UC-NRLF 
 
 
THG 
 
 UNIY6RS1TY Of CALIFORNIA 
 LIBRARY 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME, 
 And by the same Author: 
 
 POEMS, LYRIC AND IDYLLIC, 
 
 PRICE, 75 CTS. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH 
 
 IDYL OF THE GKEAT WAR 
 
 OTHER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 EDMUND C. STEDMAN 
 
 NEW YORK 
 CARLETON, PUBLISHER, 413 BROADWAY 
 
 LONDON: SAMPSON LOW, SON AND COMPANY 
 
 M.DCCCLXIV 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, by 
 
 GEO. W. CARLETON, 
 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
 Southern District of New York. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON. 
 
OF 
 
 C. F. g. 
 
 DIED: MAY 13, 1863. 
 
 It was not given thee, who wast so brave, 
 On the proud field to fill the patriot s grave ; 
 Twas not thy lot, tho* graced with culture rare, 
 To dwell mid things congenial and fair ; 
 Nor found thy gentle soul a destined mate, 
 To share and soften such an adverse fate : 
 Ah ! sioeeter, since they came so late, should prove 
 Thy now serener glory beauty love. 
 
 397174 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 ALICE OF MONMOUTH 11 
 
 n. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
 ALECTRYON 95 
 
 THE TEST 106 
 
 THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. . . 109 
 
 ESTELLE 115 
 
 EDGED TOOLS 119 
 
 THE SWALLOW 122 
 
 REFUGE IN NATURE . . . . . 123 
 
 MONTAGU 127 
 
 WILD WINDS WHISTLE . . . . 131 
 
 PETER STUYVESANT S NEW YEAR S CALL . 135 
 
 in, 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 JEAN PROUVAIRE S SONG AT THE BARRICADE 147 
 
I. 
 
 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 I. 
 
 1. 
 TTENDRICK VAN GHELT of Monmouth shore, 
 
 His fame still rings the county o er ! 
 The stock that he raised, the stallion he rode, 
 The fertile acres his farmers sow d ; 
 The dinners he gave ; the yacht which lay 
 At his fishing-dock in the Lower Bay ; 
 The suits which he waged, thro many a year, 
 For a rood of land behind his pier ; 
 Of these the chronicles yet remain 
 From Navesink Heights to Freehold Plain. 
 
 2. 
 
 The Shrewsbury people in autumn help 
 Their sandy toplands with marl and kelp, 
 And their peach and apple orchards fill 
 
IS, >% c ; <AMQE\OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 The gurgling vats of the cross-road mill. 
 
 They tell, as each twirls his tavern-can, 
 
 "Wonderful tales of that staunch old man, 
 
 And they boast, of the draught they have tasted and 
 
 smelt, 
 " Tis good as the still of Hendrick Van Ghelt ! " 
 
 3. 
 
 Were he alive, and at his prime, 
 In this our boisterous modern time, 
 He would surely be, as he could not then, 
 A stalwart leader of mounted men : 
 A ranger, shouting his battle-cry, 
 Who knew how to fight and dared to die ; 
 And the fame, which a county s limit spann d, 
 Might have grown a legend throughout the land. 
 
 4. 
 
 He would have scour d the Valley through, 
 Doing as now our bravest do ; 
 Would have tried rough riding on the border, 
 Punishing raider and marauder ; 
 W r ith bearded Ashby crossing swords 
 As he took the Shenandoah fords ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 13 
 
 Giving bold Stuart a bloody chase 
 
 Ere he reach d again his trysting-place. 
 
 Horse and horseman of the foe 
 
 The blast of his bugle-charge should know, 
 
 And his men should water their steeds, at will, 
 
 From the banks of Southern river and rill. 
 
 5. 
 
 How many are there of us, in this 
 Discordant social wilderness, 
 Whose thriftiest scions the power gain, 
 Thro meet conditions of sun and rain, 
 To yield, on the fairest blossoming shoot, 
 A mellow harvest of perfect fruit ? 
 Fashion d after so rare a type, 
 How should his life grow full and ripe, 
 There, in the passionless haunts of Peace, 
 Thro trade, and tillage, and wealth s increase ? 
 
 6. 
 
 But at his manor-house he dwelt, 
 And royally bore the name Van Ghelt ; 
 Nor found a larger part to play, 
 Than such as a county magnate may : 
 
14 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Ruling the hustings as he would, 
 Lord of the rustic neighborhood ; 
 With potent wishes and quiet words 
 Holding an undisputed sway. 
 The broadest meadows, the fattest herds, 
 The fleetest roadsters, the warmest cheer, 
 These were old Hendrick s many a year. 
 Daughters unto his hearthstone came, 
 And a son to keep the ancient name. 
 
 7. 
 
 Often, perchance, the old man s eye 
 From a seaward casement would espy, 
 Scanning the harborage in the bay, 
 A ship which idly at anchor lay ; 
 Watching her as she rose and fell, 
 Up and down, with the evening swell, 
 Her cordage slacken d, her sails unbent, 
 And all her proud life somnolent. 
 And perchance he thought " My life, it seems, 
 Like her, unfreighted with aught but dreams ; 
 Yet I feel within me a strength to dare 
 Some outward voyage, I know not where ! " 
 But the forceful impulse wore away 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 15 
 
 In the common life of every day, 
 
 And for Hendrick Van Ghelt no timely hour 
 
 Ruffled the calm of that hidden power ; 
 
 Nor is it with him my words belong : 
 
 But his presence ushers in the song, 
 
 As a Lombardy poplar, lithe and hoar, 
 
 Stands at a, Monmouth farmer s door, 
 
 Set like a spire against the sky 
 
 Marking the hours, while lover and maid 
 
 Linger long in its stately shade, 
 
 And round its summit the swallows fly. 
 
16 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 II. 
 
 1. 
 
 "VTATURE a devious by-way finds : solve me her 
 secret whim, 
 
 That the seed of a gnarled oak should sprout to a sap 
 ling straight and prim ; 
 
 That a russet should grow on the pippin stock, on the 
 garden-rose a brier ; 
 
 That a stalwart race, in old Hendrick s son, should 
 smother its wonted fire. 
 
 Hermann, fond of his book, and shirking the brawny 
 
 out-door sports; 
 Sent to college, and choosing for life the law with her 
 
 mouldy courts ; 
 Proud, and of tender honor, as well became his father s 
 
 blood, 
 But with cold and courtly self-restraint weighing the 
 
 ill and good ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 17 
 
 "Wed to a lady whose delicate veins that molten azure 
 held, 
 
 Ichor of equal birth, wherewith our gentry their coup 
 lings weld; 
 
 Viewing his father s careless modes with half a tolerant 
 eye, 
 
 As one who honors, regretting not, old fashions passing by. 
 
 After a while the moment came when, unto the son and 
 
 heir, 
 A son and heir was given in turn a moment of joy 
 
 and prayer, 
 For the angel, who guards the portals twain, oped, in 
 
 the self-same breath, 
 To the child the pearly gate of life, to the mother the 
 
 gate of death. 
 
 Father, and son, and an infant plucking the daisies over 
 a grave : 
 
 The swell of a boundless surge keeps on, wave follow 
 ing after wave ; 
 
 Ever the tide of life sets toward the low invisible shore ; 
 
 Whence had the current its distant source when 
 shall it flow no more ? 
 2 
 
18 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 2. 
 
 Nature s serene renewals, that make the scion by one 
 
 remove 
 Bear the ancestral blossom and thrive as the forest 
 
 wilding throve ! 
 Roseate stream of life, which hides the course its ducts 
 
 pursue, 
 To rise, like that Sicilian fount, in far-off springs 
 
 anew! 
 
 For the grandsire s vigor, rude and rare, asleep in the 
 
 son had lain, 
 To waken in Hugh, the grandson s frame, with the 
 
 antique force again ; 
 And ere the boy, said the Monmouth dames, had 
 
 grown to his seventh year, 
 Well could you tell whose mantling blood swell d in his 
 
 temples clear. 
 
 Tall, and bent in the meeting brows ; swarthy of hair 
 
 and face ; 
 Shoulders parting square, but set with the future hunts 
 
 man s grace ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 19 
 
 Eyes alive with a fire which yet the old man s visage 
 
 wore, 
 At times, like the flash of a thunder-cloud when the 
 
 storm is almost o er. 
 
 3. 
 Toward the mettled stripling, then, the heart of the old 
 
 man yearn d ; 
 And thus while Hermann Van Ghelt once more, 
 
 with a restless hunger, turn d 
 From the grave of her who died so young, to his books, 
 
 and lawyer s gown, 
 And the ceaseless clangor of mind with mind in the 
 
 close and wrangling town 
 
 They two, the boy and the grandsire, lived at the 
 
 manor-house, and grew, 
 The one to all manly arts apace, the other a youth 
 
 anew 
 Pleased with the boy s free spirit, and teaching him, step 
 
 by step, to wield 
 The mastery over living things, and the craft of flood 
 
 and field. 
 
20 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Apt, indeed, was the scholar : and born with a subtle 
 spell to gain 
 
 The love of all dumb creatures at will; now lifting 
 himself, by the mane, 
 
 Over the neck of the three-year colt, for a random bare 
 back ride ; 
 
 Now chasing the waves on the rifted beach at the turn 
 of the evening tide. 
 
 Proud, in sooth, was the master : the youngster, he oft 
 
 and roundly swore, 
 Was fit for the life a gentleman led in the lusty days of 
 
 yore! 
 And he took the boy wherever he drove to a county 
 
 fair or race ; 
 Gave him the reins and watch d him guide the span at 
 
 a spanking pace ; 
 
 Taught him the sportsman s keen delight : to swallow 
 
 the air of morn, 
 And start the whistling quail that hides and feeds in 
 
 the dewy corn ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOVTH. 21 
 
 Or in clear November underwoods to bag the squirrels, 
 
 and flush 
 The brown-wing d mottled partridge awhir from her 
 
 nest in the tangled brush ; 
 
 Taught him the golden harvest laws, and the signs of 
 sun and shower, 
 
 And the thousand beautiful secret ways of graft and 
 fruit and flower ; 
 
 Set him straight in his saddle, and cheer d him gallop 
 ing over the sand ; 
 
 Sail d with him to the fishing-shoals and placed the 
 helm in his hand. 
 
 Often the yacht, with all sail spread, was steer d by the 
 
 fearless twain, 
 Around the beacon of Sandy Hook, and out in the open 
 
 main ; 
 Till the great sea-surges rolling in, as south-by-east 
 
 they wore, 
 Lifted the bows of the dancing craft, and the buoyant 
 
 hearts she bore. 
 
22 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 But in dreamy hours, which young men know, Hugh 
 
 loved with the tide to float 
 Far up the deep, dark-channel d creeks, alone in his 
 
 two-oar d boat ; 
 While a fiery woven tapestry o erhung the waters 
 
 low, 
 The warp of the frosted chestnut, the woof with maple 
 
 and birch aglow ; 
 
 Picking the grapes which dangled down ; or watching 
 the autumn skies, 
 
 The osprey s slow imperial swoop, the scrawny bit 
 tern s rise; 
 
 Nursing a longing for larger life than circled a rural 
 home, 
 
 An instinct of leadership within, and of action yet to 
 come. 
 
 4. 
 Curtain of shifting seasons dropt on moor and meadow 
 
 and hall, 
 Open your random vistas of changes that come with 
 
 tune to all: 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 23 
 
 Hugh grown up to manhood ; foremost, searching the 
 
 county through, 
 Of the Monmouth youth, in birth and grace, and the 
 
 strength to will and do. 
 
 The father, past the prime of life, and his temples 
 fleck d with toil ; 
 
 A bookman still, and leaving to Hugh the care of stock 
 and soil. 
 
 Hendrick Van Ghelt, a bow d old man in a fireside- 
 corner chair, 
 
 Counting the porcelain Scripture tiles which frame the 
 chimney there : 
 
 The shade of the stalwart gentleman the people used to 
 
 know, 
 Forgetful of half the present scenes, but mindful of 
 
 long-ago ; 
 Aroused, mayhap, by growing murmurs of Southern 
 
 feud, that came 
 And woke anew in his fading eyes a spark of their 
 
 ancient flame. 
 
24 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 5. 
 Gazing on such a group as this, folds of the curtain 
 
 drop, 
 Hiding the grandsire s form; and the wheels of the 
 
 sliding picture stop. 
 Gone, that stout old Hendrick, at last ! and from miles 
 
 around they came 
 Farmer and squire, and whispering youths, recalling his 
 
 manhood s fame. 
 
 Dead : and the Van Ghelt manor closed, and the home 
 stead acres leased ; 
 
 For their owner had moved more near the town, where 
 his daily tasks increased ; 
 
 Choosing a home on the blue Passaic, whence the 
 Newark spires and lights 
 
 Were seen, and over the salt sea-marsh the shadows 
 of Bergen Heights. 
 
 Back and forth from his city work, the lawyer, day by 
 
 day, 
 With the press of eager and toiling men, follow d his 
 
 wonted way ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 25 
 
 And Hugh he dallied with life at home, tending the 
 
 garden and grounds ; 
 But the mansion long d for a woman s voice to soften its 
 
 lonely sounds. 
 
 " Hugh," said Hermann Van Ghelt, at length, " choose 
 
 for yourself a wife, 
 Comely, and good, and of birth to match the mother 
 
 who gave you life : 
 No words of woman have charm d my ear since last I 
 
 heard her voice ; 
 And of fairest and proudest maids her son should make 
 
 a worthy choice." 
 
 But now the young man s wandering heart from the 
 
 great world turn d away, 
 To long for the healthful Monmouth meads, the shores 
 
 of the breezy bay ; 
 And often the scenes and mates he knew in boyhood he 
 
 sought again, 
 And roam d thro the well-known woods, and lay in the 
 
 grass where he once had lain. 
 
26 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 III. 
 
 T ADIES, in silks and laces, 
 "^ Lunching with lips agleam, 
 Know you aught of the places 
 Yielding such fruit and cream ? 
 
 South from your harbor-islands 
 Glisten the Monmouth hills ; 
 
 There are the ocean highlands, 
 Lowland meadows and rills, 
 
 Berries in field and garden, 
 Trees with their fruitage low, 
 
 Maidens, (asking your pardon,) 
 Handsome as cities show. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 27 
 
 Know you that, night and morning, 
 
 A beautiful water-fay, 
 Cover d with strange adorning, 
 
 Crosses your rippling bay ? 
 
 Her sides are white and sparkling ; 
 
 She whistles to the shore ; 
 Behind, her hair is darkling, 
 
 And the waters part before. 
 
 Lightly the waves she measures 
 
 Up to wharves of the town ; 
 There, unlading her treasures, 
 
 Lovingly puts them down. 
 
 Come with me, ladies ; cluster 
 
 Here on the western pier : 
 Look at her jewels lustre, 
 
 Changed with the changing year ! 
 
 First of the months to woo her, 
 
 June his strawberries flings 
 Over her garniture, 
 
 Bringing her exquisite things ; 
 
28 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Rifling his richest casket ; 
 
 Handing her, everywhere, 
 Garnets in crate and basket ; 
 
 Knowing she soon will wear 
 
 Blackberry jet and lava, 
 Raspberries ruby-red, 
 
 Trinkets that August gave her, 
 Over her toilet spread. 
 
 After such gifts have faded, 
 Then the peaches are seen : 
 
 Coral and ivory braided, 
 Pit for an Indian queen. 
 
 And September will send her, 
 Proud of his wealth, and bold, 
 
 Melons glowing in splendor, 
 Emeralds set with gold. 
 
 So she glides to the Narrows, 
 Where the forts are astir : 
 
 Her speed is a shining arrow s ! 
 Guns are silent for her. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 29 
 
 So she glides to the ringing 
 
 Bells of the belfried town, 
 Kissing the wharves, and flinging 
 
 All of her jewels down. 
 
 Whence she gathers her riches, 
 
 Ladies, now would you see ? 
 Leaving your city niches, 
 
 Wander awhile with me. 
 
30 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 IV. 
 
 1. 
 fl^HE strawberry vines lie in the sun, 
 
 Their myriad tendrils twined in one ; 
 Spread like a carpet of richest dyes, 
 The strawberry-field in sunshine lies. 
 Each timoroijs berry, blushing red, 
 Has folded the leaves above her head, 
 The dark, green curtains gemm d with dew ; 
 But each blushful berry, peering through, 
 Shows like a flock of the underthread 
 The crimson woof of a downy cloth 
 Where the elves may kneel and plight their troth. 
 
 2. 
 
 Eun thro the rustling vines, to show 
 Each picker an even space to go, 
 Leaders of twinkling cord divide 
 The field in lanes from side to side ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 31 
 
 And here and there with patient care, 
 Lifting the leafage everywhere, 
 Rural maidens and mothers dot 
 The velvet of the strawberry-plot : 
 Fair and freckled, old and young, 
 With baskets at their girdles hung, 
 Searching the plants with no rude haste 
 Lest berries should hang unpick d, and waste, 
 Of the pulpy, odorous, hidden quest, 
 First gift of the fruity months, and best. 
 
 3. 
 
 Crates of the laden baskets cool 
 Under the trees at the meadow s edge, 
 Cover d with grass and dripping sedge, 
 And lily leaves from the shaded pool ; 
 Fill d, and ready to be borne 
 To market before the morrow morn. 
 Beside them, gazing at the skies, 
 Hour after hour a young man lies. 
 From the hillside, under the trees, 
 He looks across the field, and sees 
 The waves that ever beyond it climb 
 Whitening the rye-slope s early prime ; 
 
32 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 At times he listens, listlessly, 
 To the tree-toad singing in the tree, 
 Or sees the cat-bird peck his fill 
 With feathers adroop and roguish bill. 
 But often, with a pleased unrest, 
 He lifts his glances to the west, 
 Watching the kirtles, red and blue, 
 Which cross the meadow in his view ; 
 And he hears, anon, the busy throng 
 Sing the Strawberry-Pickers Song : 
 
 4 
 
 Rifle the sweets our meadows bear, 
 Ere the day has reach d its nooning ; 
 
 While the skies are fair, and the morning air 
 Awakens the thrush s tuning. 
 
 Softly the rivulet s ripples flow ; 
 Dark is the grove that lovers know ; 
 Here, where the whitest blossoms blow, 
 
 The reddest and ripest berries grow. 
 
 Bend to the crimson fruit, whose stain 
 Is glowing on lips and fingers ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 33 
 
 The sun has lain in the leafy plain, 
 And the dust of his pinions lingers. 
 
 Softly the rivulets ripples flow ; 
 Dark is the grove that lovers /mow ; 
 Here, where the whitest blossoms blow, 
 The reddest and ripest berries grow. 
 
 Gather the cones which lie conceal d, 
 
 With their vines your foreheads wreathing ; 
 
 The strawberry-field its sweets shall yield 
 While the western winds are breathing. 
 
 Softly the rivulet s ripples flow ; 
 Dark is the grove that lovers know ; 
 Here, where the whitest blossoms blow. 
 The reddest and ripest berries grow. 
 
 5. 
 
 From the far hillside comes again 
 An echo of the pickers strain. 
 Sweetly the group their cadence keep ; 
 Swiftly their hands the trailers sweep ; 
 
 3 
 
34 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 The vines are stripp d and the song is sung, 
 A joyous labor for old and young 
 For the blithe children, gleaning behind 
 The women, marvellous treasures find. 
 
 6. 
 
 From the workers a maiden parts : 
 The baskets at her waistband shine 
 With berries that look like bleeding hearts 
 Of a hundred lovers at her shrine ; 
 No eastern girl were girdled so well 
 With silken belt and silvery bell. 
 Her slender form is tall and strong ; 
 Her voice was the sweetest in the song ; 
 Her brown hair, fit to wear a crown, 
 Loose from its bonnet ripples down. 
 Toward the crates, that lie in the shade 
 Of the chestnut copse at the edge of the glade, 
 She moves from her mates, thro happy rows 
 Of the children loving her as she goes. 
 Alice, our Alice ! one and all, 
 Striving to stay her footsteps, call : 
 (For children, with skilful choice, dispense 
 The largesse of their innocence ;) 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 35 
 
 But on, with a sister s smile, she moves 
 Into the darkness of the groves, 
 And deftly, daintily, one by one, 
 Shelters her baskets from the sun, 
 Under the network, fresh and cool, 
 Of lily leaves from the crystal pool. 
 
 7. 
 
 Turning her violet eyes, their rays 
 Glisten d full in the young man s gaze ; 
 And each at each, for a moment s space, 
 Look d with a diffident surprise. 
 " Heaven ! " thought Hugh, " what artless grace 
 That laborer s daughter glorifies ! 
 I never saw a fairer face, 
 I never heard a sweeter voice ; 
 And oh ! were she my father s choice, 
 My father s choice and mine were one 
 In the strawberry-field and morning sun." 
 
36 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 V. 
 
 T OVE, from that summer morn 
 
 -^ Melting the souls of these two ; 
 
 Love, which some of you know, 
 
 Who read this poem to-day : 
 
 Is it the same desire, 
 
 The strong, ineffable joy, 
 
 Which Jacob and Rachel felt, 
 
 When he served her father long years, 
 
 And the years were swift as days 
 
 So great was the love he bore ? 
 
 Race, advancing with time, 
 
 Growing in thought and deed, 
 
 Mastering land and sea, 
 
 Say, does the heart advance, 
 
 Are its passions more pure and strong ? 
 
 They, like Nature, remain, 
 
 No more and no less than of yore. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 37 
 
 Whoso conquers the earth, 
 Winning its riches and fame, 
 Comes to the evening at last, 
 The sunset of three-score years ; 
 Confessing that Love was real, 
 All the rest was a dream ! 
 The sum of his gains is dross ; 
 The song in his praise is mute ; 
 The wreath of his laurels fades ; 
 But the kiss of his early love 
 Still burns on his trembling lip, 
 The spirit of one he loved 
 Hallows his dreams at night. 
 A little while, and the scenes 
 Of the play of Life are closed ; 
 Come, let us rest an hour, 
 And by the pleasant streams, 
 Under the fresh, green trees, 
 Let us walk hand in hand, 
 And think of the days that were. 
 
38 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 VI. 
 
 1. 
 
 river and height and salty moors the haze of 
 autumn fell, 
 
 And the cloud of a troubled joy enwrapt the face of 
 Hugh as well : 
 
 The spell of a secret haunt that far from home his foot 
 steps drew ; 
 
 A love, which over the brow of youth the mask of 
 manhood threw. 
 
 Birds of the air to the father, at length, the common 
 
 rumor brought: 
 " Your son," they sang, " in the cunning toils of a rustic 
 
 lass is caught ! " 
 " A fit betrothal," the lawyer said, " must make these 
 
 follies cease ; 
 Which shall it be ? the banker s ward ? Edith, the 
 
 judge s niece ? " 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 39 
 
 " Father, I pray " said Hugh ; " O yes ! " out-leapt 
 
 the other s mood, 
 "I hear of your wanton loiterings they ill become 
 
 your blood; 
 If you hold our name at such light worth, forbear to 
 
 darken the life 
 Of this Alice Dale " " No, Alice Van Ghelt ! father, 
 
 she is my wife." 
 
 2. 
 
 Worldlings, who say the eagle should mate with eagle, 
 
 after his kind, 
 Nor have learn d from what far and diverse cliffs the 
 
 twain each other find, 
 Yours is the old, old story, of age forgetting its wiser 
 
 youth ; 
 Of eyes, which are keen for others good and blind to 
 
 an inward truth. 
 
 But the pride, which closed the father s doors, swell d 
 
 in the young man s veins, 
 
 And he led his bride, in the sight of all, thro the pleas- 
 , ant Monmouth lanes, 
 
40 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 To the little farm his grandsire gave, years since, for a 
 
 birthday gift ; 
 Unto such havens unforeseen the barks of our fortune 
 
 drift ! 
 
 There, for a happy pastoral year, he till d the teeming 
 field; 
 
 Scatter d the marl above his land, and gather d the 
 orchard s yield ; 
 
 And Alice, in fair and simple guise, kiss d him at even- 
 fall; 
 
 And her face was to him an angel s face, and love was 
 all in all. 
 
 What is this light in the southern sky, painting a red 
 alarm ? 
 
 What is this trumpet call, which sounds thro peaceful 
 village and farm ; 
 
 Jarring the sweet idyllic rest; stilling the children s 
 throng ; 
 
 Hushing the cricket on the hearth, and the lovers even 
 ing song ? 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 41 
 
 vn. 
 
 i. 
 
 WAR! war! war! 
 
 Manning of forts on land and ships for sea ; 
 Innumerous lips that speak the righteous wrath 
 Of days which have been and again may be ; 
 Flashing of tender eyes disdaining tears ; 
 A pause of men with indrawn breath, 
 Knowing it awful for the people s will 
 Thus, thus to end the mellow years 
 Of harvest, growth, prosperity, 
 And bring the years of famine, fire, and death, 
 Tho fear and a nation s shame are more awful still. 
 
 2. 
 
 War ! war ! war ! 
 
 A thundercloud in the South in the early Spring : 
 The launch of a thunderbolt, and then, 
 
42 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 With one red flare, the lightning stretch d its wing, 
 And a rolling echo roused a million men ! 
 Then the ploughman left his field ; 
 The smith, at his clanging forge, 
 Forged him a sword to wield ; 
 From meadow, and mountain-gorge, 
 And the western plains, they came, 
 Fronting the storm and flame. 
 War ! war ! war ! 
 Heaven aid the right ! 
 
 God nerve the hero s arm in the fearful fight ! 
 God send the women sleep, in the long, long night, 
 When the breasts on whose strength they lean d shall 
 heave no more. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 43 
 
 vm. 
 
 i. 
 
 PAKE each mother to her son, 
 Ere an ancient field was won : 
 " Spartan, who me your mother call, 
 Our country is mother of us all ; 
 In her you breathe, and move, and are ; 
 In peace for her to live in war 
 For her to die is, gloriously, 
 A patriot to live and die ! " 
 
 2. 
 
 The times are now as grand as then 
 With dauntless women, earnest men ; 
 For thus the mothers whom we know 
 Bade their sons to battle go ; 
 And, with a smile, the loyal North 
 Sent her million freemen forth. 
 
44 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 3. 
 
 " What men should stronger-hearted be 
 Than we, who dwell by the open sea 
 Tilling the lands our fathers won 
 In battle on the Monmouth Plains ? 
 Ah ! a memory remains, 
 Telling us what they have done, 
 Teaching us what we should do. 
 Let us send our rightful share 
 Hard-handed yeomen, horsemen rare, 
 A hundred riders fleet and true." 
 
 4. 
 
 A hundred horsemen, led by Hugh : 
 " Were he still here," their captain thought, 
 " The brave old man, who train d my youth, 
 What a leader he would make 
 Where the battle s topmost billows break ! 
 The crimes, which brought our land to ruth, 
 How in his soul they would have wrought ! 
 God help me, no deed of mine shall shame 
 The honor of my grandsire s name ; 
 And my father shall see how pure and good 
 Kuns in these veins the olden blood." 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTE. 45 
 
 Shore and inland their men have sent : 
 Away, to the mounted regiment, 
 The silver-hazed Potomac heights, 
 The circling raids, the hundred fights, 
 The booth, the bivouac, the tent. 
 Away, from the happy Monmouth farms, 
 To noontide marches, night alarms, 
 Death in the shadowy oaken glades, 
 Emptied saddles, broken blades, 
 All the turmoil that soldiers know 
 Who gallop to meet a mortal foe. 
 Some to conquer, some to fall : 
 War hath its chances for one and all. 
 
 6. 
 
 Heroes, who render up their lives 
 On the country s fiery altar-stone 
 They do not offer themselves alone. 
 What shall become of the soldiers wives ? 
 They stay behind in the lonely cots, 
 Weeding the humble garden-plots ; 
 
46 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Some to speed the needle and thread, 
 For the soldiers children must be fed ; 
 All to sigh, thro the toilsome day, 
 And at night teach lisping lips to pray 
 For the fathers marching far away. 
 
ALICE OF MON MOUTH. 47 ( 
 
 IX. 
 
 1. 
 
 and flame on the dark frontier, 
 Veiling the hosts embattled there : 
 Peace, and a boding stillness, here, 
 Where the wives at home repeat their prayer. 
 
 2. 
 
 The locusts sing a plaintive song, 
 The weary August days are long ; 
 The cattle miss their master s call 
 When they see the sunset shadows fall. 
 The youthful mistress, at even-tide, 
 Stands by the cedarn wicket s side, 
 With both hands pushing from the front 
 Her hair, as those who listen are wont ; 
 Gazing toward the unknown South, 
 While silent whispers part her mouth : 
 
48 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 
 " 0, if a woman could only find 
 
 Other work than to wait behind, 
 
 Thro midnight dew and noonday drouth 
 
 To wait behind, and fear, and pray ! 
 
 O, if a soldier s wife could say 
 
 Where thou goest, I will go ; 
 
 Kiss thee ere thou meet st the foe ; 
 
 Where thou lodgest, worst or best, 
 
 Share and soothe thy broken rest ! 
 
 Alas, to stifle her pain and wait, 
 
 This was ever a woman s fate ! 
 
 But the lonely hours at least may be 
 
 Pass d a little nearer thee, 
 
 And the city thou guardest with thy life, 
 
 Thou lt guard more fondly for holding thy wife." 
 
 4. 
 
 Ah, tender heart of woman leal, 
 Supple as wax and strong as steel ! 
 Thousands as faithful and as lone, 
 Following each some dearest one, 
 Found in those early months a home, 
 Under the brightness of that dome 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 49 
 
 Whose argent arches for aye enfold 
 The hopes of a people in their hold 
 Irradiate, in the sight of all 
 "Who guard the Capital s outer wall. 
 Lastly came one, amid the rest, 
 Whose form a sun-burnt soldier prest, 
 As lovers embrace, in respite lent 
 From unfulfill d imprisonment. 
 And Alice found a new content : 
 Dearer for perils that had been 
 Were halcyon meetings, far between ; 
 Better, for dangers yet to be, 
 The moments she still his face could see ; 
 These, for the pure and loving wife, 
 Were the silver bars that mark d her life, 
 That number d the days melodiously ; 
 While, thro all noble daring, Hugh 
 From a Captain to a Colonel grew, 
 And his praises sweeten d every tongue 
 That reach d her ear for old and young 
 Gave him the gallant leader s due. 
 
50 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 X. 
 
 1. 
 "ALIGHT of a meteor thro the sky, 
 
 Scattering firebrands, arrows and death 
 A baleful year, that hurtled by, 
 While ancient kingdoms held their breath. 
 
 2. 
 
 The Capital grew aghast with sights 
 Flash d from the lurid river-heights, 
 Full of the fearful things sent down, 
 By demons haunting the middle air, 
 Into the hot, beleaguer d town 
 All woful sights and sounds, which seem 
 The fantasy of a sickly dream : 
 Crowded wickedness everywhere ; 
 Everywhere a stifled sense 
 Of the noonday-striding pestilence ; 
 
ALICE OF MON MOUTH. 51 
 
 Every church, from wall to wall, 
 A closely-mattrass d hospital ; 
 And ah ! our bleeding heroes, brought 
 From smouldering fields so vainly fought, 
 Filling each place where a man could lie 
 To gasp a dying wish and die ;. 
 While the sombre sky, relentlessly, 
 Cover d the town with a funeral-pall, 
 A death-damp, trickling funeral-pall. 
 
 3. 
 
 Always the dust and mire ; the sound 
 Of the rumbling wagon s ceaseless round, 
 The cannon jarring the trampled ground. 
 The sad, unvarying picture wrought 
 Upon the pitying woman s heart 
 Of Alice, the Colonel s wife, and taught 
 Her spirit to choose the better part 
 The labor of loving angels, sent 
 To men in their sore encompassment. 
 Daily her gentle steps were bent 
 Thro the thin pathways which divide 
 The patient sufferers, side from side, 
 In dolorous wards, where Death and Life 
 
52 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Wage their silent, endless strife ; 
 
 And she loosed for all her soothing words, 
 
 Sweet as the songs of homestead birds. 
 
 Sometimes that utterance musical 
 
 On the soldier s failing sense would fall, 
 
 Seeming, almost, a prelude given 
 
 Of whispers that calm the air of Heaven ; 
 
 While her white hand, moistening his poor lips 
 
 With the draught which slakeless fever sips, 
 
 Pointed him to that fount above 
 
 River of water of life and love 
 
 Stream without price, of whose purity 
 
 Whoever thirsteth may freely buy. 
 
 4. 
 
 How many whom in their mortal pain 
 She tended twas given her to gain, 
 Thro Him who died upon the rood, 
 For that divine beatitude, 
 Who of us all can ever know 
 Till the golden books their records show ? 
 But she saw their dying faces light, 
 And felt a rapture in the sight. 
 And many a sufferer s earthly life 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 53 
 
 Thank d for new strength the Colonel s wife ; 
 Many a soldier turn d his head, 
 Watching her pass his narrow bed, 
 Or, haply, his feeble frame would raise, 
 As the dim lamp her form reveal d ; 
 And, like the children in the field, 
 (For soldiers like little ones become 
 As simple in heart, as frolicsome,) 
 One and another breath d her name, 
 Blessing her as she went and came. 
 
 5. 
 
 So, thro all actions pure and good, 
 Unknowing evil, shame, or fear, 
 She grew to perfect ladyhood 
 Unwittingly the mate and peer 
 Of the proudest of her husband s blood. 
 
54 ALICE OF MONMOUTH, 
 
 XL 
 
 1. 
 
 f IKE an affluent, royal town, the summer camps 
 
 Of a hundred thousand men are stretch d away. 
 At night, like multitudinous city lamps, 
 Their numberless watch-fires beacon, clear and still, 
 And a glory beams from the zenith lit 
 With lurid vapors that over its star-lights flit ; 
 But wreaths of opaline cloud o erhang, by day, 
 The crystal-pointed tents, from hill to hill, 
 From vale to vale until 
 The heavens on endless peaks their curtain lay. 
 A magical city ! spread to-night 
 On hills which slope within our sight : 
 To-morrow, as at the waving of a wand, 
 Tents, guidons, bannerols, are moved afar 
 Rising elsewhere, as rises a morning-star, 
 Or the dream of Aladdin s palace in fairy-land. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 55 
 
 2. 
 
 Camp after camp, like marble square on square ; 
 Street following street, with many a park between ; 
 Bright bayonet-sparkles in the tremulous air ; 
 Far-fading, purple smoke above their sheen ; 
 Green central fields with flags like flowers abloom ; 
 And, all about, close-order d populous life. 
 But here no festering trade, no civic strife : 
 Only the blue-clad soldiers everywhere, 
 Waiting to-morrow s victory or doom ; 
 Men of the hour, to whom these pictures seem, 
 Like schoolboy thoughts, half-real, half a dream. 
 
 3. 
 
 Camps of the cavalry, apart, 
 Are pitch d with nicest art 
 On hilly suburbs where old forests grow. 
 Here, by itself, one glimmers thro the pines : 
 One, whose high-hearted chief we know : 
 A thousand men leap when his bugles blow ; 
 A thousand horses curvet at his lines, 
 Pawing the turf; among them come and go 
 The jacketed troopers, changed by wind and rain, 
 Storm, raid and skirmish, sunshine, midnight dew, 
 To bronzed men who never ride in vain. 
 
56 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 4. 
 
 In the great wall-tent at the head of the square, 
 The Colonel hangs his sword, and there 
 Huge logs burn high in front at the close of the day ; 
 And the captains gather ere the long tattoo, 
 While the band of buglers play. 
 Then come the tales of home and the troopers song : 
 Clear over the distant outposts float the notes, 
 And the lone vidette to catch them listens long ; 
 And the officer of the guard, upon his .ound, 
 Pauses, to hear the sound 
 Of the chiming chorus pour d from a score of throats : 
 
 5. 
 Our good steeds snuff the evening air, 
 
 Our pulses with their purpose tingle ; 
 The foeman s fires are twinkling there ; 
 He leaps to hear our sabres jingle ! 
 
 HALT ! 
 
 Each carbine sent its whizzing ball : 
 Now, cling ! clang ! forward all, 
 Into the fight ! 
 
 o 
 
 Dash on beneath the smoking dome : 
 Thro level lightnings gallop nearer ! 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 57 
 
 One look to Heaven ! No thoughts of home : 
 The guidons that we bear are dearer. 
 
 CHARGE ! 
 
 Cling ! clang ! forward all ! 
 Heaven help those whose horses fall : 
 Cut left and right ! 
 
 They flee before our fierce attack ! 
 
 They fall ! they spread in broken surges. 
 Now, comrades, bear our wounded back, 
 And leave the foeman to his dirges. 
 
 WHEEL ! 
 
 The bugles sound the swift recall : 
 Cling ! clang ! backward all ! 
 Home, and good-night ! 
 
58 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 XII. 
 
 1. 
 
 \T7HEN April rains, and the great spring-tide, 
 
 Cover the lowlands far and wide, 
 And eastern winds blow somewhat harsh 
 Over the salt and mildew d marsh, 
 Then the grasses take deeper root, 
 Sucking, athirst and resolute ; 
 And when the waters eddy away, 
 Flowing in trenches to Newark Bay, 
 The fibrous blades grow rank and tall, 
 And from their tops the reed-birds call. 
 Five miles in width the moor is spread ; 
 Two broad rivers its borders thread ; 
 The schooners, which up their channels pass, 
 Seem to be sailing in the grass, 
 Save as they rise with the moon-drawn sea, 
 Twice in the day, continuously. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 59 
 
 2. 
 
 Gray with an inward struggle grown, 
 The brooding lawyer, Hermann Van Ghelt, 
 Lived at the mansion-house, alone 
 But a chilling cloud at his bosom felt, 
 Like the fog which crept, at morn and night, 
 Across the rivers in his sight, 
 And rising, left the moorland plain 
 Bare and spectral and cold again. 
 He saw the one tall hill, which stood 
 Huge with its quarry and gloaming wood, 
 And the creeping engines, as they hist 
 Thro the dim reaches of the mist 
 Serpents, with ominous eyes aglow, 
 Thridding the grasses to and fro ; 
 And he thought how each dark, receding train 
 Carried its freight of joy and pain, 
 On toil s adventure and fortune s quest, 
 To the troubled city of unrest ; 
 And he knew that under the desolate pall 
 Of the bleak horizon, skirting all, 
 The burden d ocean heaved, and roll d 
 Its moaning surges manifold. 
 
60 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 3. 
 
 Often at evening, gazing through 
 The eastward windows on such a view, 
 Its sense enwrapt him as with a shroud ; 
 Often at noon, in the city s crowd, 
 He saw, as twere in a mystic glass, 
 Unbidden faces before him pass 
 A soldier, with eyes unawed and mild 
 As the eyes of one who was his child 
 A woman s visage, like that which blest 
 A year of his better years the best ; 
 And the plea of a voice, remember d well, 
 Deep in his secret hearing fell. 
 And as week by week its records brought 
 Of heroes fallen as they fought, 
 There little by little awakened 
 In the lawyer s heart a shapeless dread, 
 A fear of the tidings, which of all 
 On ear and spirit heaviest fall 
 Changeless sentence of mortal fate, 
 Freezing the marrow with Too Late ! 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 61 
 
 XIII. 
 
 1. 
 
 nPHUS when ended the morning tramp, 
 * And the regiment came back to camp, 
 And the Colonel, tho breathing hard with pain, 
 Was carried within the lines again 
 Thus a Color- Sergeant told 
 The story of that skirmish bold : 
 
 2. 
 
 " Twas an hour past midnight, twelve hours ago 
 
 We were all asleep, you know, 
 
 Save the officer on his rounds, 
 
 And the guard-relief when sounds 
 
 The signal-gun ! once twice 
 
 Thrice ! and then, in a trice, 
 
 The long assembly-call rang sharp and clear, 
 
 Till Boots and Saddles made us scamper like mice ! 
 
62 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 No time to waste 
 
 In asking whether a fight was near ; 
 Over the horses went their traps in haste ; 
 Not ten minutes had past 
 Ere we stood in marching gear, 
 And the call of the roll was follow d by orders fast : 
 1 Prepare to mount ! 
 
 1 Mount ! and the company ranks were made ; 
 Then in each rank, by fours, we took the count, 
 And the head of the column wheel d for the long 
 parade. 
 
 3. 
 
 " There, on the beaten ground, 
 The regiment form d from right to left ; 
 Our Colonel, straight in his saddle, look d around 
 Reining the stallion in, that felt the heft 
 Of his rider, and stamp d his foot, and wanted to dance. 
 At last the order came : 
 1 By twos : forward, march ! and the same 
 From each officer in advance ; 
 And, as the rear-guard left the spot, 
 We broke into the even trot. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 4. 
 
 " * Trot, march ! two by two, 
 In the dust and in the dew, 
 Roads and open meadows through. 
 Steadily we kept the tune 
 Underneath the stars and moon. 
 None, except the Colonel, knew 
 What our Orders were to do ; 
 Whether on a forage-raid 
 We were tramping, boot and blade, 
 Or a close reconnoissance 
 Ere the army should advance ; 
 One thing certain, we were bound 
 Straight for Stuart s camping-ground. 
 Plunging into forest-shade, 
 Well we knew each glen and glade ! 
 Sweet they smell d the pine and oak, 
 And of home my comrade spoke. 
 Tramp, tramp, out again, 
 Sheer across the ragged plain, 
 Where the moonbeams glaze our steel 
 And the fresher air we feel. 
 Thus a triple league, and more, 
 Till behind us spreads the gray 
 
64 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Pallid light of breaking day, 
 And on cloudy Mils, before, 
 Rebel camp-fires smoke away ; 
 Hard by yonder clump of pines 
 We should touch the rebel lines : 
 1 Walk, march ! and, softly now, 
 Gain yon hillock s westward brow. 
 
 5. 
 " Halt! and Right into line ! There on the 
 
 ridge 
 
 In battle-order we let the horses breathe ; 
 The Colonel raised his glass, and scann d the bridge, 
 The tents on the bank beyond, the stream beneath. 
 Just then the sun first broke from the redder east, 
 And their pickets saw five hundred of us, at least, 
 Stretch d like a dark stockade against the sky ; 
 We heard their long-roll clamor loud and nigh : 
 In half a minute, a rumbling battery whirl d 
 To a mound in front, unlimbering with a will, 
 And a twelve-pound solid shot came right along, 
 Singing a devilish morning-song, 
 
 And touch d my comrade s leg, and the poor boy curl d 
 And dropt to the turf, holding his bridle still. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 65 
 
 Well, we moved out of range were wheeling round, 
 I think, for the Colonel had taken his look at their 
 
 ground, 
 
 (Thus he was order d, it seems, and nothing more : 
 Hardly worth coming at midnight for !) 
 When, over the bridge, a troop of the enemy s horse 
 Dash d out upon our course, 
 Giving us hope of a tussle to warm our blood. 
 Then we cheer d, to a man, that our early call 
 Hadn t been sounded for nothing, after all ; 
 And halting, to wait their movements, the column 
 
 stood. 
 
 6. 
 
 " Then into squadrons we saw their ranks enlarge, 
 And slow and steady they moved to the charge, 
 Shaking the ground as they came in carbine-range. 
 1 Front into line ! March ! Halt ! Front ! 
 Our Colonel cried ; and in squadrons, to meet the 
 
 brunt, 
 
 We too from the walk to the trot our paces change : 
 Gallop, march ! and, hot for the fray, 
 Pistols and sabres drawn, we canter away. 
 
66 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 7. 
 
 " Twenty rods over the slippery clover 
 We gallop d as gaily as lady and lover ; 
 Held the reins lightly, our good weapons tightly, 
 Five solid squadrons all shining and sightly ; 
 Not too fast half the strength of our brave steeds to 
 
 wasten, 
 Not too slow for the warmth of their fire made us 
 
 hasten, 
 
 As it came with a rattle and open d the battle, 
 Tumbling from saddles ten fellows of mettle ; 
 So the distance grew shorter, their sabres shone 
 
 broader ; 
 Then the bugle s wild blare and the Colonel s loud 
 
 order 
 
 " CHARGE ! and we sprang, while the far echo rang, 
 And their bullets, like bees, in our ears fiercely sang. 
 Forward we strode to pay what we owed, 
 Right at the head of their column we rode ; 
 Together we dash d, and the air reel d and flash d ; 
 Stirrups, sabres and scabbards, all shatter d and. crash d, 
 As we cut in and out, right and left, all about, 
 Hand to hand, blow for blow, shot for shot, shout for 
 shout, 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 67 
 
 Till the earth seem d to boil with the heat of our toil ; 
 
 But in less than five minutes we felt them recoil, 
 
 Heard their shrill rally sound, and, like hares from the 
 hound, 
 
 Each ran for himself: one and all fled the ground. 
 
 Then we goaded them up to their guns, where they 
 cower d, 
 
 And the breeze clear d the field where the battle-cloud 
 lower d. 
 
 Three-score of them lay, to teach them the way 
 
 Van Ghelt and his rangers their compliments pay ; 
 
 But a plenty, I swear, of our saddles were bare : 
 
 Friend and foe, horse and rider, lay sprawl d every 
 where ; 
 
 Twas hard hitting, you see, Sir, that gain d us the 
 day ! 
 
 8. 
 
 " Yes, they too had their say before they fled, 
 And the loss of our Colonel is worse than all the rest. 
 One of their captains aim d at him, as he led 
 The foremost charge I shot the rascal dead, 
 But the Colonel fell, with a bullet thro his breast. 
 We lifted him from the mire, when the field was won, 
 
68 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 And their captured colors shaded him from the sun 
 In the farmer s wagon we took for his homeward ride ; 
 But he never said a word, nor open d his eyes, 
 Till we reach d the camp. In yon hospital tent he lies, 
 And his poor young wife will come to watch by his 
 
 side. 
 
 The surgeon hasn t found the bullet, as yet, 
 But he says it s a mortal wound. Where will you get 
 Another such man to lead us, if he dies ? " 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 69 
 
 XIV. 
 
 1. 
 
 O PRUNG was the bow at last ; 
 
 And the barb d and pointed dart 
 Keen with stings of the past, 
 Barb d with a vain remorse 
 Clove for itself a course, 
 Straight to the father s heart ; 
 And a lonely wanderer stood, 
 Mazed in a mist of thought, 
 On the edge of a field of blood. 
 For a battle had been fought, 
 And the cavalry skirmish was but a wild prelude 
 To the broader carnage that heap d a field in vain 
 A terrible battle had been fought, 
 Till its changeful current brought 
 Tumultuous angry surges roaring back 
 To the lines where our army had lain. 
 
70 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 The lawyer driven hard by an inward pain 
 Was crossing, in search of a dying son, the track 
 Where the deluge rose and fell, and its stranded wrack 
 Had sown the loathing earth with human slain. 
 
 2. 
 
 Friends and foes who could discover which, 
 As they mark d the zigzag, outer ditch, 
 Or lay so cold and still in the bush, 
 Fallen and trampled down in the last wild rush ? 
 Then the shatter d forest trees ; the clearing there 
 Where a battery stood ; dead horses, pawing the air 
 With horrible upright hoofs ; a mangled mass 
 Of wounded and stifled men in the low morass ; 
 And the long trench dug in haste for a burial-pit, 
 Whose yawning length and breadth all comers fit. 
 
 3. 
 
 And over the dreadful precinct, like the lights 
 That flit thro graveyard walks in dismal nights, 
 Men with lanterns were groping among the dead, 
 Holding the flame to every hueless face, 
 And bearing those, whose life had not wholly fled, 
 On stretchers, that look d like biers, from the ghastly 
 place. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 71 
 
 4. 
 
 The air above seem d heavy with errant souls, 
 Dense with ghosts from those gory forms arisen 
 Each rudely driven from its prison, 
 Mid the harsh jar of rattling musket-rolls, 
 And quivering throes, and unexpected force ; 
 In helpless waves adrift confusedly, 
 Freighting the sombre haze without resource. 
 Thro all there trickled, from the pitying sky, 
 An infinite mist of tears upon the ground, 
 Muffling the groans of anguish with its sound. 
 
 . 5. 
 
 On the borders of such a land, on the bounds of Death, 
 The stranger, shuddering, moved as one who saith : 
 " God ! what a doleful clime, a drear domain ! " 
 And onward, struggling with his pain, 
 Traversed the endless camp-fires, spark by spark, 
 Past sentinels that challenged from the dark, 
 Guided thro camp and camp, to one long tent 
 Whose ridge a flying bolt from the field had rent, 
 Letting the midnight mist, the battle din, 
 Fall on the hundred forms that writhed within. 
 
72 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 6. 
 
 Beyond the gaunt Zouave at the nearest cot, 
 And the bugler shot in the arm, who lay beside 
 Looking down at the wounded spot 
 Even then, for all the pain, with boyish pride 
 And a score of men, with blankets open d wide, 
 Showing the gory bandages which bound 
 The paths of many a deadly wound, 
 Over all these the stranger s vision sped 
 To one low stretcher, at whose head 
 A woman, bow d and brooding, sate, 
 As sit the angels of our fate, 
 Who, motionless, our births and deaths await. 
 He whom she tended moan d and tost; 
 Restless, as some laborious vessel, lost 
 Close to the port for which we saw it sail, 
 Groans in the long perpetual gale ; 
 But she, that watch d the storm, forbore to weep. 
 Sometimes the stranger saw her move 
 To others, who also with their anguish strove ; 
 But ever again her constant footsteps turn d 
 To one who made sad mutteririgs in his sleep ; 
 Ever she listen d to his breathings deep, 
 Or trimm d the midnight lamp that feebly burn d. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 73 
 
 XV. 
 
 T EANING her face on her hand 
 
 She sat by the side of Hugh, 
 Silently watching him breathe, 
 As a lily curves its grace 
 Over the broken form 
 Of the twin which stood by its side. 
 A glory upon her head 
 Trail d from the light above, 
 Gilding her tranquil hair 
 In ripples that faded out 
 Where a shadow hid the floor. 
 There she sat in a trance, 
 And her soul flow d thro the past, 
 As a river, day and night, 
 Passes thro changeful shores r- 
 Sees, on the two-fold bank, 
 Meadow and mossy grange, 
 
74 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Castles on hoary crags, 
 
 Forests, and fortress d towns, 
 
 And shrinks from the widening bay, 
 
 And the darkness which overhangs 
 
 The unknown, limitless sea. 
 
 Was it a troubled dream, 
 
 All that the stream of her life 
 
 Had mirror d along its course ? 
 
 All from that summer morn 
 
 When she seem d to meet in the field 
 
 One whom she vow d to love, 
 
 And with whom she wander d thence, 
 
 Leaving the home of her youth ? 
 
 Were they visions indeed 
 
 The pillars of smoke and flame, 
 
 The sound of a hundred fights, 
 
 The grandeur, and ah ! the gloom, 
 
 The shadows which circled her now, 
 
 And the wraith of the one she loved 
 
 Gliding away from her grasp, 
 
 Vanishing swiftly and sure ? 
 
 Yes, it was all a dream ; 
 
 And the strange, sad man, who moved 
 
 To the other side of the couch, 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 75 
 
 Bending over it long, 
 Pressing his hand on his heart, 
 And gazing, anon, in her eyes 
 He, with his scanty hair, 
 And pallid, repentant face, 
 He, too, was a voiceless dream, 
 A vision like all the rest ; 
 He with the rest would fade 
 When the day should dawn again, 
 When the spectral mist of night, 
 Fused with the golden morn, 
 Should melt in the eastern sky. 
 
76 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 1. 
 
 " O TE ADY ! forward the squadron ! " cries 
 
 The dying soldier, and strives amain 
 To rise from the pillow and his pain. 
 Wild and wandering are his eyes, 
 Painting once more, on the empty air, 
 The wrathful battle s wavering glare. 
 " Hugh ! " said Alice, and check d her fear, 
 " Speak to me, Hugh ; your father is here." 
 " Father ! what of my father ? he 
 Is anything but a father to me ; 
 What need I of a father, when 
 I have the hearts of a thousand men ? " 
 " Alas, Sir, he knows not me nor you ! " 
 And with caressing words, the twain 
 The man with all remorsefulness, 
 The woman with loving tenderness 
 
ALICE OF MON MOUTH. 77 
 
 Sooth d the soldier to rest anew, 
 And, as the madness left his brain, 
 Silently watch d his sleep again. 
 
 2. 
 
 And again the father and the wife, 
 Counting the precious sands of life, 
 Look d each askance, with those subtle eyes, 
 Which probe thro all human mysteries 
 And all hidden motives fathom well ; 
 But the mild regard of Alice fell, 
 Meeting the other s contrite glance, 
 On his meek and furrow d countenance, 
 Scathed, as it seem d, with troubled thought : 
 " Surely good angels have with him wrought," 
 She murmur d, and halted, even across 
 The sorrowful threshold of her loss, 
 To pity his thin and changing hair, 
 And her heart forgave him, unaware. 
 
 3. 
 
 And he who saw how she still represt 
 A drear foreboding within her breast, 
 And, by her wifehood s nearest right, 
 
78 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Ever more closely thro the night, 
 Clave unto him whose quicken d breath 
 Came like a waft from the realm of Death 
 He felt what a secret, powerful tie 
 Bound them in one, mysteriously. 
 He studied her features, as she stood 
 Lighting the shades of that woful place 
 With the presence of her womanhood, 
 And thought as the dying son had thought 
 When her beauty first his vision caught 
 " I never saw a fairer face ; 
 I never heard a sweeter voice ! " 
 And a sad remembrance thridded fast 
 Thro all the labyrinth of the past, 
 Till he said, as the scales fell off at last, 
 " How could I blame him for his choice ? " 
 Then he look d upon the sword, which lay 
 At the headboard, under the night-lamp s ray - 
 He saw the coat, the stains, the dust, 
 The gilded eagles worn with rust, 
 The swarthy forehead and matted hair 
 Of the strong, brave hero lying there 
 And he felt how gently Hugh held command, 
 The life how gallant, the death how grand ; 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 79 
 
 And with trembling lips, and the words that choke, 
 And the tears which burn the cheek, he spoke : 
 " Where is the father who would not joy 
 In the manhood of such a noble boy ? 
 This life, which had being thro my own, 
 Was a better life than I have known ; 
 
 0, that its fairness should be earth, 
 Ere I could prize it at its worth ! " 
 
 " Too late ! too late ! " he made his moan 
 " I find a daughter, and her alone. 
 He deem d you worthy to bear his name, 
 His spotless honor, his lasting fame ; 
 
 1, who have wrong d you, bid you live 
 To comfort the lonely and forgive." 
 
 4. 
 
 Dim and silvery from the east, 
 The infant light of another morn 
 Over the stirring camps was borne ; 
 But the soldier s pulse had almost ceased, 
 And there crept upon his brow the change 
 Ah, how sudden : alas, how strange ! 
 Yet again his eyelids open d wide, 
 And his glances moved to either side, 
 
80 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 This time with a clear intelligence 
 Which took all objects in its sense, 
 A power to comprehend the whole 
 Of the scene that girded his passing soul. 
 The father, who saw it, slowly drew 
 Nearer to her that wept anew, 
 And gather d her tenderly in his hold 
 As mortals their precious things enfold, 
 Grasping them late and sure ; and Hugh 
 Gazed on the two a space, and smiled 
 With the look he wore when a little child : 
 A smile of pride and peace, that meant 
 A free forgiveness a full content ; 
 Then his clouding sight an instant clung 
 To the flag whose stars above him hung, 
 And his blunted senses seem d to hear 
 The long reveillee sounding near ; 
 But the ringing clarion could not vie 
 With the richer notes which fill d his ear, 
 Nor the breaking morn with that brighter sky. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 81 
 
 XVII. 
 
 1. 
 
 "YT7EAR no armor, timid heart ; 
 
 Fear no keen misfortune s dart, 
 Want, nor scorn, nor secret blow 
 Dealt thee by thy mortal foe. 
 
 2. 
 
 Let the fates their weapons wield, 
 For a wondrous woven shield 
 Shall be given thee, ere long. 
 Mesh of gold were not so strong ; 
 Not so soft were silken shred ; 
 Not so fine the spider s thread 
 Barring the enchanted door 
 In that tale of ancient lore, 
 Guarding, silently and well, 
 All within the mystic cell. 
 
82 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Such a shield, where er thou art, 
 Shall be thine, O wounded heart ! 
 From the ills that compass thee 
 Thou behind it shalt be free ; 
 Envy, slander, malice, all 
 Shall withdraw them from thy Pall. 
 
 3. 
 
 Build no house with patient care, 
 Fair to view, and strong as fair ; 
 Wall d with noble deeds renown ; 
 Shining over field and town, 
 Seen from land and sea afar, 
 Proud in peace, secure in war. 
 For the moments never sleep, 
 Building thee a castle-keep 
 Proof alike gainst heat and cold, 
 Earthly sorrows manifold, 
 Sickness, failure of thine ends, 
 And the falling off of friends. 
 Treason, want, dishonor, wrong, 
 None of these shall harm thee long. 
 Every day a beam is made ; 
 Hour by hour a stone is laid. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 Back the cruellest shall fall 
 From the warder at the wall ; 
 Foeman shall not dare to tread 
 On the ramparts o er thy head ; 
 Dark triumphant flags shall wave 
 From the fastness of thy Grave. 
 
84 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 1. 
 
 npHERE S an hour, at the fall of night, when the 
 
 blissful souls 
 
 Of those who were dear in life seem close at hand ; 
 There s a holy midnight hour, when we speak their 
 
 names 
 
 In pauses between our songs on the trellis d porch, 
 And we sing the hymns which they loved, and almost 
 
 know 
 Their phantoms are somewhere with us, filling the 
 
 gaps, 
 
 The sorrowful chasms left when they pass d away ; 
 And we seem, in the hush of our yearning voices, to 
 
 hear 
 Their warm, familiar breathing somewhere near. 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 85 
 
 2. 
 
 At such an hour when again the Autumn haze 
 Silver d the moors, and the new moon peer d, from the 
 
 west, 
 
 Over the blue Passaic, and the mansion shone 
 Clear and white on the ridge which skirts the stream 
 At the twilight hour a man and a woman sat 
 On the open porch, in the garb of those who mourn. 
 Father and daughter they seem d ; and with thoughtful 
 
 eyes, 
 Silent, and full of the past, they watch d the skies. 
 
86 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 C ILENT they were, not sad, for the sod, that covers 
 the grave 
 
 Of those we have given to fame, smells not of the hate 
 ful mould, 
 
 But of roses and fragrant ferns, while marvellous im 
 mortelles 
 
 Twine in glory above, and their graces give us joy. 
 
 Silent, but oh ! not sad : for the babe on the couch 
 within 
 
 Drank at the mother s breast, till the current of life, 
 outdrawn, 
 
 Open d inflowing currents of faith and sweet content ; 
 
 And the gray-hair d man, repenting in tears the foolish 
 past, 
 
 Had seen in the light from those inscrutable infant 
 eyes 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 87 
 
 Fresh from the unknown world the glimpses which, 
 
 long ago, 
 Gladden d his golden youth, and had found his soul at 
 
 peace. 
 
88 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 XX. 
 
 1. 
 
 r ASTLY the moon went down ; like burnish d steel 
 
 The infinite ether wrapt the crispy air. 
 Then, arm in arm on the terrace-walk, the pair 
 Moved in that still communion where we feel 
 No need of audible questions and replies, 
 But mutual pulses all our thoughts reveal ; 
 And, as they turn d to leave the outer night, 
 Far in the cloudless North, a radiant sight 
 Stay d their steps for a while and held their eyes. 
 
 2. 
 
 There, thro the icy mail of the boreal heaven, 
 Two-edged and burning swords by unseen hands 
 Were thrust, till a climbing throng its path had riven 
 Straight from the Pole, and, over seas and lands, 
 Push d for the zenith, while from east to west 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 89 
 
 Flamed many a towering helm and gorgeous crest ; 
 And then a rarer pageant than the rest 
 An angrier light glared from the southern sky, 
 As if the austral trumpets made reply, 
 And the wrath of a challenged realm had swiftly tost 
 On the empyrean the flags of another host : 
 Pennons with or and scarlet blazing high, 
 Crimson and orange banners proudly crost ; 
 While thro the environ d space, that lay between 
 Their adverse fronts, the ether seem d to tremble, 
 Shuddering to view such ruthless foes assemble, 
 And one by one the stars withdrew their sheen. 
 
 3. 
 
 The two, enrapt with such a vision, saw 
 Its ominous surges, dense, prismatic, vast, 
 Heaved from the round horizon ; and in awe, 
 Musing awhile, were silent. Till at last 
 The younger, fair in widow s garments, spoke : 
 " See, father, how, from either pole, 
 The deep, innumerous columns roll ; 
 As if the angelic tribes their concord broke, 
 And the fierce war that scathes our land had spread 
 Above, and the very skies with ire were red ! " 
 
90 ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 
 
 4. 
 
 Even as she spoke, there shone 
 High in the topmost zenith a central spark, 
 A luminous cloud that glow d against the dark ; 
 Its halo, widening toward either zone, 
 Took on the semblance of a mystic hand 
 Stretch d from an unknown height : and lo ! a baud 
 Of scintillant jewels twined around the wrist, 
 Sapphire and ruby, opal, amethyst, 
 Turquoise, and diamond, link d with flashing joints. 
 Its wide puissant reach began to clasp, 
 In countless folds, the interclashing points 
 Of outshot light, gathering their angry hues 
 North, south, east, west with noiseless grasp, 
 By some divine, resistless law, 
 Till everywhere the wondering watchers saw 
 A thousand colors blend and interfuse, 
 In aureate wave on wave ascending higher, 
 Immeasurable, white, a spotless fire : 
 And, glory circling glory there, behold 
 Gleams of the heavenly city wall d with gold ! 
 
ALICE OF MONMOUTH. 91 
 
 5. 
 
 " Daughter," the man replied, (his face was bright 
 With the effulgent reflex of that light,) 
 " The time shall come, by merciful Heaven will d, 
 When these celestial omens shall be fulfill d, 
 Our strife be closed and the nation purged of sin, 
 And a pure and holier union shall begin ; 
 And a jarring race be drawn, throughout the land, 
 Into new brotherhood by some strong hand ; 
 And the baneful glow and splendor of war shall fade 
 In the whiter light of love, that, from sea to sea, 
 Shall soften the rage of hosts in arms array d, 
 And melt into share and shaft each battle-blade, 
 And brighten the hopes of a people great and free. 
 But in the story told of a nation s woes, 
 Of the sacrifices made for a century s fault, 
 The fames of fallen heroes shall ever shine, 
 Serene, and high, and crystalline as those 
 Fair stars, which reappear in yonder vault ; 
 In the country s heart their written names shall be, 
 Like that of a single one in mine and thine. 
 
II. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. 
 
ALECTRY6N. 
 
 f^\ REAT ARES, whose tempestuous godhood found 
 
 Delight in those thick-tangled solitudes 
 Of Hebrus, water d tracts of rugged Thrace 
 Great Ares, scouring the Odrysian wilds, 
 There met Alectryon, a Thracian boy, 
 Stalwart beyond his years, and swift of foot 
 To hunt from morn till eve the white-tooth d boar. 
 " What hero," said the war-God, " join d his blood 
 With that of Hremian nymph, to make thy form 
 So fair, thy soul so daring, and thy thews 
 So lusty for the contest on the plains 
 Wherein the fleet Odrysae tame their steeds ? " 
 
 From that time forth the twain together chased 
 The boar, or made their coursers cleave the breadth 
 Of yellow Hebrus, and, thro vales beyond, 
 
96 POEMS. 
 
 Drove the hot leopard foaming to his lair. 
 
 And day by day Alectryon dearer grew 
 
 To the God s restless spirit, till from Thrace 
 
 He bore him, even to Olympos ; there 
 
 Before him set immortal food and wine, 
 
 That fairer youth and lustier strength might serve 
 
 His henchman ; bade him bear his arms, and cleanse 
 
 The crimson d burnish of his brazen car : 
 
 So dwelt the Thracian youth among the Gods. 
 
 There came a day when Are s left at rest 
 His spear, and smooth d his harmful, unhelm d brow, 
 Calling Alectryon to his side, and said : 
 " The shadow of Olympos longer falls 
 Thro misty valleys of the lower world ; 
 The Earth shall be at peace a summer s night ; 
 Men shall have calm, and the unconquer d host 
 Peopling the walls of Troas, and the tribes 
 Of Greece, shall sleep sweet sleep upon their arms ; 
 For Aphrodite, queen of light and love, 
 Awaits me, blooming in the House of Fire, 
 Girt with the cestus, infinite in grace, 
 Dearer than battle and the joy of war : 
 She, for whose charms I would renounce the sword 
 
ALECTRYUN. 97 
 
 Forever, even godhood, would she wreathe 
 My brows with myrtle, dwelling far from Heaven. 
 Hephaestos, the lame cuckold, unto whose 
 Misshapen squalor Zeus hath given my queen, 
 To-night seeks Lemnos, and his sooty vault 
 Roof d by the roaring surge ; wherein, betimes, 
 He and his Cyclops pound the ringing iron, 
 Forging great bolts for Zeus, and welding mail, 
 White-hot, in shapes for Heroes and the Gods. 
 Do thou, Alectryon, faithful to my trust, 
 Hie with me to the mystic House of Fire. 
 Therein, with wine and fruitage of her isle, 
 Sweet odors, and all rarest sights and sounds, 
 My Paphian mistress shall regale us twain. 
 But when the feast is over, and thou see st 
 Ares and Aphrodite pass beyond 
 The portals of that chamber, whence all winds 
 Of love flow ever toward the four fold Earth, 
 Watch by the entrance, sleepless, while we sleep ; 
 And warn us ere the glimpses of the Dawn ; 
 Lest Helios, the spy, may peer within 
 Our windows, and to Lemnos speed apace, 
 In envy clamoring to the hobbling smith, 
 Hephsestos, of the wrong I do his bed." 
 
98 POEMS. 
 
 Thus Ares ; and the Thracian boy, well-pleased, 
 Swore to be faithful to his trust, and liege 
 To her, the perfect queen of light and love. 
 So saying, they reach d the fiery, brazen gates, 
 Encolumn d high by Heaven s artisan, 
 Hephasstos, rough, begrim d, ancl halt of foot 
 Yet unto whom was Aphrodite given 
 By Zeus, because from his misshapen hands 
 All shapely things found being ; but the gift 
 Brought him no joyance, nor made pure his fame, 
 Like those devices which he wrought himself, 
 Grim, patient, unbeloved. 
 
 There pass d they in 
 At portals of the high, celestial House, 
 And on beyond the starry-golden court, 
 Thro amorous hidden ways, and winding paths 
 Set round with splendors, to the spangled hall 
 Of secret audience for noble guests. 
 Here Charis labor d, so Hephasstos bade, 
 Moulding the room s adornments ; here she built 
 Low couches, framed in ivory, overlain 
 With skins of pard and panther, and the fleece 
 Of sheep which graze the low Hesperian isles ; 
 
ALECTRYON. 99 
 
 And in the midst a cedarn table spread, 
 Whereon the loves of all the elder Gods 
 Were wrought in gold and silver ; and the light 
 Of quenchless rubies sparkled over all. 
 Thus far came Ares and Alectryon, 
 First leaving shield and falchion at the door, 
 That nought of violence should haunt that air 
 Serene, but laughter-loving peace, and joys 
 The meed of Gods, once given men to know. 
 
 Then, from her da is in the utmost hall, 
 Shone toward them Aphrodite, not by firm 
 Imperial footfalls, but in measureless 
 Procession, even as, wafted by her doves, 
 She kiss d the faces of the yearning waves 
 From Cyprus to the high Thessalian mount, 
 Claiming her throne in Heaven ; so light she stept, 
 Untended by her Graces ; only he, 
 Eros, th eternal child, with welcomings 
 Sprang forward to Ares, like a beam of light 
 Flash d from a coming brightness, ere it comes ; 
 And the ambrosial mother to his glee 
 Join d her own joy, coy as she glided near 
 Ares, till Ares closed her in his arms, 
 
100 POEMS. 
 
 An instant, with the perfect love of Gods. 
 And the wide chamber gleam d with their delight, 
 And infinite tinkling laughters rippled through 
 Far halls, wherefrom no boding echoes came. 
 
 But when the passion of their meeting fell 
 To dalliance, the mighty lovers, sunk 
 Within those ivory couches golden-fleeced, 
 Made wassail at the wondrous board, and held 
 Sweet stolen converse till the middle night. 
 And soulless servitors came gliding in, 
 Handmaidens, wrought of gold, the marvellous work 
 Of lame Hephosstos ; having neither will, 
 Nor voice, yet bearing, on their golden trays, 
 Lush fruits and Cyprian wine and, intermixt, 
 Olympian food and nectar, earth with heaven. 
 These Eros and Alectryon took therefrom, 
 And placed before the lovers ; and, meanwhile, 
 Melodious breathings from unfinger d lutes, 
 Warblings from unseen nightingales, and songs 
 From lips uncrimson d, scatter d music round. 
 So fled the light-shod moments, hour by hour, 
 While the grim husband clang d upon his forge 
 In lurid caverns of the distant isle, 
 
ALECTRYON. 101 
 
 Unboding, and unheeded in his home, 
 Save with a scornful jest. Till now the crown 
 Of Artemis shone at her topmost height : 
 Then rose the impassion d lovers, with rapt eyes 
 Fix d each on each, and pass d beyond the hall, 
 Thro curtains of that chamber whence all winds 
 Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth ; 
 At whose dim vestibule Alectryon 
 Disposed him, mindful of his master s word ; 
 But Eros, heavy-eyed, long since had slept, 
 Deep-muffled in the softness of his plumes. 
 And all was silence in the House of Fire. 
 
 Only Alectryon, thro brazen bars,* 
 Watch d the blue East for Eos, she whose torch. 
 Should warn him of the coming of the Sun. 
 Even thus he kept his vigils : but, ere half 
 Her silvery downward path the Huntress knew, 
 His senses by that rich immortal food 
 Grew numb d with languor. Then the shadowy hall s 
 Deep columns glimmer d, interblent with dreams 
 Thick forests, running waters, darkling caves 
 Of Thrace ; and half in thought he grasp d the bow ; 
 Hunted once more within his native wilds, 
 
102 POEMS. 
 
 Cheering the hounds ; until before his eyes 
 
 The drapery of all nearer pictures fell, 
 
 And his limbs droop d. Whereat the imp of Sleep, 
 
 Hypnos, who hid him at the outer gate, 
 
 Slid in with silken-sandall d feet, and laid 
 
 A subtle finger on his lids. And so, 
 
 Crouch d at the warder-post, Alectryon slept. 
 
 Meanwhile the God and Goddess, recking naught 
 Of evil, trusting to the faithful boy, 
 Sank satiate in the calm of tranced rest. 
 And past the sleeping warder, deep within 
 The portals of that chamber whence all winds 
 Of love flow ever toward the fourfold Earth, 
 Hypnos kept on, walking, yet half afloat 
 In the sweet air ; and, fluttering with cool wings 
 Above their couch, fann d the reposeful pair 
 To slumber. Thus, a careless twilight hour, 
 Unknowing Eos and her torch, they slept. 
 
 Ill-fated rest ! Awake, ye fleet-wing d Loves, 
 Your mistress ! Eos, rouse the sleeping God, 
 And warn him of the coming of the Day ! 
 Alectryon, wake ! In vain : Eos swept by, 
 
ALECTRYdN. 103 
 
 Radiant, a blushing finger on her lips. 
 
 In vain ! Close on her flight, from furthest East, 
 
 The peering Helios drove his lambent car, 
 
 Casting the tell-tale beams on earth and sky, 
 
 Until Olympos laugh d within his light ; 
 
 And all the House of Fire grew roof d with gold ; 
 
 And thro its brazen windows Helios gazed 
 
 Upon the sleeping lovers : thence away 
 
 To Lemnos flash d, across the rearward sea, 
 
 A messenger, from whom the vengeful smith, 
 
 Hephaestos, learn d the story of his wrongs ; 
 
 Whence afterward rude scandal spread thro Heaven. 
 
 But they, the lovers, startled from sweet sleep 
 By garish Day, stood timorous and mute, 
 Even as a regal pair, the hart and hind, 
 When first the keynote of the clarion horn 
 Pierces their covert, and the deep-mouth d hound 
 Bays, following on the trail ; then, with small pause 
 For amorous partings, sped in diverse ways. 
 She, Aphrodite, clothed in pearly cloud, 
 Dropt from Olympos to the eastern shore ; 
 Thence floated, half in shame, half laughter-pleased, 
 Southward across the blue JEgaean sea, 
 
104 POEMS. 
 
 That had a thousand little dimpling smiles 
 
 At her discomfort, and a thousand eyes 
 
 To shoot irreverent glances. But her conch 
 
 Pass d the Eubcean coasts, and softly on 
 
 By rugged Delos, and the gentler slope 
 
 Of Naxos, to Icarian waves serene ; 
 
 Thence sail d betwixt fair Rhodes, on the left, 
 
 And windy Carpathos, until it touch d 
 
 Cyprus ; and soon the conscious Goddess found 
 
 Her bower in the hollow of the isle ; 
 
 And wondering nymphs in their white arms received 
 
 Their white-arm d mistress, bathing her fair limbs 
 
 In fragrant dews, twining her lucent hair 
 
 With roses, and with kisses soothing her ; 
 
 Till, glowing in fresh loveliness, she sank 
 
 To stillness, tended in the sacred isle, 
 
 And hid herself awhile from all her peers. 
 
 But angry Ares faced the treacherous Morn, 
 Spurning the palace tower ; nor look d behind, 
 Disdainful of himself and secret joys 
 That stript him to the laughter of the Gods. 
 Toward the east he made, and overhung 
 The broad Thermaic gulf; then, shunning well 
 
ALECTRYdN. 105 
 
 The crags of Lemnos, by Mount Athos stay d 
 A moment, mute ; thence hurtled sheer away, 
 Across the murmuring Northern sea, whose waves 
 Are swoll n in billows ruffled with the cuffs 
 Of endless winds ; so reach d the shores of Thrace, 
 And spleen pursued him in the tangled wilds. 
 
 Hither at eventide remorseful came 
 Alectryon ; but the indignant God, 
 With harsh revilings, changed him to the Cock, 
 That evermore, remembering his fault, 
 Heralds with warning voice the coming Day. 
 
THE TEST. 
 
 SEVEN women loved him. When the wrinkled 
 pall 
 
 Enwrapt him from their uiifulfill d desire, 
 (Death, pale triumphant rival, conquering all,) 
 
 They came, for that last look, around his pyre. 
 
 One strew d white roses, on whose leaves were 
 
 hung 
 Her tears, like dew ; and in discreet attire 
 
 Warbled her tuneful sorrow. Next among 
 
 The group, a fair-hair d virgin moved serenely, 
 Whose saintly heart no vain repinings wrung, 
 
THE TEST. 107 
 
 Reach d the calm dust, and there, composed and 
 
 queenly, 
 
 Gazed, but the missal trembled in her hand : 
 " That s with the past," she said, " nor may I meanly 
 
 Give way to tears ! " and pass d into the land. 
 
 The third hung feebly on the portals, moaning, 
 With whiten d lips and feet that stood in sand, 
 
 So weak they seem d and all her passion owning. 
 
 The fourth, a ripe, luxurious maiden, came, 
 Half for such homage to the dead atoning 
 
 By smiles on one who fann d a later flame 
 
 In her slight soul, her fickle steps attended. 
 The fifth and sixth were sisters : at the same 
 
 "Wild moment, both above the image bended, 
 
 And with immortal hatred each on each 
 Glared, and therewith her exultation blended, 
 
 To know the dead had scaped the other s reach ! 
 
 Meanwhile, thro all the words of anguish spoken, 
 One lowly form had given no sound of speech, 
 
108 POEMS. 
 
 Thro all the signs of woe, no sign nor token ; 
 
 But when they came to bear him to his rest, 
 They found her beauty paled her heart was broken : 
 
 And in the Silent Land his shade confest 
 That she, of all the seven, loved him best. 
 
. 
 
 THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. 
 
 /"\NCE more on the fallow hill-side, as of old, I lie at 
 
 " rest 
 
 For an hour, while the sunshine trembles thro the 
 walnut-tree to the west 
 
 Shakes on the rocks and fragrant ferns, and the berry- 
 bushes around ; 
 
 And I watch, as of old, the cattle graze in the lower 
 pasture-ground. 
 
 Of the Saxon months of blossom, when the merle and 
 mavis sing, 
 
 And a dust of gold falls everywhere from the soft mid 
 summer s wing, 
 
 I only know from my poets, or from pictures that hither 
 come, 
 
 Sweet with the smile of the hawthorn-hedge and the 
 scent of the harvest-home. 
 
110 POEMS. 
 
 , 
 
 But July in our own New England I bask myself in 
 
 its prime, 
 As one in the light of a face he loves, and has not seen 
 
 for a time ! 
 Again the perfect blue of the sky; the fresh green 
 
 woods ; the call 
 Of the crested jay ; the tangled vines that cover the 
 
 frost-thrown wall : 
 
 Sounds and shadows remembered well! the ground- 
 bee s droning hum ; 
 
 The distant musical tree-tops ; the locust beating his 
 drum ; 
 
 And the ripen d July warmth, that seems akin to a fire 
 which stole, 
 
 Long summers since, thro the thews of youth, to soften 
 and harden my soul. 
 
 Here it was that I loved her as only a stripling can, 
 Who doats on a girl that others know no mate for the 
 
 future man ; 
 It was well, perhaps, that at last my pride and honor 
 
 outgrew her art, 
 That there came an hour, when from broken chains I 
 
 fled with a broken heart. 
 
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. Ill 
 
 Twas well : but the fire would still flash up in sharp, 
 heat-lightning gleams, 
 
 And ever at night the false, fair face shone into pas 
 sionate dreams ; 
 
 The false, fair form, thro many a year, was somewhere 
 close at my side, 
 
 And crept, as by right, to my very arms and the place 
 of my patient bride. 
 
 Bride and vision have pass d away, and I am again 
 alone : 
 
 Changed by years ; not wiser, I think, but only differ 
 ent grown : 
 
 Not so much nearer wisdom is a man than a boy, forsooth, 
 
 Though, in scorn of what has come and gone, he hates 
 the ways of his youth. 
 
 In seven years, I have heard it said, a soul shall change 
 
 its frame ; 
 Atom for atom, the man shall be the same, yet not the 
 
 same ; 
 The last of the ancient ichor shall pass away from his 
 
 veins, 
 And a new-born light shall fill the eyes whose earlier 
 
 lustre wanes. 
 
112 POEMS. 
 
 In seven years, it is written, a man shall shift his 
 
 mood; 
 Good shall seem what was evil, and evil the thing that 
 
 was good ; 
 Ye that welcome the coming and speed the parting 
 
 guest, 
 Tell me, O winds of summer ! am I not half-confest ? 
 
 For along the tide of this mellow month new fancies 
 guide my helm, 
 
 Another form has enter d my heart as rightful queen 
 of the realm ; 
 
 From under their long black lashes new eyes half- 
 blue, half-gray 
 
 Pierce thro my soul, to drive the ghost of the old love 
 quite away. 
 
 Shadow of years ! at last it sinks in the sepulchre of 
 
 the past : 
 A gentle image and fair to see, but was my passion so 
 
 vast? 
 " For you," I said, " be you false or true, are ever life 
 
 of my life ! " 
 Was it myself or another who spoke, and ask d her to 
 
 be his wife ? 
 
THE OLD LOVE AND THE NEW. 113 
 
 For here, on the dear old hill-side, I lie at rest again, 
 And think with a quiet self-content of all the passion 
 
 and pain, 
 Of the strong resolve and the after-strife but the 
 
 vistas round me seem 
 So little changed, that I hardly know if the past is not 
 
 dream. 
 
 Can I have sailed, for seven years, far out in the open 
 
 world ; 
 Have tack d and drifted here and there, by eddying 
 
 currents whirl d ; 
 Have gain d and lost, and found again ; and now, for a 
 
 respite, come 
 Once more to the happy scenes of old, and the haven I 
 
 voyaged from ? 
 
 Blended infinite murmurs of True Love s earliest song, 
 Where are you slumbering out of the heart that gave 
 
 you echoes so long ? 
 But chords that have ceased to vibrate the swell of an 
 
 ancient strain, 
 May thrill with a soulful music when rightly touch d 
 
 again. 
 
 8 
 
114 POEMS. 
 
 Rock and forest and meadow : landscape perfect and 
 
 true ! 
 
 O, if ourselves were tender and all unchangeful as you, 
 I should not now be dreaming of seven years that have 
 
 been, 
 Nor bidding old love good-by forever, and letting the 
 
 new love in 1 
 
ESTELLE. 
 
 ; How came he mad ? " HAMLET. 
 
 all the beautiful demons, who fasten on human 
 
 hearts, 
 To fetter the bodies and souls of men with exquisite, 
 
 mocking arts, 
 
 The cruellest, and subtlest, and fairest to mortal sight, 
 Is surely a woman called Estelle, who tortures me day 
 
 and night. 
 
 The first time that I saw her, she pass d with sweet lips 
 
 mute, 
 As if in scorn of the vacant praise of those who kept 
 
 her suit ; 
 A hundred lustres flash d and shone as she rustled thro 
 
 the crowd, 
 And a passion seized me for her there so passionless 
 
 and proud. 
 
116 POEMS. 
 
 The second time that I saw her, she met me face to face : 
 Her bending beauty answer d my bow in a tremulous 
 
 moment s space ; 
 With an upward glance that instantly fell she read me 
 
 through and through, 
 And found in me something worth her while to idle 
 
 with and subdue ; 
 
 Something, I know not what : perhaps the spirit of 
 
 eager youth, 
 That named her a queen of queens at once, and loved 
 
 her in very truth ; 
 That threw its pearl of pearls at her feet, and offer d 
 
 her, in a breath, 
 The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his 
 
 death. 
 
 The third time that I saw her this woman called 
 Estelle 
 
 She pass d her milk-white arm thro mine and dazzled 
 me with her spell ; 
 
 A blissful fever thrill d my veins, and there, in the 
 moonbeams white, 
 
 I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that madden 
 ing delight ! 
 
ESTELLE. 117 
 
 And at many a trysting afterwards she wove my heart 
 strings round 
 
 Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low 
 as she wound ; 
 
 The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime 
 of a witch s bell : 
 
 Its echo haunts me even now, with the word Estelle 
 Estelle ! 
 
 Ah, then, as a dozen before me had, I lay at last at her 
 
 feet, 
 And she turn d me off with a calm surprise when her 
 
 triumph was all complete : 
 It made me wild, the stroke which smiled so pitiless 
 
 out of her eyes, 
 Like lightning fall n, in clear noonday, from cloudless 
 
 and bluest skies ! 
 
 The whirlwind follow d upon my brain and beat my 
 
 thoughts to rack : 
 Who knows the many a month I lay ere memory floated 
 
 back? 
 Even now, I tell you, I wonder whether this woman, 
 
 called Estelle, 
 
118 POEMS. 
 
 Is flesh and blood, or a beautiful lie, sent up from the 
 depths of hell. 
 
 For at night she stands where the pallid moon streams 
 
 into this grated cell, 
 And only gives me that mocking glance when I speak 
 
 her name Estette ! 
 With the old resistless longing often I strive to clasp 
 
 her there, 
 But she vanishes from my open arms and hides I know 
 
 not where. 
 
 And I hold that if she were human she could not fly 
 
 like the wind, 
 But her heart would flutter against my own, in spite 
 
 of her scornful mind : 
 Yet, oh ! she is not a phantom, since devils are not so 
 
 bad, 
 As to haunt and torture a man, long after their tricks 
 
 have made him mad ! 
 
EDGED TOOLS. 
 
 TTTELL, Helen, quite two years have flown 
 
 Since that enchanted, dreamy night, 
 When you and I were left alone, 
 
 And wonder d whether those were right 
 Who said that each the other loved ; 
 
 And thus debating, yes and no, 
 And half in earnest, as it proved, 
 
 We bargain d to pretend twere so. 
 
 Two skeptic children of the world, 
 
 Each with a heart engraven o er 
 With broken love-knots, quaintly curl d, 
 
 Of hot flirtations held before ; 
 Yet, somehow, either seem d to find, 
 
 This time, a something more akin 
 To that young natural love the kind 
 
 Which comes but once, and breaks us in. 
 
120 POEMS. 
 
 What sweetly stolen hours we knew, 
 
 And frolics perilous as gay ! 
 Tho lit in sport, Love s taper grew 
 
 More bright and burning day by day. 
 We knew each heart was only lent, 
 
 The other s ancient scars to heal : 
 The very thought a pathos blent 
 
 With all the mirth we tried to feel. 
 
 How bravely, when the time to part 
 
 Came with the wanton season s close, 
 Tho nature with our mutual art 
 
 Had mingled more than either chose, 
 We smother d Love, upon the verge 
 
 Of folly, in one last embrace, 
 And buried him without a dirge, 
 
 And turn d, and left his resting-place. 
 
 Yet often, (tell me what it means,) 
 His spirit steals upon me here, 
 
 Far, far away from all the scenes 
 His little lifetime held so dear ; 
 
 He comes : I hear a mystic strain 
 In which some tender memory lies ; 
 
EDGED TOOLS. 121 
 
 I dally with your hair again ; 
 I catch the gleam of violet eyes. 
 
 Ah, Helen ! how have matters been 
 
 Since those rude obsequies, with you ? 
 Say, is my partner in the sin 
 
 A sharer of the penance too ? 
 Again the vision s at my side : 
 
 I drop my head upon my breast, 
 And wonder if he really died, 
 
 And why his spirit will not rest. 
 
THE SWALLOW. 
 
 TTAD I, my love declared, the tireless wing 
 
 That wafts the swallow to her northern skies, 
 I would not, sheer within the rich surprise 
 Of full-blown Summer, like the swallow, fling 
 My coyer being ; but would follow Spring, 
 Melodious consort, as she daily flies, 
 Apace with suns, that o er new woodlands rise 
 Each morn with rains her gentler stages bring. 
 My pinions should beat music with her own ; 
 Her smiles and odors should delight me ever, 
 Gliding, with measured progress, from the zone 
 Where golden seas receive the mighty river, 
 Unto yon lichen d cliffs, whose ridges sever 
 Our Norseland from the arctic surge s moan. 
 
REFUGE IN NATURE. 
 
 TITTHEN the rude world s relentless war has press d 
 
 Fiercely upon them, and the hot campaign 
 Closes with battles lost, some yield their lives, 
 Or linger in the ruins of the fight 
 Unwise, and comprehending not their fate, 
 Nor gathering that affluent recompense 
 Which the all-pitying Earth has yet in store. 
 Surely such men have never known the love 
 Of Nature ; nor had recourse to her fount 
 Of calm delights, whose influences heal 
 The wounded spirits of her vanquish d sons ; 
 Nor ever in those fruitful earlier days, 
 Wherein her manifest forms do most enrich 
 Our senses void of subtler cognizance 
 Wander d in summer fields, climb d the free hills, 
 Pursued the murmuring music of her streams, 
 And found the borders of her sounding sea. 
 
124 POEMS. 
 
 But thou when, in the multitudinous lists 
 Of traffic, all thine own is forfeited 
 At some wild hazard, or by weakening drains 
 Pour d from thee ; or when, striving for the meed 
 Of place, thou failest, and the lesser man 
 By each ignoble method wins thy due ; 
 When the injustice of the social world 
 Environs thee ; when ruthless public scorn, 
 Black slander, and the meannesses of friends, 
 Have made the bustling practice of the world 
 To thee a discord and a mockery ; 
 Or even if that last extremest pang 
 Be thine, and, added to such other woes, 
 The loss of that forever faithful love 
 Which else had balanced all : the putting out, 
 Untimely, of the light in dearest eyes ; 
 At such a time thou well may st count the days 
 Evil, and for a season quit the field ; 
 Yet not surrendering all human hopes, 
 Nor the rich physical life which still remains 
 God s boon and thy sustainer. It were base 
 To join alliance with the hosts of Fate 
 Against thyself: crowning their victory 
 By loose despair, or seeking rest in death. 
 
REFUGE IN NATURE. 125 
 
 More wise, betake thee to those sylvan haunts 
 Thou knewest when young, and, once again a child, 
 Let their perennial loveliness renew 
 Thy natural faith and childhood s heart serene. 
 Forgetting all the toilsome pilgrimage, 
 Awake from strife and shame, as from a dream 
 Dream d by a boy, when under waving trees 
 He sleeps and dreams a languid afternoon. 
 Once more from these harmonious beauties gain 
 Repose and ransom, and a power to feel 
 The immortal gladness of inanimate things. 
 
 There is the mighty Mother, ever young 
 And garlanded, and welcoming her sons. 
 There are her thousand charms to soothe thy pain, 
 And merge thy little, individual woe 
 In the broad health and happy fruitfulness 
 Of all that smiles around thee. For thy sake 
 The woven arches of her forests breathe 
 Perpetual anthems, and the blue skies smile 
 Between, to heal thee with their infinite hope. 
 There are her crystal waters ; lave thy brows, 
 Hot with long turmoil, in their purity : 
 Wash off the battle-dust from those poor limbs 
 
126 POEMS. 
 
 Blood-stain d and weary. Holy sleep shall come 
 
 Upon thee ; waking, thou shalt find in bloom 
 
 The lilies, fresh as in the olden days ; 
 
 And once again, when Night unveils her stars, 
 
 Thou shalt have sight of their high radiance, 
 
 And feel the old, mysterious awe subdue 
 
 The phantoms of thy pain. 
 
 And from that height 
 
 A voice shall whisper of the faith, thro which 
 A man may act his part until the end. 
 Anon thy ancient yearning for the fight 
 May come once more, temper d by poise of chance, 
 And guided well with all experience. 
 Invisible hands may gird thy armor on, 
 And Nature put new weapons in thy hands, 
 Sending thee out to try the world again 
 Perchance to conquer, being cased in mail 
 Of double memories : knowing smaller griefs 
 Can add no sorrow to the woful past ; 
 And that, howbeit thou mayest stand or fall, 
 Earth proffers men her refuge everywhere, 
 And Heaven s promise is for aye the same. 
 
MONTAGU. 
 
 QUEEN Katherine of Arragon 
 In gray Kimbolton dwelt, 
 A joyous bride, ere bluff King Hal 
 To Anne s beauty knelt. 
 
 Still in her haughty Spanish eyes 
 Their childhood s lustre shone, 
 
 That lit with love two royal hearts, 
 And won the English throne. 
 
 From gray Kimbolton s castle-gate 
 She rode, each summer s day, 
 
 And blithely led the greenwood chase 
 With hawk and hound away. 
 
128 POEMS. 
 
 And ever handsome Montagu, 
 Her Master of the Horse, 
 
 To guard his mistress kept her pace 
 O er heather, turf, and gorse. 
 
 O, who so brave as Montagu 
 To leap the hedges clear ! 
 
 And who so fleet as he to find 
 The coverts of the deer ! 
 
 And who so wild as Montagu, 
 To seek his sovereign s love ! 
 
 More hopeless than a child, who craves 
 The brightest star above. 
 
 o 
 
 Day after day her presence fed 
 
 The fever at his heart ; 
 Yet loyally the young knight scorn d 
 
 To play a traitor s part. 
 
 Only, when at her palfrey s side 
 He bow d him by command, 
 
 Light ning her footfall to the earth, 
 He press d her dainty hand ; 
 
MONTAGU. 129 
 
 A tender touch, as light as love, 
 
 Soft as his heart s desire ; 
 But aye, in Katherine s artless blood, 
 
 It woke no answering fire. 
 
 King Hal to gray Kimbolton came 
 
 Ere long, and true love s sign, 
 Unused in colder Arragon, 
 
 She pray d him to divine : 
 
 " Canst tell me, Sire," she said, " what mean 
 
 The gentry of your land, 
 When softly, thus, and thus, they take 
 
 And press a lady s hand ? " 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " laugh d Hal, " but tell me, Chick, 
 
 Each answering in course, 
 Do any press your hand ? " " O, yes, 
 
 My Master of the Horse." 
 
 Off to the wars her gallant went, 
 
 And push d the foremost dykes, 
 And gash d his fair young form against 
 
 A score of Flemish pikes. 
 
130 POEMS. 
 
 Heart s blood ebb d fast ; but Montagu, 
 
 Dipping a finger, wove 
 These red words in his shield : " Dear Queen, 
 
 I perish of your love ! " 
 
 Kimbolton, after many a year, 
 
 Again met Katherine s view ; 
 The banish d wife, with half a sigh, 
 
 Remember d Montagu. 
 
WILD WINDS WHISTLE. 
 
 1. 
 
 O IR ULRIC a Southern dame has wed ; 
 Wild winds whistle and snow is come ; 
 He has brought her home to his bower and bed. 
 Hither and thither the birds fly home. 
 
 Her hair is darker than thick of night ; 
 
 Wild winds whistle, fyc. 
 Her hands are fair, and her step is light. 
 
 Hither and thither, fyc. 
 
 From out his castel in the North, 
 Sir Ulric to hunt rode lightly forth. 
 
 Three things he left her for good or ill 
 A bonny bird that should sing at will, 
 
132 POEMS. 
 
 With carol sweeter than silver bell, 
 Day and night in the old castel ; 
 
 A lithe little page to gather flowers ; 
 And a crystal dial to mark the hours. 
 
 2. 
 
 Lady Margaret watch d Sir Ulric speed 
 Away to the chase on his faithful steed. 
 
 From morning till night, the first day long, 
 She sat and listen d the bonny bird s song. 
 
 / 
 
 The second day long, with fingers fair, 
 She curl d and comb d her page s hair. 
 
 The third day s sun rose up on high ; 
 By the dial she was seated nigh : 
 
 She loathed the bird and the page s face, 
 And counted the shadow s creeping pace. 
 
 3. 
 
 The strange knight drew his bridle-rein ; 
 
 He look d at the sky and he look d at the plain. 
 
WILD WINDS WHISTLE. 133 
 
 " lady ! " he said " twas a sin and shame 
 To leave for the chase so fair a dame." 
 
 " lady ! " he said " we two will flee 
 To the blithesome land of Italic ; 
 
 " There the orange grows, and the fruitful vine, 
 And a bower of myrtle shall be thine." 
 
 He has taken her hand and kiss d her mouth : 
 Now Ho ! sing Ho ! for the sunny South. 
 
 He has kiss d her mouth and clasp d her waist : 
 Now, good gray steed, make haste : make haste ! 
 
 4. 
 
 Sir Ulric back from the chase has come, 
 And sounds the horn at his castel-home. 
 
 Or ever he drew his bridle rein, 
 He saw the dial split in twain ; 
 
 The bonny blithe bird was stark and dead, 
 And the lithe little page hung down his head. 
 
134 POEMS. 
 
 The lithe little page hung down his head ; 
 
 Wild winds whistle and snow is come ; 
 " O where, Sir Page, has my lady fled ? " 
 
 Hither and thither the birds fly home. 
 
PETER STUYVESANT S NEW YEAR S CALL. 
 
 1 JAN. A. C. 1661. 
 
 TT7HERE nowadays the Battery lies, 
 
 New York had just begun, 
 A new-born babe, to rub its eyes, 
 
 In Sixteen Sixty-One. 
 They christen d it Nieuw Amsterdam, 
 
 Those burghers grave and stately, 
 And so, with schnapps and smoke and psalm, 
 
 Lived out their lives sedately. 
 
 Two windmills topp d their wooden wall, 
 
 On Stadthuys gazing down, 
 On fort, and cabbage-plots, and all 
 
 The quaintly-gabled town ; 
 These flapp d their wings and shifted backs, 
 
 As ancient scrolls determine, 
 
136 POEMS. 
 
 To scare the savage Hackensacks, 
 Paumanks, and other vermin. 
 
 At night the loyal settlers lay 
 
 Betwixt their feather-beds ; 
 In hose and breeches walk d by day, 
 
 And smoked, and wagg d their heads ; 
 No changeful fashions came from France, 
 
 The vrouwleins to bewilder ; 
 No broad-brimm d burgher spent for pants 
 
 His every other guilder. 
 
 In petticoats of linsey-red, 
 
 And jackets neatly kept, 
 The vrouws their knitting-needles sped 
 
 And deftly spun and swept ; 
 Few modern-school flirtations there 
 
 Set wheels of scandal trundling, 
 But youths and maidens did their share 
 
 Of staid, old-fashion d bundling. 
 
 The New Year opened clear and cold : 
 The snow, a Flemish ell 
 
PETER STUYVES ANT S NEW YEAR S CALL. 137 
 
 In depth, lay over Beeckman s Wold 
 
 And Wolfert s frozen well ; 
 Each burgher shook his kitchen-doors, 
 
 Drew on his Holland leather, 
 Then stamp d thro drifts to do the chores, 
 
 Beshrewing all such weather. 
 
 But after herring, ham, and kraut 
 
 To all the gather d town 
 The Dominie preach d the morning out, 
 
 In Calvinistic gown ; 
 While tough old Peter Stuyvesant 
 
 Sat pew d in foremost station : 
 The potent, sage, and valiant 
 
 Third Governor of the nation. 
 
 Prayer over, at his mansion hall, 
 
 With cake and courtly smile, 
 He met the people, one and all, 
 
 In gubernatorial style ; 
 Yet miss d, though now the day was old, 
 
 An ancient fellow-feaster : 
 Heer Govert Loockermans, that bold 
 
 Brewer and burgomeester ; 
 
138 POEMS. 
 
 Who, in his farm-house, close without 
 
 The picket s eastern end, 
 Sat growling at the twinge of gout 
 
 That kept him from his friend. 
 But Peter strapp d his wooden peg, 
 
 When tea and cake were ended, 
 (Meanwhile the sound remaining leg 
 
 Its high jack-boot defended,) 
 
 A woolsey cloak about him threw, 
 
 And swore, by wind and limb, 
 Since Govert kept from Peter s -view, 
 
 Peter would visit him ; 
 Then sallied forth, thro snow and blast, 
 
 While many a humble greeter 
 Stood wondering whereaway so fast 
 
 Strode bluff Hardkoppig Pieter. 
 
 Past quay and cow-path, through a lane 
 Of vats and mounded tans, 
 
 He puff d along, with might and main, 
 To Govert Loockermans ; 
 
 Once there, his right of entry took, 
 And hail d his ancient crony : 
 
PETER STUYVESANTS NEW YEAR S CALL. 139 
 
 " Myn Gott ! in dese Manliattoes, Loock, 
 Ve gets more snow as money ! " 
 
 To which, till after whiffs profound, 
 
 The other answer d not ; 
 At last there came responsive sound : 
 
 Yah, Peter : yah, Myn Gott ! " 
 Then goedevrouw Marie sat her guest 
 
 Beneath the chimney-gable, 
 And courtesied, bustling at her best 
 
 To spread the New Year s table. 
 
 She brought the pure and genial schnapps, 
 
 That years before had come 
 In the " Nieuw Nederlandts," perhaps 
 
 To cheer the settlers home ; 
 The long-stemm d pipes ; the fragrant roll 
 
 Of press d and crispy Spanish ; 
 Then placed the earthen mugs and bowl, 
 
 Nor long delay d to vanish. 
 
 Thereat, with cheery nod and wink, 
 And honors of the day, 
 
POEMS. 
 
 The trader mix d the Governor s drink 
 
 As evening sped away. 
 That ancient room ! I see it now : 
 
 The carven nutwood dresser ; 
 The drawers, that many a burgher s vrouw 
 
 Begrudged their rich possessor ; 
 
 The brace of high-back d, leathern chairs, 
 
 Brass-nail d at every seam ; 
 Six others, ranged in equal pairs ; 
 
 The bacon hung abeam ; 
 The chimney-front, with porcelain shelft ; 
 
 The hearty wooden fire ; 
 The picture, on the steaming delft, 
 
 Of David and Goliah. 
 
 I see the two old Dutchmen sit 
 
 Like Magog and his mate, 
 And hear them, when their pipes are lit, 
 
 Discuss affairs of state : 
 The clique that would their sway demean ; 
 
 The pestilent importation 
 Of wooden nutmegs, from the lean 
 
 And losel Yankee nation. 
 
PETER STUYVES ANT S NEW YEAR S CALL. 141 
 
 But when the subtle juniper 
 
 Assumed its sure command, 
 They drank the buxom loves that were 
 
 They drank the Motherland ; 
 They drank the famous Swedish wars, 
 
 Stout Peter s special glory, 
 While Govert proudly show d the scars 
 
 Of Indian contests gory. 
 
 Ere long, the berry s power awoke 
 
 Some music in their brains, 
 And, trumpet-like, through rolling smoke, 
 
 Rang long-forgotten strains : 
 Old Flemish snatches, full of blood, 
 
 Of phantom ships and battle ; 
 And Peter, with his leg of wood, 
 
 Made floor and casement rattle. 
 
 Then round and round the dresser pranced, 
 
 The chairs began to wheel, 
 And on the board the punch-bowl danced 
 
 A Netherlandish reel ; 
 Till midnight o er the farmhouse spread 
 
 Her New- Year s skirts of sable, 
 
142 POEMS. 
 
 And, inch by inch, each puzzled head 
 Dropt down upon the table. 
 
 But still to Peter, as he dream d, 
 
 That table spread and turn d ; 
 The chimney-log blazed high, and seem d 
 
 To circle as it burn d ; 
 The town into the vision grew 
 
 From ending to beginning ; 
 Fort, wall, and windmill met his view, 
 
 All widening and spinning. 
 
 The cowpaths, leading to the docks, 
 
 Grew broader, whirling past, 
 And checker d into shining blocks 
 
 A city fair and 1 vast ; 
 Stores, churches, mansions, overspread 
 
 The metamorphosed island, 
 While not a beaver show d his head 
 
 From Swamp to Kalchhook highland. 
 
 Eftsoons the picture pass d away ; 
 
 Hours after, Peter woke 
 To see a spectral streak of day 
 
PETER STUYVES ANT S NEW YEARS CALL. 143 
 
 Gleam in thro fading smoke ; 
 Still slept old Govert, snoring on 
 
 In most melodious numbers ; 
 No dreams of Eighteen Sixty-One 
 
 Commingled with his slumbers. 
 
 But Peter, from the farmhouse-door, 
 
 Gazed doubtfully around, 
 Rejoiced to find himself once more 
 
 On sure and solid ground. 
 The sky was somewhat dark ahead : 
 
 Wind East, and morning lowery ; 
 But on he push d, a two-miles tread, 
 
 To breakfast at his Bouwery. 
 
III. 
 TEANSLATION. 
 
 10 
 
JEAN PROUVAIRE S SONG AT THE 
 BARRICADE. 
 
 "While the men were making cartridges and the women lint; 
 while a large frying-pan, full of melted pewter and lead, destined for 
 the bullet-mould, was smoking over a burning furnace; while the 
 videttes were watching the barricades with arms in their hands; 
 while Enjolras, whom nothing could distract, was watching the 
 videttes ; Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly Bossuet, 
 Joly, Bahorel, a few others besides, sought each other and got to 
 gether, as in the most peaceful days of their student-chats, and in a 
 corner of this wine-shop changed into a casemate, within two steps 
 of the redoubt which they had thrown up, their carbines primed and 
 loaded resting on the backs of their chairs, these gallant young men, 
 
 so near their last hour, began to sing love-rhymes The hour, 
 
 the place, these memories of youth recalled, the few stars which began 
 to shine in the sky, the funereal repose of these deserted streets, the 
 imminence of the inexorable event, gave a pathetic charm to these 
 rhymes, murmured in a low tone in the twilight by Jean Prouvaire, 
 who, as we have said, was a sweet poet." LES MISEKABLES: Saint 
 Denis, Book XII. Chapter VI. 
 
 T\0 you remember our charming times, 
 
 When we were both at the age which knows, 
 Of all the pleasures of Paris, none 
 
 Like making love in one s Sunday clo es ; 
 
148 TRANSLATION. 
 
 When all your birthdays, added to mine, 
 
 A total of forty would not bring, 
 And when, in our humble and cosy roost, 
 
 All, even the Winter, to us was Spring ? 
 
 Rare days ! then prudish Manuel stalk d, 
 
 Paris feasted each saintsday in ; 
 Foy thunder d away, and ah, your waist 
 
 Prick d me well with a truant pin ! 
 
 Every one ogled you. At Prado s, 
 
 Where you and your briefless barrister dined, 
 You were so fair that the roses, I thought, 
 
 Turn d to look at you from behind. 
 
 
 They seem d to whisper : " How handsome she is ! 
 
 What wavy tresses ! what sweet perfume ! 
 Under her mantle she hides her wings : 
 
 Her flower of a bonnet is just in bloom ! " 
 
 I roam d with you, pressing your dainty arm, 
 And the passers thought that Love, in play, 
 
 Had mated, in unison so sweet, 
 
 The gallant April with gentle May. 
 
JEAN PROUVAIRE S SONG. 149 
 
 We lived so cosily, all by ourselves, 
 On love that choice forbidden fruit, 
 
 And never a word my lips could speak 
 But your heart already had follow d suit. 
 
 The Sarbonne was that bucolic place 
 Where night till day my passion throve ; 
 
 Tis thus that an ardent youngster makes 
 The Student s Quarter a Realm of Love. 
 
 Place Maubert ! Place Dauphine ! 
 
 Sky-parlor reaching heavenward far, 
 In whose depths, when you drew your stocking on, 
 
 I saw a twinkling morning-star. 
 
 Hard-learn d Plato I ve long forgot : 
 Neither Malebranche, nor Lamennais, 
 
 Could teach me such faith in Providence 
 As the flower which in your bosom lay. 
 
 You were my servant and I your slave : 
 
 O golden attic ! joy, to lace 
 Your corset ; to watch you showing, at morn, 
 
 The ancient mirror your youthful face ! 
 
150 TRANSLATION. 
 
 Ah ! who indeed could ever forget 
 
 That sky and dawn commingling still ; 
 
 That ribbony, flowery, gauzy glory, 
 
 And Love s sweet nonsense talked at will ? 
 
 Our garden a pot of tulips was ; 
 
 Your petticoat curtain d the window-pane ; 
 I took the earthen bowl of my pipe 
 
 And gave you a cup of porcelain. 
 
 What huge disasters to make us fun ! 
 
 Your muff afire your tippet lost : 
 And that cherish d portrait of Shakspeare, sold, 
 
 One hungry evening, at half its cost. 
 
 I was a beggar and you were kind : 
 
 A kiss from your fair round arms I d steal, 
 
 While the folio-Dante we gayly spread 
 With a hundred chestnuts, our frugal meal. 
 
 And oh ! when first my favor d mouth 
 A kiss to your burning lips had given, 
 
 You were dishevell d and all aglow ; 
 
 I, pale with rapture, believed in Heaven. 
 
JEAN PROUVAIRE S SONG. 
 
 Do you remember our countless joys, 
 Those neckerchiefs rumpled every day ? 
 
 Alas, what sighs from our boding hearts 
 The infinite skies have borne away ! 
 
 151 
 
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