Across lone villages in eery wildernesses 
 
 Whose hidden life no living shape confesses 
 Nor any human sound ; 
 
 Across the serried masses of dim cities, blown 
 Full of the snow that ever shifts and swells. 
 While far above them all their towers of stone 
 Stand and beat back your fierce and tyrannous 
 spells, 
 And hour by hour send out, like voices torn and 
 
 broken 
 Of battling giant?^ that have grandly spoken, 
 The veering sound of bells ; 
 
 So day and night, oh wind, with hiss and moan you 
 fleet, 
 
 Where once long gone on many a green-leafed day 
 Your gentler brethren wandered with light feet 
 
 And sang with voices soft and sweet as they, 
 
 ,.\f 
 
 m 
 
 i^ i 
 
 h 
 
 
 
 >1 ? 
 
86 
 
 STORM. 
 
 The same blind thought that you with wilder 
 
 might are speaking, 
 Seeking the same strange thing that you are seeking 
 In this your stormier way. 
 
 Oh wind, wild-voicfed brother, in your northern cave, 
 
 My spirit also being so beset 
 With pride and pain, I heard you beat and rave, 
 
 Grinding your chains with furious howl and fret, 
 Knowing full well that all earth's moving things 
 
 inherit 
 The same chained might and madness of the spirit, 
 
 That none may quite forget. 
 
 You in your cave of snows, we in our narrow girth 
 Of need and sense, forever chafe and pine ; 
 
 Only in moods of some demonic birth 
 
 Our souls take fire, our flashing wings untwine ; 
 
 Even like you, mad wind, above our broken prison. 
 
 With streaming hair and maddened eyes uprisen. 
 We dream ourselves divine; 
 
 Mad moods that come and go in some mysterious 
 way, 
 
 That flash and fall, none knoweth how or why, 
 Oh wind, our brother, they are yours to-day, 
 
 The stormy joy, the sweeping mastery; 
 Deep in our narrow cells, we hear you, we awaken, 
 With hands afret and bosoms strangely shaken. 
 
 We answer to your cry. 
 
MIDNIGHT. 
 
 37 
 
 I most that love you, wind, when you are fierce 
 and free, 
 
 In these dull fetters cannot long remain ; 
 Lo, I will rise and break my thongs and flee 
 
 Forth to your drift and beating, till my brain 
 Even for an hour grow wild in your divine embraces, 
 And then creep back into mine earthly traces, 
 
 And bind me with my chain. 
 
 Nay, wind, I hear you, desperate brother, in your 
 might 
 Whistle and howl ; I shall not tarry long. 
 And though the day be blind and fierce, the night 
 
 Be dense and wild, I still am glad and strong 
 To meet you face to face ; through all your gust 
 
 and drifting 
 With brow held high, my joyous hands uplifting, 
 I cry you song for song. 
 
 ■ ■'M\„ 
 
 \ 1 
 
 ^r 
 
 '?! 
 
 Ii1- 
 
 MIDNIGHT. 
 
 From where I sit, I see the stars, 
 And down the chilly floor 
 
 The moon between the frozen bars 
 Is glimmering dim and hoar. 
 
 
 r- 
 
 i;:r 
 
38 SONG OF THE STREAM-DROPS. 
 
 Without in many a peaked mound 
 The glinting snowdrifts lie ; 
 
 There is no voice or living sound ; 
 The embers slowly die. 
 
 Yet some wild thing is in mine ear ; 
 
 I hold my breath and hark ; 
 Out of the depth I seem to hear 
 
 A crying in the dark : 
 
 No sound of man or wife or child, 
 No sound of beast that groans, 
 
 Or of the wind that whistles wild, 
 Or of the tree that moans : 
 
 I know not what it is I hear ; 
 
 I bend my head and hark : 
 I cannot drive it from mine ear, 
 
 That crying in the dark. 
 
 SONG OF THE STREAM-DROPS. 
 
 By silent forest and field and mossy stone, 
 We come from the wooded hill, and we go to 
 the sea. 
 We labour, and sing sweet songs, but we never 
 moan. 
 For our mother, the sea, is calling us cheerily. 
 
SONG OF THE STREAM-DROPS. 
 
 39 
 
 We have heard her calling us many and many a day 
 From the cool grey stones and the white sands far 
 away. 
 
 The way is long,and winding and slow is the track, 
 The sharp rocks fret us, the eddies bring us 
 delay, 
 But we sing sweet songs to our mother, and 
 answer her back ; 
 Gladly we answer our mother, sweetly repay. 
 Oh, we hear, we hear her singing wherever we roam, 
 Far, far away in the silence, calling us home. 
 
 Poor mortal, your ears are dull, and you cannot 
 hear ; 
 But we, we hear it, the breast of our mother 
 abeat ; 
 Low, far away, sweet and solemn and clear. 
 Under the hush of the night, under the noon- 
 tide heat : 
 And we sing sweet songs to our mother, for so we 
 
 shall please her best. 
 Songs of beauty and peace, freedom and infinite 
 rest. 
 
 We sing, and sing, through the grass and the 
 stones and the reeds. 
 And we never grow tired, though we journey 
 ever and aye. 
 
 ■1 
 
 at 
 
 I 
 
 •i t 
 
 B1I 
 
1' 
 
 \l 
 
 r 
 
 40 
 
 BETWEEN THE RAPIDS. 
 
 Dreaming, and dreaming, wherever the long woy 
 
 leads, 
 . Of the far cool rocks and the rush of the wind 
 and the spray. 
 Under the sun and the stars we murmur and dance 
 
 and are free, 
 And we dream and dream of our mother, the width 
 of the sheltering sea. 
 
 IP 
 
 ; 
 
 BETWEEN THE RAPIDS. 
 
 The point is turned ; the twilight shadow fills 
 
 The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore, 
 And on our ears from deep among the hills 
 
 Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar. 
 Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face, 
 
 The fair green fields, and can it still be seen, 
 The white log cottage near the mountain's base. 
 
 So bright and quiet, so home-like ar.d serene ? 
 Ah, well I question, for as five years go. 
 How many blessings fall, and how much woe. 
 
 Aye there they are, nor have they changed their 
 cheer, 
 
 The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows ; 
 Across the lonely dusk again I hear 
 
 The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows. 
 
BETWEEN THE RAPIDS. 
 
 41 
 
 The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush 
 
 Of the low whispering river, and through all, 
 
 Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush 
 With faint-heard song or desultory call : 
 
 Oh comrades hold ; the longest reach is past ; 
 
 The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast. 
 
 The shore, the iiclds, the cottage just the same. 
 But how with them whose memory makes them 
 sweet ? 
 Oh if I called them, hailing name by name, 
 
 Would the same lips the same old shouts repeat > 
 Have the rough years, so big with death and ill, 
 
 Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet ? 
 Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never 
 still, 
 Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and ] ile Lisette, 
 The homely hearts that never cared range, 
 While life's wide fields were filled with 'ish and 
 change. 
 
 And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie ? 
 
 I cannot tell ; the fields are all a blur. 
 The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see. 
 
 Oh do they wait and do they call for her ? 
 And is she changed, or is her heart still clear 
 
 As wind or morning, light as river foam ? 
 Or have life's changes borne her far from here, 
 
 And far from rest, and far from help and home ? 
 
 **: 
 
 I' A 
 
 
 :tl 
 
 
 It 
 
 
43 
 
 BETWEEN THE RAPIDS. 
 
 Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile, 
 
 For arnjs grow tired with paddling many a mile. 
 
 The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore 
 The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours 
 steal ; 
 Like ghosts adown the river's blackening floor 
 
 The misty fumes Y gin to creep and icel. 
 Once more I leave you, wandering toward the 
 night, 
 Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held 
 me in ; 
 Whither I go I know not, and the light 
 
 Is faint before, and rest is hard to win. 
 Ah sv/eet ye were and near to heaven's gate ; 
 But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late. 
 
 Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark ! 
 
 The freshenmg roar ! The chute is near us now, 
 And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark 
 
 The water whispering from the birchen prow. 
 One long last look, and many a sad adieu. 
 
 While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet, 
 I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you, 
 
 A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette, 
 A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee, 
 A sigh for Jeanne, a so'./ for Verginie. 
 
 
NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 43 
 
 Oh, does she stiil remember? Is the dream 
 
 Now dead, or has she found another mate ? 
 So near, so dear ; and ah, so swift the stream ; 
 
 Even now perhaps it were not yet too late. 
 But oh, what matter ; for before the night 
 
 Has reached its middle, we have far to go : 
 Bend to your paddles, comrades ; see, the light 
 
 Ebbs off apace ; we must not linger so. 
 Aye thus it is ! Heaven gleams and then is gone* 
 Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 Once on the year's last eve in my mind's might 
 Sitting in dreams, not sad, nor quite elysian, 
 Balancing all 'twixt wonder and derision, 
 Methought my body and all this world took flight. 
 And vanished from me, as a drefim, outright ; 
 Leaning out thus in sudden strange decision, 
 I saw as it were in the flashing of a vision. 
 Far down between the tall towers of the night, 
 Borne by great winds in awful unison, 
 
 The teeming masses of mankind sweep by, 
 Even as a glittering river with deep sound 
 And innumerable banners, rolling on 
 
 Over the starry border glooms that bound 
 The last gray space in dim eternity. 
 
 »■, 
 
44 
 
 NEW YEAR'S EVE. 
 
 And all that strange unearthly multitude 
 Seemed twisted in vast seething companies^ 
 That evermore with hoarse and terrible cries 
 And desperate encounter at mad feud 
 Plunged onward, each in its implacable mood 
 Borne down over the trampled blazonries 
 Of other faiths and other phantasies, 
 Each following furiously, and each pursued ; 
 So sped they on with tumult vast and grim, 
 But ever meseemed beyond them I could see 
 White-haloed groups that sought perpetually 
 The figure of one crowned and sacrificed ; 
 And faint, far forward, floating tall and dim, 
 
 The banner of our Lord and Master, Christ. 
 
, 1 
 
 UNREST. 
 
 All day upon the garden bright 
 
 The sun shines strong, 
 But in my heart there is no light, 
 
 Or any song. 
 
 Voices of merry life go by, 
 
 Adown the street ; 
 But I am weary of the cry 
 
 And drift of feet. 
 
 With all dear things that ough: to please 
 
 The hours are blessed, 
 And yet my soul is ill at ease, 
 
 And cannot rest. 
 
 Strange spirit, leave me not too long. 
 
 Nor stint to give, 
 
 For if my soul have no sweet song, 
 
 It cannot live. 
 
 (45) 
 
 .iif 
 

 SONG, 
 
 Songs that could span the earth, 
 
 When leaping thought had stirred them, 
 
 In many an hour since birth, 
 
 We heard or dreamed we heard them. 
 
 Sometimes to all their sway 
 We yield ourselves half fearing, 
 
 Sometimes with hearts grown grey 
 We curse ourselves for hearing. 
 
 We toil and but begin ; 
 
 In vain our spirits fret them, 
 We strive, and cannot win. 
 
 Nor evermore forget them. 
 
 A light that will not stand, 
 
 That comes and goes in flashes, 
 
 Fair fruits that in the hand 
 Are turned to dust aad ashes. 
 
 Yet still the deep thoughts ring 
 
 Around and through and through us. 
 
 Sweet mights that make us sing, 
 
 But bring no resting to us. 
 (46) 
 
 
ONE DAY. 
 
 The trees rustle ; the wind blows 
 
 Merrily out of the town ; 
 The shadows creep, the sun goes 
 
 Steadily over and down. 
 
 In a brown gloom the moats gleam ; 
 
 Slender the sweet wife stands ; 
 Her lips are red ; her eyes dream ; 
 
 Kisses are warm on her hands. 
 
 The child moans ; the hours slip 
 
 Bitterly over her head : 
 in a gray dusk, the tears drip ; 
 
 Mother is up there dead. 
 
 The hermit hears the strange bright 
 
 Murmur of -life at play ; 
 In the waste day and the waste night 
 
 Times to rebel and to pray. 
 
 The laborer toils in gray wise, 
 
 Godlike and patient and calm ; 
 
 The beggar moans ; his bleared eyes 
 
 Measure the dust in his palm. 
 (47) 
 
 mi 
 
48 SLEEP. 
 
 The wise man marks the flow and ebb 
 
 Hidden and held aloof: 
 In his deep mind is laid the web, 
 
 Shuttles are driving the woof. 
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 If any man, with sleepless care oppressed, 
 On many a night had risen, and addressed 
 His hand to make him out of joy and moan 
 An image of sweet sleep in carven stone, 
 Light touch by touch, in weary moments planned, 
 He would have wrought her with a patient hand, 
 Not like her brother death, with massive limb 
 And dreamless brow, unstartled, changeless, dim, 
 But very fair, though fitful and afraid, 
 More sweet and slight than any mortal mrid. 
 Her hair he would have carved a mantle smooth 
 Down to her tender feet to wrap and soothe 
 All fevers in, yet barbed here and there 
 With many a hidden sting of restless care ; 
 Her brow most quiet, thick with opiate rest, 
 Yet watchfully lined, as if some hovering guest 
 Of noiseless doubt were there ; so too her eyes 
 His light hand would have carved in cunning wise 
 
 t 
 
 f 
 
SLEEP. 
 
 49 
 
 Broad with all languor of the drowsy vSouth, 
 Most beautiful, but held askance ; her mouth 
 More soft and round than any rose half-spread, 
 Yet ever twisted with some nervous dread. 
 He would have made her with one marble foot, 
 Frail as a snow-white feather, forward put, 
 Beanng sweet medicine for all distress. 
 Smooth languor and unstrung forgetfulness j 
 The other held a little back for dread ; 
 One slender moonpale hand held forth to shed 
 Soft slumber dripping from its pearly tip 
 Into wide eyes ; the other on her lip. 
 So in the watches of his sleepless care 
 The cunning artist would have wrought her fair ; 
 Shy goddess, at keen seeking most afraid 
 Yet often coming, when we least have prayed. 
 
THREE FLOWER PETALS. 
 
 What saw I yesterday walking apart 
 In a leafy place where the cattle wait ? 
 
 Something to keep for a charm in my heart — 
 ■ A little sweet girl in a garden gate. 
 
 Laughing she lay in the gold sun's might, 
 And held for a target to shelter her, 
 
 In her little soft fingers, round and white. 
 The gold-rimmed face of a sunflower. 
 
 Laughing she lay on the stone that stands 
 
 For a rough-hewn step in that sunny place, 
 And her yellow hair hung down to her hands, 
 
 Shadowing over her dimpled face. 
 Her eyes like the blue of the sky, made dim 
 
 With the might of the sun that looked at her, 
 Shone la-,'ghing over the serried rim, 
 
 Golden set, of the sunflower. 
 
 Laughing, for token she gave to me 
 Three petals out of the sunflower ; — 
 
 When the petals are withered and gone, shall -be 
 Three verses of mine for praise of her. 
 
 That a tender dream of her face may rise 
 And lighten me yet in another hour. 
 
 Of her sunny hair and her beautiful eyes, 
 
 Laughing over the gold sunflower. 
 
 (50) 
 
PASSION. 
 
 As a weed beneath the ocean, 
 
 As a pool beneath a tree 
 Answers with each breath or motion 
 
 An imperious mastery ; 
 
 So my spirit swift with passion 
 Finds in every look a sign, 
 
 Catching in some wondrous fashion 
 Every mood that governs thine. 
 
 In a moment it will borrow, 
 
 Flashing in a gusty train. 
 
 Laughter and desire and sorrow 
 
 Anger and delight and pain. 
 (51) 
 
 
 m 
 
 1»> 
 
 
 « 
 
 li 
 
 jli 
 
 i * it 
 
 iH 
 
 1 1 
 
 i s 
 
 1 
 
 f t 
 
 1 
 
 
 u 
 
A BALLADE OF WAITING. 
 
 No girdle hath weaver or goldsmith wrought 
 
 So rich as the arms of my love can be ; 
 No gems with a lovelier lustre fraught 
 
 Than her eyes, when they answer me liquidly. 
 Dear lady of love, be kind to me 
 
 In days when the waters of hope abate, 
 And doubt like a shimmer on sand shall be, 
 In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. 
 
 Sweet mouth, that the wear of the world hath taught 
 
 No glitter of wile or traitorie, 
 More soft than a cloud in the sunset caught. 
 Or the heart of a crimson peony ; 
 Oh turn not its beauty away from me ; 
 
 To kiss it and cling to it early and late 
 Shall make sweet minutes of days that flee, 
 In the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. 
 
 Rich hair, that a painter of old had sought 
 
 For the weaving of some soft phantasy. 
 
 Most fair when the streams of it run distraught 
 
 On the firm sweet shoulders yellowly; 
 
 (52) 
 
BEFORE SLEEP. 
 
 Dear Lady, gather it close to me, 
 Weaving a nest for the double freight 
 
 Of cheeks and lips that are one and free. 
 For the year yet, Lady, to dream and wait. 
 
 Envoi. 
 
 So time shall be swift till thou mate with me, 
 For love is mightiest next to fate. 
 
 And none shall be happier, Love, than we. 
 In the year yet, Lady, to dream and waiL 
 
 53 
 
 BEFORE SLEEP. 
 
 Now the creeping nets of sleep 
 Stretch about and gather nigh, 
 
 And the midnight dim and deep 
 Like a spirit passes by, 
 
 Trailing from her crystal dress 
 Dreams and silent frostiness. 
 
 Yet a moment, ere I be 
 
 Tangled in the snares of night, 
 All the dreamy heart of me 
 
 To my Lady takes its flight. 
 To her chamber where she lies. 
 
 Wrapt in midnight phantasies. 
 
 Li 
 
 ■fj 
 
 t 
 
54 BEFORE SLEEP. 
 
 Over many a glinting street 
 
 And the snow capped roofs of men, 
 
 Towers that tremble with the beat 
 Of the midnight bells, and then, 
 
 Where my body may not be, 
 Stands my spirit holily. 
 
 Wake not, Lady, wake not soon : 
 Through the frosty windows fall 
 
 Broken glimmers of the moon 
 Dimly on the floor and wall ; 
 
 Wake not, Lady, never care, 
 'Tis my spirit kneeling there. 
 
 Let him kneel a moment now. 
 For the minutes fly apace ; 
 
 Let him see the sleeping brow, 
 And the sweetly rounded face : 
 
 He shall tell me soon aright 
 How my Lady looks to-night. 
 
 How her tresses out and in 
 Fold in many a curly freak, 
 
 Round about the snowy chin 
 And the softly tinted cheek, 
 
 Where no sorrows now can weep, 
 And the dimples lie asleep. 
 
BEFORE SLEEP. 
 
 How her eyelids meet and match, 
 Gathered in two dusky seams, 
 
 Each the httle creamy thatch 
 Of an azure house of dreams, 
 
 Or two flowers that love the light 
 Folded softly up at night. 
 
 How her bosom, breathing low. 
 
 Stirs the wavy coverlet 
 With a motion soft and slow : 
 
 Oh, my Lady, wake not yet ; 
 There without a thought of guile 
 
 Let my spirit dream a while. 
 
 Yet, my spirit, back to me. 
 Hurry soon and have a care ; 
 
 Love will turn to agony, 
 If you rashly linger there ; 
 
 Bending low as spirits may. 
 Touch her lips and come away. 
 
 So, fond spirit, beauty-fed. 
 
 Turning when your watch is o'er, 
 Weave a cross above the bed 
 
 And a sleep-rune on the floor. 
 That no evil enter there. 
 
 Ugly shapes and dreams beware. 
 
 55 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 'H 
 
 ill 
 
 1 - i«i 
 
66 A SONG. 
 
 Then, ye looming nets of sleep, 
 Ye may have me all your own, 
 
 For the night is wearing deep 
 And the ice-winds whisk and moan ; 
 
 Come with all your drowsy stress, 
 Dreams and silent frostiness. 
 
 A SONG. 
 
 Oh night and sleep. 
 
 Ye are so soft and deep, 
 I am so weary, come ye soon to me. 
 
 Oh hours that creep. 
 
 With so much time to weep, 
 I am so tired, can ye no swifter be ? 
 
 C'jme, night, anear ; 
 
 I'll whisper in thine ear 
 What makes me so unhappy, full of care ; 
 
 Dear night, I die 
 
 For love that all men buy 
 With tears, and know not it is dark despair. 
 
 Dear night, I pray. 
 How is it that men say 
 That love is sweet ? It is not sweet to me. 
 
A SONG. 
 
 57 
 
 For one boy's sake 
 A poor girl's heart must break ; 
 So sweet, so true, and yet it could not be ! 
 
 Oh, I loved well, 
 
 Such love as none can tell : 
 It was so true, it could not make him know: 
 
 For he was blind. 
 
 All light and all unkind : 
 Oh, had he known, would he have hurt me so ? 
 
 Oh night and sleep. 
 
 Ye are so soft and deep, 
 I am so weary, come ye soon to me. 
 
 Oh hours that creep, 
 
 With so much time to weep, 
 I am so tired, can ye no swifter be ? 
 
 ■■ , 
 
; 
 
 ir 
 
 WHAT DO POETS WANT WITH GOLD ? 
 
 What do poets want with gold, 
 
 Cringing slaves and cushioned ease ; 
 
 Are not crusts and garmepts old 
 Better for their souls than these ? 
 
 Gold is but the juggling rod 
 
 Of a false usurping god, 
 
 Graven long ago in hell 
 
 With a sombre stony spell, 
 
 Working in the world forever. 
 
 Hate is not so strong to sever 
 
 Beating\human heart from heart. 
 
 Soul from soul we shrink and part. 
 
 And no longer hail each other 
 
 With the ancient name of brother 
 
 Give the simple poet gold, 
 
 And his song will die of cold. 
 
 He must walk with men that reel 
 
 On the rugged path, and feel 
 
 Every sacred soul that is 
 
 Beating very near to his. 
 
 Simple, human, careless, free, 
 
 As God made him, he must be : 
 (58) 
 

 WHAT DO POETS WANT WITH GOLD ? 59 
 
 For the sweetest song of bird 
 Is the hidden tenor heard 
 In the dusk, at even-flush, 
 From the forest's inner hush, 
 Of the simple hermit thrush. 
 
 What do poets want with love ? 
 
 Flowers that shiver out of hand. 
 And the fervid fruits that prove 
 
 Only bitter broken sand ? 
 
 Poets speak of passion best, 
 When their dreams are undistressed. 
 And the sweetest songs are sung. 
 E'er the inner heart is stung. 
 Let them dream ; 'tis better so ; 
 Ever dream, but never know. 
 If their spirits once have drained 
 All that goblet crimson-stained, 
 Finding what they dreamed divine, 
 Only earthly sluggish wine, 
 Sooner will the warm lips pale. 
 And the flawless voices fail. 
 Sooner come the drooping wing, 
 And the afterdays that bring. 
 No such songs as did the spring. 
 
 21. s 
 
 \ m 
 
3 
 Jt 
 
 
 •if 
 
 THE KING'S SABBATH. 
 
 Once idly in his hall king Olave sat 
 
 Pondering, and with his dagger whittled chips ;. 
 
 And one drew near to him with austere lips, 
 Saying, " To-morrow is Monday," and at that 
 The king said nothing, but held forth his flat 
 
 Broad palm, and bending on his mighty hips, 
 
 Took up and mutely laid thereon the slips 
 Of scattered wood, as on a hearth, and gat 
 From off the embers near, a burning brand. 
 
 Kindling the pile with this, the dreaming Dane 
 Sat silent with his eyes set and his bland 
 
 Proud mouth, tight- woven, smiling, drawn .t^ith 
 pain, 
 
 Watching the fierce fire flare, and wax, and wane,. 
 
 Hiss and burn down upon his shrivelled hand. 
 
 (60) 
 
THE LITTLE HANDMAIDEN 
 
 The King's son walks in the garden fair — 
 
 Oh, the maiden's heart is merry! 
 He httle knows for his toil and care, 
 That the bride is gone and the bower is bare. 
 
 Put on garments of ivhitc, my maidens ! 
 
 The sun shines bright through the casement high- 
 er/?, the maiden's heart is merry ! 
 The little handmaid, with a laughing eye, 
 Looks down on the king's son, strolling by. 
 Put on garments of white, my maidefis ! 
 
 *' He little knows that the bride is gone, 
 And the Earl knows little as he ; 
 
 She is fled with her lover afar last night, 
 And the King's son is left to me." 
 
 And back to her chamber with velvety ste[j 
 
 The little handmaid did glide. 
 
 And a gold key took from her bosom sweet, 
 
 And opened the great chests wide. 
 (61) 
 
 1' - 1 
 
63 
 
 THE LITTLE HANDMAIDEN. 
 
 She bound her hair with a band of blue, 
 And a garland of lilies sweet ; 
 
 And put on her delicate silken shoes. 
 With roses on both her feet. 
 
 She clad her body in spotless white, 
 
 With a girdle as red as blood. 
 The glad white raiment her beauty bound. 
 
 As the sepels bind the bud. 
 
 And round and round her white neck she flung 
 
 A necklace of sapphires blue ; 
 On one white finger of either hand 
 
 A shining ring she drew. 
 
 And down the stairway and out of the door 
 
 She glided, as soft and light, 
 As an airy tuft of a thistle seed 
 
 Might glide through the grasses bright. 
 
 And into the garden sweet she stole — 
 The little birds carolled loud — 
 
 Her beauty shone as a star might shine 
 In the rift of a morning cloud. 
 
 The King's son walked in the garden fair. 
 And the little handmaiden came, 
 
 Through the midst of a shimmer of roses red, 
 Like a sunbeam through a flame. 
 
n 
 
 THE LITTLE HANDMAIDEN. 63 
 
 The King's son marvelled, his heart leaped up, 
 '* And art thou my bride ? " said he, 
 
 '' For, North or South, I have never beheld 
 A lovelier maid than thee," 
 
 " And dost thou love me ? " the little maid cried, 
 
 " A fine King's son, I wis ! " 
 And the King's son took her with both his hands. 
 
 And her ruddy lips did kiss. 
 
 And the little maid laughed till the beaded tears, 
 
 Ran down in a silver rain. 
 "O foolish King's son !" and she clapped her hands. 
 
 Till the gold rings rang again. 
 
 *' O King's son, foolish and fooled art thou. 
 
 For ? goodly game is played : 
 Thy bride is away with her lover last night, 
 
 And I am her little handmaid." 
 
 And the King's son sware a great oath, said he, — 
 
 O/i, the maideti's heart is merry! 
 " If the Earl's fair daughter a traitress be, 
 The little handmaid is enough for .Tie." 
 
 Put on garments of white, my maidens ! 
 
 The King's son walks in the garden fair — • 
 
 Oh, the maiden^ s heart is merry ! 
 And the little handmaiden walketh there, 
 But the old Earl pulleth his beard for (are. 
 Put on garments of white, my maidens ! 
 
 
 I 
 
! 
 
 I 
 
 ' 
 
 . 
 
 ABU MIDJAN. 
 
 Underneath a tree at noontide 
 Abu Midjan sits distressed, 
 
 P'etters on his wrists and ancles, 
 And his chin upon his breast ; 
 
 For the Emir's guard had taken. 
 As they passed from Une to line. 
 
 Reeling in the camp at midnight, 
 Abu Midjan drunk with wine. 
 
 Now he sits and rolls uneasy. 
 Very fretful, for he hears. 
 
 Near at hand, the shout of battle, 
 And the din of driving spears. 
 
 Both his heels in wrath are digging 
 Trenches in the grassy soil, 
 
 And his fingers clutch and loosen. 
 Dreaming of the Persian spoil. 
 
 To the garden, over-weary 
 
 Of the sound of hoof and sword. 
 
 Came the Emir's gentle lady, 
 
 Anxious for her fighting lord. 
 (64) 
 
ABU MID J AN. 
 
 Very sadly, Abu Midjan, 
 
 Hanging down his head for shame, 
 Spake in words of soft appealing 
 
 To the tender-hearted dame : 
 
 " Lady, while the doubtful battle 
 Ebbs and flows upon the plains, 
 
 Here in sorrow, meek and idle, 
 Abu Midjan sits in chains. 
 
 " Surely Saad would be safer 
 For the strength of even me ; 
 
 Give me then his armour, Lady, 
 And his horse, and set me free. 
 
 " When the day of fight is over, 
 With the spoil that he may earn. 
 
 To his chains, if he is living, 
 Abu Midjan will return." 
 
 She, in wonder and compassion, 
 Had not heart to say him nay ; 
 
 So, with Saad's horse and armour, 
 Abu Midjan rode away. 
 
 Happy from the fight at even, 
 
 Saad told his wife at meat, 
 How the army had been succoured 
 
 In the fiercest battle-heat. 
 
 By a stranger horseman, coming 
 
 When their hands were most in need, 
 
 66 
 
 i t ® 
 
 
 M 
 
5 
 
 66 ABU MID J AN. 
 
 And he bore the arms of Saad, 
 And was mounted on his steed ; 
 
 How the faithful battled forward, 
 Mighty where the stranger trod, 
 
 Till they deemed him more than mortal. 
 And an angel sent from God. 
 
 Then the lady told her master 
 How she gave the horse and mail 
 
 To the drunkard, and had taken 
 Abu Midjan's word for bail. 
 
 To the garden went the Emir, 
 Running to the tree, and found 
 
 1'orn with many wounds a d bleeding, 
 Abu Midjan meek and bound. 
 
 And the Emir loosed him, saying, 
 As he gave his hand for sign, 
 
 " Never more shall Saad's fetters 
 
 Chafe thee for a draught of wine." • 
 
 Three times to the ground in silence 
 Abu Midjan bent his head ; 
 
 'I'hen with glowing eyes uplifted. 
 To the Emir spake and said : 
 
 " While an earthly lord controlled me. 
 All things for the wine I bore ; 
 
 Now, since God alone shall judge me, 
 Abu Midjan drinks no more" 
 
THE WEAVER. 
 
 All day, all day, round the clacking net 
 
 The weaver's fingers fly : 
 Gray dreams like frozen mists are set 
 
 In the hush of the weaver's eye ; 
 A voice from the dusk is calling yet, 
 
 " Oh, come away, or we die ! " 
 
 Without is a horror of hosts that fight. 
 That rest not, and cease not to kill, 
 
 The thunder of feet and the cry of flight, 
 A slaughter weird and shrill ; 
 
 Gray dreams are set in the weaver's sight, 
 The weaver is weaving still. 
 
 " Come away, dear soul, come away, or we die ; 
 
 Hear'st thou the moan and the rush ! Come 
 away ; 
 The people are slain at the gates, and they fly ; 
 
 The kind God hath left them this day ; 
 
 The battle-axe cleaves, and the foemen cry, 
 
 And the red swords swing and slay." 
 
 (67) 
 
 P ! 
 
I if .i 
 
 68 
 
 THE WEAVER. 
 
 " Nay, wife, what boots it to fly from pain, 
 
 When pain is wherever we fly ? 
 And death is a sweeter thing than a chain : 
 
 Tis sweeter to sleep than to cry. 
 The kind God giveth the days that wane ; 
 
 If the kind God hath said it, I die." 
 
 And the weaver wove, and the good wife fled. 
 
 And the city was made a tomb, 
 And a flame that shook from the rocks overhead 
 
 Shone into that silent room, 
 And touched like a wide red kiss on the dead 
 
 Brown weaver slain by his loom. 
 
 Yet I think that in some dim shadowy land, 
 
 Where no suns rise or set. 
 Where the ghost of a whilom loom doth stand 
 
 Round the dusk of its silken net, 
 Forever flyeth his shadowy hand. 
 
 And the weaver is weaving yet. 
 
THE THREE PIL(;RIMS. 
 
 In days, when the fruit of men's labour was sparing, 
 And hearts were weary and nigh to break, 
 
 A sweet grave man with a beautiful bearing 
 Came to us once in the fields and spake. 
 
 He told us of Roma, the marvellous city. 
 And of One that came from the living God, 
 
 The Virgin's Son, who in heavenly pity, 
 Bore for His people the rood and rod. 
 
 And how at Roma the gods were broken, 
 The new was strong, and the old nigh dead. 
 
 And love was more than a bare word spoken, 
 For the sick were healed and the poor were fed ; 
 
 And we sat mute at his feet, and hearkened : 
 The grave man came in an hour, and went. 
 
 But a new light shone on a land long darkened ; 
 The toil was v/eary, the fruit was spent : 
 
 So we came south, till we saw the city. 
 
 Speeding three of us, hand in hand, 
 Seeking peace and the bread of pity, 
 
 Journeying out of the Umbrian land ; 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
I 
 
 
 I 
 
 ii 
 
 70 
 
 THE THREE PILGRIMS. 
 
 Till we saw from the hills in a dazzled comu 
 Over the vines that ihe wind made shiver, 
 
 Tower on tower, the great city Roma, 
 Palace and temple, and winding river : 
 
 And we stood long in a d'-eam and waited, 
 
 Watching and praying and purified. 
 And came at last to the walls belated. 
 
 Entering in at the eventide : 
 
 And many met us with song and dancing. 
 Mantled in skins and crowned with flowers, 
 
 VV iving goblets and torches glancing. 
 Faces drunken, that grinned in ours : 
 
 And one, that ran in the midst, came near us — 
 " Crown yourselves for the feast," he said. 
 
 But we cried out, that the God might hear us, 
 " Where is Jesus, the living bread ? " 
 
 And they took us each by the hand with laughter ; 
 
 Their eyes were haggard and red with w'ne : 
 They haled us on, and we followed aftei, 
 
 " We will show you the new God's shrine." 
 
 Ah, woe to cur ton^U'" , that, forever unsleeping, 
 
 Harp and uncover the old hot care, 
 The soothing ash from the embers sweeping, 
 
 Wherever the soles of our sad feet fare. 
 
THE THREE PILGRIMS. 
 
 71 
 
 Ah, we were simple of mind, not knowing. 
 How dreadful the heart of a man might be ; 
 
 But the knowledge of evil is mighty of growing ; 
 Only the deaf and the blind are free. 
 
 We came to a garden of beauty and pleasure — 
 It was not the way that our own feet chose — 
 
 Where a '^evel was whirling in many a measure, 
 And the myriad roar of a great crowd rose ; 
 
 And the midmost round of the garden was reddened 
 With pillars of fire in a great high ring — 
 
 One look — and our souls forever were deadened, 
 Though our feet yet move, and our dreams yet 
 sting ; 
 
 For we saw that each was a live man flaming, 
 
 Limbs that a human mother bore. 
 And a thing of horror was done, past naming, 
 
 And the crowd spun round, and we saw no more • 
 
 And he that ran in the midst, descrying, 
 Lifted his hand with a foul red sneer, 
 
 And smote us each and the other, crying, 
 " Thus we worship the new God here. 
 
 "The Caesar comes, and the p^jpl^'s paians 
 Hail his name for the new * .de ' o^t, 
 
 Pitch and the flesh of tr.e Galileans, 
 Torches fit for a Roman night ; " 
 
 111^ 
 
 
72 
 
 THE THREE PILGRIMS. 
 
 And we fell down to the earth, and sickened, 
 Moaning, three of us, head by head, 
 
 " Where is He, whom the good God quickened ? 
 Where is Jesus, the living bread ? " 
 
 Yet ever we heard, in the foul mirth turning, 
 
 Man and woman and child go by. 
 And ever the yells of the charred men burning, 
 
 Piercing heavenward, cry on cry ; 
 
 And we lay there, till the frightful revel 
 Died in the dawn wilh a few short moans 
 
 Of some that knelt in the wan and level 
 
 Shadows, that fell from the blackened bones. 
 
 Numb with horror and sick with pity. 
 The heart of each as an iron weight, 
 
 We crept in the dawn from the awful city, 
 Journeying out of the seaward gate. 
 
 The great sun came from the sea before us ; 
 
 A soft wind blew from the scented south ; 
 But our eyes knew not of the steps that bore us 
 
 Down to the ships at the Tiber's mouth ; 
 
 And we prayed then, as we turned our faces 
 
 Over the sea to the living God, 
 That our ways might be in the fierce bare places, 
 
 Where never the foot of a live man trod : 
 
 
THE COMING OF WINTER. 
 
 And we set sail in the noon not caring, 
 Whither the prow of the dark ship came, 
 
 No more over the old ways faring ; 
 
 For the sea was cold, but the land was flame 
 
 And the keen ship sped, and a deadly coma 
 Blotted away from our eyes forever, 
 
 Tower o* tower, the great city Roma, 
 Palace and temple and yellow river. 
 
 78 
 
 THE COMING OF WINTER. 
 
 t ».;!- 
 
 of the Northland sombre weirds are calhng ; 
 A shadow falleth southward day by day ; 
 Sad summer's arms grow cold ; his fire is falling : 
 His feet draw back to give the stern one way. 
 
 It is the voice and shadow of the slayer, 
 Slayer of loves, sweet world, slayer of dreams ; 
 
 Make sad thy voice with sober plaint and prayer ; 
 Make gray thy woods, and darken al! thy streams. 
 
 Black grows the river, blacker drifts the eddy : 
 'i ..^ sky is grey ; the woods are cold below : 
 
 Oh make thy bosom, and thy sad lips ready, 
 For the cold kisses of the folding snow. 
 
 I 
 

 i 
 
 EASTER EVE. 
 
 Hear me, Brother, gently met ; 
 
 Just a little, turn not yet, 
 
 Thou shalt laugh, and soon forget : 
 
 Now the midnight draweth near. 
 I have little more to tell ; 
 Soon with hollow stroke and knell, 
 Thou shalt count the palace bell. 
 
 Calling that the hour is here. 
 
 Burdens black and strange to bear, 
 I must tell, and tnou must share. 
 Listening with that stony stare, 
 
 Even as many a man before. 
 Years have lightly come and gone 
 In their jocund unison, 
 But the tides of life roll on 
 
 They remember now no more. 
 
 Once upon a night of glee, 
 In an hour of revelry, 
 As I wandered restlessly, 
 
 I beheld with burning eye, 
 How a pale procession roiled 
 Through a quarter quaint and old. 
 With its banners and its gold. 
 
 And the crucifix went by. 
 
 (74) 
 
EASTER EVE. 
 
 76 
 
 Well I knew that body brave 
 
 That was pierced and hung to save, 
 
 But my flesh was now a grave 
 
 For the soul that gnashed within. 
 He that they were bearing by, 
 With their banners white and high, 
 He was pure, and foul was I, 
 
 And his whiteness mocked my sin. 
 
 Ah, meseemed that even he, 
 Would not wait to look on me, 
 In my years and misery, 
 
 Things that he alone could heal. 
 In mine eyes I felt the flame 
 Of a rage that nought could tame, 
 And 1 cried and cursed his name, 
 
 Till my brain began to reel. 
 
 In a moment I was 'ware, 
 IIow that many watching there, 
 Fearfully with l)lanch and stare, 
 
 Crossed themselves, and shrank away ; 
 Then upon my reeling mind, 
 Like a sharp blow from behind. 
 Fell the truth, and left me blind, 
 
 Hopeless now, and all astray. 
 
 O'er the city wandering wide. 
 Seeking but some place to hide. 
 Where the sounds of mirth had died, 
 Through the shaken night I stole ; 
 
 I 
 
76 EASTER EVE. 
 
 From the ever-eddying stream 
 Of the crowds that did but seem 
 Like processions in a dream 
 To my empty echoing soul. 
 
 Till I came at last alone 
 To a hidden street of stone, 
 Where the city's monotone 
 
 On the silence fell no more. 
 Then I saw how one in white 
 With a footstep mute and light, 
 Through the shadow of the night 
 
 Like a spirit paced before. 
 
 And a sudden stillness came 
 'I'hrough my spirit and my frame, 
 And a spell without a name 
 
 Held me in his mystic track. 
 Though his presence seemed so mild, 
 Vet he led me like a child, 
 With a yearning strange and wild. 
 
 That I dared not turn me back. 
 
 Oh, I could not see his face, 
 Nor behold his utmost grace, 
 Yet I might not change my pace 
 
 Fastened by a strange belief; 
 For his steps were sad and slow, 
 And his hands hung straight below, 
 And his head was bowed, as though 
 
 Pressed by some immortal grief. 
 
EASTER EVE. 
 
 77 
 
 So I followed, yet not 1 
 Held alone that company : 
 Every silent passer-by 
 
 Paled and turned and joined with nie ; 
 So we followed still and fleet, 
 While the city street by street, 
 Fell behind our rustling feet 
 
 Like a deadened memory. 
 
 Where the sound of sin and riot 
 Broke upon the night's dim quiet, 
 And the solemn bells hung nigh it 
 
 Echoed from their looming towers ; 
 Where the mourners wept alway. 
 Watching for the morning grey ; 
 Where the weary toiler lay, 
 
 Husbanding the niggard hours ; 
 
 By the gates where all night long 
 Guests in many a joyous throng, 
 With the sound of dance and song, 
 
 Dreamed in golden palaces ; 
 Still he passed, and door by door 
 Opened with a pale outijour, 
 And the revel rose no more 
 
 Hushed in deeper phantasies. 
 
 As we passed, the talk and stir 
 Of the quiet wayfarer 
 And the noisy banqueter 
 
 Died upon the midnight dim. 
 
 I 
 
iH 
 
 I 
 
 78 EASTER EVE. 
 
 They that reeled in drunken glee 
 Shrank npon the trembling knee, 
 And their jests died pallidly, 
 
 As they rose and followed him. 
 
 From the street and from the hall. 
 
 From the flare of festival 
 
 None that saw him stayed, but all 
 
 Followed where his wonder would 
 And our feet at first so few 
 Gathered as those white feet drew, 
 Till at last our number grew 
 
 To a pallid multitude ; 
 
 And the hushed and awful beat 
 Of our pale unnumbered feet 
 Made a murmur strange and sweet. 
 
 As we followed evermo'e. 
 Now the night was almost passed, 
 And the dawn was overcast. 
 When the stranger stayed at last 
 
 At a great cathedral door. 
 
 Never word the stranger said, 
 Eut he slowly raised his head. 
 And the vast doors opened 
 
 By an unseen hand withdrawn ; 
 And in silence wave on wave. 
 Like an arnjy from the grave, 
 Up the aisles and up the nave. 
 
 All that spectral crowd rolled on. 
 
EASTER EVE. 79 
 
 As I followed close behind, 
 Knowledge like an awful wind 
 Seemed to blow my naked mind 
 
 Into darkness black and bare ; 
 Yet with longing wild and dim, 
 And a terror vast and grim. 
 Nearer still I pressed to him. 
 
 Till I almost touched his hair. 
 
 From the gloom so strange and eery, 
 From the organ low and dreary. 
 Rose the wailing miserere, 
 
 By mysterious voices sung ; 
 And a dim light shone, none knew, 
 How it came, or whence it grew, 
 From the dusky roof and through 
 
 All the solemn spaces flung. 
 
 But the stranger still passed on, 
 Till he reached the altar stone, 
 And with body white and prone 
 
 Sunk his forehead to the floor ; 
 And I saw in my despair, 
 Standing like a spirit there. 
 How his head was bruised ind bare. 
 
 And his hands were clenched before, 
 
 How his hair was fouled and knit 
 With the blood that clotted it. 
 Where the prickled thorns had bit 
 In his crowned agony ; 
 
i 
 
 ;i 
 
 f-lP 
 
 t|' 
 
 t 
 
 8() EASTER EVE. 
 
 In his hands so wan and blue, 
 Leaning out, I saw i'-<e two 
 Marks of where the nails pierced through, 
 Once on gloomy Calvary. 
 
 Then with trembling throat I owned 
 All my dark sin unatoned, 
 Telling it with Hps that moaned, 
 
 And methought an echo came 
 From the bended crowd btlow. 
 Each one breathing faint and low. 
 Sins that none but he might know : 
 
 " Master I did curse thy name." 
 
 And I saw him slowly rise 
 With his sad unearthly eyes, 
 Meeting mine wuh meek surprise. 
 
 And a voice came solemnly. 
 " Never more on mortal ground 
 For thy soul shall rest be found. 
 But when bells at midnight sound 
 
 Thou must rise and come with me." 
 
 Then my forehead smote the floor, 
 Swooning, and I knew no more. 
 Till I heard the chancel door 
 
 Open for the choristers : 
 But the stranger's form was gone. 
 And the church was dim and lone : 
 Through the silence, one by one 
 
 Stole the early worshippers. 
 
EASTER EVE. 
 
 I am ageing now I know; 
 'I'hat was many years ago, 
 Yet or I shall rest helow 
 
 In the grave where none intrude, 
 Night by night I roam the street, 
 And that awlul form I meet, 
 And I follow pale and fleet, 
 With a ghostly nmltitude. 
 
 Every night I see his face, 
 
 With its sad and burdened grace, 
 
 And the torn and bloody trace, 
 
 That in hands and feet he has. 
 Once my life was dark and bad ; 
 Now its days are strange and sad. 
 And the people call me mad : 
 
 See, they whisper as they pass .' 
 
 Even now the echoes roll 
 
 From the swinging bells that toll ; 
 
 It is midnight, now my soul 
 
 Hasten, for he glideth by. 
 Stranger, 'tis no phantasie : 
 Look ! my master waits for me 
 Mutely, but thou canst not see 
 With thy mortal blinded eye. 
 
 81 
 
 I 
 
IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 !0 
 
 IIIM \\\\\2A 
 
 I.I 
 
 S IIIM 1^ 
 
 1^ iiPs 
 
 MO 
 
 2.0 
 
 1.8 
 
 
 1.25 1.4 
 
 1.6 
 
 
 < 
 
 6" - 
 
 
 ► 
 
 ^ 
 
 <^ 
 
 /}. 
 
 A 
 
 'ew 
 
 e": 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 4 :> 
 
 ^ ^ 
 >.>'^ 
 
 M 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 '1' 
 
 '/ 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 Corporation 
 
 ^ 
 
 i? 
 
 V 
 
 4n^ 
 
 \\ 
 
 <b 
 
 V 
 
 <^ 
 
 
 6^ 
 
 a 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 WEBSTER, NY. 14580 
 
 (716) sy^-Asoa 
 


 THE ORGANIST. 
 
 In his dim chapel day by day 
 
 The organist was wont to play, 
 And please hiinself with fluted reveries ; 
 
 And all the spirit's joy and strife, 
 
 The longing of a tender life, 
 Took sound and form upon the ivory keys ; 
 
 And though he seldom spoke a word. 
 
 The simple hearts that loved him he^rd 
 His glowing soul in these. 
 
 One day as he v/as wrapped, a sound 
 Of feet stole near ; he turned and found 
 
 A little maid that stood beside him there. 
 She started, and in shrinking-wise 
 Besought him with her liquid eyes 
 
 And little features, very sweet and spare. 
 
 " You love the music, child," he said, 
 
 And laid his hand upon her head, 
 
 And smoothed her matted hair. 
 (82) 
 
THE ORGANIST. 
 
 89 
 
 She answered, "At the door one day 
 
 I sat and heard the organ play ; 
 I did not dare to come inside for fear ; 
 
 But yesterday, a Httle while, 
 
 I crept half up the empty aisle 
 And heard the music sounding sweet and clear ; 
 
 To-day I thought you would not mind, 
 
 For, master dear, your face was kind, 
 And so I came up here." 
 
 " You love the music then," he said. 
 
 And still he stroked her golden head, 
 -*jnd :. '-owcU out some winding reverie ; 
 
 "Aao you ure poor ?" said he at last ; 
 
 The maiden nodded, and he passed 
 His hand across his forehead dreamingly ; 
 
 "And will you be my friend ?" he spake, 
 
 "And on the organ learn to make 
 Grand music here with me ?" 
 
 And all the little maiden's face 
 Was kindled with a grateful grace ; 
 
 "Oh, master, teach me ; I will slave for thee !" 
 She cried ; and so the child grew dear 
 To him, and slowly year by year 
 
 He taught her all the organ's majesty ; 
 And gave her from his slender store 
 Bread and warm clothing, that no more 
 Her cheeks were pinched to see. 
 

 
 84 THE OEOANIST. 
 
 And year by year the maiden grew 
 Taller and lovelier, and the hue 
 
 Deepened upon her tender cheeks untried. 
 Rounder, and queenlier, and more fair 
 Her form grew, and her golden hair 
 
 Fell yearly richer at the master's side. 
 In speech and bearing, form and face, 
 Sweeter and graver, grace by grace, 
 Her beauties multiplied. 
 
 And sometimes at his work a glow 
 Would touch him, and he murmured low, 
 
 " How beautiful she is ?"' and bent his head ; 
 And sometimes when the day went by 
 And brought no maiden he would sigh, 
 
 And lean and listen for her velvet tread ; 
 And he would drop his hands and say, 
 " My music cometh not to-day ; 
 Pray God she be not dead !" 
 
 So the sweet maiden filled his heart, 
 And with her growing grew his art. 
 
 For day by day more wondrously he played. 
 Such heavenly things the master wrought. 
 That in his happy dreams he thought 
 
 The organ's self did love the gold-haired maid 
 But she, the maiden, never guessed 
 What prayers for her in hours of rest 
 The sombre organ prayed. 
 

 THE ORGANIST, 89 
 
 At last, one summer morning fair, 
 The maiden came with braided hair 
 
 And took his hands, and held them eagerly. 
 " To-morrow is my wedding day ; 
 Dear master, bless me that the way 
 
 Of life be smooth, not bitter unto me." 
 He stirred not ; but the light did go 
 Out of his shrunken cheeks, and oh ! 
 His head hung heavily. 
 
 " You love him, then ?" " I love him well," 
 She answered, and a numbness fell 
 
 Upon his eyes and all his heart that bled. 
 A glory, half a smile, abode 
 Within the maiden's eyes and glowed 
 
 Upon her parted lips. The master said, 
 " God bless and bless ihee, little maid, 
 With peace and long delight," and laid 
 His hands upon her head. 
 
 And she was gone; and all that day 
 The hours crept up and slipped away. 
 
 And he sat still, as moveless as a stone. 
 The night came down, with quiet stars, 
 And darkened him : in colored bars 
 
 Along the shadowy aisle the moonlight shone. 
 And then the master woke and passed 
 His hands across the keys at last, 
 And made the organ moan. 
 
 
86 THE ORGANIST. 
 
 The organ shook, the music wept ; 
 
 For sometimes like a wail it crept 
 In broken moanings down the shadows drear ; 
 
 And otherwhiles the sound did swell, 
 
 And like a sudden tempest fell 
 Through all the windows wonderful and clear. 
 
 The people gathered from the street, 
 
 And filled the chapel seat by seat — 
 They could not choose but hear. 
 
 And there they sat till dawning light, 
 Nor ever stirred for awe. " To-night, 
 
 The master hath a noble mood," they said. 
 But on a sudden ceased the sound : 
 Like ghosts the people gathered round, 
 
 And on the keys they found his fallen head. 
 The silent organ had received 
 The master's broken heart relieved, 
 And he was white and dead. 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 In Nino's chamber not a sound intrudes 
 Upon the midnight's tingling silentness, 
 
 Where Nino sits before his book and broods, 
 Thin and brow-burdened with some fine distress, 
 
 Some gloom that hangs about his mournful moods 
 His weary bearing and neglected dress : 
 
 So sad he sits, nor ever turns a leaf — 
 
 Sorrow's pale miser o'er his hoard of grief. 
 
 II. 
 
 Young Nino and Leonora, they had met 
 Once at a revel by some lover's chance. 
 
 And they were young with hearts already set 
 To tender thoughts, attunbd to romance ; 
 
 Wherefore it seemed they never could forget 
 That winning touch, that one bewildering glance: 
 
 But found at last a shelter safe and sweet. 
 
 Where trembling hearts and longing hands might 
 meet. 
 
 (8T) 
 
88 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 III. 
 
 Ah, sweet their dreams, and sweet the life they led 
 With that great love that was their bosoms' all, 
 
 Yet ever shadowed by some circling dread 
 Ic gloomed at moments deep and tragical, 
 
 And so for many a month they seemed to tread 
 With fluttering hearts, whatever might belall, 
 
 Half glad, half sad, their sweet and secret way 
 
 To the soft tune of some old lover's lay. 
 
 IV. 
 
 But she is gone, alas he knows not where, 
 Or how his life that tender gift should lose : 
 
 Indeed his love was ever full of care, 
 
 The hasty joys and griefs of him who woos. 
 
 Where sweet success »s neighbour to despair. 
 With stolen looks and dangerous interviews : 
 
 But one long week she came not, nor the next. 
 
 And so he wandered here and there perplext ; 
 
 V. 
 
 Nor evermore she came. Full many days 
 
 He sought her at t';eir trysts, devised deep schemes 
 
 To lure her back, and fell on subtle ways 
 
 To win some word of her ; but all his dreams 
 
 Vanished like smcke, and then in sore amaze 
 From town to town, as one that crazed seems, 
 
 He wandered, following in unhappy quest 
 
 Uncertain clues that ended like the rest. 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 89 
 
 VI. 
 
 And now this niidnight, as he sits forlorn, 
 
 The printed page for him no meaning bears ; 
 With every word some torturing dream is born ; 
 
 And every thought is hke a step that scares 
 Old memories up to make him weep and mourn. 
 
 He cannot turn but from their latchless lairs, 
 The weary shadows of his lost delight 
 
 Rise up like dusk birds through the lonely night. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And still with questions vain he probes his grief, 
 Till thought is wearied out, and dreams grow dim. 
 
 What bitter chance, what woe beyond belief 
 Could keep his lady's heart so hid from him ? 
 
 Or was her love indeed but light and brief, 
 
 A passing thought, a moment's dream.y whim ? 
 
 Aye there it stings, the woe that never sleeps : 
 
 Poor Nino leans upon his book, and weeps. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Until at length the sudden grief that shook 
 His pierced bosom like a gust is past. 
 
 And laid full weary on the wide-spread book, 
 His eyes grow dim with slumber light and fast ; 
 
 But scarcely have his dreams had time to look 
 On lands of kindlier promise, when aghast 
 
 He starts up softly, and in wondering wif-e 
 
 Listens atremble with wide open eyes. 
 
 
90 
 
 ii 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 IX. 
 
 What sound was that ? Who knocks like one in dread 
 With such swift hands upon his outer door ? 
 
 Perhaps some beggar driven from his bed 
 By gnawing hunger he can bear no more, 
 
 Or questing traveller with confused tread, 
 Straying, bewildered in the midnight hoar 
 
 Nino uprises, scared, he knows not how. 
 
 The dreams still pale about his burdened brow. 
 
 X. 
 
 The heavy bolt he draws, and unawares 
 A stranger enters with slow steps, unsought, 
 
 A long robed monk, and in his hand he bears 
 A jewelled goblet curiously wrought ; 
 
 But of his face beneath the cowl he wears 
 For all his searching Nino seeth nought ; 
 
 And slowly past him with long stride he hies. 
 
 While Nino follows with bewildered eyes. 
 
 XI 
 
 Straight on he goes with dusky rustling gown. 
 
 His steps are soft, his hands are white and fine ; 
 And still he bears the goblet on whose crown 
 
 A hundred jewels in the lamplight shine ; 
 And ever from its edges dripping down 
 
 Falls with dark stain the rich and lustrous wine, 
 Wherefrom through all the chamber's shadowy deeps 
 A deadly perfume like a vapour creeps. 
 
 I 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 91 
 
 XII. 
 
 And now he sets it down with careful hands 
 On the slim table's polished ebony ; 
 
 And for a space as if in dreams he stands, 
 Close hidden in his sombre drapery. 
 
 *' Oh lover, by thy lady's last commands, 
 I bid thee hearken, for I bear with me 
 
 A gift to give thee and a tale to tell 
 
 From her who loved thee, while she lived, too well" 
 
 XIII. 
 
 The stranger's voice falls slow and solemnly. 
 
 Tis soft, and rich, and wondrous deep of tone ; 
 And Nino's face grows white as ivory, 
 
 Listening fast-rooted like a shape of stone. 
 Ah, blessed saints, can such a dark thing be ? 
 
 And was it death, and is Leonora gone ? 
 Oh, love is harsh, and life is frail indeed. 
 That gives men joy, and then so makes them bleed. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 ■" There is the gift I bring"; the stranger's head 
 Turns to the cup that glitters at his side : 
 
 **And now my tongue draws back for very dread, 
 Unhappy youth, from whpt it must not hide. 
 
 The saddest tale that ever lips have said ; 
 
 Yet thou must know how sweet Leonora died, 
 
 A broken martyr for love's weary sake, 
 
 And left this gift for thee to leave or take." 
 
 flu 
 
 I 
 
99 
 
 I HE MOAK. 
 
 
 XV. 
 
 Poor Nino listens with that marble face, 
 
 And eyes that move not, strangely wide and set. 
 
 The monk continues with his mournful grace : 
 "She told me, Nino, how you often met 
 
 In secret, and your plighted loves kept i)ace 
 Together, tangled m the self-same net j 
 
 Your dream's dark danger and its oread you knew. 
 
 And still you met, and still your passion grew. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 "And aye with that luxurious fire you fed 
 
 Your dangerous longing daily, crumb by crumb ; 
 
 Nor ever cared that still above your head 
 
 The shadow grew; for that your lips were dumb, 
 
 You knew full keenly you could never wed : 
 'Twas all a dream : the end must surely come ; 
 
 For not on thee her father's eyes were turned 
 
 To find a son, when mighty lords were spurned. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 "Thou knowest that new-sprung prince, that proud 
 up-start, 
 
 Pisa's new tyrant with his armfed thralls, 
 Who bends of late to take the people's part. 
 
 Yet plays the king among his marble halls, 
 Whose gloomy palace in our city's heart 
 
 Frowns like a fortress with its loop-holed walls. 
 'Twas him he sought for fair Leonora's hand, 
 That so his own declining house might stand. 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 93 
 
 XVIII. 
 "The end came soon ; 'twas never known to thee ; 
 
 But, when your 'ove ^ras scarce a six montlis old, 
 She sat one day beside her father's knee, 
 
 And in her ears the dreadful thing was told. 
 Within one month her bridal hour should be 
 
 With Messer Gianni for his power and gold ; 
 And as she sat with whitened lips the while, 
 The old man kissed her, with his crafty smile. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 " Poor pallid lady, all the woe she felt 
 
 Thou, wretched Nino, thou alone canst know. 
 
 Down at his feet with many a moan she knelt, 
 And prayed that he would never wound her so. 
 
 Ah, tender saints ! it vns a sight to melt 
 
 The flintiest heart ; but his cou'd never glow. 
 
 He sat with clenched hands and straightened head. 
 
 And frowned, and glared, and turned from white 
 to red. 
 
 XX. 
 
 "And still with cries about his knees she clung, 
 Her tender bosom broken with her care. 
 
 His words were brief, with bitter fury flung : 
 'The father's will the child must meekly bear ; 
 
 I am thy father, thou a girl and young.' 
 Then to her feet she rose in her despair, 
 
 And cried with tightened lips and eyes aglow. 
 
 One daring word, a straight and simple, " No " ! 
 
94 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 XXI. 
 
 " Her father left her with wild words, and sent 
 Rough men, who dragged her to a dungeon deep, 
 
 Where many a weary soul in darkness pent 
 
 For many a year had watched the slow days creep. 
 
 And there he left her for his dark intent, 
 
 Where madness breeds and sorrows never sleep. 
 
 Co:.rse robes he gave her, and her lips he fed 
 
 With bitter water and a crust of bread. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 "And day by day still following out his plan. 
 He came to her, and with determined spite 
 
 Strove with soft words and then with curse and ban 
 To bend her heart so wearied to his might. 
 
 And aye she bode his bitter pleasure's span. 
 As one that hears, but hath not sense or sight. 
 
 Ah, Nino, still her breaking heart held true : 
 
 Poor lady sad, she had no thought but you. 
 
 XXIII. 
 " The father tired at last and came no more, 
 
 But in his settled anger bade prepare 
 The marriage feast with all luxurious store. 
 
 With pomps and shows and splendors rich and 
 rare ; 
 And so in toil another fortnight wore. 
 
 Nor knew she aught what things were in the air. 
 Till came the old lord's message brief and coarse : 
 Within three days she should be wed by force. 
 
 « 
 
f 
 
 THE MONK. 95 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 "And all that noon and weary night she lay, 
 Poor child, like death upon her prison stone, 
 
 And none that came to her but crept away, 
 Sickened at heart to see her lips so moan, 
 
 Her eyes so dim within their sockets grey, 
 
 Her tender cheeks so thin and ghastly grown ; 
 
 But when the next morn's light began to stir, 
 
 She sent and prayed that I might be with her. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 " This boon he gave : perchance he deemed that I, 
 The chaplain of his house, her childhood's friend, 
 
 With patient tones and holy words, might try 
 To soothe her purpose to his gainful end. 
 
 I bowed full low before his crafty eye, 
 
 But knew my heart had no base help to lend. 
 
 That night with many a silent prayer I came 
 
 To poor Leonora in her grief and shame. 
 
 XXVI. 
 " But she was strange to me : I could not speak 
 
 For glad amazement, mixed with some dark fear; 
 I saw her stand no longer pale and weak. 
 
 But a proud maiden, queenly and most clear, 
 With flashing eyes and vermeil in her cheek : 
 
 And on the little table, set anear, 
 I marked two goblets of rare workmanship 
 With some strange liquor crowned to the lip. 
 
 - « 
 
 i 
 
96 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 "And then she ran to me and caught my hand, 
 Tightly imprisoned in her meagre twain, 
 
 And like the ghost of sorrow she did stand, 
 And eyed me softly with a licjuid pain : 
 
 * Oh father, grant, I pray thee, I command, 
 One boon to me, I'll never ask again, 
 
 One boon to me and to my love, to both ; 
 
 Dear father, grant, and bind it with an oath.' 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 " This granted I, and then with many a wail 
 She told me all the story of your woe. 
 
 And when she finished, lightly but most pale, 
 To those two brimming goblets she did go, 
 
 And one she took within her fingers frail. 
 
 And looked down smiling in its crimson glow : 
 
 'And now thine oath I'll tell ; God grant to thee 
 
 No rest in grave, if thou be false to me. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 " 'Alas, poor me ! whom cruel hearts would wed 
 On the sad morrow to that wicked lord ; 
 
 But I'll not go ; nay, rather I'll be dead. 
 Safe from their frown and from their bitter word. 
 
 Without my Nino life indeed were sped ; 
 And sith we two can never more accord 
 
 In this drear world, so weary and perpiext, 
 
 Wp'II die, and win sweet pleasure in the next. 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 97 
 
 XXX. 
 
 " 'Oh father, God will never give thee rest, 
 If thou 1 false to what thy lips have sworn, 
 
 And false to love, and false to me distressed, 
 A helpless maid, so broken and outworn. 
 
 This cup — she put it softly to her breast — 
 I pray thee carry, ere the morrow morn. 
 
 To Nino's hand, and tell him all my pain ; 
 
 This other with mine own lips I will drain.' 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 " Slowly she raised it to her lips, the while 
 I darted forward, madly fain to seize 
 
 Her dreadful hands, but with a sudden wile 
 
 She twisted and sprang from me with bent knees, 
 
 And rising turned upon me with a smile, 
 And drained her goblet to the very lees. 
 
 'Oh priest, remember, keep thine oath,' she cried, 
 
 And the spent goblet fell against her side. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 "And^then she moaned and murmured like a bell : 
 *My Nino, my sweet Nino !' and no more 
 
 She said, but fluttered like a bird and fell 
 Lifeless as marble to the footworn floor ; 
 
 And there she lies even now in lonely cell, 
 Poor^lady, pale with all the grief she bore. 
 
 She could not live, and still be true to thee, 
 
 And so she's gone where no rude hands can be." 
 

 98 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 The monk's voice pauses like some mournful flute, 
 
 Whose pondered closes for sheer sorrow fail, 
 And then with hand that seems as it would suit 
 
 A soft girl best, it is so light and frail, 
 He turns half round, and for a moment mute 
 
 Points to the goblet, and so ends his tale : 
 *' Mine oath is kept, thy lady's last comm'\nd ; 
 'Tis but a short hour since it left her hand." 
 
 XXXIV. 
 So ends the stranger : surely no man's tongue 
 
 Was e'er so soft, or half so sweet, as his. 
 Oft as he listened, Nino's heart had sprung 
 
 With sudden start as from a spectre's kiss ; 
 For deep in many a word he deemed had rung 
 
 The liquid fall of some loved emphasis ; 
 And so it pierced his sorrow to the core. 
 The ghost of tones that he should hear no more. 
 
 XXXV 
 
 But now the tale is ended, and still keeps 
 The stranger hidden in his dusky weed ; 
 
 And Nino stands, wide-eyed, as one that sleeps, 
 And dimly wonders how his heart doth bleed. 
 
 Anon he bends, yet neither moans nor weeps, 
 But hangs atremble, like a broken reed ; 
 
 "Ah ! bitter fate, that lured and sold us so, 
 
 Poor lady mine ; alas for all our woe 1 " 
 
THE MONK. 99 
 
 XXXVI. 
 
 But even as he moans in such dark mood, 
 His wandering eyes upon the goblet fall. 
 
 Oh, dreaming heart ! Oh, strange ingratitude t 
 So to forget his lady's lingering call, 
 
 Her parting gift, so rich, so crimson-hued. 
 The lover's draught, that shall be cure for alL 
 
 H2 lifts the goblet lightly from its place, 
 
 And smiles, and rears it with his courtly grace- 
 
 XXXVII. 
 "Oh, lady sweet, I shall not long delay : 
 
 This gift of thine shall bring me to thine eyes^ 
 Sure God will send on no unpardoned way 
 
 The faithful soul, that at such bidding dies. 
 When thou art gone, I cannot longer stay 
 
 To brave this world with all its wrath and lies, 
 Where hands of stone and tongues of dragon's breath 
 Have bruised mine angel to her piteous death." 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 And now the gleaming goblet hath scarce dyed 
 His lips' thin pallor with its deathly red, 
 
 When Nino starts in wonder, fearful-eyed. 
 For, lo ! the stranger with outstretched head 
 
 Springs at his face one soft and sudden stride. 
 And from his hand the deadly cup hath sped,, 
 
 Dashed to the ground, and all it's seeded store 
 
 Runs out like blood upon the marble floor. 
 
100 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 "Oh Nino, my sweet Nino ! speak to me, 
 
 Nor stand so strange, nor look so deathly pale. 
 
 »Twas all to prove thy heart's dear constancy 
 I brought that cup and told that piteous tale. 
 
 Ah ! chains and cells and cruel treachery 
 Are weak indeed when women's hearts assail. 
 
 Art angry, Nino ?" 'Tis no monk thai, cries, 
 
 But sweet Leonora with her love-lit eyes. 
 
 XL. 
 
 She dashes from her brow the pented hood ; 
 
 The dusky robe falls rustling to her feet ; 
 And there she stands, as aye in dreams she stood. 
 
 Ah, Nino, see ! Sure man did never meet 
 So warm a flower from such a sombre bud. 
 
 So trembling fair, so wan, so pallid sweet. 
 Aye, Nino, down like saint upon thy knee. 
 And soothe her hands with kisses warm and free. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 And now with broken laughter on her lips. 
 
 And now with moans remembering of her care, 
 
 She weeps, and smiles, and like a child she slips 
 Her lily fingers through his curly hair, 
 
 The while her head with all it's sweet she dips, 
 Close to his ear, to soothe and murmur there ; 
 
 "Oh, Nino, I was hid so long from thee, 
 
 That much I doubted what thy love might be. 
 
THE MONK. 
 
 101 
 
 XLII. 
 "And though 'twas cruel hard of me to try 
 
 Thy faithful heart with such a fearful test, 
 Yet now thou canst be happy, sweet, as I 
 
 Am wondrous happy in thy truth confessed. 
 To haggard death indeed thou needst not fiy 
 
 To find the softness of thy lady's breast ; 
 For such a gift was never death's to give. 
 But thou shalt have me for thy love, and live. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 *' Dost see these cheeks, ray Nino ? they're so thin, 
 Not round and soft, as when thou touched them 
 last : 
 
 So long with bitter rage they pent me in. 
 
 Like some poor thief in lonely dungeon cast j 
 
 Only this night through every bolt and gin 
 By cunning stealth I wrought my way at last. 
 
 Straight to thine heart I fled, unfaltering. 
 
 Like homeward pigeon with uncaged wing. 
 
 XLIV. 
 " Nay, Nino, kneel not ; let me hear thee speak. 
 
 We must not tarry long; the dawn is nigh." 
 So rises he, for very gladness weak ; 
 
 Eat half in fear that yet the dream may fly, 
 He touches mutely mouth and brow and cheek ; 
 
 Till in his ear she 'gins to plead and sigh : 
 ' * Dear love, forgive me for that cruel tale. 
 That stung thine heart and made thy lips so pale." 
 
 

 103 
 
 THE MONK. 
 
 XLV. 
 
 And so he folds her softly with quick sighs, 
 And both with murmurs warm and musical 
 
 Talk and retalk, with dim or smiling eyes, 
 Of old delights and sweeter days to fall : 
 
 And yet not long, for, ere the starlit skies 
 Grow pale above the city's eastern wall. 
 
 They rise, with lips and happy hands withdrawn, 
 
 And pass out softly into the dawn. 
 
 XLVI. 
 For Nino knows the captain of a ship, 
 
 The friend of many journeys, who may be 
 This very morn will let his cables slip 
 
 For the warm coast of sunny Sicily. 
 There in Palermo, at the harbour's lip, 
 
 A brother lives, of tried fidelity : 
 So to the quays by hidden ways they wend 
 In the pale morn, nor do they miss their friend. 
 
 XLVII. 
 
 And ere the shadow of another night 
 
 Hath darkened Pisa, many a foe shall stray 
 Through Nino's home, with eyes malignly bright 
 
 In wolfish quest, but shall not find his prey ; 
 The while those lovers in their white-winged flight 
 
 Shall see far out upon the twilight grey. 
 Behind, the glimmer of the sea, before. 
 
 The dusky outlines of a kindlier shore. 
 
 
: I 
 
 THE CHILD'S MUSIC LESSON. 
 
 Why weep ye in your innocent toil at all ? 
 
 Sweet little hands, why halt and tremble so ? 
 Full many a wrong note falls, but let it fall ! 
 
 Each note to me is like a golden glow ; 
 Each broken cadence like a morning call ; 
 
 Nay, clear and smooth I would not have you go, 
 Soft little hands, upon the curtained threshold set 
 Of this long life of labour, and unrestful fret. 
 
 Soft sunlight flickers on the checkered green : 
 
 Warm winds are stirring round my dreaming seat : 
 Among the yellow pumpkin blooms, that lean 
 
 Their crumpled rims beneath the heavy heat, 
 The stripM bees in lazy labour glean 
 
 From bell to bell with golden-feathered feet ; 
 Yet even here the voices of hard life go by ; 
 
 Outside, the city strains with its eternal cry. 
 
 Here, as I sit — the sunlight on my face. 
 
 And shadows of green leaves upon mine eyes — 
 
 My heart, a garden in a hidden place. 
 Is full of folded buds of memories. 
 
 Stray hither then with all your old time grace. 
 Child- voices, trembling from the uncertain keys ; 
 
 Play on, ye little fingers, touch the settled gloom, 
 
 And quickly,oneby one, my waiting buds will bloom. 
 
 (103) 
 
104 
 
 THE CHILD'S MUSIC LESSON. 
 
 II 
 
 Ah me, I may not set my feet again 
 
 In any part of that old garden dear, 
 Or pluck one widening blossom, for my pain ; 
 
 But only at the wicket gaze I here : 
 Old scents creep into mine inactive brain, 
 
 Smooth scents of things, I may not come anear ; 
 I see, far off, old beaten pathways they adorn ; 
 1 cannot feel with hands the blossom or the thorn. 
 
 Toil on, sweet hands ; once more I see the child ; 
 
 The little child, that was myself, appears, 
 And all the old time beauties, undefiled. 
 
 Shine back to me across the opening years. 
 Quick griefs, that made the tender bosom wild, 
 
 Short blinding gusts, that died in passionate tears, 
 Sweet life, with all its change, that now so happy 
 
 seems. 
 With all its child-heart glories, and untutored 
 dreams. 
 
 Play on into the golden sunshine so, 
 Sweeter than all great artists' labouring-: 
 
 I too was like you once, an age ago : 
 
 God keep you, dimpled fingers, for you bring 
 
 Quiet gliding ghosts to me of joy and woe, 
 No certain things at all that thrill or sting, 
 
 But only sounds and scents and savours of things 
 bright, 
 
 No joy or aching pain ; but only dim delight. 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 How the returning days, one after one, 
 
 Come ever in their rhythmic round, unchanged, 
 
 Yet from each looped robe for every man 
 
 Some new thing falls. Happy is he 
 
 Who fronts them without fear, and like the gods 
 
 Looks out unanxiously on each day's gift 
 
 With calmly curious eye. How many things 
 
 Even in a little space, both good and ill, 
 
 Have fallen on me, and yet in all of them 
 
 The keen experience or the smooth remembrance 
 
 Hath found some sweet. It scarcely seems a month 
 
 Since we saw Crete ; so swiftly sped the days. 
 
 Borne onward with how many changing scenes. 
 
 Filled with how many crowding memories. 
 
 Not soon shall I forget them, the stout ship, 
 
 All the tense labour with the windy sea. 
 
 The cloud-wrapped heights of Crete, beheld far off, 
 
 And white Cytaeon with its stormy pier, 
 
 The fruitful valleys, the wild mountain road, 
 
 And those long days of ever-vigilant toil, 
 
 Scarcely with sleepless craft and unmoved front 
 
 Escaping robbers, that quiet restful eve 
 
 (105) 
 
IS 
 
 106 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 At rich Gortyna, where we lay and watched 
 
 The dripping foliage, and the darkening fields, 
 
 And over all huge-browed above the night 
 
 Ida's great summit with it's fiery crown ; 
 
 And then once more the stormy treacherous sea, 
 
 The noisy ship, the seamen's vehement cries. 
 
 That battled with the whistling wind, the feet 
 
 Reeling upon the swaying deck, and eyes 
 
 Strained anxiously toward land ; ah, with what joy 
 
 At last the busy pier at Nauplia, 
 
 Rest and firm shelter for our racking brains : 
 
 Most sweet of all, most dear to memory 
 
 That journey with Euktemon through the hills 
 
 By fair Cleonae and the lofty pass ; 
 
 Then Corinth with its riotous jollity. 
 
 Remembered like a reeling dream ; and here 
 
 Good Theron's wedding, and this festal day ; 
 
 And I, chief helper in its various rites. 
 
 Not least,commissioned through these wakeful hours 
 
 To dream before the quiet thalamos, 
 
 Unsleeping, like some full-grown bearded Eros, 
 
 The guardian of love's sweetest mysteries. 
 
 To-morrow I shall hear again the din 
 
 Of the loosed cables, and the rowers' chaunt. 
 
 The rattled cordage and the plunging oars. 
 
 Once more the bending sail shall bear us on 
 
 Across the level of the laughing sea. 
 
 Ere mid-day we shall see far off behind us, 
 
 Faint as the summit of a sultry cloud, 
 
 n 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 107 
 
 The white Acropolis. Past Siinium 
 With rushing keel, the long Euboean strand, 
 Hymettus and the pine-dark hills shall fade 
 Into the dusk : at Andros we shall water, 
 And ere another starlight hush the shores 
 From seaward valleys catch upon the wind 
 The fragrance of old Chian vintages. 
 At Chios many things shall fall, but none 
 Can trace the future ; rather let me dream 
 Of what is now, find what hath been, for both 
 Are fraught with life. 
 
 Here the unbroken silence 
 Awakens thought and makes remembrance sweet. 
 How solidly the brilliant moonlight shines 
 Into the courts ; beneath the colonnades 
 How dense the shadows. I can scarcely see 
 Yon painted Dian on the darkened wall ; 
 Yet how the gloom hath made her real. What sound, 
 Piercing the leafy covert of her couch, 
 Hath startled her. Perchance some prowling wolf, 
 •Or luckless footsteps of the stealthy Pan, 
 Creeping at night among the noiseless steeps 
 And hollows of the Erymanthian woods, 
 Roused her from sleep. With listening head, 
 .Snatched bow, and quiver lighUy slung, she stands, 
 And peers across that dim and motionless glade. 
 Beckoning about her heels the wakeful dogs ; 
 Yet Dian, thus alert, is but a dream. 
 Making more real this brooding quietness. 
 
108 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 How strong and wonderful is night ! Mankind 
 Has yielded all to one sweet helplessness : 
 Thought, labour, strife and all activities 
 Have ebbed like fever. The smooth tide of sleep^ 
 Rolling across the fields of Attica, 
 Hath covered all the labouring villages. 
 Even great Athens with her busy hands 
 And busier tongues lies quiet beneath it's waves. 
 Only a steady murmur seems to come 
 Up from her silentness, as if the land 
 Were breathing heavily in dreams. Abroad 
 No creature stirs, not even the reveller. 
 Staggering, unlanterned, from the cool Piraeus, 
 With drunken shout. The remnants of the feast,. 
 The crumpled cushions and the broken wreathes, 
 Lie scattered in yon shadowy court, whose stones 
 Through the warm hours drink up the staining wine^ 
 The bridal oxen in their well-filled stalls 
 Sleep, mindless of the happy weight they drew. 
 The torch is charred ; the garlands at the door. 
 So gay at morning with their bright festoons, 
 Hang limp and withered ; and the joyous flutes 
 Are empty of all sound. Only my brain 
 Holds now in it's remote unsleeping depths 
 The echo of the tender hymenseos 
 And memory of the modest lips that sang it. 
 Within the silent thalamcs the queen. 
 The sea-sprung radiant Cytherean reigns. 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 109 
 
 \ 
 
 And with her smiling lips and fathomless eyes 
 Regards the lovers, knowing that this hour 
 Is theirs once only. Earth and thought and time 
 Lie far beyond them, a great gulf of joy, 
 Absorbing fear, regret and every grief, 
 A warm eternity : or now perchance 
 Night and the very weight of happiness, 
 Unsought, have turned upon their tremulous eyes 
 The mindless stream of sleep ; nor do they care 
 If dawn should never come. 
 
 How joyously 
 These hours have gone with all their pictured scenes, 
 A string of golden beads for memory 
 To finger over in her moods, or stay 
 The hunger of some wakeful hour like this. 
 The flowers, the myrtles, the gay bridal train. 
 The flutes and pensive voices, the white robes, 
 The shower of sweet-meats, and the jovial feast, 
 The bride cakes, and the teeming merriment, 
 Most beautiful of all, most sweet to name, 
 The good Lysippe with her down cast eyes. 
 Touched with soft fear, half scared at all the noise. 
 Whose tears were ready as her laughter, fresh. 
 And modest as some pink anemone. 
 How young she looked, and how her smiling lips 
 Betrayed her happiness. Ah, who can tell, 
 How often, when no watchful eye was near, 
 Her eager fingers, trembling and ashamed, 
 
110 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 Essayed the apple-pips, or strewed the floor 
 With broken poppy petals. Next to her, 
 Theron himself the gladest goodliest figure, 
 His honest face ruddy with health and joy, 
 And smiling like the -^^gean, when the sun 
 Hangs high in heaven, and the freshening wind 
 Comes in from Melos, rippling all its floor : 
 And there was Manto too, the good old crone. 
 So dear to children with her store of tales, 
 Warmed with new life : how to her old grey face 
 And withered limbs the very dance of youth 
 Seemed to return, and in her aged eyes 
 The waning fire rekindled : little Moeon, 
 That mischievous satyr with his tipsy wreath, 
 Who kept us laughing at his pranks, and made 
 Old Pyrrho angry. Him too sleep hath bound 
 Upon his rough-hewn couch with subtle thong, 
 Crowding his brain with odd fantastic shapes. 
 Even in sleep his little limbs, I think, 
 Twitch restlessly, and still his tongue gibes on 
 With inarticulate murmur. Ah, quaint Maeon ! 
 And Manto, poor old Manto, what dim dreams 
 Of darkly-moving chaos and slow shapes 
 Of things that creep encumbered with huge burdens 
 Gloom and infest her through these dragging hours, 
 Haunting the wavering soul, so near the grave ? 
 But all things journey to the same quiet end 
 At last, life, joy and every form of motion. 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Nothing stands still. Not least inevitable, 
 The sad recession of this passionate love, 
 Whose panting fires, so soon and with such grief. 
 Burn down to ash. 
 
 Ai ! Ai ! 'tis a strange madnes." 
 To give up thought, ambition, liberty. 
 And all the rooted custom of our days, 
 Even life itself for one all pampering dream, 
 That withers like those garlands at the door ; 
 And yet I have seen many excellent men 
 Besotted thus, and some that bore till death, 
 In the crook'd vision and embittered tongue. 
 The effect of this strange poison, like a scar, 
 An ineradicable hurt ; but Fate, 
 Who deals more wondrously in this disease 
 Even than in others, yet doth sometimes will 
 To make the same thing unto different men 
 Evil or good. Was not Demetrios happy, 
 Who wore his fetters with such grace, and spent 
 On Chione, the Naxian, that shrewd girl. 
 His fortune and his youth, yet, while she lived, 
 Enjoyed the rich reward ? He seemed like one. 
 That trod on wind, and I remember well. 
 How when she died in that remorseless plague, 
 And I alone stood with him at the pyre, 
 He shook me with his helpless passionate grief. 
 And honest Agathon, the married ruan, 
 Whose boyish fondness for his pretty wife 
 
 
112 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 We smiled at, and yet envied ; at the close 
 
 Of each day's labour how he posted home, 
 
 And thence no bait, however plumed, could draw 
 
 him. 
 We laughed, but envied him. How sweet she 
 
 looked 
 That morning at the Dyonisia, 
 With her rare eyes and modest girlish grace, 
 Leading her two small children by the palm. 
 I too might marry, if the faithful gods 
 Would promise me such joy as Agathon's. 
 Perhaps some day — but no, I am not one 
 To clip my wings, and wind about my feet 
 A net, whose self-made meshes are as stern 
 As they are soft. To me is ever present 
 The outer world with its untravelled paths. 
 The wanderer's dream, the itch to see new things, 
 A single tie could never bind rne fast. 
 For life, this joyous, busy, ever-changing life. 
 Is only dear to me with liberty. 
 With space of earth for feet to travel in 
 And space of mind for thought. 
 
 Not so for all ; 
 To most men life is bu a common thing. 
 The hours a sort of coir to barter with. 
 Whose worth is reckoned by the sum they buy 
 In gold, or power, or pleasure ; each short day 
 That brings not these deemed fruitless as dry sand. 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 113 
 
 Their lives are but a blind activity, 
 
 And death to them is but the end of motion, 
 
 Grey children who have madly eat and drunk, 
 
 Won the high seats or filled their chests with gold. 
 
 And yet for all their years have never seen 
 
 The picture of their lives, or how life looks 
 
 To him who hath the deep uneager eye, 
 
 How sweet and large and beautiful it was. 
 
 How strange the part they played. Like him who 
 
 sits 
 Beneath some mighty tree, with half-closed eyes, 
 At ease rejoicing in its murmurous shade. 
 Yet never once awakes from his dull dream 
 To mark with curious joy the kingly trunk, 
 The sweeping boughs and tower of leaves that gave 
 
 it, 
 Even so the most of men ; they take the gift, 
 And care not for the giver. Strange indeed 
 Are they, and pitiable beyond measure. 
 Who. thus unmindful of their wretchedness. 
 Crowd at life's bountiful gates, like fattening 
 
 beggars. 
 Greedy and blind. For see how rich a thing 
 Life is to him who sees, to whom each hour 
 Brings some fresh wonder to be brooded on. 
 Adds some new group or studied history 
 To that wrought sculpture, that our watchful dreams 
 Cast up upon the broad expanse of time, 
 As in a never-finished frieze, not less 
 
114 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 The little things that most men pass unmarked 
 Than those that shake mankind. Happy is he, 
 Who, as a watcher, stands apart from life, 
 From all life and his own, and thus from all. 
 Each thought,each deed,and each hour's brief event. 
 Draws the full beauty, sucks its meaning dry. 
 For him this life shall be a tranquil joy. 
 He shall be quiet and free. To him shall come 
 No gnawing hunger for the coarser touch. 
 No mad ambition with its fateful grasp ; 
 Sorrow itself shall sway him like a dream. 
 
 How full life is ; how many memories 
 
 Flash,and shine out, when thought is sharply stirred ; 
 
 How the mind works, when once the wheels are 
 
 loosed. 
 How nimbly, with what swift activity. 
 I think, 'tis strange that men should ever sleep, 
 There are so many things to think upon, 
 So many deeds, so many thoughts to weigh. 
 To pierce, and plumb them to the silent depth. 
 Yet in that thought I do rebuke myself, 
 Too little given to probe the inner heart. 
 But rather wont, with the luxurious eye. 
 To catch from life it's outer loveliness, 
 Such things as do but store the joyous memory 
 With food for solace rather than for thought, 
 Like light-lined figures on a painted jar. 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 115 
 
 I wonder where Euktemon is to-night, 
 
 Euktemon with his rough and fitful talk, 
 
 His moody gesture and defiant stride ; 
 
 How strange, how bleak and unapproachable ; 
 
 And yet I liked him from the first. How soon 
 
 We know our friends, through all disguise of mood,. 
 
 Discerning by a subtle touch of spirit 
 
 The honest heart within. Euktemon's glance 
 
 Betrayed him with it's gusty friendliness. 
 
 Flashing at moments from the clouded brow, 
 
 Like brave warm sunshine, and his laughter too,. 
 
 So rare, so sudden, so contagious. 
 
 How at some merry scene, some well-told tale. 
 
 Or swift invention of the winged wit, 
 
 It broke like thunderous water, rolling out 
 
 In shaken peals on the delighted ear. 
 
 Yet no man would have dreamed, who saw us two- 
 
 That first grey morning on the pier at Crete, 
 
 That friendship could have forged thus easily 
 
 A bond so subtle and so sure between us ; 
 
 He, gloomy and austere ; I, full of thought 
 
 As he, yet in an adverse mood, at ease, 
 
 Lifting with lighter hands the lids of life, 
 
 Untortured by its riddles ; he, whose smiles 
 
 Were rare and sudden as the autumn sun ; 
 
 I, to whom smiles are ever near the lip . 
 
 And yet I think he loved me too ; my mood 
 
 Was not unpleasant to him, though I know 
 
 At times I teased him with my flickering talk. 
 
 
 ■'U 
 
 
 1 
 
116 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 How self-immured he was ; for all our converse 
 
 I gathered little, little, of his life, 
 
 A bitter trial to me, who love to learn 
 
 The changes of men's outer circumstance. 
 
 The strokes that fate has shaped them with, and so, 
 
 Fitting to these their present speech and favour. 
 
 Discern the thought within. From him I gleaned 
 
 Nothing. At the least word, however guarded, 
 
 That sought to try the fastenings of his life 
 
 With prying hands, how mute and dark he grew, 
 
 And like the cautious tortoise at a touch 
 
 Drew in beneath his shell. 
 
 But ah, how sweet 
 The memory of that long untroubled day, 
 To me so joyous, and so free from care. 
 Spent as I love on foot, ou*- first together. 
 When fate and the reluctant sea at last 
 Had given us safely to dry land ; the tramp 
 From grey Mycenae by the pass to Corinth, 
 The smooth white road, the soft caressing air. 
 Full of the scent of blossoms, the clear sky. 
 Strewn lightly with the little tardy clouds. 
 Old Helios' scattered flock, the low-branched oaks 
 And fountained resting-places, the cool nooks. 
 Where eyes less darkened with life's use than mine 
 Perchance had caught the Naiads in their dreams, 
 Or won white glimpses of their flying heels. 
 How light our feet were : with what rhythmic strides 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 117 
 
 We left the long blue gulf behind us, sown 
 
 Far out with snowy sails ; and how our hearts 
 
 Rose with the growth of morning, till we reached 
 
 That moss-hung fountain on the hillside near 
 
 Cleonae, where the dark anemones 
 
 Cover the ground, and make it red like fire. 
 
 Could ever grief, I wonder, or fixed care, 
 
 Or even the lingering twilight of old age, 
 
 Diyest for me such memories of their sweet ? 
 
 Even Euktemon's obdurate mood broke down. 
 
 The odorous stillness, the serene bright air, 
 
 The leafy shadows, the warm blossoming earth, 
 
 Drew near with their voluptuous eloquence. 
 
 And melted him. Ah, what a talk we had ! 
 
 How eagerly our nimble tongues ran on, 
 
 With linked wit, in joyous sympathy. 
 
 Such hours, I think, are better than long years 
 
 Of brooding loneliness, mind touching mind 
 
 To leaping life, and thought sustaining thought, 
 
 Till even the darkest chambers of grey time. 
 
 His ancient seats, and bolted mysteries, 
 
 Open their hoary doors, and at a look 
 
 Lay all their treasures bare. How, when our thought 
 
 Wheeling on ever bolder wings at last 
 
 Grew as it seemed too large for utterance, 
 
 We both fell silent, striving to recall 
 
 And grasp such things as in our daring mood 
 
 We had but glimpsed and leaped at ; yet how long 
 
 We studied thus with absent eyes, I know not ; 
 
 t I 
 
 Hi ; 
 
 IS : 
 
 I ' 
 
 ;i. 
 
118 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 Our thought died slov/ly out ; the busy road, 
 The voices of the passers-by, the change 
 Of garb and feature, and the various tongues 
 Absorbed us. Ah, how clearly I recall them ! 
 For in these silent wakeful hours the mind 
 Is strangely swift. With what sharp lines 
 The shapes of things that even years have buried 
 Shine out upon the rapid memory. 
 Moving and warm like life. I can see now 
 The form of that tall peddler, whose strange wares, 
 Outlandish dialect and impudent gait 
 Awoke Euktemon's laughter. In mine ear 
 Is echoing still the cracking string of gibes. 
 They flung at one another. I remember too 
 The grey-haired merchant with his bold black eyes 
 And brace of slaves, the old ship captain tanned 
 With sweeping sea-winds and the pitiless sun, 
 But best of all that dainty amorous pair, 
 Whose youthful spirit neither heat nor toil 
 Could conquer. What a charming group they 
 
 made ? 
 The creaking litter and the long brown poles. 
 The sinewy bearers with their cat-like stride. 
 Dripping with sweat, that merry dark-eyed girl, 
 Whose sudden beauty shook us from our dreams, 
 And chained our eyes. How beautiful she was ? 
 Half-hid among the gay Miletian cushions. 
 The lovely laughing face, the gracious form. 
 The fragrant lightly-knotted hair, and eyes 
 
AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 119 
 
 Full of the dancing fire of wanton Corinth. 
 That happy stripling, whose delighted feet 
 Swung at her side, whose tongue ran on so gaily. 
 Is it for him alone she wreathes those smiles, 
 And tunes so musically that flexile voice, 
 Soft as the Lydian flute ? Surely his gait 
 Proclaimed the lover, and his well- filled girdle 
 Not less the lover's strength. How joyously 
 He strode, unmindful of his ruflled curls, 
 Whose perfumes still went wide upon the wind, 
 His dust-stained robe unheeded, and the stones 
 Whose ragged edges frayed his delicate shoes. 
 How radiant, how full of hope he was ! 
 What pleasant memories, how many things 
 Rose up again before me, as I lay 
 Half stretched among the crushed anemones. 
 And watched them, till a far off" jutting ledge 
 Precluded sight, still listening till mine ears 
 Caught the last vanishing murmur of their talk. 
 
 Only a little longer ; then we rose 
 
 With limbs refreshed, and kept a swinging pace 
 
 Toward Corinth ; but our talk, I know not why, 
 
 Fell for that day. I wonder what there was 
 
 About those dainty lovers or their speech, 
 
 That changed Euktemon's mood ; for all the way 
 
 From high Cleonae to the city gates. 
 
 Till sunset found us loitering without aim, 
 
 Half lost among the dusky-moving crowds, 
 
130 
 
 AN ATHENIAN REVERIE. 
 
 I could get nothing from him but dark looks, 
 
 Short answers and the old defiant stride. 
 
 Some memory pricked him. It may be, perchance, 
 
 A woman's treachery, some luckless passion. 
 
 In former days endured, hath seared his blood, 
 
 And dowered him with that cureless bitter humour. 
 
 To him solitude and the wanderer's life 
 
 Alone are sweet, the tumults of this world 
 
 A thing unworthy of the wise man's touch. 
 
 Its joys and sorrows to be met alike 
 
 With broad-browed scorn. One quality at least 
 
 We have in common ; we are idlers both, 
 
 Shifters and wanderers through this sleepless world, 
 
 Albeit in different moods. 'Tis that, I think, 
 
 That knit us, and the universal need 
 
 For near companionship. Howe'er it be. 
 
 There is no hand that I would gladlier grasp, 
 
 Either on earth or in the nether gloom, 
 
 When the grey keel shall grind the Stygian strand, 
 
 Than stern Euktemon's. 
 
 
II. 
 
 SONNETS, 
 
LOVE-DOUBT. 
 
 Yearning upon the faint rose-curves that flit 
 
 About her child-sweet mouth and innocent cheek, 
 And in her eyes watching with eyes all meek 
 
 The light and shadow of laughter, I would sit 
 
 Mute, knowing our two souls might never knit ; 
 As if a pale proud lily-flower should seek 
 The love of some red rose, but could not speak 
 
 'One word of her blithe tongue to tell of it. 
 
 For oh, my Love was sunny-lipped and stirred 
 With all swift light and sound and gloom not 
 long 
 Retained ; I, with dreams weighed, that ever heard 
 
 Sad burdens echoing through the loudest throng 
 .'She, the wild song of some May-merry bird ; 
 I, but the listening maker of a song. 
 
 (133) 
 
 I 
 
 
PERFECT LOVE. 
 
 Beloved, those who moan of love's brief day 
 Shall find but little grace with me, I guess. 
 Who know too well this passion's tenderness 
 
 To deem that it shall lightly pass away, 
 
 A moment's interlude in life's dull play ; 
 
 Though many loves have lingered to distress, 
 So shall not ours, sweet Lady, ne'eriheless. 
 
 But deepen with us till both heads be grey. 
 
 For perfect love is like a fair green plant. 
 
 That fades not with its blossoms, but lives on, 
 
 And gentle lovers shall not come to want. 
 
 Though fancy with its first mad dream be gone;. 
 
 Sweet is the flower, whose radiant glory flies, 
 
 But sweeter still the green that never dies. 
 
 (124) 
 
 
LOVE-WONDER. 
 
 Or whether sad or joyous be her hours, 
 
 Yet ever is she good and ever fair. 
 
 If she be glad, 'tis like a child's wild air, 
 Who claps her hands above a heap of flowers ; 
 And if she's sad, it is no cloud that lowers. 
 
 Rather a saint's pale grace, whose golden hair 
 
 GLams like a crown, whose eyes are like a prayer 
 From some quiet window under minster towers. 
 
 But ah, Beloved, how shall I be taught 
 To tell this truth in any rhymed line ? 
 
 For words and woven phrases fall to naught, 
 Lost in the silence of one dream divine, 
 
 Wrapped in the beating wonder of this thought : 
 
 Even thou, who art so precious, thou art mine ! 
 
 (125) 
 
COMFORT. 
 
 Comfort the sorrowful with watchful eyes 
 In silence, for the tongue cannot avail. 
 Vex not his wounds with rhetoric, nor the stale 
 
 Worn truths, that are but maddening mockeries 
 
 To him whose grief outmasters all replies. 
 Only watch near him gently ; do but bring 
 The piteous help of sileni ministering, 
 
 Watchful and tender. This alone is wise. 
 
 So shall thy presence and thine every motion, 
 
 The grateful knowledge of thy sad devotion 
 
 Melt out the passionate hardness of his grief, 
 
 And break the flood-gates of the pent-up soul. 
 
 He shall bow down beneath thy mute control, 
 
 And take thine hands, and weep, and find relief, 
 
 (126) 
 
1 i 
 
 DESPONDENCY. 
 
 Slow figures in some live remorseless frieze, 
 
 The approaching days escapeless and unguessed, 
 With mask and shroud impenetrably dressed ; 
 
 Time, whose inexorable destinies 
 
 Bear down upon us like impending seas ; 
 And the huge presence of this world, at best 
 A sightless giant wandering without rest, 
 
 Ag^d and mad with many miseries. 
 
 The weight and measure of these things who knows? 
 
 Resting at times beside life's thought-swept 
 stream. 
 Sobered and stunned with unexpected blows, 
 
 We scarcely hear the uproar ; life doth seem, 
 Save for the certain nearness of its woes, 
 
 Vain and phantasmal as a sick man's dream. 
 
 (137) 
 
 
 !i m 
 
 i^ I 
 
OUTLOOK. 
 
 Not to be conquered by these headlong days, 
 But to stand free : to keep the mind at brood 
 On life's deep meaning, nature's altitude 
 
 Of loveliness, and time's mysterious ways ; 
 
 At every thought and deed to clear the haze 
 Out of our eyes, considering only this. 
 What man, what life, what love, what beauty is. 
 
 This is to live, and win the final praise. 
 
 Though strife, ill fortune and harsh human need 
 Beat down the soul, at moments blind and dumb 
 With agony ; yet, patience — there shall come 
 Many great voices from life's outer sea, 
 
 Hours of strange triumph, and, when few men heed, 
 
 Murmurs and glimpses of eternity. 
 (128) 
 
M 
 
 GENTLENESS. 
 
 Blind multitudes that jar confusedly 
 At strife, earth's children, will ye never rest 
 From toils made hateful here, and dawns 
 distressed 
 
 With ravelling self-engendered misery? 
 
 And will ye never know, till sleep shall see 
 
 Your graves, how dreadful and how dark indeed 
 Are pride, self-will, and blind-voiced anger, greed, 
 
 And malice with its subtle cruelty ? 
 
 How beautiful is gentleness, whose face 
 
 Like April sunshine, or the summer rain. 
 Swells everywhere the buds of generous thought ? 
 So easy, and so sweet it is ; its grace 
 
 Smoothes out so soon the tangled knots of pain. 
 Can ye not learn it ? will ye not be taught ? 
 
 (129) ^ 
 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 Oh earth, oh dewy mother, breathe on us 
 Something of all thy beauty and thy might, 
 Us that are part of day, but most of night, 
 
 Not strong like thee, but ever burdened thus 
 
 With glooms and cares, things pale and dolorous 
 Whose gladest moments are not wholly bright ; 
 Something of all thy freshness and thy light, 
 
 Oh earth, oh mighty mother, breathe on us. 
 
 Oh mother, who wast long before our day, 
 And after us full many an age shalt be. 
 
 Careworn and blind, we wander from thy way : 
 Born of thy strength, yet weak and halt are we 
 
 Grant us, oh mother, therefore, us who pray, 
 
 Some little of thy light and majesty. 
 
 (130) 
 
MUSIC. 
 
 Move on, light hands, so strongly tenderly. 
 Now with dropped calm and yearning undersong, 
 Now swift and loud, tumultously strong, 
 
 And I in darkness, sitting near to thee, 
 
 Shall only hear, and feel, but shall not see. 
 
 One hour made passionately bright with dreams. 
 Keen glimpses of life's splendour, dashing gleams 
 
 Of what we would, and what we cannot be. 
 
 Surely not painful ever, yet not glad, 
 
 Shall such hours be to me, but blindly sweet. 
 Sharp with all yearning and all fact at strife, 
 Dreams that shine by with unrernembered feet. 
 And tones that like far distance make this life 
 Spectral and wonderful and strangely sad 
 
 (131) 
 
KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 What is more large than knowledge and more sweet ; 
 
 Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and 
 wrongs, 
 
 Of passions and of beauties and of songs ; 
 Knowledge of life ; to feel its great heart beat 
 Through all the soul upon her crystal seat ; 
 
 To see, to feel, and evermore to know ; 
 
 To till the old world's wisdom till it grow 
 A garden for the wandering of our feet. 
 
 Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours. 
 To think and dream, to put away small things. 
 This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts ; 
 
 To wander like the bee among the flowers 
 
 Till old age find us weary, feet and wings 
 
 Grown heavy with the gold of many thoughts. 
 (133) 
 
SIGHT. 
 
 The world is bright with beauty, and its days 
 Are filled with music ; could we only know 
 True ends from false, and lofty things from low ; 
 
 Could we but tear away the walls that graze 
 
 Our very elbows in life's frosty ways ; 
 
 Behold the width beyond us with its flow. 
 Its knowledge and its murmur and its glow, 
 
 Where doubt itself is but a golden haze. 
 
 Ah brothers, still upon our pathway lies 
 The shadow of dim weariness and fear, 
 
 Yet if we could but lift our earthward eyes 
 To see, and open our dull ears to hear. 
 Then should the wonder of this world draw near 
 
 And life's innumerable harmonies 
 
 (133) 
 
 
AN OLD LESSON FROM THE FIELDS. 
 
 Even as I watched the daylight how it sped 
 From noon till eve, and saw the light wind pass 
 In long pale waves across the flashing grass, 
 
 And heard through all my dreams, wherever led, 
 
 The thin cicada singing overhead, 
 I felt what joyance all this nature has. 
 And saw myself made clear as in a glass. 
 
 How that my soul was for the most part de' 
 
 Oh, light, I cried, and, heaven, with all your L^iue, 
 
 Oh, earth, with all your sunny fruitfulness, 
 
 And ye, tall lilies, of the wind-vexed field, 
 
 What Dower and beauty life indeed might yield, 
 
 Could we but cast away its conscious stress. 
 
 Simple of heart, becoming even as you. 
 
 (134) 
 
WINTER-THOUGHT. 
 
 The wind-swayed daisies, that on every side 
 
 Throng the wide fields in whispering companies, 
 Serene and gently smiling like the eyes 
 
 Of tender children long beatified, 
 
 The delicate thought-wrapped buttercups that glide 
 Like sparks of fire above the wavering grass. 
 And swing and coss with all the airs that pass, 
 
 Yet seem so peaceful, so preoccupied ; 
 
 These are the emblems of pure pleasures flown, 
 
 scarce can think of pleasure without these. 
 
 Even to dream of them is to disown 
 
 The cold forlorn midwinter reveries. 
 
 Lulled with the perfume of old hopes new-blown, 
 
 No longer dreams, but dear realities. 
 
 (135) 
 
DEEDS. 
 
 'Tis well with words, oh masters, ye have sought 
 To turn men's yearning to the great and true. 
 Yet lirst take heed to what your own hands do ; 
 
 By deeds not words the souls of men are taught ; 
 
 Good lives alone are fruitful ; they are caught 
 Into the fountain of all life (wherethrough 
 Men's souls that drink are broken or made new) 
 
 Like drops of heavenly elixir, fraught 
 
 With the clear essence of eternal youth. 
 
 Even one little deed of weak untruth 
 
 Is like a drop of quenchless venom cast, 
 
 A liquid thread, into life's feeding stream, 
 
 Woven forever with its crystal gleam, 
 
 Bearing the seed of death and woe at last. 
 (136) 
 
 l«i 
 
ASPIRATION. 
 
 Oh deep-eyed brothers was there ever here, 
 Or is there now, or shall there sometime be 
 Harbour or any rest for such as we, 
 
 Lone thin-cheeked mariners, that aye must steer 
 
 Our whispering barks with such keen hope and fear 
 Toward misty bournes across that coastless sea, 
 Whose winds are songs that ever gust and flee. 
 
 Whose shores are dreams that tower but come not 
 near. 
 
 Yet we perchance, for all that flesh and mind 
 Of many ills be marked with many a trace, 
 
 Shall find this life more sweet more strangely kind. 
 
 Than they of that dim-hearted earthly race. 
 
 Who creep firm-nailed upon the earth's hard face, 
 
 And hear nor see not, being deaf and blind. 
 
 (137) 
 
THE POETS. 
 
 Half god, half brute, within the selfsame shell, 
 
 Changers with every hour from dawn till even, 
 , Who dream with angels in the gate of heaven, 
 And skirt with curious eyes the brinks of hell, 
 Children of Pan, whom some, the few, love well, 
 But most draw back, and know not what to say, 
 Poor shining angels, whom the hoofs betray, 
 Whose pinions frighten with their goatish smell. 
 
 Half brutish, half divine, but all of earth, 
 
 Half-way 'twixt hell and heaven, near to man. 
 The whole world's tangle gathered in one span. 
 
 Full of this human torture and this mirth : 
 
 Life with its hope and error, toil and bliss. 
 
 Earth-born, earia-reared, ye know it as it is. 
 
 (138) 
 
THE TRUTH. 
 
 Friend, though thy soul should burn thee, yet be still. 
 
 Thoughts were not meant for strife, nor tongues 
 for swords. 
 
 He that sees clear is gentlest of his words, 
 And that's not truth that hath the heart to kill. 
 The whole world's thought shall not one truth fulfil. 
 
 Dull in our age, and passionate in youth, 
 
 No inind of man hath found the perfect truth. 
 Nor Shalt thou find it ; therefore, friend, be still. 
 
 V/atch and be still, nor hearken to the fool. 
 The babbler of consistency and rule : 
 
 Wisest is he. who, never quite secure. 
 
 Changes his thoughts for better day by day : 
 
 To-morrow some new light will shine, be sure, 
 
 And thou shalt see thy thought another way. 
 (139) ' 
 
THE MARTYRS. 
 
 Oh ye, who found in men's brief ways no sign 
 Of strength or help, so cast them forth, and threw 
 Your whole souls up to one ye deemed most true, 
 
 Nor failed nor doubted but held fast your line. 
 
 Seeing before you that divine face shine ; 
 
 Shall we not mourn, when yours are now so few, 
 Those sterner days, when all men yearned to you, 
 
 White souls whose beauty made their world divine : 
 
 Yet still across life's tangled storms we see, 
 Following the cross, your pale procession led. 
 One hope, one end, all others sacrificed, 
 
 Self-abnegation, love, humility. 
 
 Your faces shining toward the bended head, 
 
 The wounded hands and patient feet of Christ. 
 (140) 
 
 
A NIGHT OF STORM. 
 
 Oh city, whom grey stormy hands have sown 
 With restless drift, scarce broken now of awy, 
 Out of the dark thy windows dim and many 
 
 Gleam red across the storm. Sound is there none, 
 
 Save evermore the fierce wind's sweep and moan, ' 
 From whose grey hands the keen white snow is 
 
 shaken 
 In desperate gusts, that fitfully lull and waken. 
 
 Dense as night's darkness round thy towers of stone. 
 
 Darkling and strange art thou thus vexed and 
 chidden; 
 More dark and strange: thy veiled agony, 
 City of storm, in whose grey heart are hidden 
 What stormier woes, what lives that groan and 
 beat. 
 
 Stern and thin-cheeked, against time's heavier 
 sleet. 
 
 Rude fates, hard hearts, and prisoning j. . verty. 
 
THE RAILWAY STATION 
 
 The darkness brings no quiet here, the light 
 No waking : ever on my blinded brain 
 The flare of lights, the rush, and cry, and strain, 
 
 The engines' scream, the hiss and thunder smite : 
 
 1 see the hurrying crowds, the clasp, the flight. 
 Faces that touch, eyes that are dim with pain : 
 I see the hoarse wheels turn, and the great train 
 
 Move labouring out into the bourneless night. 
 
 So many souls within its dim recesses, 
 
 So many bright, so many mournful eyes : 
 
 Mine eyes that watch grow fixed with dreams and 
 
 guesses ; 
 
 What threads of life, what hidden histories. 
 
 What sweet or passionate dreams and dark 
 
 distresses. 
 
 What unknown thoughts, what various agonies ! 
 
 (142) 
 
 1 
 
j 
 
 A FORECAST, 
 
 What days await this woman, whose strange feet 
 Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream 
 
 iike wme, 
 Tall, free and slender as the forest pine 
 Whose form is moulded music, through wh^se swee t 
 Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat 
 Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire'- 
 
 How in the end, and to what man's desire 
 Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet? 
 
 One thing I know: if he be great and pure, 
 This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure • 
 
 Triumph and hope shall lead him by the ^alm: 
 But If not this, some differing thing he be 
 
 That dream shall break in terror ; he shall' see 
 The whirlwind ripen where he sowed the calm 
 
IN NOVEMBER. 
 
 The hills and leafless forests slowly yield 
 To the thick-driving snow. A little while 
 And night shall darken down. In shouting file 
 
 The woodmen's carts go by me homeward-wheeled, 
 
 Past the thin fading stubbles, half concealed. 
 Now golden-grey, sowed softly through with snow, 
 Where the last ploughman follows still his row, 
 
 Turning black furrows through the whitening field. 
 
 Far off the village lamps begin to gleam. 
 
 Fast drives the snow, and no man comes this way; 
 
 The hills grow wintery white, and bleak winds 
 
 moan 
 
 About the naked uplands. I alone 
 
 Am neither sad, nor shelterless, nor grey. 
 
 Wrapped round with thought, content to watch and 
 
 dream. 
 
 (144) 
 
THE CITY. 
 
 Beyond the dusky corn-fields, toward the west, 
 Dotted with farms, beyond the shallow stream, 
 Through drifts of elm with quiet peep and gleam, 
 Curved white and slender as a lady's wrist, 
 Faint and far off out of the autumn mist, ' 
 Even as a pointed jewel softly set 
 In clouds of colour warmer, deeper yet, 
 Crimson and gold and rose and amethyst,' 
 Toward dayset, where the journeying sun grown old 
 Hangs lowly westward darker now than gold. 
 With the soft sun-touch of the yellowing hours 
 Made lovelier, I see with dreaming eyes, 
 Even as a dream out of a dream, arise 
 The bell-tongued city with its glorious towers 
 
 (145) 
 
MIDSUMMER NIGHT. 
 
 Mother of balms and soothings manifold, 
 Quiet-breathfed night whose brooding hcurs are 
 
 seven, 
 To whom the voices of all rest are given, 
 
 And those few stars whose scattered names are told, 
 
 Far off beyond the westward hills outrolled. 
 
 Darker than thou, more still, more dreamy even, 
 The golden moon leans in the dusky heaven. 
 
 And under her one star — a point of gold : 
 
 And all go slowly lingering toward the west, 
 
 As we go down forgetfully to our rest. 
 
 Weary of daytime, tired of noise and light : 
 
 Ah, it was time that thou should'st come ; for we 
 
 Were sore athirst, and had great need of thee, 
 
 Thou sweet physician, balmy-bosomed night. 
 
 (146) 
 
THE LOONS. 
 
 Once ye were happy, once by many a shore, 
 Wherever Glooscap's gentle feet might stray, 
 Lulled by his presence like a dream, ye lay 
 
 Floating at rest ; but that was long of yore. 
 
 He was too good for earthly men ; he bore 
 Their bitter deeds for many a patient day, 
 And then at last he took his unseen way. 
 
 He was your friend, and ye might rest no more : 
 
 And now, though many hundred altering years 
 Have passed, among the desolate northern meres 
 
 Still must ye search and wander querulously. 
 Crying for Glooscap, still bemoan the light 
 
 With wierd entreaties, and in agony 
 
 With awful laughter pierce the lonely night. 
 (147) 
 
MARCH. 
 
 Over the dripping roofs and sunk snow-barrows, 
 The bells are ringing loud and strangely near, 
 The shout of children dins upon mine ear 
 
 Shrilly, and like a flight of silvery arrows 
 
 Showers the sweet gossip of the British sparrows, 
 Gathered in noisy knots of one or two, 
 To joke and chatter just as mortals do 
 
 Over the days long tale of joys and sorrows ; 
 
 Talk before bed-time of bold deeds together, 
 
 Of thefts and fights, of hard-times and the weather, 
 
 Till sleep disarm them, to each little brain 
 
 Bringing tucked wings and many a blissful 
 
 dream, 
 
 Visions of wind and sun, of field and stream. 
 
 And busy barn-yards with their scattered grain. 
 
 (148) 
 
SOLITUDE. 
 
 How still it is here in the woods. The trees 
 Stand motionless, as if they did not dare 
 To stir, lest it should break the spell. The air 
 
 Hangs quiet as spaces in a marble frieze. 
 
 Even this little brook, that runs at ease. 
 Whispering and gurgling in its knotted bed, 
 Seems but to deepen with its curling thread 
 
 Of sound the shadowy sun-pierced silences. 
 
 Sometimes a hawk screams or a woodpecker 
 Startles the stillness from its fixbd mood 
 
 With his loud careless tap. Sometimes I hear 
 
 The dreamy white-throat from some far oif tree 
 
 Pipe slowly on the listening solitude 
 
 His five pure notes succeeding pensively. 
 (149) 
 
AUTUMN MAPLES. 
 
 The thoughts of all the maples who shall name, 
 
 When the sad landscape turns to cold and grey ? 
 
 Yet some for very ruth and sheer dismay, 
 
 Hearing the northwind pipe the winter's name, 
 
 Have fired the hills with beaconing clouds of flame ; 
 
 And some with softer woe that day by day, 
 
 So sweet and brief, should go the westward way, 
 
 Have yearned upon the sunset with such shame. 
 
 That all their cheeks have turned to tremulous 
 
 rose ; 
 
 Others for wrath have turned a rusty red. 
 
 And some that knew not either grief or dread, 
 
 Ere the old year should find its iron close, 
 
 Have gathered down the sun's last smiles acold. 
 
 Deep, deep, into their luminous hearts of gold. 
 
 (150) 
 
 i 
 
I< 
 
 THE DOG. 
 
 " Grotesque ! " we said, the moment we espied him, 
 For there he stood, supreme in his conceit, 
 With short ears close together and queer feet 
 
 Planted irregularly : first we tried him 
 
 With jokes, but they were lost ; we then defied him 
 With bantering questions and loose criticism : 
 He did not like, I'm sure, our catechism, 
 
 But whisked and snuffed a little us we eyed him. 
 
 Then flung we balls, and out and clear away, 
 Up the white slope, across the crusted snow, 
 
 To where a broken fence stands in the way, 
 
 Against the sky-line, a mere row of pegs, 
 
 Quicker than thought we saw him flash and go, 
 
 A straight mad scuttling of four crooked lees 
 (151) ^ ■ 
 

 
 And tbe snowbinls flee, 
 TusslBig^p on th« lar btown fleld. 
 Now liiwmng and now conc«NUea, 
 Like iringi 8 ul spray 
 Tliat vauJuih ana gioam on the gray 
 l!lold of tite sea. 
 
 FLckerioK light, 
 
 Come the last uH the loaves downborne, 
 
 Aud patches of pato while corn 
 
 in the wind complaiu, 
 
 Like ihe slow ru8ue uif rain 
 
 Moticed by niijht. 
 
 Withered and thinned. 
 
 The Houtindi miuiein looms, 
 
 With the pale gray bhaUuwy plumed 
 
 Uf the KOlocnrud, 
 
 And ihe milkweud opens his pod, 
 
 Templing the wind. 
 
 Aloft on the hill, 
 
 A uloud-ril't opens and shines 
 
 Through a break ia its gorget of pines. 
 
 And it dreams ut my levl 
 
 lu u 8ad Hiivery sheet 
 
 Utterly »till. 
 
 All things that be 
 
 feecuis plunged into silence, distraught 
 
 By .some stern, some necessitous thought ; 
 
 It wraps and entrails. 
 
 Marsh, meadow and forest, and fall 
 
 Also on me. 
 
 Ottawa. „ , , , 
 
 —Archibald Lampman. 
 
 - '^ THE SONG OF PAN. 
 
 IMad witli love, ajod laden 
 With immortal pain, 
 
 Fau pursued a maiden- 
 Pan, the god, in vain. 
 
 For wSiem Pam had nearly 
 Touo!hed her, wild to pimd, 
 
 fibe was gcme— ajod claiarly 
 In her place a ileed! 
 
 Lan^ the god, unwibting, 
 TJbijrough the valley stray«d. 
 
 Then at laat, submitting, 
 Cut t3)e reed, and made, 
 
 Defty fashioned, aEiven 
 Pipes, and pouxed his pain 
 
 IQnjto earth aind heavMto 
 In a piercing strain. 
 
 So with god aiDd poet; 
 
 Beauty lUxes thieon cm. 
 Flies, aind eorte they know it 
 
 Like a wzuith ia gone. 
 
 Then they Biebicl to borrow 
 
 Pleaaure still froim wrong, 
 And Vith smiling sorrow 
 Turn it into a sang. 
 Axchlhald Lampman in Havper'a 
 
 ■uq' 
 
 !.% 
 
 v.i^ 
 
 i>tr-i 
 
%.u, • 
 
 Nov ind te iMmd lo^ fl^ra r 
 
 TllF waUi AM b(gh in 1imt«ii, 
 ^ Thy itreeto uw gajaad irid«, 
 EioMth thy toirera tud trm 
 ^ The dicwuny wftten i^ide. 
 
 Thon art fair as the earth at mwniiu, 
 And the sunahine loTeth thee, 
 
 Bat its light is a gloom at wamisg 
 On a soul no longer free. 
 
 The oorses 6f gold are about thee. 
 
 And thy sorrow deepeneth still; 
 One madness within and without thee. 
 
 One battle blind and shriU. 
 
 I see the crowds forever 
 
 Qo by with hurrying feet ; 
 Through doors that darken never 
 
 I hear the engines beat. 
 
 Through days and nights that follow 
 The hidden mill-wheel strains ; 
 
 In the midnight's windy hollow 
 I hear the roar of trains. 
 
 No sound of lute or tabor, 
 Where singing lips are dumb 
 
 And life is one long labour. 
 Till death or freedom come. 
 
 Ah! the crowds that forever are flowing- 
 They neither laugh nor weep — 
 
 I see them coming and going. 
 Like things that move in sleep. 
 
 Grey sires and burdened brothers, 
 
 The old, the younc, the fair. 
 Wan cheeks of pallid mothers. 
 
 And the giria with golden hair. 
 
 Care sits in many a fashion, 
 
 Grown grey on many a head, 
 Aud lipii are turned to ashen, 
 
 Whose ytara liave right to red. 
 
 Canf t thou not rest, oh city, 
 
 TJ at lieat 8o wide ami 1. ir; 
 Shall n fver an hour hnug pi»y. 
 
 Nor end be fouuii for care ? 
 
 The ^ trees i^^rplM aye waiting, 
 Caiiling a,nd ready for the leaves. 
 
 The spiders on the jmoIs are skating. 
 The little sparrow builds and weaves. 
 
 The bluebird in his glory hovers 
 About the meadow all day lon«, 
 
 And, tenderest of plumed lovers. 
 Beguiles his merrj- mate with song. 
 
 The grass in all the world is springing, 
 The air is full of wind and sun, 
 
 I hear ii thousand Avaters singing, 
 The fortress of the year is won. 
 
 Arid yonder in the blue, past noting. 
 Where thoughts and phantasies go free, 
 
 The little careless clouds are floating, 
 Like sliips upon a windless sea. 
 
 Blue heaven and brown earth compel me, 
 
 T wander as a ohild at play, 
 ^^■llilt n-,is it, little spanow, tell me, 
 
 Thnt inack nie grieve so yestflvday? 
 - -Archibald L.iroi)inun. in Bcribiier's Aiaaa 
 
 line. • • •- . *