Crfuntpliant ORIGINAL POETRY BY FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES Love Triumphant . . net $1.00 A Book of Poems On Life s Stairway . . . 1.00 A Book of Poems Thin J2mo, cloth, gilt tops THE PAGE COMPANY 53 Beacon Street Boston, Mass. A Book of Poems By Frederic Lawrence Knowles Author of "On Life s Stairway, etc. Fifth, revised edition, containing " Sunset Poems" now first collected since the author s death, also an appreciation by Prof. C. T. Winchester, L. H. D. Boston The Page Company Pub Ushers Copyright, 1904 BY FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES Copyright, 1906 BY DANIEL C. KNOWLES All rights reserved Fifth Impression, May, 1914 THE COLONIAL PRESS C. H. SIMOND8 CO., BOSTON, U. 8. A. A/-75LC. TO Lottie* CljanHlfr Jlnttlton BY HER AFFECTIONATE FRIEND THE AUTHOR 304252 Note Acknowledgments are hereby made to the Century, Atlantic Monthly, Harper s Mag azine, Poet-Lore, National Magazine, Brown Book, Christian Endeavor World, and other periodicals, for their courteous permission to reprint copyright poems. of eontntts PAGE LOVE TRIUMPHANT . ,*.*. 1 LOVE AND HISTORY . . . . ... 3 LOVE S WORLD . , . . . . 6 A WOMAN S HEART . . ... . . 7 To AN OLD FLATMATE . , N ," ^ . 8 IT LOVE WERE JESTER AT THE COURT OP DEATH . 9 THE SINGER , , . . . .10 THE CELESTIAL MOMENT . . . . . .12 A MEMORY . . * . / . .14 THE HOUR or FIRE . 16 AT DAWN . . . , .,... 19 HER LIPS . , . . .... . 20 CREATION . . . . . . .21 A SONG OF CONTENT ..... 22 THE BALLAD OP EDEN To A DISCOVERER LOVE S AWAKENING ....... 27 LOVE S FULFILMENT 29 THE LAST WORD . . . . . . .80 of eantrius PAGE -LOVE S PRICE 32 JOT AND SACRIFICE 34 THE SURVIVOR ........ 36 IL THE LARGER VIEW 39 VERITAS ... 41 DIRECTIONS TO A TRAVELLER 42 THE TWOFOLD PRAYER 43 GOLGOTHA 45 THE NURSE . 46 LAUS MORTIS . . . . . . . .48 A PRATER 50 BIRTH 51 THE GOLDEN DOOR . . . ... .52 CREDO i ... 53 LOVE IMMORTAL ........ 54 BETHLEHEM MORN ....... 56 THE WIDOW S SON 57 SHEKINAH . . . . . . . . .58 THE SEA OF FAITH 59 THE ANSWER 61 A SIMPLE STORT . . . . . . . 63 HER TRANSPLANTED ROSE ...... 64 THE STEPS 66 ON THE PATH ........ 67 To AN OAK 68 A CHALLENGE 69 WHAT Is HEAVEN ?....... 71 x of PAGE OUT OF THE DEPTHS 74 O TROUBLED OVER MANY THINGS .... 76 III. THE GLASS 79 SIN S FOLIAGE 80 ONE WOMAN . .81 BETRAYED . 82 To THE MOON . . ...... 84 LOST 86 THE THREE ,. . . . . . .88 DISCORD . . 90 THE DISCIPLINE OP FAILURE . . . .92 IN A FAR COUNTRY 94 L Emroi . . . . . . . .97 IV. HAIL, AMERICA ! . , . . . , . 101 THE COMING SINGER . . . 4 . . 102 THE NEW PATRIOT . . . . . . 104 THE MASTERS . . . . . . .106 A MODERN POET . + ... . . 107 THE NEW AGE . HJ SON OF THE PURITANS . . . . . . 112 DIVES AND LAZARUS, 1904 113 THE CHRISTMAS FOR AMERICA ..... 116 THE WORLD S NEW WATERWAY . . . . 118 To A MODERN OFFICE BUILDING .... 120 THE POET FOR TO-DAY . . ... . 122 NEW EjraLAKD 124 of Contents V. A SONG OF DESIRE . . . . . . . 183 A SONG OF MEMORY ....... 134 THE GLIMPSE 136 To MOTHER NATURE 137 THE SEA 139 THE WAVERLEY OAKS .140 THE APIUL BOY 142 A SONG OF SAILING ....... 144 To A BROKEN SEA -SHELL 146 THE THIEF 148 THE KINGDOM OF THE SUNRISE .... 160 THE MAN-CHILD . . . . . . .162 To A LOCOMOTIVE AT NIGHT ..... 166 THE CHILD WHO WENT AWAY . . . .167 OUR FRIEND 160 THE CLOSED GENTIAN 162 To POETRY 163 DESIRE 164 THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY 166 FREDERIC LAWRENCE KNOWLES : A TRIBUTB . . 169 SUNSET POEMS To THE ETERNAL SPIRIT 176 THE REST OF THE STORY . . . . . . 179 THE EXCHANGE 181 To JESUS THE NAZARENE . . . . . 182 THE MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSB . . . .184 tt CatHr of < otittnt s PAGE THE HIGHER UNITY 185 A LYRIC OF ASPIRATION ...... 188 LOVE S REVELATION 190 THE TENANT 192 O DEJLR FARM . . 193 xiii I. "The truth of truths is love." Bailey s "Festus. Crtumpfjant LOVE TRmMPHANT HELEN S lips are drifting dust; Ilion is consumed with rust; All the galleons of Greece Drink the ocean s dreamless peace; Lost was Solomon s purple show Restless centuries ago; Stately empires wax and wane Babylon, Barbary, and Spain; Only one thing, undefaced, Lasts, though all the worlds lie waste And the heavens are overturned. Dear, how long ago we learned! There s a sight that blinds the sun, Sound that lives when sounds are done, Music that rebukes the birds, Language lovelier than words, 1 Hue and scent that shame the rose, Wine no earthly vineyard knows, Silence stiller than the shore Swept by Charon s stealthy oar, Ocean more divinely free Than Pacific s boundless sea, Ye who love have learn d it true. Dear, how long ago we knew ! LOVE AND HISTORY ROSES shed their petals Countless Junes ago, And those dead Decembers Brought their snow. Weary eyes were covered With their patient lids, By the yet unbuilded Pyramids. Life and Death, like sweethearts, Wandering hand in hand, Then, as now, stole over Sea and land. Lovers kissed and parted, Eyes were moist and blue, In the Midian meadows Moses knew. Cheeks were wet with weeping, Brows were hot with fire, Ere the hand of Homer Swept the lyre. And this masque of midnight, And the moon s white face, Looked on Nile and Jordan, Thebes and Thrace. Must the mint be new, dear, If the coin is gold? Though youth dies, Love never Waxes old. History means this morning, Greece is here and now; Let us drain Time s beaker I and thou! Press thy lips to mine, dear, Thus and thus and thus ; Space and time shall perish, Slain by us. All the lands of wonder Years of pain and bliss, We will taste together In that kiss ! Stimulant LOVE S WORLD THE earth upon its axis span Or e er our Father fashioned man. He viewed His worlds and called them good In their new-quickened lustihood; The flowers made riot with perfume, And every grot was rank with bloom, Yea, death-doomed beauty made so free, It mimicked immortality Wings cleft the air, fins clave the deep, All day was song, all night was sleep, But still, O still, unborn were three Pain, Sin, and History! God knows how much those Junes have missed, WTiere lips of woman ne er are kissed Ah, lonely lanes be they, God knows, Where never lover plucks a rose ! The Sun, to his new course addressed, Feels his slow way across the West Before one guest His door unbars God lights a million welcoming stars ; The moon looks down on grass and wave, And sees an Earth without a grave! 5 For still, O still, unborn are three Grief, Death, and Memory ! love, lean close ! My spirit s drouth Is quenched of thirst against thy mouth ; 1 crave thy human warmth, my soul Thou fillest as an emptied bowl! Pour in this cup all mad desire, Pour longing with its ruthless fire ! I drain the liquor to the lees Did Eden know fierce joys like these? O dearest, what could life have meant To one in that fair prison pent That hapless world without these three Love, Sympathy and Thee ! 6 A WOMAN S HEART A BUTTERFLY with radiant wings She flash d among the throng, Her beauty was like poetry, Her motions were as song ; Her blood was warm with youth and hope, And quick with hidden fire, Her heart the home of nesting loves, And throbs of young desire ; And ah ! that song the red lips sang Hush ! I can hear it yet ! Oh, joy and I shall never part, For love and I have met! " A butterfly with wounded wings She flutters through the throng, Her laugh has kept its gaiety, Her heart has lost its song ; Her heart! the home of frozen hopes, The grave of dead desire, A hearth whose ashes lie so deep They cover all the fire ! Her eyes seem saying, even while Her lips are white and set, How easy for a man to love t How easy to forget! " 7 TO AN OLD PLAYMATE YOUR lips, dear girl, were roses, Your hair was ripened wheat, The brook forgot his song to hear The music of your feet. Your hands were swift white butterflies, Your eyes were wells of blue, Oh, what a riot in my heart Was wrought by June and you ! And now for years beneath the grass Your heedless hands have lain, And recollection wakes in me A hurt that scarce is pain. Asleep with Nature, breast to breast, How peacefully you lie! Above your heart the care-free flow rs, And over them the sky. 8 Ettuwpljaut IF LOVE WERE JESTER AT THE COURT OF DEATH IF Love were jester at the court of Death, And Death the king of all, still would I pray, " For me the motley and the bauble, yea, Though all be vanity as the Preacher saith, The mirth of love be mine for one brief breath ! " Then would I kneel the monarch to obey, And kiss that pale hand, should it spare or slay; Since I have tasted love, what mattereth! But if, dear God ! this heart be dry as sand, And cold as Charon s palm holding Hell s toll, How worse, how worse ! Scorch it with sorrow s brand ! Haply, though dead to joy, twould feel that coal; Better a cross, and nails through either hand, Than Pilate s palace and a frozen soul! 9 THE SINGER BEFORE that crowd she stood, a flowerlike thing That curious crowd that came to see her sing (See more than hear, her beauty s fame was such), Unconscious as a child, save for a touch Of happy fear like some wild bird was she, Instinct with light, and fire, and purity ; But when she sang, there fell so deep a hush, The listening ear might almost hear a blush ! Methinks the very footlights must have felt The wonder and the fragrance where they knelt. Across the years once more I see her stand, The sheet of music trembling in her hand. Suitors she had in plenty ; men who flung Their hearts with their bouquets when she had sung; She laugh d in girlish ignorance, nor guess d The flattery in the voices that caress d. But, lest his blossom suffer blight withal, Came j ealously the Lover of us all, And wooed her spirit with his subtlest breath What lad hath kiss d so many lips as Death! 10 Through blinding tears once more I see her lie Like a pale lily, garnered for the sky ! Mayhap one voice was missing in the choir That sings forever round God s feet of fire; Mayhap the Seraphim, leaning low, had caught Her little human echo of God s thought, And wished her thither, till she, answering, rose, Loth to leave these her friends, yet fain for those, More distant but more dear, whose lips were placed Warm on the Bridegroom s, passionately chaste. I know not; this I know: mine ear shall keep Those great soprano sounds until I sleep; And this I know : her brow, her hair, her eye, Shall be to me a glory till I die ! II THE CELESTIAL MOMENT I AM only a sigh of the Infinite Powers, Only God s breath on a glass, Only one pulse of the endless hours, Only a breeze on the grass. I am only the spray on a poising wave, A cataract s foam and froth, A mushroom springing by night on a grave, The dust on the wings of a moth. I am only the flight of a sweet, swift dream, The shadow cast by a cloud, A seed that is dropp d by a Hand Supreme In the heart of a field unploughed. And yet do you pity the butterfly That his hour so quickly goes, If over him swoons the passionate sky And under him faints the rose? O turn to me, lean to me, lips that I love ! One moment of merciful bliss, Ere my shade shall be borne to those stars above Where only the ghosts may kiss; 12 SCrimupfjant Back to the stars from whence I came Over a blindfold way, Far, O far, like a spark to its flame, I who have lived my day, Who have lived my day when I flash and poise The rose of the world above, Then home like a joy to the source of joys A love that is lost in Love. 18 A MEMORY THE Night walked down the sky With the moon in her hand ; By the light of that yellow lantern I saw you stand. The hair that swept your shoulders Was yellow, too, Your feet as they touched the grasses Shamed the dew. The Night wore all her jewels, And you wore none, But your gown had the odor of lilies Drench d with sun. And never was Eve of the Garden Or Mary the Maid More pure than you as you stood there Bold, yet afraid. And the sleeping birds woke, trembling, And the folded flowers were aware, And my senses were faint with the fragrant Gold of your hair. 14 ZLofcr And our lips found ways of speaking What words cannot say, Till a hundred nests gave music, And the East was gray. 15 THE HOUR OF FERE OWAS it you that waited in the dawn, Or Fate, or Flame, or Splendor of De spair? Faint with the memory of your wind-blown hair, I rose was borne to meet you, Passion s pawn Moved by The Hand! And up the terraced lawn, (To my impatience such an endless stair), Climbed past the oaks and furtive shrubbery, where You lay, pale, startled, panting like a fawn! How wealthy, whoso holds for treasure one Such ravishing moment at a kingdom s cost! Though peace were forfeit, tho my heart, un done, Should pay the price with infinite years of frost, Again I d fly, a meteor tow rd the Sun, And on your burning breast and lips be lost! God ! once again I live that hour of hours, Past the park gates and past the sleeping hounds, 16 The gardener s lodge that overlooks the grounds, With the dark windows buried deep in flow rs, The hedgerow and the woods, where shade de vours Discovery, till at last the only sounds That stab the quiet with delicious wounds Are two loud hearts which passion overpowers ! And on your mouth red as the new-ris n sun That flushed the hills which peered between the trees I tasted death and life together one Supremest marriage at joy s height of these Old, timeless lovers ; till the Dawn was done, And Day, o erhead, broke into golden seas! And now! nay, but I have no song for Now, Then life was mine now am I grown Death s slave, Whom he lets live for pastime; breeze and wave Run as of old, and younger hands must plough, Sow, reap, and spend; yea, on new lips and brow Youth rains new kisses, but the Hand that drave The arrow thro my heart, when in her grave 17 I buried Love, is heavy. Spare me, Thou 1 Nay! spare me not I give me whate er Thou hast In Thy black storehouse of new griefs; the gold Of one rich memory, hoarded to the last, Thou couldst not take, tho I should thrice grow old! Mine the eternity which is the Past, Through all eternities that are foretold! 18 AT DAWN T1EAUTIFUL as the feet of Atalanta, D Delicate as the hand of Aphrodite, Coines the dawn across the eastern hilltops. Golden as the fleece that launch d the Argo, Prouder than great Nineveh on the Tigris, Enters neath these boughs the wealth of morn ing. Night recedes, the lingering waves of darkness Lift forsake these heights; the tide that drown d us Ebbs into the dawn s flush d indolent languor. Let us rise, O love, and tow rd the city Take our way, within our eyes the silence Of a memory holier than the daybreak. Thro the long, gray streets, just wash d with sunrise, Downward thro* the waking roar of traffic, Onward, onward thro the world forever! 19 HER LIPS ALL of the joy in a wild bird s nest, All that God hid in a violet s breast, All the soft wonder of twilight and star, All that white caravans bring from afar, All the wealth captured by Spain s fierce ships All became mine at the touch of her lips ! ILotoe Eviuntplfjaut CREATION A FLASH of Will and a word of Power - Your body rose like a soft, white flower; Winds went North and winds went South There grew the mystery of your mouth; Night leaned over her golden bars Your hair blew free like a cloud of stars; Dreams and a song and a sunrise sea Your eyes looked out from the Dawn at me! A SONG OF CONTENT HOW many million stars must shine Which only God can see! Yet in the sky His hand has hung Ten thousand stars for me! How many blossoms bloom and fade Which only God can know ! Yet here s my field of buttercups, And here my daisies blow. How many wing-paths through the blue Lure swallows up and down Yet here s my little garden walk, And yon s the road to town! How many a treacherous voice has wooed Unhappy feet to roam Yet God has taught my willing ear The sounds of love and home! How many lips have kiss d and clung Since Eve was Adam s bride! But God has given me you, dear girl, And I am satisfied! THE BALLAD OF EDEN OTHE birds were loud in Eden, In Eden, in Eden, They were mad with mirth in Eden So fair; O their wings were swift as flames, Sweet and curious were their names, And their songs were wild as passion, pure as prayer! n. There were rainy days in Eden, In Eden, in Eden, Days of sun and shower in Eden So fair! Carpets must be soft as floss, Woven of grass and woven of moss, Where the foot of man and foot of maid are bare! m. They were bravely clad in Eden, In Eden, in Eden, O the fashions throve in Eden So fair! Cloth-o -leaves from God s own vines, Thread and needles from the pines, And the wind s own way of doing up the hair! IV. O but Man was strong in Eden, In Eden, in Eden, Like a happy god in Eden, So fair, And the Woman s blood was red, All her tears were still unshed, And her lips, with soft defiance, laughed at care. * v. O the world still seems an Eden, An Eden, an Eden, O the world is always Eden So fair; Though the serpent s glittering eyes Have a cleverer disguise, While you re walking through the orchard, have no care! Hob* VI. Still for us the earth is Eden, Is Eden, is Eden, Still our Earth, dear love, is Eden So fair, And we taste all fruits that be, Even from the Knowledge Tree, Though its branches have been grafted with Despair! VII. O though life wax old in Eden, In Eden, in Eden, Love is still the lord of Eden So fair; All the blossoming is for us, And our happy creed runs thus : Failure visits only those who fail to dare! vin. So we fear no sword in Eden, In Eden, in Eden : Who shall drive us from our Eden So fair! Is there built a gate a wall ? At a lover s kiss they fall, If we love, new Edens wait us everywhere. 25 TO A DISCOVERER LONG was my spirit like some lonely reef In gray, unvisited oceans, where the Sea, Relentless, drove its salt waves over me, A cold, monotonous surf of unbelief; But ere I hardened into hopeless grief, Thou earnest, bringing love, faith, sympathy ; I found myself and God in finding thee, And my long dream of doubt looked void and brief. Then was my soul, with her new glory dazed, Like that green island among tropic seas When the strange sail approached the won dering shore, And startled eyes beheld the Cross upraised, While the great Spaniard sank upon his knees, And the Te Deum shook San Salvador! LOVE S AWAKENING WHEN Memory was a desert And Life a dungeon wall, When Hope became a harlot That lured me to my fall, When June had lost its old perfume And Poetry its glow There flashed a sense of wings and bloom ! Of joys that stir and grow! The thorns became a chaplet Upon my bleeding brow, Night fled ; the world was sunrise ! dearest, it was thou! My heart was lost to feeling, 1 could not weep nor smile, I had no joy of music, O twas a weary while! I lived within a sodden trance That knew nor faith nor fears, My soul was blind as sightless Chance, A ghost that mocked the years; When lo! a gentle whisper, A kiss upon my brow! 21 The arms of love were round me ! O dearest! it was thou. And though tis still a marvel The rapture and the wings, My heart has learned the wonder Of love that serves and sings, Now I can welcome June again And watch her roses blow, Once more I find the world of men A conflict, not a show. From w r orse than death awakened, Whence came the spell and how? God s angel must have touched me Nay, darling, it was thou! ILoiit LOVE S FULFILMENT ALL the passion of the skies Where the moons of August hang, I have read within thine eyes. All that sage or poet guess d, Sinai spake or Stratford sang, I have learn d upon thy breast. All the wander-thirst of ships, Wave s wild kiss and tempest s fang, I have tasted on thy lips. Now the sting and storm are past, (Youth s mad voices how they rang !), - Comes the calmer bliss at last! Yea, the carnal grows divine Since our souls together sprang, And my lost heart flow d in thine ! Like the Gulf Stream in the sea, Leagues below the pulse and pang, Broods my spirit, drown d in thee! THE LAST WORD WHEN I have folded up this tent And laid the soiled thing by, I shall go forth neath different stars, Under an unknown sky. And yet whatever house I find Beneath the grass or snow Will ne er be tenantless of love Or lack the face I know. O lips wild roses wet with rain ! Blown hair of drifted brown ! passionate eyes! O panting heart- When in that colder town 1 lie, the one inhabitant, My hands across my breast, How warm through all eternity The summer of my rest ! To each frail root beneath the ground That thrusts its flower above, I shall impart a fiercer sap I who have known your love ! 30 ZLotie And growing things will lean to me To learn what love hath won, Till I shall whisper to the dust That secret of the Sun. Yea, though my spirit never wake To hear the voice I knew, Even an endless sleep would be Stirred by the dreams of You*: LOVE S PRICE WHEN I look for roses. Bittersweet and rue ! Can it be that this is love ? This my dream come true? Love I thought would bring me Only perfect joy, That was twelve long months ago When I was a boy. a twelvemonth s longing! O a twelvemonth s pain ! Sunshine only when the clouds Lift above the rain ! Doubt that dreads the morrow, Care, before unguess d, Then a shaft of golden joy Quivering in my breast! Yet I still press forward, Scornful of my wound, 1 will love while years shall last And the earth goes round! Should a man turn craven, Challenged by Desire? Nay, love blesses while it burns Let me face the fire! Lads who lust for pleasure, Long for ease and mirth, I no longer walk with you Down a flow r-clad earth ; Love s white feet allure me Up a steeper way, Though I bleed I follow Her Where the peaks are gray ! 33 JOY AND SACRIFICE 1GAVE you aU that I had, And the giving made me glad ; So great was my love the while, I asked neither thanks nor smile. If you only would let me pour My service before your door, My worship around your feet, The days and the nights were sweet. But what an end is this ! Your lips that I may not kiss At last, with a frown, command I lay no gifts in your hand. Yet, dearest, before we part Let me speak this word from my heart I have striven and lost, and yet I hold no thought of regret. I have owned life s costliest thing; Though I have drunk from a spring Where my thirst could never slake, I have given up all for your sake Eofoc And loved you purely and well With a peace I can never tell, And I breathe toward Heav n this word; Bless Thou my Love, O Lord ! My Love who never gave The joy that starved hearts crave, Yet pays me a richer price For service and sacrifice. She has taught me that life can bring No better and nobler thing Than a spirit that gives and gives ; O bless my Love while she lives ! THE SURVIVOR WHEN the last day is ended, And the nights are through ; When the last sun is buried In its grave of blue; When the stars are snuffed like candles, And the seas no longer fret; When the winds unlearn their cunning, And the storms forget; When the last lip is palsied, And the last prayer said ; Love shall reign immortal While the worlds lie dead! 36 II. "Love which is the essence of God." Emerson, THE LARGER VIEW IN buds upon some Aaron s rod The childlike ancient saw his God; Less credulous, more believing, we Read in the grass Divinity. From Horeb s bush the Presence spoke To earlier faiths and simpler folk ; But now each bush that sweeps our fence Flames with the awful Immanence ! To old Zacchasus in his tree What mattered leaves and botany? His sycamore was but a seat Whence he could watch that hallowed street. But now to us each elm and pine Is vibrant with the Voice divine, Not only from but in the bough Our larger creed beholds Him now. To the true faith, bark, sap and stem Are wonderful as Bethlehem ; No hill nor brook nor field nor herd But mangers the Incarnate Word ! 39 Hob* Far be it from our lips to cast Contempt upon the holy past Whate er the Finger writes we scan In Sinai, prophecies, or man. Again we touch the healing hem In Nazareth or Jerusalem ; We trace again those faultless years ; The cross commands our wondering tears. Yet if to us the Spirit writes On Morning s manuscript and Night s, In gospels of the growing grain, Epistles of the pond and plain, In stars, in atoms, as they roll, Each tireless round its occult pole, In wing and worm and fin and fleece, In the wise soil s surpassing peace, Thrice ingrate he whose only look Is backward focussed on the Book, Neglectful what the Presence saith, Though He be near as blood and breath ! The only atheist is one Who hears no Voice in wind or sun, Believer in some primal curse, Deaf in God s loving universe ! 40 ZLobr VERITAS AH, no more the lyre of deep-brow d Homer Drops like golden rain in joy of battle Those slow spondees and those headlong dac tyls Sounding lines, and every line a lyric! Ah, no more the harp of dreaming David On whose eye of faith there flash d the Vision, From his own pure heart proj ected skyward Spills its splendid ecstasy of worship. Shall we then hark back to sage and shepherd, Put our lips to Iliads and Psalters, Quaffing mighty wines of war and worship, Wild and wistful with forgotten questions, Satisfied with draughts that leave us thirsting? Nay, the rather face the future boldly, Let who will look back, be ours to-morrow ! Psalms for those who like, for us truth only, That new Science which is Faith and Worship, That old Worship which still lives transfigured : God in all things force and mind and matter, Immanent, immutable, immortal! 41 triumphant DIRECTIONS TO A TRAVELLER TJ 1 J. OW far must I follow this dusty way? " Till the hills grow faint in the twilight gray. " Must I keep the road till it drops from sight?" At the line of the sky is a path to the right. " And what is the name of the cross-road there?" The name on the finger-post is Care. " And must I travel that new path far? " Till the West is bright with the Evening Star. " And how many miles must I journey then? " Till you reach the Tavern of All Good Men. " And how many roofs shall I have to pass ? " But one: that Hostelry, thatched with grass. " And whither thence at the dawn of day ? " The Host, when He wakes you, will point the way. 42 THE TWOFOLD PRAYER WHEN grass is green and tall, lad, When hills are white with sheep, When whetstones ring against the scythe, And the sauntering brook s asleep ; When trees are loud with flutter and song And not a bough is sad, When skies are smiling in God s face, And even man is glad ; When June flees down her laughing lanes As fast as foot can fall, The castles that our fancies build Are fair as Ilion s wall ; Yet this must be the boon, lad, To ask the jealous years: " Oh, if ye may, bring laughter, And, if ye must, bring tears." For soon the grass shall wither, lad, And winter come with snow, Soon other hands shall hold the shear, And other arms shall mow, 43 ZLotoe Soon Helen s face must yield its grace, And youth must lose its Troy, For love unlearns its pleasure, lad, And June forgets her joy. Oh, life must give this ignorant heart The penance that it needs ! How long a rosary seem our days When sorrow counts the beads ! Yes, this shall be the prayer, lad, We ask the coming years : w Oh, if ye may, bring laughter, And, if ye must, bring tears." 44 GOLGOTHA OUR crosses are hewn from different trees, But we all must have our Calvaries ; We may climb the height from a different side, But we each go up to be crucified ; As we scale the steep, another may share The dreadful load that our shoulders bear, But the costliest sorrow is all our own For on the summit we bleed alone. 45 ILoue THE NURSE (" Death, the nurse of all ") EVENING now has come with shadows, Colder grows the air, Look! the Sun takes down his pictures Till his walls are bare. She we fear, the icy-bosomed, With her cold, kind face, Bending over, like a mother, Draws to her embrace, Crooning, " Night has come, and darkness, Dear ones, ye are tired, I have brought you only slumber I, the Undesired. " Ye shall sleep in dreamless quiet Where no griefs can pass, Tears will never wet your eyelids Underneath the grass. " If ye miss the hands of loved ones Ye have press d so oft, 46 Lo, the roots of flowers have fingers That are cool and soft ! " Good night ! we must rise and follow Her who fares before, How the playthings strew the pathway To that chamber-door! Nurse of all, thou unf orgetf ul ! Gentle watch-care take, Till, resigned to arms more loving, All the children wake! 47 N LAUS MORTIS AY, why should I fear Death, Who gives us life, and in exchange takes breath ? He is like cordial Spring That lifts above the soil each buried thing ; Like Autumn, kind and brief - The frost that chills the branches, frees the leaf; Like Winter s stormy hours That spread their fleece of snow to save the flowers ; The lordliest of all things Life lends us only feet, Death gives us wings ! Fearing no covert thrust, Let me walk onward, armed with valiant trust, Dreading no unseen knife, Across Death s threshold step from life to life! 48 O all ye frightened folk, Whether ye wear a crown or bear a yoke, Laid in one equal bed, When once your coverlet of grass is spread, What daybreak need you fear? The love will rule you there which guides you here! Where Life, the Sower, stands, Scattering the ages from his swinging hands, Thou waitest, Reaper lone, Until the multitudinous grain hath grown. Scythe-bearer, when thy blade Harvests my flesh, let me be unafraid ! God s husbandman thou art ! In His unwithering sheaves, O bind my heart ! 49 Hob* Srlumptjaut A PRAYER TT7HETHER my place be Thine abode VV above, Or earth, this school of love, Not mine the errand to the court of kings, But quiet, homely things Not mine the mission to the farthest sun, But some more childlike one; I do not ask a seat at Thy right hand, Nay, Father, bid me stand. 50 BIRTH GOD thought: r A million blazing worlds were wrought! God wffl d:- Earth rose, while all Creation thrill d! God spoke : And in The Garden love awoke ! God smiled : Lo, in the mother s arms, a child! 51 THE GOLDEN DOOR WHEN I have won to the Golden Door, Who will open to me? " They who have had on this little earth Alms or a smile from thee." When I have won to the Golden Door, What will be writ thereon? " This is the gate of the Evermore, The goal of the Evergone." When I have won to the Golden Door, What shall I see beyond? " Work for the lusty, beds for the tired, Love for lips that are fond." When I have won to the Golden Door, What will the password be? " Love is the password, love is the toll, Love is the golden key." Ilote CREDO T KNOW no sin except the lack of love, J. I recognize the victory in defeat ; No gulf divides life here from life above, I spell perfection in the incomplete. A foe to dogma, still I hold a creed, For I believe that all life brings is good, That sharing bread and wine with men who need Is the new sacrament of brotherhood. I know the way we tread is rough and long, And yet to toil and bleed am nothing loth, And thus I journey homeward with a song, Since in the very struggle lies my growth. And when I reach that last green hostelry Whence none have ever yet been turned away, The slumber will be sound which falls on me, Till dawns that longer, new, divine To-day. Joy ! only joy ! for Love is there and here Peace, only peace! though desperate my dis tress ; I find no f oeman in the road but Fear To doubt is failure, and to dare, success ! LOVE IMMORTAL f^HURCHES, nay, I count you vain, - \^s Lifting high a gloomy spire, Like some frozen form of pain Aching up to meet desire ; Standing from God s poor apart Granite walls and granite heart ! Sects, ye have your day, and die, Eddies in the stream of truth, The great current, sweeping by, Leaves you swirled in shapes uncouth, Born to writhe, and glint, and woo Broken mirrors of the Blue. Creeds ! O captured heavenly bird, Fluttering heart and folded wing! Shall ye see those pinions stirred? Can your caged Creation sing? Will ye herald as your prize What was bred to soar the skies? Rites and pomp, what part have ye In the service of the heart? 54 Rituals are but mummery, Faith s white flame is snuffed by art; Candles be but wick and wax, Alms have grown the temple-tax. Yet the East is red with dawn, Like a cross where One hath bled ! And upon that splendor drawn Gentle eyes and arms outspread See that figure stretched above ! As God lives ! its name is Love ! Love that lights the fireless brands, Love that cares for world and wren, Bleeding from the broken hands Crowned with thorns that conquer men ; Only Love s great eyes inspire Church, sect, creed to glow with fire. Yet our lips shall have no sneer For the spire, the mosque, the ark, Broken symbols shall be dear If they point us through the dark, Laws and scripture served our youth Who have grown the sons of truth ! 55 BETHLEHEM MORN INTO the city of David rode A man and a girl to a mean abode, He the carpenter, staunch of limb, She the virgin espoused to him. And lo ! in the pastures white with sheep The flocks were stirring, aroused from sleep, While far from the hillsides, fresh with mom, The bleating of hungry lambs was borne ; And as through the warm air, moist with dew, Drifted the cry of each answering ewe, The woman flushed, with a sudden start, And pressed both hands beneath her heart. " Mary, why dost thou ride so ill ? " Mine eyes were turned to yonder hill. " Mary, why dost thou start with fear? " The promised day of the Lord is near! 56 THE WIDOWS SON OHOW they welcomed him once more The wondering lads of Nain ! He stood before the widow s door Whom Death had robbed in vain! And as he joined them in their sports, What must his heart have said He who had lain within the courts Where sleep the fleshless dead! And she whose arms won back their all From the eternal years, Ah, God ! behind her cottage wall, What gratitude and tears! Now son and mother both are dust, With all the lads they knew, No prophet stayed Death s second thrust Beneath the Syrian blue. But still the gentle hand is strong Which touched the unquicken d clay ; Wherever Sorrow s children throng The Nazarene walks to-day ! 57 SHEKINAH ARK that rode the Deluge wave Found on Ararat her grave, All her stalwart gopher-wood Rotted in that solitude: Ark that held the holy things, Shadow d by the golden wings, Fallen into dust, is blown Round the hills where once it shone. Yet the Covenant is true, God hath kept His oath with you; In the humblest heart, behold Something costlier than gold ! Hush ! within that quivering shrine Broods the Immanent Divine ! 58 ILotoe THE SEA OF FAITH HAVE you lifted anchor and hoisted sail? Does your ship stand out to sea? Have you scoff d at peril and dared the gale Where the waves and the winds are free? Is safety a thought that you count disgrace When duty and danger call? Would you stand on the deck with a smile on your face And perish the first of all? Is your old sail salt with the frozen foam And gray as a sea-gull s wing? Do you never long for land and home When the great waves clutch and cling? O the Sea of Faith hath storms, God knows, And the haven is very far, But he is my brother-in-blood who goes With his eye on the polar star, With his hand on the canvas, his foot on the ropes, His heart beating loud in his breast, 59 With dauntless courage and quenchless hopes And the old divine unrest! The swift keels chafe in the Harbor of Doubt, They were built for the glorious blue, Where the stout masts bend and the sailors shout, And the wave-drench d compass is true! Then here s my hand, O lad of my heart, O dauntless spirit and free! The tide is high ! They strain, they start ! The ships of the infinite sea! 60 THE ANSWER w TV /TAKE of my heart," I cried, "a lyre J..VA whereon The wind of man s desire shall sweep some string Into immortal music; utterly gone My dearest hopes unless I gain this thing ; " Then the calm Voice : " Nay, son, thy prayer is wild, But thou mayest feed, for Me, an hungry child." " Give me to die in some supreme emprise, And, falling, shout, They flee, the field is ours ; When Stephen raised to Heav n those angel eyes, The stones that crush d his body seem d like flowers ; A martyr s or a warrior s death be mine ! " " Nay, dreamer, thou must learn to serve, not shine." 61 HLobe " Yea, let me serve ; be mine the holy wrath Which deals the heart of Vice its deadliest thrust, Better a thousand perils in my path Than such sad safety where the roads are dust;" " Nay, child, thy peril is thy restless will, Thy task is patience ; suffer and be still ! " " O Infinite Love, I lean my heart on Thine ! The humblest task Thou hast my joy shall be ! Behold, the sandiest pathways grow divine If so these leagues of desert lead toward Thee; Come joy or pain, Thy will not mine be done." " At last thy prayer is answered, O my son ! " A SIMPLE STORY SHE sewed the little caps and frocks, And bought the cradle-bed, " Though I may die, he shall not want For anything," she said. One morn within her arms they laid The long-awaited guest The mother lived, but, ah, the child Was cold upon her breast! And sadly in that careful drawer, With tiny clothes replete, They left the fair white things untouched, All save the winding-sheet All save a little doll-like robe, Fetched forth with tears to be The silent stranger s only dress Until eternity. HER TRANSPLANTED ROSE TO M. C. G. HE came to her in the early dawn, And lived in her arms one day, But the little baby soul was tired, It had fared such a long, long way. She thought it only an earthly flower, Though the sweetest ever blown, Nor guess d how in that blossoming life Was an angel made her own. But a whisper grew at the lips of the world, The sun rode, hush d and high, She look d, and caught the eye of God As the sorrowing winds went by ; And her heart lay close to the Heart of All, While the morning held its breath, Ah me ! the messenger stole so near, And the name on his wings was Death! And in the silence the truth grew plain How a finer soil than ours 64 Is needed to ripen the fairest souls For the garden of heavenly flowers. And the child, when the Summons came at dusk, Look d up with its eyes of blue Straight into the vision, as though to say, " How long I have watched for you ! " Then fell back cold on its mother s breast And she knew, though her eyes were dim, While this meant torturing grief for her, It was endless peace for him. And the flowers they sent to the lonely room Wither d beside her bed, But her little immortal flower was safe; She smiled when they call d it dead! 65 &viuinj)ijant THE STEPS SEIZE your staff! beyond this height We shall find the Infinite Light ! Gird your thigh ! this sword shall hew Paths that reach the untroubled blue! Though dark mountains form the stair, It is ours to climb and dare ! Law, truth, love the peaks are three : Sinai, Olives, Calvary ! 66 JCviumpijaui ON THE PATH /""\H, the sea is so gray, V_y And the sky is so black; Thorns and briers choke the way, Must I die, or turn back? " Underfoot is the trail, And the Goal is not far; On the sea is a sail, In the ski/ is a star! TO AN OAK OTIME - DEFIER ! standing near the way Where thousands pass who are but leaves to thee, Clinging to the frail bough, Humanity, And both alike earth-destined, thou and they, I look on thee with wonder, let me stay Beneath thy stalwart shadow, till I see Clearly the vision thou wouldst bring to me: I shall surmount defeat, survive decay! Thy soil is Earth, and mine is God; if I Could thrust my roots down with such faith as thine, What leaves and boughs of love would greet the sky, Their buried lips thirst-quench d at springs divine, Yea, thy hale permanence were less than mine, I who, though slain by Death, can never die ! 68 A CHALLENGE DEFEAT and I are strangers ; though the scourge Of wild injustice, knotted with all wrongs, Writhe round rc^ spirit, if I cannot smile, Then write me craven, say, " He met the test Sent to all souls, only to faint and fall, His courage grovels, let us call him slave ! " O rather, when the mad Hands through the dark, Unseen and self -provoked, shall lash my will, Let me the stauncher bare me to the blow, Rise, hide my hurt, suppress the groan, fold arms, Erect and scornful, though my back may bleed, Though flesh, nerve, sensibilities, cry out ! Not otherwise Zenobia must have felt, Fettered with golden fetters, when she walked Behind Aurelian s chariot, still a queen ! Not otherwise Napoleon, when he trod That abject island, where the very guards Felt him the master, though they bore the guns And he was weaponless, the man whose eye Could daunt Disaster and command the world. 69 Thus would I live and thus would die ; I come God knows ! of a long lineage of kings : Burke, Cromwell, Luther, Paul, and Socrates, Emerson, Milton, Cranmer, Charlemagne, Columbus, Tolstoi, Lincoln, Augustine The monarchs of the spirit in all times, Exalted thrones defiant of decay. Then hurl all thunderbolts upon my brow, Dash me, O life, with waves of salt and blood, Empty thy quiver, Sorrow, in my breast, Ye cannot, O ye Powers, compel my soul, For, rob me as ye will, three things are left Which make your fury impotent and vain : That pride in self that lifts me from the worm, These sympathies that join me to my kind, This Higher Hope that hands me on to God, And armors me in immortality ! 70 WHAT IS HEAVEN? I HEARD a preacher talk of Heaven, a land Reserved for him and his, the Lord s elect ; He threatened vengeance with a clench d right hand On doubters of the dogmas of his sect. " One shall be taken and the other left ; What widow knows, wild with the parting kiss, But God may choose that she remain bereft, Divorced by Hell s impassable abyss? " A mother will not meet her child when Death Disjoins them, if his soul be unredeemed, These loves of earth are fugitive as breath And have no weight with God." Thus he blasphemed. Merely a boy, as I beheld the sky Through the church windows, I grew sick with fear, As fatherless as Hagar s child felt I, Beggared of hope and naked of all cheer. 71 I left the barren room, while still the flock Were worshipping their God, or thought they were, " Joy ! " smiled the flowers, " Peace ! " sang each patient rock, " Love ! " shouted forth each wild bird-chor ister. And happy children raced along a brook, And matched with innocent boasts their rival speed ; But service now was out, I saw rebuke In faces blackened by a loveless creed. Then flashed God s truth ! and from that day the lies Framed by the creeds of men, which mock our earth, Burlesque the sun and travesty the skies, I value only at their worthless worth. Heaven ? What is Heaven ! Escape from burn ing coals, Or simply love? Well, one thing it is never: An aristocracy of virtuous souls Where the self-righteous sun themselves for ever! 72 To think that Love s creator rashly hurled To outer darkness such a masterpiece ! Love the best gift in this or any world, Made perfect, to be shattered in caprice. A pagan, bowing down to sea or sun Or harmless idol on his cabin shelf, Is nearer Truth than you whose God is one Less good and merciful than you yourself. If God is God, and if His name be Love, Can He elect or damn like some mad Fate? Far better say no life exists above Than bend the knee to worship infinite Hate ! Love must survive, a thing of all delight, In this fair Heaven between the grass and blue And in what Heavens may lie beyond our sight, But who elects it? is it God, or you? OUT OF THE DEPTHS TORN upon Thy wheel, FouPd with blood and dust, Still my heart can feel, Still trust; Still my lips can urge, " Heal me with Thy sword, Cleanse me with Thy scourge, Lord, Lord!" Though a bleeding clod, Faint with thirst and pain, Still my hopes, dear God, Remain ; Yea, and more than hope : Faith! a prayer! a wing! Even on Calvary s slope, I sing! ZUtoi O TROUBLED OVER MANY THINGS O TROUBLED over many things, Choose thou the better part, Service unconscious of itself And childlikeness of heart. Why breathe Earth s heavy atmosphere, Forgetful one can fly, When the high zenith, Infinite Love, Allures us to the sky? The virtues hide their vanquish d fires Within that whiter flame, Till conscience grows irrelevant And duty but a name ! 75 III. " Love covereth all sins." Proverbs x. 12. Love scarce is love that never knows The sweetness of forgiving." Whittier. 77 Untie &rtum))ijant THE GLASS TO the Great Mirror toddled the wee child, And viewed his puzzled eyes there, won der-wild : "Who are you, baby? Are you me? Sav true!" He scarce could guess, but all too soon he knew ! To the Great Mirror strode the man mature, Passion and guilt defaced a brow once pure; He groaned, " Is that myself? Thou shade of hell, Would God thou couldst deceive ! I know thee well ! " 79 Hotor SIN S FOLIAGE DO you ask why this woman has always a shadow on her face? In her girlhood she planted in virgin soil a sweet sin, And she looked only for joy from the shoots, tender and fresh, But when years passed, and Memory had wat ered it, And Remorse had digged about and dunged it, And Conscience, the owl, had hooted from its branches night and day, She learned that she had planted the seeds thereof in her own soul, and that whilst the soil grew thinner the roots had waxed longer and the branches mightier, And now she sits where the sunlight can never enter, in the dense shadow of the boughs, And strives to stay her hunger with their fruit. 80 STriumpfjant ONE WOMAN THE souls of Strauss and Schubert Swept through the violins, But what cared she who danced apart She, alone with her sins ! For under the roses and diamonds, And back of the lips that smiled, Sat Memory holding The Secret, As a mother holds her child ! 81 BETRAYED TT7IIOSQ has lived to love and bless, rr Given nay for nay and yes for yes, Will find my -fable foolishness. Albeit he had thought to woo her, When he met happiness he drew her Apart from all men s sight, and slew her. Yet were his hands and conscience clean ; Some monstrous Folly rose unseen To teach him crimes he could not mean. His lips keep up a brave disguise, But one can read within his eyes Such thoughts as these, beneath all lies : " Only to think that, poised above A bosom softer than a dove, My hand should stab the heart I love I " One fierce caress, one playful blow Her life-blood stained her breast of snow ; Yet, O my God, how could I know 1 " 82 &rittmj)i)cint fl* /VzZZ /i from Heav n to Hell, In one mad moment s fateful spell, For you, for you, this parable! &rfumi)t)ant TO THE MOON SISTER, what Death which finds no god to quicken Infects that sky where thou wast set of old? For now thou liest, leper-white and stricken, With shrunken breasts and cold. How came the passionate fires of love to lan guish, Sucked from the fierce veins of thy sire, the Sun? O wrinkle-browed and barren, whence thine an guish? Whisper it, hapless one ! Art thou Heaven s broken heart? When Earth beneath thee Forsook love s orbit, innocent and fair, And followed paths of sin, did Fate bequeath thee The task of watching there ? 84 Watching with sunken eyes and pallid features And horror-smitten face as white as snow This home of profligate and sorrowing crea tures That mocks thee from below? 85 LOST NIGHT scattered gold-dust in the eyes of Earth, My heart was blinded by the excess of stars, As, filled with youth and joy, I kept the Way. The solitary and unweaponed Sun Slew all the hosts of darkness with a smile, And it was Dawn. And still I kept the Way. The Winds, those hounds that only God can leash, Bayed on my track, and made the morning wild With loud confusion, but I kept the Way. The hours climbed high. Peace, where the Zenith broods, Fell, a blue feather from the wings of Heav n : Lo! it was Noon. And still I kept the Way. At length one met me as my footsteps flagged, Within her eyes oblivion, on her lips Delirious dreams and I forgot the Way. 86 And still we wander who knows whitherward ! Our sandals torn, in either face despair, Passion burnt out God ! I have lost the Way. O for that dusty trail, the stones, the thorns! These meadow flowers they burn me like hell s flame. Harlot, I hate thee ! O the Way ! the Way ! Before I die, one glimpse 1 the Way ! the Way ! 87 THE THREE MARY of Nazareth, loving and kind, The mission of Him she bore divined Vaguely and dim, with a wondering mind. Mary of Bethany, gentle and fair, Gave Him what cheer her home could spare, And smiled with the peace of quiet prayer. Soiled with the dust of the gazing street, Stealing in where He sat at meat, Mary the Magdalen kissed His feet. Mary the virgin marvel d with fear, Mary the listener lent Him her ear, But Mary the prodigal faltered near, Tho wonder and loathing filled the place, And Simon counted her touch disgrace, She bent o er the Master her tear-stain d face, And her wealth of warm, dark hair, unbound, About His feet she wound and wound Her sobbing was the only sound. 88 Mary the hostess made Him her guest, He had lain on Mary the Mother s breast, But the Magdalen s gift was costliest: She brought her past, its bliss and shame, Strange sins, wild memories fierce as flame And in her tears was wash d from blame ! One sat with patient joy at His side, One stood by the Roman cross where He died, One gave herself and her broken pride. 89 DISCORD BLUE eyes blurr d with weeping, How ye hurt the grace Of untroubled twilights, Night s unwrinkled face! Still the boughs of April Greet their annual guests, Still the new-born singers Stir a thousand nests. Brooks and fields and pastures Always seem so glad ! Oh, how strange that only You and I are sad ! Oh, how strange that discord Is a human thing, That God s orchestra can play, With one broken string! Though the other instruments Joined in faultless tune Render perfect symphonies Winter, Stars, and June, 90 Inharmonious music From this human lyre, Smites the ear of angels And condemns the choir. Master of the players, In whose smile is fame, Spoilt is all our music Hearken to our shame ! If Thou canst, these broken Harps again employ; Tune them to Thy glory In the key of joy! Then shall pass from memory This discordant din Which disturbs Creation Sorrow, Care, and Sin. Then shall rise forever From the cloud and clod Love s ma j estic chorus : "We rejoice, O God!" 91 THE DISCIPLINE OF FAILURE HERE is what the years at last have taught me, This the creed that life, not man, has fash ioned : Suffering wrought by guilt is never final Retribution is but reclamation, Punishment remedial, self -redemptive, Sin the scourge wherewith Love drives us sun ward, And remorse no drowning sea of anguish, But the tear-bath whence we rise unsullied. Like a child we learn to walk by stumbling Learn to shun the flame by tortured fingers; Though the scars may burn our flesh and spirit Through Earth s little years, dust-born, grave- destined, God has other worlds, and life is timeless ; We shall find the deepest wounds self-healing, When Love s surgery makes plain its purpose! Thus believing, I have come to love you, All who climb with me from self to freedom. Let me kiss thy lips, O fallen brother! Let my arms enfold thee, fallen sister! 92 Let me trust and love you back to honor, Let me draw you to the Great Forgiveness, Not as one above who stoops to save you, Not as one who stands aside with counsel, Nay, as he who says, " I, too, was wounded With the stones, the briers I, too, was poi soned With the flowers that sting, but now, arisen, I am struggling up the path beside you; Rise! and let us face these heights together." 93 IN A FAR COUNTBY WHEN God made the last of his crea tures, Man, who should reign, He gave him the strong, white body, And the reasoning brain, A voice w r hich could mould its language To a silver tone, A love that was more than passion A will like His own! But the years flowed by dark waters Troubled with rain, Till a sullied stream confronted The sky s disdain, And man, with the wants immortal And the visions brief, Grew fain of the terrible pleasures That are worse than grief, And there throve such curious vices For his princely mirth, 94 That He who had shapen this creature From the sands of earth Looked down on a brain that faltered, A song that was dumb, On beds of lust and of sickness, On brothel and slum. But think je the Artist repented? Or cast to the void The work He found good in the making, As it lay, self -destroyed ? Nay, the infinite Workman ponder d, " From him We have wrought There is only one gift withholden Ere he reach to Our thought. " If his heart lack Grace, it is only A lair for pride; He must kneel at Our feet for a season, Ere he reign at Our side. " We will give him great prodigal cities Tyre, Babylon, Rome, He shall eat of their husks till he famish, And his feet turn home ! 95 " He must pray, he must serve, he must suffer, Till, clean of his stain, He is humble and meet for Our presence Made perfect through pain." And man hears the call of his Father, And dares to rejoice; Even now, though Earth s harlotries lure him, He leans tow rd the Voice! 96 2Lobe L ENVOI OLOVE triumphant over guilt and sin, My soul is soiled, but Thou shalt enter in ; My feet must stumble if I walk alone, Lonely my heart, till beating by Thine own, My will is weakness till it rest in Thine, Cut off, I wither, thirsting for the Vine, My deeds are dry leaves on a sapless tree, My life is lifeless till it live in Thee ! 97 IV. "I do love My country s good." Shakespeare. 99 Hotoc HAIL, AMERICA! HAIL! child of peak and prairie, Where er the morning breaks Between the two gray oceans, Between the Gulf and Lakes ! O wrested from the wilderness And sown with sweat and tears ! O answer of the patriot s prayer, Goal of the pioneers ! Rich fabric of the fifty States, Woven at Freedom s loom, Three hundred years of history, Three thousand miles of bloom ! Stand up, good fellows ! lift each glass, And join the toast with me: America! America! Our Motherland, America! A health to thine and Thee! 101 Hotoe THE COMING SINGER NONE of the old tunes, poet! Give us the Song of the Real ! Out of the stuff of Freedom Fashion a new ideal! No verse in a patron s palace From mouths that sing for a crust, But from lips on fire with the soul s desire That sing because they must! For this is the land of our winning, And the Vision grows and grows! Shod with the sands of Cuba, Crowned with the Klondike snows ! A Mother of fifty daughters, Sunburnt and rude and strong, She has had the glory of conquest, And she waits the wonder of song. By our fathers swords! we love her! And every child of her brood These starry States that cluster In the pure, proud sisterhood ! 102 Hotot ITuumjpljaut We will dip no quill with feathers ; We will write with a blunted pen ; In the ink of our sweat we will find it yet, The song that is fit for men ! And the woodsman he shall sing it, And his axe shall mark the time; And the bearded lips of the boatman While his oar-blades fall in rhyme; And the man with his fist on the throttle, And the man with his foot on the brake, And the man who will scoff at danger And die for a comrade s sake; And the Hand that wrought the Vision With prairie and peak and stream Shall guide the hand of the workman And help him to trace his dream ! Till the rugged lines grow perfect, And round to a faultless whole, For the West will have found her singer When her singer has found his soul ! 103 THE NEW PATRIOT WHO is the patriot? he who lights The torch of war from hill to hiU? Or he who kindles on the heights The beacon of a world s good-will? Who is the patriot? he who nails A flag to some defiant pole? Or he who follows dangerous trails, And guides a people to its goal? Who is the patriot? he who sends A boastful challenge o er the sea? Or he who sows the earth with friends, And reaps world-wide fraternity? Who is the patriot? Bonaparte, Who made a continent his prey? Or Tolstoi of the gentle heart, Who shares the peasant s toilsome day? Is it the Scribe, race-proud, serene, Smiling his scorn from Moses seat? Or the compassionate Nazarene, With Roman publicans at meat? 104 ILofot Who is the patriot? It is he Who knows no boundary, race, or creed, Whose nation is humanity, Whose countrymen all souls that need; Whose first allegiance is vowed To the fair land that gave him birth, Yet serves among the doubting crowd The broader interests of Earth. The soil that bred the pioneers He loves and guards, yet loves the more That larger land without frontiers, Those wider seas without a shore. If duty calls, the first to die On fields of honor and of fame, But readier, where the vanquish d lie, To heal the wounded, raise the lame. Who is the patriot? Only he Whose business is the general good, Whose keenest sword is sympathy, Whose dearest flag is brotherhood. 105 THE MASTERS INCOMPARABLE white galaxy of suns! JL O stars of song whose lustre blinds the day ^Eschylus, Homer, Shakespeare, deathless ones Holding on high your proud and lonely way ! Rulers of Night s domain of domeless space, Transcendent thrones, victorious over Time, Slaying with splendor from your distant place A thousand flickering satellites of rhyme! God ! what are we, that underneath such skies We dare to light our tapers ! From afar The constellations watch this mad emprise: A puny candle challenging a star! 106 A MODERN POET radiant spirits who, the suns of song, Shine with the distant permanence of a star, A calm, incomparable, undying throng, Rebuke our flickering tapers from afar. And yet the modern poet neath that vast Confuting sky, may walk with unbowed head ; Those stellar voices sang a withering past, Their art is deathless, but their w r orld is dead ! Slain on the lips hath perish d praise of kings, Sceptres have bent like straw, and rust makes free With crowns and castles Pride s poor trivial things As Winter s white tooth gnaws the helpless tree! Dead are the masters, now the slaves shall rule; Still blind with tyranny, ignorant of their power ; 107 <Er lump!) ant Democracy, unchain d to sect and school, Strides darkly forth to meet her destined hour! For lo ! at last within the barbarous West A fair, unfetter d land has risen and reigned, Throned in the crags, and from her tawny breast The milk of liberty has long been drained, Till there have grown fierce daughters in her gates, Guarding the jealous portals of the free, A stalwart sisterhood of equal States, Hand clasping hand with love from sea to sea ! Great Motherland arisen from the waves, Lake-girdled, polar-crown d, and tropic-shod, Who bought her freedom with a million graves, And never bowed the knee except to God! Shall feudal rhymesters of an outworn brood, In pale, perfunctory verse sing such as she? Rather a race unkempt, athletic, rude, Rough as the prairies, tameless as the sea! 108 Yet not alone upon these rugged coasts Hath Freedom raised her throne; she reigns where er Serfs cry for vengeance to the Lord of Hosts, Or exiled peasants grasp the sword of prayer. True to their vision were the bards of old, But this more glorious dream olemands new wings ; Hail him who soared to heights remote and cold, Thrice hail, who loves the People s cause, and sings ! He may not lord those empires of the skies Where art, immutable, immortal, gleams, But he will strip the scales from slumbering eyes, And nations half-awake shall learn their dreams ! Great God! give us to strike the People s lyre Once, only once ! then perish if we must ! One hour of life, to lead that grander choir Whose noblest notes will echo o er our dust! And when Thy hand has seal d these lips with clay, And we are soil for Earth s recurrent Springs, 109 Speed Thou the feet that scale the heavenward way, And touch with quenchless fire each tongue that sings! Until that sturdier race of bards arise, Sprung from the toilers at the bench and plough, The splendor of the Past within their eyes, The grandeur of the Present on their brow ! 110 THE NEW AGE WHEN navies are forgotten And fleets are useless things, When the dove shall warm her bosom Beneath the eagle s wings, When memory of battles At last is strange and old, When nations have one banner And creeds have found one fold, When the Hand that sprinkles midnight With its powdered drift of suns Has hushed this tiny tumult Of sects and swords and guns, Then Hate s last note of discord In all God s worlds shall cease, In the conquest which is service, In the victory which is peace! Ill SON OF THE PURITANS SON of the Puritans, can it be thou, Harness d for slaughter with bayonet and blade? Weeds in thy furrows, rust on thy plough, Death for thy trade? Fruitless the planting in War s black soil ! What do the red-handed husbandmen reap ? Cripples that languish, children that toil, Widows who weep! Ah, these death-gleaners must learn as they mow Darkest of secrets that History hoards: Only a harvest of hatred can grow From a sowing of swords! 11* ZLotot DIVES AND LAZARUS, 1904 ONE sat in his hall, One lay at the gate; One had praise from all, One had hate. What can make amends When disaster flogs ? One had kings for friends, One had dogs! One, when robbed by Death, Yielded up his bags; One lost only breath And his rags. Yet that very night Saw the Gulf uncross d, Lazarus clothed in light; Dives lost! And one writhing soul Learn d this truth s sad force 113 Hell s most torturing coal Is remorse. Oh, that wild, wild cry! " Bridge this gulf for us, Thou enthroned on high, Lazarus ! " H. Sleek and plunder-fed, Dives of to-day, Hoard your wine and bread While you may! Gorge in kingly state ! But that gaunt and grim Lazarus at your gate What of him ! Call your thefts " a trust " Words can have no weight With the always just Scales of Fate. Hospitals and schools Built on public fraud Are a sop that fools Throw at God ! 114 Turn your heavy eyes Tow rd your palace doors, Help that wretch to rise ! Heal his sores! Faint from scourge and rod, Foul with blood and dust, Hear him cry great God ! For a crust ! Ah! the chasm fixed Between him and you Is the gulf betwixt False and true ! Slave, whose table groans With all fruits that be ! Beggar on the stones, Starved, yet free ! Which shall stand, uncowed, Clean, without scar, Before History s proud Judgment bar? 115 THE CHRISTIVIAS FOR AMERICA 1HEAR no angels in the skies, I hear the toiler mourn his lot, I catch a thousand mingled cries : " Fate rules," " God is," and " God is not." I see no hillsides gray with sheep, I meet no Magi on the road ; I see the crippled beggar creep, Striving to stand beneath his load. O Nazareth Carpenter who cursed The pride and avarice of thy day, We would observe thy birth, but first Thy Sermon on the Mount obey. If thou shouldst come once more to men In this, the later Promised Land, Would not thy great heart break again To find these wrongs on every hand: Labor, heart-smitten, left to die, Beneath the feet of conquest hurled, Or, lifting hatred s torch on high, Wreaking revenge upon the world? 116 galaxy of virgin States, White constellation of all time ! What blackness as of Death awaits If these pure stars grow dark with crime! 1 have no Holy Land but thee, Nation whose hills and prairies wait The new, the last Nativity, That Justice which shall make us great! Though Freedom s eagle bleeds, he still Soars from his eyrie tow rd the sun, May his torn wings gain strength until That blazing goal of truth be won ! Vast, wide-stretch d land! Though years are long, When Love s great ends are served in us, We shall be clean as well as strong, Kind as we are victorious ! No longer lies at Bethlehem s inn Lord Jesus in the mangered hay, Where selfish Wealth repents its sin The poor man s Christ is born to-day! 117 SLoto THE WORLD S NEW WATERWAY (The Proposed Isthmian Canal) r I CHOUGH wedded continents unclasp their i hands Which they had plighted, palm to palm, in youth, Still closer ties shall bind these severed lands A growing love of liberty and truth. Disjoin d but not divorc d, though twain still one, One in their Western faith, their Eastern birth, Nursed in one cradle neath the Orient sun, Sent forth alike to lord this larger earth I O destined lands, that held aloft to God The torch of truth unquench d through hos tile years ! O shores that Bolivar and Lincoln trod! O fields of plenty sown with blood and tears! 118 ILofct Between your coasts, uniting them the more, Trade s white-wing d couriers now shall come and go, And Peace and Progress guard each trustful shore, While the long future centuries goalward flow! 119 Hotoe TO A MODERN OFFICE BUILDING WHAT poet dreamed thee? miracle of steel, Soaring above the steeples to the sky ; What artist drew thee with a holy zeal Before thy mighty structure rose on high? Springing from base to cornice with proud ease, Vast slender cube, hive of the human cells, Was man, thy maker, such a mote as these Who swarm within thee, as their task compels ? Or did some giant with a careless hand Lift high these light screen-walls and airy frame, With glad Olympian laughter as he scanned Thy dwarfed companions, envious of such fame ? O watchman of the city at thy feet, Gigantic Argus with the countless eyes, Hearing the drone of traffic from the street Like some incessant litany arise! Labor s cathedral, castle of finance! No mediaeval masterpiece of stone 120 Lifted a grander pile to face God s glance Than thou upholdest to the heavens alone. The girder that supports thy weight is thought, Thy piers and columns type the joys of flight, Thy very walls within my heart have wrought Their symbol of the poetry of height. Art thou the scion of some Titan brood, Some Atlas on whose back earth s toil is laid? Rising, self-urged, in patient solitude Above the smoky, foul abyss of trade? Nay, thou art offspring of more buoyant race, A young, fair god, the athlete of the skies, With sinewy limbs, with joy upon thy face, With dauntless prophecy within thine eyes! The type art thou of this vast land to me, Late risen o er its fellows, proud and great, The home of toil and yet superbly free, Lifting with easy grace Time s monstrous weight ! 121 THE POET FOR TO-DAY WE have sonnets enough, and songs enough, And ballads enough, God knows! But we want to-day that cosmic stuff Whence primitive feeling glows, Grown, organized to the needs of rhyme Through the old instinctive laws, With a meaning broad as the boughs of time And deep as the roots of cause. It is passion and power that we need to-day, We have grace and taste full store ; We need a man who will say his say With a strength unguessed before : No lips that sing at a patron s nod For the price of a jester s crust, But a voice whose sagas shall live with God When the lyres of earth are rust ; A soul, though clean of the stains of lust, Which loves all God calls fair, 122 JLofee With feet that are soiled with the common dust, And nature honest and bare ; A man who will heed the cry of the poor Clutched fast in the claws of greed, Who will fight to the death for the sound and sure In the smoky battles of creed ; A spirit deaf to alluring sounds More siren than Truth s command, God s athlete, wrestling with all that wounds Home, honor* and native land ; Whose lines shall glow like molten steel From being forged in his soul, Till the very anvil shall burn to feel The breath of the quenchless coal! Your dainty wordsters may cry, " Uncouth ! " As they shrink from his bellows glow, But the fire he fans is immortal youth, And how should the bloodless know! Oh, safety and ease are always spurned By the poet of God s desire ; Can you keep your fingers from being burned If you handle a harp of fire? ZLofe* Crfumjtyatnt NEW ENGLAND i. BLEAK was the sea, and pitiless the shore, When our brave fathers, tyrant-driven, accurs d, Unlock d the future s inauspicious door, And, bold of brow, trod Freedom s threshold first. Staunch hearts! beneath the arrogant garb of sect Beat bosoms warmed by fires not lit on earth, And the real man supreme, secure, erect Gave to an iron creed its human worth. The cold frosts fell relentless on the grain, The cunning savage lurked by rock and tree, No sound was heard in that lone, desolate plain Save, on the rocks, the ravings of the sea. Yet, O our fathers, how your hands were stayed ! The Pilgrim s God was with you ye were un dismayed ! ii. And we, the scions of a gentler age, The latest birth of slow-maturing Time ZLobt Shall we be heirs of that high heritage, Partakers of that legacy sublime, And not be sharers of their solemn vow Those forest-conquering heroes, dauntless, free, By the long, treacherous cape which, then as now, With gaunt, crook d finger beckoned to the sea? Tell us, ye stars, that watched their lonely fires, Yea, watch each generation as it runs The witness of their prayers, and our desires High as their own say, are we not their sons? Shall not the virtues which have made them great Rule, animate, enthrall our hearts, control our State? in. Thou art the rough nurse of a hero-brood, New England, and their mighty limbs by thee Were fashioned they, the bards, the warriors rude, Whom Time hath dowered with fame imper- ishably. 125 ILotoe But not alone for this I love thee ; I On thy bare mother-breast have laid my head, And drunk the cool, deep silence, while the sky, Confederate of my joy, laughed o er my bed. Thus have I lain till half I seemed a part In my clairvoyant mood of Nature s plan ; The very landscape crept into my heart, And they were one the sense, the soul, of man; My kinship with life s myriad forms I knew: Worms in the world of green, wings in the world of blue! IV. Nor less I loved thee in those hours of blight When winter fell upon thee like a sleep; Again I watch along the drifted white The dark triangle of the snow-plough sweep, Behold the oxen draw the creaking sled, Hear the sharp sleet rehearse upon the pane, See the wise village prophets shake the head While through the elms the witless winds com plain. Ah, in those hours, O native hills! I know Alert beneath thy guise of seeming dead The roots are warm, the saps of summer flow, The wings of immortality are bred! 126 Hotoe In all things reigns one immanent Control: The life beneath the snow, the Life within my soul! v. Then hail, ye hills! like rough-hewn temples set, With granite beams, upon this earth of God ! Austerer halls of worship never yet Had feet of Puritan or Pilgrim trod: Abrupt Chocorua, Grey lock s hoary height, Katahdin, with her peak of bare, scarr d stone, Sloping Monadnock, and, in loftier flight, Thou, rising to the eternal heavens, alone Thy Sun-wooed sisters, less divinely proud, Bribed to compliance by their suitor s gold Thou, wrapt in thy stern drapery of a cloud, Chaste, passionless, inviolably cold, Mount Washington! sky-shouldering, freedom- crowned, Compatriot with the windy blue above, around! VI. And hail, ye waters! whether, mountain-locked, The timid lake shines in the valley s palm, 127 Hotor Where strident human discord never mocked With alien clamor the primeval calm ; Or whether streams insistent to the sea Urge their impatient way, till far behind The hills are left, and, black with industry, Through long, low meadow-lands their path they wind. O er stream and lake alike the slight canoe, Artful though forest-born, once found its course, By dark hands guided which the war-axe knew Hands skilled in dexterous craft and fearless force. Now by those waters blue the warriors sleep; The still heights taciturn the destined secret keep! vn. Perished that forest-nurtur d race; the winds Have scattered past recall their nameless dust. Forerunners they of more heroic kinds, The harsh Fates slew them, but the Fates were just. Thou more intrepid brood! these hills were thine Which had been theirs, O valiant elder band ! 138 actor Stfuntptjant Let us in our unventurous ease, supine, Spare those a thought who met the time s de mand, Ploughed these unwilling plains, these wood lands cleared, The sons of God because the sons of Toil, Who in this wilderness their temples reared, But knew no shrine more sacred than their soil. When tyranny this freeman breed defied, Through the hot lips of merciless cannon they replied ! vin. Who was it, when the British thunders broke, And Western Conquest staggered to her fall Who was it then unchained the ty rant-} r oke ? Oh, answer, memory-haunted Faneuil Hall! And when our North was menaced by her foes, Blind with the lust of gold, deaf as the sea, Though bondsmen plead for pity, who arose And sundered first those shackles who but thee? All-sheltering as a mother, thou didst stand, New England, with thine arms outstretch d % to save; 129 Europe, the prairied West, on either hand, And, clinging to thy garment s hem, the slave ! And shall we love thee less whom, at thy shrine, Our sires pledged in their hearts best blood that costliest wine? IX. Nay! though we wander where against the sky The sun-burnt leagues of low plain stretch away, Or where on silver coasts the warm waves sigh And green, palm-crown d Decembers vie with May, We still are thine; and in our sad, fond dream, They rest again these weary feet that roam : We see the farm, the orchard, and the stream, And, rising to the heavens, the hills of home. The quest of gain has called us from thy breast, Our common mother ! but the noisy mart Can never drown the inner voice of rest ; The child s pure peace still harbors in our heart. Though far our footsteps stray, though years be long, The kindred loves of home and truth shall keep us strong! 130 V. "He strikes a hundred lyres, a thousand strings, Yet one at heart are all the songs he sings." 131 A SONG OF DESIRE THOU dreamer with the million moods, Of restless heart like me, Lay thy white hands against my breast And cool its pain, O Sea ! O wanderer of the unseen paths, Restless of heart as I, Blow hither, from thy caves of blue, Wind of the healing sky! O treader of the fiery way, With passionate heart like mine, Hold to my lips thy healthful cup Brimmed with its blood-red wine! O countless watchers of the night, Of sleepless heart like me, Pour your white beauty in my soul, Till I grow calm as ye ! O sea, O sun, O wind and stars, (O hungry heart that longs!) Feed my starved lips with life, with love, And touch my tongue with songs ! 133 A SONG OF MEMORY WHEN the frosts are pale with malice, When the hoarse northeasters blow, When the clouds are gray and heartless, And the roads are faint with snow, Suddenly the gale grows silent, Till the white world swims to view, And the hush and mystery hold me That those farmhouse evenings knew. When the meanest branch is vocal, When the blue is thick with wings, And the voice of lad and lover One with every throat that sings, Then the deathless summers waken, And my fingers lose the pen, While the stern Past lends me faces It can never give again. When the frost has come with banners And has captured every hill, When the staunchest flower has perish d, And forsaken boughs are still ; 134 ILotoe Then old memories lead me backward Down lost roadways brown and wild, Where twas rapture to be living, Where twas heaven to be a child. 135 THE GLIMPSE HOW often I have seen in city streets Some woman s face, with eyes so like the sky One looks to see a bird s wing brush the blue, With lips arched like the veriest bow of love, And hair that falls a glory round her brow; And yet within, beneath, behind it all, Have spied, with that intenser sight, my soul, Such hungry longings feeding on themselves As would shame Famine o er the iron song Of wheels and hoofs, have heard with spirit ear, Undeafen d by an instant sympathy, The tears of all the mothers of the world. 136 TO MOTHER NATURE NATURE, in thy largess, grant I may be thy confidant ! Taste who will life s roadside cheer (Tho my heart doth hold it dear Song and wine and trees and grass, All the joys that flash and pass), I must put within my prayer Gifts more intimate and rare. Show me how dry branches throw Such blue shadows on the snow, Tell me how the wind can fare On his unseen feet of air, Show me how the spider s loom Weaves the fabric from her womb, Lead me to those brooks of morn Where a woman s laugh is born, Let me taste the sap that flows Through the blushes of a rose, Yea, and drain the blood which runs From the heart of dying suns, Teach me how the butterfly Guessed at immortality, 137 " Ho tot Let me follow up the track Of Love s deathless Zodiac Where Joy climbs among the spheres Circled by her moon of tears, Tell me how, when I forget All the schools have taught me, yet I recall each trivial thing In a golden, far-off Spring, Give me whispered hints how I May instruct my heart to fly Where the baffling Vision gleams Till I overtake my dreams, And the impossible be done When the Wish and Deed grow one ! 138 THE SEA COME down with me to the moon-led sea, Where the long wave ebbs and fills. Are these the tides that follow As the lunar impulse wills? Nay, rather this is the heart of God, Naked under the sky, And we hear its pulse with wonder The shore, and the clouds, and I! Unearthly, awful, uncompelled, Eternity framed in clay, The urge of exhaustless passions, Rocking beneath the gray! Its life is the blood of the universe Through cosmic arteries hurled, With the throb of its giant pulses God feeds the veins of the world ! And the lands are wrinkled and gray with time And scored with a thousand scars, But the sea is the soul of the Infinite, Swinging beneath the stars! 139 THE WAVERLEY OAKS (The famous Waverley Oaks, in Waverley Massachusetts, are probably the oldest in America. Professor Agassiz estimated the age of one of the group at about a thousand years.) HOW many a fruitful season ye have known, The planting, and the scything, and the sheaves ! While races throve and died, ye tower d alone, Shedding the centuries lightly as your leaves. Shielding from tempest s wrath each trustful nest That asks a shelter from the heat or rain, Wrestling with winds that wound Earth s inno cent breast, Huge athletes, gnarled, storm-wounded, yet unslain ! Contemptuous of decay, ye watched them pass The days unwarmed by smiles, unwet by tears, When o er the forests and the unshorn grass, Suns rose and waned on lone, primeval years ; 140 Then came through gates of birth each strange, new guest Poor, helpless babes that, since that distant morn, In human cradles or on Nature s breast, Have lived their moment neath your genial scorn. Yes, ye have watched the generations die After their little day of mirth and toil, And still stretch forth your brawny arms on high, Gigantic guardians of New England soil! 141 THE APRIL BOY AS I went through the April-world To watch my violets blow, I met a child I long had loved Whose heart was clean as snow. " Come hither, little White-of-Soul, Now tell me how you fare ! " He ran to me, he sprang at me, The sun was in his hair. His eyes were laughing like his lips, He had an April look, His feet were wet as ocean shells From wading in the brook. And Nature, too, became a child; As far as eye could see The world was one big romping-ground For Earth, the Boy, and Me ! I quite forgot my violets, His eyes were both so blue, His merry lips that press d my own Were mayflowers moist with dew; Svtumpljaut And as we took the road to town, The little lad and I, He seemed to hold the whole of Spring And brush the Winter by. The birds all knew him, that I m sure, They ne er sang thus for me; The budding branches seemed to reach To kiss each dimpled knee. And when I left him near his home, " Good-by, big man," he said ; Good-by, Sir April," I returned, He shouted, laughed, and fled. 143 Hob* A SONG OF SAILING AT last the loud wind rounds with health The lean cheek of our sail, The scourging brine is all our wealth, But homeward leads the trail, AU hail! Ah, soon the harbor buoy and bar, And soon the face that waits, The crowded docks, the lighthouse star, And welcoming garden gates, My mates! Our stout boat rams the towering waves That hide heaven s windy dome, The menace of their fury braves, And tossing them to foam, Steers home ! Her old patch d topsail curves once more, Gray as a sea-bird s wing, With breeze astern, she seeks the shore Swift as a living thing Then sing: 144 hoi the surfs in sight, The soft beach shines like snow; From out To-day has been our flight Into the Long Ago! Land hot 145 TO A BROKEN SEA - SHELL OLIPS that passionate waves have kissed In every sea; Cast on the shore, what have you left Save memory? Small wonder that ye whispered long Of lost delights, Those storms beneath the tropic sky Those nights, those nights! But now although thy years of song, Dear shell, are past, Tis only since some careless foot Crushed thee at last. Long prisoned in thy slender throat What glorious tone! poet of the waves, thy fate How like mine own ! The waters of love s sea are salt With passionate tears, And my wild heart was tossed like thee, Long years, long years! 146 Now cast upon the unheeding shore It sings the Past, And ever must, unless, like thee, It breaks at last! 147 Hob* vtuntpljant THE THIEF WITH all his purple spoils upon him Creeps back the plunderer Sea, Deep in his rayless caves he plunges, Fed full with robbery ; His caverns filled with dead men s treasure, With coins and bones and pearl ; For curtains and for golden carpet, The hair of some drowned girl! bandit with the white-plumed horsemen, Raiding a thousand shores, Thy coffers crammed with spars and anchors And wave-defeated oars ! 1 hear again thine ancient laughter, Thy mirthful, mad unrest, Yet catch the notes of shame and torture Within thy bravest jest. For lo ! there is a Hand that holds thee And curbs thy proudest wave, Tny boundaries have been set forever Thou art thyself a slave! 148 The lash is given to wild taskmasters! Thy lips may foam with wrath, Still moons shall call and thou must follow, Still winds shall scourge thy path! O impotent thief! I scorn thy pillage, Marauder of pale coasts ! The brigands whom I dread are fiercer Than thou and all thy hosts ! For Death hath stolen friend and comrade, Love robbed the heart of rest, Sin snared a soul, while thou wast hoarding Some sailor s treasure-chest. O braggart, laughing o er thy booty, Boast on till days are done, And the frail star where thou disportest Hath dropped into the sun! 149 THE KINGDOM OF THE SUNRISE WHEN God had plough d New England with a glacier And made it ready to be sown with man, He flung no mightier seed throughout these valleys Than, long before, across thy heights, Japan ! Men filled with dreams and daring, dark, in trepid, Men who had learn d to labor and to pray; We in our arrogance have called them pagans, Because they climb d tow rd Truth a different way. But when they sat within the doors of daybreak, Offering all lands the fruits of Orient toil, They roused the jealous wrath which hurl d upon them The sons of conquest and the slaves of spoil! Whatever name be Thine, Infinite Sower, Brahm, Buddha, Christ, according to our creed, 150 Hobe Crftttnjtticint Rescue these fields that Thou thyself hajt planted ! From the despoiler save Thy scattered seed ! O Dweller beyond Suns, O Throned in Silence ! Look down on these loud conflicts bid them cease ! Speed the great ends of love on Earth forever, And pluck this vulture from the heart of Peace ! June, 1904. 151 THE MAN-CHILD FROM the loins that know no languor, From the womb of the Divine, When the lords of flame and tempest Met to found my kingly line, Lo! I sprang, a child celestial, While the earth was still a coal Lighted at the white-hot brazier Where the sun evolved his soul. Thus I came and pass d; the spaces Drank my spirit like a breath, Till, new-moulded, reincarnate, I defied the gods of Death, And upon this cooling planet Through the gates of birth I press d, With the wonder of the memory Of the Universal Breast. Myriad forms that Mind hath fashioned Out of dust to serve its needs I am clad withal ; I worship And revile through all the creeds. 152 Harlot, vestal, saint, and pagan Blent their strains within my blood, Beast and serpent, slain and slayer, Monsters of the cosmic flood. I have scourged with every tyrant, I have knelt at every shrine, I hold Sodom for my revel, I drink Egypt for my wine! I am born of perfect women, I am come of stalwart males, I was nursed at Helen s bosom, I have followed viking sails! In mv veins the Russ and Tartar, In my blood the Gaul and Hun, Corinth s lust and Sidon s barter, And Sahara s leagues of sun! All the deities man worships, All dark shades of the abyss, Lent their fury to my anger, Lent their passion to my kiss. When the poet s flame within me Leaps, as in the years that were, 153 Hotoe Lesbos lures and Sappho calls me, And my feet must follow her! When the lover s pulse beats fiercely In my wrists and throat and face, It is Cleopatra holds me In the storm of her embrace! All Parnassus in one stanza, All of Egypt in one day, All the blue breadth of Nyanza, All the hot miles of Cathay ! Thou whose red mouth is the beaker Whence I quaff such drowsy wine, Fear thou not this heart tempestuous, Though it beat so loud on thine. Fear thou not these rude, firm muscles ! They were sculptured worlds ago, When the gods of light and darkness Struggled for this star below ! Kiss me, lips, and grow undying! Passionate bosom, closer lean! I, the son of all the cycles, Thus at last will crown thee queen ! - 154 Hobe SrfuttuMjatu Sovereign o er these quivering sinews, Tameless save to thy control Thou who wieldest with thy beauty All the sceptre of my soul! 155 TO A LOCOMOTIVE AT NIGHT O CYCLOPS with the one terrific eye, Charging upon me from thy cave, the Dark, With monstrous brawn and fleetness, nude and stark, Breathing thy futile wrath against the sky Fierce giant of the rails, malign and sly! As some gigantic missile toward its mark, Straight toward the heart of night and si lence hark ! Thou roarest through the blackness, Death s ally! With parched, hot lips upraised to sunless space, Drinking great distances with thirst un- quenched, Panting with the mad fury of thy flight, Like some huge athlete with his hands hard clenched At either side running thy desperate race, Thou vanishest down the track into the night ! 156 THE CHILD WHO WENT AWAY nere that it wander d over the keys, JL Her dear hand brown and small, A lover would swear it was white as these, But it wasn t white at all, , ^ By boating toughen d, in hammocks tann d, Yes blister d by racquets the childish hand. The quaint pianoforte was small, Old-fashioned and out of tune, But her fingers fell as the petals fall In the gentlest wind of June, And the wondering keys at the soft command Gave all they knew to the dear brown hand ; Till, lost in the music made by her, The whole room grew less staicl, The haircloth furniture seemed to stir, And Grandmother s stiff brocade Appeared to walk from the great gilt frame And curtsey and dance for the little dame. But at last the child s warm hand grew thin, And the white soul fled above, 157 Ilotet Like a younger sister the girl had been, My love was a brother s love, Yet a glory was gone from the gray old farm, And the rocky pastures had lost their charm. And my boat rocks idly here by the bank, And the hammock whispers " Come," And the keys still wait in a patient rank Though their small white throats are dumb, And if I touch them they only say : " Come back, come back from that far away ! " And the lilac-bush shades the low south room Just as it did of old, And the butterfly, deep in the milkweed s bloom, Is poising on wings of gold; But nothing is glad, while all is gay The soul of the summer has slipped away. Yet look! your lilies are blooming, dear, Your roses climb the wall, And waiting for you in the garden here Are wicket, mallet, and ball, And your banjo stares with its sad round face, Mocking us all from its hiding-place. child ! do your dear hands never tire Of holding the harp of gold? 158 When you hear us sing in the village choir The songs that you loved of old, And our voices break ah then, ah then, Don t you almost wish to be back again? 159 OUR FRIEND I KNOW not whether she be fair, If blue her eyes or gold her hair ; I have not marked her features well Her spirit casts too strong a spell. Even in wintry frost and sleet, If one but pass her on the street, Though all the town be wrapp d in furs, A sense of warmth and April stirs. Her lips may be as soft as those The bee is proffered by the rose I do not know ; but this I m sure : They smile alike on rich and poor. Her ear may be so fine a fleck It scarce casts shadow on her neck; I only know tis not too small To listen when the needy call. I know not if her hand be white, Or if her foot be arched and slight ; Her feet will run to carry aid, Her hand shower blessings unrepaid. 160 ZLotoe If she should die, some brush might trace The maiden s comeliness or grace; But most could only strive, ah yes, Somehow to fill the loneliness. 161 Hob* STviwupijant THE CLOSED GENTIAN SEE what one breath of August did Rebuke to persevering Art ! With every maiden mystery hid, This perfect face, this virgin heart ! Refusing to the wanton bee Those lips .that innocence hath sealed, A type of rustic chastity That smiles and serves but will not yield. Thou standest, gentle flower, beside The homely road, the common way, Wearing thy beauty without pride Till dust and time have turned it gray. 163 Hob* TO POETRY higher Truth, Love s sister, Wonder s bride ! larger Science with the God-turned face! Clasp my cold heart to thy supreme embrace Until my blood flow through me like a tide, And my sad, pulseless soul grow deified With the divinest currents of the race ; 1 stand upon this wandering star in space And pray thy coming, though all worlds divide ! Behold! I feel thy lips upon mine own Often, O Goddess, till thy wings sweep by And leave my spirit passionless as a nun s ; Then, ere I quite despair, gray Ocean s moan Resummons thee, or some red smouldering sky With mountain summits dipp d in dying suns! 163 Hob* DESIRE , who s this captive I have caged? JL Is her name Desire? Ay ! and Midnight is her mother, And her father Fire ! In my heart s red chamber How her fierce wings stir, As though old memories moved her, And the far home call d to her. She was born where stars were straying Through the lost ways of the sky ; And I thought to make her prisoner But the prisoner is I! For she spurns my silly shackles When the wild mood fires her breast, And I needs must follow, follow, Down the wing-paths of the west : Then, straight up the walls of wonder, Till we vanish in the blue, Till (oh, look!) the largest ocean Dwindles to a drop of dew, 164 Till at last upon my forehead Night s hot zenith burns a kiss, And the earth becomes a glow-worm Twinkling through the black abyss. Then my captor leads me gently Homeward down the Milky Way, Shuts herself within her cloister, But the key is thrown away ! 165 ZLotoe iTrtuwjpfjaut THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY OYOU left her arms so early, lusting for , the hurly-burly Of the huge, grim, grinning town; But the wander-fever died, and your weary spirit cried, Where the love of Earth, the Mother, hunts us down ; Where the ledgers lay so high that they hurt the aching eye, While the worried brain toiled without rest, O, then the Country called you, and her dear old sights enthralled you, And you longed to weep once more upon her breast. Don t you hear the voice from afar, dear boy, Hear it wherever you roam ? Loud on your track, " Come back, come back, Back to the hills of home ! " Where the mocking whistles bluster, and the monstrous chimneys cluster, And the mad looms curse and brawl, 166 Where the human torrent pours, weak and wretched from the doors. Don t you hear again the patient Mother caU? There s a whisper in your ear of the sounds that once were dear Browsing cattle, barking dogs, bragging cocks ; O, the hungry horses neighing, O, the odors of the haying, O, the company and comfort of the flocks ! Yes, you hear the voice where the city roars Through its narrow banks and high, Wherever you roam, " Come home, come home, Home to my arms to die ! " Through the haste and fret of trade comes the dream that cannot fade, Of the never-laboring leisure of the ox, Of the purple shadows deep, basking on the roofs asleep, Of the permanence and patience of the rocks ! Boy, forget the blistering street where the flag gings burn your feet; Boy, forget the ugly trolley s vulgar song; 167 Still remains the land of wonder, blue skies over, green earth under, Where the fainting soul again grows swift and strong; Still comes the cry of the Long Ago, Of the Far-away-in-the-Past, " Here be your rest, my breast, my breast, Back on my breast at last ! " 168 f retiertc latorence 18691005 A TRIBUTE BY PROF. C. T. WINCHESTER MY DEAR : I cannot put into words the sudden and poignant sorrow with which I learned, a few hours ago, of the death of Frederic Lawrence Knowles. I have known and loved him since his earliest college days ; and in these last years have watched with pride and admiration the growth of his genius and the widening of his fame as a poet. I have no mood at this time for a cool estimate of his work and place; but one certainly risks nothing in saying that none of our younger poets showed greater promise than he. jKTor was it promise only. His latest volume contains verse that any young poet might have been glad to own ; and I have reason to know that he has left unpublished even better work. He had always a quick sense of that subtle power of phrase upon which the charm of poetry so largely depends ; but his latest poems showed not only a more exacting criticism of form, but a remarkable growth in the content of thought and feeling. They were full of the fire and dew of youth ; but almost every one of them showed some sense of the largeness and solemnity 169 B.atovrtuc of life. They were not trivial exercises in graceful dic tion. And in the reading you come frequently upon lines that express some dainty fancy or some serious truth with that keen poetic note, thrilling and memo rable, that only the masters know. The very first line of the volume has haunted my memory like a mournful echo from all the beautiful but vanished past, " Helen s lips are drifting dust." Alas ! his own are so ! But I am thinking now not so much of the poet as of Fred Kuowles, the man, the companion, the friend. That refinement of taste and exquisite sensibility which made him a poet made him also the most sympathetic of friends. He was the model of genuine courtesy. The love of beauty and the love of truth were married in his heart. But though he had an almost feminine grace and charm of manner, underneath that outward gentleness there was a steadfast tenacity of purpose, a fidelity to high ideals, a capacity for patient labor and endurance, and a sympathy with all heroic forms of effort and suffering. Only those who knew him best can tell how faithful he was to all obligations, how loyal to his friends, how self-sacrificingly generous in his affections. The great verities of the Christian religion, learned in his childhood from the lips of noble parents, he em- 170 Hatoretue iwotolrs braced and cherished all his days. As he came to man hood, and the phases and problems of this vast, strange world rose upon his vision, he sometimes found it hard to interpret life in terms of the teaching he had ac cepted. But he was the soul of honesty ; and the cen tral truth of God s love in Christ for himself and all mankind, he never doubted or questioned. And some of us know what, indeed, was evident from his poetry that, with advancing years, that great truth grew more and more sufficient to explain for him all diffi culties and remove all fears. I take down his book and read the striking little poem he called " The Steps : " " Seize your staff ! beyond this height We shall find the Infinite Light ! Gird your thigh ! this sword shall hew Paths that reach the untroubled blue ! Though dark mountains form the stair, It is ours to climb and dare ! Law, truth, love the peaks are three : Sinai, Olivet, Calvary ! " It is hard to think of him as passed into the silence with all his possibilities of song. Our earthly hopes refuse to have it so ; we can only bow before a higher Wisdom. For us, at least, there is the memory of hia pure, earnest, aspiring life, and the lingering music of his early song. For him let me read his own lines : 171 Hatotenc* Zuiotolrs " Laid in one equal bed, When once your coverlet of grass is spread, " What daybreak need you fear ? The Love will rule you there which guides you here ! " 172 173 TO THE ETERNAL SPIRIT OTHOU that weavest sun and stars Upon Thine everlasting loom, Whose pattern makes of Earth and Mars But glittering spots of flame, to whom Save Thee, Thou source of soul and fire, Shall I, unkindled dust, aspire? The universe that thrills with Thee Is half Thyself, yet is not Thou, Behind the quivering mask I see, With them of old, Thy face and brow; Like Moses on the awful height, I all but touch Thee day and night. The lightnings are Thy veins, Thy blood Is that elusive force that flows Within the swift electric flood 175 Sungtt JJocms Which hurls the star and shapes the rose; And yet Thou liest behind all this, The pregnant Mind of Life s abyss ! The star-dust from Thy lips is blown, Pollen of planets yet to be, Across dark fecund voids unknown, But throbbing with the life of Thee! From those live heavens withdraw Thy breath What golden blooms would fade in death! O Thou who breathed us into time From the eternal calm with Thee, Breath of Thy breath for what far crime What long-forgotten feud, were we Exiled to this dark star of grief, More helpless than a gale-blown leaf? To Thee ascends from this worn Earth The litany of stricken years, The wild despair and wilder mirth, The sound of laughter hoarse with tear*; When shall, on Thy white shores of peace, These breaking waves of anguish cease? O if, as He of Nazareth taught, No sparrow falls without Thy care, 176 Sunset Is Thy great heart less moved by aught Which we, Thy human children, bear? Yet canst Thou share our grief and woe And naught of Thy calm bliss forego ? Lo, Thou art Harmony; Thy poise Is unperturb d by mortal cries, Above the struggle and the noise Thy sea of infinite silence lies ; And shall our loud unreason dare To storm Thy peace with frantic prayer? Prayer is communion, the repose Of hearts too closely join d for speech; No plea that Life withhold the blows Whose stalwart purpose is to teach, No coward s shriek, no discord shrill, But brave souls resting in Thy will. And though Thou sufferest in our pain, Thy tide of joy is full, Thine eye Looks, tranquil, on the nobly slain, Or on those, pierced thro breast and thigh, Who, lame, heart-smitten, smile to cheat Disaster of its full defeat. 177 Sunset Tho calmly thro a million nights Thy stars have burn d, Thou Wise and Just, Our lives are flickering candle-lights Blown out by Death s impartial gust. And yet I know, relit by Thee, These tapers glow eternally. Their flames are one with those that shine In Sirius and the Milky Way, Both share the Energy divine, Nor mind nor matter knows decay, Stars fall, force changes, man must bow, Yet all is life, and life is Thou ! 178 Sunart THE REST OF THE STORY wh at s the rest of the story, please? " The tiresome little ones, how they tease! I have told them of wonderful toys and dolls, Of elves that dance when the elf-king calls, Of castles, of giants, of knights emprise, Of lovers that die for a maiden s eyes ; And the story grows till it takes too long, And bedtime passes, but still they throng With eager voices around my chair, Till I raise my finger and whisper, " There ! It is time for children to be asleep: Just wait till morning ; the tale will keep, And then we will finish ; " but no, they sigh, And try to be brave and not to cry, While the boldest begs on his small bare knees : " O tell us the rest of the story, please! " And thus do we older children cry, Peevishly curious, "How?" and "Why?" And " When is the end of it, year and day? " And "Tell us the reason," and "What s to pay?" And our Father listens with patient ear, 179 Sunset Yes, bends from the throne of the Heavens to hear; He has told the stories of childhood, youth, Of woman s beauty, of manhood s truth, And the fairy-tale of love, and then The sadder story of death, to men, And whispers last of a wondrous land, And more, that we scarce can understand: " Ye shall know the rest when ye wake from sleep." And the story is left but we sulk and weep : " Love, death ! how oft Thou hast told us these. But what s the rest of the story, please ? " 180 THE EXCHANGE FOUR gifts of God He shared with me Joy, beauty, health, and woman s love, Then vanish d into vacancy And watched me from the void above. I kept the feast unshared, unspread, Hoarded to feed the lusts of youth ; God took it, leaving me instead Pain, suffering, sympathy, and truth. 181 Stwstt TO JESUS THE NAZARENE CLOSEST to men, thou pitying Son of Man, V^ And thrilled from crown to foot with fel lowship, Yet most apart and strange, lonely as God, Dwell in my heart, remote and intimate One ! Brother of all the world, I come to Thee ! Gentle as she who nursed Thee at her breast (Yet what a lash of lightnings once Thy tongue To scourge the hypocrite and Pharisee!) Nerve Thou mine arm, O meek, O mighty One ! Champion of all who fail, I fly to Thee ! man of sorrows, with the wounded hands, For chaplet, thorns ; for throne, a pagan cross ; Bowed with the woe and agony of time, Yet loved by children and the feasting guests, 1 bring my suffering, joyful heart to Thee. Chaste as the virginal lily on her stem, Yet in each hot, full pulse, each tropic vein, More filled with feeling than the flow r with sun ; 182 No anchorite, hale, sinewy, warm with love, I come in youth s high tide of bliss to Thee. Christ of contrasts, infinite paradox, Yet life s explainer, solvent harmony, Frail strength, pure passion, meek austerity, And the white splendor of these darken d years, 1 lean my wondering, wayward heart on Thine. 183 Situsrt THE MAN IN THE WHITE HOUSE An Acrostic THE chance-flung favorite of no lucky hour, Here is the man who strode, not rose, to power ! Eyes riveted on duty, not reward, Offering his country heart and brain and sword ; Danger he scorn d and ease he put away, On toward fame s summit plodding night and day; Ranchman, rough-rider, patriot, magistrate, Exalting Law, and reverencing the State, Rich in that rare inheritance of worth Old as the heavens and honest as the earth ; Oak-hearted, fearless, pure as Galahad, Sycophants hate him, spoilsmen think him mad. Except our land beget such sons as he Vain are our boastings of prosperity: Empty of self-conceit, big-soul d, robust, Love warms his will yet nerves it to be just, This is a ruler whom the ruled can trust ! 184 THE HIGHER UNITY WHEN from the tortured womb of earth Fell the white moon a fiery birth, Think ye that to that fiercer breast The glorious child was clasped to rest? Ah, nay! she flung herself afar, No heavenly suckling, but a star, Though loud the stricken mother cried In the lone anguish of the tide. Thus from the Past, wherein I lay, Warm-nurtured till my natal day, I fell, by inner forces hurled, No nursling, but a Will a World ! And scornful of the brooding Face Sought the wild silences of space. My spirit had been nourished long On ancient creed and feudal song, On tales of war and glittering lies, But now I dared thro chartless skies, Oblivious to the Mother s call, Into the void to fall and fall. 185 Stntsct But lo! there came an hour when even The lunar vagrant paused in heaven, Cooled the hot passions that rebelled (Some god s transcendent Voice compell d), And heard this Delphic word with awe: " Freedom is only larger law, On thine own axis thou dost turn, Yet earthward evermore must yearn ; Tho severed by estranging space, Toward her that bore thee leans thy face! And thus my soul around the Past Obedient orbit found at last Divorced and yet dependent, whirled, Space-pinion d, round that cradling world, While on my spirit fell the truth: " Revolt is but the mood of youth, And if uncheck d by law, may be More futile than conformity. Thou and that distant orb, thy source, Both serve Fate s high decree, one course Is thine and hers, one track, one goal, One sun of truth o er each, O soul! All minds, all wills, all worlds are wrought Into one cosmic, timeless thought; War, fagot, famine, priestcraft be Discords that foster harmony, 186 S-nnett Sin is the minor in the strain That swells to love thro chords of pain; Creeds change, but thought s long march is one From star to star, from sun to sun ! " 187 Sunset A LYRIC OF ASPIRATION O BIRDS of fire that make the night One flock of golden wings, My heart would join your rapturous flight Far from terrestrial things, Beyond the fever and the scars, Where the white gate of God unbars, O golden stars, O golden stars! O falcon with the beak of flame And plumage wild with fire, My soul, dust-cover d, spent, and lame, But wing d with fierce desire, Soars swiftly to thy breast, undone Till that delirious goal be won, O flaming sun, O flaming sun ! queen of all the thrones of space, And bride of night s abyss, White as a passionate woman s face That lifts to meet a kiss, Then sinks, while thought and senses swoon, 1 crave thy mad voluptuous boon, O passionate moon, O passionate moon! 188 O naked blue, O infinite deep, I faint, I long, I come! My eager spirit scales thy steep Nor shall my voice be dumb, My heart yearns heavenward with a cry: Wait ! One draws near ! Tis I ! Tis I ! O naked sky ! O naked sky ! milky way white mother breast That sucklest sun and star, 1 languish, with a babe s unrest, To quench my thirst afar ; I mount to thee, my heart outruns The feet of thy immortal ones, Bosom of worlds, and fount of suns! voyage unknown ! O sea above ! O shores without a sail! 1 launch upon your waves of love, Nor can my ventures fail ; Shall Earth dark star suffice for me? A son of immortality? Nay, from this hour I cruise on thee, Eternal sea, eternal sea ! 189 Sunset LOVE S REVELATION O MYSTERY, whom we dare to call God, Father, Friend, - Thou fathomless Sea Whereof Mind knows no truth at all Save that Thou art, and art not we, Upon our lips was laid Thy fire Incarnate sons of Thy desire! We are the shadows of Thy will, The emanation of Thy thought, To Thee, Compassionate One, we still Must kneel, as those whom Love hath taught, And trust the pliant, sensitive heart Which apprehends Thee as Thou art. In sod below and star above, Back of Beginning and farewell, Through and behind all shows is love, In atom, world, and plasmic cell; Thou, Lost One, dost Thyself disclose To hearts that love, and only those. 190 Sunset Thus I believe, nay, thus I know, For love hath taught me ; come Thou, then, Through every nerve and artery flow, And let me store Thy power for men, Thus shall my soul a chalice be, Brimm d, Cosmic, Conscious Force, with Thee! 191 Sunset THE TENANT r I " HIS body is my house it is not I ; 1 Herein I sojourn till, in some far sky, I lease a fairer dwelling, built to last Till all the carpentry of time is past. When from my high place viewing this lone star, What shall I care where these poor timbers are ? What though the crumbling walls turn dust and loam I shall have left them for a larger home. What though the rafters break, the stanchions rot, When earth has dwindled to a glimmering spot ! When thou, clay cottage, fallest, I ll immerse My long-cramp t spirit in the universe. Through uncomputed silences of space I shall yearn upward to the leaning Face. The ancient heavens will roll aside for me, As Moses monarch d the dividing sea. This body is my house it is not I. Triumphant in this faith I live, and die. Sunset Jiotms This is a copy of the last poem written by Frederic Lawrence Knowles. It was composed during his fatal illness, about a week before his death. ODEAR farm, O lost farm, O fields that faced the sea, O garden old where the children stroll d, In the likeness of you and me, How the dreams call d and the lanes call d, Till our feet must needs obey, Over the beckoning roads, dear, Over the long, gray roads, dear, Over the roads away! O sweetheart, O strongheart, O dearest of all to me, Our past is dead, our dreams are fled, We stroll by a vaster sea, But the storms call, and the waves call, And we dare not say them nay, Over the years we fare, love, Over the lands of care, love, Over the years away! 193 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. 101933 II 1*3 APR 2 1937 10Nov 49J6 LD 21-50m-l, 33 304252 U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY