2^^^-^ 
 
 / 
 
 " 
 
THE SHEAF: 
 
 A BUNDLE OF POEMS, 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE CASTLE RANKIN. 
 
 " Hi ml vp the sheaf 
 
 <>f thy f/atheretl t/touy/it. 1 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS : 
 
 J A A! K S S . R A N K. I N . 
 
 1882. 
 
Copyright, 1882, by 
 JAMES S.. RANKIN. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "TiiE SHEAF," the first piece of this collection, was written 
 while the author was working in the wheat fields of Clay Co., 
 and was accidentally preserved from the usual fate of his ear 
 lier productions. It suggested the title to this volume, and 
 was therefore given the post of honor. The Prophet s Ap 
 peal," which commences on the second page, was published 
 in 1877, when the author was sixteen years old. If a strict 
 chronological arrangement had been followed it would have 
 been placed first, followed by " The Sheaf," " The Prairie 
 Fire," "Defeated," and " Thanksgiving," in the order named. 
 The greater part of his literary work during his eighteenth 
 year, so far as preserved, will be found in the first part of this 
 book. 
 
 " The Prairie Fire " was suggested by seeing a young man, 
 armed with a match, start an extensive conflagration. " By 
 the River in Winter " describes a valley of the Buffalo River 
 in Clay County, where the trees, unlike those of Minnesota gen 
 erally, really looked like "pillars." large, straight and up 
 right, and the " beaver stumps " were abundant. The small 
 stream, at this point, rushing down from the uplands to the 
 valley, is pure, winding, well shaded and otherwise attractive, 
 and had its full share in awakening the poetic sensibilities 
 of the city boy who had so suddenly found himself in this n<>\v 
 world of nature and freedom. For him it was a life full of 
 health to body and mind. He grew rapidly, and expanded in 
 every way leading continually to the sad thought of "what 
 -J might have been " could he have remained there. 
 
 / 
 
 S6S814 
 
iv IN Tn OD UCTION. 
 
 As previously announced, LUTHER OSMOKN, Esq., of the 
 Glyndon Newt>, whose acquaintance with the deceased ren 
 dered him, in great measure, independent of other sources of 
 information, consented to prepare the " suitable biographical 
 memoirs," which are generally appropriate in such cases, and 
 seemed to be demanded in this. Mr. Osborn s paper contains 
 a note which says, Biographical Sketch would be a misno 
 mer; call this a MEMORY LEAF. You will prepare the Intro 
 duction." It being too late to make other arrangements, I find 
 it convenient to use Mr. Osborn s very acceptable contribution 
 as a part of this introductory chapter. 
 
 MEMORY LEAF. 
 
 I count it a strange, sad joy to write a preface to the works 
 of George Castle Rankin. In this case I cannot claim to be 
 an impartial friend or critic but partiality for the dead is safe, 
 and may be praiseworthy. I warmly admired his graces and 
 gifts, and fervently thank God for the gift of grace that lighted 
 up his last year with the one thing needful to poet or artist 
 strength or beauty. I plead guilty to an enthusiasm for my 
 youthful friend and the work of his fancy, whose color is 
 heightened by remembering what hand I had in bringing 
 him before men as a verse-writer. Readers of this book are 
 entitled to know this my bias, and may make the most of it. 
 
 A rare acquaintanceship with the father of young Rankin, 
 begun at Minneapolis in 1876, was the way I came to know 
 him at fifteen years a shy youth, gentle to femininity, im 
 pressing me not strongly so much as strangely among printing- 
 office associates. Brought together but casually until 1878, to 
 me he was during those two years only the elder son of his 
 father, my friend. Then Providence brought me to Clay 
 County, where I founded a newspaper and met George again , 
 
INTRODUCTION. v 
 
 u young country schoolmaster and farm worker. lie entered 
 my new printing office in Glyndon, and likewise became a 
 member of my household. For almost a year that he was with 
 me, in humble labors, at meagre compensation, I never quite 
 solved the problem of his industrial status : in all the daily 
 grime of types and smear of ink, there was a refinement of 
 spirit, a gentle individuality, and an unconscious self-assertion 
 so allied to faithful duty-doing as to keep it ever an open ques 
 tion whether we were master and apprentice so much as learn 
 ers of each other myself generally at the foot! I had had 
 hints of his blossoming powers as an artist in rhyming, not 
 clear enough to make my first requests imperative in regard to 
 his writing for the yews. He was coy indeed. But after two 
 months, when November was closing and expectation had 
 lulled, a bit of MS. on my desk rewarded my effort and wait 
 ing. The production is here given as " Thanksgiving" ; and I 
 remember with what peculiar relish it came for that festival 
 week s i?sue of the yews, whose leading editorial utterance 
 had a certain sombreness which some of the paper s good 
 friends were pleased to say was doleful ! Possibly George s 
 author courage had been helped to the sticking point by my 
 reprinting the week before from the Collegian, of Granville, 
 Ohio, "The Prairie Fire," which was the second in order of 
 his poems that had seen print. There followed, written for the 
 News, the " Scourge of the South," in the 78 day of yellow 
 fever relief; " The Old Year," a watch-night production; and 
 later in the winter " By the River" appeared. At this came a 
 bree/e of interest that showed his writing was claiming neigh 
 borhood attention, at least. One of many straws that showed 
 the way this breeze was blowing was a whispered asking of 
 me one day, by a generous patron and good critic, if George 
 did really write that piece ! His contributions to the News 
 did not cease with his return to Minneapolis, in 1879, 
 
vi I \TIIODUCTION. 
 
 though they always merited the wider and more enduring 
 audience which his death and this volume unite to give them. 
 
 It was notable, as 1870 and 1880 went on, how his writings 
 gathered maturity and strength. I instance the poem on 
 "Solitude," published August, 1880. Others appeared in other 
 prints, some of them never yet seen by me, which is also true 
 of the larger number left by him in manuscript only. This 
 writing purports to give a mere fragmentaiy view of his works 
 but my faith is implicit that a careful perusal of all these pages 
 will call from the candid reader and lover of poetry a tribute 
 of praise beside which my own shall seem tame indeed. 
 
 His was no reckless muse. Nature s generous gifts to him 
 stopped short of sinful prodigality. His rare power of ex 
 pression had not the sort of ease which would make it cheap. 
 George Kankin could always find gold, but he dug for it; and 
 he believed in getting it whether it lay in the placer or the 
 rock. Only right words are the faithful servants of poetic 
 thought; he believed in trained servants. I have known of 
 his patient brooding over a word or a phrase that the gold he 
 found might be refined gold; he fashioned his muse with the 
 art instinct and conscience as ministering spirits to his divine 
 gift. He observed, read, and at his age wrought to wonderful 
 purpose. The boy of fifteen was familiar with Shakespeare, 
 Longfellow, and other masters of the past and present. He 
 had never had the drill of the text-book in grammar or rhe 
 toric ; two years comprised all his school days. He was of a 
 sedate turn ; in mixed social throngs he would be classed gen 
 erally among the retiring ones, and by his associates, as pe 
 culiar. Truth was, he moved in a maze at the common small- 
 talk of such gatherings ; but in the quieter home circle his 
 companionship was most genial, his conversation receptive 
 and stimulating. Sober, indeed, but this soberness the calm 
 
/ y TE OD UCTION. v ii 
 
 hope of one who had early solved much of life s serious ta.sk 
 and written Peace for the end thereof. 
 
 During the years of his writing he was a. toiler with his 
 hands for a livelihood, a compositor in Minneapolis printing 
 offices. His versifying \vas in hours of leisure if leisure 
 ever comes to such souls. His devotion to "Mother" was of 
 rare degree and beautiful ; the full fruit of its lavish return 
 cannot be measured. For nil the house he was an inspiration, 
 in cheery presence, or sunny letters when absent. His verses 
 afford a taste of his nature his love of field, wood and stream 
 at all seasons ; open-air activities were a delight, and we may 
 run and read how bountifully he brought back sheaves for our 
 mutual rejoicing. 
 
 A burning fever marked out his way to final rest just as the 
 open door of legal manhood was readied. I read a lesson in 
 this life which found an end in its beginning, like that in the 
 storv of the walk to Emmaus ; and to-day do not our hearts 
 ache and burn within us with a precious sense of loss which 
 those who loved and were loved by him may, if they will, 
 make a divine presence with them always, even to the end of 
 tbe world ! 
 
 O vanished friend, till now we had not known thee, 
 80 sightless man midst light that Heaven doth give, 
 
 Praise waits on tears ; thou rt glorified and free, 
 Who, dying, hast begun to live ! 
 
 LUTHER OSBOKX. 
 GLYNDON, Minn. 
 
 "Little Nell " was among the latest of*his productions, and 
 one over which he lingered lovingly. " Minnetonka " was the 
 result of his only holiday trip over the waters of that beautiful 
 lake. "My Father s House" records incidents connected \vitb 
 tbe work of the Young Men s Christian Association in this 
 
viii. INTROV UCTION. 
 
 city, in which he had become deeply interested. His longest 
 poem, "Memories of Christmas," which has been published in 
 pamphlet form, is (with a number of other pieces,) necessarily 
 excluded from this volume. 
 
 In closing these constrained and imperfect references to the 
 work and life of one so dear, I must be permitted for once to 
 speak out more naturally, at least, while saying that Georgie 
 lived the life of moral and literary ejevation which his poems 
 indicate. "St. Valentine" records his ideal of womanhood, 
 his reverence for God is manifest every where. . In these 
 two essentials of a healthy nature his "songs gushed from his 
 heart;" and from the time when, as a boy on the knee, his 
 voice rang out triumphantly while reading or repeating the 
 swelling chorus, "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, even lift 
 them up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall 
 come in," until the end, he could not read what was low in 
 character or expression. His daily conversation was governed 
 by the same love of moral and artistic worth and beauty. To 
 this testify his most intimate associates. And here I may prop 
 erly as well as gratefully acknowledge that this book perhaps 
 owes its existence to the very general and hearty support given 
 to a doubtful enterprise by his fellow craftsmen to whom and 
 to others who have also greatly aided and encouraged me in this 
 strange work, it is a privilege thus to acknowledge obligations. 
 
 On March 7th Georgie started homewards unwell. While 
 wuit.ingfor a friend, he wrote the fragment which occupies the 
 last page of this volume. His illness was the beginning of 
 a severe attack of typhoid fever. From the first the result was 
 feared. He died March 22, 1882, twenty-one and a half years 
 old. Loving life. a,nd looking forward to one of usefulness 
 and honor, he spoke often afid cheerfully of his willingness to 
 exchange life for life. JAMES S. IIANK.IN". 
 
 MINNEAPOLIS, .July 1882. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Page. 
 
 THE SHEAF 
 
 THE PROPHET S APPEAL 2 
 
 THE PRAIRIE FIRE 8 
 
 BY THE RIVER IN WINTER 1 
 
 THE PLOUGH 15 
 
 THANKSGIVING 18 
 
 THE STARS - 21 
 
 COURAGE IN DEATH 22 
 
 A WINTER TWILIGHT 23 
 
 AFTER A SUNSET 25 
 
 THE OLD YEAR 
 
 ONE SONG MORE , 28 
 
 SOLITUDE 32 
 
 THE WIND S SONG 35 
 
 THE LOON 37 
 
 THE PLOUGHMAN 40 
 
 THE WHITE GRAVE 
 
 THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH 
 
 ANGEL OF MERCY ,51 
 
 SONNET A GOOD LIFE 54 
 
 HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK 
 
 ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS 57 
 
 SONG OF COURAGE 59 
 
 THE BIRD OF PASSAGE 62 
 
 ix 
 
x CONTENTS. 
 
 THE TKUE POET 66 
 
 THE WANDEBEE S SONG 70 
 
 THE UNSEEN HARVEST 73 
 
 THE FALLS 77 
 
 DEDICATION FOB A SCBAP-BOOK 81 
 
 LOVE AND DEATH 82 
 
 ST. VALENTINE 83 
 
 THE LAST HOUR 86 
 
 BABY BESSIE 89 
 
 A PBAYEB 91 
 
 THE SNOW FALL . 93 
 
 SONNET THE MOON S ECLIPSE 94 
 
 CABLYLE , 95 
 
 To A YOUNG MAN 99 
 
 THE MILLS A FANCY 101 
 
 VICTOBY IN DEATH 104 
 
 FAME 105 
 
 THE SABBATH 107 
 
 THE FATAL SEARCH 109 
 
 UNWRITTEN POETRY 110 
 
 THE DYING ACTOB 113 
 
 DEFEATED 116 
 
 FLOWERS FROM THE BATTLE-FIELD 119 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF THE LILY 122 
 
 CONSOLATION 123 
 
 THE CYNIC S REVERIE 126 
 
 INNOCENCE 130 
 
 RUPERT ALMAYNE 132 
 
 His SOUL is MABCHING ON " 135 
 
 LINES . . , 140 
 
 AWE 144 
 
 GABFIELD 147 
 
 THROUGH THE GATE . . . 149 
 
C O.\TK\TS. xi 
 
 UNDER THE MOON 154 
 
 IN MEMORIAM . . 157 
 
 MlNNETONKA 161 
 
 MY FATHER S HOUSE 169 
 
 THE SACRED CHAMBER 175 
 
 LITTLE NELL IN THE CHURCH-TOWER 179 
 
 CHRIST S COMPANIONSHIP 182 
 
 SONNET PATIENCE 184 
 
 TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP 185 
 
 LAST WORDS A FRAGMENT . . . . 192 
 
" Kead from some humble poet, 
 Whose songs gushed from his heart, 
 
 As showers from the clouds of summer, 
 Or tears from the eyelids start. 
 
 " Who, through long days of labor, 
 
 And nights devoid of ease, 
 Still heard in his soul the music 
 
 Of wonderful melodies." 
 
 --LONGFELLOW. 
 
THE 
 
 Bind up the sheaf 
 
 Of the bearded gold; 
 Soon falls the leaf, 
 
 And the air grows cold; 
 And Winter comes and will wait for none 
 That sweat with toil in the Autumn sun. 
 
 Bind up the sheaf 
 
 Of thy ripened mind 
 Ere the frost of grief 
 
 Has left behind, 
 
 Ruined and reft, in the fields of the past, 
 The deeds thou hadst purposed to do at last, 
 
 Bind up the sheaf 
 
 Of thy gathered thought; 
 Thy time is brief, 
 
 And thy life is naught 
 If ne er a sheaf of the treasured grain 
 Shall prove thy life not used in vain. 
 1 
 
THE PROPHET S APPEAL. 
 
 In the shadow of the Forest, 
 
 In the dusky realm of evening, 
 
 When the night s approaching footsteps 
 
 Passed along the dim horizon; 
 
 When the sighing of the West-Wind 
 
 Stirred the leaves of oak and maple 
 
 Like the passing of a garment; 
 
 When the massive oak-trees whispered 
 
 In soft music through the solemn 
 
 Dimness of the noble landscape; 
 
 Through the pathways of the Forest, 
 
 Silent as the stars above him, 
 
 Came the prophet, Waukanoga, 
 
 He, the seer of all his people; 
 
 And behind him, dark and noiseless, 
 
 Followed bands of stern-faced warriors. 
 
 Scarce you would have known their coming, 
 
 Had you stood beside the pathway, 
 
THE PROPHETS APPEAL. 
 
 And the rabbit might have listened, 
 All in vain, to catch the footfall 
 Of the warriors in the darkness. 
 
 Through the woodland s hollow silence 
 Passed the prophet, like a shadow, 
 Like a stealthy phantom gliding 
 Through the depths of utter stillness, 
 Utter gloom, and only broken 
 By the murmur of the West- Wind, 
 And a struggling thread of moonlight. 
 
 On the borders of the Forest 
 Paused the seer, and looking Westward, 
 Saw the Moon, the Queen of Darkness, 
 Rising in the paths of Midnight; 
 Saw the shimmering starlight falling, 
 Like a tender benediction, 
 On the bosom of the prairie; 
 Saw the circling hosts of Nature 
 Glitt ring in the blue profoundness. 
 
 Then his heart was moved with passion, 
 And his mind was stirred with visions; 
 
THE PROPHETS APPEAL. 
 
 For the vast abyss of Nature 
 Lifted up his soul to greatness, 
 Caused his mind to gather fullness, 
 And his tongue to utter wisdom. 
 
 O 
 
 By his side the awe-struck warriors 
 Marked the gath ring inspiration, 
 Marked the fire that lit his visage, 
 Saw T his passion and his longing 
 For the infinite of Nature. 
 By his side they stood and waited, 
 More like statues than like humans, 
 For the bursting of the thunder 
 From the lips of the old prophet. 
 
 " Oh, my brothers," spoke the prophet, 
 " Oh, my warriors, oaken-hearted, 
 Men in peace and men in battle, 
 Strong to brave the toils of ambush, 
 Shaped for great and long endurance; 
 It is not through secret ambush, 
 Nor the hardihood of valor. 
 Nor the strength of burning torture, 
 That the Earth shall be made purer. 
 
THE PROPHETS APPEAL. 
 
 It is not through warring counsels, 
 It is not through deeds of bloodshed, 
 *Nor in acts of direful vengeance, 
 That the Earth shall be made fairer. 
 It is not through war unceasing, 
 Bitter, vengeful, full of evil, 
 That men s hearts shall grow to fullness. 
 
 " Do ye love the voiceful forests? 
 Hear them whisper, low and solemn, 
 4 Peace be with you, oh, my brothers! 
 Do ye love the cooling West- Wind? 
 Hear it sighing through the branches, 
 Peace be with you, oh, my brothers! 
 Do ye love great Nature s children? 
 Love the voices of the forest ? 
 Ye can hear them, singing, throbbing. 
 Till their songs are full of meaning, 
 Peace be with you, oh, my brothers! 
 Do ye love the mighty rivers. 
 Leaping o er your precipices, 
 Like a bounding deer, exultant, 
 Flowing smoothly through your valleys, 
 Greenly clad and girt with flowers, 
 
THE PROPHETS APPEAL. 
 
 Mirroring the face of Heaven, 
 In the starry hours of Midnight; 
 Glowing crimson in the sunset, 
 When the fiery track of Daylight 
 Hides the Sun in flaming glory? 
 Ye can hear their wavelets rippling 
 Softly through the quiet valleys; 
 Hear them thunder in the chasms, 
 Peace be with you, oh, my brothers! 
 
 " Thus the myriad tongues of Nature 
 Speak of peace and of forgiveness, 
 Speak of brotherhood and manhood, 
 And the nobleness of friendship. 
 
 " From the grandest seat of Nature 
 Manito the mighty speaketh, 
 He, the Maker and the Father: 
 Peace be with you, oh, my children! 
 Take the gifts that nature gives you, 
 All her boundless wealth of harvests; 
 Follow not the paths of hatred, 
 Hearken not to old traditions 
 Of another generation, 
 
THE PEOPHETS APPEAL. 
 
 And the wrongs your fathers suffered. 
 For the earth must needs grow better; 
 Men must live and grow together, 
 Loving, bearing with each other, 
 Till the destiny of mortals 
 Reaches to a full completion. 
 
 " Will ye stand upon the margin 
 Of the terrible eternal 
 With the blood of men upon you? 
 Will ye grovel in the shallow 
 Mire of hate and vengeful passion, 
 While the white, grand heart of Nature 
 Breathes its love and peace around you? 
 Ye, whose souls should be made nobler 
 By the pureness of her presence; 
 Ye, whose brows should be uplifted 
 Equal unto hers in stature, 
 Will ye be the darkest shadow 
 In the sunlight of her being? " 
 
 Ceased the prophet, and the warriors 
 Stood like statues carved in darkness. 
 Staring out into the moonlight; 
 Stood like monuments of silence, 
 At the doorway of the forest. 
 
THE PRAIRIE FIRE. 
 
 A lithe form rested on its bended knee 
 In the wind-shaken grass, that, like a sea, 
 Surged in long undulations, far and near, 
 A waving ocean, brown and dead and sere. 
 The shadows filled the air, and, far away, 
 A line of fire on the horizon lay. 
 With silent awe I watched the pliant grass 
 Yield, that the footsteps of the wind might pass: 
 Then turned my eyes toward the stooping form 
 That held the germ of a terrific storm. 
 I saw the sparkle of a tiny light 
 Break out against the shadowy face of night; 
 The ready grass caught up the struggling flame, 
 A warning sound, as bursting billows, came; 
 The air grew hot, and with a crackling roar, 
 Like breakers hurled upon a rocky shore, 
 The fire rushed on, a broad and glowing sheet, 
 And left a blackened ruin at my feet ! 
 
 8 
 
THE PRAIRIE FIRE. 
 
 As some fierce, baleful fiend, the burning mass 
 
 Reached out hot arms to seize the trembling grass, 
 
 That withered in its suffocating breath, 
 
 And flung black cinders in the air of death. 
 
 Toward the lighted sky the dragon flung 
 
 The curling points of many a blood-red tongue, 
 
 And sweeping on in wild, tumultuous wrath 
 
 It left behind a smoky, lurid path ! 
 
 Ah, could the almost winged Arabian steed 
 
 Lead that tornado in its fiery speed ? 
 
 Could human power, pursued by such a foe, 
 
 Escape that seething furnace s scorching glow ? 
 
 Doubtful, methinks, were such a fearful race, 
 
 Where Nature s maddest demon holds the chase ! 
 
 For, with relentless, savage fury, sweep 
 
 The waves of fire through grassy oceans deep; 
 
 And, as the gale sweeps chaff from winnowed grain, 
 
 Vanish the grasses on the fire-swept plain. 
 
 Now fainter grows the roar, until it seems 
 
 But the deep murmuring of distant streams; 
 
 The leaping brightness hastens from my sight, 
 
 And leaves to me the fitful gleams of light, 
 
 That, here and there, leap up with pleasant sound, 
 
 And cast a glimmer on the air around ! 
 
10 THE PRAIRIE FIRE. 
 
 Like a burnt city seemed the blazing plain 
 
 Against the sky that frowned with threats of rain, 
 
 As, with reluctant heart, I turned my feet 
 
 To seek the far off city s grassless street, 
 
 Averse to leave the large, mysterious stage 
 
 Where Nature doth enact her scenes from agfe to age. 
 
 o o 
 
BY THE RIVER IN WINTER. 
 
 The river flows through gray, dismantled woods 
 That seem like ruined halls, whose pillars stand 
 Unroofed, sad tokens of the past, strewn round 
 With broken cornices and sculptured leaves 
 And rifted heaps of marble, which the sun 
 Sprinkles with diamonds; there the argent moon 
 At midnight makes the frosty branches gleam 
 With the sparkling sheen, and the small-seeming stars 
 Unite with her their distant rays to make 
 A ghostly splendor in the lonely wood. 
 The mournful winds breathe a perpetual sigh 
 Through all its desolate chambers, and the trees 
 Sob with low voices through the feeble light, 
 As though they mourned the year s voluptuous prime, 
 When every skeleton limb was richlv draped 
 In Summer s green, luxurious foliage, 
 And the high arches of the drooping vine 
 Hung o er the river s warm and open tide. 
 
 11 
 
12 BY THE EIVEE IN WIN TEE. 
 
 No more we hear thy thundering monotone 
 
 Call through the land from morning till the night, 
 
 And from the night till morning; thou art dumb, 
 
 O River, and thy voice is hushed to us, 
 
 But murmurs underneath the solid ice 
 
 A crystal dungeon as a prisoner sings, 
 
 Hoping deliv rance. Thy companions all 
 
 The cunning beaver, he who fells the trees 
 
 Upon thy banks to build his winter home; 
 
 The mink, the otter and the muskrat prowl 
 
 Beneath thy frozen breast. The rabbit s track 
 
 Imprints the crackling snow, as with swift feet 
 
 He flies along the forest s marble floor 
 
 And threads the labyrinth of the hazel-brush, 
 
 Like some white ghost that haunts a ruined home. 
 
 The merciless winds scourge the unsheltered plain 
 With howling blasts, whose maniacal shrieks 
 And sobs and whispers drive the shivering soul 
 To the congenial welcome of the hearth 
 
 O 
 
 To dream of spring. Yet Winter, too, is fair, 
 For soon his madness wanes, and leaves to us 
 The dazzling snow, the radiant atmosphere, 
 An amethystine sea, wherein is felt 
 
BY THE EIVEE IX WINTER. IS 
 
 Reviving health, that makes the pulse of life 
 Beat with new ardor. I remember me 
 Of winter suns that made the level ice 
 Glitter with brilliant prisms, as our feet, 
 Steel-clad and restless, spurned the slipp ry floor 
 With curving stroke. A million diamonds burst 
 From bending willows, as our ringers touched 
 Their laden branches, and the hazel-brush 
 Let fall a silver spray that scattered o er 
 The shining ice. The woods were crystalline, 
 For every withered leaf and fern and blade, 
 And every twig and branch and rugged bough 
 Was laced with frost and set around with gems 
 That took all colors from the shifting light. 
 
 Twas Winter in his mildest, happiest mood, 
 Who sat with awe in those transfigured aisles 
 Of Nature s solemn temple, hung around 
 With jeweled folds of samite drapery! 
 Nor spring nor summer nor the autumn s flush 
 Could equal this! No languid loveliness 
 That with soft luxury invites to sloth 
 The easy flesh and the enchanted mind, 
 But fresh, inspiring beauty, such as sends 
 
14 BY THE RIVER IN WINTER. 
 
 The leaping blood exultant on its course 
 With fervid rapture, and that fills the mind 
 With high enthusiasm of noble thoughts 
 And a diviner yearning. He who stands 
 In Nature s presence, while her lustrous eyes 
 Smile in his own, and feels no passion-thrill 
 Stir in the sluggish recess of his breast, 
 He is not worthy of the stamp she set 
 On his degraded forehead. Bow thy head, 
 And breathe amid this sinless solitude 
 One honest prayer to purify thy creed, 
 And shed a benediction o er thy life! 
 
THE PLOUGH. 
 
 Thou uncouth sceptre of the clown, 
 
 The finger of a just renown 
 
 Shall write more honest glory down 
 
 Upon thy share 
 Than glitters on the costliest crown 
 
 That monarchs wear. 
 
 There s blood upon the purest stone 
 Whose dazzling lustre ever shone 
 Above the grandeur of the throne, 
 
 But thou hast stood 
 Upon the kingly right alone 
 
 Of doing good. 
 
 The world the world is in thy train! 
 Thine empire is the fruitful plain, 
 Thine armies, stately hosts of grain, 
 15 
 
16 THE PLOUGH. 
 
 That soon will rise 
 Magnificent o er thy domain, 
 Neath summer skies. 
 
 Methinks that many millions wait 
 For thee to ope the golden gate 
 Where nature, opulently great, 
 
 Dispenses free 
 The largess of her broad estate 
 
 From sea to sea. 
 
 What though the snow-hung forests weep 
 With icy tears that melt and creep 
 Athwart their dreary winter sleep 
 
 In chilly rain, 
 And pallid silence, cold and deep, 
 
 Wraps hill and plain 
 
 The angel Resurrection broods 
 
 Above the lifeless solitudes, 
 
 And spite of winter s angry moods, 
 
 Still smiling dreams 
 Of emerald prairies, billowy woods 
 
 And dashing streams. 
 
THE PLOUGH. 17 
 
 The vital, spiritual power 
 
 Whose gracious mission is to showe^ 
 
 On mountain pine and timid flower 
 
 A lovely birth 
 Reserves for thee the richest dower 
 
 She has on earth. 
 
 God made a beauty even in toil, 
 A music in the vear s turmoil, 
 A splendor in the harvest s spoil, 
 
 And, let us feel, 
 He stamps upon the very soil 
 
 His awful seal. 
 
 So thou whose lot is cast to plod 
 
 Along the furrows ot the sod, 
 
 Mayst feel the pathway thou hast trod 
 
 A royal one, 
 And that all labor true to God 
 
 Xo man need shun. 
 
THANKSGIVING. 
 
 The sheaves lie thick on Autumn s field, 
 
 And shine like heaps of scattered gold 
 The wealth that Nature first revealed 
 To toiling man of old. 
 
 The rising sun, with flashing blade, 
 
 Has reaped his fading plains on high, 
 And on fair Morning s altar laid 
 The harvest of the sky. 
 
 The clouds are fringed with brilliant dyes, 
 
 The clew lies glistening in the sun, 
 The boundaries of the earth and skies 
 With light seem overrun. 
 
 The rapturous carols of the morn 
 
 That fill the healthful atmosphere, 
 The rustle of the stately corn 
 
 Nodding and beckoning near 
 18 
 
THANKSGIVING. 
 
 The melody and loveliness 
 
 Of Autumn s gay, prophetic prime 
 All these have left their fresh impress, 
 A dream for winter-time ! 
 
 I wonder if yon rugged clown, 
 
 Who dozes by his blazing hearth r 
 Dreams of the Autumn s ripened prime, 
 And thanks the generous earth, 
 
 I wonder if the sounds he heard 
 
 All day among his falling sheaves 
 The cooling breeze, the song of bird, 
 The murmur of the leaves ; 
 
 I wonder if the strange romance 
 
 Of Nature every stalk she rears- 
 The hidden wheel of circumstance 
 
 That moves the fruitful years, 
 
 E er drew him, in some happy hour, 
 
 To see a greater good than gain 
 In all the gifts that God doth shower 
 On Nature s rich domain. 
 
THANKSGIVING. 
 
 Or thinks he, when his fastened bands 
 
 Fall down amongst the prostrate grain. 
 How oft the work of human hands 
 Is done by power of brain? 
 
 And how the progress of the mind, 
 
 The triumph of inventive skill, 
 Leaves labor s heavy cares behind, 
 And wanders where it will. 
 
 The storm that sweeps around thy door 
 
 And shrieks in varied, sudden blast, 
 Is weak to that thy fathers bore 
 To build an honest Past. 
 
 The great achievements of their race, 
 
 The fruit of energy divine, 
 The height of Power s commanding place- 
 Their treasures all are thine. 
 
 Thank God for their recorded days, 
 
 Though ours are blotted o er with crime, 
 
 O 
 
 And add thy tribute to their praise 
 
 Who wrought for future time. 
 
777 A STABS. 
 
 Wear thou the crown they ever wore, 
 
 Virtue and love perhaps austere, 
 But brighter, like their burnished floor, 
 Because twas held so dear. 
 
 THE STARS. 
 
 How tranquilly the legions of the stars, 
 
 On Heaven s blue slopes assembled far and near, 
 Gaze on the face of this unquiet sphere, 
 
 Whose lab ring breast, still chafed by ancient scars, 
 
 Sighs with the pain of Man s perpetual wars ! 
 How softly brilliant, how serenely clear, 
 They meet the eyes whose vision falters here 
 
 Their steadfast smile no gloom, no shadow mars ! 
 
 Oh, could the earth send back as pure a ray 
 
 To greet yon hosts that throng the plains of night ! 
 
 But she sweeps onward o er her dusky way, 
 
 Like some lost wanderer, banished from the light, 
 
 Who sees, where er her farthest footsteps stray, 
 Celestial faces shine from height to height. 
 
COURAGE IN DEATH. 
 
 Pity that man who struggles with his fate, 
 
 For he has lost the ennobling hopes that spring 
 
 From resignation s patient suffering 
 That mood which renders greatness doubly great, 
 Exalts humility to high estate, 
 
 And mingles with the cup life s fortunes bring 
 
 The antidote which deadens all its sting, 
 And turns to sweetness even the dregs of hate. 
 Pity the wretch ! for he s indeed alone 
 
 Whose courage leaves him crouched with abject 
 
 head, 
 While mocking death cuts short the trembling moan 
 
 With the cold poison of despair and dread, 
 And spurns the clod he well may call his own, 
 
 Since its best portion was already dead. 
 
A WINTER TWILIGHT, 
 
 The world s in its shroud, and the gray forests stand 
 Like white-bearded mourners, all tremblingly sighing, 
 And the moan of the wind, like a wail for the dying, 
 
 Sweeps out on the breath of the snow-mantled land. 
 
 The twilight is chilly and ghostly and drear, 
 Like a visible presence of desolate sadness 
 That broods where of late sang the spirit of gladness, 
 
 And summer s rich crown decked the brow of the year. 
 
 Like a palace deserted and stripped of its pride, 
 
 Its hearthstone disdained by the foot of the stranger, 
 While the hearts that once loved it in peace and in 
 danger 
 
 From their birthplace are scattered by time or by tide, 
 
 So the bleak forests seem, of their glory laid bare; 
 Their children have vanished, their singers departed, 
 The voices that once were so sweet and ligfht-hearted 
 
 O 
 
 Have left not an echo to soften the air. 
 
24 A WINTER TWILIGHT. 
 
 Every twig, as it crackles and breaks neatlrmy tread, 
 Seems to mock retrospection and sharply awaken 
 Thoughts akin to a scene so despoiled and forsaken, 
 
 And to startle old voices that speak of the dead. 
 
 But yet, oh, ye forests, your sorrow is brief: 
 
 There s a season for laughter as \vell as for weeping; 
 Your children will rise from the graves where 
 they re sleeping, 
 
 And your singers return with the bud of the leaf. 
 
 The shadow of death whose dark presence is blent 
 With the gloom of the evening s indefinite spaces 
 Is the angel of mercy whose pity embraces 
 
 All life that by Heaven for man s pleasure was sent. 
 
 The angel of life lays her head on his breast, 
 
 To sleep for a time, and the flowers in her tresses 
 Are withered and crushed by the hand that caresses 
 
 The beautiful sleeper, serenely at rest. 
 
 But oh, when she rises in lovely array, 
 
 Our hearts will forget that she ever grew weary 
 And sank to her rest in a refuge so dreary 
 
 To wait for the dawn of the happier day ! 
 
AFTER A SUNSET. 
 
 Thus sinks the life of Genius to its end 
 A moment blazoned on the sky of time 
 In hues of splendor transiently sublime, 
 
 Where all the colors truth and fancy lend 
 
 In a divine transfiguration blend; 
 
 The morning s glow, the noon s effulgent prime, 
 And the bright evening of a genial clime, 
 
 Merged in one glory, like a dream descend. 
 
 But memory s orb, like that undazzling sphere 
 Which hallows night with pure, reflected rays, 
 
 Sheds on the name of him whom we revere 
 The tempered light of more discerning praise, 
 
 And breathes a solemn, holy atmosphere 
 About the silence of our loneliest ways. 
 
THE OLD YEAR. 
 
 A form sits musing in the dark, 
 Watching the fire s exultant spark, 
 And hearing in its murmuring glow 
 The voices of the lonof-asro. 
 
 -r > 
 
 The record of departed days 
 Is flashing from the genial blaze; 
 The shadows of remembered names 
 Flit through the rosy bed of flames. 
 
 E en now, perhaps, their distant souls 
 
 Are dreaming in the living coals, 
 
 Whose sympathetic power extends 
 
 The chord of thought twixt parted friends- 
 
 The chord of love, whereon we play 
 The measures of another day, 
 
THE OLD YEAR. 27 
 
 Half-fearing, lest the mournful song 
 Should bear some note of sin and wrong. 
 
 Who, though immersed in crime and folly, 
 Could e er resist such melancholy ? 
 The touch of time s retreating wings 
 Will rouse his soul to better things ! 
 
 The music of the welcoming spheres 
 That ushers in the hastening years, 
 Sings hope to him who claims his throne. 
 But grief to him who leaves his own. 
 
 The year is going ! oh. my friend, 
 May thy years have a joyous end. 
 But one regret will tinge them all 
 Their evil none can e er recall. 
 
ONE SONG MORE. 
 
 One song more, dear lady, 
 
 One song more, I pray; 
 For you fill my soul with echoes 
 
 That never will die away. 
 
 On his western couch of roses 
 
 The pale day slowly dies, 
 And the valleys are misty with sunlight 
 
 That shines from his fading eyes. 
 
 Sing me a song for his dying, 
 
 And a song for the mourning night, 
 
 Who casts the pall of her shadows 
 Over his eyes of light. 
 
 Sing me a song for the twilight, 
 The twilight grand and dim, 
 
 Who croons to the dreamy landscape 
 Creation s vesper hymn. 
 28 
 
OXK SOXG MO HE. 
 
 The stars encircle his forehead, 
 
 And beneath him the gray world rolls 
 
 With its discord of weeping and laughter, 
 The burdens of restless souls. 
 
 And the wings of my thoughts rush o er me 
 Like the passage of homeward birds, 
 
 And a passion too deep for music 
 Or the rhythm of measured words 
 
 Throbs in my brain like the heart-beat 
 
 Of a spirit so eager and strong 
 I would drown the thirst of my yearning 
 
 In the nectar that fills your song. 
 
 Then sing me another measure, 
 
 The rare, sweet voice I crave 
 Might call a soul from the darkness 
 
 That reaches beyond the grave. 
 
 Tis not the touch of your fingers, 
 
 Wand ring from key to key, 
 Nor the flow of your silken tresses 
 
 That weakens this thought in me. 
 
30 ONE SONG MORE. 
 
 Tis not the fashion of nature 
 That lives in figure or face 
 
 For that is gross in its beauty, 
 But this is divine in its grace. 
 
 Oh, is it you that are singing, 
 
 Or some seraph that stealeth down 
 
 With a song from the fields of Heaven, 
 Veiled in a mantle of brown ? 
 
 Or is it your spirit immortal 
 
 That flutters its wings in your breast, 
 Like a bird that pours from its prison 
 
 The song of its own unrest ? 
 
 Ah, the bird is free from its thralldom, 
 And bursts away on its flight 
 
 And the throb of its pinions exultant 
 Floats back on the listening night. 
 
 Nearer the gates of Heaven ! 
 
 o 
 
 Across the gulfs of the dark 
 The music grows fainter and sweeter, 
 Like the voice of a mounting lark, 
 
ONE SONG MORE. 31 
 
 When we stand and listen and wonder 
 
 That so feeble an animate clod 
 Can voice such a rapture of passion 
 
 So near to the glory of God. 
 
 Nearer the gates of Heaven ! 
 
 Nearer to fail ere long, 
 And sink down the spaces of twilight 
 
 On the tremulous chords of the song. 
 
 Weary, but tender and plaintive, 
 It falters with outstretched winsfs, 
 
 O " 
 
 Then nestles down into silence 
 
 From its Heavenward wanderings. 
 
 The bird is hushed into stillness, 
 
 But the seraph still sits in the gloom, 
 
 Dreaming, perhaps, that Heaven 
 Will shine through the quiet room. 
 
 And, lo, the weird sheen of the moonlight 
 
 Creeps through the guardian trees, 
 And drops its mysterious fingers, 
 
 Like a blessing, upon the keys. 
 
SOLITUDE. 
 
 The dews lie couched among the prairie flowers, 
 
 The wind is soft and gentle in its mood. 
 
 Let us go forth; this balmy solitude, 
 Crowned with the halo of the twilight hours, 
 Doth seem to stretch its dusky arms to us 
 
 With a mute passion on its shadowy face. 
 
 There are no memories here, of time or place, 
 To mar our contemplation; it is thus 
 That Nature hallowed the barbarian past, 
 And thus her presence awes us to the last. 
 
 Save where the pheasant, startled from its nest, 
 
 Whirs through the air, and fades against the sky, 
 Or some wild loon upon the water s breast 
 
 Utters its strange and melancholy cry, 
 There is no sound. The stars themselves do seem 
 Intense with silence; there s some spirit here 
 32 
 
SOLITUDE. 
 
 That doth oppress the fancy like a dream 
 A fancied music, heard and yet not heard 
 Or like sad eyes, that speak without a word. 
 
 Methinks there is an eloquence unborn, 
 
 Music divine, and thoughts to stir mankind, 
 That haunt these wilds, but at the touch of morn 
 
 They flee away, like shadows, from the mind. 
 Oh, here Imagination has her throne, 
 
 Circled by stars; her glorious eyes diffuse 
 Mysterious thoughts that turn us from our own, 
 
 And bid us pause to wonder and to muse. 
 We do not know the power that we revere, 
 But worship blindly, feeling that Heaven is near. 
 
 Dost thou love nature ? Tis her hour of prayer. 
 
 From every recess underneath the dome 
 Some breath steals upward through the solemn air, 
 
 Freighted with worship, till it finds a home. 
 The very grass that stirs beneath our feet 
 
 Doth struggle upward to the feet of God, 
 And every flower that makes our pathway sweet 
 
 Doth voice a prayer of nature from the sod. 
 The zephyr chants; the forest s distant sigh 
 Gives back the whisper of its awed reply. 
 
34 SOLITUDE. 
 
 Would it seem strange if this abyss profound, 
 
 Yon orbs of glory and this slumbering sphere, 
 Should swell the stress of spiritual sound 
 
 Across the gulfs of silence to our ear? 
 No, twere not strange; the stillness is so deep 
 
 That it cloth seem as if an angel bent 
 To hearken the divine command to sweep 
 
 The chords of nature s mighty instrument, 
 And wake the throb of those majestic bars 
 That beat the rhythm of the morning stars. 
 
 Sometimes methinks the seraph s fingers sway 
 
 The powerful chords; celestial measures flow 
 From star to star, and, ere they die away, 
 
 An echo wanders to our star below. 
 Such are these yearnings this undying sense 
 
 Of the Immortal echoes of the song 
 That angels sing before Omnipotence, 
 
 And, true as Heaven, they never lead us wrong. 
 Tis we ourselves that lead ourselves astray, 
 While conscience looks to God and points the way 
 
THE WIND S SONG. 
 
 The wind is blowing across the wheat r 
 
 That bows with an endless sigh; 
 Like the rush of a thousand unseen feet 
 The winged air hurries by, 
 
 And it bears a song 
 That is low and long 
 "All things must perish beneath the sky." 
 
 Tis the same old soil, and the selfsame plough 
 
 A O V 
 
 But the harvest is not the same; 
 The field will be shorn that is glorious now 
 With splendor the reaper must claim; 
 The seed and its crown 
 Must all go down 
 To the fruitful darkness from which they came. 
 
 Down to the earth, where the reaper is laid, 
 With his scythe deep buried in rust; 
 86 
 
THE WIND S SONG. 
 
 Where human harvests have long decayed 
 And nations are mingled in dust; 
 
 Where Time bestows 
 
 His blisses and woes, 
 In the hands of Death for Death is just. 
 
 c Seed and harvest harvest and seed " 
 
 This was the chord of the song 
 " The grain must fall with the choking weed, 
 The weak descend with the strong ! 
 For he who reaps 
 Neither slumbers nor sleeps, 
 .And the time ere the harvest is never long." 
 
THE LOON. 
 
 When the shadows encompass the lake 
 
 And the light of the drifting moon 
 Shines clown through the clouds as they, break 
 On the topmost summit of noon, 
 Then I hear the cry of the loon 
 A wild monotonous cry, 
 Floating up to the sky, 
 Where the broken moonbeams glow 
 O er the cavernous rifts of the clouds, 
 Like ghosts that arise in their shrouds, 
 And gaze on the dark below. 
 
 Afar on the wrinkled breast 
 
 Of the tossing and dark expanse 
 
 The loon is lying at rest, 
 
 While the waters around him dance., 
 And he rocks with an eagle glance 
 Swift as the rifle s crack 
 
38 THE LOOS. 
 
 That speeds the ball on its track. 
 Against the glimmering white 
 
 Of the waves as they rise and fall, 
 
 Dimly and that is all 
 His proud form breaks on my sight. 
 
 But his mournful and long halloo, 
 That startles the sheltering dark, 
 Bethinks me of one whom I knew 
 Who bore Cain s murderous mark. 
 Long years ago he returned 
 To the home where his hearth-fires burned, 
 A fugitive branded with crime; 
 
 And he prayed by these waters for peace, 
 And sought by their stillness release 
 From the pitiless mockings of Time ! 
 
 But ever the cry of the loon 
 
 Rang strange and mad in his ears 
 Like a curse on his prayer-sought boon, 
 Like a wailing out of the years ! 
 And when the angry spheres 
 
 Were hid from his fevered view, 
 The loon s unearthly halloo, 
 
THE LOON. 39 
 
 Like the cry of one calling in vain, 
 
 Smote on his soul like lead, 
 
 And brought to his sleepless bed 
 Old spectres to madden his brain. 
 
 So, maddening slowly, he walked 
 
 With a tottering tread on the shore, 
 And ever beside him stalked 
 The ghosts of the years before, 
 While the loon s wild chorus bore 
 The awful burden of crime, 
 A sad funereal chime, 
 To the hoarse lament of remorse; 
 And there, on a sunny day, 
 Where in boyhood he loved to play, 
 They found him, a dripping corse ! 
 
THE PLOUGHMAN. 
 
 The plough is sheathed in the cloven sod 
 
 At the edge of an upheaved sea of loam ; 
 The prairie sleeps with a languid nod, 
 
 The wild fowl call from their journey home; 
 And, sinking slow 
 To the fields below, 
 They stalk like sentinels to and fro. 
 
 But the ploughman bends to his violin 
 
 On the threshold grass at his moonlit door, 
 While the spirit, music, flits out and in, 
 As the master wand glides softly o er 
 The fragile cell 
 Where she comes to dwell 
 At the talisman touch she knows so well. 
 
 The partridge slips through the sheltering grass, 
 And stealthily lifts its neck to hear; 
 
 40 
 
THE PLOUGHMAN. 41 
 
 The bittern stares from the rank morass, 
 And the hare leaps up with a wakeful ear; 
 The wolf looks away 
 From the scent of his prey, 
 And listens a moment as if at bay. 
 
 But the player sits in the humble spot 
 
 At the feet of the silence roofed o er by stars; 
 The night is lonely, but he is not, 
 
 For a world breathes out from the quivering bars, 
 And every sound 
 Is hallowed and crowned 
 By the peopled heart of the bright profound. 
 
 Who scorns this man for his rugged task ? 
 
 A human soul is a monarch s peer, 
 And vainly power might stoop to ask 
 
 For the peace and the glory that mingle here. 
 Pleasure s the meed 
 Of an honest deed 
 And only springs from its natural seed. 
 
 When the sceptre falls from the monarch s hand, 
 And the ploughman quits his rusting share; 
 
42 THE PLOUGHMAN. 
 
 When both go down at the same command, 
 To earth s last kingdom, and slumber there, 
 
 Then we may know 
 
 How great or low 
 Is the spirit unmasked of mortal show. 
 
 Oh, ploughman, sitting so far alone, 
 Circled by endless wilds of space, 
 Thy bow is a sceptre, thy seat a throne, 
 And thou a king with a kingly grace; 
 For, after all, 
 The master and thrall 
 Within themselves survive or fall. 
 
THE WHITE GRAVE. 
 
 " Fierce howls the storm s increasing blast 
 Along the frozen plains of white; 
 
 The drifting snow is whirled and cast 
 Full in the groaning face of night. 
 
 * l Scarce can yon glimmering woods be seen 
 Betwixt the columns of the snow; 
 
 Lone wandering here when woods are green, 
 Your reckless feet astray might go. 
 
 " But hard it is for men to bear 
 
 The scourge of Winter, furious king, 
 
 And feel the poniard of the air 
 
 Pierce the pale flesh with quiv ring sting !" 
 
 He turned the glow was on his cheek 
 That ripens in our Northern air 
 
 "I do not fear the storm-wind s shriek," 
 
 He laughed to those who warned him there. 
 43 
 
44 THE WHITE GRAVE. 
 
 He plunged into the outer world, 
 
 With pleasant fire-side memories warm; 
 
 The sheeted snow around him whirled 
 The ghostly garments of the storm ! 
 
 The moon let fall a frozen ray 
 
 That chilled him with its icy breath, 
 
 And led him on his shifting way 
 To meet the spectral face of Death. 
 
 The merciless winds against him beat 
 
 With hollow groans and shivering sighs, 
 
 Until his snow-bewildered feet 
 
 Seemed driven by the reeling skies. 
 
 And then he felt across his life 
 
 A sharp and bitter anguish come 
 Like the slow drawing of a knife 
 
 His face grew white, his limbs grew numb I 
 
 He turned with tottering steps to seek 
 The shelter of a roof once more 
 
 But the hoarse wind s demoniac shriek 
 Laughed him to scorn with fitful roar. 
 
THE WHITE GEA VE. 45 
 
 Some spirit on the mad wind laughed 
 
 Above him as he tottered slow, 
 Whose hand let fall a stinging shaft 
 
 That laid the trembling wanderer low. 
 
 And now what lethargy of sleep 
 
 Through all his helpless being went ? 
 
 What dreamy thoughts would o er him creep, 
 What far-off memories round him bent? 
 
 What shadowy visions, hopes and fears. 
 Confused his deathly slumber then ? 
 
 What broken purposes of years, 
 And voices of his fellow-men ? 
 
 We know not but the storm- wind swept, 
 With mournful whispers, dull and low, 
 
 And heaped above him where he slept 
 A marble monument of snow. 
 
 And there, when Spring had calmed the sky, 
 Around him tramrjed the wondering herds, 
 
 While caroled as in days gone by 
 The liquid warblings of the birds. 
 
THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 A voice from the wasted South ! 
 A cry from destruction s mouth ! 
 And from a ghastly drouth 
 
 Of human existence. 
 Sits she all desolate, 
 For, from Death s yawning gate, 
 Rolled the simoon of fate, 
 
 Mocking resistance ! 
 
 Bright smiled Youth s dancing eye 
 To the responsive sky; 
 Womanhood, bending nigh, 
 
 Thrilled him with passion ! 
 Manhood, with lofty head, 
 Age, with his feeble tread, 
 Girlhood, with locks wide spread 
 
 In Nature s sweet fashion 
 46 
 
THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH. 4T 
 
 These Death regarded not; 
 Naught was a holy spot; 
 Palace nor simple cot 
 
 Lured him to pity ! 
 But, with exultant yell, 
 Straight from the depths of hell, 
 With his black legions, fell 
 
 On the gay city ! 
 
 He had no mercy then, 
 But, from his poisonous fen, 
 Breathed his hot breath on men 
 
 A dread exhalation ! 
 Not the wild mother s prayer, 
 Moaned in her crushed despair, 
 Moved the stern fiend forbear 
 
 His mad desecration ! 
 
 Light foot and dancing eve, 
 Lips that ne er breathed a sigh r 
 All in the dust they lie, 
 Doomed without warning ! 
 Weep for both youth and age,. 
 Weep for the stricken sage, 
 
THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Weep, for Death casts the gage, 
 Hurls it with scorning ! 
 
 Grim on Wealth s perfumed show, 
 And on the haunts of Woe, 
 Frowned the impartial foe, 
 
 Frowned with harsh laughter. 
 " Gemmed hand and wrinkled brow 
 Ye are both equal now ! 
 In my still halls below 
 
 Rest ye hereafter !" 
 
 Forth from the pleasant hearth, 
 Down to the cells of earth, 
 Dear love and manly worth 
 
 Went w T ith blind weeping. 
 Over the threshold stone 
 W ent the last living one 
 Out in the world alone, 
 
 Far from their sleeping. 
 
 " Aid ! oh, my brothers, aid ! " 
 So -the pale Southland prayed, 
 " Horror s increasing shade 
 
THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH. 49 
 
 Broods o er my nation ! 
 Stretch forth your hands, I pray. 
 Bring us health s balmy ray, 
 Drive from the frightened day 
 
 Dark desolation. 
 
 " Hear ye my children weep. 
 As the night-watch they keep 
 Where demon-shadows creep 
 
 With beck ning finger ? 
 Day is like fearful night 
 Unto their darkened sight, 
 >S mitten in gloom and light ! 
 
 Death will not linger." 
 
 Hail to the Northern land ! 
 
 She hath stretched forth her hand; 
 
 She the divine command 
 
 Hears not unmoving. 
 Smitten with foul disease 
 Her noble sons she sees! 
 Little Death cared for these, 
 
 Steadfast and loving. 
 
50 THE SCOURGE OF THE SOUTH. 
 
 Heroes were they who died 
 By the doomed wretch s side, 
 In the dim halls of pride, 
 
 Or with the lowly. 
 Greater praise none can crave 
 Than that his life he gave, 
 Others to reach and save 
 
 Such death is holv. 
 
ANGEL OF MERCY. 
 
 TO THE MEN AND WOMEN WHO GAVE THEMSELVES 
 TO SAVE THE YELLOW FEVER SUFFERERS. 
 
 Oh, Death, thou dread and stealthy foe 
 Of all the hapless human race, 
 What heroes sprang to thy embrace 
 
 In hitter wars of long ago ! 
 
 What martyrs left the gliding plow 
 And fell beneath thine iron touch ! 
 Oh, earth has many more of such 
 
 To hallow life with glory now ! 
 
 Not they alone whose cold blades runo- 
 
 *> 
 
 Stern chorus to their martial strains, 
 Should bear the palm that courage gains, 
 And live in paans fame has sung. 
 51 
 
52 ANGEL OF MERCY. 
 
 Reveal, oh, Death, what fearless souls 
 Have braved thee in the Southern land, 
 And, followed by thy secret hand, 
 
 Have trod the fever s deadly coals; 
 
 Within the shadow of the tomb 
 What faces glow with halo light ! 
 What buds that terror could not blight 
 
 Have burst into a sudden bloom ! 
 
 Oh, saintly women, ye who bend 
 Above the dying sufferer s bed, 
 With soothing touch and silent tread 
 
 And patience steadfast to the end, 
 
 We little, know what lingering trace 
 Of Heaven this sensual world conceals 
 Till dark affliction s hand reveals 
 
 The kindred feelings of the race. 
 
 Ye teach us, what \ve oft forget, 
 That sympathy s electric wnre 
 Can bear the heart s magnetic rire 
 
 TV) warm the blood of nations yet. 
 
ANGEL OF MERCY. 53 
 
 Though we are only dust and shade, 
 
 Yet there is still a spark divine 
 
 To blossom into flame and shine 
 Above the ruins we have made 
 
 A light to show us what we are, 
 
 And what our brothers are to us, 
 
 And give a sweeter meaning thus 
 To what were else but soulless jar. 
 
 Oh, heroines of a later time, 
 
 We, knowing what your hands have done, 
 
 Would lift our voices up as one 
 In praise of what we hold sublime. 
 
 Oh, braver men than they who dip 
 Their swords into a foeman s blood, 
 To clasp your hands in brotherhood, 
 
 Were a divine companionship. 
 
SONNET A GOOD LIFE. 
 
 As one who seeks a hushed and pleasant room, 
 Weary of multitudinous cares that fret 
 To-morrow s promise with to-day s regret, 
 
 And feels the mingled souls of flowers in bloom 
 
 Comfort his senses with a vague perfume, 
 So in the chamber of a life where yet 
 Heaven s beauty glows un withered, we forget 
 
 The outer world s severity and g4oom. 
 
 Such lives are types of Paradise; we see 
 In them the possibilities of earth, 
 
 And the assurance of a time to be, 
 
 When every spirit, measured by the worth 
 
 Of its existence, shall in that degree 
 Achieve the glory of celestial birth. 
 
HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK. 
 
 Oh, strange and melancholy form 
 
 Haunting the imaginative sphere 
 Wherein half-human phantasms swarm, 
 
 Like ghosts of thoughts that wander here, 
 What art thou but the very twin 
 
 And shadow of our saddest part, 
 A picture of the doubt and sin 
 
 And madness of the earthly heart? 
 
 As if thou wert of kindred flesh. 
 
 Thine every mood interprets ours, 
 And all our actions prove afresh 
 
 Thy darkly philosophic powers; 
 Thou hast a lodge in every mind 
 
 Where flits the intellectual throng 
 Whose omnipresent footsteps find 
 
 An entrance by the poet s song. 
 55 
 
56 HAMLET, PEINCE OF DENMARK. 
 
 If them wert mad, all men are so 
 
 Who deem this life of little worth; 
 The gloom that crowned thee long ago 
 
 Is not yet lifted from the earth; 
 Still hypocrites will mask deceit, 
 
 Still love is but a secret pain, 
 And fools, for some delusive sweet, 
 
 Will dare an everlasting pain. 
 
 The puzzle vast and complicate 
 
 Which ravels all the world s affairs, 
 The maze of love and pride and hate, 
 
 The conflict of beleaguering cares, 
 All are unsolved as much as when 
 
 Thou hadst been wont to brood them o er 
 Wand ring apart from gayer men 
 
 Among the halls of Elsinore. 
 
 O 
 
ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 He is no Christian in his deeds 
 
 Who slays in wantonness of power 
 The weakest life whose tiny needs 
 
 Betray it in a fatal hour; 
 Who blots from time the humblest share 
 
 Of that abundant life which throngs 
 The free domains of earth and air, 
 
 But has no voice to plead its wrongs. 
 
 Oh, ye who scornfully regard 
 
 A helpless creature s dumb appeal, 
 Were not your fate unjustly hard 
 
 If that great power to whom ye kneel 
 Should spurn your sorrow when ye pray, 
 
 And thrust you from the world, to be 
 A jest for fiends to drift away, 
 
 A wreck upon Oblivion s sea ? 
 57 
 
58 ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS. 
 
 Has God created life for naught, 
 
 That ye should trample under foot 
 The seal of his creative thought, 
 
 Stamped on the lowliest, feehlest brute ? 
 When ye remember what ye are, 
 
 How low in the Immortal eyes, 
 No creature on this sinful star 
 
 Scems meet for mortals to despise. 
 
 No ! by that mercy which delays 
 
 To judge your folly or your vice 
 By that one star whose gracious rays 
 
 Still point you back to Paradise 
 Be merciful; stoop not to break 
 
 The cup of life, however frail, 
 Lest every ruin that you make 
 
 Should cause in you some good to fail. 
 
SONG OF COURAGE. 
 
 Few are the souls that never feel 
 Their baffled courage faint and reel, 
 Dragged by an iron weight of care, 
 And sickened with a keen despair ! 
 
 Few are the souls that never bend 
 Above the bier of pallid Hope, 
 
 Deeming that hence all strife must end, 
 And blind ambition cease to grope. 
 
 Overmastered by its cankering w r oe, 
 That soul sinks tremblingly and low, 
 Content, upon Oblivion s shore, 
 To rest to sleep to be no more. 
 
 Oh, shall that prostrate spirit rise, 
 Awakened from its piteous trance, 
 
 To look in Disappointment s eyes. 
 
 And meet the world s unfriendly glance ? 
 59 
 
60 SONG OF COURAGE. 
 
 Ay, fallen spirit, lift thy head 
 Hope does but sleep; she is not dead; 
 For, neath her wearied lashes lies 
 The magic brightness of her eyes ! 
 
 Arise ! wilt thou be overthrown, 
 And leave thy purpose unfulfilled, 
 
 Like one who leaves a base of stone 
 
 Where some great dome he meant to build ? 
 
 There is no depth where thou canst flee 
 But thy regret will follow thee, 
 And round thy barren pathway cast 
 The taunting shadows of the past. 
 
 Oh, do not think on what thou art, 
 But what thou canst be, if thou wilt ! 
 
 The boldest has an anxious heart, 
 But cowardice is kin to guilt. 
 
 Dim not with tears the rays that fire 
 The golden crown of thy desire ; 
 Like quenchless beacons still they shine 
 From jewels that may yet be thine. 
 
SOXG- OF COURAGE. 61 
 
 Thy friends may pity, foes may sneer, 
 
 But heed them not; if thou prevail, 
 The voice of praise will woo thine ear, 
 
 But few will reck, if thou shouldst fail. 
 
 Thyself must win, thyself must wear, 
 The gems of wealth, or thorns of care; 
 Thyself must drink the dregs of shame, 
 Or quaff the precious wine of fame. 
 
 Oh, while thou hast the vital breath 
 
 That shields thee from the thrust of Death, 
 
 To none but these thy victory owe : 
 
 Thv God above, thyself below ! 
 
THE BIRD OF PASSAGE. 
 
 All day have thy long pinions beat 
 
 The illimitable .seas of light; 
 
 All day, from that aerial height 
 Thine eyes have scanned the fields of wheat 
 
 That gleam beneath thy homeward flight. 
 
 Sometimes thy watchful eyes have seen 
 Cities where many a lessened spire 
 Shines like a point of diamond fire 
 
 To mark the leagues that lie between 
 Thee and the land of thy desire. 
 
 The sunrise pales across thy track, 
 . And fades into the noon-dav elare: 
 
 J O 
 
 The sunset fires suffuse the air, 
 And night s long draperies of black 
 Fold in the distance everywhere. 
 
THE BIED OF PASSAGE. 63 
 
 Now mayst thou rest, descending low 
 Among the slender reeds that shake 
 Along the margin of the lake, 
 
 Fretted by vagrant winds that blow 
 Their idle whispers through the brake. 
 
 Oh, Fancy s wings are strong as thine! 
 
 With thee she flies, she rests with thee. 
 
 And waits beside the lake to see 
 The tardy moon arise and shine 
 
 Across the wide, unsheltered lea. 
 
 The silver circlet on her brow 
 
 Lights the dark-curtained halls of space, 
 And drives the shades from place to place, 
 
 While the dim hills in silence bow 
 Before the splendor of her face. 
 
 Across the prairie, slope by slope, 
 Where rich, luxurious grasses sweep 
 Their surging waves down hollows deep, 
 
 The silver-footed moonbeams grope 
 And kiss them in their restless sleep. 
 
THE BIED OF PASSAGE. 
 
 Among the reeds the moonbeams twine 
 Their fingers of ethereal white, 
 And glimmering spots of argent light 
 
 Deep in the wrinkled water shine, 
 Like jewels from the crown of night. 
 
 The queenly orb, ascending slow 
 
 Her star-strewn pathway up the skv, 
 Drops from the glittering depths on high 
 
 Her image to the depths below, 
 In liquid glory there to lie. 
 
 Sleep, wanderer of the atmosphere ! 
 Sleep, while the stealthy wavelets roll 
 Across this broken silver bowl, 
 
 That lights the waters rippling near 
 With night s irradiating soul. 
 
 Sleep, ere the pale dawn s noiseless robe 
 Drags through the dew its skirts of gray 
 To make a pathway for the day 
 
 Across the dusky, slumbering globe, 
 And light thee on thy homeward vvav. 
 
THE BIRD OF PASSAGE. 65 
 
 Oh, may that Power whose presence fills 
 This glorious vault from earth to dome, 
 Guard all who sleep and all who roam, 
 
 And o er the everlasting hills 
 
 Guide every wandering spirit home. 
 
THE TRUE POET. 
 
 The truest poet is the bard 
 
 Who sings for others one who finds 
 
 A balm to solace aching minds, 
 Though he himself be evil-starred. 
 
 He sings not to himself alone, 
 Like one who looks into a glass 
 
 To view his tears and cry, "Alas, 
 
 That I such mournful hours have known !" 
 
 There are a million hearts that bleed, 
 But have no voice to tell their woe; 
 And tears in secret rivers flow, 
 
 Making no sound for love to heed. 
 
 To him the right divine belongs 
 To crown affliction, and to fill 
 The hearts that suffer and are still, 
 
 With the sweet friendship of his songs. 
 
 66 
 
THE TRUE POET. 67 
 
 His presence fills a myriad souls, 
 
 Though he himself be far from them; 
 Though they but touch his garment s hem 
 
 His power moves in them, and controls. 
 
 They know his voice; it has a tone 
 That seems familiar to their thought 
 As if his truthful heart had caught 
 
 A sense of passion from their own. 
 
 Their struggling feelings find a vent 
 
 In his rich eloquence of pen; 
 
 For they are but his fellow men, 
 And he their brother, w T ell content. 
 
 He does not choose to walk apart, 
 
 With some few worshippers that bow 
 Whene er he lifts his drooping brow 
 
 To tell some fancy in his heart. 
 
 Where er the people toil or pray, 
 
 He stands with sympathetic mind, 
 
 And reads the poem of mankind 
 In reverent mood from day to clay. 
 
68 THE TRUE POET. 
 
 He lingers not by tinkling rills 
 
 And silver fountain-spray of song, 
 But by that ocean, vast and strong, 
 
 Of human joys and human ills 
 
 That ocean, whose impetuous tide 
 Surges and flows forevermore 
 Against the strange and silent shore 
 
 From whence no echo e er replied. 
 
 His song repeats the ebb and swell 
 
 That breaks qn time s unyielding beach, 
 As when the winds and waters teach 
 
 Their music to an ocean-shell. 
 
 Song is his passion and his care; 
 
 In it he lives, with it he dies; 
 
 Winged by its power, he hopes to rise 
 Beyond success, beyond despair, 
 
 To those sublimer hills whereof 
 
 He sings on earth, and wand ring there, 
 To breathe with Heaven s ethereal air 
 
 The perfect harmony of love. 
 
THE TRUE POET. 69 
 
 When sinks the monarch from his throne 
 To mingle with the dust of earth, 
 The power that gave his greatness birth 
 
 Dies with him twas his name alone. 
 
 But thou, interpreter of meek 
 
 And voiceless souls, when dies away 
 The fire that lit thy honored clay 
 
 And warmed thy heart to feel and speak, 
 
 In every mind and every heart, 
 
 In every flower, and every breath, 
 In storm and sun, in life and death, 
 
 Thy spirit will outlive thine art. 
 
 The treasured words that thou hast said, 
 Like seeds wide scattered from thy hand, 
 Will blossom rich in every land, 
 
 Perpetual blessings from the dead. 
 
THE WANDERER S SONG. 
 
 I have wandered through many a land in my time, 
 Seen many a sight that was famous and strange; 
 
 The glory of kings in the height of their prime, 
 The wrecks of ambition, the triumphs of change; 
 
 The prince in his palace, the clown in his cot, 
 The priest and the soldier, the lover and lass, 
 
 The singers of earth who have brightened our lot, 
 And the poets whose names are recorded on brass; 
 
 I have heard the long thunders of eloquence roll, 
 
 With the din of applause sounding up on their track, 
 
 When the heavenward wings of a fiery soul 
 Beat up to the stars and swept gracefully back; 
 
 I have drunk from the chalice that scholars bestow, 
 The lore of the stars, and the secrets of earth; 
 
 At the shrines of the world I have bended me low, 
 At the footstool of genius, honor and worth. 
 
 70 
 
THE WANDEEEE\S SONG. 71 
 
 But wherever mv feet have been prompted to roam, 
 Through the temples of art, o er the plains of the 
 West, 
 
 In the din of the world, or the quiet of home, 
 
 I have found that one passion o ermasters the rest. 
 
 Tis the life of all life, and the balm for all care: 
 r Tis the angel that lightens the toil of the slave; 
 Tis the lamp of the wise and the crown of the fair, 
 And the beacon that brightens the dream of the brave. 
 
 Tis the burden of song and the genius of art, 
 The meed of devotion, the watchword of Truth, 
 
 The power that finds voice in the lowliest heart, 
 In the wrinkles of age and the blushes of youth. 
 
 One halo of sympathy girdles the earth, 
 
 That will never grow dim till her death-doom of 
 
 flame. 
 From the throne of the king to the cottager s hearth 
 
 The lips of the people re-echo its name. 
 
 A health to dear Love ! In the fountain of song 
 
 We will quafT one rich measure, which she shall 
 inspire. 
 
72 THE WANDERER S SONG. 
 
 A curse on his head who shall do thee a wrong ! 
 The curse of remorse and unsated desire ! 
 
 A health to dear Love ! May her blessing descend 
 On the hearts that recall with a smile and a sigh 
 
 o 
 
 The head that was never too weary to bend 
 
 O er the cradle that rocked to a music gone by. 
 
 We will drink with the world, and the world will reply, 
 Forgetting awhile all its passions in this, 
 
 And remembering only the lip and the eye 
 
 That could sink all delights in a smile or a kiss. 
 
 A health to dear Love ! our first friend and our last : 
 In childhood she guarded; in manhood she charms; 
 
 And at length, when our joys and our sorrows are past, 
 May we sink to our rest in her sheltering arms ! 
 
THE UNSEEN HARVEST. 
 
 " And the song, from beginning to end, 
 I found again in the heart of a friend." 
 
 LONGFELLOW. 
 
 My friend, you sang one happy night 
 A song so full of tenderness 
 That tears which I could not repress 
 
 Came up in mists before my sight. 
 
 You did not know how could you know ? 
 That every sound, like sunlit rain, 
 Cooled the parched garden of my brain, 
 
 For germs of Heaven to live and grow. 
 
 Ah, who on earth can tell how deep 
 The tides of passion flow along ? 
 
 T will need an angel s hand to reap 
 The harvest of one mortal song ! 
 
 73 
 
74 THE UNSEEN HARVEST. 
 
 Your music was a frame of light 
 
 Which held a picture in my breast : 
 
 A woman singing to the night 
 A melody of faith and rest : 
 
 The hands are folded, and the face 
 Is lifted to the sky, as though 
 
 An exile from that glorious place 
 She yearns to leave the gloom below. 
 
 The features have no lovely mould, 
 But yet they seem surpassing fair, 
 
 As if God s presence, as of old, 
 Had shed a ray of glory there. 
 
 Her music has no juggling skill ; 
 
 She sings to Heaven, and not to earth, 
 And every strain steals back to thrill 
 
 The patient heart which gave it birth. 
 
 Sometimes methinks her fingers press 
 This feverish, weary soul of mine 
 
 With the invisible caress 
 Of pity, human, yet divine. 
 
THE UNSEEN HARVEST. 75 
 
 Sometimes, like one who stops to hear 
 
 The warbling of a bird that sings 
 Its vespers in some covert near. 
 
 Ere twilight spreads her brooding wings, 
 
 I listen in the solitude 
 
 And gathering shadows of the mind 
 To learn that psalm of grief subdued, 
 
 That peace whereto we are so blind. 
 
 As one who stands, concealed by night, 
 
 Before some window where a face 
 Smiles from the indoor life and light 
 
 Which shed a splendor round the place : 
 
 So wandering memory sees you then, 
 
 Encircled by the glow of years, 
 And all unknown, bequeaths again 
 
 Her melancholy thanks in tears. 
 
 Ah, not the world s obsequious praise, 
 
 Nor the cold flattery of the tomb, 
 Can sweeten Love s unselfish days 
 
 Or take one shadow from their gloom; 
 
76 THE UNSEEN HARVEST. 
 
 But tis the humbler fame which springs 
 From grateful spirits that can give 
 
 Divinity to mortal things 
 
 And bid a transient action live. 
 
 For he who showers his kindly deeds 
 Sows not alone on earthly sod, 
 
 But scatters with immortal seeds 
 The unseen harvest fields of God. 
 
THE FALLS. 
 
 Here let us pause and listen, 
 
 You are weary of wand ring so long, 
 The city s confusion and discord 
 
 Are hushed to a murmured song, 
 And the hoarse, deep tone of the river 
 
 Rises triumphantly strong. 
 
 Above the brink of the torrent, 
 That plunges down with a roar, 
 
 Like a shattered column of silver 
 Strewn over a shining floor 
 
 The moon s long image lies rippling 
 In splendor from shore to shore. 
 
 The mills, with their ponderous humming, 
 
 And clustered windows of light, 
 Glare out from the clinging shadows 
 
78 THE FALLS. 
 
 That checker their massive height 
 Like giants who watch from their stronghold 
 For the prey they devour in the night. 
 
 But hearken not to their clamor; 
 
 They are but as sounds of a day 
 To the voice that rolls upward forever 
 
 From the cloudy veil of the spray, 
 Crying in prophet-like thunder 
 
 To all who pass by on the way. 
 
 Methinks tis eternity s echo, 
 
 Attuned to a mortal ear ; 
 A symbol of unfelt grandeur 
 
 That is faintly mirrored here ; 
 An earthly revelation 
 
 Of the profounder sphere. 
 
 Ah, how it steals up through the silence 
 
 That it scarcely seems to jar ! 
 As when in some great cathedral, 
 
 Where the holy singers are. 
 The hush that broods over the people 
 
 The music does not mar. 
 
THE FALLS. 
 
 Tis the organist of Nature, 
 Who plays in a solemn key 
 
 The harmony majestic 
 That forever seems to be 
 
 In the moaning of a tempest 
 And the surging of the sea. 
 
 When the contemplative spirit 
 Is wrapped in the starry calm, 
 
 The slumberous chant of the water 
 Floats over the soul like balm, 
 
 With the power and exaltation 
 Of an old Hebraic psalm. 
 
 The Past and the Present and Future 
 Join in the chords sublime, 
 
 And the long reverberations 
 
 That ring through the halls of Time 
 
 Float up the twilight of ages 
 In a melancholy chime. 
 
 Perhaps some curious stranger, 
 
 Pausing where now we stand, 
 W r ill hear in the sounding torrent 
 
80 THE FALLS. 
 
 The speech of a greater land, 
 While the lights of another city 
 Stream downward on every hand. 
 
 And we, who now, like shadows, 
 Glide over the disc of earth, 
 
 Perhaps may come to his fancy 
 Like ghosts to an alien hearth, 
 
 And point him to the cycle 
 Of a perished nation s birth; 
 
 Even as now a phantom 
 
 Of the unhistoric past 
 Points down the long oblivion 
 
 Where centuries gather fast. 
 And we, with our poor achievements, 
 
 Will be forgotten at last. 
 
DEDICATION FOR A SCRAP-BOOK. 
 
 As one who journeys o er a path unknown, 
 
 Through pleasant meadows, where, on either hand, 
 The odorous flowers in brilliant clusters stand, 
 
 And, loth to leave such beauty there alone, 
 
 He plucks some flower, more fragrant, fairer grown, 
 Than all the rest, and, still dissatisfied, 
 He turns his wandering steps from side to side, 
 
 Where starry faces shine by clod and stone ; 
 
 And when the shadows drape the earth in brown, 
 He hastens homeward, bearing, as he goes, 
 
 The dews of Heaven, that softly scatter down 
 To kiss his treasures, and the night-wind blows 
 
 Their freshened odor through the dusty town, 
 As the tired wanderer seeks his deep repose : 
 
 So he who gathers, as he goes along 
 
 The path of life, some flowers of thought and song, 
 
 And bears them with him, though they mav not claim 
 
 The honor due to some illustrious name, 
 
 81 
 
82 LOVE AND DEATH. 
 
 Shall feel their freshness, like some olden tune 
 That warms December with a song of June, 
 And hear their voices ringing through his breast 
 In the dark shadows leading on to rest. 
 
 LOVE AND DEATH. 
 
 " I would that Love were a philosopher," 
 
 That she might clasp the hand of Death and say 
 " Thou art my friend ; I will not mourn, nor pray 
 
 For thee to leave my presence." Then to her 
 
 Would answer Death s black-hooded messenger : 
 " Tis better so ; let us be friends to-day, 
 For thou wilt know, when I am far away, 
 
 That t was an angel sent to minister." 
 
 I would t were so, for then the suffering wight 
 To his last bed in happy mood might creep, 
 
 And hear no sobs of agony and fright 
 
 Break the dread languor of his fatal sleep, 
 
 Nor see dear faces, desolately white, 
 
 Blotted with tears he would not have them weep. 
 
ST. VALENTINE. 
 
 TO 
 
 Oh, lady, if to you there came 
 
 A lover with a humble name, 
 
 Strong in the knighthood of his youth, 
 
 With heart of love and lips of truth, 
 
 What greater tribute could he pay 
 
 Than thus with heartfelt voice to say ? _ 
 
 " You wake in me a nobler thrill 
 
 Of purer thought and gentler will, 
 
 A tenderer manhood, none the less 
 
 Heroic for its tenderness. 
 
 Your fancies, while they please, inspire 
 
 And kindle a divine desire 
 
 A wish to reach the highest good 
 
 That crowns the height of womanhood. 
 
 Your smiles and tears in turn allure 
 
 To be as pure as you are pure." 
 
84 ST. VALENTINE. 
 
 Thus might he say, and not blaspheme 
 The charm of Love s ennobling dream 
 With those wild rhapsodies which praise 
 The beauty born of summer days. 
 What matter though your cheek be fail- 
 As the last glow of sunset air ? 
 What though your eyes were amethyst, 
 Your lips more sweet than lips have kissed ? 
 What though on hand and brow and tress 
 Were stamped a perfect loveliness ? 
 And though your voice had power to woo 
 Seraphic eyes to look on you ? 
 We do not worship gods of stone, 
 Nor trust in loveliness alone. 
 No ! tis the beauty of the soul 
 That sanctifies and crowns the whole, 
 Imparts the grace that men revere, 
 And makes existence doubly clear. 
 
 Oh, lady, when the happy prime 
 Of Youth s delightful summertime 
 Has passed into the riper age 
 That adds to life its holiest page, 
 Mav men look up to you and say 
 
ST. VALENTINE. S 5 
 
 " Her beauty has not passed away ; 
 But every grace of soul or mind, 
 By love or sorrow well refined, 
 Has shed a sacred halo o er 
 Her beauty, purer than before. 
 Her hand is stronger to uphold, 
 Her voice to counsel, than of old. 
 Beside her men grow clean, and thrust 
 Their evil passions into dust ; 
 For, lo ! in her we know and see 
 The flower of women yet to be, 
 Supreme in love, in faith supreme, 
 And strong to conquer and redeem." 
 
THE LAST HOUR. 
 
 Good-bye, old year, good-bye ! 
 The fairy of the lonely night 
 Has draped the woods in frosty lace ; 
 Each branch beneath the glittering sky 
 Is fringed with jewels, silver-white, 
 Transforming e en the dreariest place 
 To an enchanted hall of ice 
 In Winter s crystal Paradise. 
 
 Good-bye, old year, good-bye ! 
 Tis fitting in a spot like this 
 To say the words, and feel the thought 
 Press on our spirits like a kiss 
 From thine invisible lips as though 
 Our listening suspense had caught 
 A sharp, cold breath of silent woe ! 
 86 
 
THE LAST HOUR. 87 
 
 Good-bye, old year, good-bye ! 
 Youth smiles, and lightly bids thee go, 
 But age, remembering, with a sigh, 
 How many a friend has parted so, 
 Looks sadly down the misty past, 
 Through shadows of the years gone by, 
 To watch thee fade from life at last. 
 
 We leave with thee, for good or ill, 
 Our gifts of action all are thine ; 
 But there are thoughts we cherish still 
 That parting makes but more divine ; 
 Memorials of thy greener hours, 
 Bright immortelles that used to shine 
 Amid thy wreaths of earthly flowers. 
 
 There is a voice thou canst not take 
 From out the chambers of the mind ; 
 A face which thou must leave behind; 
 A charm thy sadness cannot break ! 
 Hope, Memory, Love the sisterhood 
 Of deathless thoughts these still remain 
 To write a prophecy of good 
 On every future leaf of pain. 
 
SS THE LAST HOUR. 
 
 Good-bye, old year, good-bye ! 
 As those who soon must follow thee 
 We say the words, and think of how 
 These snowy flowers on shrub and tree 
 Will blossom underneath the stars, 
 In coming winters, e en as now, 
 And the dead grass, like sheeny spars, 
 Bend over many a quiet brow. 
 
 Oh, when in stillness like to this 
 We glide beyond the realm of clay, 
 Be this our praise : that we have left 
 Some fragrant memory of bliss, 
 Some balm of hope to grief bereft, 
 Some light of that celestial day 
 Which parts the spirit from the clod 
 And ushers in the years of God. 
 
BABY BESSIE. 
 
 Wondering eves that laugh and shine 
 With a deep, unshadowed light, 
 
 Is there not a gleam divine 
 
 Lingering in your eyes to-night ? 
 
 Waxen arms that never fold, 
 But forever grope and reach, 
 
 Many hearts have you to hold, 
 But you clasp them, all and each. 
 
 Ruddy lips, that woo a kiss 
 As a blossom courts the sun ; 
 
 Will you be as sweet as this 
 
 When your budding years are done ? 
 
 Tiny feet that dance and toss 
 In a rapturous burst of glee, 
 
 Will your step as lightly cross 
 
 Treacherous snares and learn to flee ? 
 89 
 
BABY BESSIE. 
 
 Helpless fairy, cunning elf, 
 
 Cooing in your mother s arms, 
 
 You are wisdom s truest self, 
 
 You have beauty s native charms. 
 
 Oh, you have some witching art, 
 
 As you nestle, like a dove, 
 Close to that protecting heart, 
 
 With your wordless sounds of love. 
 
 Wee enchantress, sweet coquette, 
 When you smile the sunbeams shine 
 
 Happy birds sang never yet 
 
 With such silvery notes as thine. 
 
 So forever may you sing 
 
 From a heart as undefiled, 
 And your gayest laughter ring 
 
 With the music of a child. 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 Oh, God, when all alone we stand, 
 
 Secluded with our thoughts and thee, 
 Without one human voice at hand 
 
 To cavil, or an eye to see ; 
 When the dissembling masks we wear, 
 
 The jests wherewith we baffle truth, 
 The pride which glosses heart-sick care, 
 
 The follies of neglectful youth : 
 
 When these forsake the doubtful mind, 
 
 And leave it naked to despair, 
 And in the dark we grope to find 
 
 Some pathway to the upper air ; 
 Then, from the gloomy maze of doubt, 
 
 Oh, God, our unknown prayers ascend 
 That Truth at length may find us out 
 
 And lead us homeward, to the end ! 
 91 
 
A PRAYER. 
 
 Ah, me, this hunger makes us kin ! 
 
 For every soul, at times, will cry 
 From those lone chambers far within 
 
 The portals of the lip and eye; 
 But none save Thou alone canst know 
 
 The anguished moments when we cast 
 Our every mortal instinct low, 
 
 And plead for only truth at last ! 
 
 Oh, pity Thou our feeble hate, 
 
 Our shallow thoughts, our bitter zeal, 
 The misery we ourselves create 
 
 To feel, and make our brothers feel ! 
 Yea, teach us Thou alone art right, 
 
 And that our cherished creeds may be 
 But rays of that diviner light, 
 
 Which glorifies and shines from Thee. 
 
THE SNOW-FALL. 
 
 Down from the limitless caverns of air 
 
 The snow descends with a silent sweep. 
 Old Winter shakes from his rimy hair 
 A cloak for the landscape brown and bare, 
 Where the flowers uncovered sleep. 
 
 Over the skeleton trees the flakes, 
 
 Like a white-folded mantle, are hurriedly spread ; 
 Over the breasts of the shining lakes, 
 And the banks where the reed, like a coward, shakes 
 
 Its withered and slender head. . 
 
 On the forms of the living, the graves of the dead, 
 
 It drops with a ceaseless and measured flow, 
 And our eyes look up to the depths o erhead, 
 Till from heights never-ending God seems to shed 
 The infinite hosts of the snow ! 
 93 
 
94 THE MOON S ECLIPSE. 
 
 And so peace comes to the eager soul 
 
 From spaces far deeper than fancy can go 
 
 White, beautiful thoughts, with a gentle control, 
 
 Till Eternity s sunrise in glory unroll 
 Over a spirit as pure as the snow. 
 
 SONNET THE MOON S ECLIPSE. 
 
 How like this orb who, from her maiden throne, 
 Amid the blossomed desert of the sky, 
 Attracts the homage of the wandering eye, 
 
 By reason of a beauty all her own, 
 
 Is a great love, whose white and modest zone 
 Moves not above the envious world so high 
 But that gross shadows, creeping slowly by, 
 
 Eclipse what once was purity alone. 
 
 But yet, not long such darkness can obscure 
 
 The heaven-born light of that transcendent sphere 
 
 Forth from the veil, in radiance still as pure, 
 It bursts serenely, and the heart is clear ; 
 
 Through every gloom its hallowed charms endure, 
 And each new peril makes it trebly dear. 
 
CARLYLE. 
 
 i 
 
 Unflattering Mentor, Caledonian seer, 
 Whom some deride, yet all are forced to hear, 
 Thyself art gone, but thou hast left behind 
 The giant footprints of a noble mind, 
 Which others follow doubtfully and slow, 
 As half-afraid to linger or to go! 
 
 Impatient teacher of a headstrong age, 
 Too vain to brook the prophet or the sage, 
 Thy feet upon another Sinai trod, 
 And visions blazed upon thy soul from God, 
 While recreant nations, guiltier than of old, 
 Kneeled to that glittering superstition gold ! 
 
 Thou wast not coined of the degenerate stuff 
 Which holds the fashion of the hour enough ; 
 Thou wast not moulded of the waxen clay 
 Which takes the image of the passing day, 
 
 95 
 
96 CARLYLE. 
 
 But on the front of all thine actions shone 
 The stamp of power to be thyself alone ! 
 
 It was not thine to soothe the world s content 
 With garnished phrases, half-sincerely meant; 
 To lull despair with eloquence of sound ; 
 To cheer ambition to destruction s bound; 
 To prate the flimsy gossip of the time, 
 And furnish systems reason for a crime ! 
 
 Thy mission compassed a diviner aim 
 
 Than present glory or expected fame, 
 
 And though it was thy destiny to feel 
 
 The barbs which natures such as thine conceal ; 
 
 Though warped by grief to aspects cold and rude, 
 
 And cankered by the rust of solitude, 
 
 Yet e en such fretful maladies as these 
 
 Might shame luxurious, philosophic ease. 
 
 It chafed thy soul to know how strangely numb 
 
 The frozen scruples of the world become; 
 
 How dully blind the spiritual sight 
 
 Where men forge truth, and usage makes the right! 
 
CARLYLE. 97 
 
 Thou wast the prophet of the subtler day, 
 Crying along thy solitary way 
 To all the people with a voice that knew 
 The noblest courtesy of being true. 
 
 Proud Mammon s gay and sycophantic throng 
 Needs not thy voice in eulogy or song, 
 For slavish myriads round his gaudy throne 
 Abjectly kneel, and wish his pomp their own; 
 But who like thee is left to teach and warn, 
 Despite neglect, or flattery, or scorn ? 
 
 Such men as thoti bear on from height to height 
 The kindling beacons of Promethean light, 
 Whose glory, streaming through the dusk of time, 
 Paints the vague future with a glow sublime, 
 Yet startles them who love the drowsy shade 
 Which Custom s hoary eminence has made. 
 
 Ay, such as thou when Mammon s carnal power 
 Grows drunk with madness in a braggart hour 
 When ominous fingers trace upon the wall 
 Truth s malediction brooding over all 
 Fear not to read the Babylonian s doom, 
 And point oppression to its final tomb. 
 
98 CAELYLE. 
 
 Oh, let thy frailties perish with the dust 
 
 Which Death unburdens of its weary trust ; 
 
 Let men forget thee in thy mortal frame. 
 
 The exhaustless fountain whence thy greatness came 
 
 May lie beyond this short and narrow vale, 
 
 But its deep waters never pause or fail ; 
 
 And they who love the power to feel and think 
 
 Will stoop beside their lucid springs to drink, 
 
 And quaff from thence the intellectual wine 
 
 That flows eternal from a soul like thine. 
 
TO A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 Dream not of love ! spend not thy youth 
 In vain imaginings of "rood 
 
 o o o 
 
 Though fair and sweet and full of truth 
 Seem thine ideal womanhood. 
 
 This fleeting vision though so pure 
 That brightens many an idle day, 
 
 Is but a gay mirage to lure 
 
 Thy life from its appointed way. 
 
 Pursue no phantom such as this ; 
 
 It pleases but to cheat at last. 
 Tis but a shadowy shape of bliss, 
 
 And leaves no brightness on the past. 
 
 True love is only his reward 
 
 Whose life deserves the precious meed. 
 A great affection owns no lord 
 
 Who wins no palm for thought or deed. 
 99 
 
100 TO A YOUNG MAN. 
 
 Thou needst not search for Love, for she 
 When thou art toiling in thy place 
 
 Will surely come and look on thee, 
 With Heaven s own glory in her face. 
 
 While thou art battling for renown 
 Amid the tumult of the age, 
 
 Her hands will bring a fresher crown 
 Than ever laureled king or sage. 
 
 Oh, what a wealth of manhood then 
 Canst thou lay gladly at her feet ! 
 
 What power and hope that other men 
 Have wasted in their own conceit ! 
 
 And she will soothe thy weariest hour, 
 And cheer the gloom of thy despair ; 
 
 Her touch will give thee newer power 
 To conquer doubt and laugh at care. 
 
 Then sigh no more for joys to be ; 
 Somewhere, on some Elvsian slope, 
 
 Love gathers flowers to weave for thee 
 A deathless crown of bliss and hope. 
 
THE MILLS : A KANC V. J i 
 
 We stood within the frowning mills 
 When night lay sleeping on the hills. 
 A din of sound, a glare of light, 
 Went flashing through the ear and sight. 
 The brawny laborers moved about, 
 Among the shadows, in and out, 
 Or bent above the scented pine 
 With but the language of a sign. 
 
 The chain-bound logs, whose rugged bark 
 Dripped with the water s clinging mark, 
 Shot underneath the flying knife 
 That glided through their sluggish life. 
 With constant stroke the shining wheel 
 Hurled down its viewless blades of steel, 
 And smote with an unwavering sweep 
 The massive giants in their sleep. 
 101 
 
102 THE MILLS A FANCY. 
 
 Above, the huge and dusty beams, 
 Half-seen through shades and flaring gleams, 
 Frowned from their dark and caverned height, 
 Where crouche d the sullen gloom of night, 
 Jealous that mortals should invade 
 \Iis lonely J .eritlge O i shade. 
 
 Beneath, the dusky river lay, 
 Where thronged the drifted logs at bay, 
 Floating in darkness, side by side, 
 Shorn of their old, majestic pride. 
 But in my thought each fallen king 
 Still wore the rustling garb of spring, 
 And answered with continual sighs 
 The wind that haunts the northern skies. 
 And other voices entered in, 
 Like chorus to the measured din, 
 And sang amid the jarring hum 
 A song of riper days to come. 
 
 " O, prostrate monarchs," thus the song 
 " Although your sinews white and strong 
 Shall ne er in wintry hours withstand 
 The tempests of a stormy land, 
 
THE HILLS A FANCY. 103 
 
 Perhaps, in some remoter clime, 
 Your life, through long decades of time, 
 In loving use familiar grown, 
 Shall wear a beauty not its own ; 
 Then hands as soft as summer flowers 
 Shall press thee in the twilight hours, 
 When the red fire-light s dancing gleams 
 Wrap thee in happy sunset dreams. 
 
 u Perhaps some mother then shall croon 
 For childhood s ears, a cradle-tune, 
 Or Love s enraptured passion trace 
 A blush on some enkindled face, 
 Or careless voices, clear and gay, 
 Laugh down the troubles of the clay. 
 Mayhap the wanderer may recall 
 Thy form in his ancestral hall, 
 And lay his hands on thee to bless, 
 With one long sigh of tenderness. 
 And at the touch will come again 
 The thought of half- forgotten men, 
 Of lovely faces, old and young, 
 The beaming eye, the gentle tongue, 
 And all the dearest scenes of earth 
 
104 VICTORY IN DEATH. 
 
 That clustered round an olden hearth. 
 And while he dreams his head will rest 
 In silence on thy carven breast, 
 Lest other hands should bear away 
 The token of his childhood s day." 
 
 VICTORY IN DEATH. 
 
 Like two relentless combatants that fight 
 
 O 
 
 In some lone place, remote from human aid, 
 
 Till both sink down, with broken weapons laid 
 By nerveless arms, while o er their bloody sight 
 Drops the black pall of Death s concealing night ; 
 
 So often man, against some vice arrayed 
 
 That drags him down with purpose to degrade 
 His noblest aspirations toward the right, 
 Struggles to win dominion o er his foe, 
 
 At length to conquer ; but he fights in vain ; 
 For, when his sin lies powerless and low, 
 
 He falls himself, overmastered by his pain ; 
 And, while his life ebbs piteously slow, 
 
 No heart but God s can count his bitter gain. 
 
FAME. 
 
 Close to Death s portals a minstrel lay, 
 
 His silent harp unstrung ; 
 And he wept to think he must pass away 
 
 With his noblest songs unsung. 
 
 But the shadowy angel to whom belongs 
 The sceptre of gloom and dread 
 
 Whispered, " The blessing of thine own songs 
 Crowns thee, living or dead. 
 
 "Thy fame lies deep in a tender heart, 
 
 As pearls lie under the sea, 
 And the tears thy music has caused to start 
 
 Are jewels that shine for thee. 
 
 " The holy passions which thou has stirred 
 The memories passing sweet 
 
 Fancies no genius can ever word 
 Dreams Love can never repeat 
 108 
 
106 FAME. 
 
 " The comfort that steals to the wearied brain 
 
 The aspirations divine 
 And the faith which lightens the throb of pain - 
 
 Such laurels of fame are thine. 
 
 What matters it to the lark who sings 
 In the heart of the morning glow 
 
 That the airy sweep of its tiny wings 
 Is veiled from the world below ? 
 
 "If it touch one heart with its passionate strain, - 
 Lift one thought nearer to God, 
 
 It has not risen unknown or in vain 
 From its nest in the humble sod. 
 
 " Such are the wreaths that the angels wear. 
 And the mortals who win them here 
 
 Some with the crown of a grateful prayer, 
 Some with the meed of a tear." 
 
THE SABBATH. 
 
 Tis a law ordained by nature, 
 
 And sanctified by God, 
 That rest should come to the weary 
 
 As clew to a drooping sod ; 
 
 That peace should come to the troubled 
 
 And faltering heart of care, 
 As moonlight steals through the darkness 
 
 To mellow the sombre air. 
 
 As flowers scatter their fragrance, 
 As birds in the gloaming sing, 
 
 As snow descends in the winter, 
 As leaves burst forth in the spring, 
 
 As a wind to a sweating forehead 
 That is faint with the noonday sun, 
 
 So comes the Sabbath to mortals 
 With the blessing of labors done. 
 107 
 
108 THE SABBATH. 
 
 There needs some cloister of silence, 
 Remote from the turmoil of men, 
 
 Some Eden of peace-giving beauty 
 Where Heaven is reflected again, 
 
 That the soul may pause in its journey, 
 And know that the desert of time 
 
 Still holds an un withered oasis 
 To lighten its desolate clime. 
 
 Oh, sacred forever to worship 
 
 That spot in its quiet should be, 
 Where the spirit may drink from the fountains 
 
 Which rise from Eternity s sea ; 
 
 Where the aching bosom of sorrow 
 
 Forgets, for a little, its pain, 
 And the burdens endurance must carry 
 
 Are lifted from body and brain. 
 
 As a traveler glances a moment 
 Through the cottage s open door, 
 
 And sees the home of his fancy 
 Pictured, as often before, 
 
THE FATAL SEARCH. 109 
 
 So the Sabbath is but a portal 
 
 Through which the spirit may see 
 Its home far off like a vision 
 
 Of happiness yet to be. 
 
 THE FATAL SEARCH. 
 
 Like one who leaves the paths his fellows tread, 
 And braves the dangerous wilderness around 
 To seek an Eden none have ever found, 
 
 And, lost in mazes which he cannot thread. 
 
 Wanders till his bewildered steps are led 
 
 To walls of rock, whose gloomy heights are crowned 
 By falling shades and loneliness profound, 
 
 And there sinks down in weariness and dread 
 
 So he whose falsehood or untaught conceit 
 Allures him to explore the wilds of vice, 
 
 Follows a poor mirage, a bitter sweet, 
 
 A glittering bubble and himself the price 
 
 Until he sinks despairing at the feet 
 
 Of Death s stern gates, remote from Paradise ! 
 
UNWRITTEN POETRY. 
 
 The noblest poetry of earth 
 
 Is not invoked by mortal pen; 
 The sweetest song ne er finds a birth 
 
 Save in the voiceless hearts of men. 
 We only use our stammering speech 
 
 To shadow forth the hidden mind, 
 And with uncertain fingers reach 
 
 For chords we know not how to find. 
 
 From morn s baptismal dew and fire 
 
 Till evening s lingering sunset flame, 
 All Nature s book, all Nature s choir, 
 
 Is full of thoughts without a name ; 
 And Night, with her mysterious beams t 
 
 Lamps of the speculative soul 
 Pours forth uncomprehended dreams 
 
 On the dim heaven s majestic scroll. 
 110. 
 
UNWRITTEN POETRY. Ill 
 
 There s poetry in Love s clear eye 
 
 Which genius vainly seeks to write : 
 There s melody in laugh and sigh 
 
 Which only lives in our delight ; 
 There s feeling which ourselves alone 
 
 May cherish, but can never speak ; 
 There s joy which must be all our own, 
 
 Since hearts are strong and lips are weak. 
 
 Yet how our unfledged spirits long 
 
 To soar beyond this earthly wall, 
 And blend in one o ermastering song 
 
 The music which is in us all ! 
 With eager breath we strive to fan 
 
 Emotion s still and holy blaze 
 Into an altar fire that man 
 
 Shall worship in succeeding days. 
 
 Though Genius, rapt by zeal intense, 
 
 Sometimes can rise on struggling wings, 
 
 Yet still, what feeble eloquence 
 Is in the grandest strain she sings ! 
 
 But we, who marvel as we hear 
 That soul on its impassioned flight, 
 
112 UNWRITTEN POETRY. 
 
 Can only hold the singer dear 
 
 Who gives us language e en so slight. 
 
 Oh, let us be content to read 
 
 Within the volume of our lives 
 That poetry of thought and deed 
 
 By which our happiness survives 
 That rhythm to whose solemn beat 
 
 The pulse of all mankind is stirred 
 In rapture too profound and sweet 
 
 For the divinest human word. 
 
 We have the promise all who yearn 
 
 That in the loftier age to come 
 These o ercharged souls of ours shall learn 
 
 To be no more constrained and dumb; 
 But e en the feeblest hand shall sway 
 
 The chords of life, and every voice. 
 Inspired like larks at break of day, 
 
 Shall make another world rejoice. 
 
THE DYING ACTOR. 
 
 Take from his brow the coronet of fame. 
 Decked with the jewels of a shining- name 
 Illusive tinsel, such as serves to blind 
 The pitiful ambitions of mankind. 
 
 
 This is no mask ; he will not rise again 
 
 o 
 
 To ape the actions and desires of men ; 
 He will not rise to feel his labor o er 
 For he s himself in this, and nothing more. 
 
 Let fall the curtain, let the lights be dim ! 
 What s he to earth, or what is earth to him ? 
 Who of the idle and inconstant herd, 
 That thundered praise for every fiery word 
 Which shook his frame with passion s mimic rao- e , 
 Would care to look on this ungilded stage, 
 And spend one honest sigh, one serious breath, 
 On the too-faithful scenery of Death ? 
 
 113 
 
114 THE DYING AC TOE. 
 
 Who of them all, so lavish to admire, 
 And urge the heat of thought s unnatural fire, 
 Would shed a drop of Mercy s healing rain 
 Upon the feverish embers of his brain ? 
 
 He was the puppet of a vacant hour, 
 
 Who roused their fancies to unwonted power, 
 
 And thronged their minds with phantom shapes that 
 
 led 
 
 A wanton measure through the narrow head ! 
 Ah, these white lips do speak a better part 
 Than ever masked the passions of a heart ; 
 This unfeigned suffering, this pallid woe, 
 Mocks the poor triumphs of dissembling show, 
 And teaches truth which not the art of man 
 Can e er impress, and only nature can. 
 The dying gladiator, far from home, 
 Who sank in blood to sate applauding Rome ; 
 The panting Greek who sped the desperate race 
 Till bursting veins poured crimson o er his face ; T 
 The bleeding Spaniard, for an erring thrust 
 Pierced by mad horns and trampled in the dust 
 All with stern fingers point to Pleasure s throne. 
 To mock her with inventions of her own ; 
 
Til E DYING ACTOR. lid 
 
 And these hot lips she will not stoop to hear 
 Cry like a trumpet in her heedless ear ! 
 
 Oh, Pleasure, gaudy queen of blinded slaves, 
 Who drink thy cup beside their wretched graves, 
 Turn hither those lascivious eyes of thine, 
 Bright with the madness of thy sensual wine, 
 And view these fleshless limbs, these eyes that -seem 
 Like caverns lit with but one flickering gleam ; 
 The pr ostrate brow which guards those earthly cells 
 Where the tired mind a few sad moments dwells, 
 And the spent lamp of genius, burning low, 
 Reveals no pathway from these shades below ! 
 Think on the souls that fall a sacrifice 
 Upon the rotten hecatombs of vice ; 
 Think on the lives that all unseen expire 
 To feed thine altars with unholy fire : 
 And then remember, when thou art most gay, 
 What hand shall snatch thy worthless crown away. 
 And grind the hollow baubles of thy shame 
 Into the brutal dust from which they came ! 
 
DEFEATED. 
 
 Breathe low, ye winds, breathe low ! 
 Touch not with your rude hands that prostrate form, 
 With the last sparks of being faintly warm ; 
 
 Breathe softly, as ye go 
 
 Through this deserted hovel, where the light 
 Of Heaven makes ghastlier the surrounding night. 
 
 The long, black buildings stretch away in line, 
 
 Till lost in the dim air; 
 And far away the glimmering street lamps shine 
 
 A blue, diminished glare. 
 
 The shadows, thick and weird, 
 
 Steal through their native gloom, with sluggish stealth, 
 Like shapeless ghosts of that departed wealth 
 
 And grandeur which upreared 
 
 Its arrogant pomp where now the wretched slaves 
 Of misery hasten to unhallowed graves. 
 
 116 
 
DEFEA TE1\ ll\ 
 
 Tell me, ye winds, how oft 
 That half-clothed form has felt your bitter chill, 
 
 While, on his couches soft 
 The tyrant Luxury pleased Desire at will ; 
 While Pleasure, in her thousand halls, grew sick 
 
 Of empty, heartless mirth, 
 As the gross, sensual air grew misty - thick 
 
 With breath of soulless earth. 
 
 Tell me how oft the pang 
 Of aching hunger cursed his honest toil, 
 
 When round about him sprang 
 Plethoric harvests from the fertile soil ; 
 When the vain epicure, with senseless whim, 
 
 Glutted his dainty taste 
 With wines and foods, until that soul grew dim 
 
 Which manhood once had graced. 
 
 Tell me how anguish gnawed 
 Within his breast, and paled his wrinkled face, 
 
 When, on life s pathway broad, 
 He knew himself an outcast from his race. 
 
 What secret thoughts of crime 
 Surged in his desperate soul that still \vas white. 
 
118 DEFEATED. 
 
 As the strong hand of Time 
 
 Pushed him still further from the heaven-touched height 
 Which he, with patient steps, had hoped to climb. 
 
 Oh, bitterest agony ! 
 How didst thou pierce his care-encrusted life, 
 
 When gaunt-limbed Want set free 
 The spirits of his children and his wife ! 
 
 Here close his cheerless life s tear-blotted scroll, 
 
 One of a million such ! 
 And, since he lived with slowly-maddening mind, 
 
 And suffered over-much, 
 
 Oh God, forgive the sin 
 That closed his sad life s miserable lease, 
 
 And he w T ill find within 
 The happy courts of Heaven the longed-for peace. 
 
 And though these nerveless hands have ne er unfurled 
 
 The banner of success, 
 Yet he, therefore, in Love s enduring world, 
 
 Shall not be glad the less, 
 But find a nobler, larger happiness. 
 
FLOWERS FROM THE BATTLE FIELD. 
 
 The tread of crowds in the old grave-yard 
 
 Was light and slow, with a musing pace. 
 There were dim-eyed veterans, battle-scarred, 
 
 With the same proud spirit in every face. 
 There were women, too, with the scars of grief 
 
 That would burst afresh in a frequent tear, 
 And wondering children, the sole relief 
 
 Of the sorrowful mothers bending near. 
 
 The glitter of arms, the measured tread, 
 
 The sharp salute, and the voice of prayer, 
 The loving wreaths for the patriot dead, 
 
 And the grave-voiced man with the snowy hair, 
 All, like a vision of war-like days, 
 
 \Vent calmly by through the misty glow. 
 And the singers were chanting their solemn praise 
 
 Of the silent heroes who slept below. 
 119 
 
120 FLO WEES FROM THE BATTLE FIELD. 
 
 When a lithe, fair girl of the Southern land 
 
 Came gliding slow through the rank and file, 
 With a cluster of flowers in her trembling hand, 
 
 And knelt by a grave in the human aisle. 
 Rich was the mound with its fragrant gifts; 
 
 The marble shaft at the soldier s head 
 Was crowned by offerings flowery drifts 
 
 Of amethyst, purple, white and red. 
 
 A thousand eyes, with a wondering look, 
 
 Turned full on her, ns the music died, 
 And the white-haired minister closed his book 
 
 And stood by the kneeling maiden s side. 
 "Hast thou a tribute for him who lies 
 
 In a soldier s flower-crowned resting-place ?"* 
 The girl raised upward her shining eyes, 
 
 That lit the bloom of her lovely face : 
 
 4t No braver soldier, no truer one, 
 
 Than moulders here in your Northern clime, 
 E er turned his face to a Southern- sun 
 
 To wait in anguish the close of time. 
 Oh, it was pitiful ; one so young, 
 
 But he onlv smiled when I found him there. 
 
FLOWERS FROM THE BATTLE FIELD. 121 
 
 And a whisper burst from his parching tongue 
 Of a grief that was hard for him to bear. 
 
 And I was proud but I pitied him so 
 
 Pitied him ? Loved him ! For many a day, 
 Beneath the roof of his Southern foe, 
 
 Dying, yet lingering, he lay. 
 Oh, he was noble, gentle, brave, 
 
 Hero and saint he seemed to me ; 
 And the hush of the dreamy autumn gave 
 
 His patience a halo I wept to see. 
 
 He taught me a life that was truer than mine, 
 
 As I watched the light of his clear eyes sink, 
 With flashes of glory that seemed divine, 
 
 Down to the gloom of our earthly brink ; 
 And, dying, he held in his stiffening grip 
 
 Roses and violets, triple-hued ; 
 And pressed them close to his bloodless lip 
 
 His life and death s similitude. 
 
 Oh, let it pass ; those clays are gone ; 
 
 Yet still though why I cannot tell 
 Mv thoughts, my prayers, my love, are drawn 
 
2 THE MESSAGE OF TI1E LILY. 
 
 To that dear valley where he fell. 
 And, ere I go, I only pray 
 
 To drop amid this floral pride 
 My tribute to the better day 
 
 Flowers from the meadow where he died/ 
 
 THE MESSAGE OF THE LILY. 
 
 TO A YOUNG LADY WHO RECEIVED A WHITE LILY ON 
 FEBRUARY 14. 
 
 Some minds could read the stars, t was thought of old, 
 And trace Fate s hand in vast and fiery lines ; 
 Heaven s jeweled scroll was written o er with signs 
 
 Of prophecies and wonders manifold, 
 
 By some almighty intellect unrolled. 
 
 T is thus that Love, the astrologer, divines 
 In every flower on which the morning shines 
 
 A hidden beauty, and a hope untold ! 
 
 God traced the meadows with a golden pen 
 Dipped in the hues of sunset skies above. 
 
 And the same power that shaped Love s message then 
 Breathes in this lily and your dreams thereof 
 
 But vou have read, and you can read a^ain ; 
 
 ^ ^ O 
 
 For God is love, and wrote the thoughts of Love ! 
 
 o 
 
CONSOLATION. 
 
 TO A MOTHER WHO HAS LOST HER SON. 
 
 Oh, Love, how bitter are the tears 
 
 Which Death s stern sorrow wrings from thee ! 
 
 But yet their keenest gall may be 
 A solace for thine after years. 
 
 The saddest midnight of thy w r oe 
 Can ne er eclipse that star divine 
 Whose rays are brightest when they shine 
 
 Through darkness on thy griefs below. 
 
 Oh, t is a precious thought, and bears 
 
 The stamp of Heaven, that somehow still 
 The thread of God s benignant will 
 
 Doth lead thee to Him, unawares ; 
 
 That when thou seemest most alone, 
 
 And farthest from thy fellow men, 
 
 God s arm is round about thee then, 
 And all thy sorrows are his own. 
 123 
 
124 C XS OLA TION. 
 
 He teaches thy tear-blinded eyes 
 To see in each deserted place 
 That held zi dear but vanished face 
 
 A sacred, happy vision rise. 
 
 He makes thy yearning soul to hear 
 In every psalm of Christian faith 
 A voice beyond the gates of Death, 
 
 That sings of peace, and not of fear. 
 
 Like one who hath a well-loved friend 
 In some far land to which he goes, 
 And will not falter, since he knows 
 
 What joy awaits his journey s end, 
 
 So in thy heart the fixed belief 
 
 That somewhere all who love shall meet 
 Will give thee wings whene er thy feet 
 
 Are struggling in the slough of grief. 
 
 T is but the journey of a day 
 
 A little while, though seeming great, 
 Ere he who walked with thee of late 
 
 Will clasp thee in his arms and say. 
 
C ONS OLA TIOX. 125 
 
 " \Vhv, Love, the path was not so long 
 That thou hadst need to mourn and weep 
 Because God s purpose was so deep 
 
 And his enforcing hands so strong, 
 
 * Thou hadst not wept could st thou have known 
 
 What immortality and peace, 
 
 And happiness without surcease, 
 From sorrow and despair had grown." 
 
 Thus will he sav, when, breast to breast, 
 In Heaven s first rapture ye commune, 
 Like two sweet voices in one tune 
 
 Of everlasting: love and rest. 
 
THE CYNIC S REVERY. 
 
 Down the long hall the glittering chandeliers 
 
 Diffuse the lustre of their pendent spheres 
 
 O er blended throngs whose gliding footsteps trace 
 
 Encircling measures with a buoyant grace. 
 
 On snowy cheeks the flush of pleasure glows, 
 
 And turns the bloodless lily to the rose ; 
 
 Hearts beat to music, while from lip and eye 
 
 The willing smile and unregretful sigh 
 
 Speak with that natural eloquence of bliss 
 
 Which needs no language, save a smile or kiss ! 
 
 See yon fair image of our mistress Love 
 Whose eyes outbeam the trembling flames above ; 
 Whose supple form, bedecked in airy white, 
 Floats with smooth motion like a dove in flight 
 Among the brilliant windings of the dance, 
 While all her soul goes forth at every glance. 
 Yet, to mine eyes, her beauty does but .seem 
 Like one pure lily on a shining stream, 
 Sailing majestic down the subtle tide, 
 
 m 
 
THE CYNIC S RE VERY. 1-7 
 
 While morning sunlight gilds its dewy pride. 
 
 And knows the lily what rough torrents break 
 
 Far from the quiet of its native lake 
 
 What foamy cataracts thundering far away 
 
 Shall rend the petals of their fragile prey ? 
 
 Nay, now, such ow r lish prophecies of doom 
 
 Are but the shadows of their parent gloom ; 
 
 A sombre mind can darken all that s gay, 
 
 And unreal terrors haunt the brightest day. 
 
 Yet, for a moment, mid the festive throng 
 
 Methought a shape passed mournfully along, 
 
 With languid step, clasped hands, and loosened hair, 
 
 Eyes rilled with all the meaning of despair, 
 
 Drooped head, and every piteous aspect known 
 
 To maiden sorrow, weeping and alone ; 
 
 A shadowy wreck of loveliness and youth, 
 
 Bereft of honor, love but not of truth ! 
 
 Ah, miserable truth ! what power thou hast 
 To conjure up a future from the past ; 
 To read beneath life s smoothly-written scroll 
 The voiceless records of an erring soul ! 
 But, ah, how few of such as these discern 
 Thy sullen presence wheresoe er they turn ; 
 
?8 THE CYNIC S EEVEHY. 
 
 Or, if by conscience yet compelled to see, 
 Will quit the feast to rise and follow thee ! 
 How few assay the spurious bauble, joy, 
 And pluck the treasure from its coarse alloy ! 
 Alas for him who gives his wishes reign; 
 Where passion urges angels plead in vain. 
 
 Oh, happier spirits, throned in quiet nooks, 
 
 Amid the world of nature and of books, 
 
 Who find in lofty thoughts and gracious deeds 
 
 All that the soul, and all the body needs ; 
 
 Who, if by chance from social hours confined, 
 
 Can summon worlds and nations from the mind 
 
 Ye are the souls on whom the right depends 
 
 To fathom wrongs and compass mighty ends ; 
 
 Ye are the true, the infinitely blessed, 
 
 Calm in your actions, dreamless in your rest ! 
 
 No feverish passions, never satisfied, 
 
 Beckon and thrust you from contentment s side ; 
 
 No artificial pleasures ye require 
 
 To sate the temperate hunger of desire, 
 
 But still for you earth s natural joys suffice 
 
 To paint the world with hues of Paradise ! 
 
 Ye never sit in ashes and in tears 
 
THE CYNIC S RE VERY. 129 
 
 Amid the ruins of unfruitful years, 
 
 And weigh against a poor and vanished gain 
 
 The heavy balance of remorse and pain. 
 
 Is t not a pity that so fair a flower 
 
 Should waste its bloom to gratify an hour ? 
 
 But who will say, " Mine eyes to-night have seen 
 
 An angel s arm enclasp a libertine ? " 
 
 T were all in vain ; such thoughts as these are best 
 
 To moulder in the silence of the breast. 
 
 Mankind brooks not that any hand should take 
 
 The sheltering roses from the sleeping snake. 
 
 Then peace be with you, God s divinest scheme, 
 Unsullied girlhood, man s divinest dream 
 Your native Heaven defend ! You will not know 
 What venomed monster coils its folds below 
 Until, perhaps, your reckless footsteps stray 
 Across the flowers that cluster on your wav, 
 And the vile serpent, from its rosy nest. 
 Springs to your heart let misery tell the rest. 
 
INNOCENCE. 
 
 What shall I call thee, Innocence ? A flower. 
 Clothed in the chastest robe of virgin hue, 
 And sparkling with the jewels of the dew, 
 That drinks the light of morning s radiant hour ? 
 Or else a bird, low-swinging from a spray 
 Of verdant boughs, and warbling to the ear 
 Of dreaming summer an enraptured lay 
 Of happy freedom, sunny atmosphere, 
 And the low music of the drowsy day ? 
 
 Or shall I sing thee as a gentle maid, 
 Fenced from the world by Love s protecting arms, 
 As white in thought, as blameless in her charms, 
 As e er in earth s gross vesture was arrayed ? 
 A vestal of the hearth, whose life is seen 
 So heaven-like in unsullied loveliness 
 That earthly shadows never intervene 
 To mar the purity of her caress, 
 Nor darken glances trustfully serene ? 
 130 
 
INNOCENCE. 131 
 
 Or, rather, shall I paint thee as a child, 
 
 Laughing with bright and natural sounds of glee-; 
 
 Soft hands and yielding lips that seem to be 
 
 A sweet rebuke to hands and lips defiled ; 
 
 Clear eyes, unconscious of the lustrous gleam 
 
 That sparkles gayly, tremulously bright, 
 
 In their calm depths, as when the modest beam 
 
 Of evening s star reveals its wavering: lig-ht 
 
 o o 
 
 In some still spring or smooth and limpid stream ? 
 
 Xay, none of these the flower will lose its bloom; 
 
 The bird fall earthward in the wintry blast ; 
 
 The purest maid may rue her faith at last, 
 
 And childhood laugh, unconscious of its doom ; 
 
 But thou art panoplied with warlike mail 
 
 Of adamant ; no powder can overthrow 
 
 Thy shield invincible, or make thee quail 
 
 At force, or treachery, or the sting of woe; 
 
 Thine arms were forged in Heaven, and will not fail 
 
RUPERT ALMAYNE. 
 
 The leaves drift yellow about thy door, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ; 
 
 As rich as the golden and treasured store 
 That will gleam and glitter for thee no more, 
 
 Rupert Almayne. 
 
 The gold that showers from Nature s mint, 
 
 Rupert Almayne, 
 Has no shadow to mar its tint, 
 And hides in its splendor no subtle hint 
 
 Of a secret stain. 
 
 Hark to the wind ! It is strangely drear, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ; 
 
 T is the mournful voice of the dying year. 
 But only of sorrow, and not of fear, 
 
 Rupert Almayne. 
 132 
 
RUPERT ALMAYNE. 133 
 
 T is not so utterly broken and sad, 
 
 So full of pain, 
 
 As the voice of love thou couldst have had, 
 Whose echo returns to drive thee mad, 
 
 Rupert Almayne. 
 
 Why dost thou start and tremble so, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ? 
 
 The passing wind tolls weird and slow ; 
 T is the voice that is calling thee to go 
 
 From earth s domain. 
 
 Thy shadow has darkened the world with gloom. 
 
 Rupert Almayne ; 
 
 But there rises up from the open tomb 
 A vaster shadow of death and doom 
 
 To cloud thy brain. 
 
 Think, as thou goest, how many a hearth 
 
 Has felt thy bane, 
 
 But yet will blossom with hope and mirth, 
 And breathe no sigh when thou lea vest earth, 
 
 Rupert Almayne. 
 
134 RUPERT ALMAYNE. 
 
 This is the end of thy toiling here, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ; 
 
 Oh, if the wealth that has cost so dear 
 Could purchase for thee one honest tear, 
 
 T were not in vain. 
 
 Loose thy hands from the golden rod 
 
 Thy seal of reign 
 That made the people to fear thy nod 
 As they were slaves and thou wert a god, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ! 
 
 What is it the solemn night- wind saith, 
 
 Rupert Almayne ? 
 It bears a dirge in its hollow breath, 
 A wailing sound from the fields of death, 
 
 Like a funeral strain. 
 
 And the poor will sigh as it sweepeth past 
 
 With its gusty train ; 
 
 But they will not know that the warning b last 
 Hurries to judgment and justice at last 
 
 Rupert Almayne. 
 
HIS SOUL IS MARCHING OX." 
 
 CHILD : 
 
 " Father, the drums beat loud and long, 
 But, deeper than their loudest beat, 
 The muffled thunder of a song 
 That times the tread of martial feet 
 Peals up the vistas of the street ! 
 
 " A thousand torches toss and flare 
 Like fiery pennons, streaming bright 
 Against the sombre walls of night, 
 As if the dusky hosts that bear 
 Those flaming banners would affright 
 The very shadows from the air. 
 
 " Oh, father, would that thou couldst see 
 This mighty city, decked with fire, 
 That flings about the loftiest spire 
 
 135 
 
136 " HIS S UL IS MA E Gil IXG X. 
 
 The glow of this festivity ! 
 Far as my straining eyes discern, 
 With diamond lights the windows burn. 
 And every arbor, walk and tree, 
 And terrace, where the people throng, 
 Gives back the flash, the cheer, the song, 
 Of some great victory ! " 
 
 FATHER : 
 
 " Ay, child, my memory well supplies 
 The absent witness of my eyes ; 
 It only needs yon martial strain, 
 That ebbs and swells and dies away. 
 To kindle every sluggish vein 
 And paint a picture in my brain 
 Of Victory s jubilant array, 
 That greeted Freedom s natal day 
 With that exultant song. 
 
 " Oh, pasan of the true and brave ! 
 We sang it round the soldier s grave 
 Who died to conquer w r rong ; 
 We sang it when the camp-fire shed 
 
SOUL IS MARCHING ON." 137 
 
 Its softened aureole of red 
 
 On many a rugged form ; 
 
 We heard it ring when flame and lead 
 
 Belched through the battle s lurid storm, 
 
 When heroes stood and heroes fell 
 
 To glut with blood and groans and tears 
 
 The fiend of war s insatiate hell, 
 
 And seal the peace of future years. 
 
 We sang it in the Northern pines ; 
 It floated down the rebel lines 
 They heard it, and they knew too well 
 That the old spirit of the dead 
 The boldest front of battle led, 
 And where the tempest seemed to swell 
 With loudest thunder, deadliest fire, 
 T was there to strengthen and inspire ! 
 
 " And when our wounded ranks, beneath 
 The shattered stars and stripes we bore, 
 Turned home to peace and life once more, 
 With sabre buried in the sheath, 
 Methought that song, from sea. to sea, 
 Burst frpm a happy people s tongue, 
 
11 HIS SOUL IS MARCHING ON. " 
 
 Until its music seemed to be 
 The one vast chord of jubilee 
 Wherewith the joyous nation rung. 
 
 " Ay, let the people sing it now ! 
 
 The veteran will renew his prime ; 
 
 The patriot of the later time 
 
 Will know why crime and hatred bow 
 
 To that unconquerable soul 
 
 Which marches still with sword of light 
 
 Where er the wheels of progress roll, 
 
 And leads the foremost van of right ! 
 
 "Ah, boy, there is no sound so grand, 
 
 None has such music for my ear, 
 
 As when across this mighty land 
 
 A people s voice, in song and cheer, 
 
 Pours like a vast, resistless tide, 
 
 On whose o erwhelming surges ride, 
 
 In one triumphant bark, 
 
 Love, Justice, Knowledge, side by side, 
 
 Out of the danger-haunted dark, 
 
 Into the light of nobler days. 
 
 But on that strong, exultant f\ood 
 
"HIS SOUL IS MARCHING (XV." 139 
 
 There is no tinge of martyr-blood, 
 There lies no dead beneath those waves. 
 To rise like spectres from their graves 
 At every deeper note that plays 
 About the hidden depths of thought ! 
 No froth of passion, deadly white, 
 Crowns the last billow of the song ; 
 Its poised, majestic crest has caught 
 A ray of Heaven s approving light, 
 And, ebbing earthward, sweeps along 
 The old, dead shells of vanished wrong 
 Into the ocean of the right!" 
 
LINES 
 
 SUGGESTED BY THE ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF 
 PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 
 
 No matter how the tides of life 
 Seethe o er the rocks and shoals of strife ; 
 No matter how the storms of hate 
 Burst on the humble and the great, 
 There s still a peace below them all, 
 Howe er their fury rise and fall. 
 
 The mists of calumny and spite 
 May dim the truth s exalting light ; 
 The windy blast of hollow reeds 
 May drown the voice of manly deeds, 
 Yet there s emotion too profound 
 For plummets of the tongue to sound. 
 140 
 
LINES. 141 
 
 A mighty nation, like the sea, 
 
 In treacherous, shallow spots will be 
 
 Forever lashed to bubbling foam, 
 
 That drifts where er the wind may roam ; 
 
 But in the people s broader heart 
 
 Un fathomed calms lie deep apart. 
 
 Upon that ocean s loyal breast, 
 Bark of our country, sail at rest, 
 Bearing upon thy solemn way 
 The life for which all patriots pray, 
 Till in some harbor, not remote, 
 Thy pennons thankfully shall float. 
 
 Around his prostrate form are furled 
 The drooping banners of the world ; 
 And each o erladen breath of time 
 Whispers the hope of every clime. 
 The sympathy of great and good 
 For one of equal brotherhood. 
 
 Full in the noon of manhood s youth, 
 Beloved by all who love the truth, 
 Peer to the wise, the learned, the just, 
 
142 LINES. 
 
 A nation s promise, pride and trust, 
 About him shines, through joy or tears, 
 The glory of a hundred years. 
 
 The new- wreathed laurel on his brow 
 Can only be the greener now ; 
 T is watered by the tender clew 
 Of all that makes us strong and true, 
 And burgeons richly in a day 
 With everlasting leaves of bay . 
 
 A nation at its chieftain s sid e 
 Lingers with sorrow, yet with pride, 
 And, linked in heart by woe and weal, 
 Knows how sublime it is to feel 
 The lofty kinship that can grace 
 Whate er in man is poor and base. 
 
 Yet not to him alone we owe 
 
 The purest tribute men bestow, 
 
 But lay sincerely at her feet 
 
 Who makes his greatness so complete, 
 
 The highest meed for such a life 
 
 Man s reverence for a noble wife. 
 
143 
 
 Behold, in these two are combined 
 The attributes of soul and mind 
 Whereon the pillars of our land, 
 Broad-based and firm, securely stand, 
 And with foundations such as they 
 Our freedom cannot sink away. 
 
AWE. 
 
 There s a spirit that comes with the eve, 
 And departs with the dawn of the day 
 And whatever that spirit doth say 
 
 My heart is fain to believe. 
 
 I have said in the prime of the noon, 
 " The night and the day are the same 
 The difference but of a name ; 
 
 Instead of the sun, the moon. 
 
 "And the heart is resting in sleep, 
 
 While the shadows that seem to crouch. 
 Are but drapery over her couch, 
 
 As she lies in slumber deep." 
 
 But when the rose of the West 
 Has followed after the sun, 
 And the fall of the dew has begun 
 
 To moisten the forest s crest, 
 144 
 
A WE. 145 
 
 Then a spirit glides from the dome, 
 And fills the ambient space 
 With the glow of his unseen face 
 
 With the light of his radiant home . 
 
 When the gleam of the stars combine 
 With the cold moon s vivid sheen, 
 I have heard nay, almost seen 
 
 The words of a thought divine. 
 
 They whisper of things sublime ; 
 Of the endless vistas of light, 
 Where the angels are treading the height 
 
 That t is hard for a mortal to climb. 
 
 They whisper of thy my slopes 
 In the gardens of Paradise, 
 Where the victors o er folly and vice 
 
 Are singing their finished hopes. 
 
 A solemn and masterful awe 
 
 Falls over the conquered mind, 
 
 Like invisible chains that bind 
 With a strong and mysterious law. 
 
146 A WE. 
 
 T is a faintly echoing chime 
 
 From the songs of the peopled vast, 
 Songs of a heavenly past, 
 
 And the full completion of time, 
 
 Sung by the rythmic spheres, 
 And the grand celestial throng ! 
 T is a thrill of a noble song 
 
 That is not for human ears. 
 
GARFIELD. 
 
 Now hangs a heavy shadow o er the land, 
 Thrown vast and dark from Death s afflicting hand, 
 And round the earth a sombre veil is spread, 
 In universal mourning for the dead. 
 
 So large a grief is this, wherein we feel 
 
 Emotion sorrow only can reveal, 
 
 And, lifted up to a prophetic height, 
 
 See, through the darkness, the immortal light. 
 
 The soldier, scholar, patriot, statesman, sage, 
 
 Whom nations ranked a giant of his age ; 
 
 The man we loved more closely than we knew, 
 Has bid his country and the world adieu. 
 
 Death can but write on monumental scrolls 
 What life has graven on a million souls 
 A nation s love, the epitaph sublime 
 That shines eternal on the front of time. 
 147 
 
143 GAEFIELD. 
 
 It is enough that o er his martyred clay 
 All patriot hearts will drop a wreath to-day, 
 And plant with flowers the garden of his tomb, 
 To make its glory greater than its 
 
 More than he was no man need ask to be 
 
 As good as great, and both in high degree ; 
 
 He knew to live but one consistent part, 
 
 And matched a statesman s with a Christian s heart. 
 
 He has not perished who bequeathed to earth 
 The fruitful memory of so rich a worth, 
 And, in his viewless passage, leaves behind 
 The priceless mantle of so great a mind. 
 
THROUGH THE GATE. 
 
 There is more happiness in the death of soir.e 
 Than in the lives of many. 
 
 I recall 
 
 How once, upon a summer afternoon, 
 A Christian fell asleep. 
 
 The very air 
 
 For reverence hushed its music-laden breath ; 
 The leaves, that whispered to each other, ceased , 
 The winged voices of the earth were still ; 
 As when a harp whose many strings do throb 
 Melodiously beneath the master s hand 
 Is quieted into a solemn pause, 
 As sweet as music, so that mighty harp 
 Whose restless chords had played all day for man 
 The fragments of old Paradisal hymns, 
 Resolved itself to a harmonious peace. 
 
 There was no gloom the sunlight, stealing slant 
 Between the parted window-draperies, 
 149 
 
150 THROUGH THE GATE. 
 
 Traced on the wall as if an angel s hand 
 
 O 
 
 Had written there in golden characters 
 The happy message of the outer world. 
 
 The heart of Nature, calm and beautiful, 
 
 Expressed, methought, a kind of tenderness 
 
 For her whose eyes, of half their lustre robbed 
 
 By the departing soul, looked out and saw, 
 
 As in a dream, our little company, 
 
 Regarding, through the tears we could not check, 
 
 The lamp of her existence, once so bright, 
 
 Paling and glimmering down the vaults of Death. 
 
 She knew each face, and smiled in every one; 
 She touched each hand with farewell tenderness 
 That gave, as t were, an energy divine 
 To the enfeebled clasp. A touch like that 
 Might win a soul to Heaven so strong is love, 
 The magnet of the universe, that draws 
 The yearning spirit to the breast of God. 
 
 Half- moving on her pillow, she essayed 
 
 In vain to speak ; but, by the wandering gaze 
 
THROUGH THE GATE. 151 
 
 And fingers groping out, we understood 
 
 That one should read, whereat the book she loved 
 
 Was brought and laid beside her, and a voice, 
 
 Unshaken, like the rest, but full of faith, 
 
 And rich in harmony, repeated o er 
 
 Half from the pages, half from memory 
 
 The lofty and triumphant eloquence 
 
 That burst inspired from the apostle s heart 
 
 To strengthen, comfort and exalt mankind. 
 
 Oh, infinite Book ! Thy depths are like the sea, 
 
 Fathomless and unfathomed ; wonderful 
 
 In beauty ; glorious in magnificence ; 
 
 Profound in peace, and in sublimity 
 
 Most terrible, beyond the heights of thought ; 
 
 God s sunshine kisses thee ; His lightnings flame, 
 
 His thunders roll, through all thy moods of power ; 
 
 The whispers of Omnipotence pervade 
 
 Thy deep and sacred mysteries ; thy waves 
 
 Are balm and bitterness, repose and storm, 
 
 Despair and hope we tremble, yet are glad. 
 
 The awful spaces of eternity 
 
 O er-arch thee, and innumerable lives 
 
 Shed o er thee, like the everlasting stars, 
 
 The benedictions of another world. 
 
152 THROUGH THE GATE. 
 
 How often had she laved her heart in thee, 
 
 To cool its earthly fevers, and renew 
 
 Her confidence, her patience, love and faith, 
 
 From their exhaustless source ! for she excelled 
 
 In every attribute which makes a woman 
 
 The intermediate angel of our race. 
 
 She reckoned all the sufferings of this life 
 
 As nothing to the glory unrevealed. 
 
 And never dreamed to barter for a bauble 
 
 Her spiritual riches. Thus it was 
 
 That when her mortal burden dropped and sank 
 
 Into the abyss of oblivion, 
 
 She needed not, like miserable souls 
 
 Whose all is in this perishable frame, 
 
 To weep its loss, but radiantly clothed 
 
 In incorruptible habiliments 
 
 The bridal garments of celestial love 
 
 She joined the beatific multitude 
 
 Which moves, rejoicing, through the gates of pearl, 
 
 There to sit down at the Redeemer s feet 
 
 With Abraham and Isaac and with Jacob, 
 
 And know how great a bliss it is to sow 
 
 And reap the fruits of immortality. 
 
THROUGH THE GATE. 153 
 
 Methought the presence of divinity 
 Folded us in its shadow, as the words 
 Dropped from the reader s fervid lips like dew 
 To soothe the ache and burning of our hearts. 
 
 Supreme enthusiasm, yet subdued, 
 
 Winged with new courage our imperfect faith ; 
 
 For never shall I see again on earth 
 
 So much of death in life, so much of light 
 
 Break through this fleshly veil, as in that hour. 
 
UNDER THE MOON. 
 
 Oh, boys, wherever you are to-night 
 Beneath the arch of this virgin light 
 In the home love, by the shrine of prayer. 
 On the prairie s wilds, in the city s glare, 
 In the halls of art, or the siren s den, 
 With the lures of vice, or the scholar s pen 
 Whate er the phantom of life you pursue, 
 One fancy I have that is faithful to you. 
 
 The sorrows of many a by-gone year 
 Seem mingled and lost in the shadows here, 
 But the noblest pleasures and thoughts we knew 
 Like spirits throng in the dusky blue, 
 As indistinct as the moonlight falls 
 Over the distant horizon walls, 
 Yet each ethereally bright, 
 Clear, warm and pure as the mellow night. 
 154 
 
UNDER THE 
 
 Thev seem a part of the moonlight space, 
 And every beam has a human face, 
 That comes and goes on the silver stream 
 That bears the world in a quiet dream. 
 In that vast silence methinks they part, 
 To seek each one a kindred heart. 
 And bear to the musing and yearning breast 
 The message of a divine unrest. 
 
 The moon lies deep in the tranquil lake, 
 And the ripples, like scattered jewels, break, 
 Till the merry flash of a sunny eye 
 Gleams from the water that murmurs by; 
 The night-hawk* wheels with his drowsy call 
 Betwixt the stars and the forest wall, 
 And the muffled echoes repeat once more 
 Your jocund voices from shore to shore. 
 
 The woods, like royal mourners, shed 
 Their rustling tresses of saffron and red, 
 And your footsteps dance, as they did of old, 
 Across a carpet of shrifted gold. 
 Tn? trees bend down with a swelling sigh 
 To whisper of summers that never die, 
 
156 UN DEE THE 310 ON. 
 
 And the softened tone of your graver mood 
 Breathes through the peopled solitude. 
 
 Old friends, and faithful to death, are these : 
 The moon, the lake, and the stately trees ; 
 And though beneath other stars you gaze 
 On heaven s bewildering, glittering maze 
 By other waters though you may stand 
 To hear the ripples along the sand, 
 Yet Nature s voices will rise to bear 
 The same old message by earth and air. 
 
 Ah, never believe that Time can bestow 
 A greater measure of heaven belo\v 
 Than alone in the midst of your thoughts to recall 
 No thought whose dark presence can sadden them all. 
 That such be your lot is the theme of my prayer 
 Cast out on the breast of the listening air, 
 While I stand at the feet of the pensive night, 
 Under the arch of this virgin light. 
 
IX MEMORIAM. 
 
 When greatness falls, which states and empires mourn, 
 
 A shock throughout the shuddering world is borne, 
 
 As if our dull machinery of clay 
 
 Flashed Heaven s own fire along its rusty way, 
 
 And winged the sound of that ethereal flame 
 
 With the the sad utterance of a single name. 
 
 Garfield ! our hero, martyr, yea and saint 
 Whom lavish sorrow r vainly strives to paint, 
 If admiration should o erleap her end, 
 And love exalt thee more than she intend, 
 What power shall set the limit of thy praise, 
 Save the cold censure of remoter days ? 
 Then may men say, "His faults were such and such 
 His virtues have been blazoned overmuch." 
 But in the glow and impulse of the time 
 Thy faults are shadows in a torrid clime. 
 Enthusiasm s but the name of Tru ih 
 Ere she has lost the ardor of he: youth, 
 
 157 
 
158 IN XSMOSIAlf. 
 
 And t is not oft that she will stoop to weigh 
 The words affection is inspired to say. 
 
 Yet it is not the pity of thy death 
 
 That warms to fire the eulogistic breath 
 
 Death cannot make, nor can it uncreate ; 
 
 T was life that gave thee title to be great. 
 
 Beside thy bed a tearful people stood, 
 
 And watched thee waste in suffering martyrhood 
 
 Till the last gleam of life s uncertain spark, 
 
 Died from the sight, and left a nation dark. 
 
 They saw thee still, in every phase of life 
 
 The gentle husband of as true a wife, 
 
 The Christian father, the chivalrous son 
 
 Till the last duty of thy race was done. 
 
 Ah, who that looked upon thy final sleep 
 
 Could e er forbid his sorrowing eyes to weep 
 
 Feeling how strangely, eloquently grand 
 
 Was the last touch of life s enfeebled hand ! 
 
 Upon thy face, in that tremendous hour, 
 Could well be read the impress of thy power, 
 And in the aspect of each wrinkled line 
 Remained some vestige of the flame divine ; 
 
Z-V MEMOSIAM. 159 
 
 As when the sun is lost below the hill, 
 A flush of glory tints the twilight still. 
 Then could they trace, as from an angel s pen, 
 The massive genius, ne er to rule again ; 
 The moving speech, the intellect profound, 
 On virtue based, and by that virtue crowned ; 
 Patience unmoved by agony or wrong ; 
 An iron faith to suffer and be strong. 
 Unalteied still, by Providence or fate, 
 It was thy very nature to be great. 
 
 Alas ! how few has God upraised like thee, 
 Whose soul and mind were balanced in degree, 
 Who, though thou hadst the laurels of the race, 
 Let not ambition lure thee to disgrace. 
 
 Nor shall the worshipped heroes of the past 
 Be named with thee in glory s trumpet blast. 
 What heart e er loved the Caesars of the world, 
 Whose ruthless banners tyranny unfurled ; 
 Who stained the earth and crimsoned every flood 
 To leave mankind a legacy of blood ? 
 But thou, oh, nobler conqueror, canst afford 
 A better witness than a warrior s sword, 
 
160 IN UEXOB1AM, 
 
 Although thou stood st in freedom s foremost rank 
 
 o 
 
 When slavery to its just perdition sank. 
 
 Without a monarch s power, a trickster s art, 
 
 Thou hast subdued the hate of every heart. 
 
 Thy hand, stretched out from Death s approaching 
 
 gloom , 
 
 Bowed e en thy foemen to lament thy doom, 
 And joined the links of love s dissevered chain 
 In the last travail of thy fatal pain. 
 When Caesar fell, scant rev rence was his due ; 
 But thy dread fall a sorrowing world cloth rue. 
 
 O, great Departed ! Wheresoe er thy soul 
 In loftier spheres hath gained a new control, 
 Methinks, whate er thou gain st of power or bliss, 
 Full oft thou lt turn from other worlds to this, 
 And joy to hear, amid that kindred throng, 
 Thy name roll heavenward in a nation s song ; 
 And, for the sacred guerdon of thy pain. 
 To know Columbia has not wept in vain. 
 
MINNETONKA. 
 
 There is a lake embosomed in the West 
 Set like a jewel in the billowy folds 
 Of Nature s green, luxurious drapery. 
 Here, in midsummer, when the stately woods 
 That skirt the sinuous borders of the lake 
 Are greenest ; when the lightest breezes fan 
 The leafy banks that top the lofty trees, 
 And fret the buoyant surface of the w r aves 
 To foamy ripples here the wearied eye, 
 The labored footstep, and the troubled mind, 
 Love best to seek among secluded haunts 
 The rest denied them by the vexing world. 
 Here Nature s fingers press most tenderly 
 On grateful foreheads, and her warmest kiss 
 Consoles the chafed, impatient heart of care ; 
 Here she pursues her own harmonious thoughts, 
 And links her fancies in a thousand charms, 
 Not overwrought, and gaudv of device, 
 
 161 
 
162 MINKS TONKA. 
 
 Like man s inventions, surfeiting the eye, 
 
 But like the unconscious beauty of a child, 
 
 As full of innocence as loveliness, 
 
 That wins a smile, although we scarce know why. 
 
 Yea, this, oh, Nature, is thy favorite shrine, 
 Sacred to thee ! But who of all that trace 
 Their lingering footprints on these yielding sands, 
 And look with careless laughter in thy face, 
 
 Can teach the music to another heart 
 
 
 That fills his own, arouse an absent friend 
 
 To admiration, sympathy, and love, 
 For what enchants him here ? 
 
 If I could paint, 
 
 In language rich and eloquent as thine, 
 And sing in thy melodious cadences 
 Thine attributes of quiet loveliness, 
 
 The thoughts of those whose eyes have looked on thee 
 Would throng these shores, and every thought would 
 
 bear 
 
 A silent witness to my humble praise. 
 If Fancy, like a bird whose flight descends 
 And lightly meets thy waters, could but dip 
 Her heavenward wings into thy healing breast, 
 
MINNE TO NKA . 163 
 
 And steal from thence invigorating balm 
 To cool the fever of a mind distressed, 
 Refresh the fainting lives that drag along 
 Their endless progress over dusty ways, 
 And quench the thirst of parching misery, 
 How many a soul would lift to Heaven again 
 Its hopeless vision, by that touch inspired 
 To new existence, like a drooping flower 
 That feels the fresh baptism of the dew ! 
 
 Oh, such is the divinity of song ! 
 
 And such his purpose who aspires to sing 
 
 To other souls of what they feel themselves ; 
 
 For Nature sings to all mankind of peace 
 
 Peace and good-will and one continual song 
 
 Of infinite contentment, love and hope 
 
 She croons through all the halcyon summer days, 
 
 And here she broods, among her pensive shades, 
 
 Above the heart-sick folly of the world, 
 
 And cradles restless spirits into rest. 
 
 Come, let us go ; the woods are calling us 
 
 With long, low murmurs thither will we roam, 
 
 Among the breezy labyrinths of shade 
 
164 MINNE TONKA . 
 
 Rare nooks of verdure, where the mottled light 
 
 Toys with the grasses, as the trembling leaves, 
 
 With idle flutterings, sway their slender fingers, 
 
 And wave their shadows on the velvet ground. 
 
 Here pause and look between the sylvan veil 
 
 With hungry eyes, unsatiate with delight, 
 
 Like one who sits before a laden feast, 
 
 While all about him ring the laugh and cheer, 
 
 And quaffs the wine with long and lingering draughts, 
 
 That breed delicious fancies in his brain 
 
 Of his own vineyards in another land. 
 
 Down yonder slope that fronts the pebbled sands 
 The supple grasses point their bending spears, 
 With slow, uneasy motion, to the lake ; 
 And thither do we turn our wandering eyes, 
 Moved by no impulse save the sweet caprice 
 Of our own pleasure. 
 
 From the dripping stones, 
 That glisten with the water s smooth caress, 
 To yonder distant woodlands, crowned with blue, 
 Whose dimmest top salutes the vagrant sight, 
 A dreamy pow r er, descending like a dove 
 With golden wings and silver-tinted breast, 
 
165 
 
 Hovers serenely and enfolds the world. 
 
 The shining ripples break from light to light, 
 
 And glittei for a moment in the sun, 
 
 Then sink away, to rise and fall again. 
 
 Mark how yon sails do stretch their snowy wings 
 
 Like far-off birds that skim the water s edge 
 
 As if to light ! Ah, whither do they go ? 
 
 To which of all these hermit tents that hide 
 
 Behind the friendly pillars of the trees 
 
 Their modest curtains ? Yonder sail, perhaps, 
 
 Bears some worn merchant from the clink of gold 
 
 To count awhile the wealth of happiness ; 
 
 Some scholar from his books, to ponder here 
 
 One simple page from the Immortal pen ; 
 
 Some poet, from his shallow, tinkling rhymes, 
 
 To learn the rhythm of the winds and trees, 
 
 The accents of the water, and the chimes 
 
 Of birds that call him from his sleep at morn ; 
 
 Some listless slave of pleasure, who has learned 
 
 To love his mistress in her simplest garb ; 
 
 Or some wan sufferer, fleeing from disease, 
 
 Dips shrunken fingers in the dashing waves, 
 
 And dreams of health and happy days to come. 
 
 Oh, golden day, thy peace be with them all, 
 
166 MINNETONKA. 
 
 Circled by Nature s arms and lulled to rest 
 By mingled voices, singing, as in dreams, 
 The drowsy incantation of repose. 
 
 On yonder isle, through whose entangled depths 
 The fervent sun scarce threads a narrow way 
 With solitary beams, the herons build 
 Their lofty homes ; for unknown centuries 
 Have they been constant to their trysting-place, 
 And still, from those hereditary nests, 
 Their broods rise up and circle on the wing, 
 And wheel above the nestling bays that lie 
 Behind the misty headlands ; underneath 
 Their lordly flight the sapphire lake reflects 
 The blush of heaven ; the altars of the sun 
 Are newly lighted with a brighter flame 
 To beacon his departure o er the world ; 
 Lift up your eyes ! there s not a western cloud 
 But hath a dye of crimson on its breast. 
 And every cloud doth like a curtain hang 
 Before the sky ; but still between the folds 
 That part their silver fringes stream the rays 
 Of day s majestic king, whose going out 
 Is prouder than the glory of his reign. 
 
1 7 XE TONKA . 1Q1 
 
 The earth is sleeping, and she dreams of Heaven ! 
 If there s a tear upon her glowing cheek, 
 The sun will dry it with the amorous touch 
 Of his bejewelled fingers; if there be 
 One shadow on her brow, it will but serve 
 To make her smiles more radiantly glad ! 
 Sleep on, oh, Earth ! the gates of Paradise 
 Swing open to thy dreams ! the guardian swords 
 That dazzled Eden with seraphic fire 
 Flash down from every snowy battlement 
 Their flaming splendor on the forest s verge. 
 A molten sea expands its shining flood 
 To undiscovered shores, where haplv lies 
 Some wondrous country, whose Elysian fields 
 Bloom with all glories born of sun and stars ; 
 Where happier birds, with richer plumage, gleam 
 Among the groves, and pour with wilder stress 
 Their music on the fragrant atmosphere. 
 
 A looming cloud, like some celestial slope, 
 Tinged with the roseate color of the hour, 
 Uplifts its massive summit ; at its feet 
 The drifted vessels of the sky drop down 
 
108 M1NNE TONE A . 
 
 To sunlit ports, and furl their viewless sails 
 In waveless bays, by shores of rustling green 
 
 Now fade the brilliant curtains of the sky, 
 And down the west the transient glory sinks 
 Into the bosom of the ebbing sea 
 From which it came, till only yonder clouds 
 Are fringed with red, a lurid, burning hue 
 And o er the lake a parting radiance falls, 
 A somber, weird magnificence, that fills 
 The hollow ripples with prismatic fire 
 A last, reluctant prophecy of night. 
 
MY FATHER S HOUSE. 
 
 Oh, God, the world is very dark ! I hear 
 
 (As one whose ear is keen for sounds of woe) 
 
 The mindless creatures of the atmosphere 
 Sweeping along the billows of the snow, 
 Xow swift, arid now funereally slow, 
 
 Hurling about the white and desolate sea, 
 In wailing blasts, the winter s frosty foam, 
 
 Like some lost spirit, miserably free, 
 
 To wander blind beneath a starless dome, 
 Without a Heaven as I without a home. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Alas ! what memories of unvalued years 
 
 Torment his mind who stands upon the brink 
 
 Of hope and love ! Oh, what self-pitying tears 
 His hesitating agony must drink 
 Whene er he stops remorsefully to think ! 
 169 
 
MY FATHER* S HOUSE. 
 
 Innumerable faces, loved and lost, 
 
 And happy pictures he would hide in vain, 
 
 Among his thoughts are feverishly tossed, 
 And voices of unutterable pain 
 Make chaos in the midnight of his brain. 
 
 For now methinks the dial of my life 
 
 Has shifted to the point where all is dark 
 
 The dreadful hour that calms the pulse of strife. 
 When Death s black flood o erleaps its tidal mark, 
 And washes out existence like a spark ! 
 
 Oh, Nature, Mother Nature, if to be 
 In peace upon thv bosom, and to part 
 
 The chords of time forever were to die ! 
 
 But who will trust thee, fickle as thou art, . 
 Or know what secrets slumber in thv heart? 
 
 There is some one singing above, where the windows 
 
 are all aflame 
 
 With the silver brilliance that streams from the starry 
 chandeliers ; 
 
MY FATHER S HOUSE. Ill 
 
 The voice is an alien one, but the song, ah, that is the 
 
 same ! 
 
 What passionate fools are we, that a sound can move 
 us to tears ! 
 
 More pain is wrought by music than ever this world 
 
 dreams of ; 
 It lures the credulous fancy with visions that flash 
 
 and fade. 
 As when we reach our hands, in dreams, to a phantom 
 
 above, 
 
 And wake to find it is nothing, and all is silence and 
 shade. 
 
 Oh, beautiful spirit, peace ! You bring no comfort to 
 
 me ! 
 You are sweet, but bitterly sweet ; you are fair, but 
 
 deathly fair ; 
 
 You marshal up from the past the faces I would not see, 
 And I am weary. wearv ! and stumble in very 
 despair. 
 
 1 heard one saying. "Come ; there is light and music 
 within." 
 
172 MY FATBITS S HOUSE. 
 
 " Sir," I replied, " I am searching for rest; " and he 
 
 smiled with a nod : 
 " Here you shall find it rest rest from all sorrow and 
 
 sin. 
 
 There is rest, and light, and music all three in the 
 kingdom of God." 
 
 " Sir, I am beggared and vile" ; but he said, as quick 
 
 as before, 
 Here we need no money come, take and eat 
 
 without price ; 
 The water of life is free," and he drew me in at the 
 
 door, 
 Whispering, " He that repents is nearest to Paradise." 
 
 There was one who stood in the midst whose visage 
 
 seemed to shine 
 With an inward light, like an ember that glows to 
 
 the center with heat ; 
 And methought that his beaming eyes looked wistfully 
 
 into mine, 
 
 As he read from the olden Book I had trodden under 
 my feet. 
 
J/r FATHER S HOUSE. 173 
 
 Come/ he said and the word seemed to hang- upon 
 
 his lips, 
 
 "All ye that are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
 Why clo ye linger more in your vile companionships. 
 Feeding on swinish husks, naked and sorely op 
 pressed ? 
 
 "Come to my Father s house, all ye who are far away ; 
 
 There the household of Christ, that nothing will ever 
 
 disperse, 
 Gathers age by age, and there they are singing to-day 
 
 The lyrics of peace that ring all over the universe. 
 
 " Where s he s that s athirst ? The hand of my Father 
 
 has poured 
 
 The water of life for him let him come and drink- 
 it to-night. 
 Where is he that hungers ? Come, sit at mv Father s 
 
 board ; 
 
 A banquet for all the world is spread in the halls of 
 light. 
 
 " Oh, my brothers, my sisters, like children wilfully 
 proud, 
 
174 37 y FATHER S HOUSE. 
 
 Ye wander away in the gloom ; away from the 
 
 Fathers door, 
 Until, perhaps, the voice that was calling von far and 
 
 loud 
 Will die in Eternity s hush, and be silent forevermore. 
 
 But now ye can hear the tone of his patient and 
 
 pleading call 
 Echo through sunless wilds of hidden crime and 
 
 distress; 
 
 Oh, give back the cry, before you stumble and fall, 
 And your feet go down in the pit that is miry and 
 bottomless. 
 
 " Hear John, from the Isle of Patmos oh, I can see 
 
 him still, 
 Crowned and clothed with glory, there by the 
 
 Heaven-lit sea 
 
 * Let him that is thirsty come, and whosoever will 
 Let him drink of the water of life that is everlasting 
 and free. 
 
THE SACRED CHAMBER. 
 
 There is a chamber in the human heart 
 Whose windows look across Elysian fields ; 
 Rivers that wash their smooth and diamond sands 
 With crystal waves, unchilled bv gloom or storm ; 
 Woods of immortal verdure, wjiere the breath 
 Of happy spirits stirs among the leaves 
 In peaceful whispers ; hills upon whose slopes 
 Perpetual sunlight, like a golden veil, 
 Unwoven with shadows, wraps the inhabitants 
 In the bright garb of immortality ; 
 Meadows like those which childhood loves to haunt 
 Where smiling infinite multitudes of flowers, 
 Rich with the tints of Heaven, paint every knoll 
 And velvet hollow, and allure the steps 
 Of charmed wanderers with fragrant shapes, 
 Of the Divine Imagination born 
 For spiritual pleasure ; brooks that dash 
 Harmonious sounds from every shining stone, 
 And make such an unwearying melody 
 
 175 
 
176 THE SACKED CHAMBER. 
 
 That listening seraphs catch the flowing chords 
 And link the hills of Paradise with song ! 
 
 Oh, sacred chamber ! At its humble door 
 No curious footstep ever cares to pause ; 
 The jeering voice of reckless blasphemy 
 Breaks not the reverent silence of its peace ; 
 The dwarfish passions of humanity 
 Linger not near it, for its holiness 
 Weighs like a condemnation on their heads. 
 
 
 Power, with the engines of ambitious scorn, 
 And Bigotry, with iron, bloody hands, 
 Have beat against its adamantine door 
 The ineffectual tempests of their wrath, 
 Till, worn with fury, they have crept away, 
 Spent with the madness of their own revenge, 
 Yet still across that chamber falls the light 
 Of Paradise, and through the windows steal 
 The benisons of spiritual lives, 
 Borne on the zephyrs of eternity ! 
 
 Here lonely age shall put his staff aside, 
 And feel the promise of undying youth 
 
THE SACKED CHAMBEH. 177 
 
 Stir in his veins, by sorrows half congealed. 
 
 Here the frail child, neglected by mankind, 
 
 Shall lay her fingers in the hands of God, 
 
 And her meek lips forget their trembling speech 
 
 In saintly converse with another world. 
 
 Here the wan mother, from whose patient cheek 
 
 Time s hand has stolen loveliness and youth, 
 
 May lean her head upon angelic breasts 
 
 And dream of rest, unutterably dear 
 
 To weary Love ; the disappointed fools 
 
 Who track wild Fortune through her mazy haunts, 
 
 Shall yearn for such a cloister when the night 
 
 Of Death, or some unthought calamity, 
 
 Surrounds them, and their miserable deeds 
 
 Rise up, like phantoms, to convict their lives. 
 
 And well for them if such divine repose 
 
 Shall crown their fruitless wanderings, and they die 
 
 Beneath the shelter which had been a jest 
 
 In the vainglorious noontide of their days. 
 
 Oh, Blessed chamber ! they who enter it, 
 Though they be clowns, shall have the grace of kings ; 
 Though they be mocked, oppressed, and spit upon 
 By the proud world, seraphic dignity 
 
178 THE SAC II ED CHAMBER. 
 
 Shall clothe them with a mantle dropped from Heaven ! 
 
 Bathed in the holy sunlight of the place, 
 
 The waiting soul looks out with tranquil eyes 
 
 Across the visioned future, leans to feel 
 
 Balm-laden winds refresh the brow of thought, 
 
 And listens in the pensiveness of faith 
 
 To hear deep echoes of enraptured tongues 
 
 Repeat the whisper of immortal hope. 
 
LITTLE NELL IN THE CHURCH - TOWER. 
 
 Sitting in the old gray tower, 
 Round whose venerable height 
 Fades the last pale thread of light 
 
 Into twilight s sombre hour ; 
 
 Rapt in infinite content, 
 With the Bible on her knee, 
 Sometimes in my thought I see 
 
 The pale watcher as she bent, 
 
 Motionless and reverent, 
 
 O er the page, and felt a new, 
 
 Perfect meaning, as she read, 
 Like a vision shining through, 
 
 From the spaces overhead. 
 
 Nearer Heaven than earth she seems, 
 With her slight and wasted frame, 
 Full of spiritual dreams, 
 
 179 , 
 
180 LITTLE NELL. 
 
 Only earthly in the name ; 
 And the moonlight s dawning beams 
 
 Seem to shed an aureole 
 On the drooping crown of hair, 
 
 And a blessing on the soul 
 That is resting from its care. 
 
 Up from meadow, brook and heath, 
 Wood and hill and drowsy town ; 
 
 From the ghostly aisles beneath, 
 
 Where the moonlight trembles down 
 
 From the chamber of the dead, 
 At whose greenly curtained door 
 Much she loves to ponder o er 
 
 Lives unwritten and unread, 
 Steals a mild, prophetic bieath, 
 
 Whisp ring of a life to cease 
 T is the pursuivant of Death, 
 
 Bearing messages of Peace. 
 
 Oh, what heart that beats for love 
 
 Doubts that somehow Love can draw 
 Through the veil of mournful law, 
 
 Sunlight from a world above ? 
 
 o 
 
LITTLE NELL. 1S1 
 
 And that spiritual sense, 
 Like the fragrance of a flower 
 Hidden by the evening hour, 
 
 Is immortal recompense 
 For a failing earthly power ! 
 
 All her wanderings are complete ; 
 
 All her silent grief and fears, 
 
 All her weariness and tears, 
 Sink like shadows at her feet, 
 Where all earthly pathways meet 
 
 By that river in whose tide 
 Human footsteps melt away 
 From the sight of them who stay, 
 
 Weeping, at the river-side. 
 
 Oh, they say that she was laid 
 
 In the quaint old burial-ground, 
 
 Where each year the cherished mound 
 Blossoms in the summer shade, 
 
 Where the flowers she loved so well 
 Emblems of a lovelier soul 
 Scatter from the humble knoll 
 
 Memories of Little Nell. 
 
182 C HEISTS COMPANIONSHIP. 
 
 But I love the best to think 
 That she sits alone with God 
 
 In the old, time-hallowed place 
 Not a creature of the sod, 
 
 Faltering on destruction s brink, 
 
 But of a celestial race, 
 
 And with glory in her face 
 Such as mortal never wore, 
 Save at Heaven s open door. 
 
 CHRIST S COMPANIONSHIP. 
 
 Let me come more near to Thee, 
 Christ, my Savior, Christ, my king 
 
 Stretch Thine arms so close to me 
 I can grasp thy hands and cling. 
 
 I am nothing, if not Thine 
 Nothing, if I cannot plead 
 
 That Thy sacrifice divine 
 
 Answers my immortal need. 
 
CHRIST S COMPANIONSHIP. 183 
 
 Let me suffer what I may, 
 
 Let me tread on thorns of woe ; 
 So Thy feet are on the way, 
 
 I am fearless where I go. 
 
 If Thou talkest with my soul, 
 
 Every other voice may cease 
 All the world, from pole to pole, 
 
 All the universe, is peace. 
 
 Who can say he is alone, 
 Though from all he walks apart. 
 
 If he hears Thy blessed tone 
 Fill the spaces of his -heart ? 
 
 Thou art with me, oh, my Lord ! 
 
 Let that tender thought suffice. 
 All my toil is but reward, 
 
 All mv sorrow, Paradise ! 
 
SONNET PATIENCE . 
 
 My prayer is but for patience strength to bear 
 
 Whate er of grief or weariness is mine ; 
 
 Patience to watch the star whose light will shine 
 Above the unknown haven of my prayer, 
 Beyond regret, or sorrow, or despair ; 
 
 Patience to feel that purposes divine, 
 
 Like threads of golden adamant, entwine 
 Among the chains that we are doomed to wear ; 
 Patience to climb life s mist-enshrouded height 
 
 With doubtful steps, or, pausing by the way, 
 Await the dawn of the o erwhelming light, 
 
 Whose rays shall sweep the heavy gloom away, 
 And show Heaven s far-off country to my sight, 
 
 Bathed in the glow of God s transcendent day. 
 
 184 
 
TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 TO MISS 
 
 As one who tosses in fever, 
 
 And weeps alone in the dark, 
 Hears through his glimmering lattice 
 
 The heavenward song of the lark, 
 And, looking up from his pallet, 
 
 For a sign of the coming day, 
 Sees, on the floor of his chamber, 
 
 A slender and golden ray ; 
 
 So to my restless conscience, 
 
 In its gloom of unsatisfied pain, 
 Your voice floated sweet through the darkness 
 
 That hung over spirit and brain, 
 And methought thro the black-curtained windows 
 
 That oped from my shadowy soul, 
 A beam of the light everlasting 
 
 From the morning of Paradise stole. 
 185 
 
186 TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Perhaps, when the infinite splendor 
 
 That rolls from Eternity s throne 
 Pours full on that holy assembly 
 
 Whom God has entitled his own, 
 And when your beatified spirit 
 
 Bursts forth in its happiest song, 
 You will know and be glad that your music 
 
 Has gathered one soul to that throng. 
 
 TO MISS c. D. 
 
 Men love to say, " The world is wide ! " 
 
 Yet some few narrow strips of earth 
 Hold all their sorrow, all their pride, 
 
 Their dreams of love, their hours of mirth. 
 
 Oh, narrow spots ! but, oh, how r dear, 
 
 How rich their soil, from whence upspring 
 
 The flowers of life we cherish here, 
 
 And whence our heavenward thoughts take wing ! 
 
 Whene er your constant memories turn 
 To that one spot we both possess. 
 
TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 187 
 
 And your pure fancies brighter burn 
 In radiant flames of happiness, 
 
 Then grant this simple boon to me 
 Whom you unconsciously have taught 
 
 Among your reveries to be 
 
 Companion of a wandering thought. 
 
 TO MISS L. K., ON HER MARRIAGE. 
 
 Although we regret that we cannot be present 
 To see you launch forth in the vessel of bliss, 
 
 Yet \ve trust that the voyage will always be pleasant, 
 And the last of its days be as happy as this. 
 
 T is a dangerous journey, and sometimes, no doubt, 
 The sea will grow dark and the tempest arise ! 
 
 Yet see that the lamp of your love go not out, 
 
 Nor the heaven of hope grow less bright in your 
 eyes. 
 
 Remember through life that the oath which you take 
 Is given to God, and recorded above ; 
 
188 TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 He knows and forgives all the blunders we make 
 When the wound and the kiss are both given by 
 love. 
 
 Be married in soul, that is marriage alone ; 
 
 God himself is the minister, angels the guests, 
 And a cloud of His witnesses compass the throne 
 
 To smile on the wedlock of innocent breasts. 
 
 TO F. E. C., OX THE OCCASION OF HIS MARRIAGE, 
 
 * 
 
 If marriage be the heaven that lovers say, 
 
 I could not wish you happier than to-day ; 
 
 But, love, methinks, is like the upward sun, 
 
 Whose earliest glory is its faintest one 
 
 The first soft flush that steals across the sight 
 
 Is but the promise of the coming light ! 
 
 And so, I trust, the orb of love will rise 
 
 With warmer radiance for your happy eyes, 
 
 Each year diviner in its cloudless rays, 
 
 Until it reach the sunset of your days, 
 
 And wrapped in Time s last quiet glow of peace, 
 
 Pass to the world where love can never cease ! 
 
TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 189 
 
 And if some shadows of your lot recall 
 
 The gloom of care that lowers for us all, 
 
 Oh, may they be such shadows as are cast 
 
 By summer s pleasant woods, where you have passed 
 
 Among the cooling arbors of the trees, 
 
 And felt the grateful touches of the breeze ! 
 
 Such be your path your worth deserves the meed 
 
 That only crowns the man who loves indeed, 
 
 And for that sacred gift of Heaven his wife 
 
 Pledges with truth his honor and his life ! 
 
 TO MISS F. c. 
 
 Upon the field of Friendship I will set 
 
 Some small memorial of a happy day, 
 That you may look thereon and not forget 
 
 How quickly friends are doomed to pass away 
 How many happy hours we spend 
 
 Whose deepest joy we ne er express, 
 But carry outward to the end 
 
 A secret store of happiness ! 
 Some flower of thought which will not die ; 
 Some gem whose lustre will not dim ; 
 
190 TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 
 
 Some strain of music floating by, 
 Friendship s perpetual vesper hymn ; 
 
 All these, I trust, or some of these, 
 Shall sweeten memory for you, 
 
 Like ripples of a fragrant breeze 
 Upon a glassy lake of blue. 
 
 TO vv. D. 
 
 A friend in the ranks of your friends I have set 
 A landmark of memory here for your sake, 
 
 That sometimes, when musing, you may not forget, 
 My link in the chain that no sorrow can break. 
 
 TO MISS M. c. c. 
 
 There are some women who appear 
 Half alien to our common sphere, 
 So much they seem above mankind 
 In sweet divinity of mind. 
 
 Apart from none they seem to stand, 
 Yet check the world s profaning hand 
 By that pure atmosphere of good 
 Which circles all true womanhood. 
 
TRIBUTES TO FRIENDSHIP. 191 
 
 Oh, to be one of such as these 
 Gives strength to suffer, power to please, 
 And more than beauty, wealth or place, 
 A Christian heart, a Christian face. 
 
 TO C. H., A FELLOW CRAFTSMAN. 
 
 We do not set the volumes of our lives 
 
 By days or weeks, but moments every breath, 
 Word, look and motion in its place survives, 
 
 To make the book whose clasp is forged by Death 
 Type upon type, and line succeeding line, 
 
 Page upon page, until the whole is done, 
 And read by God s unerring eye Divine. 
 
 None can correct it saving Christ, his Son. 
 Oh, therefore, set your life, in thought and deed, 
 As for your Maker, not mankind, to read. 
 
 LINES SET UP IN HIS BROTHER S COMPOSING STICK. 
 
 Word by word and line by line, 
 With our silent thoughts between, 
 
 Do we set the book of life 
 See that every proof is clean. 
 
Why sing ye of Death as an angel of black. 
 Who takes from our hearts what will never come back? 
 And ivhy are your faces so sombre with dread 
 When ye look on the house of a soul that is Jledf 
 
 Oh, hushed be your dirges they jar on the sound 
 Of the music that hallows the silence around; 
 Should mortals lament * 
 
 : (See concluding paragraph of the INTRODUCTION to this volume.) 
 192 
 
YC 16124 
 
 SG3S14 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY