Foerns by ~t~rM Jo~n B Tabb London`John Lane Boston Copeland and Day MDCCCXOIV Enibtrsitg Vress: JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. AVE: SIDNEY LANIER. ERE Time's horizon-line cwas set, Somecwhere in space our spirits met, Then o'er the starry parapet Came wandering here. And nonw, that thou art gone again Beyond the verge, I haste amain (Lost echo of a loftier strain) To greet thee there. - CONTENTS. THE RING LIMITATION NEKROS WESTWARD TO A PHOTOGRAPH MY STAR CONTENT ROBIN THE WHITE JESSAMINE THE CLOUD PHANTOMS THE VOYAGERS THE SWALLOW CLOISTERED THE LONELY MOUNTAIN ECHOES PHOTOGRAPHED THE HALF-RING MOON ENSHRINED IN MY ORANGE GROVE INTIMATIONS EVOLUTION LOVE'S HYBLA WAYFARERS THE PEAK THE CAPTIVES PAGE I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 IO0 I 2 I 3 I4 i 6 I 7 Ii 8 20 21I 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 V MY PHOTOGRAPH BROTHERHOOD EVICTED GRIEF LONG RECOGNITION AN INFLUENCE HELPMATES TO MY SHADOW THE LAKE THE DAY-SPRING THE CHORD COMPENSATION VISIBLE SOUND TO THE SUMMER WIND NARCISSUS CHILDHOOD TO AN OLD WASSAIL CUP FOUNTAIN HEAD THE REAPER THE BUTTERFLY THE STRANGER JOY REGRET SLEEP YORICK S SKULL KEATS - SAPPHO THE BROOK PAGE 30 3 o 3I 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 4o 4I 4z 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 5 I 52 53 54 55 56 vi KILLDEE THE MOCKING-BIRD THE HUMMING-BIRD THE LARK THE BLUEBIRD TO A WOOD-ROBIN BLOSSOM TO A ROSE THE WATER-LILY THE PLAINT OF THE ROSE THE VIOLET SPEAKS TO THE VIOLET GOLDENROD STAR JESSAMINE THE DANDELION FERN SONG AUTUMN GOLD AUTUMN SONG INDIAN SUMMER DECEMBER AT THE YEAR'S END THE CHRISTMAS BABE THE LIGHT OF BETHLEHEM OUT OF BONDS MISTLETOE EASTER EASTER LILIES PAGE 5 7 58 59 60 6 I 62 63 6+ 65 66 67 68 69 70 7 I 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 8o 8 I 82 83 vii RESURRECTION AWAKENING EARTH S TRIBUTE THE RECOMPENSE RABBONI TO THE CHRIST THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION THE ANNUNCIATION THE INCARNATION THE ASSUMPTION MAGDALEN ABSOLVED THE PRECURSOR SON OF MARY CHRIST TO THE VICTIM-TREE ANGELS OF PAIN A LENTEN THOUGHT IS THY SERVANT A DOG HOLY GROUND THE PLAYMATES TO THE BABE NIVA A PHONOGRAPH A CRADLE SONG CONFIDED THE TAX-GATHERER BABY BABY'S DIMPLES viii Vlll PAGE 84 8 5 86 87 8 8 89 go 9 I gz 9 3 94 95 96 97 98 99 ][00 1011 102 103 104 105 iio6 107 ico8 log 110 A BUNCH OF ROSES THE NEW-YEAR BABE MILTON TO SHELLEY SAPPHO TO SIDNEY LANIER ON THE FORTHCOMING LANIER'S POEMS FATHER DAMIEN THE SNOW-DROP PAGE I I I 112 I 113 114 115 116 VOLUME OF SIDNEY 117 Ii 9 8 I I9 QUATRAINS. FOR THE RAIN IT RAINETH EVERY DAY THE MAST A STONE S THROW LOVE S AUTOGRAPH RENEWAL PREJUDICE THE BUBBLE O' ERSPENT IMAGINATION RUIN BECALMED THE SPHINX DISCREPANCY POETRY SAP ix I23 1 2,+ 1125 i -26 127 i -2 8 I29 I30 1 31 1 3 2 1 3 3 1 34 'I 3 5 'I 3 6 1 3 7 SLEEP THE PYRAMIDS FORMATION THE PROMONTORY STARS WHISPER THE SUN THE SUNBEAM ALTER EGO REFLECTION ESTRANGEMENT BEETHOVEN - ANGELO THE SHADOW SONNETS. THE INDIAN OF SAN SALVADOR KEATS SILENCE UNUTTERED SOLITUDE LOVE'S RETROSPECT A WINTER TWILIGHT GLIMPSES. THE AGONY THE DEAD TREE HOMELESS THE PETRAL PAGE 1 3 8 1 39 140 141 14Z 143 144 I45 146 147 ii48 I 4.9 150 1 5 3 1 54115 5 156 1 5 7 1 5 8 1 5 9 i6o i 6 i i6z i 6 3 i64 x AT ANCHOR SHADOWS THE MOUNTAIN UNMOORED EUGENIE GOLGOTHA THE PORTRAIT xi PAGE i 6 5 i66 i67 j68 x69 170 172 THE RING. T.aTOLD the trinket near thine eye, ?And it circles earth and sky; Place it further, and behold! A-.itBut a finger's breadth of gold. Thus our lives, beloved, lie Ringed with love's fair boundary; Place it further, and its sphere Measures but a falling tear. 'o LIMITATION. REATHE above me or belowi Never canst thou farther go Than the spirit's octave-span, Harmonizing God and Man. Thus within the iris-bound, Light a prisoner is found; Thus within my soul I see Life in Time's captivity. 2 NEKROS. 0! all thy glory gone! -God's masterpiece undone! The last created and the first to fall; The noblest, frailest, godliest of all. Death seems the conqueror now, And yet his victor thou: The fatal shaft, its venom quench'd in thee, A mortal raised to immortality. Child of the humble sod, Wed with the breath of God, Descend! for with the lowest thou must lieArise! thou hast inherited the sky. 3 WESTWARD. ND dost thou lead him hence with thee, 0 setting sun, And leave the shadows all to me When he is gone? Ah, if my grief his guerdon be, My dark his light, I count each loss felicity, And bless the night. 4 TO A PHOTOGRAPH. TENDER shade! Lone captive of enamoured Light, That from an angel visage bright A glance betrayed. Dost thou not sigh To wander from thy prison-place? To seek again the vanished face, Or else, to die? A shade like thee, Dim Eidolon -a dream disproved - A memory of light removed, Behold in me! 5 MY STAR. INCE that the dewdrop holds the star The long night through, Perchance the satellite afar Reflects the dew. And while thine image in my heart Doth steadfast shine; There, haply, in thy heaven apart Thou keepest mine. 6 CONTENT. - 7'ERE all the heavens an overladen bough Of ripened benediction lowered above me, What could I crave, soul-satisfied as now That thou dost love me? The door is shut. To each unsheltered Blessing Henceforth I say, ", Depart! What would st thou of me?" Beggared I am of want, this boon possessing, That thou dost love me. 7 ROBIN. C OME to me, Robin! The daylight is dying! _Come to me now! Come, ere the cypress-tree over me sighing, Dank with the shadow-tide, circle my brow; Come, ere oblivion speed to me, flying Swifter than thou! Come to me, Robin! The far echoes waken Cold to my cry! Oh! with the swallow-wing, love overtaken, Hence to the Echo-land, homeward, to fly! Thou art my life, Robin. Oh! love-forsaken, How can I die? 8 THE WHITE JESSAMINE. I KNEW she lay above me, Where the casement all the night Shone, softened with a phosphor glow Of sympathetic light, And that her fledgling spirit pure Was pluming fast for flight. Each tendril throbbed and quickened As I nightly climbed apace, And could scarce restrain the blossoms When, anear the destined place, Her gentle whisper thrilled me Ere I gazed upon her face. I waited, darkling, till the dawn Should touch me into bloom, While all my being panted To outpour its first perfume, When, lo! a paler flower than mine Had blossomed in the gloom! 9 THE CLOUD. -A AR on the brink of day Thou standest as the herald of the dawn, Where fades the night's last flickering spark away Ere the first dewdrop's gone. Above the eternal snows By winter scattered on the mountain height To shroud the centuries, thy visage glows With a prophetic light. Calm is thine awful brow; As when thy presence shrined Divinity Between the flaming Cherubim, so now Its shadow clings to thee. Yet as an Angel mild Thou, in the torrid noon, with sheltering wing Dost o'er the earth, as to a weary child, A balm celestial bring. And when the evening dies, Still to thy fringed vesture cleaves the light - The last sad glimmer of her tearful eyes On the dark verge of night. So, soon thy glories wane! Thou too must mourn the rose of morning shed: Cold creeps the fatal shadow o'er thy train, And settles on thy head. I0 And while the wistful eye Yearns for the charm that wooed its ravished gaze, The sympathy of Nature wakes a sigh, And thus its thought betrays: " Thou, like the Cloud, my soul, Dost in thyself of beauty nought possess; Devoid the light of Heaven, a vapor foul, The veil of nothingness!" [I PHANTOMS. RE ye the ghosts of fallen leaves, 0 flakes of snow, For which, through naked trees, the winds A-mourning go? Or are ye angels, bearing home The host unseen Of truant spirits, to be clad Again in green? I2 t/I THE VOYAGERS. "HE Spring in festival array, _ From Death to Life, from Night to Day, Came floating o'er the main; And now with banners brave and bright, From Life to Death, from Day to Night, The Autumn drifts again. '3 THE SWALLOW. KIM o'er the tide, And from thy pinions fling The sparkling water-drops, Sweet child of spring! Bathe in the dying sunshine warm and bright, Till ebbs the last receding wave of light. Swift glides the hour, But what its flight to thee? Thine own is fleeter far; E'en now to me Thou seem'st upon futurity anon To beckon thence the tardy present on. The eye in vain Pursues, with subtle glance, Thy dim, delirious course Through heaven's expanse: Vanished thy form upon the wings of thought, Ere yet its place the lagging vision caught. Again thou'rt here, A slanting arrow sent From yon fair-tinted bow, In promise bent; As when, erewhile, the gentle bird of love Poised her white wing the new-born land above. 14 A seeming shade, Scarce palpable in form, Yet thine, alas, the change Of calm and storm! The veering passions of my stronger soul Alike the throbbings of thy heart control. For day is done, And cloyed of long delight, Like me thou welcomest The sober night; Like me, aweary, sinkest on that breast, That woos all nature to her silent rest. I 5 CLOISTERED. - TITHIN the compass of mine eyes V Behold, a lordly city lies A world to me unknown, Save that along its crowded ways Moves one whose heart in other days Was mated to mine own. I ask no more; enough for me One heaven above us both to see, One calm horizon-line Around us, like a mystic ring That Love has set, encompassing That kindred life and mine. i6 THE LONELY MOUNTAIN. NE bird, that ever with the wakening spring Was wont to sing, I wait, through all my woodlands, far and near, In vain to hear. The voice of many waters, silent long Breaks forth in song; Young breezes to the listening leaves outpour Their heavenly lore: A thousand other winged warblers sweet, Returning, greet Their fellows, and rebuild upon my breast The wonted nest. But unto me one fond familiar strain Comes not againA breath whose faintest echo, farthest heard, A mountain stirred. '7 ECHOES. W HERE of old, responsive / /As the wind and foam, Rose the joyous echoes, Desolate I roam, Nor find one lingering sound to hail the wanderer home. Silence, long unbroken, Break thy rigid spell! Free the fairy captives Of the mountain dell, If yet in veiling mist the mimic minions dwell. Children of the distance, Shall I call in vain? From your slumbers waking, Speak to me again As erst in childhood woke your soft Eolian strain! Hark! the wavy chorus, Faint and far away, Like a dream returning In the light of day, Too fond to flee; alas! too timorous to stay! Hints of heavenly voices, Tone for silvery tone, Move in rarer measures I8 Than to us are known, Still wooing hence to worlds beyond the shadowy zone. Pausing, still they linger As in love's delay, With sibyllic omen Seeming thus to say; "Of all the vanished Past, we Echoes only stay!" 19 PHOTOGRAPHED. - OR years, an ever-shifting shade . The sunshine of thy visage made; Then, spider-like, the captive caught In meshes of immortal thought. E'en so, with half-averted eye, Day after day I passed thee by, Till suddenly, a subtler art Enshrined thee in my heart of heart. 20 THE HALF-RING MOON. VER the sea, over the sea, My love he is gone to a far countrile But he brake a golden ring with me The pledge of his faith to be. Over the sea, over the sea, He comes no more from the far countrie5 But at night, where the new moon loved to be, Hangs the half of a ring for me. 21 ENSHRINED. OME quickly in and close the door, For none hath entered here before, The secret chamber set apart Within the cloister of the heart. Tread softly!'T is the Holy Place Where memory meets face to face A sacred sorrow, felt of yore, But sleeping now forevermore. It cannot die i for nought of pain, Its fleeting vesture, doth remain: Behold upon the shrouded eye The seal of immortality! Love would not wake it, nor efface Of anguish one abiding trace, Since e en the calm of heaven were less, Untouched of human tenderness. 22 IN MY ORANGE-GROVE RBS of Autumnal beauty, breathed to light From blooms of May, Rounded between the touch of lengthening night And lessening day, Flushed with the Summer fulness that the Spring (Fair seer!) foretold, The circle of three seasons compassing In spheres of gold. 23 INTIMATIONS. - KNEW the flowers had dreamed of you, - And hailed the morning with regret; For all their faces with the dew Of vanished joy were wet. I knew the winds had passed your way, Though not a sound the truth betrayed; About their pinions all the day A summer fragrance stayed. And so, awaking or asleep, A memory of lost delight By day the sightless breezes keep, And silent flowers by night. 24 EVOLUTION. UT of the dusk a shadow, Then, a spark; Out of the cloud a silence, Then, a lark; Out of the heart a rapture, Then, a pain; Out of the dead, cold ashes, Life again. 25 LOVE'S HYBLA. V Y thoughts fly to thee, as the bees To find their favorite flower; Then home, with honeyed memories Of many a fragrant hour: For with thee is the place apart Where sunshine ever dwells, The Hybla, whence my hoarding heart Would fill its wintry cells. 26 WAYFARERS. COMRADE Sun, that day by day Dost weave a shadow on my way, Lest, in the luxury of light, My soul forget the neighboring night:Wilt thou whene er, my journey done, Thou wanderest our path upon, Bear in thy beams a memory Of one who walked the world with thee, Or mourn, amid the lavishness Of Life, one hovering shade the less? 27 THE PEAK. S on some solitary height -Abides, in summer's fierce despite, Snow-blossom that no sun can blight, No frost can kill; So, in my soul, -all else below To change succumbing,- stands aglow One wreath of immemorial snow, Unscattered still. 28 / THE CAPTIVES. PART forever dwelt the twain, ISave for one oft-repeated strain Wherein what Love alone could say They learned and lavished day by day. Strangers in all but misery And music's hope-sustaining tie, They lived and loved and died apart, But soul to soul and heart to heart. 29 MY PHOTOGRAPH. ' M Y sister Sunshine smiled on me, _ And of my visage wrought a shade. " Behold," she cried, "the mystery Of which thou art afraid! " For Death is but a tenderness, A shadow, that unclouded Love Hath fashioned in its own excess Of radiance from above." 30 BROTHERHOOD. NEW not the Sun, sweet Violet, KThe while he gleaned the snow, That thou in darkness sepulchred, Wast slumbering below? Or spun a splendor of surprise Around him to behold thee rise? Saw not the Star, sweet Violet, What time a drop of dew Let fall his image from the sky Into thy deeper blue? Nor waxed he tremulous and dim When rival Dawn supplanted him? And dreamest thou, sweet Violet, That I, the vanished Star, The Dewdrop, and the morning Sun, Thy closest kinsmen are - So near that, waking or asleep, We each and all thine image keep? 31 EVICTED. TIME shut the door, and turned the key; _ And here in darkness (woe is me!) I wait and call in vain: He will not come again! I had but stepped beyond the light, And on the threshold of the night Turned back -alas, to find Life's portal closed behind! Breathless, I beat the ponderous door: No answer! Silence evermore, Remembering what has been, Sits desolate within. The Present dead, Futurity, Its still-born babe, wakes not for me: I am alone at last With the immortal Past. 32 GRIEF-SONG. T EW grief, new tears; Brief the reign of sorrow; Clouds that gather with the night Scatter on the morrow. Old grief, old tears; Come and gone together; Not a fleck upon the sky Telling whence or whither. Old grief, new tears; Deep to deep is calling: Life is but a passing cloud Whence the rain is falling. 33 RECOGNITION. T twilight, on the open sea, I-We passed, with breath of melody - A song, to eacfamiliar, sung In accents of an alien tongue. We could not see each other's face, Nor through the growing darkness trace Our destinies; but brimming eyes Betrayed unworded sympathies. 34 AN INFLUENCE. - SEE thee,- heaven's unclouded face _ A vacancy around thee made, Its sunshine a subservient grace Thy lovelier light to shade. I feel thee, as the billows feel A river freshening the brine, A life's libation poured to heal The bitterness of mine. 35 HELPMATES. AYS the Land, " 0 sister Sea, Had'st thou not borne the voyagers to me, Vain were their visions grand, And I, e'en now, perchance, a stranger-land: So, thine the glory be!" Says the Sea, "Nay, brother Land; Had'st thou not outward stretched the saving hand, My bosom now had kept The secret where the souls heroic slept; 'Tis in thy strength they stand!" 36 TO MY SHADOW. - RIEND forever in the light Cleaving to my side, Harbinger of endless night That must soon betide; , Hither,'" seemest thou to say, "From the twilight now: In the darkness when I stay, Never thence wilt thou." 37 THE LAKE. AM a lonely woodland lake: _The trees that round me grow, The glimpse of heaven above me, make The sum of all I know. The mirror of their dreams to be Alike in shade and shine, To clasp in Love's captivity, And keep them one -is mine. 38 THE DAYSPRING. T HAT hand with spear of light Hath cleft the side of Night, And from the red wound wide Fashioned the Dawn, his bride? Was it the deed of Death? Nayi but of Love, that saith, " Henceforth be Shade and Sun, In bonds of Beauty, one." 39 THE CHORD. - N this narrow cloister bound -Dwells a Sisterhood of Sound, Far from alien voices rude As in secret solitude Unisons, that yearned apart, Here, in harmony of heart, Blend divided sympathies, And in choral strength arise, Like the cloven tongues of fire, One in heavenly desire. 40 COMPENSATION. -- OW many an acorn falls to die _ - For one that makes a tree! How many a heart must pass me by For one that cleaves to me! How many a suppliant wave of sound Must still unheeded roll, For one low utterance that found An echo in my soul! 41 VISIBLE SOUND. YE, have we not felt it and known, Ere Science proclaimed it her own, That form is but visible tone? Behold, where in silence was drowned The last fleeting echo of sound, The rainbow -its blossom- is foundi While anon, with a verdurous sweep From the mountain-side, wooded and steep, Swells the chorus of deep unto deep, That the trumpet flowers, flame-flashing, blow Till the lilies enkindled below Swoon pale into passion, like snow! Yea, Love, of sweet Nature the Lord, Hath fashioned each manifold chord To utter His visible Word, Whose work, wheresoever begun, Like the rays floating back to the Sun, In the soul of all beauty is one. 42 TO THE SUMMER WIND. RT thou the selfsame wind that blew IWhen I was but a boy? Thy voice is like the voice I knew, And yet the thrill of joy Has softened to a sadder tone Perchance the echo of mine own. Beside a sea of memories In solitude I dwell: Upon the shore forsaken lies Alas! no murmuring shell! Are all the voices lost to me Still wandering the world with thee? 43 NARCISSUS. 'HE god enamoured never knew _ The shadow that beguiled his view, Nor deemed it less divinely true Than Life and Love. And so the poet, while he wrought His image in the tide of thought, Deemed it a glimpse in darkness caught Of light above. 44 CHILDHOOD. LD Sorrow I shall meet again, And Joy, perchance -but never, never, Happy Childhood, shall we twain See each other's face forever! And yet I would not call thee back, Dear Childhood, lest the sight of me, Thine old companion, on the rack Of Age, should sadden even thee. 45 TO AN OLD WASSAIL-CUP. - 7HERE Youth and Laughter lingered long / To quaff delight, with wanton song And warm caress, Now Time and Silence strive amain With lips unsatisfied, to drain Life's emptiness! 46 FOUNTAIN-HEADS. LIKE from depths of joy and sorrow start The rain-drops of the heart: Alike from sweet and briny waves arise The tear-drops of the skies. And back to earth salt tears and freshening rain Alike must flow again. 47 THE REAPER. β€” ELL me whither, maiden June, _ Down the dusky slope of noon With thy sickle of a moon, Goest thou to reap. " Fields of Fancy by the stream Of night in silvery silence gleam, To heap with many a harvest-dream The granary of Sleep." 48 THE BUTTERFLY. - EAFLESS, stemless, floating flower, ,From a rainbow's scattered bower, Like a bubble of the air Blown by fairies, tell me where Seed or scion I may find Bearing blossoms of thy kind. 49 THE STRANGER. -- E ENTERED; but the mask he wore _ - Concealed his face from me. Still, something I had seen before He brought to memory. " Who art thou? What thy rank, thy name?" I questioned, with surprise; "Thyself," the laughing answer came, ",, As seen of others' eyes." 50 JOY. EW-BORN, how long to stay? The while a dew-drop may, Or rainbow-gleam: One kiss of sun or shade, And, lo, the breath that made, Unmakes the dream! 51 REGRET. I /HAT pleading passion of the dark Hath left the Morning pale? She listens! "'T is, alas, the Lark, And not the Nightingale! 0 for the gloom-encircled sphere, Whose solitary bird Outpours for Love's awakening ear What noon hath never heard! 52 SLEEP. LIND art thou as thy mother Night, And as thy sister Silence dumb; But naught of soothing sound or sight Doth unto mortals come So tender as thy fancied glance And dream-imagined utterance. 53 YORICK'S SKULL. -DOOR jester! still upon the stage, - Chap-fallen flung, Where merry clowns from age to age Thy dirge have sung; Yet more than Eloquence may reach, Thought-heights among: 'T is thine, humanity to teach, Sans brains or tongue. 54 KEATS - SAPPHO. IM ETHINKS, when first the nightingale _ Was mated to thy deathless song, That Sappho with emotion pale, Amid the Olympian throng, Again, as in the Lesbian grove, Stood listening with lips apart, To hear in thy melodious love The pantings of her heart. 55 THE BROOK. - T is the mountain to the sea - That makes a messenger of me: And, lest I loiter on the way And lose what I am sent to say, He sets his reverie to song And bids me sing it all day long. Farewell! for here the stream is slow, And I have many a mile to go. 56 KILLDEE. - ILLDEE! Killdee! far o'er the lea At twilight comes the cry. Killdee! a marsh-mate answereth Across the shallow sky. Killdee! Killdee! thrills over me A rhapsody of light, As star to star gives utterance Between the day and night. Killdee! Killdee! O Memory, The twin birds, Joy and Pain, Like shadows parted by the sun, At twilight meet again! 57 THE MOCKING-BIRD. O HEART that cannot sleep for song! Behold, I wake with thee, And drink, as from a fountain strong, Thy midnight melody, That, poured upon the thirsting silence, seems Fresh from the shade of dreams My spirit, like the sapless bough Of some long-wintered tree, Feels suddenly the life that now Sets all thy passion free, And flushed as in the wakening strength of wine, Leaps heavenward with thine. 58 THE HUMMING-BIRD. A FLASH of harmless lightning, P A mist of rainbow dyes, The burnished sunbeams brightening, From flower to flower he flies: While wakes the nodding blossom, But just too late to see What lip hath touched her bosom And drained her nectary. 59 THE LARK. - E rose, and singing passed from sight: - - _ A shadow kindling with the sun, His joy ecstatic flamed, till light And heavenly song were one. 60 THE BLUEBIRD. ' IS thine the earliest song to sing _ Of welcome to the wakening spring, Who round thee, as a blossom, weaves The fragrance of her sheltering leaves. 6i TO A WOOD-ROBIN. - 0, where the blooming woodland wakes From wintry slumbers long, Thy heart, a bud of silence, breaks To ecstasy of song. 62 BLOSSOM. - OR this the fruit, for this the seed, For this the parent tree; The least to man, the most to God - A fragrant mystery Where Love, with Beauty glorified, Forgets Utility. 63 TO A ROSE. THOU hast not toiled, sweet Rose, - Yet needest rest; Softly thy petals close Upon thy breast, Like folded hands, of labor long oppressed. Naught knowest thou of sin, Yet tears are thinei Baptismal drops within Thy chalice shine, At morning's birth, at evening's calm decline. Alas! one day hath told The tale to thee! Thy tender leaves enfold Life's mystery: Its shadow falls alike on thee and me! 64 THE WATER-LILY. IW -HENCE, O fragrant form of light, Hast thou drifted through the night, Swanlike, to a leafy nest, On the restless waves, at rest? Art thou from the snowy zone Of a mountain-summit blown, Or the blossoms of a dream, Fashioned in the foamy stream? Nay; methinks the maiden moon, When the daylight came too soon, Fleeting from her bath to hide, Left her garment in the tide. 65 THE PLAINT OF THE ROSE. AID the budding Rose, "All night Have I dreamed of the joyous light: How long doth my lord delay! Come, Dawn, and kiss from mine eyes away The dewdrops cold and the shadows gray, That hide thee from my sight! Said the full-blown Rose, " O Light! (So fair to the dreamer's sight!) How long doth the dew delay! Come back, sweet sister shadows gray, And lead me home from the world away, To the calm of the cloister Night! " 66 THE VIOLET SPEAKS. -THINK not yon star, New-found afar, Love's latest sign; Nor fondly dream No fresher beam Doth on thee shine: A newer light, From longer night Of years, is mine. 67 TO THE VIOLET. WEET violet, who knows From whence thy fragrance flows Or whither hence it goes? A pious pilgrim here To Winter's sepulchre Thou comest year by year Alert with balmier store Than Magdalen of yore To Love's anointing bore. Methinks that thou hast been So oft the go-between 'Twixt sight and things unseen That with thy wafted breath Alternate echoeth Each bank of sundering Death. 68 GOLDEN-ROD. / S Israel, in days of old, Beneath the prophet's rod, Amid the waters, backward rolled, A path triumphant trod; So, while thy lifted staff appears, Her pilgrim steps to guide, The Autumn journeys on, nor fears The Winter's threatening tide. 69 STAR-JESSAMINE. -ISCERNING Star from Sister Star, We give to each its name; But ye, O countless Blossoms, are In fragrance and in flame So like, that He from whom ye came Alone discerneth each by name. 70 THE DANDELION. - ITH locks of gold to-day, To-morrow, silver grayi Then blossom-bald. Behold, 0 man, thy fortune told! 7' FERN SONG. ANCE to the beat of the rain, little Fern, And spread out your palms again, And say, " Tho' the sun Hath my vesture spun, He had labored, alas, in vain, But for the shade That the Cloud hath made, And the gift of the Dew and the Rain." Then laugh and upturn All your fronds, little Fern, And rejoice in the beat of the rain! 72 AUTUMN GOLD. EATH in the house, and the golden-rod A-bloom in the field! O blossom, how, from the lifeless clod, When the fires are out and the ashes cold, Doth a vein that the miners know not, yield Such wealth of gold? 73 AUTUMN SONG. Y life is but a leaf upon the tree A growth upon the stem that feedeth all A touch of frost -and suddenly I fall, To follow where my sister-blossoms be. The selfsame sun, the shadow, and the rain, That brought the budding verdure to the bough, Shall strip the fading foliage as now, And leave the limb in nakedness again. My life is but a leaf upon the tree; The winds of birth and death upon it blow; But whence it came and whither it shall go, Is mystery of mysteries to me. 74 INDIAN SUMMER. ' β€”IS said, in death, upon the face _ Of Age, a momentary trace Of Infancy's returning grace Forestalls decay; And here, in Autumn's dusky reign, A birth of blossom seems again To flush the woodland's fading train With dreams of May. 75 DECEMBER. ULL sky above, dead leaves below; And hungry winds that whining go. Like faithful hounds upon the track Of one beloved that comes not back. 76 AT THE YEAR'S END. IGHT dreams of day, and winter seems In sleep to breathe the balm of May. Their dreams are true anon; but they, The dreamers, then, alas, are dreams. Thus, while our days the dreams renew Of some forgotten sleeper, we, The dreamers of futurity, Shall vanish when our own are true. 77 THE CHRISTMAS BABE. SO small that lesser lowliness Must bow to worship or caress; So great that heaven itself to know Love's majesty must look below. 78 THE LIGHT OF BETHLEHEM. '- is Christmas night! the snow, A flock unnumbered lies: The old Judean stars aglow, Keep watch within the skies. An icy stillness holds The pulses of the night: A deeper mystery infolds The wondering Hosts of Light. Till, lo, with reverence pale That dims each diadem, The lordliest, earthward bending, hail The Light of Bethlehem! 79 OUT OF BOUNDS. LITTLE Boy of heavenly birth, /_But far from home to-day, Comes down to find His ball, the Earth, That Sin has cast away. O comrades, let us one and all Join in to get Him back His ball! So MISTLETOE. rTO the cradle-bough of a naked tree, Benumbed with ice and snow, A Christmas dream brought suddenly A birth of mistletoe. The shepherd stars from their fleecy cloud Strode out on the night to seei The Herod north-wind blustered loud To rend it from the tree. But the old year took it for a sign, And blessed it in his heart: "With prophecy of peace divine, Let now my soul depart." 8i EASTER. IKE a meteor, large and bright, IFell a golden seed of light On the field of Christmas night When the Babe was born; Then't was sepulchred in gloom Till above His holy tomb Flashed its everlasting bloom - Flower of Easter morn. 82 EASTER LILIES. T HOUGH long in wintry sleep ye lay, - The powers of darkness could not stay Your coming at the call of day, Proclaiming spring. Nay; like the faithful virgins wise, With lamps replenished ye arise, Ere dawn the death-anointed eyes Of Christ, the king. 83 RESURRECTION. LL that springeth from the sod _Tendeth upwards unto God; All that cometh from the skies Urging it anon to rise. Winter's life-delaying breath Leaveneth the lump of death, Till the frailest fettered bloom Moves the earth, and bursts the tomb. Welcome, then, Time's threshing-pain And the furrows where each grain, Like a Samson, blossom-shorn, Waits the resurrection morn. 84 AWAKENING. 0 they that sleep, O Blossoms, yearn, When ye from them to us return, Again with you to rise? Or do they in your quickening breath Speak to us from the shades of death, And see us with your eyes? 85 EARTH'S TRIBUTE. _ IRST the grain, and then the blade The one destroyed, the other made; Then stalk and blossom, and again The gold of newly minted grain. So Life, by Death the reaper cast To earth, again shall rise at last; For't is the service of the sod To render God the things of God. 86 THE RECOMPENSE. HE brake the box, and all the house was filled With waftures from the fragrant store thereof, While at His feet a costlier vase distilled The bruised balm of penitential love. And, lo, as if in recompense of her, Bewildered in the lingering shades of night, He breaks anon the sealed sepulchre, And fills the world with rapture and with light. 87 RABBONI! ,,T BRING Thee balm, and, lo, Thou art not herel _ Twice have I poured mine ointment on Thy brow, And washed Thy feet with tears. Disdain'st Thou now The spikenard and the myrrh? Has Death, alas, betrayed Thee with a kiss That seals Thee from the memory of mine?" "Mary!" It is the self-same Voice Divine. " Rabboni!'"- only this. 88 TO THE CHRIST. 'HOU hast on earth a Trinity, - _ Thyself, my fellow-man, and me; When one with him, then one with Thee; Nor, save together, Thine are we. 89 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. DEW-DROP of the darkness born, ,.Wherein no shadow lies; The blossom of a barren thorn, Whereof no petal dies; A rainbow beauty passion-free, Wherewith was veiled Divinity. 90 THE ANNUNCIATION. " -1IAT! "-The flaming word Flashed, as the brooding Bird Uttered the doom far heard Of Death and Night. "Fiat! " A cloistered womb - A sealed, untainted tomb - Wakes to the birth and bloom Of Life and Light. 9' THE INCARNATION. AVE through the flesh Thou wouldst not come to me The flesh, wherein Thy strength my weakness found A weight to bow Thy Godhead to the ground, And lift to Heaven a lost humanity. 92 THE ASSUMPTION. OR Bethlehem nor Nazareth Apart from Mary's care; Nor heaven itself a home for Him Were not His mother there. 93 MAGDALEN. (AFTER SWINBURNE.) "S HE hath done what she could.' .It was thus that He spake of her, Trembling and pale as the penitent stood. "And this she hath done shall be told for the sake of her, Told as embalmed in the gift that I take of her, Take, as an earnest of all that she would Who hath done what she could. "She hath done what she could: Lo, the flame that hath driven her Downward, is quenched! and her grief like a flood In the strength of a rain-swollen torrent hath shriven her: Much hath she loved and much is forgiven her; Love in the longing fulfils what it would She hath done what she could." 94 ABSOLVED. F AR floating o'er its native fen, The evening Cloud, like Magdalen Her penitential tears Assuaged of Love, her sins forgiven - Upborne upon a waveless heaven Of radiant rest, appears. 95 THE PRECURSOR. ',/ S John of old before His face did go -To make the rough ways smooth, that all might know The level road that leads to Bethlehem, lo, I come," proclaims the snow. 96 SON OF MARY. HE the mother was of One - Christ, her Saviour and her Son. And another had she none? Yea: her Love's beloved - John. 97 CHRIST TO THE VICTIM-TREE. OON, but not alone to die, Kinsman Tree, Limbed and leafless must thou lie, Doomed, alas, for Me; Yea, for Me, as I for all, Must thou first a victim fall. Thou for me the bitter fruit Loth to bear, Must of Death's accursed root Shame reluctant share. Thus the Father's will divine Seals thy fate to compass M'e. 98 ANGELS OF PAIN. H, should they come revisiting the spot Whence by our prayers we drove them utterly, Shame were it for their saddened eyes to see How soon their visitations are forgot. 99 A LENTEN THOUGHT. LONE with Thee, who canst not be alone, IAt midnight, in Thine everlasting day; Lo, less than naught, of nothingness undone, I, prayerless, pray! Behold -and with Thy bitterness make sweet, What sweetest is in bitterness to hide Like Magdalen, I grovel at Thy feet, In lowly pride. Smite, till my wounds beneath Thy scourging ceasei Soothe, till my heart in agony hath bledi Nor rest my soul with enmity at peace, Till Death be dead. 100 ....... " IS THY SERVANT A DOG?" SO must he be who, in the crowded street, Where shameless Sin and flaunting Pleasure meet, Amid the noisome footprints finds the sweet Faint vestige of Thy feet. '101 .....:. I. HOLY GROUND. -PAUSE where apart the fallen sparrow lies, - And lightly tread; For there the pity of a Father's eyes Enshrines the dead. 102 THE PLAYMATES. I- THO are thy playmates, boy /" My favorite is Joy, Who brings with him his sister, Peace, to stay The livelong day. I love them both, but he Is most to me. And where thy playmates now, O man of sober brow? " Alas! dear Joy, the merriest, is dead But I have wed Peace; and our babe, a boy, New-born, is Joy.' 103 ,.. I.... TO THE BABE NIVA. IVA, Child of Innocence, Dust to dust zve go: Thou, when Winter wooed thee hence, Wentest snow to snow. Io04 A PHONOGRAPH. - ARKt what his fellow-warblers heard - And uttered in the light, Their phonograph, the mocking-bird, Repeats to them at night. 105 A CRADLE-SONG. ING it, Mother! sing it low: Deem it not an idle lay. In the heart't will ebb and flow All the life-long way. Sing it, Mother! softly sing, While he slumbers on thy knee; All that after-years may bring Shall flow back to thee. Sing it, Mother, Love is strong! When the tears of manhood fall, Echoes of thy cradle-song Shall its peace recall. Sing it, Mother! when his ear Catcheth first the Voice Divine, Dying, he may smile to hear What he deemeth thine. Io6 CONFIDED. NOTHER lamb, O Lamb of God, behold, Within this quiet fold, Among Thy Father's sheep I lay to sleep! A heart that never for a night did rest Beyond its mother's breast. Lord, keep it close to Thee, Lest waking it should bleat and pine for me! 107 THE TAX-GATHERER. "AND pray, who are you? " Said the violet blue To the Bee, with surprise At his wonderful size, In her eye-glass of dew. "I, madam," quoth he, " Am a publican Bee, Collecting the tax On honey and wax. Have you nothing for me?" Io8 BABY. ABY in her slumber smiling, Doth a captive take: Whispers Love, "From dreams beguiling May she never wake! " When the lids, like mist retreating, Flee the azure deep, Wakes a newborn Joy, repeating, " May she never sleep!" lo9 BABY'S DIMPLES. OVE goes playing hide-and-seek ,Mid the roses on her cheek, With a little imp of Laughter, Who, the while he follows after, Leaves the footprints that we trace All about the Kissing-place. TIO A BUNCH OF ROSES. 'HE rosy mouth and rosy toe Of little baby brother, Until about a month ago Had never met each other, But nowadays the neighbors sweet, In every sort of weather, Half way with rosy fingers meet, To kiss and play together. I I I THE NEW-YEAR BABE. r-WO together, Babe and Year. _ At the midnight chime, Through the darkness drifted here To the coast of Time. Two together, Babe and Year, Over night and day Crossed the desert Winter drear To the land of May. On together, Babe and Year, Swift to Summer passed; " Rest a moment, Brother dear," Said the Babe at last. " Nay, but onward;" answered Year, "1 We must farther go: Through the Vale of Autumn sere To the Mount of Snow. Toiling upward, Babe and Year Climbed the frozen height. " We may rest together here, Brother Babe - Good-night! " Then together Babe and Year Slept: but ere the dawn, Vanishing, I know not where, Brother Year was gone! I1T2 MILTON. SO fair thy vision that the night Abided with thee, lest the light, A flaming sword before thine eyes, Had shut thee out from Paradise. tt3 TO SHELLEY. / T Shelley's birth, I-The Lark, dawn-spirit, with an anthem loud Rose from the dusky earth To tell it to the Cloud, That, like a flower night-folded in the gloom, Burst into morning bloom. At Shelley's death, The Sea, that deemed him an immortal, saw A god's extinguished breath, And landward, as in awe, Upbore him to the altar whence he came, And the rekindling flame. i,4 SAPPHO. LIGHT upon the headland, flaming far, -We see thee o'er the widening waves of time, Impassioned as a palpitating star, Big with prophetic destiny sublime: A momentary flash- a burst of song Then silence, and a withering blank of pain. We wait, alas! in tedious vigils long, The meteor-gleam that cometh not again! Our eyes are heavy, and our visage wan: Our breath -a phantom of the darkness- glides Ghostlike to swell the dismal caravan Of shadows, where thy lingering splendor hides, Till, with our tears and ineffectual sighs, We quench the spark a smouldering hope supplies. II5 TO SIDNEY LANIER. T'HE dewdrop holds the heaven above, _ Wherein a lark, unseen, Outpours a rhapsody of love That fills the space between. My heart a dewdrop is, and thou, Dawn-spirit, far away, Fillest the void between us now With an immortal lay. ii6 ON THE FORTHCOMING VOLUME OF SIDNEY LANIER'S POEMS. NOW! Snow! Snow! Do thy worst, Winter, but know, but know That, when the Spring cometh, a blossom shall blow From the heart of the Poet that sleeps below, And his name to the ends of the earth shall go, In spite of the snow! 117 FATHER DAMIEN. GOD, the cleanest offering Of tainted earth below, Unblushing to thy feet we bring - "' i leper zwhite as snow! " 118 THE SNOWDROP. "A NUN of Winter's sisterhood," "A Snowdrop in the garden stood Alone amid the solitude That round her lay. No sister blossom there was seen; No memory of what had been; No promise of returning green, Or scented spray: But she alone was bold to bear The banner of the Spring, and dare, In Winter's stern despite, declare A gentler sway. So didst thou, Damien, when the glow Of faith and hope was waning low, For souls bewintered dare the snow, And lead the way. II9 QUATRAINS. ", FOR THE RAIN IT RAINETH EVERY DAY." , every day the rain doth fall, /And every day doth rise: ,'T is thus the heavens incessant call, LAnd thus the earth replies. 123 THE MAST. -'HE winds that once my playmates were _ No more my voice responsive hear, Nor know me, naked now and dumb, When o'er my wandering way they come. I24 A STONE'S THROW. 0, Death another pebble far doth fling ,Into the midmost sea, To leave of Life an ever-widening ring Upon Eternity. 125 LOVE'S AUTOGRAPH. NCE only did he pass my way. " When wilt thou come again? Ah, leave some token of thy stay!" He wrote (and vanished) "Pain." 126 RENEWAL. - ACH Hagar month beholds her waning moon _ Upon the desert night, Like Ishmael, a famished wanderer, swoon From darkness into light. 127 ~ PREJUDICE. A LEAF may hide the largest star From Love's uplifted eye; A mote of prejudice out-bar A world of Charity. 128 THE BUBBLE. W HY should I stay? Nor seed nor fruit have LI But, sprung at once to beauty's perfect round, Nor loss, nor gain, nor change in me is found, - A life-complete in death-complete to die. 129 O'ERSPENT. Y soul is as a fainting noonday star, And thou, the absent night; Haste, that thy healing shadow from afar May touch me into light. 130 IMAGINATION. - ERE Fancy far outdoes the deed; - - So hath Eternity the need Of telling more than Time has taught To fill the boundaries of Thought. 131 RUIN. A POWER beyond Perfection's dream is thine, A shadow that the dwindling shape outgrows Of substance, like a vast horizon-line Receding as the Fancy onward goes. 132 x/ BECALMED. T HE bar is crossed: but Death - the pilot - stands - In seeming doubt before the tranquil deep, The fathom-line still trembling in his hands, As when upon the treacherous shoals of sleep. 133 TO THE SPHINX. H, not alone in Egypt's desert land I-Thy dwelling-place apart! But wheresoe'er the scorching passion-sand Hath seared the human heart. 134 DISCREPANCY. NE dream the bird and blossom dreamed Of Love, the whole night long; Yet twain its revelation seemed, In fragrance and in song. x35 POETRY. GLEAM of heaven; the passion of a Star . Held captive in the clasp of harmony: A silence, shell-like breathing from afar The rapture of the deep,- eternity. 136 SAP. TRONG as the sea, and silent as the grave, It ebbs and flows unseen; Flooding the earth -a fragrant tidal wave - With mist of deepening green. 137 SLEEP. - 7 THAT art thou, balmy sleep? /" Foam from the fragrant deep Of silence, hither blown From the hushed waves of tone." I38 THE PYRAMIDS. A MID the desert of a mystic land, Like Sibyls waiting for a doom far-seen, Apart in awful solitude they stand, With Thought's unending caravan between I39 FORMATION. W 7HATE'ER we love becomes of us a part; The centre of all tributary powers - Our life is fed from Nature's throbbing heart, And of her best the fibred growth is ours. J40 THE PROMONTORY. OT all the range of sea-born liberty Hath ever for one restless wave sufficed: So pants the heart, - of all compulsion free, Self-driven to the Rock, its barrier, Christ. 14' STARS. EHOLD, upon the field of Night, Far-scattered seeds of golden light; Nor one to wither, but anon To bear the heaven-full harvest, Dawn. 142 WHISPER. '- LOSE cleaving unto Silence, into sound She ventures as a timorous child from land, Still glancing, at each wary step, around, Lest suddenly she lose her sister's hand. 143 THE SUN. β€” _E prisons many a life indeed _ _ Within the narrow cells of seed, But cannot call them forth again Without the sesame of rain. 144 THE SUNBEAM. LADDER from the Land of Light, 14 I rest upon the sod, Whence dewy angels of the Night Climb back again to God. I45 ALTER EGO. β€” HOU art to me as is the sea - Unto the shell; A life whereof I breathe, a love Wherein I dwell. 146 REFLECTION. - IKE stars that in the waves below With heaven's reflected splendor glow, The flowers, in all their glory bright, Are shadows of a fairer light. I47 ESTRANGEMENT. -W " HAT kindly Absence hid, forsooth, Thy Presence late hath shown; That, like a garment worn in youth, I am, alas, outgrown! 148 BEETHOVEN AND ANGELO. NE made the surging sea of tone Subservient to his rod: One, from the sterile womb of stone, Raised children unto God. 149 THE SHADOW. SHADOW, in thy fleeting form I see The friend of fortune that once clung to me. In flattering light, thy constancy is shown; In darkness, thou wilt leave me all alone. 150 SONNETS. THE INDIAN OF SAN SALVADOR. jl~fi HAT time the countless arrow-heads of light ; Keen twinkled on the bended heavens, a E ~~back-drawn With deadly aim, at signal of the Dawn, To slay the slumbering, dusky warrior, Night; I dreamed a dream: And, lo! three spirits, white As mist that gathers when the rain is gone, Came walking o'er the waters, whereupon The very waves seemed quivering with affright. I woke and heard, while yet the vision stayed, A prophecy: " Behold the coming race Before whose feet the forest kings shall fall Prostrate; and ye, like twilight shadows tall That wither at the sun's uplifted face, Shall pass in silence to a deeper shade." I153 KEATS. U PON thy tomb't is graven, "Here lies one Whose name is writ in water."' Could there be A flight of Fancy fitlier feigned for thee, A fairer motto for her favorite son? For, as the wave, thy varying numbers run Now crested proud in tidal majesty, Now tranquil as the twilight reverie Of some dim lake the white moon looks upon While teems the world with silence. Even there, In each Protean rainbow-tint that stains The breathing canvas of the atmosphere, We read an exhalation of thy strains. Thus, on the scroll of Nature, everywhere, Thy name, a deathless syllable, remains. 154 SILENCE. ' EMPLE of God, from all eternity Alone like Him without beginning found; Of time and space and solitude the bound, Yet in thyself of all communion free. Is, then, the temple holier than He That dwells therein? Must reverence surround With barriers the portal, lest a sound Profane it? Nayi behold a mystery! What was, abides; what is, hath ever been: The lowliest the loftiest sustains. A silence, by no breath of utterance stirred Virginity in motherhood - remains, Clear, midst a cloud of all-pervading sin, The voice of Love's unutterable word. 55 UNUTTERED. T AITING for words - as on the broad expanse Of heaven the formless vapors of the night, Expectant, wait the oracle of light Interpreting their dumb significance; Or like a star that in the morning glance Shrinks, like a folding blossom, from the sight, Nor wakens till upon the western height The shadows to their evening towers advance So, in my soul, a dream ineffable, Expectant of the sunshine or the shade, Hath oft, upon the brink of twilight chill, Or at the dawn's pale glimmering portal stayed In tears, that all the quivering eyelids fill, In smiles, that on the lip of silence fade. 156 SOLITUDE. T'HOU wast to me what to the changing year Its seasons are, - a joy forever new; What to the night its stars, its heavenly dew, Its silence; what to dawn its lark-song clear; To noon, its light-its feckless atmosphere, Where ocean and the overbending blue, In passionate communion, hue for hue, As one in Love's circumference appear. O brimming heart, with tears for utterance Alike of joy and sorrow! lift thine eyes And sphere the desolation. Love is flown; And in the desert's widening expanse Grim Silence, like a sepulchre of stone, Stands charnelling a soul's funereal sighs. 157 LOVE'S RETROSPECT. - KNEW that he was dying; for the leaves Late-fallen, shivered on the frosty ground, Disconsolate, with the foreboding sound That Autumn whispers to the hearts that grieves. The sunshine, slanting upward, smote the sheaves O'ershadowing the hill-tops ranged around, And where the swallow's empty nest was found, Spattered, as if with blood, the sheltering eves. Twin fires together faded: and but one Rewakened o'er a world henceforth to me In evetlasting twilight. To the Past The Present pays its tribute, whereupon Each moment coins the selfsame effigy, The more than all by wealth unwidowed cast 1 58 ,v A WINTER TWILIGHT. LOOD-SHOTTEN through the bleak gigantic trees The sunset, o'er a wilderness of snow, Startles the wolfish winds that wilder grow As hunger mocks their howling miseries. In every skulking shadow Fancy sees The menace of an undiscovered foe A sullen footstep, treacherous and slow, That comes, or into deeper darkness flees. Nor Day nor Night, in Time's eternal round Whereof the tides are telling, e'er hath passed This Isthmus-hour-this dim, mysterious land That sets their lives asunder - where up-cast Their earliest and their latest waves resound, As each, alternate, nears or leaves the strand. 159 GLIMPSES. S one who in the hush of twilight hears -The pausing pulse of Nature, when the Light Commingles in the dim mysterious rite Of Darkness with the mutual pledge of tears, Till soft, anon, one timorous star appears, Pale-budding as the earliest blossom white That comes in Winter's livery bedight, To hide the gifts of genial Spring she bears, - So, unto me what time the mysteries Of consciousness and slumber weave a dream And pause above it with abated breath, Like intervals in music lights arise, Beyond prophetic Nature's farthest gleam, That teach me half the mystery of Death. L6o THE AGONY. - WRESTLED, as did Jacob, till the dawn, _ With the reluctant Spirit of the Night That keeps the keys of Slumber. Worn and white, We paused a panting moment, while anon The darkness paled around us. Thereupon - His mighty limbs relaxing in affright The Angel pleaded: "Lo, the morning light! 0 Israel, release me, and begone!" Then said I, " Nay, a captive to my will I hold thee till the blessing thou dost keep Be mine." Whereat he breathed upon my brow; And, as the dew upon the twilight hill, So on my spirit, over-wearied now, Came tenderly the benediction, Sleep. i6t THE DEAD TREE. * RECT in death thou standest gaunt and bare, Thy limbs uplifted to the wintry sky, To supplicate its pity, or defy The threat of wrath with towering despair. Around thee, like a wizard's widening snare, Lithe shadows in a web fantastic lie, Spun of the moon, in midnight sorcery, Down gazing with a madman's vacant stare. What reads she in thy ruin? Lives the past Recorded in the present? Lingers here The legend of a glory overcast, The song of birds long silent, and the stir Of leaves forever scattered to the blast, Yet echoed in eternal dreams to her? I62 HOMELESS. ETHINKS that if my spirit could behold Its earthly habitation void and chill, Whence all its time-encircled good and ill Expanded to eternity, t would fold Its trembling pinions o'er the bosom cold, Recalling there the pulse's wonted thrill, And lean, perchance, to catch the echo still That erst in life the dream of passion told. How calm the dissolution! Could she spurn Her spouse, so late, and brother? Could she trace The strange familiar lineaments, and mark The doom of her own writing in the face, To find, alas! no more the vital spark, Nor breathe one sigh of pity to return? I63 THE PETREL. / WANDERER o'er the sea-graves ever green, -Whereon the foam-flowers blossom day by day, Thou flittest as a doomful shadow gray That from the wave no sundering light can wean. What wouldst thou from the deep unfathomed glean, Frail voyager? and whither leads thy way? Or art thou, as the sailor legends say, An exile from the spirit-world unseen? Lo! desolate, above a colder tide, Pale Memory, a sea-bird like to thee, Flits outward where the whitening billows hide What seemed of Life the one reality, A mist whereon the morning bloom hath died, Returning, ghost-like, to the restless sea. T64 AT ANCHOR. - OW calm upon the twilight water sleeps, _ _ With folded wings, yon solitary sail, Safe-harbored, haply dreaming of the gale That wolf-like o'er the waste deserted leaps: One star - a signal light above her - keeps Watch; and, behold, its pictured image pale Gleams far below, a seeming anchor frail, Where onward still the noiseless current sweeps. Star of my life, pale planet, far removed, Oh, be thou, when the twilight deepens, near! Set in my soul thine image undisproved By death and darkness, till the morning clear Behold me in the presence I have loved, My beacon here, my bliss eternal there! 165 SHADOWS. 7E shrink not wholly from us when the morn _ Arises red with slaughter, and the slain Sweet visages of tender dreams remain To haunt us through the wakened hours forlorn, Nor when the noontide cometh, and the thorn Of light is centred in the quivering brain, And Memory her pilgrimage of pain Renews, with fainting footsteps, overworn. Nay, then, what time the satellite of day Pursues his path victorious, and the West, Her clouds beleaguered vanishing away, A desert seems of solitude oppressed, Around us still your hovering pinions stay, The pledges of returning night and rest. I66 THE MOUNTAIN. LTAR whereon the lordly sacrifice Of incense from the reverent vales below Is offered at the dawn's first kindling glow And when the day's last smouldering ember dies, Around thee, too, the kindred sympathies Of life- itself a vapor-breathe and flow, And yearn beyond thy pinnacle of snow To wing the trackless region of the skies. Thy shadow broods above me, and mine own Sleeps as a child beneath it. O'er my dreams Thou dost, as an abiding presence, pour Thy spirit in the melancholy moan Of cavern winds and far-resounding streams, As sings the ocean to the listening shore. 1i67 :::I-, 1..I.,. I.. 7 ~ UNMOORED. 'O die in sleep - to drift from dream to dream _ Along the banks of slumber, beckoned on Perchance by forms familiar, till anon, Unconsciously, the ever-widening stream Beyond the breakers bore thee, and the beam Of everlasting morning woke upon Thy dazzled gaze, revealing one by one Thy visions grown immortal in its gleam. O blessed consummation! thus to feel In Death no touch of terror. Tenderly As shadows to the evening hills, he came In garb of God's dear messenger to thee, Nor on thy weary eyelids broke the seal, In reverence for a brother's holier name. i68 EUGENIE. - N exile, widowed, childless, desolate, - Thou sittest in the majesty of woe; And nations gaze, with shuddering murmurs low, Upon the direful trilogy of Fate. Hushed are the warring interests of state Beneath the pall of Sorrow. Foes forego Their wonted discord, and with footsteps slow And meekened foreheads, move compassionate. All exiles weave their miseries with thine; All widows turn with sympathy to thee; All mothers desolate and childless made, Mingle their moan with this thine agony: And yet, to thee the royal lot is laid - Threefold the cross that measures love divine. 169 THE PASCHAL MOON. -THY face is whitened with remembered woe; _ For thou alone, pale satellite, didst see, Amid the shadows of Gethsemane, The mingled cup of sacrifice o'erflow; Nor hadst the power of utterance to show The wasting wound of silent sympathy, Till sudden tides, obedient to thee, Sobbed, desolate in weltering anguish, low. The holy night returneth year by year; And, while the mystic vapors from thy rim Distil the dews, as from the Victim there The red drops trickled in the twilight dim, The ocean's changeless threnody we hear, And gaze upon thee as thou didst on Him. 170 GOLGOTHA. / LONE I stand upon the sacred height, -Where erst, at noon, the night its mantle flung O'er the Divine Humanity that hung To brutal gaze exposed. The conscious light To sudden blindness withered at the sight Of mortal pangs from wounds immortal wrung; The earth her gates sepulchral open swung, Impatient for the soul's descending flight To her expectant shades. O Calvary! Again the dripping darkness crowns thy brow, And I (as then, to His all-seeing mind) Weep'mid the general gloom. Oh! let me be, As in those hours of anguish, hidden now In shades of death, the light of life to find. 171 THE PORTRAIT. - ACH has his Angel-Guardian. Mine, I know, Looks on me from that pictured face. Behold, How clear, between those rifted clouds of gold, The radiant brow! It is the morning glow Of Innocence, ere yet the heart let go The leading-strings of Heaven. Upon the eyes No shadow: like the restful noonday skies They sanctify the teeming world below. Why bows my soul before it? None but thou, O tender child, has known the life estranged From thee and all that made thy days of joy The measure of my own. Behold me now - The man that begs a blessing of the boy - His very self; but from himself how changed! 172 THIS FIRST EDITION OF POEMS BY JOHN B. TABB IS LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES, WHICH HAVE BEEN PRINTED DURING THE AUTUMN OF 1894 BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS.