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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 be filmed at different reduction ratios. Those too large to be entirely included in one exposure are filmed beginning in the upper left hand corner, left to right and top to bottom, as many frames as required. The following diagrams illustrate the method: Les cartes, planches, tableaux, etc., peuvent Atre filmds d des taux de reduction diff6rents. Lorsque le document est trop grand pour dtre reproduit en un seul clich6, il est filmd A partir de Tangle sup^rieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut en bas, en prenant le nombre d'images ndcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la m^thode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 « 6 ■-A-'. AND OTHER POEMS. BY ARTHUIR Jc STR o o o LONDON, ONT. T. H. WARREN, PRINTER. 1895. V'^:^*SS' .' ''is.* •■ -■■ ts>'. m .:.* V*-*,". ;■■ .1 ij.. # ?^ '"...;' AUTHON'S EDITION. (No. ) Price, One Dollar. ^iirASKl > > fcMlsf ^^^ ' f»', ■"''j^''i::^Hf'-f *^ 4 -~ I. "M ■•-..-'tt I AND OTHER rOEM<. o o o LONDON, ONT. T, H. WARREN, PRrNTF.R. 1895. MAY ?^- 196/ ^ •^MiSl^ Of ^'^l' '^ Entered accordiiiK to Act of the Parliament of Canada in the year one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, by Arthur J. Stringer, London. Ontario, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture. .1 CONTENTS. (vl Pauline Golden-Rod A Prelude To Frances Perce, On the Return of SongH The Birth of Music (An Epilogue) The Queen and The Slave Theology Beethoven Shakespeare; and The Moderns To William Watson A Sailor who Died at Sea Shelley Lovers By Lake Ontario in February Worship By Lake Michigan On Lake St. Clair In the Art Gallery Awakening Changed Nature The Song-Swallow — Art's Futilities On the Sea Dunes Art A June Song To One Who Sorrowed at Transient Silence To One Who Wrote Verse .... The Poet On a Fly-Leaf of Shelley's Poems On Reading Sordello The Old Garden Fulfilment A Song The Memory of a Woman Under-Songs The Rhymer A Song Overseas Summer Grown Strange The Rose and The Rock Concerning Death and a Child A Song for Certain Reformers The Woman Who Loved a Sailor Twilight-Time At the End of the Wooing Keats Christ .... The House of Ruins Snow-Bound PACK. 5 7 8 9 14 15 i6 «7 iH >9 19 20 21 22 22 23 24 2S 26 27 28 28 29 31 32 33 37 38 39 40 41 44 45 46 48 49 50 51 52 53 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 64 1 I f^ PAULINE. O the smell of the coming Spring! And O the blue of the sky ! As we wandered through the meadow-lands, Pauline and I. The golden curls on her girlish brow Blew wild in the April breeze, As she picked from the slopes that faced the south The early anemonies. And her little hand was in my hand. And her spring-time, childish words, Seemed more the voice of the coming Spring Than the vernal song of birds. Yet O the note of the hermit-thrush. And the whistle of the quail ! And O the flute of the robin's throat, That swelled from a lowland vale ! And a blue-bird flitted across our path. And sang from a swinging vine ; But never a voice, O child of Spring, As sweet to me as tliine ; ! , And never the sound of a lilting stream, And never a waterfall, So light and soft as your childhood laugh, Where the quail and the robin call. For the golden air was dim with dreams. And the world grew young with love, And your childish heart felt the subtle touch Of the blue, blue sky above. Ah ! child, I love", as I love the Spring; Though lightly I laughed with you, I felt the wedge of the fleeting years Cleave deep between us two, — A tinge of the autumn-time, I knew, — The prescience of its rime ; But your own child-lips were still untouched By the withering lip of Time. Far off, it siiemed, were the singing birds, As I felt your hand's caress. Till the spring awoke in my troubled breast The old child-heartedness. Then O the song of the hermit-thrush, And the flute from the robin's throat ! And O the wind on the meadow grass, And the blue-bird's distant note ! GOLDEN -ROD. A haze came in the autumn skies, The sere fields greyed beneath the sun, And silent grew earth's woodland cries. When Summer's reign was done. But from a road-side corner gleamed The wild-grown, vagrant golden-rod, In ways where once sweet Summer dreamed,- Where once her fair feet trod. And now it seems the queenless crown That passing Summer left behind, When she with Autumn wandered down Dim ways that southward wind. 8 A PRELUDE. Within the fluted hollow of the shell, Faint echoes of the ocean's murmur dwell. i II. Upon the yellow sheaf of grain still gleams The lingering gold of all the summer's dreams. III. And centered in earth's fruitage, mellow-cored, The sweetness of the sunbeam still is stored. IV. And gleaming on a blue-bird's aimless wings, The memory of a sky's old azure clings. Still in the cell of one autumnal bee I find lost Summer in epitome. VI. And all the purer life I strove to lead. Within thy simple girlish face I read. ^ l/- 9 l^ X TO FRANCES PERCE, ON THE RETURN OF SONGS. On vernal hill and vale and lawn, A million throats, through all the dawn And golden day, sing back the Spring ; A million throats, loud carolling, Fill all the April world again With their continual vernal strain. Those tawny-throated melodists Lure far away the lingering mists That wintered once the slumbering earth. And shrouded even Summer's birth. Each woodland bird, remembering The old-time touch that makes him sing, Throws out from his delirious throat The annual spring-time lyric note. But thou, who wast one time so long The leader of their vernal song. Whose vanished carol used to be Their music in epitome, — Thou, thou alone, art silent still. And all the tunes that used to trill So careless from thy joyous throat, Out-sing no more the woodland note. V: 10 Yet in thy troubled eyes still gleams A vocal pathos of thy dreams ; And I who look this silent space Still wistful in thy brooding face, Find there the songs that we await, Thine harmonies grown incarnate. Yet how can we but mourn thee mute, Unsatisfied with hollow flute And reed-like pipe of lighter throats. With merely wanton wild-bird notes. We miss the human chord, the soul That once through all thy singing stole ; And I, who know and love full well The faultless strain that used to swell From thine old-time untroubled breast, Before it knew this strange unrest, — I look still Hngeringly to hear Some prelude low, to end the fear That we shall never know again Thine old familiar lyric strain. Leave not thy slumbering melodies To dream too long within thine eyes ; Let not too long thy bosom hold Thy songs within its fragrant fold. Lest thou a tardy gleaner prove. And thy reluctant hand but move The over-goldened sheaf, to find Thy tenderest touch can never bind 4 \s II I Those melodies unharvested ; And on the gleanless earth be shed Thy dreaming soul's ungarnered grain, Which thou canst never reap again. One twilight time I saw thee mark A songless bird fade down the dark, Then turn away thy musing eyes One moment toward the evening skies ; I saw thy bosom swell beneath Its too confining girlhood sheath, And then a low familiar note Burst, at last, from out thy throat, And gathering power, the sound grew strong. And turned one glorious roll of song . V: How strange that silence ever dwelt On thy full lips, while yet thou felt The breath of songs' low whisperings Among thy soul's jeolian strings, (Still felt that faint mysterious flow, Which they alone who sing may know). When thou whose merely spoken words Outsang a thousand tuneful birds. But thy too silent lips, it seems, Were like a twilight flower that dreams Half-closed amid the evening gloom, — A rose with all its rich perfume That filled the golden noonday air, Denied the dusk with flower-like care. 12 Blame not the flower that fostered thus Its odourous soul by night for us ; Blame not a singer's lips grown dumb, When round the singer shadows come. What lip, however passionate, But for the song is forced to wait, — And, after all, is but ti e nest That holds a transient song-bird's breast ? At last, at last, thy silence long Ends in a vernal flood of song ; And they who lingered round to hear The first unwintered throbbing clear, Heare! harmony out-harmonied ; The very dream out-done by deed ; The silent gleaning-time surpassed By what that silence had amassed. No longer now the girlish note That once so careless used to float From thy young lips, so idly wild ; You sing no longer as the child. For with the dawn of womanhood, A grander strain you understood. As some late bee's full cell betrays His wanderings on flowery ways, Thy new-found note reveals to me The depths of thy soliloquy. They often pray who never kneel ; They too have sung who simply feel, — Who watch the ebb of tidal rhyme. Who hold unstrung a little time rp ,i:^Z^J.Z^ T'.-rTw ««r%-a; r I rtS 13 The over-tensioned !yric bow. By day, one light alone we know ; But when the lingering daylight dies, A million swarm the widened skies. In song, we know those thoughts alone Which lightly into sound were thrown; Thy deeper dreams were still unheard, — Eluded still the futile word ; But on thy silent lips I found The songs that never turned to sound, — The pathless wilderness of thought, Whose bourne mere language never sought. At last I know what light illumed Thy musing eyes, whilst thou replumed The ruffled wings of melody,— Those ruffled wings that wearily Drooped down along our lower world, Where they a resting-time were furled. Through azurn alien ways once more To heights ethereal they soar, Until 'gainst heaven's ve:y gates Their sweet persistent flutter freights The happy air with harmonies That star-like wander through the skies ; While we who look, yet never leave Our worldly ways, like thee, to cleave The astral bars that hold us down, — We gaze to where those wings have flown ; And, looking wistfully, we see The listening gods, half mournfully. Bar out the bird — but, after all. Songs' wings still lightly leap the wall ! 14 THE BIRTH OF MUSIC. (AA EPILOGUE.) v*^- Was it Loneliness spoke to Love, who had sorrowed in silence too long ? Was it Loneliness spoke to Love, while a flush on her hollow face Crept tremblingly down to her troubled lips, till a note outburst, As a sleeping rose in a sunbeam breaks in the sum- mer dawn ? For a sound swelled forth from her pale full throat, and the sound grew song, And her whole being thrilled with a lyric joy, and her wakened heart Grew strong with the passionate pulse of song, till Loneliness stole From the twilight valley where Love still lingered and carolled alone, — Where Love still carolled a song, while her rapturous heart grew glad, Till her note, as the dawnlight, fell on the birds, and their silent throats Thrilled loud with a million strains, and the vernal woodlands rang With a flood of delirious sound, and the world was filled with song. 15 THE QUEEN AND THE SLAVE- She was the Queen of that garden of flowers, And he was a slave from the north. Long had he loved her in silence ; at last His passion one day burst forth. " Futile your lo e ; for I am the Queen, And you — you are only a child ! No, no, poor boy ; not even a kiss ! " And the Queen leaned back and smiled. — Leaned back in the grass till her jewelled arm On the scales of a coiled snake press'd ; Quick as a flash the forked fangs smote Right into her queenly breast. The .slave bent over his Queen and said : " Now, I thank the gods for thi= ; For only my lips on your wounded breast Can save you, by one long kiss." Then close to the passionate youth she crept, And tenderly gazed in his eyes : " Ah ! never, poor boy, for you surely know Who tastes of the poison dies. r i6 Put not your mouth to the venomcd wound ; But quick, ere the last life slips From the woman you love— since you love me so- Kiss close all my queenly lips." And her tender face she turned to the slave, And his lip to her dying lip press'd ; With her royal arms she drew him down Till he leaned on her wounded breast. Then she fell at his feet in the tangled grass ; And what could he do but place To her poisoned breast the lips she had kissed, And die near her queenly face. THEOLOGY. The gods dwelt nearer men in olden days, And through the world ethereal feet once trod ; Since now they tread their more secluded ways, Men struggle nearer each exalted god. 17 BEETHOVEN. Me wandered down, an Orpheus wilder-soulcd, From some melodious world of love and song, And through our earthly vales strange music rolled. Who heard that alien note could only long. As pale Eurydice once longed, to know again The happier ways, the more harmonious air Where once they heard that half-remembered strain,- Where once their exiled feet were wont to fare. A gleam of some strange golden life now gone, A sad remembrance of celestial things, Some old-time glory, like the gods', outshone From men's rapt souls, wherein a memory clings Of that diviner day, from them withdrawn. For all the dreams that smouldered in man's breast, And all the clearer ways he yearned to reach, — The fugitive ideal, the old unrest, — Found utterance in song, that slept in speech. And like a minstrel in an alien land. Who sings his native strains while men crowd round And hearken long, but cannot understand, He sang to us, and through the unknown sound We caught a passing glimmer of the soul Those foreign runes concealed, and strove to glean From out the uninterpretable whoK Some earthlier harmony. It must have been He heard far-off that low uranian strain That only maddens him who vainly hears ; For they, the gods, soon saw the god-like pain That mocked a man, and closed his listening ears. r I i8 SHAKESPEARE AND THE MODERNS. In from the tumult of the boundless sea, at times I turn away, and leave the deep's loud thundering; Though far, far off, the long blue sea-line swells and climbs, Till sky and sea, together bending, close and cling. With lighter feet I sometime follow inland streams, That all the live-long day melodious babble on Among the meadows and the drowsy summer fields. And tinkle little songs to every wayside lawn ; For then, within those woodland realms of sounds and dreams. Across the outer hills the sea's salt odour steals. And Shakespeare — how with thee ? From thee, too, have I turned, — From thy full strain of lyric joy, thy deeper note Of passion's war ; yet still about me seemed to blow A far-off echo of thy voice, half-heard, remote ; And listening to the newer strains, I still discerned The ocear 's pulse break through the river's liquid flow. 19 TO WILLIAM WATSON. [1893-] I. Too avid of those earthly crumbs of praise, He strove, with youth's mad will, to make the gods Fling down some loaf from their Olympian ways, To glut his greed, between the Muse's nods. II. They gave the gift divine, and yielded him The madness of the gods, half-pitying, Yet heartless, damned with god-like blessing grim. What would we not the gods a ransom fling ? A SAILOR WHO DIED AT SEA. He knew no home except the changing deep, Where he a vagrant homeling used to roam ; We felt that he who wooed unrest, would sleep The better if we left him still at home. i I 20 SHELLEY. A 1 He saw alone the star that lured him on, And with his rapt eyes turned from earthly ways, He followed where that astral wanderer shone, Illumined, yet illusioned, by its rays. Blame not his errant feet, that idly fell On more than one poor flower in passing by : Enough to know those wandering feet as well Smote scone and flower alike unconsciously ; — Enough that we, who dream amid the dust. Were wakened by his momentary flight. When down our calmer ways was blown a gust Of song that woke reverberating Night. Ah ! happier treaders of earth's lower ways, Who pace smooth paths with less impetuous beat ; Since he would climb where ye can only gaze, One moment pity his impatient feet ! ■■ ^m^IK^^JTOT^^VSfr*' 21 TOVFI?^ "••"(fSlWv-i.,,. The soul of a man, like a wind-blown leaf, Was wafted up to the brink of heaven ; It shrivelled and greyed in its abject grief. Where the golden bars were seven. " Poor soul," said the Angel of Life, " why weep ?- Why prone by the golden bars ? Glide in through the gate to the Land of Sleep, Be lulled by the song of the stars." The soul of the man laughed bitterly. And turned to his old-time earth : " No land of eternal dreams for me. Nor the vale of eternal mirth ; But give me that grey-eyed girl again, That I loved on my ancient earth ; Then cast us down to t^e great Inane, And exact what the love is worth." " Strange ! " said the Angel of Life, aloud. As she counted a century's span. And two souls sank through a far-off cloud ;- "But such are the^vays of man." / y^ f 22 BY LAKE ONTARIO IN FEBRUARY. I. Along the lonely shore stray snowflakes fall, The waves crash on the shattered ice, and crush The surging floes against a long wide wall, Tinged gold and saffron with the sunset's flush. II. The sun falls blood-red on a watery breast. One cold star glitters through the pallid light, And all the after-glow has left the west, — And the lake will freeze to-night ! .o^ . WORSHIP. Our dream-gods wane, and strange gods come ; We bend, perhaps where gods once dwelt, Our puzzled knee, and find them dumb. Enough ! We know that we have knelt. 23 / BY LAKE MICHIGAN. The rain blows in from the lake to-day, And the wind sweeps down from the north ; And a line of smoke drifts through the grey, Where the out-bound ships go forth. Away to the north the great ships go. And a sail sinks over the verge ; And to-day it seems that I scarcely know The sound of the thundering surge. 4^--^' And the mists come down from the north-land lake, And the rains fall over the land ; But never again shall I wait to take Her hand in my open hand. And never again through the driving mist Will she come with rain on her hair ; With the rain on the wet cold cheek I kiss'd, In the wind and the misty air. Only rain, rain, on the gloomy lake, And rain on the lonely shore ; And the sound of the thundering waves that break Where she comes through the mist no more. <* 24 ON LAKE ST. CLAIR. The twilight gathers on the grey lake's breast, And silence deepens on the reed-grown plains ; While far across the waves, from out the west, Fly slowly in two solitary cranes. And softly through the reeds the night-wind strays, Half faint with odours of the marsh-land's musk ; And somewhere deep within the inland haze, A whip-poor-will cries loud across the dusk. A stray sail drifts within the evening shade. And all the weary swallows landward soar ; Far, far away, the purple headlands fade Where waves wash lazily along the shore. And through the silence, where the grey waste dreams. The sounds of far-off voices swell and fall ; And off the shadowy point one pale star gleams, And slowly dies the whip-poor-will's last call. O waste of flowing waters, soft with sleep, O passionless tranquility, unknown To us who pace beside the dreaming deep ; Will not, some day, some day, be idly blown Across thy ways the secret of thy sleep? 25 IN THE ART GALLERY. The shadows deepen on the gallery's walls ; I turn half-idly down the silent rooms, Where old familiar faces, looking down. Grow dim amid the twilight's falling glooms. Her" glows still white a Greek girl's rounded limb! I know that shadow there, the cloak and lace That wrapt some old-time prince ; this touch of white, An alien slave-girl in a market-place ! But here, within a dusky corner, stands A cast of sea-born Aphrodite's form. So white and perfect that my finger touched Her tender breast, and thought to find it warm. He dreamed, this sculptor, then, for years and years, Then made his dream in marble. — What remains ? This shadow captured by his groping hands! Forgotten sculptor, was it worth the pains ? — For down the halls a waft of laughter comes ; A sketching-class of happy girls stray past. I turn — who would not turn ? — and then I see, Not Aphrodite, but a paltry cast. 26 AWAKENING. I. We two were happy lovers then, We walked, yet mingled not, with men ; Enough for me, enough for you. To live and know our i.i'ies were blue. II. We asked not heaven, wh ence ? or why ? But stretched our hanjds unto a sky That bent so low, it seemed that we Could clutch its blue infinity. III. And Summer leaned so close, you said " I could not dream of Summer dead ; So strange 'twould be to look upon This sky with Sun and Summer gone." IV. But twilight fell, and earth grew grey. Our skies had dreamed their blue away ; And then your troubled eyes were turned To where the fading sunset burned ; 27 ■""Vl^.,., And still the gloom crept tremulous, Dusk wave on wave, and shadowed us ; And then we saw we only wooed The fringes of Infinitude. For lo! before our wakened eyes ' A million worlds swam through the skies. Where we who slept beneath the sun, Had thought the skies held only one. I / ./ CHANGED NATURE. The deep-toned disconsolate sound of the ocean Seemed filled with a sorrow too full to be told ; But, Love, when you stood by the waves with me, The sorrow went forth from the sound, and the motion Grew soft, and the earth seemed to clasp in its fold The breast of the ocean — as I clasp'd thee. 28 THE SONG -SWALLOW. Ah ! happy White-throat, unto thee Was heaven doubly generous ; For heaven half reluctantly Yields but the gift of song to us ; While unto thee it gives the wing To roam the vast empyrean : No wonder, Swallow, thou canst sing A lighter melody than man ; Since thou hast never known the pain,- The old-time discord, teasing us Who know the too ethereal strain, The life still ignominious. . ART'S FUTILITIES. In youth we have the soul, but not the art : When patient age has learned all art's demands, No youthful dream within the old-grown heart Remains to busy our perfected hands. 't 29 ON THE SEA DUNES. I While we dreamed on the sands of the dim sea-dunes, Where the wash of the waves, and the song of the sea, Had a sound of the joy of those old-time Junes When you were a child on the downs with me, — Did never a thought of the wave-worn beam, Where we leaned as we looked to the sea-line long, Steal into the ways of your reverie ? And sadden a moment your noon-day dream, Or touch with a sorrow the sea's glad song ? It was only a spar, cast up by the deep, That lay in the sand, at the edge of the sea. Where a stray wave over its end might creep ; Yet I wonder if ever a memory Through the old beam stole, at the well-known touch Of the seas that it swept ere it fell asleep. And the sands closed round with a deeper clutch. ( 30 As we walked by the sea, as we sat on the sand, Did you dream of the doom of that sand-fast spar ? Ah, Love! could we know, — could we half understand The call of the sea as it broke on the bar ? t ii ■ i But think of the seas that it once has cross'd. And the ways that it roamed in the long ago ; But a life is a life, and the ship was lost, And the old beam dreams where the dune-sands blow. As it sleeps on the fringe of familiar seas. Does it long to be out on the deep once more? When it feels the touch of the old sea-breeze. Does it yearn to be free on the ocean floor ? And to you, did the beam bring never a thought. As we laughingly guessed at its runic past. That we, as the beam, were as strangely caught At the edge of a Sea, in the sand-dunes fast ? Ah, Love ! as you dreamed on the dunes with me. Did we learn not then of the bars that bind ? Felt you not we were fast at the fringe of a sea. Where of old we were free as the waves and the wind ? For we, who have loved, know the hidden bar No love can elude, no mortal break through ; How we only lean out where the wild waves are. Where a strange sail floats through the far-off blue, — We only lean out and long to be free, — To be free, as of old, on the ways of the sea. \ lit 3« ? And wc dream on the sands of the dim sea-dunes, Where the song of the waves and the sound of the sea Has a touch of the joy of our old-time Junes ; But a loneliness comes in the sky-line long, And the twilight has fallen on you and me. And a sadness has crept in the sea's low song ; For we know not if love Iiv.-s on, at the last, Through the ways of a sea without shore to roam, Or sinks, in the end, on a sand-dune cast. — Ah, Love ! will the Sea or the Land be our home ? ART. lit *' On this great steamer's deck, how traiiquilly we float ; Seafaring seems so easy now, — our thanks to coal, — I'd like to join this merry crew who man the boat." Poor dreamer, stand one moment in the stoker's hole ! 'i* 32 !| A JUNE SOxNG. I. Whisper it under the rose, And sing it among the clover ; Or join in the June-time chorus, And carol it over and over : Though we dream life away, Should we love but a day, The illusion alone Consummation is grown, II. Make love while we may, and laugh, Down deep in the lap of June ; Make love and carol a song, For summer goes all too soon : Though a dream, as they say, Should we love for a day. The illusion alone Consummation is grown. III. Then fling all your soul in a song, And sing it among the clover ; And join in the joy of the birds, For summer will soon be over: Though life is a dream, — In the end, it would seem. Should we love thro' a June, We have cyphered the rune. '*i> I '^* 33 '/' TO ONE WHO SORROWED AT TRANSIENT SILENCE. Would Paradise be still the same, If back some wandering spirit came, And held before our earthlier gaze The scroll of all its mystic ways ? If once tellurian feet had trod The hallowed realm that harbours God, 'Twere Heaven half undeihed. Cast not the mystic shroud aside. Lest Hcav n turn too common ground, And all our gods be left uncrowned. Remain without the wondrous gate, Still happily insatiate. It is the land no mortal walked ; It is the chamber ne'er unlocked, — The stranger things we never see. That charm us by their mystery, And lure our unrewarded eyes ; And all the old enchantment dies, When once the veil is cast aside. And we are left unsatisfied. Should Beauty not be fugitive ? For mere timidity may give More lustre than all ornament ;- 'Tis sanctity with Beauty blent. ■ .^*%^ 34 The stone that gleams beneath the sea, Takes on a two-fold brilliancy ; Till held within two curious hands, The gazer never understands How much the green translucent wave Unto the sea-stone beauty gave. There is a light illumines not ; And better to remain untaught, Than barter for some idle lore The old enchantment held of yore. Cast back that pebble in the sea You gathered up too hastily, in its watery depths afar, ake the stone once more a star. Ah ! let this be thy simple ruse ; For lips once over-kissed must lose Their old unravished loveliness ; Some charm at each too close caress Falls from the lip too wanton turned ; 'Twere better had the wooer yearned, A wooer still, before the shrine, Once mystical, and dreamed divine. % /, And thou, who art so dulcet-voiced. Should not have sorrowed, but rejoiced This transient silence fell on thee. To beautify thy melody. Ah ! lean not from thine hallowed height, Bare not thy bosom's tender white ■^m i 35 To those unschooled in sanctitude, Lest its secluded charms we wooed Lose all their old-time tenderness, While open to the wind's caress. 'Tis the unconscious gleam we prize, That holds our unconsidered eyes ; The careless strain, the candid word. The singer dreamed not overheard. All melody is sweet, and yet Its very sweetness we forget When lavished unreservedly. Allure us still with secrecy. When silent all the night has grown, Then sings the nightingale alone. Ah ! subtle bird ; full well it knows The mystic charm that midnight throws About that rapturous melody. When we the singer never see. Let thy too pregnant spirit lie A time beneath the dreaming sky ; Let once thy bosom fallow be. This happy curse that fell on thee Shall sweeten thy returning strains, — A flower refreshed by passing rains ; An azure sky, in gleaming through The rifted clouds, made deeper blue ; The long-sought little sea-girt isle, Engoldened by each dreary mile Some wanderer roamed to find its shore. Ah ! muser, — sorrow now no more, Jt^i 36 h V But from a temporal silence gain This added sweetness for thy strain. That vagrant rose is twice a rose, Which blooms beyond a summer's close ; A perfect flower, and yet to me It gains a charm from rarity. Why, therefore, sorrow now that thou Must bear thy songs upon thy brow ? And nurse within thy troubled breast The voiceless singer's wild unrest ? — Thy silent heart-throbs have for rhyme ? Out-season not our summer-time ; But let autumnal silence dwell Where songs in summer used to swell ; Let them be wintered with the flowers. Till April suns and April showers Bring forth the lyric golden Spring, And then thine own awakening. 1 J ■ Some love thy songs ; but I, who know The happier touch of lips whence flow Those notes that all men stop to praise. Have loved the singer all my days : And longing, listening, loving, I Have waited till the song should die, — Till thou, the singer, cam'st to bless My lips with thine own lips' caress. No wonder, then, I plead so long 'Gainst thy too fervid chase of song ; ■-Jl ' ^^.LV^ - ' -"- - ' - : * .-« ' ■ <' ;« - 1 Z7 Who would not reason, likewise blest, That silence, after all, is best ? Ah, Love ! turn melody to life ; Enough of merely lyric strife ; Make songs no more, remembering this : They only sing who cannot kiss ; And while some vocal groundling sings The dreamed-of ecstasies of wings, We two shall cleave those golden beams, Of which the groundling only dreams. TO ONE WHO WROTE VERSE. Sweep not the skies for some ethereal theme. Lest near the sun thou singe the wings of song ; But while the skies' high idlers merely dream. Beat down with rhythmic wings some earthly wrong. 38 THE POET. I. Sang he, bird-like, only when the world had grown A vale with lyric song in every little breath ? Or, boy-like, trilled he in his youth alone ? Or sang he, swan-like, sweetly only at his death ? sk II. Ah ! ruther was his youth half sad with songs unsung; Yet, when a note of sorrow made his music wrong, He merely smiled and said: " Although the heart be wrung. Lips, lightly sing ; the rough world needs the softer song." III. And when his life drew toward its grey autumnal close. He said: "To-day still sing the old-time happy strain ; Should no' September save one last memorial rose. Since Spring is gone — since June can never come again ? " 39 ON A FLY-LEAF OF SHELLEY'S POEMS. I. Spring cannot fail us ! One stray bird twittered from a tree to-day, And though the snows still wrap the silent earth, Some sun will tinge with gold the wintry grey, The world will quiver with a vernal birth, And Summer cannot fail us ! II. O how can Summer fail us ? One from a more ethereal clime than ours Foretold the dawn that bard and bird divine. And sang of light in unillumined hours ; And, Shelley, with this vernal song of thine. Our Summer cannot fail us ! ■.-■■* -rr--^: '. -yjF': .-f^'" 40 ON READING SORDELLO. I. Too late the leaguered portals broken down, When no defender walks the silent town ; II. A life-long lover, drawing to his breast The passive dead he ne'er before caress'd ; in. Some home-bound sailor, drowning in the storm, Where gleamed the home-lights from his cottage warm ;- IV. Such things, Sordello, shadow forth for me Thy battling soul's belated victory. L 41 THE OLD GARDEN. Song and golden summer dwelled Once within this garden old, And a strain of music swelled From the casements tinged with gold, Where a Lady used to sing In the old forgotten Junes, When the bird-songs ceased to ring Through the sleeping afternoons. And the roses climbed and bloomed. Wild around her window-beams. Till her chamber was perfumed With the breathings of their dreams. And, when song and sun were gone. With her cheek upon her hand, She would gaze across the lawn, Down a dim-grown valley-land. Where the twining roadway curled Through the hills that fringed the west. Where the unknown outer world Filled her with a strange unrest. \ii I I ' I 42 Once above the waving grass, Daisies spangled all the lawn, Where the Lady used to pass, In the summers that are gone. Over-blooming lilacs leaned On the dawn-hour's wakening breeze, Till their showering petals screened All the late anemonies. And along the garden wall Flamed a row of hollyhocks, And a line of lilies tall Swayed beside the gravel walks. And a carol used to swell, Even through the fall-time air, Till the mellow twilight fell On the Lady singing there. 4: « * But her sweet face never gleams Now among those lonely bowers ; Yet a sound of music seems Still to steal among the flowers. Still the roses cling and bloom All around her window-square ; Still the sunlight fills the room. Still the roses scent the air ; i 43 And the evening shadows dream In the garden grey and old, While the waning sunbeams stream On the casements tinged with gold,— On the old brown crumbling walls And the wild-grown garden ways, Where a footstep seldom falls Through the long still lonely days. And a low voice never sings, Where, of old, songs used to swell ; Yet a wordless charm still clings Where the singer used to dwell. Still a strange remembrance cleaves Where a vagrant rose still rocks, Where a few autumnal leaves Lie along the silent walks. And the children sometimes creep Through the broken, crumbling wall, Where the shadows seem to sleep. And the bird-throats seldom call ; — Lingering in that lonely place, Weaving strange and olden dreams ; But a swee' and tender face Never from the casement gleams. 44 FULFILMENT. I. Golden June — June, dreaming under brooding depths of blue, And all the days alive with woodland song, And dawn still sweet with clover scents and dew, While bob-o-links alight and warble long Among the daisied meadows and the wheat : And yet the summer seems still incomplete. U n. Now grey December — With flying snows and wintry winds awail, And field and vale forlorn of bird and flower. No longer azure gleams, but storm and gale Sweep low across the skies that always lower : Yet all the joy of June here dwells apart ; For love has wandered in a June's void heart. ■J ■ 45 A SONG. ■J Shall we not remember, Love, When the golden days are gone, When in life's December, Love, I and thou are closer drawn, — Shall we not remember still How we loved and laughed of old. When the dew was on the hill, Till the west grew red and gold ? #,. Then we two alone shall stand. Gazing through our evening's grey ; And my hand shall seek your hand. And a mist may blind the way, Where of old we loved and dreamed In the half-forgotten days. When a golden splendour gleameu From our world's untrodden ways ; But we still shall feel, my own, Though the glebe be grey with rime, We have lived, si?ice we have known Love, ufttouched of Death and Time! n 1 ii^""^^p wmmm 46 \\ 1 ,,i ','. ? THE MEMORY OF A WOMAN. God took a moonbeam dreaming on a sea, And carved her limbs that dimmed His plcnilune. He paced His heavens for His mildest stars, And wreathed them in the blue of brooding June, And gave to her those mild and wistful eyes, Wherein still dwelled an astral tenderness. He plucked a crimson poppy for her mouth, — The flower of dreams and dim forgetfulness. He clove a sunbeam in a thousand shreds, And twined it ripplingly above her brow : And moulded from the summer's downy clouds That billowed purity, her bosom's snow. Yet something more than this He gave to her, From neither sun nor earth nor star nor sea, — A something unto which he: body was The hollow pipe, and it the hai mony ; i I ■■|in-| iniiiT \mmmm II " W i ll I ; 47 The strain that dies not when the song grows still, The heart you find not in the heart's own core ; — The thing unborn of birth, untouched of death. 'Twas not the borrowed attributes she wore The little time she walked our earthly ways. For still I find in sky and star and flower Those beauties, migrantly immutable ; It was, indeed, some paradisal dower, — A transcendental something, lent to her. That God Himself was all the poorer for ; Till Death, with less ingenuous uands. Flung back the gift to God once more. \l t ti 48 UNDER -SONGS. In summer have you ever dreamed alone, Beside an inland stream that fell o'er stone And tumbled tree, in tinkling water-falls, While from a meadow came the distant calls Of piping birds across the wind-blown flowers. Where deep-toned bees buzzed thro' the lazy hours ? There, buried 'neath the daisies' waving heads, Down in the clover's sp^^ngled whites and reds. Did you e'er read a book you loved full well, That told of golden dreams the poets tell. Until the woodland sounds and tinkling brook Mixed with the music of the poet's book? And have you turned to that same page again When earth had lost the old familiar strain, The mingled sound of stream and bee and bird ? Then, was there not in undersong still heard The mellow pipe and flute of woodland notes. In lingering echoes, from those silent throats ? And did you not still hear the tinkling stream Sound through the music of the poet's dream ? !-.■:.;.,■ .-.ft^Viv;- -...j-p+r;: 49 THE RHYMER. These flakes of sea-spume, thrown along the sands, Alone reveal the storm that raged by night, Where, in the solitude, resurgent hands Wrung from the seething deep the sea-foam white. II. How light, you said, the lines this rhymer penned. Ah ! light, indeed, to you who run and read ; But what of all the power it takes to blend The thought of melody with lips that bleed ? 50 R : i A SONG OVERSEAS. A bird of passage on the wing Was all you were to me ; Ah ! whither on their wandering Did thy light pinions flee ? You came, and filled the land with song For one too happy day ; Then overseas, where you belong, You winged your careless way. Yet how was I to know you stayed A momentary guest. Whose sweet, but fleeting presence made These arms one day their rest? Ah ! Bird of Passage, once again Bring Summer back to us, Whose year by thy mere transient strain Is made melodious. 51 SUMMER GROWN STRANGE. This is the weather that of old she loved, And many a day like this, we, side by side. The music-haunted fields of summer roved : How strange 'twas in the summer-time she died ! For field and lane are filled with soft perfumes. And round the clover-heads the June bees cling. Or buzz through fields where many a wild-flower blooms, And loud the strains of woodland song-birds ring. As on a furrowed face the sunlight gleams, Till field and lane and woodland glade turn green ; And earth again in June's enchantment dreams, While down full tenderly the low skies lean. How strange ! — 'Tis more than I can understand ; The old June weather seems so out of place Without the touch of her remembered hand, — Without the sunlight of her laughing face. This is the weather that of old she loved, And many a day like this, we, side by side, The music-haunted fields of summer roved : How strange 'twas in the summer-time she died ! 52 THE ROSE AND THE ROCK. ( Written for Music.) A rose, with its lush leaves bright With the dawn-light dew, Faded down with the dying light Of the day it blew. For only a day it bloomed. And at eve lay dead ; Through the dusk that its breath perfumed, Its spirit fled. Yet a rock, by the rose's side, Through the long years lay ; While the rose was worshipped, but died In a single day. Ah ! loved v/as the fleeting rose. But the crumbling stone. When its life had drawn to a close, No love had known. 53 CONCERNING DEATH AND A CHILD. To me, who watched thine early ways, And knew too well thy childish days, It seems full strange that Death should turn That gloomy visage, gauntly stern. Askant to thine, where still outshone The Hngerings of thy life's soft dawn. It seems full strange, — thou wert so young, And to thy childhood language clung A reminiscence of the tongue God's angels talk in Paradise, — Some softer language of the skies. We never dreamed that Death would come To strike thy babbling childhood dumb ; Such merely idle talk as thine Could never lead us to divine That Death should hearken to each word Thy brooding mother scarcely heard. Did he grow envious that we Should half-forget his majesty ? Ah ! great the blow to make us feel He still expected we should kneel. And yet when Death stole near for you, How could he force a passage through The wall of watching angels' wings That guarded all thy slumberings? 54 i' Li Was it thy mother's wistful gaze First drev hirn from his wonted ways ? Where he, half tired of coquetry With those who knelt too readily, No longer in mere dalliance smiled, But showed his power, and too'? a child ? Thy little hand has clutched his hand, And we no longer inderstand How we once deemed Death so austere ; The old-time face we used to fear Has lost its ancient terror now. Since that inexorable brow Once smiled and bended over thee, And took you off, half childishly — Irreparable Persephone ! m 55 A SONG FOR CERTAIN REFORMERS. Hate wrong, as a bull hates red ! Fight long, till the wrong is dead ! For to him God gives the fight, Who fights for the sake of the right ! Crush wrong, though it falls to you To strike at a right or two ! Fight blind, and for you be it not To decide till the battle's fought ! So, strike in the just, grand fight ! So, smite what you think not right ! Hate wrong, as a bull hates red ! And fight till the wrong lies dead ! f! I 56 THE WOMAN WHO LOVED A SAILOR. Did your old grey sails, as they roamed the seas, Did your torn sails know they had homeward turned, As they bellied and veered to the keen fresh breeze, And the west behind in a long line burned ? Knew they not full well they were coming home, When the old boat bounded along the deep, Through the green waves stieaked with a fringe of foam, Like a sea-bird's wings on their landward sweep? When the boy who looked from the bow cried,"Land !" When you crossed the bar, did your sea-worn boat Feel the bay like the touch of an old-time hand. And remember the ways where it used to float ? And was it the same with yourself, O Heart ? Did you feel bi't half what the old boat felt, When I stood with my two poor arms apart, And my very soul at your own soul knelt? As I watched for you at the sea-fringe sand, Did you feel the love that I could not speak, When you held my hand in your man's rough hand. And the idle tears ran down my cheek ? For a woman must love, if she will or no, And her heart is a little thing at best To the man she loves, but though even so, — Ah ! kiss me, and help me to say the rest ! s; TWILIGHT-TIME. The grey-houred evening falls ; The reminiscent waning-time of day, When long-forgotten voices of the past Float back, and fill the twilight's haunted grey With strange low lingering sounds, until at last Some louder bird-pipe sing them all to sleep ; And through the gathering dusk the after-glow, Down slowly in the west, begins to creep, Where still one twilight robin, clear and low. Across the silence calls. I, too, O twilight bird— I, too, have felt That unknown touch of sorrow troubling thee. Who fills the vales where erewhile daylight dwelt, With plaintive strains of evening melody ; — I, too, have watched the dim far golden west. And felt the wordless charm, but I Could never throw, as thou, the strange unrest In one impassioned outburst to the sky. 58 I i ' Miles and miles and miles Of dreaming waves, and slowly waning hills ; And in the skies, the gathering night enisles One astral glimmer, till the star-glow fills The brooding dark, and falls along the lake ; And in the murmuring pines the night-winds wake; But still the wild-bird sings some old despair, And still its echoing cadence swells and creeps, And falls along the dusk, and all the air Grows lightless, to the last long golden bars ; And lulled by twilight sounds, the old world sleeps Beneath the silent stars. AT THE END OF THE WOOING. " Ah ! tear not from the stem the flower," you said, " Lest in your unrewarded hand you hold Some withered semblance of the broken rose ; So, plead no more." (You bowed your troubled head.) " For how can we, who loved so well of old. Be still the self-same lovers, once we wed ? Ah, no ! You reach the altar, but you lose The happier worship held so long before." Enough ! I take you, though I lose you too ; — Lean back your woman's face, and give to me Those mournful eyes, those wistful lips, once more And let the old smile steal still sadly through ; For here I let the ancient love go free, — The happier life ; but you — ah ! never you ! 1 I 59 KEATS. i You hold my dog-eared volume in your hand, And idly ask me what I think of Keats. Now, let me likewise idly question you : — In summer-time, well toward the close of June, Have you once walked down dusty meadow-paths That face the sun, and quiver in the heat, And, as you brushed through grass and daisies' heads, Found glowing on some sunburnt little knoll, A deep red over-ripe wild strawberry ? — The sweetest fruit beneath Canadian skies (In all that withered field the only touch Of lustrous color to redeem the Spring) ? And have you ever taken in your hand That swollen globe of soft deliciousness? — You notice first the colour, richly red ; And then the odour, strangely sweet and sharp ; And last :^f all, you crush its ruddy core Against your lips, till colour, taste, and scent. Might make your stained lip stop to murmur: "This, The very heart of Summer that I crush," — So poignant, through its lusciousness, it seems I Ah ! then no further need of idle words ; I've shown you now just what I think of Keats. ^uimi^MiiQ H 60 CHRIST. Along the hillside path the dusty travellers wound, Until a sudden turn ; and then they paused and gazed With aching eyes across the sun-bleached hills below ; And on their ears there smote a far-off murmuring sound, For Lo ! along her thousand walls and towers, outblazed From grey Jerusalem, the noonday sunlight's glow. One dust-stained man, with troubled eyes, stood long, And gazed on walls and towers, and heard the wafted cries Among the swarming streets, where brute and mortal worked ; And, gazing long on all that great pulsating throng, A strange compassion stole within his tearful eyes, And on his face, inscrutable, a sorrow lurked. There blindly writhed the world of men he yearned to lead From their old darkened ways; but they, in worship grim Had crushed a god's crown on his brow, where trickled through The human blood alone, where heart and brow both bleed. Why to a God, he groaned, had they degraded him ? — And in the dust Christ dropped a human tear or two ! 6i THE HOUSE OF RUINS. Half down the lonely vale, where sunbeams creep, Along the wild-grown grass one noonday hour. The old house stands, enwrapt in dreams and sleep ; And through the gloom the ancient gables tower Above the ivy clinging on its walls ; And on the mouldering eaves the martens sit Through all the day, and when the twilight falls, Out from the casements dark the black bats flit. Upon the strangled path, should strange feet press. And should a strange hand knock upon the door. That creaks and whines in plaintive-toned distress, A sound of feet might pass along the floor. And ghostly voices fill the vacant halls; Unwonted things might stare from out the gloom, And murmurs creep along the sunken walls, Bowed down beneath some long-forgotten doom. Along the flowerless and the wild-grown lawns, The thistle and the long-leaved mullein bloom ; And no bird carols while the morning dawns. No vagrant flower gleams in the sunless gloom, And no fruit flushes on the gnarled old trees. Whose grey briarian branches now are grown A brushwood tangle, where the sunset breeze Forever wails its mournful monotone. ^"!,^At^3>iAi^ 62 The little stream that creeps between the hills Has eaten deep beneath the house's wall, Where fallen stones choke back the shrunken rills That gurgle down their sides in many a fall ; And truant boys that venture up the creek Steal past the silent house with wondering eye, And never cross that darkened door to seek For swallows' eggs among the chimneys high. And through the mellow golden summer gloom One lonely reed-voiced robin pipes aloud, Until the day's last lights his wings illume ; And then the song is ceased, and shadows crowd Across the songless valley's solitude, That seems a land within whose twilight bourn No human foot would venture to intrude ; — Bereft of summers, and of springs forlorn. And yet, beyond the years now passed away. Some time within the summer days now gone, A thousand birds sang all the ringing day, A thousand flowers gleamed on the summer lawn, And golden fruit grew mellow in 1^2 sun. And laughter swelled along the joyous vale. As twilight birds flew homeward, one by one. And in the west the golden lights grew pale. I !l 63 And long among the daisies and the grass A man and woman idly wandered on, And saw the faint gleams from the far west pass, Until the day and after-glow were gone ; And, plucking one among the many flowers, He said : " Though this poor flower must pass away. There is no end, no end, to love like ours : Our love is of all time — these live a day." They paced their little paths ; and daisies blow Above the graves where now the lovers sleep ; The years have come and gone, the years still go, But no sound breaks upon the silence deep, And only the old gloomy house remains, Within whose silent walls no footsteps stray. And drearily the cold autumnal rains Beat down in gusts upon its gables grey. / fi'i il 64 SNOW-BOUND The frost creeps on my window-pane, The snows drift through the broken floor ; And in the night I wake and feel The winter deepen round my door. I hear the wind moan round the eaves, And on the pane the driving sleet; Then in a lull, between the winds, I catch the tread of passing feet. And feel one silent foot-fall pause A moment by my lonely door. And wonder if the Stranger comes To lead me through the night once more? To take me out amid the storm. And lead me from the little room. Where all the night I stood and heard Strange voices echo through the gloom ? 'Twas but the snows against my roof; And low once more about the eaves. Through all the night, the restless wind Forever whines and wails and grieves. Then from my frosted pane I look, And all the endless snowfields seem But empty shadows of a sleep, And life a half-forgotten dream.