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"My heart is but a purple song unsung, Save m the pathos of a ininor part Whose sweeter chords arc clo,,ged v, ith aching day." J. H. A. — ^©©^^ — NEW YORK THE PUBLISHERS- PRINTING COMPANY ^OS. 120 AND 122 EaST I4TH STREET 1892 ' '' I' . I ' ' I Copyright, iSga, BY A. L. M. (JOTTSCHALK. INDEX. To the Reader, . ToJ. H. A., Biographical Sketch, . To my Jlother, . Florida— A Fragment, Song— "Life and True Lev A Martial Ode, . Love in the Market. . Serenade— " Life and I wei Hamadr3'ads, Love's Dirge, Despondence, e meet but Once," III at Ease From "Songs of a Pagan." Sewanee. 1889. "Over the White Sea-foam," . "Heaven May be Eternal," . "Sefiorita, Have thine Eyes." "Love, be thy Lips the Cradle of my Sighs. "My Dream hath Fled, and its Airy Dome. "Lips have Smiled till Smiles were Tears." To R. B. "Stanch be thy Bark," "Life's Retribution," PAGE • 7 • 13 • 15 - 19 . 20 20 21 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 26 27 28 28 29 30 32 4g043 Song— "In a Far Greek Isle, where the Skies were Blue," Kismet, .... What is Love? . One Kiss, and then?— A Sonnet, Rondel— "A Woman's Eyes! No Wonde To the Artist, Sonnet to the Sea Ode to Anacreon Fragments, . r, then. Ideal Woman, False Love, Messalina, . The Shower, Storm — Drowning Visions, Sanity — A Fragment, . Spring— An Impromptu, To . "I've seen Storms Master Heav Weep," Good-night, Women and Mice, Rather Misplaced, Serenade— "O Music, Tuneful Minister of The Sybarite, To a Butterfly The Legend of the Lotus-flower, An Answer to a Proposal, . "Moon and Rocks"— A Sonnet, . Chant de Nuit— "St. Augustine," "Ergo Sum"— Lines upon the Sea-shore, The Glow-worm, .... Love," en, until She'd :>AGB 34 35 36 37 38 40 40 41 42 42 43 44 46 47 49 50 52 53 54 55 57 58 63 65 68 71 72 74 77 / PACK 73 Lines for Christmas, 1890, . To a Living Preacher of Infidelity, The Unseen Singer, . The Suicide, Memories-A Study in E Minor, Marco Mi ale, Timoleon's Love, Farewell Verses. To "(ih- w ^\ .u ' „. ■ *'" ^^^'ultl that we could Pierce the Gloom," Appendix. Farewell Address to an old Coatee', .' .' ^^^ 79 81 84 89 92 97 li TO THE READFR. To edit this little book of verses has been no easy task. It soon became evident that an unbiased criticism was impossible. There was ever present the sympathy of friendship, which either attracted unduly or, when checked, became the cause of undue severity of judgment. Hence I limited myself to a presentation of such poems as seemed likely to claim the favor of some reader, though not setting forth all that subsists of the fragmentary work of the poet. Pieces which it is more than likely that a few addi- tional years of life would have cancelled are never- theless presented, for the sake of some lines here and there, perhaps some stanzas, which must have been saved from such a doom, and incorporated into poems yet unconceived and now never to be conceived. Is it the true part of a friend to put immature work into the world's show-windows of poetic read- ing? Because Kirke White died at twenty-one, shall 7 generation after generation be haunted by his gaunt ghost of would-be poetry? We pity the fate of an ardent student, but we cannot commend, because of our sympathy, his lifeless verse. Stood the case so, in my opinion, with the work of my friend, I should have recommended the de- struction (jf all that he had written, for his own sake rather than for the world's. IJut I believe that no- body can read " The Serenade," " Life and I were 111 at Ease," "Florida," or the rondel "On a Wo- man's Eyes," without being attracted, nay, more or less fascinated. The light step, the fling and care- less pathetic grace bring to mind the songsters of cavalier days. Then " An Answer to a Proposal " is a piece pos- sessing indubitable excellence in its way — that, in company with its less reckless but more mutinously sweet sister, "Chant de Nuit," bids fair, unless my mind is utterly misled by friendship, to rival, with poetic readers, some of the very best poems of the kind now extant. But apart from such fragrant work as " The Shower" and others of the sort, there is lyric work of a more serious character, and deserving, I think, far higher praise. " The Glow-worm, " while Brown- ing-haimted, is still his own, and an impressive piece of verse. It is compactly done, and reveals beauties to a second and third reading. "Ergo / Sum " is a little masterpiece, and combines serious questionings with exquisite loveliness and delicate irony. The stanzas " The Unseen Singer" are, of all his work, the noblest. As the poet listens to the voice and wonders what face, attitude, and glory of soul may belong to the singer, he reads the great lesson of faith. God is the unseen singer who chants in nature, whose sweetest t(mcs ring in the heart itself, and, longing to hear more distinctly, to catch a glimpse of the imimaginable face, man has become what .is — has become (iod-like. Then the painful verses that contrast lethargy of spirit with peace, ending in a pious breathing of adoring praise! Such a lyric is not the product of a rhymer, of an immature heart and brain, but is an artist's — a true poet's child. Among the lyrics is a fragment entitled " Sanity." This piece of closj-knit blank verse will be found repeated, in somewhat altered form, in the body of one of the tales. It was found in this separate form, and since in this separateness it speaks more person- ally, it appears where it does, as well as in the "Suicide." To draw attention to the fact that Mr. Armstrong was a writer according to two entirely different methods may serve to explain the inspirationalism evident in many of his lyrics, and the careful medi- tated style of other samples of his workmanship. If 9 K Iti i| "Timoleon's Love," for instance, had no further merit than its self-restrained manner and its excel- lently deve'!oped metaphors, which are, after the ex- ample of Elizabethan dramatists, worked out into detail, it would, in my opinion, deserve publication. . . . "A he sun went down, Stripping of all then purple uniform His soldiery of clouds, until they looked Quite woe-begone, like self-stung renegades That had gone over to advancing night, " is a fair example of his metaphors wrought into per- fectness. The ^''^yls and talcs speak for themselves. ** Marco Miale " was found in a very disordered form. It was only after great pains that the thread of narrative was traced through the many fragments which were afterward arranged so as to produce the apparently intended effect; the poem had really never been written. Notes, as it were, had been jotted down at odd moments, some in pencil, some in ink; now overlapping in subject, now almost contradictory. For the arrangement of the poem, such as it is, the editor is responsible. Whatever is good belongs to the poet, whatever is marred must be set down to the ill judgment of his friend. •' Memories, a Study in E Minor," is an attractive joem, the suggestive sweetness and passion of which may possibly escape the reader at the first perusal. 10 It seems to me in some respects ai example of his most finished work. To be sure, like all yoim^ poets he was under the spell of master-sinci'ers, and echoes minific with his own voice. And now all that remains to be done is to draw the reader's attention to the pronunciation of words like "trifling" and "rippling" in three syllables, " spiritual" in two, and such words as " heaven, " " rhythm, " " chasm, " " flower, " " fire, " and " hour " as dissyllables. It is hoped that this little volume may add a few fragrant blossoms to the vSouthern nosegay, and in some measure win for the unfortunate poet the rec- ognition he dreamed of, as the well-earned crown of future work which weakness, disease, and death forbade. Norman de Lagutry. II TO J. H. A. QEAR fellow-wanderer through enchuntc. TO R. B. STANCH be thy bark When the skies are dark And the storm's wild wings are tree, And the billows leap Where the still sands sleep On the margin of the sea! And ere we part, From a heavier heart Here's a health to thy heart and thee ! ■ I; 1! Fair be thy dreams. When waking seems To live again in sleep, And thine eyes smile o'er A fairer shore Than that shore on which men weep ! So the purple sea Of this health to thee Be deep as my heart is deep! 30 ^ \ Life is but brief, And time is a thief, And death hath a master-key To free the soul When the jailer's bowl Is red with revelry ; May thine be true ! With a last adieu And a health from ray heart to thee'. SEWANEE, 1888. 31 ll ..< ,11 LIFE'S RETRIBUTION. SORROW'vS solution Ends with the tomb: Vaunting ambition — Vain is its mission, Lost in the gloom Of humanity's doom! Though we may sigh for it, Though our hearts die for it, All is in vain! However we merit, Others inherit All but the pain Of that dreary refrain Of failing again ! Cease, cease your weeping ! In the still keeping Of death's chilly eye: I see a light leaping In the dull sleeping Of that which must die, 32 \ And, in its purity, Scorning death s docm! Tis the bright surety Of that futurity- Life's retribution, Sorrow' s solution, Surviving pollution Born of the tomb! 33 Ij SONG. [From "Messalina," an unfinished drama.] IN a far Greek isle, where the skies were blue, And the music of the sea Haunted the sands where the seaweed grew, Died in the clouds where the sea-gulls flew, And the sun sank wondrously; In a far Greek isle a little Greek maid Walked on the sands by the sea, Haunted the sands where the seaweed grew. Gazed into heaven where the sea-gulls flew. And the sun sank wondrously. And the tyrant Clcon saw her there With her eyes as deep as the sea, And the looped-up gold of her circled hair. And the marblehood of her shoulders, bare In the hardihood of sanctity. And he said, " My child, to be loved of one Like thou art, here b)^ the sea, Would well repay what a god had done In the sweat of years o'er the wheels of the sun, In a nightless eternity!" 34 '^ KISMET. 1SAW her blue eyes quiver In the rushes and reeds of time, Like a naiad's in a river Where the hollow waters chime, Tolled by the winds of even ; But, oh ! she paled and fled — And the light may be in heaven, But the lamp is with the dead! 'Twas music hung about her And lingered where she trod ; And Love could do without her As faith without a God! A bud fast shut with showers, A wreck of April green, That dies among the flowers To show what should have been. Her lips were like the water, Both passing fair and chill. As if the sunlight caught her And kissed against her will ; Her tongue was lightly laden, Her life itself a jest! The grave hath won the maiden, And the daisies tell the rest. Halifax, 1889. 35 WHAT IS LOVE? TO HA! what is love? What more than this- A pain of sonl, an ache of heart; A sickness of the God in man, A starving on the Judas kiss Of flesh and flesh, more bitter than A poison having no sweet part? This pain of soul, this ache of he^ rt! And where was " love" before the soul Began to knead the well-fit clay? When Socrates found life to be The generous path of self-control, That neither throws God's gifts away Nor turns them into revelry? I 36 II i I I ONE KISS, AND THEN? A SONNET. ! ONE kiss, and then, like parting wreaths of mist That him^ in love's red sunset, we ^vew cold; And the last blush of passion-purpled gold Fell palpitating into amethyst. One kiss, and oh! the lips that mine have kissod Forget, though not forgotten. Shadows fold Mine own, and old sweet tales that hers had told Are but harmonious words without a gist. Oh! where shall we hang in life's wide eterne, When love's white sunrise drives the night away? What other words upon my lips will burn? What other light in her blue eyes will play? Soft! I have seen a beacon-light afar: In life's chill night that kiss, love, is a star. 37 RONDEL. [A rei)iy to verses in JIarpef's Magazine, October, 1887.] A SOLUTION. What Browning meant, the maiden fair Besought of me in wild despair As, seated in a grassy nook, We pondered o'er the mystic book To find the secret written there. O'erhead the squirrels debonair Made merry in their leafy lair ; Enjoying life, no thought they took What Browning meant, And seemed to say, " You foolish pair, Be wise, and mystery forswear ; Be gay as Doris with her crook And Corydon." Then did I look Up to her eyes, and ceased to care What Browning meant. AWOMAN'vS eyes! No wonder, then, His Browning was forgotten when The all outside of Paradise, Unfathomed still by marvelling men, vShone down npon him — Browning-wise — A woman's eyes! 38 j For man, poor wretch, may search and solve The rhyme in which the stars revolve, Where fire-tracked comets sink and rise, The liquid spells where gems dissolve. Save those whose flash disarms surmise — A woman's eyes! And yet, perhaps, the wise youth saw What you have guessed not, for one law Holds good of things in mystic guise. " What Browning meant" he found there, for All poets they epitomize — A woman's eyes! 39 TO THE ARTIST. BE silent, emulate the lips of time, Upon which silence broods with folded win^ Until it dies within the mighty rush Of the swift music of triumphant love, Which bursts upon the world and cries, '* vSuccess!" I SONNET TO THE SEA. FOREVER art thou gazing on the sky. Forever echoing the stars that pass Above thee ; now as calm thou art as grass Ruffled somewhat by spring winds as they fly Upon flower-robbing wings — and now, the sigh Of north-brewed revolution breathes, alas ! Faints on thy bosom, while a huddled mass Of thunder-mist is full of ruin's cry. Yon fern-robed mountain-peak is child of Time, And sinks into the dust we sink into, The butt of winds in winter's grizzled cope; Only thine own eternal ebb and flow Is one, with many changes, like a rhyme Of many miseries bound about one hope, 40 g\ 1 c ODE TO ANACREON. HORISTER of love and wine, Sweet-tongued rival of the nine, A double meed of joy be thine ! Where'er thy sprite hath sought its rest In the vineyards of the blest, Where the leaves are spun of mist, Trembling o'er the amethyst Of bloomy fruit, whose clustered store Stains thy silent lips no more — Revelry and joy be thine! Not the revelry of earth, Where eyes are bright, and hearts repine, And woe is cloaked with shrinking mirth; No such love as fills the heart With echoes of what might have been. Laughing when sweet thoughts depart And despair hath entered in ; But the joy and revelry Which, like buds that blow and die, Pales with time and waxeth less To bear the seed of perf ectness ! Chorister of wine and love, Such be thine abode above ! Spring, 1889. 41 ^ I FRAGMENTS. IDEAL WOMAN. THE possible of woman is to be The span of God that compasseth mankind; The morning of man's east; the golden brew Of dreams that night drinks, in the quiet west ; The horizon of life's tired mariners; The verge which hides God from us, and in hiding Proves him as yonder limits prove the great World's symmetry, as music proves that death, Being hushed^ is not the end of things that die, For silence ends in music! . . . 42 I II I I FALSE LOVE. SO seize we on the fairest flesh of them, Brer.thing, in passion's primal mightiness, Our own souls into their transparent clay ; Worshipping fires that we have blown to life In our abundance. Then comes weariness, And we sleep for a time — dream pleasantly — And feel a swift returning flush of life. Which is the welcome of our exiled spirit, Playing no more the part of perfume in An odorless bud. . . . The weight And mental bulk of such far-reaching pain, Less than the hungry gauntness of slow death That science wrings from wasting maladies. Laughs at stiff-fingered dogmas and rough creeds That honor sin with masculinity ; Sin, the hermaphrodite, the double-edged, The lesser poisoned, and out-edging death WitI- the false glitter of fair legends writ Upon an air-keen blade that leaves the imprint Of man's nobility on the heart's red core. 43 r lit MESSALINA. [Fragment of a drama.] A WOMAN void of better principle, Given quite over to all devilish things, Cimmerian-souled, and most unpitying; Merciless, fierce, destructive, murderous, I know this woman in my soul to be; And yet she breathes so sweet an atmosphere. Full of unspecified rich possibles; An inarticulate witchery of music, Whose influence generates all beautiful dreams — Sweet, rare conceptions in regard to her ; And she doth so subject, adopt, and take A seeming whiteness, purity, innocence. The tyrannous sovereignty of our better selves, That perjury is dear-bought martyrdom. Guilt but a clash of circumstance, and life But clay-sphered adoration! Is it so? And yet — ah, God ! — a glory of brief flesh — Beautiful — beautiful ! God, how beautiful ! Foul — foul ! mark, Atticus, I name her foul — Devilish! mark, I call her devilish; 44 Biit, in her vilcncss, not a thin^ apart, A food for controversy, in the touch Of sexless speculation to be viewed, As a green-fleshed, glue-eyed astronomer Watches the ruin of a pleiad, hung In the constellated chart of God! Me? me! And if I feel her eyes' warm influence Fall on me like a rare intoxicant. Shall I then pause— pause— pause, perchance to fix The date of their eclipse? to calculate The durance of their glory? Oh! I am No saint, as thou art ; nor is my heart bound By tasks, or narrow functions of the flesh, But, Samson-like, will cease to grind the mill, Pulling the roof down on good resolution ! Strong am I in my weakness, as the sea. Swayed — shaped into unconquerable ebb And flow by the cold beckonings of the moon. Pity, my Atticus! Condemn me not. 45 m m .: '; !• i 111 THE vSHOWER. THE spattered gold of the sky is marred By a cloud in the zenith ; and the flowers Are pale and dumb, and stand on guard To brave the wrath of summer showers, Falling like fiercer music in A dome of silence and of sin. The sea is red with molten gold ; But, ripple by ripple, the pallor creeps, Till back on its white heart day is rolled And the world and the water sleeps. And I — lie dumb among the flowers, Thinking of life and its summer showers. * A flutter of chill wind passes first, A tongueless calm comes after it ; Then a big drop, in some sky-cup nursed Till it overflowed its frothy pit, Falls on a violet close by me. And the blue bud weeps in an ecstasy! 46 I vSTORM. DROWNIXC. VISIONS. ^'Il IN a ruin of gold The sky grew cold, And the waters were leaden gray; And the spray, Like a plume In a spent night's gloom, Glared white against the day. And the sea-gulls' scream, And the ghostly gleam Of each wing, and its far faint whirr,- On my heart they fell Like the name of Hell On the heart of a murderer! And the swash — swish — swash Of the frozen wash When the helm lay hard-a-lee ! The whimpering wail Of the beaten sail — They palsied the heart of me ! And I begged a prayer From dumb Despair — Such things her lips disburse, But she cheated me then, 47 For I cried " Amen" ! To a cold heart-withering curse. • ••••• I Then it came to pass That the calm of grass, Knee-deep and daisy-starred, Ruffled and riven By the winds of heaven, Where the full moon stands on guard, Fell on the sea — Fell down on me, And I shut my weary eyes: And there came a dream — And I rocked on the stream That flows through Paradise ! Ill Now I heard sweet bells, 'Twas the boat on the shells That lie on the white still shore — Then the curlew's call Burst through it all, And I rose, and dreamed no more ! But the gist of the whole Is — the calm of soul God gives to a man in dread; For the truth was, ten Of the coast-guard men Swore an oath that I was dead ! 4S SANITY. A FRAGMENT. I TOO am mad, If madness is to think athwart the times! To build one's temporal environments Of timeless meditation, and to pass To old age in no age! Men come and go And know not what they are, nor whence they come, But measure life by suns and moons and stars, To fix themselves, and individualize Their little epoch ! Those of finer stuff, Men who construct a personality Of light and thought and spirit, men who build Upon this base and pedestal of clay The shadow of their own divinity: The lightning-like vitality of these Out-wrestles death, and passes on, and fills The ragged speculations of their day With a clear deathless pulse that thrills forever! 4 49 SPRING. AN IMPROMPTU. O SPRING, sweet solacer of wintry woes; Brewer of perfumes, odors crystalline, And golden essences, that through the air Temper the winds, and gather in the buds, Close-petalled from the oblivion of night, To part their love-locked lips, and give them tongues To whisper to their dewy paramours ; — Young Spring, fair Spring, sweet neophyte of time, That knows not pale satiety, but still With self-suffused glory, doth defy The biting inroads of hot summer-winds, And stays the sun's swift perpendicular beams From earth's yet tender cheek; young Spring, fare- well, For I am doomed an exile from thy realms, Like weeping Naso from Caesarean smiles. To dare the bitterness of Tomi's coast. And pen meek madrigals to bear my tears. And ease the heart of its superfluous load 50 I ^ Of icy agony. Yet still, oh! still Linger upon my recollecting lips In all the kissing whispers of thy joy ; Robbing the base thief, Time, of his delights, And making memory an Eden, where The hope of better things doth still indorse The echo of good things now passed away! Thomasville, April, 1889. 51 S ir, , TO i I'VE seen storms master Heaven, until she'd weep! So doth thine anger master thy calm eyes. I've seen the fluttering gold of morning sweep The dull dome and the sea; But when sweet thoughts with all their alchemies Leave those depths clear to me, I have no longer any metaphor To match them with ; so, tranced evermore, I gaze at thee and dream of Paradise ! I've seen the full waves plumed with pallid foam, — So are thy lips, when anger sits on them. I've seen a sudden shower fall slant, and comb The white spray into quietness, gem by gem ; And so my song to thee Would fall into a dream upon thine ear. Mount time's slow wheels — a swifter charioteer Than thine ill thought of me! Tell me to rest my head upon thy knee! I have no more to tell thee — all is told. I would mine earthliness were deathless gold For thee to mint joy out of! Yet, perchance The thoughts of mine that dwell on my heart's all — That all which thou art — transmute what is me, And goldener than morning's stout advance Upon night's camp, my soul shall win, or fall! 52 GOOD-NIGHT. GOOD-NIGHT ! though we be parted quite And you forget, and I defy, Oh! still, when night hath robbed the sight Of things that make sweet memories sigh, Still dream that I am standing by, As though affection could not die: Still dream that I have said good-night. Good-night! though true love waxeth chill, Yet there is still a fragrance there Whose sweetness time may never kill ; A vsmile of Love's despair That Cometh yet, and ever will. And so, though dead, 'tis love's sweet right To be forever fa^'r — And bridge the years with that "good-night." 53 1.': I; I: i !' liiii i i WOMEN AND MICE.* i! i WHAT woman's not a paradox past all believ- ing? Built up of smiles and tears, of sky and sod ! In every act the thing of all things past conceiving, A stumbling-block — a link 'twixt man and God! ;ll i ,1 |;l 1 M I i I i A perfect woman} Bah! give me well-alloyed metal. Perfection is, in most, perfection's bane! Shall I explore a queen-rose, petal by sweet petal? A worm? What is a joy worth without pain? The touch of music when you ring new-minted treas- ure Hath half its sweetness of the baser birth ! There is no deep of stars too deep for man to measure Because he stands upon the sky-scorned earth, ♦The above lines were suggested by a discussion as to the fear of mice to which otherwise courageous women are liable, and the poem not having been completed, an explanation of Lhe apparently whimsical title seems necessary. ';4 lif HI ^fi RATHER MISPLACED. A H! what was that tune your tongue ran in? ■i\ That sobbing and palpitant strain- Like the smell of dead buds, to a man in The chill of November's disdain? I will hold that ubiquitous fan in My hand, while you sing it again. For anything so unexpected, Without any "wherefore" or "why," Too frail to be rudely dissected. Sufficiently lovely to die, Though it fade and is gone undetected, Leaves a void, which we fill with a sigh. Oh ! why should some classical German Play the master in music, and curb Every melody into a sermon? What a pity those critics disturb The sweet hush between acts, to affirm, on Their honor, the thing is superb 1 55 m And that son^^ you sang, who could look on it As too sentimental or slow? Preferring sonata or sonnet To the tender and tremulous flow Of that perfume in tone? Out upon it, That critics should criticise so! What? You don't mean to say you've been singing An air from Tannhauser — that flight Of sweet quavers and semitones, ringing The changes on some underlight Of emotion and feeling? Well, bringing The thing to a climax — Good-night! thomasville, Ga. 56 ■ 1 1 v" i M i ! SERENADE. /^ MUSIC, tuneful minister of love, V^ Heal the dumb apathy of patient sleep, And bid her eyelids swell with dreams, and part Like the famed shell that shuts the modest pearl From avaricious eyes ; bid each pale pearl Mirror the one who'd wear them on his heart; Rape her cool lips of honeyed whisperings, And lay them on the altar of mine ears, Deaf to all other offerings ! Oh ! glide, Obsequious music, carpeting thy feet Upon the breathing silence of the night; Yet wake her not, but seek some oracle. Inquiry make of drowsiness and dreams. What thought it was that came, the last sweet guest Of that large host, her charitable heart; Lest even I, or but the thought of me, Made music in that hallowed atmosphere, Mayhap sat on her eyes when they were lost In Lethe . . . even I might be The ghost of that which ushered in her dream I 57 s ill: THE vSYBARITE. "The Sybarite affirmeil that he could not sleep fur lying upon a ruffled rose-leaf. " I GLANCED once from the chambers of delight, Through the broad casement that was builded there By drowsy thought, upon a summer's night. When fragrance hung too fragrant on the air; I gazed between the curtains that hung low, And woven were of rare and dreamy things That come and go, Like dust of sweet dead flowers that night winds blow Into the eyes of sated slumberings. I saw the weary moon recline athwart A cloud of summer's getting, and she gazed In the arcana of mine eyes, methought, Till they grew purple-shot, and dimly glazed Like windows of dull stained and time-cracked glass ; And oft the music of a nameless tongue That sang "Alas!" Did pass about mine ears, and then repass. All meaningless, like singings over-sung. 58 And then her bosom's hot caress did melt Her cloudy couch into a weeping rain That veiled her from mine eyes ; though yet they felt That nameless incantation, and the pain Of something lost, or fading, yet half-seen, Some song half-heard, that sinks upon its wings: Some wreck of green That would have been a blossom, had it been A thing that could defy its prisonings. I lay where many roses, plucked apart, Tremored knee-deep upon the marble floor, Amid unfettered melodies that dart Through all things fair ; and, as the long night wore Her bosom into paly dawn with dreams. The moon still held me in that thrall of mist. With lampless gleams Of shuttered eyes — more fair than fancy deems, — And lips that part with kisses yet unkissed. Then summoned I a youth, amid the throng Of liveried ministers that idle were, And bade him take a lute and lip a song. And bugle me a fretted war with care ; And he upon the borders of my bed Sank into music's attitude, and then Attuned and fed My spirit with sweet nourishment — blood, bled From wounds the world had made, and kissed again. 59 ^1 V' ■f i And lo! his pale brow sank upon the strings, And snapped them with the moisture of a sigh; And faintly came again the stir of wings, Filled with the pain of things that cannot die And yet are not forgotten — still unsought, Unsated still with weird wandering, All music-fraught, Beside the awful Acheron of thought, Upon the bleak sad shore of pondering. And far within a sky of fancy's make I felt an unseen moon, amid the mist That shook with inner radiance, as shake Hot lips that long to kiss and to be kissed ; And I was lost with seeking her, and dank With heavy dew that weighed upon mine head; And my lips drank The vaporous springs of many a mouldy bank From whose white shine the weary tempests fed. And when I wept, my tears were changed to clouds That clave unto mine eyes, and there o'erhung Their nakedness, as prayerful pity shrouds The pain upon dead lips that have been stung By what they kissed, yet kiss again and die. Mine ears were full of half-heard eloquence. Yet knew nor why. Nor whence had come that sweet thin melody. But fed upon the song, without the sense. 60 And then the mist in which I beat my wings Gave chilly birth unto a summer rain, And I sank with it, as one sinks and sings. Whose tongue hath clean forgot his heart's refrain Nor will remain its aching confidant, But sets upon a journey of its own; Mad ministrant Of blasphemy, and sighs that inly pant From lips whose music is a monotone. Ah me! I lay again by him who slept Upon his lute in luted slumberings: And through the curtains came the dawn, and wept To see the sum of my vain numberings, Upon whose many strings no note might pass Save the swift climax of a dumb despair That sang "Alas!" The sad sweet tinkle of an empty glass Whose wine is spilt upon the sands of care. Then I among the ruined roses found One petal which had paled benerth my heart, All folded length-and-crosswise, and even bound With frost-frayed edges, and I said, " Thou art Well slumberless, for this shut flower hath bruised Thine ease into a thing of garnered sighs. And so, misused. Thy heart begot rebellion, and refused To harbor Lethe when she sought thine eyes." 6i fir 1 I ' 1 I 1 1 1 J *Twas that and only that! I will it so: Great things may come of small, and dreams may brood From ruffled love-locks. Be it joy or wee, 'Tis but the subtle flavor of their food — Their food, the heart — and mine was nourishment Ill-lipped for joy, who bade his brother woe Eat discontent, And fatten upon dreams, until he blent With all sweet things that come, and coming, go! Macon, Ga., January 30, 1889. 62 TO A BUTTERFLY. BRIGHT pensioner of wormy servitude, Freed from thy thrall of .silken cerement, As though a dirge, in some sweet interlude, Had burst into melodious merriment; Thou smile upon the sullen lips of time, Thine is a part Too brief in Earth's long farce for laggard rhyme To make a theme of moralizing art ; And oh! too near, too dear, unto the rhymer's heart. Light thief of pleasure, I could wish thee ill, To find so sweet a sympathy of tears; As one would crush a laughing daffodil In fading finger, palsied by the years, And die in such fair company that death Upon the wing Of some rich dream might pluck the withered breath From the faint lips, and hush the chimes that ring With time-cracked dusty throat and tuneless rea- soning. Alas! frail child of Spring's young motherhood, Thou art ill-flavored nourishment for death : Rather the rich and summer-ripened food Of joy's red lips — F.nd yet, if thy swift breath 63 I I 11: t pi Must still confess a ceasing, let there be For thy lone bier Warm-tinted buds in evening revelry, And high-piled petals, making odorous cheer In death's dim banquet halls when thy pale ghost draws near. Farther among the flowers thy beauties fade, Leaving no epitaph of echoes, nor One memory of glory. Hadst thou stayed, Thy fettered joy had sunken into awe. For lovely things are things most mutable ; And oh! 'tis death Whose lips are fixed and frozen, and even full Of wormy silence, where the panting breath Is hushed, as though for thee the dumb ear lis- teneth. Ah me! Mine eyes play tempter to my tongue! My tongue breeds cankered warfare in my heart; My heart is but a purple song unsung, Save in the pathos of a minor part, Whose sweeter chords are clogged with aching clay: And yet, like thee, I dream within a dome of summer day, And lap the milk of buds, until I fiee, A pilgrim of the eternal, in thy com pany. March, 1889. 64 THE LEGEND OF THE LOTUS FLOWER. [Published in Otur a IVtwl-.] IN bloomy thickets where youn^tif liyacinths blow, Where dreams the dullard bee, even while he sips Hymettean sweetness from the chaliced flow Of myriad blossoms, where the tall oaks grow In mossen dotage, Lotus lay, with lips That taught each bud an eloquence It could not echo, — lips whose red suspense Bet. low the listening ear with raptured reverence. Pale thought and pilgrim fancies wandered o'er TLc blue- veined tracery of lidded eyes; And whispering sleep bent heavy-kneed before Her forest couch, and muttered drowsy lore, Soft cadences, and far-heard melodies. Until her lengthy breathing blent With laggard dreams, in restful measurement Of droning leaves and flowers that mouthed their own content. 5 65 • t /e^ f II w '••Hi li!ii| Then purple-lipped Priapns chanced to pass, In quest of some brij^^ht-eyed Bacchante ; there He paused in listening quiet, and, alas! He saw sweet Lotus in the golden grass, And kissed her lips again to wakeful care. She fled to oaken solitudes Where but the music-throated thrush intrudes With shrill-tongued reveille and twilight interludes. But to the tongueless silence of each spot Priapus came in wine-begotten wrath ; And when he found her in a weedy plot Of tangled water-side, where willows blot The mottled tracery of woodland path, Again sweet Lotus fled away: And through the wave Priapus saw a ray Of sunny-tinted hair grow dank and muddy-gray. Oh! where is she? Oh! where hath Lotus fled? In what grecn-lintelled home doth she dream on, With pale anemone about her head, Till buds have grown to flowers within her bed. And garnered seeds have made their petals wan? Is there no purple-chaliced tear In yonder violet-bed, to mark the bier Of one whose eyes are shut to dream away the year? 66 :-| Oh! there, where waters sleep, sweet Lotus lies, And, margining the deep with dimpled breast, She turns the petalled pathos of her eyes Toward the infinite; and in the skies Her sprite is tented by the wings of rest. Priapus found Bacchante in the shade Of mossy eaves, and there beside the maid An amber-hearted amphora was laid. 67 IP" :! ■ -i!^ AN ANSWER TO A PROPOSAL. I. THERE'S a little myrtle alley Where the birds sing- musically, Answering the forlorn shiver Of the rushes in the river Which you see, through trunk and branches, Flowing on by twenty ranches, And the blue sky bent above it, With the blue hills almost of it. Here her hammock had been swung, And her small guitar was flung Like her second self, within it. Saying: " She has gone a minute For some knick-knack" — so I waited Till the gate-hinge creaked and grated, And she came toward me, singing, Arms akimbo, sideways swinging, With a sprig of myrtle netted In the spun gold of her tresses. No Bacchante — satyr-petted. Lilting all her heart confesses, 68 Ever seemed so joy-inspiring! No nun, hushed, or saint-fatiguing, Cold heart's ashes vainly firing Had e'er face with such a leaguing Of all sanctities— yet human " Prima-facie"— was this woman. 11. Seeing me, she started. Singing lips half-parted Like a shell, but oh ! the Greeting that flows through the Scarlet orifice is Scarce the sound of kisses! Said I, then : " Forever, Speak the now or never Of my soul! thine Alpha And Omega shall for Me be final. Sit, then; Due deliberation Fits the judge's station; " And my lips I bit then Till a tiny trickling Fell carnation, tickling Chin and neck a little. What cared I a tittle. When the rapt suspense Of a fine sixth sense Stood as harp-string tense? 69 t^r^ 4J111HI I III. "So," she said, "you love me; well, then, I would ask you too a question, Very easily answered: Tell, then — Tell me, after due digestion Of the query's meaning, would you Mean by any chance that merely You wished to be mv husband? This is Something touching me more nearly Than a thc>usand idle kisses! For I'll be the wife of no man! Yet I own myself a woman, Feeling for you some affection. Which would fly if you consented To be merely the election Of a woman. " " Be contented Yet there's still a way." I said then, " Hope is not entirely dead then — Split the difference." So I won her; God's wide blessing icst upon her! 70 MOON AND ROCKS. A SONNET. /^ H ! tender siren of the star-swept night, V-y Eternal shepherdess of unshorn flocks! The awful void of thy cold sheep-fold mocks This bleating thought of thine unthought delight. Thy golden bosom pillowed on the height Of yon slow-paling cloud, and thy long locks, Cooling the sun-caught fever of these rocks Where I have fled the world's unkind despite, Breed bitter discord in the time-built truce Of shackled spirit and beleaguered clay, Whose hot artillery of tears reduce That proud melodious citadel, and slay Its joyous soldiery, that else would march Like seried stars in thine eternal arch. AlARCH 15, 1890. 71 I t^t tf'll I M if I lit I ■: t m '!f:i'!i CHANT DE NUIT. ST. AUGUSTINE. LAND and sea and sky are tonguelcss; Hear the waters musically vSigh like love-birds, heard, yet songless, In a myrtle alley ! Earth is wrinkled, old and gray, Scarred and seared by self-dissectior ; God him"^' ■'^^ hath pr.s: vu aw. y T:.. Longue-tied creed, and pious fray, And brotherly correction. 'Nita, where the moonbeams fall O'er pale waters musically, Calling her as love-birds call In yonder myrtle alley — Gave her word to meet me here. Promised to bring kisses: Where can 'Nita be then, where? Or do her light feet fear to dare A night of dreams as this is? 72 i 'Nita is all ' Nita now, — Love, all love, in love's each sally, Witless as a love-bird's vow In yonder myrtle alley. Mighty in her ignorance, And wise in very lack of learnino- __ God forbid the luckless chance That ruins sinless circumstance With sinful self-discerning! Go manufacture sin and halter! Pay for priests to keep the tally! God, who made, alone can alter Yonder myrtle alley! Human sins, nine times in ten. Were sins alone to those who named them ; And half the world were sinless men, Until the glorious moment when The other half reclaimed them. And 'Nita, dark-eyed 'Nita knows Herself no more intrinsically. Than the love-bird, or a rose In a myrtle alley. So, I love her, and again May God forbid that modern learninrr Teacheth her to know, and strain Her heart-strings, searching for the p:iin That comes of self-discerning! 73 September ig, 1890. ERGO RUM. ilHii iiii LINES l^PON THK SEASHORE. THE sea leaps to my feet, and dies Like morning dreair . in open eyes, When renovated consciou:.^.ess Forgets what sleepless hours confess. The sky is laden, and the swift Wind-battered clouds in remnants drift To catch the sun-beams, gem by gem. In dying daylight's diadem. O God ! To be, and not to be ! To live, and feel, and not to think! To see all sights that are to see, All beauty and all purity, To disconnect them, link by link, Into the dreams that linger on The vanguard of oblivion ' And this is what those clouds are ; I Am but the clod that thinks of them : Like muddy pools whose ripples dye Themselves with every depth of sky That trembles o'er the brinks of them. 74 Man hath said that God is not, Unless he be a Mind, a Soul ; 'I'u/Tj, Xoyo? — call it what You will— to me it is the whole Circumference of misery. Specification of our clay, This " Ergo Sum," this sad " to be," This power to think!— and so, to say "I am;" — because I cannot be The thing I wish, the thing I dream. The thing of which I envy thee, Oh! sea-born mist, and sky-born sea, Thou pool with lily coronet, Thy music, thou eternal stream. Where, flower-hedged, thy waters fret. Whose ripple lips are never dumb. Although they say not " Ergo Sum. " The sun is set, the sky hath met The waters in that veil of jet That curtains their communion ; I Stand ankle-deep and know it not ; For, after all, though ripples die Upon the sands, yet is the spot In some kind held in simple fee For those that follow. Still the why And wherefore is not known to me. And yet I think if I could be A link in God's totality— 75 h'! ■I '• i w (I 189a Unsheathed of fleshly circumstance, Nor demarcated by the touch Of knowledge or of ignorance: A total nothing, part of much, Such as these clouds are, I should then Feel no Promethean impotence. Nor seek the " wherefore" or the " whence" Of sea and sky, of gods and men ; But, like a music which divides And is but one with many sides In interlinking harmony. Although I could not think, and sigh, And feel, and think I could not be, Yet I should know unconsciously That many, many-tongued reply Which solveth man's coeval "why!" 76 THE GLOW-WORM. TniXK you we are what we think we are In the clay? Can a glow-worm think himself a star, As they say? Seeing- his own shadow still a worm In his glow, Watching his long shadow twist and squirm, Can he know 'Tis his own light shadows forth his clay In the night? Pointing out his lean and wormy way? His own light? Knew he this, would he be wormy still? Squirm and twist? Knew we this, would life still lead up hill In the mist? Knew we this, would strength fail in our need? Soul bear scars? Is the worm's fire not the self-same breed As the star's? December 15, 1890. 77 i iM N NIGHT. CHRISTMAS, 1890. OW the white hollow of the day's spread wings Sinks rippling into darkness, and is gone! ■I!!! «- llili :!l 1'!! The long night's brooding calm oppresses me. The ache of no sound, and the moon's cold white; The blanched earth and the sky hung over it, Swelling with thimder and quite bare of stars ; Communion of dumb trees and shuddering winds; The frozen baldness of cathedral spires ; The cold sea, baring cheek and bosom to The dead moon, and, for love of her faint kiss. Still shoreward stumbling in the dark forever! 78 TO A LIVIXO PREACHER OF INFIDELITY. TO be a rebel is a noble thing; But thou art but a slave, who loves his chains, Nor knows the name of freedom, yet would fling His envious sneer upon all that disdains His foul corruption. Thou wouldst jjlant thy sting And sully with thy heart's corroding stains All things that are yet fair, to glory in thy pains. Hath yonder purpling ocean no mute prayer For hearts like thine? Can thy polluted eyes Count the bright stars, the high, the darkly fair, And lie tmto thy lips, till they despise That which they cannot lisp' Alas! despair Must teach thy heart the lesson it defies. And sing thy tuneless ear a p^ean from the skies. i Oh! tell us. Glory, who hath made thy creed, Which countless lips count o'er in pale unrest. While the frail heart's vain hope and longing feed The worm thou hast engendered; what vain jest Tempts thee to deck the dull and soulless weed 79 *• l.> .:«". t .i PI -I i ill With honor's trappings and a jaudy crest, While many a violet dies unseen in some green nest? • • • • • f Alas ! how hast thou made a sport of one Who cannot see the path his footsteps tread. But staggers 0:1 till his brief day is done, With piteous mirth — from his own weakness fed — Upon those lips whose laughter cannot siiun The shadow of the end, where all are led To take a nameless place among the nameless dead ! 80 I I r V THE UxNSEEN SINGER. O V all my soul must be ^ When death devours me, Worn limb from limb and weary bone from bone, I never dreamed or thought That all the music taught By God to clay could equal thine alone I Lost there among the leaves Like some mad thought that heaves The ceils and knotted tangles of the brain, The fire of thine intense Life conquers soul and sense, Until to see thee singing were a pain; To see, and so to crush Imagination's rush Of dreams that bear thee starward through the night ; To see, and so to say : "God writes a psalm in clay!" For faith in God himself would die at sioht' 6 8i 1^ X V il Mi ■I! But when the air's a-tremble With singings that assemble All shapeless ecstasies and visions vain, The sweep of our own wings, In seeking him that sings, Makes angels of us in doubt's passing pain ! And so thou art a type Of God, whose song is ripe For all men, and, to find the singer, we Have risen from the mire. Are what we are, and higher Must wander on, until we cease to be ! 'ii I ' ' ijlll For if the clearest eyes That ever read the skies In fullest vision pictured God to men. The end of things would be : The mire cries " man" for me When doubts are solved and peace hath come again. This peace and death are one — This longing after none Of those impossibles that hang above The utmost grasp of us — The fruit of Tantalus, WhoSx. swaying shadow is our faith and love! 82 I Thou dost not sing- such peace! That sinking- and increase- That silence now, that rush of music then- Are not the drowsy flow Of lips that murmur "Go, Disturb us not, we wish to sleep again!" So joy and sadness both, Though sadness something loath Are mates for life whose mad hopes never cease; But God, whose glory dies Each evening in the skies— 'Tis He alone that is, and must be, Peace January, 1891. 83 1. jli THE vSUICIDE. In ancient Mexico it was the custom to {^ratify every whim and caprice of a living;- sacrifice during the year jirevious to his immolation. YE whose fair task it is to spill my blood, To make this clay a wormy legacy Unto the future, hear me for a space; For in the year ye gave me to grow fat In idleness and kisses, I have learned Much wisdom and more patience. On the whole, The death ye grant is all that I could be Still curious concerning — most cold death, Most clotted, wormy, macerated death — The thing I know not — I, whose cheek is warm With fever; I, whose eyes were ever wont To emulate that poor unstable star Whose every breath is brightly changeable ! If ye remember, for the first two moons I asked for music, wine, and dancing-girls ; Loose-tongued companions, who made wings for time. That could not lift his great imwieldy bulk 84 From my crushed head and heart. Lo ! sleep forsook My eyes, and then 'twas, first, I thought of death. I paced upon the earth-commanding brow Of yon great temple, till I saw the dawn Grow^ broader, like a smile upon the lips Of some loved woman ; and the pale shy stars Were veiled and interknitted by their own Slow golden overflow ; and all v/as still In an unbreathing silence, as though death Had hushed the haunting echoes of the dav. And himself slept in his own dreamlessness. And there I shook the breath of wine from me, The kisses and love-tales that rotted in My fore-doomed heart ; and when the sun arose I slept like one that hath been cast ashore On the warm golden sands to find a couch — And peace unutterable. From that time Fve dwelt within the vast and shadowed depths Of forest-deserts; and men think me mad, One whom anticipation weighed upon. For whom dream.s made sleep madness, till the brain Awoke no more; and partly they were right: For who hath smiled on death, as I do now, Nor thought with other men. . . . Lo! I am mad, If madness is to think athwart the time ; To build one's temporal environments Of timeless meditation and to pass To old age in no age! 85 ' * Men come and go And think not whence they come, nor where they go : But measure time by the sun, moon, and stars. To know themselves, and individualize Their little epoch. Men of finer stuff — Men who construct a personality Of light and thought and spirit ; men who build Upon this base and pedestal of clay A fiery statue of their own intense And lightning-like vitality — 'tis these Whose pulsing life out-wrestlcs deatli, and passes Into that newer tenement, and fills Its fibrous speculation with a fire That burns forever. Ye who walk upon The path your fathers trod, and see no deep And awful vistas stretched upon each side Unto the dim horizon which is God — Ye find a grave dug at the farther end, And there ye stop, and sleep, and feed young worms That live as ye have lived, to green old age, And die as ye will die. Yet ye set up A god to serve who serveth also you, Bends to your lips to catch the impure breath That floats in poisonous vapors from the earth And breeds night-gendered fungi, and soft toads. Slime-vestured types of twice ten thousand prayers; And from the tongue of this divinity 86 Ye draw eternal life, as I would pluck A reed, and breathe into its hollow heart And find the music I was fondest of— Be it a hymn or drinking-song! What say ye, The time is come for sacrifice? Well, well! Stay, while I look once more upon the sky, So charactered and so unreadable. So full of music and sweet tongueless sounds. So full of perfume, when the summer-winds Drink the buds dry. Stay, while I gaze again Upon my refuge:— the quiet assemblages Of mossy-bearded centenarians. That seem to take me with their long green arms And call me to the feet of them, to lie And dream sweet things among the berried shrubs That slipper their worn feet. Of such a shrub, That which hangs low with purple treasury Of lush large berries, I did eat my fill, Pressing their bursting forms upon my tongue And sucking out the bitter juice of them, And saying: Death, if thou canst lurk within Full-fleshed vitality; if thou art thus A guest in the whispering hostelry of life ; There is in thee some music which we hear not, Some sweet potentiality of that Which is not desolation and despair. 87 f li' i I find no poison in so fair a dish Upon God's tabic — so I sup with Him, And He is host; and I thus bow to Him — And — ye are fading from me. . . . Pull that rug To my numb feet, that I may rest a space, For I can look upon the sun unblinded — So dim mine eyes are! Are ye ready, then? I also . . . but go with you — not to-day. bo Ml i 1 li' MEMORIES. A STUDY IN E MINOR. HEAVENS! Do you call t/us Easter-love, when the air Hangs leaden-like with perfume? When the sky Gathers her flock of moon-deserted stars Into a haze of golden ether? Listen ! That faint full monotone of breakers, dying In sighs upon the beach The laughing leap Of little star-lit wa^-es upon the feet Of Marco's battlements, f/icsc second me And cry "Amen" to my poor lip-worn prayer. Forget the unlovely resolution which Lurks like a baffling lump of poison in Thy life's full cup! Oh, be a child of all The years that have been and are yet to be! To crown eternity with love— this is Thy mission, and the convent yonder, 89 vw: IP m K J lU ' I I i Where the star-echoes sleep like children dreaming Upon the cool dome of a spring-dug grave, Is full of bones that never knew the flesh, Yet might have been as fair as thou art now, With summer in the chock, the quickening essence Of night in their deep eyes, and music in The very sighs of them, as sweet as that Which seemeth like assent upon thy lips, Now, even now! . . . That "yes" means life to me. And love, and . . . Hush! What mellow choir is there? The hymn? Ah! yes, the Easter hymn . . . and listen How the notes blend, as if an alchemy Made the poor dross of many tongues and hearts A golden unity of music! What? Weeping? Yes, I too feel the tears in that "vSanta Maria," and the rest of it; A fallacy, sung on a night like this, Hath more conviction in it than the muttered Truths of . . . What? You say "farewell" to me? And a few harmonies have blotted out That "yes" of thine? the misbegotten child Of love and reason? Go, then — leave me here Like some foul toad that sits among the fens 90 I ! ill And brews green poison ! Seek some butterfly As thou art, sick with honey that ferments In every summer air that breathes on it! O God! That music hath o'er-brimmed mine eyes, Yet is but music ... and I am alone. 91 IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I .25 '- IIIM " IIIM 12.5 Hi 1^ 22 m '""^ i' i£ mil 2.0 1.4 1.6 v} <^ /}. '(5. a ".r^ /. / / y v^ Photographic Sciences brporation C 23 WEST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY. 14580 (716) 872-4503 &< m MARCO MIALE. I 1 MARCO MIALE— cardinal— stood forth, Hushing the mingled voices with "Amen!" To-day's long task is finished, for the sun Rims the dim west with glory. Hush ! one — two- There 's the boom . . . boom . . . of the Angelus! Enough Of whys and wherefores, and that matter of The new-built monastery, nestling far Among the purple Eugandan hills — And still unpaid for; God's time is not ours. See, Matteo lays the board, there, where the rock Bears that alcove above the pine-tree tops. Look at the broad blue shadows of the night Resting among the vineyards ! Those white spots Are dwelling-places, and that darker patch Is a broad field of uncut grain ; but there, Away there, where the blue-black hills shoot up Into the golden sky — I see the lake, Bearing the last slant shaft of fire that breaks The mist through . . and, d'ye know, I've seen a soul Not unlike this. First, its totality 92 Was God — just as the unseen all of this Is the whole w< rid. Then there were mists that hung Over its fields of cut and uncut grain ; And then death came, as night comes to us now, Moulding the stiffening lips into a smile. Too curious, I fear, too curious — What is't to you what thoughts I thought, or where I wandered? Yet, sit nearer, and the tale Shall, as you wish, be told you, then. A woman? A woman, say you? Ay, it was a woman! And yet why should 1" trust the thing to you, To whom, as soldier of our God, that love I thinL of is an alien? I? Hear, then. Priest as I am, I felt, and did not did Then my lips clinched in some fierce sense of fear, And far beneath me in unmeasured depths A faint light broke, like music, palpitant. You are well out of it, for this same love Is neither of the spirit nor the flesh. Yet hath an edge for either; and the day. In the white hush of noontide, or when night Plays with the slow feet of the twilight — night, Checked by the moon's mild fire, and full of music Such as the leaves make when the winds pass by — Both cease to be in love's fierce period; 93 t ' Both premises to one conclusion — In my case being negative — and that Necessitates, you recollect, despair! Since Christ died, fifteen hundred and two score, 'Twas then she died, too, and I cried "Amen I" Folded my hands, and now am cardinal. We'll sup With the last sunlight shooting through the wine; And that brings back to me a matter heard Long, long ago in fanciful Provence, The fruit of a woman's lips, that sank in the end From riddles into music. Thus it was . . . ill There was a little balcony that hung In the great quiet night over the moonlit sea, And she came there for solitude, and brought Her lute along, and as she sat she sang; And he half caught the music, and approached Unthinkingly, not knowing who it was ; And thus the words came throbbingly to him : There is a dead hope in my heart, Like a dead star in the sky. " God's light falls on it day by day; Thank God there's a star in Heaven," men say, " Whose fires will never die ! " And it makes me weep, for the thing is dead, And men's praise is but gall to me; 94 And yet God's light is better by far Than the burned-out fires of that dull dead star. • ••••• f Quoth Bishop Rizzio, *' I do cry Amen To your conclusions. Faithfully have you, My brother, caught the fire of Sinai I" " Well, are you weary? Yet one question still I ask you, as in sport, to make you smile. And give a sweet taste to your dreams to-night. What single portion of our corporal being, The earthly sheath of our divinity, Say you, hath been the firmest true support. The instrument and ally of ourselves, The path-constructor to eternal rest? "This," cried Carola, " this firm hand of mine, Which like a greater Atlas doth hold up A greater world, in bearing God's sweet flesh In reverent sacrament!" And Maffio cried : "Amen! well spoken. Yet this tongue of mine. Swaying the mighty masses, as the moon Calls to the stubborn sea-waves, hath it not Gained my poor soul a better surety Of life than fleshly functioner can give? " And Timon cried : " Thy tongue is eloquent, O Maffio, consigning to God's service The honey of old Hybla ; yet these feet, 9S I I 1 1 vScarrcd by the flints of Palestine, have thrice Borne me to God s sweet sepulchre, and so Thrice borne me nearer God's three-seated throne!" Cried Rizzio, in conclusion unto them : " My dim and tattered eyes have borne me thrice Three thousand times to God in His sweet book; And though I lose hands, feet, and tongue, yet I Knock louder than you all at His shut door, Out-bristling lions in my confidence, My eyes the barristers in my defence! " " Well 1 well !" they cried, and so there came a pause. " Ho, there!" cried Maffio to an ancient monk. Whose task it was to heap upon the board The evening meal. His was no sinecure In life's allotments, and he had grown old. And had become no wiser. " So," cried Maffio, " And you, good brother ! Say you, hands or feet, Dim eyes or palsied tongue, have guided you Nearer to God, and made you confident?" And he was quick abashed at the demand From so much purple-plushed magnificence; So his old tongue refused to favor him Till Maffio cried: "Speak, dotard!" When he spoke, And answered: " Please your reverence, my knees.* 96 TIMOLEON'S LOVE. CLEON, the sculptor, stood, one arm about The shoulders of his daughter Cynthia, One weary elbow resting on a block Of jagged marble, while upon his hand Leant his white brow, whose wrinkled charactry Spelt out the epitaph of youth and joy. She was the full-kept promise of his love ; Her red lips lending eloquence to words More harsh than heavy discord, and her eyes Indorsing each sweet promise of her lips, • Too bright in their own matter to be dimmed By trilling comparison of stars, Too dark in their own night to be out-nigh ted By the most ebon moodiness of night, When she hath bid the moon go hide herself In some dank dungeon of unwholesome mists. "Thou art not like thyself, my father! Say What canker-worm hath fed upon thy peace? What caitiff thought hath been the self-made guest Of thy too hospitable heart, and turned Upon its host with cold ingratitude?" f 97 >-■'; "Alas! " said Cleon, "this same stubborn stone Hath locked that thought within its milky keep! For young Timoleon, that youth who lives To seek coy wisdom, burning out his eyes Like flickering torches in the bootless search, Timoleon hath commissioned me to carve A statue of that thing which he calls 'truth;' Hath given direction that this Truth shall be In likeness of a long-interred corpse, With womi-entunnelled eyes, and smiling jaws That smile, in that they lack their silent lips To smile with. Further, that the pedestal Be skulls, piled up in.o a pyramid: And yonder stands the pedestal of skulls, Beneath the silk deceit of that pale curtain. That droops in long sad folds, as if to weep Its sickly office. But this stone Doth still refuse the manufacturing Of that which is to be erected there ; Yet yoimg Timoleon hath builded him A subterranean study, marble-roofed, • • And hung with sweet medicinable lamps, Where solitude doth make a silent third To wisdom and her sateless neophyte; And there he purposes to place the thing To be presiding spirit, sweet familiar To his most sad, lugubrious visions." 08 m " Sweet father, I have been thine only child, And so thrown much with thee in my brief years Of meted time ; and thus I do profess Limited skill of some sort in thine art, Got more from observation than aught else; Give ;//r, then, the commission of this task. And I will lay a wager with old Death That I will work more grisly work than he. And he give up his trade in sheer despite! For I will cut the marble into shape At which the frighted chisel will grow dull, And be unwilling minister to hands That force it to so chill a task!" "So be it! For my part," said old Cleon, " I have done With this phantasmagoria of death — And for the long space of a year will I Conquer no form but leaping water-nymph And smiling hamadryad! So, farewell To Truth, if Truth be such as he hath said." "Then tell Timoleon," said sweet Cynthia, " That on the morrow, in his quiet nest. Wilt thou set up his scare-crow Truth, to fright Henceforth all tender falsehoods and gilt lies From his sweet harvest of acquirements. " "What, by to-morrow even?" "Ay," she replies. "To limn out Beauty's soft seductiveness 99 Might take a longer time, but to give form To some foul nightmare such as all have felt In sleep-distorted moments, what is that But recklessness of finer tone and touch? As one would dash a passion-driven hand Upon a harp's responsive strings, and wake A fiend in that bright Paradise of sounds, Map e discord of sweet possibilities, And blow up war in Music's brotherhood!" Timoleon, on the morrow, took his way To his new dwelling, as the sun went down. Stripping of all their purple uniform His soldiery of clouds, until they looked Quite woe-bcgone, like self-stung renegades That had gone over to advancing night. Timoleon 's brow was shaded o'er with cares Which hung like murky mists upon the face Of some fair mountain-pool, and his damp locks Lay mutinously heaped upon his head, Save one or two, which fell about his eyes Like long rich grasses o'er twin springs of thought, Peering into their calm transparency, And ruffling that calmness with a kiss. In the quiet midst of self-reposing gloom Stood the pale mimic of deceiving Truth. Sweet Cynthia herself stood, pedestalled lOO By skulls, and thereby seemed more softly fair, In the stern concord of antithesis. For she did nourish love of this poor child Who cried out for a bauble; knowing not That love of wide-spread popularity, To be the theme for gaping in a crowd. Is oft mistook for most divine resolve; And so doth pave the highway unto hell, Upon whose every stone is writ " I will," Until the multiplied affirmative Hath negatived itself and damned the speaker. Timoleon stood, as though in mimicry Of purblind ignorance, who comes upon The thing he sought, and knows it not; then said; " Ha! Cleon hath mistook my drift most sadly— For this poor manufacture of his brain Hath more the posture and self-confidence Of sophistry,— that pretty cloak of lies; And, in the very climax of deceit. He hath here wedded color unto form, And stained the virgin marble with a taint Of worm-predestined nature. Oh! alas! Scale off the painted richness of a cheek— What have we but the very commonplace Of dust and creaking sinews, that grow stiff And weary of their several tasks so soon? Tear off the alleviating tapestry lOI That doth hang o'er the eyes — what have we then But staring pupils in a sea of white, Looking like some sweet fruit that hath been plucked From its o'er-sheltering leaves, and hung aloft In bald desertion' All things so deceive us?" " 'Tis thou that art deceived," cried Cynthia, " Because lush damask lies upon a cheek — Yet knewest me not — but bone doth lie beneath. Oh! are the myriad pearly diadems That lie within the shine of yonder sea To be spread out in auction to thine eyes, Because thou hast cried 'liar ' to the sea? Poor worm, that hath mistook its daily food, Feeding on bitter aloes, till all things Did sting its palate with the memory Of its diurnal nourishment! Poor toad That hath sucked poison in its native fens. Until the stars stagnate within their spheres To his foul horned eyes! " "Sweet lecturer!" Cried out Timoleon, " were I a toad I had not thought thee but a marble dream ! Were I a worm, I'd lay me at thy feet, And starve upon the chances of thy death, To feast upon thy treasures ! As I am, v I can but offer thee a pupil who Hath learnt his lesson, and but asks thy leave To tell it in thine ear. I02 Sit we upon These skulls, that love therefore be sweeter yet Upon so sour a camping-place. Just so. Wilt thou then be addition to mj^ creed, Changing in that addition all before? Yet say not in gross words, that ill conform With these most silent witnesses, but turn, As they to one another— be our eyes Commissioners to make that treaty good Of which my lips make purport unto thine. So yield thee, while I flatter these poor arms That they at last have grasped and circled Truth." 1889. 103 1 't FAREWELL VERSES. II f ' i ! ■■!■ ■ 1 ,1 TO OH ! would that we could pierce the gloom That clouds the pathway to the tomo, And mark the course our feet must tread Before they rest among the dead; And where we smile, and where we weep; And where we dream, in waking sleep, Before we sleep upon the shore Where slumberers dream and wake no morel Alas I from life's storm-beaten crest We fix our eyes upon the west, Where our own sun must one day set, Though pausing in the zenith yet, But see no path amid the mist, No shore by distant ocean kissed ; No limit to that mortal thing Whose hourly knell our heart-beats ring; No silence for that whispered song Whose music cannot whisper long: 104 No rest for that, whose restless sigh Proclaims it but a thinj? to die. Yet there is still an echo borne, And still we catch a note forlorn— A whisper from that lone retreat Where darkling shore and ocean meet; And in red revelry and rout, When hearts have shut remembrance out, And souls have sought the loved caress Of one brief hour's forgetfulness, 'Tis then, when we have turned our eyes From where the past in ashes lies, That cheeks are clammy with the spray That dashes palsied time away, And curls about the panting heart. My friend, all human souls must part; The echo of our being's knell Is borne upon that word " Farewell." But, as the ocean glimmers yet When yonder paling moon hath set, And as the clouds still blush with day, Though twilight long hath passed away; So love and friendship, though they die Yet live, if there be but one sigh To catch the light still feebly shed, And bear the impress of the dead. I too have felt ambition's sting 105 i fl When crushed by her enfeebled wing; Yet, tempted still, with eagle eye She searches glory's fading sky, And marks the star she cannot gain — Then dies but to be born again. I too have breathed the galling sigh Of time-enshackled misery, And felt my spirit many a day Half turn within its grave of clay, And, maddened by the numbed pain. Fall fainting into sleep again ! Yet, , when we say farewell, 'Tis mine, and mine alone to tell To sorrow's ear my loss; to thee The meed of human prophecy. Thy foot is where mine cannot stand. Upon no shifting path of sand, Nor wandering on the treacherous shore Of that which tbou can'st ne'er bridge o'er. Thy faith is what mine canr ^t be. Thy spirit in its sphere is free. Rebellious cui ses cannot .blight Thy lips, nor dark despair alight Upon the temple of thy creed. My friend, may thy stanch spirit speed Thy footsteps on, and like a star 1 06 I't ! Whose silvered breath is borne out far, May that success which breathes in thee Bear thy reflected light to me, And write, like old Belshazzar's doom, A " Pax Vobiscum" on my tomb! SEWANEE, 1888. W7 APPENDIX. FAREWELL ADDRESS TO AN OLD COATEE.* [Written for Undergraduates' Day, '87. University of the South, Sewanee, Tenn.J pAREWELL, Old Coat, farewell forever, 1 And yet 'tis hard that we must part; For we've been comrades long together. Breast to breast, and heart to heart. We have braved, all uncomplaining, Summer sun and wintry blast ; Now, Old Coat, thy star is waning, And we two must part at last. With glory thou wast once invested ; So, old friend, it might be still, Had not we two marched together Many an hour of " extra drill. " * This poem, immature as it is, finds a fitting place in an appendix because of its association with the poet's Alma Mater, and the warm requests of many of his college friends to have it put m print.— Ed. 109 If I . .») i There, Old Coat, 'twas first we quarrelled, The sun was hot, you recollect; And I used some strong expressions That hurt your pride and self-respect. So you made it hotter for me, And when the extra drill was o'er, I tore thee off, old friend, and threw thee In the dust upon the floor. But we made it up, old comrade. At the next " Battalion Hop," Where all night we danced together. Till morning forced us both to stop. And fair hands lay on thy shoulder Just where the rusty rifle lay; With such " arms " as that, old comrade. We'd march ** extras " every day! And we tripped a "double quick," Lightly to " Blue Danube's River; " Then we marched at "common time," Out where the silvery moonbeams quiver. 1 We have many a recollection. You of me and I of you ; But we've promised to each other To be silent ""riends and true. zzo "Gown" will never sit as lightly As thou hast in days gone by; Dreams of glory with thee perish, Bright illusions with thee die. ' Sell thee, comrade? Sell thee? Never! Thou art scarcely worth a V; While thou hast sweet recollections, Tender memories for me. So, Old Coat, farewell forever! We must bow to destiny; Like true friends we've served together. Like true friends we'll say good-by. And I'll place thee in seme corner. Safe from iconoclastic eye, Where thou canst count the dust of ages In oblivion's sanctity. Thou shall be a fitting pillow. Where memories of the past may sleep; Where the ghosts of by-gone " extras " At midnight hour may wake and weep. We have scarce a moment left us. My heart, old comrade, throbs thy knell; And thine, I know, is breaking also, Taps are counding— Fare thee well ! Ill