GIFT OF 
 
 Class of 1887 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 
 A LYRIC 
 
 BY 
 
 George Cathcart Bronson 
 
 !> 
 
 (CARL BRONSON) 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE H. L. WARD PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 Los ANOHI.ES, CALIFORNIA 
 
 1907 
 
 tJt 
 
COPYRIGHT 1907 
 BY G. C. BRONSON 
 
 PKKSS OF 
 
 Ifcuiur Company 
 
 LOS ANGKLRS 
 
I dedicate this thought as loving tribute to the 
 Soul of her in realms of Light, my wife, 
 Maude Wellings-Bronson. 
 
 Upon the altar of our love 
 We consecrate thy Memory, 
 
 Biding our time as doth behoove 
 Three souls that trust Eternity. 
 
 MARIAN. 
 RUTH. 
 G. C. B. 
 
 671529 
 
PROLOGUE 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 
 PROLOGUE 
 
 Come view with me from this prospective height 
 The scene that spreads so tranquilly below. 
 
 From o er that wind-swept, skyward slanting rock, 
 
 Gaze tween the framing arms of yonder spruce ; 
 
 Behold, upon the valley s bosom, far, 
 
 That village nestling in the shade of trees? 
 
 Twas there she lived. 
 
 And hark ! Hear you not waters chattering? 
 
 It is the brook that wakes the lowland s hush" 
 
 To hear the merry laughter of the schoolward ihrong. 
 
 There to the leftward, follow where I point, 
 
 Mark that high promontory that uprears 
 
 Below the village and beyond the river s bend? 
 
 Upon its apex trace that graying pile? 
 
 It is the mission Carmel ; and below 
 
 Upon the slope is consecrated ground 
 
 Wherein are gathered to their last abode 
 
 The faithful host. 
 
 Adown this bi-walled vale awaft, I hear 
 
 The plunge of billows on a craggy shore 
 
 Whence seaward gleams by night a watchful beam. 
 
 The actors in these unpretentious scenes 
 I will select from ordinary walks : 
 
 9 
 
Materials both old and commonplace. 
 
 Then, by the trend of circumstance evolve 
 
 My plastic creatures into thoughtfulness: 
 
 From that rapt moment on they grow alone ; 
 
 For, once we pause to think, there s nought can st 
 
 The progress of the npaspiriug mind. 
 
 My pupil is a lad from o er the seas. 
 Whose parents, thirsting for the tempting gold. 
 Gathered their all and pressed across the wild. 
 They met the fate was common of those days. 
 And perished in the lonely wilderness. 
 This frail survivor, yet a growing lad. 
 Was .fathered by the settlers in their way: 
 His mind, unformed as crude, unminted ore, 
 Absorbed the sterling principles of men 
 Whose honor was their only claim. 
 
 As unsophisticated lie. as tli 
 Whose all-absorbing duties fill their days 
 Too full for deeper thought, yet mischief free; 
 Such labors as do callous o er the hands. 
 Embroaden shoulders and o ermoist the brow : 
 He loves the yellow harvest of tlic field. 
 While bird songs charm him from the budding bush. 
 Awaking in his soul a sad refrain. 
 More subtle than all reasoning or rote. 
 All week days have a sameness in the town. 
 Where rising and retiring are routine : 
 Rut Sunday comes with sweet refreshing rest. 
 
 10 
 
Calmed by the hollow clang of village bells. 
 
 A sense of new-ironed raiment and the buzz 
 
 Of busy conversation permeates, 
 
 Contrasting with the long-frocked preacher s mood 
 
 That bears an air expressive of his creed. 
 
 Fresh blossoms o er the altar blow their breath, 
 
 As passing up the bare and narrow aisle, 
 
 We re ushered into some especial pew : 
 
 Conspicuous, a table in full view, 
 
 Surmounted by a contribution plate, 
 
 Dispensed the ushers services, instead, 
 
 Suggesting plainly to the pious host, 
 
 That gospel thrives the better on good coin : 
 
 Thus, as each brother dropt his chinking tithe, 
 
 The preacher groaned proportioned to its weight. 
 
 The voluntary choir, like fluttering birds, 
 
 Can scarce repress their babble while the hymn 
 
 Is outdrawled by the pastor, solemnly. 
 
 The organiste be-bowed and primpt, and grave, 
 
 Because of duties more than commonplace, 
 
 Toys with the stops majestically and pumps 
 
 In eagerness to launch forth into song. 
 
 It were a needless theft of time to name 
 The varied members and their points of view, 
 The same types ever seek the same old perch, 
 And plume their feathers to their vain delight : 
 Old age doth nap and less attentive youth 
 Doth writhe and fix its gaze upon the clock. 
 Within this motly throng, with reverence 
 
 11 
 
More due to pride than piety, our lad 
 
 Sits thru the dreary sermon s length. Recalls 
 
 Ere orphaned, the parental calm that beamed 
 
 Above him every Sunday morn : 
 
 The modest pastor hath fulfilled their place; 
 
 A man of more than common worth, who loved 
 
 To ply his flock with wholesome thought. 
 
 Alas, O valued framer of my youth, 
 
 I fear your worthy kind is obsolete ! 
 
 Now steps a modest Miss upon the scene 
 Just as we ve known her in our callow days. 
 I ll leave her image for your mind to paint, 
 As, fair and innocent, with high ideals, 
 She swept into your youthful dreams. 
 
 Each carries in his heart a photograph, 
 The print of which illumes the retrospect : 
 Perchance she sitteth by your side in life 
 Or only in an haunting memory. 
 I would awaken, but respectfully 
 Desist ere your illusions are dispelled: 
 Persuant of this happy thought I ll let 
 My readers conjure their affinities. 
 
 12 
 
PART I. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART I 
 
 Pass on, O wint ry blight, 
 Pass on with all your grief! 
 
 O ! let the spring awake, 
 Restore the fallen leaf! 
 
 O ! let the spring awake, 
 
 Let balmy showers call 
 The violet from sleep; 
 
 Release your chilling thrall ! 
 
 Return ye singing birds, 
 
 Arouse the slumb ring grove ! 
 
 Attune the heart of life 
 To melody and love. 
 
 The glades bestir with up-awaking spring, 
 Whose gorgeous, songful pageant moves along 
 The drear of winter s bleak retiring path. 
 
 Cheery ! Cheery ! Sweet ! Sweet ! 
 
 Cooing tender words, 
 Canzonetting, tweet ! tweet ! 
 
 Happy mating birds. 
 
 Tee-lee-ler ! Tee-lee-ler ! 
 
 On the blooming spray; 
 In ecstatic twitter, 
 
 Spring has come, they say. 
 
 15 
 
The mild wind taps the fringing buds, 
 And blossoms garland o er the bough ; 
 
 The deep-eyed daisy lifts its face, 
 The rich glebe mellows to the plow. 
 
 The husbandman recounts the yield 
 That promises from tree and field, 
 As from his brow he wipes away 
 The moisture of a toilsome day. 
 
 Fields of butter-cups and clover. 
 
 With a poppy here and there ; 
 And a soft breeze bending over 
 
 To inspire the fragrance rare : 
 
 O er a path the kine have traveled. 
 
 Winding slopeward to the glade; 
 Where a limpid stream, bright graveled. 
 
 Gaily ripples thru the shade. 
 
 The sun hath passed the mountains dark ning rim, 
 \- twilight falls upon the valley dim. 
 Aloft, the waking stars lending their glow, 
 Beam brighter with the night s encircling flow. 
 Heart-full, he pauses on the steep incline. 
 Where at his feet the river curves its line. 
 With arms extended t ward the silent hills 
 He calls aloud, while thought ecstatic thrills : 
 mewhere amid this broad expanse of sky 
 The spirit of my truer self doth fly : 
 
 16 
 
Somewhere, e en tho I see or hear it not, 
 It hovers round the ever sacred grot : 
 O ! would I might receive it here and now, 
 Soft borne upon the wind to me, the vow : 
 Turn, gentle Spirit, from thy journey s trend, 
 Thy loving presence to mv loneines lend!" 
 
 (Entranced, his heart invites the wistful mood.) 
 
 O to be understood ! 
 
 Attuned to some true mind ; 
 O to be understood! 
 
 My better self divined. 
 
 Alas, O heedless world, 
 
 You have enough your own ; 
 
 A pilgrim such as I, 
 
 Obscure is and unknown. 
 
 O Elysian isles 
 
 Where dwell the hearts that care, 
 Shall I be understood, 
 
 Within your portals fair? 
 
 O to be understood! 
 
 When strife and life are done: 
 I d spurn a diadem, 
 
 To be but known by one. 
 
 She, straying hillward from the truckled plain, 
 Reviewing lakes of undulating grain, 
 
 17 
 
Doth muse along the even hush of day 
 Toward the village by the self-same way 
 That he, our lonely dreamer wends; 
 So subtly kind fate our fortune bends, 
 That thus unconsciously each youthful heart 
 Ts pierced by Cupid s ever ready dart. 
 
 The silk aristas of trie grasses 
 
 O erbend devoutly as she passes; 
 
 And the fairest bloss ming petals ope 
 
 To breathe their sweetest perfumes forth in hope 
 
 Vying each to feel her ringers pressed, 
 
 To lift them unto her heaving breast : 
 
 So her presence, as she wanders forth. 
 
 Lends to the scene its vital worth. 
 
 Their glances met from lash to lash ; 
 Desire awoke beneath the flash. 
 
 Her voice intoned its soulful art 
 And found an echo in his heart. 
 
 Their fingers touched and swift there flew 
 A thrill that swept their beings thru. 
 
 It was only the touch of your hand ; 
 
 But it thrilled me and filled me anew, 
 With a masterful tenderness deep, 
 
 And my heart went out to you. 
 
 18 
 
It was only a glance from your eyes, 
 But I saw in its depth a great light; 
 
 And I m drawn from the shadow of dreams, 
 And thinking of you, dear, tonight. 
 
 Now, arm in arm, as childhood may, 
 They tread the leafy aisles of shade; 
 
 Musing anon beside the brook, 
 
 Where mirrored crowns the leafy glade. 
 
 The mocking-bird, from verdured throne, 
 Sharp whistles his audacious song. 
 
 As daylight wanes she closer clings, 
 All trustful of love s guarding wings. 
 
 O precious gift, a woman s trust ; 
 How oft despoiled by wanton lust. 
 
 O, rarest, fairest innocence! 
 
 Guileless and fearless is your joy ; 
 Untainted with tomorrow s dread, 
 
 Unmixed with worry s vain alloy. 
 
 19 
 
Homeward. Dark grows the silent cool 
 As moontide creeps upon the pool. 
 
 I ask of thee the rarest gift 
 
 That ever wakened bliss ; 
 My soul I ll hang upon thy lips, 
 
 Do they but yield n kiss. 
 
 Good-night! Sleep stills the busy feet, 
 And silence calms the village street. 
 
 Good-night ! We fain would linger on, 
 But slumber shuts the gates till dawn. 
 
 Awake! Awake! cries the morning breeze, 
 As it stirs amid the slumbering trees; 
 The leaflets clap, 
 
 The birds awake, 
 From drowsy nap 
 In dewy brake, 
 And the sun smiles o er the hills. 
 
 Awake! Awake! sings the brooklet gay. 
 As it rambles down the pebbly way : 
 With boist rous leap 
 
 It wakes the streams 
 From night-fast sleep 
 
 To day-bright dreams, 
 And the heart of nature thrills. 
 
 20 
 
Awake ! Awake ! trills the lark on high, 
 And the echoes wake their faint reply : 
 The moon pales dim 
 And melteth away, 
 Neath golden glim 
 
 Of ardent day ; 
 And the mists fade o er the west. 
 
 She wakes, 
 
 To find her thoughts attuned to his last word, 
 Unconscious of the song her soul hath heard. 
 Maturing now, before her lies unfurled 
 The verdant meadows of a new-found world, 
 Wherein the blending of that other tone 
 Perfects the harmony, completes her own. 
 
 He wakes, 
 
 Alas, as startled from a troubled dream ; 
 Distrustful of the pressure that doth seem 
 To rest so heavily upon his heart ; 
 Finding it irksome to endure the smart 
 Of that deep longing to behold once more, 
 Her whom but once to know, is to adore. 
 
 Let us draw round love s filmy veil awhile, 
 
 And leave them each to each, the hours to guile. 
 
 With pen it were a sacrilege to tell 
 
 Of that rapt tenderness that weaves its spell : 
 
 21 
 
Of wanderings thru fragrant, sheltered nooks 
 Of holding hands, and fervent, meaning looks. 
 Soul rhapsodies that sweep from grave to gay ; 
 Glad meetings and sad partings day to day. 
 Such golden hours as these speed on so fast 
 Their little whiles are soon forever past : 
 Yet thru it all there is an ecstasy 
 A sweet foretaste of love s eternity. 
 
 O, innocent and rapt desires of youth ; 
 Delicious and distressing severance ! 
 
 Hark ! Tis twilight and i seem to hear 
 A serenade breeze-wafted near. 
 
 "Night s dusky shadows softly fall, 
 
 Casting their mantle over all ; 
 
 The silvery moon wakes from her dream. 
 
 And o er the earth her jewels gleam. 
 
 My heart responsive to thine own, 
 Yearns for thee, and thee alone. 
 
 The birdlings sleep within the nest, 
 
 Their weary wings have need of rest; 
 
 And nestling close they sweetly sleep. 
 
 While stars above, their vigils keep. 
 
 My sleepless eyes, my longing heart, 
 Find no repose, save where thou art. 
 
 Sleep, my love, sweet thy dreaming, 
 
 While the moonlight is streaming 
 
 22 
 
Thro thy casement above, 
 O er thy pillow, my love. 
 O ye winds waft my singing 
 In her dreams softly ringing; 
 O er her lips kisses play 
 That shall linger for aye." 
 
 If I were only a swallow, 
 
 I d pause not a moment to rest, 
 
 Till close by your bloom-clad window 
 I d built me a snug little nest. 
 
 If I were only a moon-beam, 
 
 I d glow in the waves of your hair; 
 
 Rest on your sweet lips a moment, 
 Impressing my fond kisses there. 
 
 Were I a rose in your garden, 
 
 I d sigh to be plucked to your breast ; 
 And there neath your glances so tender, 
 
 I d wither contented and blest. 
 
 She hears, and from her breast, a pure white rose 
 She plucks and kissing, to him then she throws. 
 
 He stoops and lifts it from its dewy bed 
 Unto his lips. Then fond good-night is said. 
 
 23 
 
Good-night, dearest. 
 
 Serenely rest: 
 I would my pillow 
 
 Were thy breast. 
 What tho the parting harrow, 
 I ll bid thee sweet good-morrow. 
 
 I envy the beams that kiss her hair, 
 
 And the favored bloom that nestles there : 
 
 I envy the lace that gently rests 
 
 Upon her undulating breasts: 
 
 I envy the kiss of falling night, 
 
 And her glance that greets the morning light 
 
 Were I a song I d linger near, 
 
 Within her dreams, to charm her ear ; 
 
 Were I the dew the flow ret sips 
 
 I d fervent melt upon her lips. 
 
 Ere from her garden then, this very night, 
 A full-blown rose he plucks and doth indite 
 To her these words his lips could not convey : 
 
 "O wear this red rose in your hair; 
 It will exhale love s fragrance rare , 
 
 Where e er thou art : 
 Twill neither fade nor lose its glow, 
 For thru its leaves my blood doth flow ; 
 
 It is my heart." 
 
 24 
 
Then, tossing note and rose upon her sill, 
 He pauseth not upon his way until 
 Within his cot, immured in pleasant dreams. 
 The moonlight o er his slumber streams. 
 
 One joyous sunbeam, messenger of morn, 
 
 Weary of playing where new buds are born, 
 
 Strays listlessly between the tangled vines, 
 
 Into the casement where our dove reclines. 
 
 In wonderment it gazes on her face 
 
 And fain would vanish from the hallowed place 
 
 But curious to pry into her dreams, 
 
 A moment lingers and upon her beams. 
 
 Then, gathering lustre from her winsome smile, 
 
 Dancing within her golden hair the while, 
 
 Forgetful of all else, in ecstasy 
 
 Presses upon her lips so fervently 
 
 That she awaking ope s her eyes to see 
 
 What strange commotion breaks her reverie. 
 
 Her beauty s radiance unfolding bright, 
 
 Doth rob the sunbeam of its wondrous light, 
 
 Which envious of her transcendent glow, 
 
 Back to the sun with downcast mien doth go. 
 
 Soon as the morning s first duties are done, 
 She opens the window and there in the sun, 
 Fast withering, lies the messenger rose, 
 And the note that is writ in a hand she knows. 
 She reads and the crimson flows to her face, 
 As o er and o er each word she doth trace. 
 
 25 
 
Then she smiles and sighs at the verses there, 
 And fastens the rose-bud red in her hair, 
 And listens as faintly this song of love 
 From the dying rose is wafted above. 
 
 The night wind said to the dreaming rose : 
 "I ll sing you a song that I heard, 
 
 As I passed a star one calm, clear night ; 
 It lacks but a pulsing word." 
 
 The rose-bud heard the magical theme 
 
 And it longed to know the rest; 
 Till it woke one morn in the hallow d shrine 
 
 Of a maiden s love-lorn breast. 
 
 "I ve found the word," said the dying rose, 
 "Farewell, dear mate, in the grove; 
 
 The theme is the song of sacrifice, 
 And the pulsing word is love." 
 
 Tween lovers trysts how slow Time s even pace : 
 How their thoughts haunt the favored meeting place ! 
 And loitering moments twixt them seem an age, 
 Finding scarce hours devotions to engage. 
 He, in manhood s brusk, impetuous way : 
 She, in sighings unnumbered thru the day. 
 Besides, there is a weighty question, grave, 
 That soon or late their fortitude must brave : 
 It is that with her sweet consent he must 
 Depart, obedient to his newer trust; 
 
 26 
 
The means provide wherewith to furnish well 
 A cozy nest wherein they two may dwell. 
 
 Poor thing! She hath this lesson yet to learn 
 That love must sacrifice to brighter burn. 
 
 As sunshine radiates the shadow d pool 
 Her joyous mien illumes his inner life. 
 
 The heading grasses lift their glumous spears, 
 And with their leafy shields besiege the brakes ; 
 The petals fall from off the growing fruit, 
 And nesting songsters mark the spring s advance. 
 
 So amiable and of such noble cast, 
 
 Such warmth as hers, his heart could ever hold. 
 
 Now as the trysting hour is here, 
 We soon shall see our twain appear. 
 
 Look yonder neath that deeply shading larch 
 Whose limbs, rich verdured, droop in graceful arch. 
 She sits amid a bower of bloom, and he, 
 With book in hand, is reading fervently. 
 Now pausing o er some thought, he speaks : 
 "Put by the book ! Its precept and its word 
 Conjoin for those who need be taught to feel ! 
 I d be thy book, if thou wouldst read of bliss: 
 
 27 
 
My ev ry page and chapter hold one thought 
 
 That makes each word a flame that grows and glows 
 
 Until twould fain consume thy gentle gaze. 
 
 Turn here thy glance, if thou wouldst read my heart : 
 
 Else like a cast-off volume it may die. 
 
 The author yearns but to express his soul ! 
 
 Revert your glances here for true response. 
 
 Only in fiction do true lovers seek 
 
 Expression other than the subtle spell 
 
 That hath a language all its own. My heart 
 
 Disdains to be ensalved by lettered words. 
 
 Come ! Let us wander o er the shell-star d sands, 
 
 Where Carmel throws to sea its spectral light; 
 
 There tune unto the ocean s monotone, 
 
 The harmony that we would fain express. 
 
 How true it blends into that mighty pulse, 
 
 While twilight s interchanging winds convulse 
 
 From playful ripple into boisterous wave. 
 
 Is there a mist before the glinting stars, 
 
 Or doth thy lustre dim my unused sight? 
 
 The dusk invites to dreamy vistas wide, 
 
 Each impulse as it bounds the roving tide: 
 
 As viewless as these deeps my bosom hides 
 
 From all save thee, to thee alone confides 
 
 The secret of its mastery." 
 
 SHE 
 
 How sweet in love s own contest to surrend , 
 Conditioned on the captor s gen v ous terms ! 
 28 
 
HE 
 
 And when the victor finds himself in chains 
 So genial that he still remains. 
 
 SHE 
 
 Alas! why speak of strife where love hath sway? 
 
 HE 
 
 Behold yon shadow resting on the deep ? 
 It is an islet held in ocean s keep. 
 Thou art my island, I the pressing sea 
 Whose loving billows gently circle thee : 
 Whose tempest held in meek subjection laves 
 Devotedly the strand that stays its zeal. 
 Thou grot of beauty, sun and blossom glad, 
 I long to know the depths thy thoughts conceal, 
 But my faint ray scarce glances neath the waves. 
 
 Enisled with thee in some far sea, 
 
 With no distracting entity 
 
 To guile us from love s reverie, 
 
 How blest twould be ! 
 
 There, in enthralling quiet rove, 
 Wherein whose solitude is wove 
 The mystic gossamer of love, 
 The world above ! 
 
 29 
 
There, from an wave encircled height, 
 Forget the moment s byward flight, 
 Oblivious of day or night, 
 
 In rapture s light. 
 
 When firmamental, star-beam d glows 
 Glanced brightly over tidal flows, 
 And moon-beams fell like gentle snows, 
 We would repose. 
 
 The morn we d scan for ships aroam, 
 White breasting thru the curving foam, 
 With no regretful wish for home, 
 Neath heaven s dome. 
 
 Thus bide until death s phantom ship 
 Shall signal o er our final trip, 
 And o er the tide our souls shall slip, 
 Rapt, lip to lip! 
 
 Together t ward the unknown world, 
 Twined soul in soul and pinions furled, 
 O er calm or stressful tempest hurled, 
 Your soul and mine. 
 
 SHE 
 
 O er peaceful night, alas! the parting hour 
 Creeps all too heavy on my buoyant heart ! 
 
 30 
 
Upon the east a cloud spread-winged for flight, 
 Awaits to bear the moon across the sea of night : 
 When from her glowing face earth s shadows lift, 
 With queenly grace, within her ark she ll drift, 
 While down the starry rifts will scintillate 
 Her radiant glances o er her wide estate. 
 Throughout her glory beams a wistful ray, 
 Pursuant ever of fast-fleeting day : 
 So, thru the glamor of love s regal spell, 
 My heart transcends with joy our brief farewell; 
 Inspired to follow as yon royal moon, 
 Thy beam that shall return to me ere-soon. 
 
 HE 
 
 Unlike the moon, thy suit is not in vain; 
 And tho I may depart, I shall return again. 
 
 SHE 
 
 Alas ! dread absence and adversity ! 
 Must we yet taste your bitter draught? 
 
 HE 
 
 Absence! What doleful memories of grief 
 Cling round thy shrine: O Time s unerring thief! 
 Thou steal st the richest moments from our days, 
 Divert st the paths of life in varied ways 
 That lead us off in vain, alluring quest, 
 Waking within thy court a saddened guest. 
 
 SHE 
 Misfortune is oft fortune in disguise. 
 
 31 
 
HE 
 
 I ll cast my lot with thine and be it well 
 
 Or ill, twere blest while you were by my side. 
 
 Alas! 
 
 If absence were a test 1 soon must try 
 The moorings of my love s security : 
 And neath the city s vice alluring glow, 
 Or in the shadow of adversity, 
 Must lay the cornerstone of life. 
 Fear not that I shall falter in the fray : 
 These arms are strong but to encircle thee : 
 These eyes shall not be led save by thy light : 
 This breast respond but to o er-read thy words : 
 This mind exalt but to reflect thine own. 
 
 Time, unravel quickly in your flight ! 
 
 1 long to set the keystone of the arch 
 That joins our fates in perfect unity. 
 
 Alas, why must I thrust the painful dart 
 
 And now recall that these so soon must part , 
 
 E en for a while : I would it were not so, 
 
 But that life is uncertain we do know. 
 
 So, standing by the rustic garden gate, 
 
 We ll view their parting, for the hour is late : 
 
 Now all their plans thru smiles and tears are laid 
 
 He, brave in manly love. She, gentle maid, 
 
 Intuitive of what the days foretell, 
 
 Is loath to leave him in this first farewell. 
 
 32 
 
The moon withdraws her light, O faithless ray, 
 And two dim shadows silent fade away. 
 
 Have you ever walked at twilight 
 
 When all nature was aglow, 
 And beheld the somber high-light 
 
 That the setting sun did throw ? 
 
 Have you ever viewed the ocean 
 From an high and rock-bound shore, 
 
 And not felt a new emotion 
 That you ne er had felt before? 
 
 Have you ever thought of parting 
 As the ships their paths divide, 
 
 And not felt the tears a-starting 
 For a soul that s left your side ? 
 
 Drifting afar, beyond perceptive view, 
 A sail descendeth o er the ocean s rim 
 Where sky and sea conjoin ; can we discern 
 O er which expanse its course directs? 
 
 33 
 
PART II. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART II 
 
 Picture mentally a cloister, 
 
 Far removed from traffic s boister; 
 
 In a world-forgot seclusion, 
 
 Where may press no cloy intrusion: 
 
 On a grassy hillock mounding, 
 Gray adobe walls surrounding, 
 Stands the mission, silent, lonely, 
 Roused by winds and billows only, 
 That grow boisterous on the beaches, 
 When the storm far inland reaches. 
 
 Quaint this Mexic architecture 
 Of a homely imperfecture : 
 Crude, but picturesquely seeming, 
 Unawakened, all a-dreaming. 
 
 Thru a doorway, scarcely arching, 
 Stream the pilgrims, meekly marching; 
 Kneeling oft in salutation, 
 Vowing o er the font s libation. 
 
 In the rude pavilion, nighted, 
 From low windows dimly lighted, 
 Spectras from the sun are beaming 
 Thru the great star-window streaming. 
 
 37 
 
Candles lift their auras yellow, 
 Casting shadows deep and mellow, 
 Clustering round the sacred altar, 
 Where the penitential falter. 
 
 Bells announce each holy station 
 In the service intonation, 
 While responsively replying, 
 Wafts sweet music, softly sighing. 
 
 From the cloistered court descending, 
 Steps fall to a garden, wending 
 Where, amid a fountain spraying, 
 Gaily the bright sun is playing. 
 
 Paths wind under arbored bower, 
 Where the grape vine hangs its flower: 
 In odd groups strange blossoms massing, 
 Charm the eye their borders passing. 
 
 Wending on we view a valley 
 Verdant, where the streamlets dally, 
 And green cotton-woods o er-bending, 
 Mark the river s seaward wending. 
 
 Slopeward neath low cypress showing, 
 Spectral shafts of granite glowing, 
 Waken memories in keeping 
 \Vith the dust beneath them sleeping. 
 
 38 
 
Near the curving bay abiding 
 
 Is a peaceful village hiding, 
 
 Whose gray smoke blends with the billows, 
 
 Where the sea-mist whitely pillows. 
 
 Eastward, sombre mountains merging, 
 With the azure sky converging, 
 Their long shadows seaward throwing, 
 Where the heaving tides are flowing. 
 
 Restfulness this scene surrounding, 
 No disturbing thought confounding; 
 Tis a calm for meditation, 
 Far removed from rude negation. 
 
 Moving with weary tread o er yonder height, 
 
 A band of holy friars, from pilgrimage, 
 
 Toils pray rfully toward Carmellos halls, 
 
 Chanting their benisons devotedly, 
 
 While vespers sounds from out the cloistered walls. 
 
 With flaming brand and scourging of the breast 
 
 A bent and limping figure presses thru the host 
 
 And kneeling in the shadow of his saint, 
 
 Uplifts his ringing voice unto his God. 
 
 Who is this wondrous being, radiant, 
 With love-illumined countenance? 
 It is the noble padre, Serra, who, 
 With loving sacrifice hath chained the hearts 
 Of all the wild, unlettered host. 
 
 39 
 
Sound thou, the bell! In gladsome welcome ring! 
 Greet thou the pilgrim o er his weary march. 
 
 The monastery bells chime solemnly 
 As each doth cast his staff away and pause 
 With heaven fronding hands beneath the cross, 
 To ask a blessing on his last abode, 
 Wherein whose silent walls doth peace abide. 
 (Virgo Maria, 
 
 O gentle queen, 
 Our consolation, 
 Mother serene.) 
 
 Removed from follies temporal and vain, 
 Old age here shrinks from callow revelry. 
 (Thy wayward children 
 
 Cry unto thee, 
 Wailing and weeping, 
 In pity see.) 
 
 Here wait the summons of the Priest of priests. 
 Enshrined within this holy sepulchre. 
 (Salve Regina, 
 
 Direct our fate, 
 Virgo Maria, 
 Sweet advocate.) 
 
 Now from out the cloister swells the song, 
 The deep-toned organ and the singing throng. 
 
 40 
 
O God Almighty! 
 
 Thy children despise not; 
 Affliction assails, 
 
 Thy goodness disguise not : 
 Unto Thy glory, 
 
 Forgive our transgressions; 
 Deliver from woe, 
 
 Hear humble confessions. 
 
 "Dominus det nobis suam pacem !" 
 
 (Here in Thy Dwelling 
 Thy spirit attend us; 
 
 In adoration, 
 
 Christ s virtue defend us.) 
 
 Dei genitrix, intercede pronobis!" 
 
 Amen 
 
 In the cloister s judgment chamber, 
 Neath the torch s flickering amber, 
 Deep ning, mystic shadows tremble 
 As the hooded monks assemble. 
 
 Incense from the censers flowing, 
 Round their pungent vapors blowing, 
 Slowly thru the air shafts sifting. 
 Distant sounds of music drifting 
 From above in waves disbursing, 
 There are choristers rehearsing. 
 
 41 
 
Grouped about in converse varied, 
 
 Monks have curiously tarried : 
 
 Some in heated argument 
 
 Speak out in tones irreverent; 
 
 Others more devout intoning 
 
 O er their beads, their Aves moaning. 
 
 Within his dungeon lone awaits 
 The culprit, and he contemplates 
 Thru a rift the graying heaven, 
 As night pales the gold of even . 
 
 In his high cathedra waiting, 
 O er the charges meditating, 
 Sits the judging Padre, holy : 
 As they pass the monks bend lowly. 
 
 The curse prepared with book and bell, 
 Three lighted candles flick ring tell 
 Of excommunication s rite, 
 Unless repentence meet, respite. 
 
 As nearing footsteps measured fall, 
 A breathless hush o ersweeps the hall : 
 A creaking door is opened wide, 
 And led, with guards on either side, 
 A priest accused of heresy, 
 Beshorn the robes of prophecy, 
 42 
 
Steps calmly and with steady pace 
 Unto the trial s allotted place. 
 His soulful eyes survey the scene, 
 A smile o ersweeps his glance serene, 
 As from the lights unsteady leer 
 A host of earnest faces peer. 
 Upon his slender, pallid face, 
 A heart-deep woe hath left its trace : 
 His unbent form betokens strength, 
 Tho age hath left its mark at length 
 Upon his brow and splendid head 
 Where crowns a mass of silvery thread. 
 With arms enfolded o er his breast 
 He waits with growing interest 
 The padre s solemn voice. 
 
 PADRE 
 
 Brothers, we have assembled here to try 
 One of our host, beloved, whose ripe age 
 Fulfilled with thoughtful generosity, 
 Commends our deep regard. 
 From bias free and unimpassioned we 
 Must pass upon his guilt or innocence. 
 
 Good judgment is unto itself a law: 
 For and Against are ever pledged to strife, 
 With Right or Wrong on either side ; 
 Till Reason s intercession bids for peace. 
 
 43 
 
Most envied of all gifts the pow rs bestow, 
 Most prized of all endowments is good sense, 
 Whose sweet serenity and steadfast poise 
 Doth balance in its grasp the steels of might. 
 
 Accused, stand forth, where I may view anear 
 Thy well beloved countenance : 
 My eyes, no longer youthful, see not well; 
 Tho thou hast nearly run thy years, I am 
 Thine elder by at least a score. 
 
 [stress 
 
 These steadfast walls that have withstood Time s 
 Were fashioned by these now enfeebled hands. 
 When long ago, I stood on yonder height 
 And gazed adown this then unfertile vale, 
 I chose this site and with my loyal host 
 Matured this now most beauteous spot. 
 The vine, the fig and olive we did plant: 
 The sward where poppies lift their golden cups, 
 We nurtured from the river s ample flow. 
 Then settlers came, and lo, yon village sprung 
 From shifting alkali to em rald shade. 
 Here, all that s mortal of that faithful host 
 Sleeps in the hush of yonder slope, while I 
 Alone remain to number them. 
 This reminescent mood, it is but meet, 
 Rebuke all thought of vain discordant strife: 
 Let no harsh word disturb their peaceful rest. 
 
 My brother, it is claimed 
 That you, too zealously, have taken part 
 
 44 
 
In vague discussions which do not accord 
 With that strict orthodoxy of our vows; 
 And from opinions, all too free expressed, 
 Have misconstrued the concepts of our creed. 
 Night wanderings, mysterious, have oft 
 The quiet of thy brothers rest disturbed; 
 And when questioned as to what disorder 
 Had befogged thy wits, didst answer not, 
 Or worse, didst mock at thine inquisitors. 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 Most worthy father, venerable, just, 
 
 I do deny misconduct thru intent ; 
 
 But that I differ somewhat in my views 
 
 From those accepted of our faith, I do confess : 
 
 I have searched deeply for elusive Truth 
 
 And syllogized inductively until 
 
 The night to lucent day hath merged : 
 
 I have absented from devotionals, 
 
 Not thru a disregard, but studious, 
 
 Could not withdraw the fixture of my thought. 
 
 Oft I have paced the thoughtful watch and seen 
 
 A shore-light gleam from out the mists ahead; 
 
 Or plucked from out the ocean of unrest 
 
 The fruitful twig of rich discovery : 
 
 Oft in the nocturn of the winds, a voice 
 
 Hath whispered to my undetermined sails 
 
 And I have grasped the helm with surer faith, 
 
 And held my course against the surge of doubt. 
 
 45 
 
PADRE 
 
 It were not wisdom to o erreach 
 In striving for the heavenly breach : 
 The mind defaults just on the edge 
 Wherein we place the entering wedge. 
 Reason hath its limitation 
 Past that sweeps imagination: 
 Imagination given sway 
 Doth smudge the beam of truth away : 
 Take truth from our deductions and 
 We ve lost the spirit s golden strand : 
 Live in harmony with the best, 
 Aspire and trust God for the rest. 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 From out the tangle of inwoven creeds, 
 Reflecting in an hyalescent glow, 
 I seem to sense an undiscovered pow r 
 That promises dominion over this, 
 The corporeal, non-immortal part. 
 
 Jesus hath said : 
 
 "Let him that seeketh cease not from his search 
 Until he find, and when he finds he shall wonder. 
 
 PADRE 
 
 When all is written, thought and said, 
 Our philosophy doth slip a thread ; 
 And tangled in the weaver s rack. 
 We find that we have woven back : 
 
 46 
 
Hub centered, as within the wheel, 
 The goal lies just beyond our feel. 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 "With wondering ye shall reach the kingdom :" 
 
 Life is circuitous. From primal start 
 
 It weaves its endlessness around the soul. 
 
 Creation moves in cycles of circles : 
 
 Mind may not pause nor seek a shorter way ; 
 
 All must move with the soul s advance. 
 
 Misguided motion soon destroys itself, 
 
 For error is the seed of death: 
 
 Chance is a false, misleading light. 
 
 This little sphere I hold within my hand 
 
 Is like a soul dissevered from its God. 
 
 Involuntary of its own impulse 
 
 I toss the pebble in the buoyant air : 
 
 It falls to earth ! Why doth it not remain 
 
 Steadfastly as our whirling orb? 
 
 Because my hand, the motive pow r, withdrawn, 
 
 Permits attraction to reclaim its own: 
 
 Thus, did the Master hand of All withdraw 
 
 Its motive from the starry universe, 
 
 Twould scatter into dusty nothingness. 
 
 Gravitation s an inexplicit word 
 
 Out-coined from cause. What then is cause but will, 
 
 As will is but the beaming of a wish 
 
 From out the Master MIND: 
 
 I gravitate as thou and as the star; 
 
 Having cause, insensed by the Master Will. 
 
 47 
 
Why should I prove Less constant than the sphere 
 
 Whose superior I am, dissevering 
 
 From the Almighty cause? 
 
 Superstition is a vague foresense of 
 
 The incorporeality of soul, 
 
 And is significant of eternal life. 
 
 Limited understanding is the blind 
 
 That makes what IS incomprehensible. 
 
 Space is limitless until mind grasps it. 
 
 Phantasmas of notional words conspire 
 
 To make us undetermined of our course: 
 
 Shall mind be awed by arbitrary words 
 
 And humbly bow to insignificance? 
 
 Every mystery invites the mind, 
 
 Thru vistas of awe, unto extension : 
 
 Man is discovering his pre-estate ; 
 
 Nature is subsiding. Soul is aroused ! 
 
 The mountains crumble neath the tread of years: 
 
 The vallies overflow, the forests melt : 
 
 The streams grow muddy with devouring wash, 
 
 And tempests unabating fret the seas. 
 
 Think you 
 
 That I can lull my Spirit to repose 
 When triumph brightens o er the sky of doubt, 
 When flashings blazon from the eye of Truth ; 
 When words, whose blighting follies have deceived 
 With ills and sorrows, God s true image, man, 
 Are melting into error, meaningless? 
 To me this is a most impressive hour, 
 With whose outreaching tide I must expand : 
 
 48 
 
If this be cause for punishment, proceed; 
 
 My soul, thy mortal laws, hath far outwinged ! 
 
 Truth is but part conveyed within the word : 
 
 Tis what the word awakens in the man. 
 
 Let ev ry word of God s great book be lost, 
 
 Disbursed to alphabetic senselessness: 
 
 Let history and all tradition fail, 
 
 And yesterday be blotted from the mind : 
 
 In that chaotic dawn I still would hear 
 
 The exclamations of the inner voice, 
 
 And I would choose from out the scattered font 
 
 Enough to frame the inward faith I feel. 
 
 Christ would still whisper of abiding peace, 
 
 Though I had never heard his story told. 
 
 Words are vague masks of what they seem to mean ; 
 
 The which existed ere a word was coined. 
 
 A dictionary is a harmless toy 
 
 Until our wordy structures make obscure 
 
 By doubtful reasoning, the Truth. 
 
 Ah, when one flash of consciousness assails, 
 Our whole negation crumbles structureless ! 
 Physics may mould the argumentive clay, 
 But God must breathe the leaven in. 
 
 "And when he reaches the Kingdom, he shall find rest." 
 The glory for the truth but seldom falls 
 Upon the tireless, steadfast delver s head, 
 Who to his unresponsive eon sings, 
 Survives the scorn and sighs unto the winds. 
 
 49 
 
Where are ye, earnest souls, that gathered round 
 
 The singers of your time and from their depths 
 
 Drew forth immortal lays? 
 
 Where the enquiring listeners, devout, 
 
 Who longed to hear and hearing, thought and felt? 
 
 Such were the inspirationers of song 
 
 The great incentives to aspire, attain ! 
 
 Alas for one such as some stellar mind 
 
 Hath drawn about its fascinating flame ! 
 
 The one-ly-ness of being nought and yet 
 
 Of thinking and of feeling mighty truths, 
 
 Is like unto that unresponsive hush 
 
 That falleth o er the quiet desert sands, 
 
 Where ev ry forward step doth leave its print 
 
 Of loneliness and barren gain. 
 
 PADRE 
 
 I find no grave offense in thy research : 
 But it is further charged you have denied 
 Infallibility. 
 
 PRIEST 
 
 Not with irreverence: But I have marked, 
 "How weak and vain a thing is man :" 
 We rear our thrones and elevate our kings, 
 And worship at their holy shrines: 
 
 Alas! 
 
 He of the vast, innumerable host 
 Declares and lo, earth s glories fade away, 
 And we forsake our toys and follow Him. 
 
 50 
 
Man s days are as the grass, 
 As flowers of the field ; 
 
 He flourisheth awhile, 
 Then unto dust must yield. 
 
 The wind it passeth o er, 
 His deeds are all forgot; 
 
 There is an eye that marks 
 His God forgetteth not. 
 
 The conflict is between prophet and priest; 
 
 Ministers of intuition and sense : 
 
 Spirit and material 
 
 The perfect-real and imperfect-unreal. 
 
 There is no middle ground of true or false, 
 
 Mere sense prefers that which we see and touch, 
 
 But sight and touch are mere environment. 
 
 Man hath the organism of the gnat, 
 
 The possibilities of God within: 
 
 A prophet or an insect as he wills. 
 
 Environment doth hypnotize the weak, 
 
 Who blindly follow, while the stronger seek. 
 
 The sturdy mind counts its surroundings nil, 
 
 And shapes the circumstances to the Will. 
 
 Condition is created by desire 
 
 Effecting that to which we most aspire. 
 
 Greatness is individuality, 
 
 And personality s the God within. 
 
 Your man hath pow r without authority. 
 
 51 
 
PADRE 
 
 Perfection is measured by harmony 
 And unity of purpose is our strength : 
 Digressions of the individual 
 Disturb the tranquil waters of the whole, 
 Which can, with meek concessions, recompose. 
 Our compact must maintain inviolate. 
 Contumacy doth constitute offense 
 Against the letter of our covenant. 
 
 Therefore, 
 
 I must expell thee, indeterminate : 
 Dependent on your calmer reasoning. 
 Until such time, it is our law s decree 
 That you shall, as our sexton, serve the dead ; 
 And must not look upon a living brother s face 
 On pain of death. 
 
 The spade, the rake and trowl, your implements 
 Wherewith to fill and clear and seal each grave. 
 And when it comes at last your time to die 
 You cannot rest among the sanctified, 
 But separate, alone, your grave unmarked. 
 Forget not what your fate must be, repent ! 
 This skull be thy companion ; mark it well ! 
 A sorry narrative it could unfold. 
 Reflect upon the time that bone did glow 
 With thy desire to delve and know : 
 Behold its futile emptiness 
 Hath ought of knowledge left impress? 
 Its hollowness is likened to 
 The vanities thou dost pursue. 
 
 52 
 
Beware the goblet of desire! 
 
 Its draught consumes with quenchless fire. 
 
 It will thy zeal to languor lull, 
 
 If thou but contemplate this skull 
 
 Whose former occupant, like thee, 
 
 Was misled into heresy. 
 
 Farewell, it grieves me, but the law 
 
 Is merciless! 
 
 PRIEST 
 ( Taking SkulL ) 
 
 (Thou shunn d, affrighting sphere of bone, 
 
 We shall be friends, for thou dost own 
 
 A spirit more than mortal, fair, 
 
 That dwelleth in the viewless air. 
 
 On thy kind features I can trace 
 
 More gentleness than oft doth grace 
 
 The aspect of our brotherhood : 
 
 Ah, from thy strangely hollow eyes 
 
 I sense the glance of rapt surprise 
 
 That met, in thy uncertain night, 
 
 The everlasting flood of light: 
 
 I view not emptiness, but pure 
 
 And yearning looks that still endure : 
 
 I sense thy lips warm in the glow 
 
 Of living spirit in its flow : 
 
 I feel the moisture of thy breath 
 
 And know thou hast not met with death. 
 
 They think to mock me with thy fate, 
 
 Thou who hast found thy true estate! 
 
 53 
 
spirit of departed, hear ! 
 
 1 fain would have thee hover near.) 
 
 Most pious judge, 
 As you have found me guilty, 
 Let my sentence now commence : 
 The judgment scales of God weigh right, 
 The finite and the infinite; 
 Man vainly tips the evened pole 
 And passes judgment on the soul : 
 
 Is not his righteousness sustained 
 
 By that All-seeing, unexplained? 
 
 With varied creeds we overlay 
 
 Our paths with drift and lose the way : 
 
 All we are brothers in a common strife, 
 
 Whose object is eternal life. 
 
 I much prefer the unblazed trail 
 
 That leads me guessing thru the vale, 
 
 Where some surprise enchants each turn; 
 
 A song, a brook, a flow r or fern. 
 
 Ye stars that gild so small a place 
 Within the sky s unfathomed space, 
 How my winged soul aspires to you, 
 Bright pilots of eternity. 
 What message do ye signal o er? 
 Gleamest of souls have gone before? 
 Or, are your searchlights ever trained 
 Upon some longing unattained? 
 
 54 
 
O, I could compass many score 
 Of such as ye, bright heav nly lore, 
 Within this spacious breast of mine 
 Wherein your combined light, divine, 
 Would pale beneath the lucent glow 
 Of my lit soul and never show. 
 
 Thou art not merely for our joy, 
 Nor yet to glimmer and destroy. 
 O, since I ve grasped this newer thought 
 And glimpsed into the goal I ve sought, 
 I ve sensed a deeper aim than gain, 
 And felt a joy transcending pain : 
 Ecstatic past all common ken, 
 Beyond the rich device of pen. 
 
 O judge, 
 
 Speed o er your sentence now I pray, 
 It but concerns insensate clay; 
 Which being nought and all unreal 
 Hath not the pow r to know and feel. 
 
 The judgment book is folded tight, 
 The candles three bereft of light : 
 The bell-man pulls the swaying rope, 
 That echoes o er surviving hope. 
 
 Then with that same unfailing love, 
 This last farewell he bids to each : 
 
 55 
 
"I ll gather ye all on the harvest day, 
 
 As the leaves are swept from the tree away ; 
 
 And ye shall praise my loving care, 
 
 When ye awake in realms most fair." 
 
 The monks have turned their backs on him 
 
 As slowly down the passage dim 
 
 He wends unto the outer door: 
 
 One ling ring glance, then never more 
 
 Will he look on the faces there 
 
 Till death hath passed them to his care. 
 
 His brow illumed by that rapt spell 
 
 Of sweet forgiveness, doth impell 
 
 The monks to tell their beads with vim 
 
 And some must needs glance after him. 
 
 A flood of glancing harmony ascends, 
 
 As solemn voices chant the vesper hymn. 
 
 Divinest of mysteries, sweet music. 
 How lightly thou dost lift all care ! 
 With this sweet music inly heard, I need 
 No subtle technic to express my soul ; 
 No practiced art to breathe forth ecstacies ; 
 But modulated to delicious thought, 
 Celestial harmonies pour forth at will. 
 
 56 
 
Freed from the stifling walls of stone 
 Beneath the moon he walks alone; 
 The glowing regions lend a star 
 That sweeps across the night afar 
 To meet his soul, and they fare on, 
 Companioned till the wake of dawn. 
 
 57 
 
PART III. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART III 
 
 A frugal meanwhile brings its just reward, 
 And hastens on our twain s rapt wedding day. 
 
 With pen twere vain to picture you the joy 
 Of this rapt moment, if you have not wed. 
 
 O mystic vow that binds two loving souls 
 Into one perfect harmony, or hurls 
 Them from the heights to abject misery. 
 
 Fair ! by all that makes a woman fair, 
 
 So fair is she. 
 Dear! by all that makes a woman dear, 
 
 So dear to me. 
 
 Nursed on a noble mother s breast, 
 With all her tend rest graces blest, 
 Beneath a father s watchful eye, 
 
 Her purity. 
 
 Kind and patient, ever thoughtful she, 
 
 Unknown to strife; 
 True as only woman s heart can be, 
 
 My joy, my life. 
 My consolation night and day, 
 My guardian through life s troubl d way, 
 The inspiration of my dreams 
 
 My loving wife. 
 
 61 
 
With reverential mien approach this gate. 
 It opens to the haven of content, 
 The bourne of ev ry heav nly attribute. 
 Herein the fadeless vine of Life doth yield 
 Delicious fruits to those who will partake. 
 Herein is cast to our design the future s hopes; 
 The betterment or curse of human kind. 
 Tho tis assailed at ev ry port it stands 
 Unshattered save where trust gives o er to doubt- 
 In Faith it lifts its domes to deathless suns. 
 
 If thus ye feel, approach, thou hast the key- 
 Else shun it for some commonplace estate. 
 
 There is an inner life no spirit may 
 
 Intrude upon. 
 
 The sanctum of this inner, secret life, 
 
 This sacred portal of our beings own, 
 
 Opens to Love and God alone : 
 
 Here understanding lifts the veil and reads, 
 
 Drawing sweet music from a lyre of Truth. 
 
 When we assume the duties of a home, 
 We must feel equal to maintain its thrift. 
 Not lavishly, but well within our means : 
 Some small amount put by for morrow s need. 
 Unless thou rt blest beyond the average man, 
 Thou can st count no assistance from near kin. 
 Alone thou standst on thy uncertain craft 
 
 62 
 
To founder or to sail successfully. 
 
 Tis better so. Let each his own provide 
 
 But look to t that no other take the helm : 
 
 Be captain, compass, steersman all in one; 
 
 And if a mutineer appears aboard, 
 
 Act quickly and suspend him to the yard. 
 
 The welfare of your ship demands accord: 
 
 The more so when dread storms affret the seas. 
 
 What need of books if we could read the heart? 
 How our deep longings, so indefinite 
 Before the welding of two souls in one, 
 Learn their requital in love s rapt response ; 
 And, as we drink the nectar deep, our joy 
 Expands unto the full of Life s desire. 
 
 O joy that by its violence resembles pain 
 And forges each to each thru life or death ! 
 O rapt voluptuousness! essence divine; 
 Lending to feeling, soul ; to seeing, Heav n ! 
 
 O happiness ! I have not passed you by ; 
 Have I not recognized and held you fast? 
 
 How can we mortify the flesh when form 
 Reflects the Master in each graceful curve? 
 Containing in its mold the plan of worlds, 
 And in its thought, the All-Creating Pow r. 
 
 63 
 
Here modesty reveals and beauty glows 
 Or vulgars into commonplace. 
 
 The dazzling words of courtship come to naught, 
 
 Or find in deed and action their desire. 
 
 All affectation unto love unmasks, 
 
 As pretense blushes in the light of Truth. 
 
 We must take unto self another s thought, 
 Feeling their feelings as we feel our own. 
 
 Mere outward feeling is ebullient foam 
 
 Whose effervescence is at heart unrest; 
 
 And whose expiring throb leaves no consoling thought. 
 
 We are as noble as our love. 
 
 Marriage is but an holy slavery 
 Approved by laws that do not lend one jot 
 Unto the happiness that we have sought : 
 We bind ourselves to misery or joy, 
 According to our grasp of its estate. 
 
 The eternal unfitness of some minds 
 
 Is blamable for love s delinquencies. 
 
 We should look into and discern how vague 
 
 Our little sphere of worldly happiness. 
 
 Life should be fashioned on some nobler plan. 
 
 Above the candle glow of passion s flame, 
 
 64 
 
Where love is but the fundamental base, 
 Whose dome, the Soul, aspires beyond the mist. 
 
 The arts should be a means unto one end ; 
 
 Love s divine personification. 
 
 How fruitless all our mighty efforts flow r, 
 
 Unless our aim transcends the fleeting hour. 
 
 At most, we scarcely touch the goblet s rim, 
 
 Our thirsting lips but sip deific life ; 
 
 Our all too frenzied passion breaks the spell; 
 
 The ultimate forever lifts away ; 
 
 The while we reach up and forever up. 
 
 O ergrasping in enthusiastic zeal, 
 
 Self-interest destroys our harmony: 
 
 The gen rous impulse is our only hope. 
 
 The thing possessed, complete and actual, 
 The having, holding, incontestably, 
 Doth seem to retroact, thru confidence, 
 Into a state of calm, quiescent faith : 
 Until that self-regard, love oftimes wakes, 
 Exclusive for its interests, invites 
 A misery far deeper than all else. 
 
 No trouble to be true to that sweet force 
 That calleth out our Spirit s best. 
 
 Exhilarant, her joyous merriment 
 Charms all who meet its effervescent flow. 
 
 65 
 
I m a two edged blade that cleaves the wielder s breast ; 
 
 I am an instrument of peace-destroying might ; 
 
 I am the urgent impulse of unstaid desire ; 
 
 And am an evil serpent, conscienceless and cold 
 
 The bane of life; the blight of love; the prod of hate; 
 
 The false concealed beneath the kindly mask of good ; 
 
 The hand that reaches to destroy in wanton crime. 
 
 I am Despair and Envy, and Faith s enemy; 
 
 I am the grave, and Death and I are of one thought ; 
 
 I am my own destroyer and the why of God : 
 
 I am unseen, for I the egoist am Self ! 
 
 Heed not those who, diseased with silly wits, 
 Pretend great mental heights, but live them not. 
 
 The status of some minds is so supine, 
 
 They are mere avenues for what they read, 
 
 Which, passing off, leaves no impression there 
 
 Though they are puffed by what they ve not retained : 
 
 These are but insulators to the wire 
 
 Whose message hath sped home to those who feel. 
 
 Thoughts are feelings, and words are hawks or doves. 
 
 Hast thou a heart? Fear not to tell. 
 
 Hast thou a love? O blessed spell! 
 Cherish it day and night, 
 Nor let indifference blight ; 
 Love suffers change. 
 
 66 
 
Hast thou a rose? Enjoy it, too, 
 While fragrant with the morning dew. 
 
 Life s midday sun may burn, 
 
 Rose-leaves to ashes turn; 
 All fair must fade. 
 
 If thou wouldst keep thy golden treasure, 
 Thou canst not leave it at they pleasure, 
 Lest some poor famished heart 
 Steal it from thee and depart : 
 Tis lost forever. 
 
 Love must have practice in the art 
 Of holding steadfastly the heart. 
 Each day to harmony the mind 
 Must give itself, if it would find 
 The perfectness that we desire: . 
 To live our love is to aspire. 
 
 She is as joyous as a sun-lit brook 
 Wherein no melancholy shadows look. 
 He is of meditative turn of mind, 
 Reverting constantly from grave to gay. 
 
 Learned in our duties each to each; 
 
 Wise in the freedom of each mind; 
 Ruled by a great unselfish love 
 
 Herein alone may wedlock bind. 
 
 67 
 
Conscious that Life forever Is; 
 
 That we but start upon its way 
 Bless d to be one with some dear soul ; 
 
 Thankful for fellowship today. 
 
 The rapt desire to be at-one with Good 
 
 Inspires us to take unto us in Love ; 
 
 Thus marriage is a self-absolving state, 
 
 Wherein two souls become one perfect whole: 
 
 Dualities are ever poised apart, 
 
 And cannot blend else all would be at-one. 
 
 Tis immature and restless youth that seeks 
 It knows not what, and palpitates to scale 
 The heights to which none but a god may rise; 
 That cannot wait, but plunges into Life 
 Before it knows itself: Before appears 
 The bright penumbra d star of True desire. 
 
 Matter s the gate of Life; Love is the way. 
 There is perfection somewhere, if not here; 
 Be patient, Soul! Mark not the passing year; 
 Time cannot compass Life, for Life is All. 
 Years are but echoes of the upward call, 
 And each a little nearer brings the day. 
 
 Twere better far to live in dreams, 
 
 If waking is unreal; 
 Twere better we had never loved, 
 
 If love no depth reveal. 
 
 68 
 
That inner Life we fail to find, 
 Is where all blessings lie; 
 
 The lack of which makes life amiss, 
 And bids contentment die. 
 
 To live in hourly contact with a soul 
 
 Irradiant and warm with gentleness ; 
 
 To feel yourself the center of a mind 
 
 The very impulse of a pulsing life ; 
 
 To gaze upon it and caress its bloom, 
 
 The while your being thrills thus to possess- 
 
 This is the total of all happiness. 
 
 I ve found my soul, dear heart, at last 
 Not in the air, the sea, the sky, 
 Nor in the wind s sweet lullaby ; 
 Not in the gems of Nature s crown, 
 Nor in the hills majestic frown; 
 Nor yet in music s magic spell, 
 Where inspirations love to dwell. 
 Twas in your love-lit, beaming eyes, 
 That I first glimpsed my paradise : 
 Pure as the dew that pearls the vine, 
 Thy loving spirit came to mine. 
 As starlings plucked from azure skies, 
 I found my soul in your dear eyes : 
 Since thou art mine, O gift divine, 
 Thou art my soul and I am thine! 
 
 69 
 
If you love me, say you love 
 Keep me not in doubt. 
 
 You must show it, so I know it, 
 With a trust devout. 
 
 Are you lover, act the lover; 
 
 Rest not on the vow ; 
 Daily live it, freely give it, 
 
 In the golden now. 
 
 As Memnon s harp-sounds chime on morning s breeze, 
 
 As carols the wild thrush sweet melodies, 
 
 As babbles the gay brook upon its way, 
 
 So thrills with Her sweet voice the livelong day. 
 
 Her fingers skill d in music s touch, 
 Draw from the keys sweet harmonies; 
 While I, in restful gloaming listen rapt. 
 
 Ah, that all might be so divinely tuned 
 That each might charm the other to the quick, 
 Having no impulse, thought or mood apart, 
 Creating heaven in each other s breasts 
 Such is our hourly, daily, happiness. 
 
 O, Understanding! most exquisite state, 
 Wherein each senses but sublimest trust, 
 
 70 
 
Making each mood a sphere of freedom, where 
 No jarring dissonant rudely intrudes. 
 
 To be exalted in a love like this 
 
 Is to have felt that we are made for gods 
 
 Whose kingdom lies within the bosom s sphere. 
 
 How lightly flit the full and joyful days ; 
 Alas ! sweet peace doth seem to bring adown 
 Upon its tide unsought, calamity. 
 
 Upon this hearth of love and pure content, 
 
 As darting from a sky serenely clear, 
 
 A malady of dread, resistless power, 
 
 Casts blight upon its dearest life. 
 
 O, Sacrifice! why gather thou the good? 
 
 Why martyr unto death earth s needed best? 
 
 Now starts the mad, uncertain search for health, 
 And trustfully she speeds to sunny climes, 
 Braced by the fond farewells of loving friends, 
 But conscious of a desolated home, 
 Where, in whose vacant hours repines a heart 
 That in the twilight ponders o er the stress 
 With grave forebodings of calamity. 
 
 What means this sudden shift from perfectness? 
 Why may not life continue in the True? 
 
 71 
 
O, were but love proof gainst the parting, 
 Attracted thus, why must we sever? 
 
 Why, when once transfused, must we be twain? 
 Why not at-one, live on forever? 
 
 Bravest hearts are those that faint at parting, 
 Or quail when sorrow s scars recall ; 
 
 Bravest lips are those that meeting quiver, 
 Whose words, through pain, inaudent fall. 
 
 Bravest eyes that close when vain their seeing, 
 Whose tears have seared the cheek of grief; 
 
 Bravest who have stood upon the threshold, 
 And fearful, knelt a moment brief. 
 
 In his strong arms, close pressed against his heart 
 Upgath ring strength, he murmurs as they part : 
 
 "Stronger than life and more than death. 
 Our love will brave these days of strcs- : 
 
 These sullen seas shall in a breath, 
 Be swept by gales of happiness. 
 
 "Be brave for both our sakes, dear heart; 
 
 Bear firmly through the parting s pain; 
 These tides that drift us now apart, 
 
 Will waft you to my arms again." 
 
 72 
 
It is a woman s weakness to confide 
 Her inmost thoughts unto some trusted friend ; 
 These thoughts that should remain within, are oft 
 The avenues of perfidy. 
 
 Guard well your romance lest unwittingly 
 Ye let some meddler in to mar its theme. 
 
 Love letters have a privacy that none 
 May pry into, except the favored one: 
 See how he treasures her s from vulgar eyes, 
 While she with his straight to seclusion flies, 
 Ajid reads most fervently the lines between; 
 Knows what all marks and underscorings mean. 
 
 This trusted friend and counselor is by, 
 To whisper vague misgivings in the ear 
 Of her who is at peace at heart, and craves 
 But to be well restored unto her own. 
 
 Ah ! why do we lack courage to dismiss 
 The voice of too apparent selfishness? 
 
 Loved ones forbear and leave the ill with those 
 That are at one with them in harmony 
 Many the ways devotion may be shown, 
 But force not on the ill, aggressive love. 
 
 73 
 
Man is so subtle) attuned that all 
 
 Of his digressions are discordant acts 
 
 Against the perfect harmony of health, 
 
 Conscience, community, success and life. 
 
 Crime is an act against the laws of state, 
 
 While error doth transgress the Master s law. 
 
 Right is the superconsciousness that Is, 
 
 The very fact of Being, and the which, 
 
 Wrong is an act of felony against. 
 
 The mind may not review its own misdeeds, 
 
 But Spirit is the uncondoning judge 
 
 That cannot be appeased by argument ; 
 
 And soon or late the penalty must fall. 
 
 Christly intuition is infallibly 
 
 The voice to which we should lend earnest ear. 
 
 Grace is too free for us to prize as yet; 
 
 Our vanity prefers the costly dross 
 
 That bringeth wanton suffering. 
 
 May those who set a watch upon our ways 
 Be not inspired by their own weaknesses : 
 The mighty temblor that upheaves is doubt, 
 And selfishness the great internal blast: 
 But trust me and I cannot do but right ; 
 Set my esteem so high I dare not fall. 
 
 Tis not the easy going thought that cures, 
 That patiently all suffering endures ; 
 It is the up-awaking of the will, 
 That, unsubmissive, driveth out the ill ; 
 
 74 
 
Reviving thru the meek, subservient flesh, 
 A new impulse that mends the broken mesh. 
 Nerves are the agents of creative mind, 
 Yielding the messages by thought designed; 
 Will must be vigorously pressed to aid, 
 Ere Truth responds and a new life is laid. 
 
 By conquering the little ills we gain 
 
 A mastery that stays the fell disease 
 
 That uncontrolled, may speed untimely death. 
 
 With our new metaphysics we do cling 
 
 Unto this body to a wrong degree; 
 
 Until tired reason, weary of the strife, 
 
 All mind, all nerve-tensed to the last, 
 
 Lends death an agony unnatural. 
 
 There comes a time when we at last must say, 
 
 "Thy will be done," and fare the Spirit s way 
 
 A time when all resistance is but love of life 
 
 Wrongly identified with earthly things. 
 
 Our greatest lessons are, to learn that Life 
 
 Is indestructible and Time is naught. 
 
 "If death release your life He will receive your soul." 
 
 We do not hear always the cross of pain, 
 
 But finally, in our last flight from earth, 
 
 We are distressed of body by great ills 
 
 Commensurate to the soul s withdrawing 
 
 Such as the pains that mark our hither birth : 
 
 Thus, not in any manner less than He, 
 
 Did Christ instruct we should surrend at last. 
 
 75 
 
He who can stand before misfortune and 
 
 With heedlessness assign his brother s woe 
 
 To some dark error of misguided faith, 
 
 Hath grown to heartlessness and not to Christ. 
 
 We must remember that however strong, 
 
 The grave will welcome this poor husk at last ; 
 
 However wise, however true, some time 
 
 We must cross o er the great dividing gulf. 
 
 Beware lest mental poise be heedlessness! 
 
 Beware lest fearlessness be heartlessness ! 
 
 Scorn not to shed the sympathetic tear; 
 
 Christ, best of all, knew how its comfort warmed. 
 
 Amend thy creed to fit the needs of man, 
 
 And Live, but love the life beyond not this 
 
 Too flickering spark that may expire betime. 
 
 Anon the busy counselor in garb 
 Of lofty sense and purity of soul, 
 Administers the poison of distrust. 
 
 From out the glamour of illumined hall, 
 
 She wanders to the arbor where the fall 
 
 Of dew aspersions glows on leaf and vine; 
 
 Pure silver in the moon s enlambent shine. 
 
 His letter from her breast she takes and reads. 
 
 Garlanded strings of many tinted beads, 
 
 Like rosaries, bedeck the garden walk. 
 
 Amid the bloom she treads a fair white nun ; 
 
 The while she reads, tears from her lashes run. 
 
 76 
 
Thou priceless gem 
 That dews the feeling eye; 
 
 No diadem 
 
 Can with thy brilliance vie; 
 For hast thou not thru joy or pain, 
 Refreshed me with your heartfull rain? 
 
 What opaline 
 Emotions tint thy sphere, 
 
 My crystaline 
 For art thou not a tear? 
 
 The dying cadence of a cheery song 
 
 Wafts gardenward, voiced by the merry throng; 
 
 And breaking into laughter, rudely jars 
 
 The deep seclusion of her thoughts. 
 
 With face uplifted to the starry tide, 
 
 She murmurs to the winds that byward glide : 
 
 "I bow my head unto a cruel fate 
 That seems to grasp me in its dread estate; 
 I bow my head, here in the cool night air 
 That fans my cheek, afreight with odors rare: 
 I bow my head unto my blooms and sigh, 
 While they look up and trustful, wonder why. 
 Ah, gentle rose, whose language I have learned 
 Within my heart, and trustful love returned ; 
 I grieve that he with whom my fate is cast, 
 Hath more received than he can give at last." 
 
 77 
 
(Then in her chamber, sleepless, 
 
 Afar into the night, 
 She taketh pen and paper, 
 
 And thus to him doth write :) 
 
 Too soon you have forgotten, dearest, 
 Those hours so full of joy, so blest; 
 
 When our up-star seem d heaven nearest, 
 Our inmost longings all confessed. 
 
 "Those love-full moments all, I treasure. 
 Their light illumes my soul again ; 
 
 A waft of perfume born of pleasure, 
 Sweet balm to ease the touch of pain. 
 
 "O, happiness! art thou now banished? 
 
 O, heart! hast heard thy dying tune? 
 O, dream of dreams! where art thou vanished? 
 
 Hath sorrow dim cl thy glow so soon ?" 
 
 As ling ring echoes of together days, 
 O erwing the lone and reminiscent now ; 
 Throughout the weaving web of passing hours, 
 Threads in the gold of fleeting happiness. 
 Heart-deep, there throbs an ever conscious fear 
 Of some calamity. 
 
 A week or more hath passed and no response : 
 He wonders what hath pressed to stay her pen : 
 
 78 
 
Can she be worse, or hath some other lured 
 Her rapt attention to forgetfulness? 
 
 O, absence! unconsoling severance! 
 
 Thou conjurer that fate accentuates! 
 
 O worry magnifying night; wear on, 
 
 That day may lure from vain contending thoughts ! 
 
 What sadder thought than that two perfect loves, 
 By temperament intended each for each, 
 Must be despoiled by some in-weaving theme. 
 It is as if life s truest aim were vain. 
 
 Morrow dawns! The moments drag! No letter yet! 
 Now doth mad worry bid calm patience flee, 
 And distrust scents the cunning of a crafty mind, 
 To cheat his love of its ascendency: 
 So, pausing not, he casts success aside, 
 And flies unto her presence with grave fears. 
 
 O, measure of the moments slothful span, 
 How wearily ye drag your constant space ! 
 Ye hours that ebb reluctantly away, 
 Are still unyielding though he homeward turns. 
 
 His thoughts foreview each well remembered scene, 
 Which seems to lend new distance to their space ; 
 And what once seemed a very little way, 
 Extendeth in his fancy, league on league. 
 
 79 
 
At length the last bemarking lights are passed, 
 And greying spires creep into misty view ; 
 Pale auras of the flick ring village lamps 
 Beam thru the gently deep ning night. 
 
 No one to greet him ; how his heart doth throb ! 
 
 By unfamiliar paths unto her home 
 
 He wends until before her gate he stands. 
 
 The roses are yet blowing and the vine 
 
 That over-climbs her window hath but turned 
 
 Its springtide tints into midsummer s blend : 
 
 O, mad, disordered weeks, how ye have dragged ! 
 
 Emotion stirs his swelling breast 
 
 To sighings that are scarce repressed, 
 
 As winding like a silver thread, 
 
 Her window light weaves o er his head. 
 
 With timid step he falters at the door 
 And knocks with vacillating force ; 
 As one who knows not how his visit falls 
 And hesitates the gath ring to intrude. 
 
 Vague flashings that fore-sweep the tempest s path, 
 Flare audent rumblings o er the dreary north ; 
 And intermittent rain drops moist his cheek. 
 
 BO 
 
Bleak, ominous, the valeward clouds advance, 
 And show ry columns mist the profiled hills. 
 Upsprings the wind, drawn into empty space; 
 The riven leaflets rattle o er the glebe, 
 And heaven s caldrons loose their up-pent flood, 
 That raps like sharpnell on the writhing trees. 
 With blinding flash the storm-sped caissons burst, 
 Cleaving the night with loud, resonant blast; 
 The streams, augmented by the wat ry flow, 
 Wax boist rous in befoaming cataracts 
 That chafe to fly their rage restraining course. 
 
 Ye floods your furies vent in gorging rills! 
 Spend, winds, your anger on the crouching tree! 
 Deep scourge the night, thou darting jets of flame ! 
 It is your privilege, when overwrought, 
 To expurgate your passions and subside: 
 But man, more sensitive, must bear 
 With mild beatitude the mad ning lash, 
 And meekly offer up the other cheek. 
 
 All thru the night he hears a sobbing voice; 
 It mingles with the chill of dripping rain : 
 His spirit, crushed and drooping, riseth not, 
 And self-reproach doth settle o er his heart. 
 
 While yet beneath her window lingering, 
 His thoughts forbode the morrow s throb. 
 
 81 
 
This scene I fain would never pen ; 
 And yet, so much a part of life it is 
 That we must hearken to the tragedy. 
 He found her very ill, with all life s sands 
 So nearly run, there scarce was time to say 
 Those parting words, that ever seem in vain. 
 
 Here will I lift the curtain for a while, 
 And let you view the scene in its finality. 
 
 She was o erjoyed to see him, but distressed 
 
 With love s acutest miseries the frets 
 
 That in forced absence fever to despair; 
 
 Augmented by that distrust born of hate, 
 
 Thrust by a heedless mind on her ill frame, [pense, 
 
 This damned unrighteous righteousness that some dis- 
 
 Wherewith they paint the purest motive vile. 
 
 Breeding a canker on the best intent; 
 
 Is sugared o er with loftiest ideals, 
 
 And so hedged round with Christianity, 
 
 There s scarce a spot to lay the remedy. 
 
 O, Lord ! deliver us in mercy from 
 The secret grief of unresponsiveness, 
 That doth oppose and stultify the soul, 
 Thru peevishness and narrow drawn desires: 
 O, God ! make generous those we do love, 
 That our too seldom joys bring not reproof: 
 Leave not life s burdens for the one to bear, 
 Let trustful, patient, gentleness avail. 
 
 82 
 
To many, love is what I will or won t; 
 
 Ungenerous and all-desiring self. 
 
 Not so with her : she shares in all she may, 
 
 Tho oft in giving, suffers by the gift ; 
 
 Thus her sweet patience oft gives o er an hour, 
 
 The while she knows tis priceless to her own. 
 
 All tenderness and uncomplaining trust, 
 Her buoyancy surmounts these trying times, 
 Tho sickness gnawing at her precious life, 
 Paints misery upon her patient brow. 
 
 Such bravery as hers transcends belief 
 A courage born of perfect Christian trust, 
 Wherewith she scorns the sufferings of death, 
 Soothing the agonized with words of cheer. 
 Could ever such a voice as hers be mute? 
 Could ever such a thoughtful mind decline? 
 
 So that I may not sorrow, her sweet face 
 Lights with a joy I d give my soul were real. 
 
 (Kneeling beside her, does he realize 
 
 How soon must cease the slowly ebbing breath? 
 
 How soon her body be mere emptiness, 
 
 All voided by the Spirit s severance? 
 
 Tis well we cannot grasp the after-time, 
 But hope and wonder into vacancy.) 
 
 83 
 
Most worthy of all earthly themes, 
 
 A gentle mother s love; 
 A love that spares nor wearies ere, 
 
 A gift all dross above. 
 
 All thru the dreary, wakeful night ; 
 
 Throughout the care-full day ; 
 Thy hands have labored to relieve, 
 
 Thy lips sweet words convey. 
 
 A day most ordinary whose routine 
 Differs but in the muffling of the tread, 
 The softly closing door, the gentle touch, 
 The careful setting down of noisy things ; 
 A thoughtfulness that sets the day apart, 
 Showing how calmly peaceful all might live 
 But for the bluster of too heedless rush. 
 
 Without, the aspect is as usual 
 In summer s old routine of cloudless sky: 
 Birds, rustling leaves and murm ring streams- 
 All nature just its ordinary rote 
 Somewhat apart from that deep hush within, 
 Where all thought centers on a wasting form, 
 That with a face turned t ward the silent hills, 
 As if her eyes had caught within their shade 
 A glimpse of some celestial messenger, 
 Awaits our precious soul- the call of Death. 
 
 Surely the smile that beams thru suffering 
 
 84 
 
Bespeaks an uncomplaining mastery; 
 
 A saintly patience born of wondrous trust. 
 
 He knows there buds upon her lips a word 
 More precious to his famished heart than life. 
 Beneath her impulse to speak out, there is 
 A dread restraint o ermastering desire. 
 It dumbs her as a muted instrument 
 Whose richest melody has been suppressed. 
 
 SHE 
 You know I love you more than life, 
 
 And that I ve trusted you alway ; 
 Your gen rous heart, your sacrifice, 
 
 Have been my blessings day to day. 
 
 I see in your devotion true 
 
 , A love that is as deep as mine ; 
 I want to feel that you believe, 
 In spite of all, I am all thine. 
 
 HE 
 
 O, speak not thus, nor entertain 
 
 A single doubt or fear; 
 Your love hath proved an hundred fold, 
 
 Waste not a single tear. 
 
 I count no act as sacrifice 
 That may restore thy health; 
 
 I know tis only in your love, 
 My life hath found its wealth. 
 
 85 
 
Whatever thoughts have come between 
 
 Were never cast by thee; 
 For our two hearts have ever been 
 
 A perfect unity. 
 
 SHE 
 As the birds of passage wing 
 
 From the winter s chill away 
 Unto pleasant lands of spring, 
 
 So my soul doth long to stray : 
 As the bird yearns for its mate, 
 
 There in that eternal shine 
 I will build our nest and wait 
 
 For your soul to follow mine. 
 
 HE 
 
 I know no time beyond the now ; 
 Here is thy heart s abiding place. 
 
 O, be thou dead, 
 
 Then joy hath fled! 
 I ask no more of Heaven s grace. 
 
 If there be aught of healing pow r, 
 
 Then may it strengthen in this trial ; 
 
 Let it restore thy health once more, 
 Such boon alone can reconcile ! 
 
 SHE 
 We must not say farewell, 
 
 Tho death may hover nigh ; 
 For those in sweet attune, 
 
 There shall be no good-bye. 
 
 86 
 
True as a perfect chord, 
 
 Completed and divine; 
 Though my soul journey on, 
 
 It will respond to thine. 
 
 ***** 
 
 As tender music leaves a master s touch, 
 Struck from the subtle instrument of life, 
 So her blest Spirit severs from the clay, 
 Faint as a mist and quite invisible; 
 And sensing freedom in the truer state, 
 Feathers the aerial spheres of pure delight. 
 
 What glow was that that lit the everlasting hills, 
 Disbursing shadow and eclipsing daylight s beam? 
 Was it the splendor of her last, departing glance? 
 
 What stirred the leaves aquiv ring in the quiet vale, 
 
 As if a sudden breeze had passed? 
 
 Was it the waft of her enquickened soul? 
 
 Earth is a-hush to hear her gentle voice. 
 
 A lark, inspiring in the upper calm, 
 
 Doth hear and render back to earth her song. 
 
 ***** 
 
 To feel the "might have been s" dark phantom rise, 
 In face of all your love and sacrifice; 
 To know the sweet perfection that you sought 
 Was ever marred by some unworthy thought; 
 
 87 
 
To know that heart like yours pined for the state 
 
 Which now to know on earth, is all too late : 
 
 Then in the presence of unfeeling death, 
 
 To know that naught can ere return the breath 
 
 Unto the object of your fondest care : 
 
 To think that death perchance is what it seems 
 
 With no warm touch or spoken word to know 
 
 This is the very height and depth of woe. 
 
 Beside the bier, the voice of hate 
 Unsilenced by death s sanctity, 
 Utters rude words, as it would rob 
 The final moment of its peace. 
 
 Sundown and the after hush 
 Of night that follows soon ; 
 
 Starlight and the silv ry blush 
 Left by the waning moon. 
 
 Heart-break and the after still 
 Of gloom that follows fast; 
 
 Sun-up and the waking thrill 
 Of hands that clasp at last. 
 
 There needs be shading in the script 
 Whereon Life s subtle pen hath tript ; 
 Here, lightly, with fantastic tread, 
 There, heavy where the shadows thread ; 
 So speeds it e er from youth to age 
 Then dots, whereat Death turns the page. 
 
 88 
 
The church bells are ringing, 
 Their metal tones flinging 
 
 O er valley and hill. 
 Soft voices are blending, 
 Hush d music is wending 
 
 With somnolent thrill. 
 
 The odors of flowers, 
 
 Fresh gathered from bowers, 
 
 Drift out on the air. 
 All hearts there are aching, 
 And some there are breaking, 
 
 O er her that was fair. 
 
 Toll, bells, on forever; 
 Be joyous, O never, 
 
 She lieth so white. 
 Weep, blossoms, and wither; 
 Your soul hath gone thither, 
 
 In eternal flight. 
 
 Step softly, be heedful where ye tread, 
 Lest, thoughtlessly, ye wake the restful dead. 
 Ev ry moment gives to life a birth, 
 And as oft recalls it back to earth; 
 Neath the blossom that adorns the ground, 
 Heaps dread Acheron, his oval mound. 
 Thus is paved each step of life with dead : 
 Step softly, be heedful where ye tread ; 
 Lest some bosom ye awake to weep 
 Step softly, O let the weary sleep. 
 
After the deepest sorrow of our life 
 
 Hath passed, it is far easier to tread 
 
 The tranquil way. But when within 
 
 The valley of the shadow and amid 
 
 The qualms of unrequited purpose we 
 
 O ergaze denuded frailties of men, 
 
 Unheeding thru their lack of power to feel, 
 
 Ungrasping of their duties, for the need 
 
 Of that fine sense of sympathy, 
 
 Then deem we life s deluding span too long; 
 
 Then doth despair its cruel fangs inroot, 
 
 And that frail thread which binds us to our task 
 
 We would dissever with one freeing stroke. 
 
 HE 
 
 "Sorrow hath laid its hand upon my heart, 
 And blight upon my love. 
 Is Heaven s thirst for souls insatiate, 
 That it must pluck unblown to its estate 
 A bud that scarce had sipt life s early dew ; 
 Whose new unfolding scarce of rapture knew?" 
 
 ( Wending among the graves, he mourns. ) 
 
 "Ah, poor Narcissus! how thy pallid glow 
 Creeps mournfully where deep ning shadows flow : 
 The tomb thou lovest and the cypress shade, 
 Where Zephyrus moans and love and thee are laid. 
 
 "Now blighting grief inflames anew desire; 
 Breathing love s dying embers into fire, 
 
 90 
 
Whose heat, unquenching in consuming wave, 
 Doth lay my heart in ashes on her grave." 
 
 Under the leaves 
 
 O let me rest, 
 Where nought e er grieves, 
 
 No fears molest. 
 Under the shade 
 
 Of friendly bough, 
 O! to be laid 
 
 Restfully now. 
 O! let me sleep, 
 
 Dead to the woe, 
 Never to weep, 
 
 Waken or know. 
 Heart, be thou still ! 
 
 Soul, urge no more! 
 Time will fulfill 
 
 What lies before. 
 Under the leaves, 
 
 Mocking my fears; 
 The future weaves 
 
 Garlands of years. 
 In my still bed 
 
 Amid the brake, 
 Morn s gentle tread 
 
 May not awake. 
 Under the leaves, 
 
 Hush me to rest, 
 Where nought e er grieves, 
 
 No cares molest. 
 
 91 
 
Heart, be thou still! 
 
 Soul, urge no more; 
 Time will fulfill 
 
 What lies before. 
 
 "Before the sepulcher of death I stand, 
 
 The while the sun sinks o er the western strand, 
 
 And darkness fleeing from the rising moon, 
 
 Creeps over grave and leafy-deep festoon : 
 
 The livid marble lights up in the chase, 
 
 And ghostly semblances glide place to place: 
 
 The soughing wind from o er the billow s surge, 
 
 Breathes thru the cypress boughs a mournful dirge, 
 
 Is this then death? O, strange, mysterious blight ! 
 Is this the spectre of chaotic night? 
 Art thou that robs all beauty of its form, 
 And recompenses with the unconsoling worm? 
 O love, must thy deep rapture end in this? 
 Fades thus the spectra of immortal bliss? 
 Earth s noblest offering, her hope and faith, 
 End fest ring carrion or frighting wraith? 
 
 O vacant hours of barren emptiness ! 
 Expressionless and unresponsive now 
 Made vapid by absented hope, 
 Despair depresseth with its weight of woe : 
 All firmness hath deserted life s desire; 
 Inconstant purpose fixes thought on death ! 
 
 92 
 
My trusty blade, I kiss thy numbing edge, 
 For by thy swift unerring stroke, I soon 
 Will join her Spirit or forever sleep. 
 Thy sting I woo unto my acheful heart. 
 I seek an isle of rest. Tis in a sea 
 Whose depths are fathomless to mortal eye; 
 A sea whose tides ne er crimple into waves, 
 Whose winds sigh not unto the heedless shore. 
 I seek a calm repose whose dreamless hush 
 Wakes no remembrance of the poignant yore ; 
 And from whose shadow wakes no songful note 
 Where night s impenetrable fastness palls, 
 And age heeds not the onward tread of time. 
 Thou boatman, bent and gray, my pilot be 
 Whose oars break not the melancholy still. 
 Upon the prow of thy frail craft I stand 
 And gaze into the grief assuaging tide, 
 Where specter like, a castle rears its walls 
 Within whose silence endeth all desire." 
 
 93 
 
PART IV. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART IV 
 
 From his narrow window gazing 
 As bright day to night is hazing, 
 Scans the Sexton o er the clearing 
 For the first bright star s appearing 
 That emboldened by earth s shadow, 
 Blooms upon the heav nly meadow. 
 O er the hush the bell tones linger, 
 As awaft from distant singer. 
 Thus in solitary dreaming 
 Sits the Sexton, fancies teeming, 
 Till dark night the day effacing 
 Leads his fitful fancy tracing 
 Paths amid the astral revels, 
 Where the Spirit only, travels. 
 
 Oft the vesper anthem sighing, 
 
 To responsive mood replying, 
 
 Wakens deep within a longing 
 
 To ascend where thoughts are thronging 
 
 And his vibrant atoms tremble 
 
 As weird visitants assemble, 
 
 An immortal aggregation 
 
 Crowds his rapt imagination. 
 
 Are these moodful musings merely? 
 Or doth vision view more clearly? 
 
 97 
 
Ev ry stone of his rude dwelling, 
 Tho unsculptered and repelling, 
 Hath a face, a name, a being, 
 Friendly to his inner seeing: 
 More than human, more consoling, 
 To high hopes their aid enrolling, 
 Deftly round him ever pressing, 
 Lifting thought from themes distressing. 
 
 Never with a mortal speaking, 
 Scant repose from study seeking, 
 Loneliness his heart acquiring, 
 Craves a soul like his, aspiring, 
 Flesh and blood and not ethereal, 
 Of a substance more material. 
 
 What use to sing if there are none to heed? 
 What use to write if there are none to read? 
 
 The bird sings sweetest to its listening mate, 
 Whose mute approval doth full compensate. 
 The shepherd pipes upon the mountain side, 
 The herds responding, gather to their guide: 
 The poet wakes the strings whose voice anew 
 Seeks out the searching souls, who follow, too. 
 Thus are we led unto the greatest heights 
 By those responsive, whom our song delights. 
 
 Lone as yon summit reft of friendly peak; 
 Lone as an island in a waste of sea, 
 
 98 
 
His spirit yearns for some companionship, 
 Which, finding not, grows weary of desire. 
 
 Let us walk with him the garden of God, 
 
 Where earth s rarest bloom awakes from the sod; 
 
 Exhales on the air the fragrance of thought; 
 
 Inspiring and free, tho it must be sought. 
 
 Open the gates of the mind to the breeze, 
 
 Let waft thru the soul the song of the trees 
 
 As they rise neath the magical touch of His wand, 
 
 And point with their spires t ward the heav nly land. 
 
 In God s garden fair a fountain of glame 
 
 Uplifts to the sky its life-giving flame, 
 
 Whose peltering dews in the moonbeams glow ; 
 
 Let us quaff at the fount and we shall know : 
 
 The mystic shall vanish and we shall feel 
 
 One with the Perfect, the Godly, the Real. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Of beaming nights, upon the sea-washed strand, 
 When em rald waves broke into phosphor beams 
 And crystal atmospheres drew stars anear, 
 I ve pondered how, in ages long adrift, 
 Hipparchus pioneered the unknown skies : 
 Enrolled a thousand fixed, unchanging orbs : 
 Serius and Capella, first in glow, 
 And Vega, unsurpassed in brilliancy. 
 Now these same jewels cast their glows on us 
 In undiminished flame that held his gaze. 
 
 99 
 
Why are these eyes less subtle than the lens, 
 
 On which these stellar images impress 
 
 Tlicir faintest spark? 
 
 The spectraglows of star-creating dust 
 
 Reveal therein their changing binaries. 
 
 We dare not venture to enumerate 
 
 How vastly multiple these rayless spheres: 
 
 The cosmic dust of unillumined worlds 
 
 Strives with the flames of brightly beaming stars 
 
 And modifies the brilliancy of day, 
 
 Lending a softness to the glow of night. 
 
 Our central world companions with the sun, 
 While round us like bejeweled girldle swings 
 The clusters of the distant milky-way. 
 The blending of the spheral dust with ours 
 Compounds the great elixir we inhale, 
 Whose light adjusted to our growing needs 
 Keeps live the spark that our Creator struck. 
 To know the earth and its component parts 
 Is to have view d the secrets of all space. 
 
 Life in its infinite variety 
 Attains perfection round the bode of man. 
 Where he cannot exist, the minimum 
 Of life strives with the thorn and shifting sand. 
 Why is not man the one idea of All? 
 He holds the centre of the stage of Life, 
 The while the universe doth focus him. 
 
 100 
 
Add hydrogen to alkali, and swift, 
 
 Long dormant life will blossom and bear fruit 
 
 Add purpose to our active principle 
 
 And we ve a demi-god in mortal mind. 
 
 This mighty Spirit holds within its palm 
 
 Ais twere a grain of sand, this little world, 
 
 That turning round from light to shade, evolves 
 
 The days and nights of our terrestrial span. 
 
 Aspiring still, our Spirit yet shall wear 
 
 In some far time, a sky of glowing worlds 
 
 To grace the garments of its memory. 
 
 The batteries of science, thoughtful trained, 
 
 Are narrowing the boundaries of space. 
 
 A universe seems center d round our globe, 
 
 Which even to its far, remotest spark, 
 
 Conduces to the essence of our Life. 
 
 We drink the starlight as the fronding leaf; 
 
 The moon uplifts our thought o er shallow dunes; 
 
 While atmospheric moistures fresh the soul. 
 
 Inwall d by vast, unnumbered stars we swing 
 
 Our certain orb, within whose circuit weaves 
 
 The texture of immortal Life. 
 
 When soul is ready for the Spirit s call 
 Our colors glomerate into pure light. 
 This is the total of all tints in one ; 
 The sun itself, and not its varied gleams. 
 Sound is the subtle voice of living light ; 
 
 101 
 
The vowel and the consonant of Truth : 
 Time is the measure of its aspirate. 
 
 If darkness is a veil and All is Light, 
 
 And Light transfuses all material, 
 
 Then in the final shutting out of day 
 
 Would it be strange if Light illumined Death? 
 
 The aqueous compound of this mortal part 
 
 Doth scarce conceal its inner mysteries: 
 
 -oq" ing and the stopping of whose parts 
 Doth show a purpose cannot be denied. 
 If Light itself be brighter than mere day, 
 Then Life transcends the radiance of suns ; 
 And should be visible but for the nerves 
 That fog the waters of this mortal eye. 
 Reasoning from and to particular 
 We do infer that such will be the fact : 
 But spite of reasoning the fact was there. 
 We seem to grasp the rudiments with ease, 
 Tho chaos is as dense to thought as mass. 
 When we think star, doth reason grasp a world? 
 When we feel Love, doth mind encompass Soul? 
 When we find Soul, know we the Absolute? 
 When we view Life, have we o ermastered Time? 
 
 Light being Life, pervades the atmosphere 
 As air pervades the ocean s rayless deeps 
 And entering between all particles, 
 Becomes the circulation of high space. 
 What of that spectra whose unnumbered tints 
 
 102 
 
Affect the blossom to its certain hue? 
 What of the diamond and its nighted dream? 
 Hath it escaped the sun s coronal glints? 
 Thus we reflect according to our thought, 
 The all-pervading color of our mood, 
 Distempered or inspiring as we think. 
 
 When Time slips from its moorings the fleet year 
 
 The past is incidental to the star 
 
 That oversweeps the firmamental space, 
 
 But future is the reason of its flash. 
 
 Subjective gaze rewards the beautiful, 
 
 Which comtemplation compensates the eye. 
 
 By graduating vistas, the sublime 
 
 Bursts by degrees upon the searching soul. 
 
 This viewless, object-barren space invites, 
 
 Imaginative voices wake the hush, 
 
 And contemplative beauty grace the void. 
 
 Idea is the beautifying touch 
 
 That lends to art the mystery of Life. 
 
 O mind ! Of all God s works the most sublime, 
 
 That thru these few congealing ounces we 
 
 Can people emptiness and sweep the skies, 
 
 Subject the unseen elements to Will, 
 
 But cannot grasp the mystery of Life. 
 
 That spark, infinitesimal, escapes 
 
 The subtle reasonings of all our wit. 
 
 We, being Life, are prone to gaze away. 
 
 103 
 
Searching the distance for what lies within. 
 
 The heart vibrates upon that self-same law 
 
 That speeds the planets round their certain course. 
 
 The clouds wing lightly as the butterfly, 
 
 Pressing alike their kisses on the rose. 
 
 The ocean and the wind are kindred, too, 
 
 As sound and stillness are alike at-one. 
 
 Void and Fulfillment do alike conjoin, 
 
 One law and principle for All in All. 
 
 Shall we, that grasp the idea of the plan, 
 
 Be lesser than the plan we contemplate? 
 
 Thought gathers to itself the scattered dust. 
 
 Shaping the being to its central plan : 
 
 Vibrating lesser, stronger, as the mind 
 
 Quickens or retards its varied mood. 
 
 Hath Time ceased with the pendulum s last swing? 
 
 No more hath person ceased with our last breath ! 
 
 Weaving the mesh of All-Eternal-Time, 
 Therein did God place his fulfilling thought, 
 That we might write the story of the hour. 
 
 I am a separable atom of 
 The vast and mighty whole : 
 
 I am the changeless Law 
 That, will or nil, 
 Quickeneth the soul. 
 
 104 
 
I am the past and fore of memory, 
 
 An ever-learning orb : 
 Of never-changing form an entity 
 
 That death cannot absorb. 
 
 The ocean is but heavy atmosphere, 
 Too humid to maintain in lofty space: 
 And falling to earth s deep, enhollow d vales, 
 Heaves its wide bosom to the spheral glows. 
 The flinty earth, the sediment of stars, 
 Knchains within its keep the fluent tides 
 That ever battle in their captive sinks: 
 Lifting impending mists toward the skies. 
 
 Of that internal something that effects 
 
 To life this dull material : 
 
 May it not be of our conformity? 
 
 The hand within the glove? 
 
 The I, the person, individual? 
 
 We shape the battery to charge the wire 
 
 What gives the bioplast its pattern thought? 
 
 Doth it contain all wisdom in itself? 
 
 Tis answered from the great invisible: 
 
 This form we lose not in the ash of death 
 
 The pattern was before the bioplast. 
 
 As lum nous astrals take the shape of man 
 
 And wander from the confines of the flesh, 
 
 So, strengthened by the process of this death, 
 
 Steps forth the weaver from his wondrous web : 
 
 105 
 
Its person, form, identity, the I ; 
 
 Endowed with everlasting Life, by Him, 
 
 The Maker, All-Intelligent, the Sense. 
 
 O, tell me not that I shall be a part 
 
 Of some great scheme, some all-creating whole, 
 
 Bereft of person, form and memory: 
 
 The offspring of that myth, Bathybius. 
 
 A soul congealed with countless other souls 
 
 A particle within a great chaotic mass: 
 
 Inanimate, after creative Will 
 
 Hath shown the capabilities of Good? 
 
 Insensate, after pain and ecstasy? 
 
 After the yearning, loving, learning? 
 
 After the effort to rise from the mass 
 
 And stand apart in all progressive Truth 
 
 Whose very application Life diversifies. 
 
 Tell me that I forever shall be I 
 
 That you that love me shall forever Be 
 
 Not vastly different from this fair form, 
 
 But capable of further thought and love; 
 
 Personal, individual and free. 
 
 A thing that an unselfish God may love: 
 
 His handiwork, impersonal, apart; 
 
 A something to reward the Builders zeal. 
 
 If in our weave we re taught to will to live 
 To hope and to aspire beyond this death. 
 Then trust the bioplast that held the hope; 
 Made it to bloom in our effulgent year. 
 As we were built to hold that blessed wish 
 
 106 
 

 So we shall find within, immortal Life. 
 This seed contains within its subtle sphere 
 The unity of consciousness complete. 
 
 The Spirits hearing grasps a finer thread 
 Than ever hath been spun in music s web. 
 Yon silence yields us not the mighty din 
 Of clashing particles, commingled with 
 The whirr of coursing stars, the seethe of suns. 
 
 Could I but sail 
 
 The meteoric streams around the sun, 
 Where sweeps the flotsam of the comet s wreck ; 
 I d pause anon, mid isles of clustering stars, 
 To light my torch on some new flaming node 
 Where merge from bright corona s, jewels rare: 
 Then with my spark I d turn to nighted earth 
 And kindle a new hope in ev ry breast. 
 
 Tis giv n the ear to hear the great unseen, 
 In music s earthward reaching harmonies. 
 Tis giv n the mind to know in subtle thought 
 The soul to feel beyond all questioning. 
 Sight is the only sense that is deceived, 
 And that because we will see tangibles. 
 
 Have I not heard the world s sublimest note, 
 
 That faded all mere music into chime : 
 
 That lifting on a breath so poised in thought, 
 
 107 
 
It pressed against the circling rim of space 
 As it would sunder heav n with swelling tone 
 It was a simple tune, but inly heard. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Musing of a twilight golden 
 Over parchments sere and olden; 
 Glides a sudden glow before me 
 As a specter hov ring o er me. 
 Startling tho the apparition 
 Unperturbed my intuition. 
 Now assuming form of human, 
 Wavereth a fair young woman; 
 Draped in robes of airy lightness, 
 Of a phosphorescent brightness. 
 My heart paused the phantom moving, 
 By a look my fear reproving, 
 Parts her lips as if to utter 
 Words that into silence flutter 
 Fainter than a bloom s unfolding 
 That with morn commune is holding. 
 Her deep eyes a wish conveying 
 Bid my sense their will obeying, 
 Till a coldness quivers o er me 
 And the shade glides on before me: 
 Beckons with her hands I follow 
 Down the cloistered by-way hollow : 
 On among the grave-stones wending, 
 Led o er paths neath cypress bending 
 Where the circling tomb-bat sweepeth, 
 
 108 
 
And the gnawing legion creepeth. 
 
 Now before a tomb, the spirit 
 
 Pauses. Beckons me anear it. 
 
 And obeying her wild gesture, 
 
 I peer in the dark investure. 
 
 From the shadows faint revealing, 
 
 I can trace a figure kneeling, 
 
 With great sobs whose form is shaking, 
 
 As a heart from grief were breaking. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 When this last dreamless night is done, 
 Your face shall be my rising sun : 
 Your smile will gently waft away 
 The mists that linger over day. 
 The haven of my heart, your breast, 
 Shall fold me to eternal rest : 
 Your eyes will beam refreshing dew, 
 To ease my fervent, waking view, 
 Lest I expire to feel the glow 
 Of your warm lips and perish so. 
 And should this poignant ache of heart 
 Revive with me and not depart, 
 I ll pray to pass again to sleep, 
 Calm, impenetrable and deep ! 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 (I behold, as lightning flashing, 
 Gleam of steel that from him dashing, 
 Speeds the murd rous blade from harming.) 
 
 109 
 
YOUTH 
 
 Unwelcomed! Who disturbs my grief? 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 A brother in adversity ! 
 
 Come ! Thy vain purpose cease ! 
 
 Wouldst thou thy Captain disobey? 
 
 Desert thy post amid the frey? 
 
 Ah, not so base a coward thou, 
 
 Unto adversity to bow ! 
 
 Come ! Strike unto thy trouble s heart ; 
 
 Command the threat ning clouds depart! 
 
 Thrust back the lightning with the clash 
 
 Of thine own steel give flash for flash ! 
 
 Be not dove-like and meekly bear 
 
 Thy burdens with a downcast air ; 
 
 But like the eagle, soar on high, 
 
 Where no debasement cometh nigh ! 
 
 Art scorned? Unpitied? What of it? 
 
 If love deny and fortune fail ; 
 
 If all known woes thy heart assail; 
 
 Seek not in any human face, 
 
 For pity s soft, consoling grace, 
 
 But take a firmer hold on life, 
 
 Stand boldly to besetting strife 
 
 And tho thy woes like rivers flow, 
 
 Receive upon thy breast the blow 
 
 So be it, if Chance wills it so ! 
 
 110 
 
YOUTH 
 
 If Fate is privileged to wring my heart 
 Then have I not the right to cry enough 
 And stem my woes by whatsoever means I will? 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Why dash thyself against unfeeling stone? 
 Think you to wake a sense where there is none? 
 If those that hurt thee cannot sense their wrong, 
 How can retaliation change or words affect? 
 Tis better to combat than meekly bear; 
 Tho both are wrong. 
 
 There is a poise that sets all ill at naught. 
 Leave unto Time the labors of its sphere : 
 Twill grind the adamant to dust at last. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Alas, how very calm her rest; 
 No heart-throb wakes that silent breast, 
 Whose ev ry pulse was wont to meet 
 Mine own, and blend into its beat. 
 From those dear lips I hear no sigh, 
 Their coldness wakens no reply 
 O God ! where hath escaped the breath 
 From this enmarbled hush of death? 
 
 SEXTON 
 Come! 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 How e er survive the awful shock 
 That o er my being seems to rock; 
 
 111 
 
Lending to grief a mad ning pow r, 
 
 Seeing no hope beyond the hour. 
 
 Pain-waking words that burn and sear 
 
 Do ring forever in my ear 
 
 Till hushing silence groans with hate, 
 
 And ev ry whisper is a blade 
 
 That cuts and prods my anguished heart, 
 
 Till death alone can ease the smart. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Time wields a viewless poignard, and its thrust 
 Is sure. But wait, too soon it will strike home. 
 Thou rt unprepared. Thy Spirit must advance: 
 How far, we may not know ; therefore, forbear ! 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 To live for years with one you idolized, 
 And all the while your hands dared scarcely touch 
 Without the pique of an intruding love 
 That poised its will against- devotion s own: 
 What is more wearing to an ardent heart? 
 Is there a torture more refined in art? 
 
 Dearest : 
 
 Could you, from your new bode look down and see 
 These after hours of suffering alone; 
 Sorrowing far beyond the loss of you 
 Your heart could not partake of heav nly joys, 
 You would so grieve to see my sore distress. 
 Could you but know how shattered my ideals, 
 How vain the dreams that were our loveland s own : 
 
 112 
 
How soon, when your dear breath had left your corse, 
 The world s unfeeling aspect came to view. 
 Ah! could you know this heart that worshiped you 
 Was made to faint in deeper agonies than death, 
 You could not rest for praying I might come, 
 And be consoled within your loving arms. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Come ! tis sympathy thou need st ! 
 Tis more the attitude of selfish minds, 
 Than death s sad severance, that prompts thy blade. 
 Come ! Learn of Life ! 
 
 YOUTH 
 Speak thou of Life? Then gaze on this sweet wreck! 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 If she be dead, what comes then of our Faith? 
 Where is the hope that nourisheth, sustains? 
 Hath chaos blighted ev ry Christian trust? 
 What have I seen with these unfailing eyes? 
 What led me hither? Was it mere chance? 
 It grieves me to behold so fair a mind 
 O ergiven to the folly of despair. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Death surely unrewards a life like hers. 
 If memory survive, why not the soul? 
 Yet, how can I survive the loneliness? 
 My heart upyearns, my hands outreach in space 
 Whose emptiness accentuates my grief. 
 
 113 
 
SEXTON 
 
 In sorrow s hour we lean on kindliness 
 As twere a crutch to stay our limping i^ricf; 
 Yet void of healing is all mortal love : 
 Our truest consolation lies within, 
 Where bravely and with steadfast faith 
 We rise above the world s calamities. 
 Come with me, heart-weary friend, 
 No longer with vain grief contend : 
 Come ! I greet thee as a brother, 
 Leave this life, begin another: 
 Here in the Sexton s tranquil walls 
 No peace disturbing woe recalls: 
 Come ! thou art captive to thy grief, 
 Repose will bring thee sweet relief. 
 
 YOUTH 
 I care not for love s words so lightly spoken, 
 
 Nor care I for the language of the rose ; 
 Close to my breast, I need no other token, 
 
 Her presence there is all my wooing knows. 
 
 Within her arms, I need no other dwelling; 
 
 Her azure eyes are as the sky to me : 
 Consuming love defies the simple telling, 
 
 But bursting forth engulfs us in its sea. 
 
 I d not complain, tho grief my heart assailing, 
 Nor yet despair while hcr s beat close to mine 
 
 Bereft of her, all else is unavailing, 
 A mighty void is left and I repine. 
 
 114 
 
I hear no music, for the lute is broken ; 
 
 Life s wondrous song has lost its charm for me 
 My steadfast love disdains all other token ; 
 
 Then in her arms, O let me buried be ! 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 So brief the hour we here remain, 
 All bitter mourning is in vain : 
 Short time and you will calmly choose 
 The balm that healeth ev ry bruise; 
 Engrave upon thy mem ry s shield, 
 "To thy remembrance thus I yield." 
 Here change thy song to that of hope 
 Firm grasp the future s broad ning scope; 
 For hark ! my listening senses hear 
 The hour of passing cometh near : 
 Soon intersticing themes converge, 
 And sweeps adagio to dirge : 
 Soon breaks our fragile winding thread 
 How briefly we survive the dead ! 
 
 (As up the moonlit walk we wander, 
 O er the buried past I ponder : 
 So like mine his heart s upbreaking; 
 So like mine this sudden waking. 
 
 Anon I turn his thoughts to giving 
 All his days to holy living. 
 
 Pausing a moment where the sleeping flowers 
 Bathe the night in fragrant showers. 
 
 115 
 
Bright spangles from the moon caress 
 The undulating valley s breast, 
 And on his throbbing temples press 
 The slumb rous balm of tranquil rest. 
 
 Soft pillow d on my humble bed, 
 I gently lay his troubled head; 
 And hush him as a mother might 
 A child whose care was her delight : 
 Snuff the taper dimly burning; 
 To the page I d left, returning; 
 Read I know not what, for thinking 
 Of the strange night, till a-blinking, 
 Slumber throws its mantle o er me 
 And the scene dissolves before me. 
 
 When the first bright golden lances 
 
 Burst from morning s waking glances : 
 
 When the mountain trenches, wooded, 
 
 Wake from slumber, misty hooded ; 
 
 Dream laden, silent ships of spray, 
 
 Spread their white wings and sail away, 
 
 Over a sea of balmy air, 
 
 Kissed by Orient s ruddy glare. 
 
 Then the wild bird s tuneful numbers 
 
 Rouse us from belated slumbers. 
 
 There refreshed by waters cooling, 
 
 Waits my charge his first deep schooling. 
 
 In the grace of soul surrender; 
 
 That first glimpse of Heaven s splendor. 
 
 116 
 
Still his baffled blade repenting; 
 Still his heart s deep loss lamenting.) 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Thou dark unfriendly hour that dulled 
 The blade that should the blight have culled: 
 That closed death s portal full on me, 
 Leaving the sting of misery. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Hush ! thy grief unmans thee wholly : 
 Have patience, Life s gift is holy. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 What now remains to charm my sight, 
 Since day has passed to dreamless night? 
 The die is cast, why then contend? 
 Since love hath fled, let my life end. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Retaliation and revenge react 
 Upon us for our heedless deeds : 
 Our structure may collapse upon us if 
 One single stone be moved from its set place. 
 The individual and act are part 
 Of our tuition and our seasoning: 
 Mere incidentals to the massive whole. 
 Every prod but teaches us to feel 
 And ev ry sorrow wakes a deeper joy ; 
 The house of mourning is the twilight dusk 
 That glooms our vision ere the break of day. 
 
 117 
 
YOUTH 
 
 She will not vanish from e er-present grief, 
 Thus do I seek to live, while sorrows kill. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Far better can she minister to thee 
 From her unseen abode in thoughtful space, 
 Than when disturbed by earth s discordant themes 
 Which interrupt and mar love s melody. 
 Love, as a means to reach the ultimate 
 Hath more to overcome than other ways, 
 Because true love is feeling s deepest sense, 
 And into this all ways converge at last. 
 Cease thou to bode the murd rous thought, 
 All destroying, availing naught : 
 A grain of hate dropt in the heart, 
 And brooded o er, receives a start 
 That rushing, gathers in its rage 
 The poise and wisdom of our age: 
 Still urging, mild resistance gives, 
 And murder, the whole thought, now lives. 
 Like lightning s flash our hand hath slain 
 The thunder wakes to self again ! 
 
 This life must pace its destined course, 
 Tis not a thing that yields to force. 
 Concealed within that we call death, 
 A life more vital than mere breath; 
 A new development of soul, 
 Awaits fulfillment of its goal. 
 
 118 
 
Each hour doth throb with new increase 
 
 Upon the world, Life cannot cease. 
 
 The thread of high perfection winds 
 
 To the infinite, where it binds. 
 
 Great truths spring from a source devout ; 
 
 Who thinks within, sheds light without. 
 
 Self-study is the bubbling source 
 
 Of inspiration s subtle force : 
 
 He who knows his nature surely 
 
 Holds success as his securely. 
 
 As our thoughts trend, so shall our progress be 
 
 All unattuned, or perfect harmony. 
 
 We are not better than the swine, 
 
 Till thought and impulse make divine. 
 
 Whither wendeth, in its swift flight, 
 Yon star that sweeps across the night? 
 Where flow the sands that press the sea; 
 Have they no certain destiny? 
 Does seed drop ere the fruit is grown? 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 This newer thought of thine is queer, 
 And yet, some element doth cheer 
 To sweet attunement, all my pain ; 
 And brings me up to pitch again 
 Wherein some thought anew elates, 
 The hopelessness obliterates. 
 Speak on! I fain would hear thy song; 
 Beneath its spell my heart grows strong. 
 
 119 
 
SEXTON 
 
 Tis variance of will makes man to shift; 
 His reason marks no course, doth blindly drift. 
 There is one pilot that will light him home, 
 A safe asylum, whence he need not roam : 
 Tis concentration on some lofty height 
 Of thought, that shall endow enternal might : 
 Objectified with that he emulates, 
 Becomes a part of That which All creates. 
 The world grows small as mind expands 
 And yearnings reach t ward other lands. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 I ll close the past as one lays down a book 
 Whose ev ry page revives but poignant pain: 
 Whose final chapter hath the curtain rung 
 On Life s sublimest tragedy. 
 Now do I start another theme, 
 Which, let us hope, may lead in pleasant ways: 
 For, what new sorrow may outweigh the old? 
 Tis left the future to reveal but joy 
 The unwrit story of requited love. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 We may not venture how the play may end; 
 Nor can we estimate its tragedy : 
 There is no limit to experience 
 No depth to which the feelings may not go: 
 There s no degree, no mark, that we may pass, 
 And passing say: "There s nothing more to come." 
 But we can learn in Patience and in Trust. 
 
 120 
 
YOUTH 
 
 This play and jest doth make a mockery of grief. 
 I ve listened to the voice that simulated woe, [art 
 I ve laughed and wept, swayed by the actor s subtle 
 Led to forget the glamour of the mimic stage: 
 But never until now knve I true feeling known 
 Never till loss and sorrow struck the poignard home. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 I, too, have shun d the river s tempting brink, 
 The cliff s high leap the spirit-urging sea, 
 Or staid my hand as it would grasp a blade. 
 When mad ning trouble seems unbearable 
 An impulse irresistible o erwhelms. 
 Tis but the impress of the gloomy hour : 
 Trust thou the morrow and abide its mete. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 How may I gain the Spirit you require? 
 How wake within the impulse to aspire? 
 
 SEXTON 
 Listen in the .depths of silence : 
 
 Listen for Life s monotone; 
 Turn the sight and hearing inward, 
 
 Leave the tumult, think alone. 
 
 Deep within, rich truths are springing, 
 O! but heed their impulse strong; 
 
 Life s true voice is ever ringing, 
 And its utterance a song. 
 
 121 
 
YOUTH 
 
 Could I, for instance, ever hope to be 
 At-one on earth with True Divinity? 
 
 SEXTON 
 The sweetest song that ever was pen d 
 
 Awaits on the border land 
 The voice of a great upyearning soul 
 
 The touch of a master hand. 
 
 O! where is the land? How runs the tune? 
 
 And what does its theme impart? 
 The tune is the sigh of a soul s desire; 
 
 The theme is a human heart. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 O, master, I would follow on, 
 But in the maze am lost! 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 When Spirit in the aspect of new hope 
 Descends upon a mortal s troubled breast, 
 That Heav nly messenger, angelic, brings 
 The sweet assurance of a world of peace. 
 Else why the thrill in Life s departing hour? 
 Why raptured looks from eyes deep sunk with ill? 
 Pin not your Faith on earth s deceptive glows; 
 The True-Light burns beyond our little day! 
 Spirit is like a deeply shadow d pool, 
 Wherein betimes the sun s bright Soul reflects: 
 
 122 
 
Thus we must turn from night and glance within, 
 
 If we would see and sense Almighty Love. 
 
 Love is heaven s connecting link 
 
 And leads us close unto the brink 
 
 Wherein eternity doth spread 
 
 Its ocean past the cliffs of dread : 
 
 Where, standing on its narrow rim, 
 
 We gaze into the vortex dim : 
 
 Appall d at whose great sea of space 
 
 Wherein no certain harbors grace, 
 
 Save those of faith, implanted deep, 
 
 Whose might grasps all within its keep. 
 
 Faith holds the world within its orb, 
 
 While wishes our deep aims absorb: 
 
 Desire unmet were hell indeed; 
 
 But hope upsprouteth like the seed: 
 
 Upheld with promise o er the night, 
 
 We slumber, faithful of the light. 
 
 What see these eyes, bedim d with age, 
 
 Upon life s ever-turning page? 
 
 Naught! naught beyond environment: 
 
 A! very meager testament 
 
 Compared to that seen from within, 
 
 Our narrow Teachings just begin. 
 
 I need no painted dial to show, 
 
 But read my hour in nature s flow: 
 
 The anchor s up ! 
 My barque is ready for the breeze 
 To waft it over sunset seas : 
 
 123 
 
I need no pilot s hand to guide 
 Me o er the myst ries of the tide : 
 For my full years have brought me where 
 I see the home-lights over there 
 Beyond the west. 
 
 Death, being consistent with my reason, 
 I contemplate as mere change of season ; 
 As winter throws aside his snowy wrap, 
 When new-born springtime blossoms in his lap. 
 
 [course: 
 
 Death is the whip that snaps man from the heedless 
 Tis a bridle to the wayward, mettled horse, [swing, 
 And knowing not when its dread lash may threat ning 
 Indifferent he acts; yet mindful of the sting. 
 Death is the mill that planes the timber smooth ; 
 The mighty leveler that finds the heart of truth. 
 
 Come ! let us strike the beaten trail 
 
 That leads thru leafy-tented vale ; 
 
 Where creviced rocks o erhang the way, 
 
 Adown whose clefts cool brooklets spray. 
 
 There view the forest, columned long, 
 
 Whose siege-scared phalanx, marshalled strong, 
 
 Gazes upon a death-strewn path 
 
 That marks the tempest s awful wrath. 
 
 O fleeting winds ! 
 
 That viewless sweep twixt earth and sky, 
 What do ye hide from mortal eye? 
 
 124 
 
YOUTH 
 
 gentle spirit of the cool ! 
 
 Of rushing brook, of lazy pool, 
 Of pine, of flow ret at my feet 
 Of sighing zephyrs soft and sweet, 
 Of calm, of holiness and peace 
 Whose finite voicings never cease : 
 
 1 thrive on the efflux of your thought ; 
 The arcane treasures I have sought, 
 Discovered to my reaching gaze; 
 
 Have led my soul from doubtings maze. 
 
 SEXTON 
 Like leaves the drifting bubbles pass 
 
 Adown life s wending streams; 
 As valeward grow the waters still, 
 
 Toward the sea of dreams. 
 
 Within the bubbles prismic film, 
 
 Is stored the riant note 
 Of some sweet highland rillet s song; 
 
 Yet silently they float: 
 
 Nor doth their bursting free a sound 
 
 Upon the heedless air ; 
 Tis only in the dreamer s heart, 
 
 It finds an echo there. 
 
 Come rest upon yon rising knoll, 
 For hark ! a fun ral knell doth toll ; 
 
 125 
 
And winding neath yon cypress shade, 
 
 The cortege labors up the grade. 
 
 The drums and brasses, by their din, 
 
 Attention draw to that within 
 
 The silvered box. The trappings rare 
 
 Do glimmer in the sun s bright glare. 
 
 The nervous horses prance and fret! 
 
 The drivers, with their features set 
 
 In melancholy, mournful mien, 
 
 Look bored, but count their labor s gain. 
 
 They pause now in the yawning shade 
 
 Of that deep granite newly laid, 
 
 And o er a fragrant mat of bloom 
 
 Convey the casket to the tomb. 
 
 The widow, on whose fingers gleam 
 
 The shimm ring bubbles of youth s dream, 
 
 Grows boist rous in her grief, and loud 
 
 She whimpers o er the costly shroud. 
 
 Mark not her grief, but her rich dress, 
 
 That seemingly doth most impress. 
 
 We ll grant, her sorrow s deep, but sure 
 
 Her wealth the with ring blight will cure. 
 
 Her heart already thrills anew ; 
 
 She leans upon some friendship true, 
 
 That turns her from the pulseless dead ; 
 
 Puts living visions there instead 
 
 And tunes her ears to hear the chime 
 
 Of love enthroned a second time. 
 
 But mark that shabby little group, 
 Gathered there with mournful droop 
 
 126 
 
Among the graves that bear no sign 
 (Except the bloomless ivy vine) 
 Of those whose bodies lie at rest, 
 Beneath their grassy, oval crest. 
 
 There s naught to draw to them our view, 
 
 Save honest sorrow, thru and thru: 
 
 It needs no searching look to tell, 
 
 That with the last of earth that fell, 
 
 A grief that fathoms misery, 
 
 Survives that toiler s memory. 
 
 For, clinging there in dumb amaze, 
 
 His helpless children wond ring gaze; 
 
 Whose mother, stunned, reads in their eyes 
 
 Scant comfort where their futures rise. 
 
 No friendly proffer lends support, 
 
 Nor payeth homage to her court. 
 
 Back to her lonely, cheerless nest 
 
 She folds her little ones to rest; 
 
 Where seated near a vacant chair 
 
 She gazes on with sightless stare 
 
 Into the future, blank, unknown, 
 
 Heartbroken, comfortless, alone. 
 
 Grant both these griefs alike sincere 
 
 (Wealth is no bar to sorrow s tear) 
 
 I must weigh her grief as double, 
 
 Whose mind and body waste in trouble. 
 
 We dread death s painful lingering, 
 
 But poverty s the master sting. 
 
 127 
 
Mother of the noisy brood, 
 Wearied, you shall rest anon; 
 
 Past the cares of motherhood, 
 
 Heav n shall smile your fears upon. 
 
 Arms that never fold in rest, 
 
 Eyes that watch the fevered night ; 
 
 Little bodies must be drest, 
 
 Minds and faces clean and bright. 
 
 What the glory shall be yours 
 
 When your sons and daughters rise 
 
 To a fame that time endures; 
 Tho your worry never dies. 
 
 Anxious in life s budding day, 
 In the gloom of gath ring night ; 
 
 Joyous in the tints of May; 
 
 Hopeful in grief s withering blight. 
 
 Mother of the noisy brood ; 
 
 Comfort ! God is bending down : 
 Your sweet trust is understood 
 
 On your brow He rests a crown. 
 
 The mother principle predominates: 
 Her vital, fruitful instinct recreates. 
 Earth is as wife to Nature s ripened pod, 
 And reproduces from her fertile sod : 
 
 128 
 
Her children, nurtured on her ample breast, 
 Mature and crumble to their final rest : 
 Become a part of her creating pow r, 
 Revived to life beneath the grateful show r. 
 Is man less useful in his thoughtful sphere? 
 Inspires he not from out the distant clear, 
 Intelligence, diffused of nature s God, 
 That differates him from the sordid clod? 
 
 If we were part of earth, our seed would grow 
 Within it: But twere not intended so: 
 Our essence flows from out the God of love; 
 Nature serves us, but our bud must bloom above. 
 
 Dame Nature o er her landscape draws 
 The fundaments of Heaven s laws : 
 Mark how the geometric signs 
 This undulating earth defines. 
 Here, straight, unyielding lines of law 
 From whose dictates we may not draw: 
 There, mark the plastic lines of love; 
 Of justice, tempered from above: 
 These are most frequent in the scene 
 Infinitude lieth between. 
 
 You whom the grave hath robb d of love 
 Can scarcely comprehend the easeless pangs 
 They suffer who must worship from afar. 
 Who meet their own when love availeth not 
 Nor tender look, nor fervent word, nor hope ! 
 
 129 
 
As circumspect as heav n s remotest star 
 That glances in, but never warms the soul, 
 I ve stood aloof from my affinity, 
 Seeing her laid with sacrilegious hands 
 Beneath this sod, while I remotely mourned. 
 
 What strange subjective pow r hath bid me stray 
 Among the graves, this unaccustomed way? 
 Not since my years were few and free as thine 
 Have I o ertrod this path, now green with vine. 
 
 This little mound doth to my heart recall 
 When her mute passing cast a mighty pall 
 Upon my life ; and I embraced the cloister. 
 
 O day of June! 
 
 Beneath whose leafy shade we stood, 
 
 While tuneful zephyrs swept the wood: 
 
 Or wandered down the mossy way, 
 
 By paths that wound 
 
 To where the brook leap d into spray 
 
 With joyous bound. 
 
 The bird s song then our hearts beguiled, 
 
 In bush and tree; 
 While nodding blooms looked up and smiled 
 
 On you and me. 
 
 Here, on this stone, we sat and dreamed, 
 The while our eyes love s solace beamed. 
 How thy soft hand I held, so meek, 
 Sent floods of crimson to my cheek : 
 
 130 
 
And when my love I did confess 
 
 My soul upwinged, you answered yes! 
 
 Twas June your hair was golden brown; 
 
 Years had not blanched my youthful crown. 
 
 Ah ! we were happy then ; but now 
 
 Before this granite slab I bow 
 
 Alone ! the birds are singing yet : 
 
 But ever rings a vain regret 
 
 Aill thru my life its mournful tone; 
 
 For thou art gone, and I Alone ! 
 
 Life is not ours to give or take away, 
 
 As some commodity we understand: 
 
 It is external to and not a part 
 
 Of our organic system, temporal. 
 
 How senseless, therefore, are these epitaphs 
 
 That we inscribe to memory ! 
 
 These broken columns, meaningless: 
 
 As if life could be severed in its growth? 
 
 These monuments, by their great massiveness, 
 
 Do seem to press their subjects ever down. 
 
 The modest ivy strives to hide from view 
 
 The hopelessness engraven on the shaft ; 
 
 And reads a valued lesson we should heed, 
 
 Upon the resurrection of the soul. 
 
 Fair Nature blooms, then fades and blooms again, 
 
 E en thru the blight of winter s chill ; 
 
 And all the certain steps in her soft tread 
 
 Attune their progress to immortal life. 
 
 Grave-stones are but the mile-posts on life s road, 
 
 131 
 
And do not mark our long abiding rest: 
 
 My heart died many years ago and lies 
 
 In ashes on the pyre of love; 
 
 While I, its soul, do live again and gaze 
 
 Back o er that resurrection with new hope ; 
 
 With compassion, dim, as thru a veil, 
 
 O erview the ruins of that yester stress. 
 
 The kindnesses bestowed by gentle hands 
 
 Were laid like blossoms on my pulseless breast : 
 
 And tho their accents hushed inaudibly, 
 
 The impress of their consecration lives. 
 
 Emotions all, may pass, be laid away, 
 
 But scarred upon the soul their moods survive. 
 
 Propelled by soul, the Master s shuttles wove, 
 Gauze upon gauze, a mass of vital webb 
 Whose tissues braided into countless weaves 
 Of sinew, nerves and pulsing arteries, 
 Until the whole assumed the Master s thought. 
 
 The motor of that bioplasmic loom 
 
 Remains within until the woof is wove, 
 
 Then turns to its original estate, 
 
 Ethereal, invisible to this, 
 
 The sight that it so deftly fixed; 
 
 Which see th not the Workman s dextrous hand. 
 
 The animating principle is God : 
 
 The animated is the Spirit, Soul ; 
 
 Which doth reanimate corporeal. 
 
 132 
 
Outline in mind a form invisible 
 
 The real, the perfect and original : 
 
 That in due process is designed to pass 
 
 A span of its existence in a sphere 
 
 Where it must learn the alphabet of Life: 
 
 Attracting to its glow the bioplast ; 
 
 That filling in and round the pattern, weaves, 
 
 Within and out, vein, nerve and vital all ; 
 
 Such as best serves its earthly needs: 
 
 The eyes attuned to light the ears to sound 
 
 The heart and ev ry function throbbing Life, 
 
 Whose motor is the Spirit, formed of God ; 
 
 The you, the I, the person tangible: 
 
 (We ll call it Spirit for a better word, 
 
 To picture to your sense the plan I hold.) 
 
 Grown conscious of this knit material 
 
 And seeing only with light irritated eyes, 
 
 We ve grown away from Truth s original. 
 
 It seems to me the storied fall of man 
 
 Was meant to show his transformation from 
 
 The Spirit into throbbing flesh. 
 
 What more symmetrical in all the vast, 
 
 Than man in his most perfect mould? 
 
 The undulations of the universe 
 
 Enweave their lines into fair woman s form : 
 
 The halo of that pre-angelic state 
 
 Doth still illume her countenance. 
 
 Sun, moon and stars glow in her soul-lit eyes : 
 
 133 
 
The elements obey her witcheries: 
 
 The spraying cataract s her flowing hair; 
 
 The ocean surges in her heaving breast. 
 
 The inter-heav nly spaces must have thronged 
 
 With joyous multitudes ere earth was tossed 
 
 A plastic mass upon the buoyant air. 
 
 Earth show d her gladness for heaven s primal shower 
 
 Smiling her vallies into fairest flower; 
 
 And thus awoke from incrustaceous sleep, 
 
 To hear great rivers coursing over steep. 
 
 Then, like a huge convention round, the stars 
 
 Beamed o er their radiance and silent watched 
 
 The wondrous process of maturing life. 
 
 Methinks I see those Spirit legions now, 
 
 All circling to the spheral harmony, 
 
 As with ethereal hands they scatter bloom 
 
 To beautify the throne of coming man. 
 
 Then, from that congress swept the chosen pair, 
 
 Selected for perfection by their God : 
 
 Material d, installed in Eden fair; 
 
 There left to rule in unmolested sway, 
 
 But not dissevered from their pre-estate. 
 
 Man hath become so bridled to his ills 
 That he hath lost the very feel of pow r ; 
 And knoweth but the dictates of the rein. 
 So long he hath been ridden, freedom hath 
 Become a memory, long lost and vain. 
 
 134 
 
Hark! The import of that bell I seem to sense 
 Except in rites pontifical, it rings not so. 
 What unseem stir doth quicken Carmel s halls? 
 
 Where drifts white vapor round the altar-lights, 
 Swept from the censer s dimly smould ring ash, 
 The dying Serra kneels, bathed in the glow, 
 Receiving absolution on his soul, 
 That soon must quit the cloister of the flesh. 
 
 Above the gentle Palou s voice uplifts 
 The "Tantum Ergo," solemn hymn, 
 On tongues that sense but mystery. 
 
 "Tantum ergo Sacramentum 
 
 Veneremur cernui, 
 Et antiquum documentum 
 
 Novo cedat ritui, 
 Praestet fides supplementum 
 
 Sensuum defectui." 
 
 O er the singing host with wondrous clearness 
 Rings the dying Serra s voice : 
 
 "Genetori, genetoque 
 
 Laus et jubilatio, 
 Salus, honor, virtus quoque 
 
 Sit et benedictio ; 
 Procedenti ab utroque, 
 
 Compar sit laudatio." 
 
 135 
 
"O heart of Jesu ! Glowing! radiant! 
 
 Inspire Thou and enlighten my rapt soul 
 
 With Thy divine and ever-present Love ! 
 
 Angels and Saints, let us conjoin in song: 
 
 Praising the heart of Him !" 
 
 The worshipers astonied listen, rapt, 
 
 As o er the breathless hush his cadence dies. 
 
 The tolling death-bell echoes mournfully 
 From hill to billow o er the verdant lea. 
 
 Before the lifeless body sorrowing, 
 The multitude doth rend his holy garb. 
 
 The roaring cannons chant in mighty din, 
 
 As in his coffin simple as his life, 
 
 They fondly fold their shepherd to his rest. 
 
 Where gazes down the seven sorrow d soul 
 
 Of a sweet angel from the crumbling wall , 
 
 Upon the sanctuary s gospel side, 
 
 Where oft his mellow voice the mass intoned, 
 
 They laid his body with a pious pride 
 
 Beneath the floor where prest the humble knee. 
 
 Tired labor hears no more his gentle voice 
 Attuned to some sweet benison or pray r: 
 His people point above the arching hills, 
 
 136 
 
And story to their children of a Saint. 
 A nation lays its garlands o er his grave, 
 And treasures on its tables his fair name. 
 
 O tearful source, let now your torrents flow ! 
 
 A crowning sorrow doth overwhelm my soul; 
 
 He was of all, the one I loved the most, 
 
 Master, father, brother, all in one! 
 
 O let me here in silence contemplate 
 
 That gentle countenance: Those hands would fain 
 
 Uplift to grant my absolution. 
 
 Was it worth while 
 
 To leave the sunshine of his smile? For what? 
 To delve and fret and wonder, when I knew ! 
 
 Ah yes, I feel that I have broadened neath 
 
 The vast of God s expanding universe. 
 
 When we withdraw into engrossing self 
 
 We miss the contact that doth educate. 
 
 They who would feel the throbbing Heart of Hearts, 
 
 Must keep their ringers on the pulse of Time : 
 
 Each aging hour expires but to enrich the next 
 
 Whose fleeting moments blow like petals from 
 
 The bloom that seeks expression in the seed: 
 
 Which then, of fragrant beauty shorn, escapes 
 
 The scrutiny of idealizing man. 
 
 Expression is the zeal of all pursuit 
 
 And leaves its imprint on the drift of years. 
 
 We drop our petals all along the way, 
 
 137 
 10 
 
In sacrificial offerings to life : 
 
 Perchance to reap old age, a withered husk, 
 
 Unbeautiful, a sere and bloomless pod, 
 
 Dehiscent with the vital seed of God. 
 
 There s not an hour that calleth unto death, 
 
 But hath contributed to usefulness: 
 
 There s not a throb of this great human heart, 
 
 That doth not swell the arteries of soul. 
 
 Ah memory, I would not barter one 
 
 Full hour of now, for they chimeric dreams ! 
 
 Youth hath its joys ; manhood its splendid prime ; 
 
 But best of all, age hath its steadfast poise, 
 
 Which Time s experience hath school d to Faith; 
 
 Unflinching in the future s Light. 
 
 Between the yester and the morrow, 
 
 We walk to-day twixt night and night; 
 
 From past or future do not borrow, 
 Live in the now s effulgent light. 
 
 In youthful morning s golden story, 
 In mid-life s full, triumphant noon ; 
 
 Gathering harvest, deeds of glory, 
 Unto the night that cometh soon. 
 
 If we but knew just when our ship would sail, 
 Would we be trim and ready for the gale? 
 If we but knew, how diff rently we d live; 
 How much more thought to readiness we d give. 
 
 138 
 
If we but knew just where the struggles end, 
 Would we be harsh, or gentler measures lend? 
 Ah! if we knew how brief companioned here, 
 We d give less cause to shed the bitter tear; 
 We d prize each moment as it swiftly flew, 
 Nor fail one sweet good-night, if we but knew. 
 
 Go bring the fairest 
 
 And the rarest, 
 Of all Nature s bloom the best; 
 
 To weave a cover 
 
 For your lover, 
 As we lay his clay to rest. 
 
 Come, verdant valley ! 
 
 Mountains rally ! 
 To thy beautifiers love; 
 
 Come singing minions, 
 
 On your pinions, 
 Waft his soul to realms above. 
 
 "In Paradisum deducant te Angeli !" 
 
 When flesh, like mortar, crumbles from its gauze, 
 Leaving the network of its basic frame; 
 How light that mesh-like Spirit must aspire, 
 Made aerial by severance from earth. 
 
 139 
 
I hope there ll be a sunset golden, 
 When I bid the world good-night : 
 I hope there will no leaden sky 
 
 Overcloud my failing sight; 
 I want to sail down the crimson west, 
 When the ocean rocks the sun to rest 
 And the stars shine out on evening s crest, 
 When I bid the world good-night. 
 
 I hope there will surge a flood of song 
 
 To banish every fear; 
 A crooning breeze mid the drowsy trees, 
 
 As the twilight cometh near : 
 I want to hear the nesting bird, 
 The tinkling bell of the homing herd; 
 A soothing voice and a tender word, 
 
 When I bid the world good-night. 
 
 140 
 
PART V. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART V 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Seeking the rarest honey-bloom, 
 A bee came buzzing in my room ; 
 And circling round the empty space, 
 Found of that bloom not any trace. 
 At last discouraged in the quest, 
 Against the window pane it prest. 
 All tenderly I freed the thing, 
 Which sped away on joyous wing; 
 Then sadly watched its flow ry wend, 
 Wishing that I my soul might send, 
 Searching the gardens of the air 
 For my lost blossom, sweet and rare. 
 
 What a dreaminess comes o er us 
 When we re walking far afield; 
 
 And the verdant mead before us 
 Renders of its fairest yield. 
 
 How the perfume of the flowers 
 
 Freights the summer-drowsy breeze, 
 
 As it listens in the bowers 
 To the humming of the bees. 
 
 143 
 
What a dreaminess and longing, 
 
 Stealeth o er us as we pass ; 
 Care-free moments, meadow-songin,^. 
 
 \Yhere bright blossoms star the grass. 
 
 [press; 
 
 If you would sing, you must have something to ex- 
 An urgent longing, born of sweet or bitterness. 
 
 (Joyously the bells are ringing, 
 In the cloister, mass is singing; 
 Candles flicker round the altar, 
 \Yhile the monks o er-chant the psalter: 
 Now the organ tones, sustaining, 
 Mingle with the priest s ordaining. 
 
 Neath an aged oak s cool shelter, 
 Where the filmy shadows pelter. 
 And belated breezes dally 
 O er the bosom of the valley. 
 Great heights above and deeps adown. 
 Rearward, towering mountains frown : 
 Before, a broad expanse of sky 
 Smiles o er fair fields, with radiant eye. 
 
 Far yonder circling over height, 
 An eagle wings its lofty flight. 
 
 All silent save the restless flow 
 Of dashing waters far below. 
 
 144 
 
Such the scene our pilgrims choosing 
 For their solitary musing.) 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 Last night, half waking from a dreamless sleep, 
 
 I seemed uplifted as in aerial flight. 
 
 An impulse unresistant urged me on, 
 
 Till in some strange new realm I seem d astray. 
 
 Confusing visions passed my fancy, vague, 
 
 While my heart seem d expectant of some joy 
 
 That like an impulse came and went anon, 
 
 Alternate o er my nerves with chill and fire. 
 
 Once, with a rousing effort did I strive 
 
 To free my body from a strange embrace 
 
 That held my arms and limbs benumbingly, 
 
 And seem d to stifle in a breathless spell. 
 
 Strange lights and shadows, intermittently 
 
 Passed o er my slowly dawning gaze, 
 
 As in the light of slow returning thought. 
 
 Gazing between the focus of my lids, 
 
 I saw, as actual as life, more real, 
 
 Two radiant eyes that rested on my own. 
 
 I looked again, again, and oft again, 
 
 And ever did they meet my searching glance. 
 
 There s no mistaking whose they were, for I 
 
 Can ne er forget the outline of her face. 
 
 Disturbed, upwrought by my experience, 
 I passed the night reclining oft to try 
 
 145 
 
From an recumbent attitude to view 
 The blessed face that gazed on me full oft, 
 Smiling with winsomeness beyond belief. 
 The vision vanished with dissolving night, 
 Leaving a loneliness within my heart. 
 Twas but a dream, perchance, but beautiful ! 
 
 Father, 
 
 Scarce could I wait to question your deep sense, 
 So hastened hither to obtain your views. 
 Was it the play of light on vision s nerves, 
 That, linked with strong desire, pictured her face? 
 If so, why, then, this after feel of glow 
 That emanates from my invested soul? 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 How strange this absent-presence. How replete 
 With conscious visitation from the gone. 
 Wherever is this unseen, mystic land, 
 Tis not removed beyond discerning sense. 
 We see but terminals and not the beam 
 And that we view is neither star nor light. 
 
 If it requires the concentrated rays 
 
 Of countless suns to irritate this eye 
 
 To sight, what seeing still remains unmasked ! 
 
 If o er our silence roars the clash of spheres, 
 
 What symphonies remain for man to hear! 
 
 If past our touch are things we cannot feel, 
 
 Why may not subtler, living souls exist, 
 
 146 
 
Identical with beings we have known, 
 Whose presences are real as we are tuned? 
 
 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 The brightest gem in all that cluster there, 
 That jewels heav n in glowing beauty rare, 
 Must be her Soul, resplendent in its youth, 
 Immortal now, in Life s Eternal Truth. 
 When angels gather in seraphic glee 
 To voice the songs of Love s eternity , 
 From out the host, Her voice will lift its tone, 
 Calling from out the lost, my spirit lone : 
 The cadence rapt, I ll follow thru the night, 
 Until her loving glance dawns on my sight. 
 In that effulgent morn , all sorrow o er, 
 I ll clasp her to my breast and grieve no more. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Think not it was an idle dream, 
 More real these dreams are than they seem ! 
 Give thanks that you have been allowed 
 To gaze beyond death s mystic shroud. 
 Rejoice then, for your souls are nearing, 
 Shadows from your ways are clearing: 
 O ! thou hast sought not love in vain, 
 And if you d speak with her again, 
 Repair to yonder sheltered vale 
 When softly tunes the nightingale. 
 In silence then, while stars light o er 
 Their tapers from fair Luna s shore, 
 
 147 
 
Await her coming in the night 
 Aglow with phosphorescent light : 
 Soft as the night bird s falling note, 
 Her spirit then will earthward float. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 love ! before I lost you, dear, 
 Beyond the limits of this sphere 
 
 I could not see. 
 But ever now, toward the skies 
 
 1 gaze with upturned, longing eyes, 
 
 In search of thee. 
 
 Some day, I know, the clouds will part 
 And I shall hold you to my heart, 
 
 Eternally ! 
 
 SEXTON- 
 Think you, as the stream flows to the sea, 
 
 That it never will return? 
 Do you think that the ocean tides that sweep 
 
 Are lost in a viewless bourne? 
 Ah ! not one drop of their flood is lost, 
 
 For it all returns again ; 
 To the parching breast of mother earth, 
 
 In the rainbow and the rain. 
 
 YOUTH 
 Love proffered me a brimming cup 
 
 Athirst I drank the nectar up : 
 Too deep alas, O bitter snare ! 
 
 I found the dregs of parting there. 
 
 148 
 
Must I withdraw the parching lip 
 From this, my soul-reviving sip? 
 Or comes she now but to assure 
 That Life and Love for aye endure? 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Sweet Faith rewards the trial d heart, 
 And sweetens o er the bitter part. 
 The dregs within the cup of Love 
 Are priceless jewels there above; 
 And they who drain Love s goblet deep, 
 The richer harvest There may reap. 
 
 Tis sacrifice of every kind 
 That leads us our lost ones to find. 
 For one, tis love, another gold 
 Each must give o er what he does hold 
 Most dear, and pass it to the next: 
 This is the burden of life s text. 
 These virgin brooklets, laughing past, 
 Must kiss the salty sea at last. 
 
 149 
 
PART VI. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 
 PART VI 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 The sun, most hid by westward sweeping hills, 
 Reflects the splendor of its waning glow 
 In golden shafts athwart a cloud-isled sky, 
 Whose waking stars their radial glances glint 
 Upon tired day s last even -hushed good-night. 
 
 Valeward, with silent tread,, comes shadow-tide: 
 The winds are dead : the drowsy leaves droop still 
 And motionless. 
 
 The birds sing not, but nestward thrum their wings. 
 The owl, freed from its day-fast sleep, awakes, 
 And breathes upon the glen its call of night. 
 The bat weaves spectre-like between the trees 
 And frogs intone their melancholy chant, 
 Where bogs glow in the fleeting, pallid light. 
 
 Inspired by deep unrest, alone I wend 
 A narrow trail that winds far up the slope 
 From o er whose slanting steep I view afar, 
 Day s night-inverted glance. 
 
 I gaze enraptured o er the quietude 
 
 That folds so tranquilly the vales below. 
 
 The em rald spread of fields: The shimm ring slate 
 
 Of waters, winding thru the everglades. 
 
 153 
 11 
 
The bar-wise lights of yonder village, now 
 Align the hem of undulating hills. 
 
 Cumulous, the fluffy mists enfold 
 Yon sunset-ambered mountain peak: 
 
 The tinkle of toned bells cometh awaft, 
 From yonder meadow-browsing herd. 
 
 Anon I turn my urgent steps unto 
 
 My steadfast friends, the upaspiring hills. 
 
 Is it the spirit that doth urge 
 Us gently o er the cliff s high verge, 
 Where gazing down into the deep, 
 We feel an impulse to o erleap? 
 
 This upward trail is like the path of life, 
 A weary way we crutch along its course : 
 Now raptured in the glow of nature s bloom ; 
 Now silent in the dead of winter s blight: 
 Accompanied but briefly, then alone! 
 
 Our paths lead away thru life s forest, 
 O er upland, thru valley and plain ; 
 
 The trees are the years bearing fruitage, 
 And shelter in gladness or pain. 
 
 The leaves are the hours that are falling, 
 Some golden, some blighted and sear; 
 
 The blossoms are moments of glory, 
 And dewdrops their petals betear. 
 
 154 
 
The winds are the deep tides of fortune, 
 
 That revel at ebb or at height ; 
 The song of the bird is the summons 
 
 That wakens us after the night. 
 
 As winds of now delete the yester s sands, 
 And rains dissolve the mountains and discharge 
 Their sediments upon the loamy plains, 
 Ripe pods, dehiscent, seed the virgin sod, 
 Whence rear forestal solitudes of thought. 
 
 Unlike yon tall sequoia whose pride 
 
 Salutes the glance of morning s prince of light , 
 
 Ye broad misshapen cedars that outreach 
 
 Your avid arms to grasp o ermuch of air, 
 
 Are dwarfed and blunt with greed and selfishness. 
 
 Ye tender, clinging vines, how strong withal, 
 Yet in your leaning helplessness ye drag 
 To earth the sturdy saplings of the grove. 
 
 The modest fern s pinnated leaf unwinds 
 Its plumous ball to bear its weight of dew, 
 Which teaches us the burdens that we bear 
 Do stimulate the soul to higher growth. 
 
 Yon chipmunk contemplates me from his perch, 
 Then scampers timidly among the leaves ; 
 As if instinct hath taught, beware of man ! 
 
 155 
 
Thus frightful and unfriendly do we seem 
 
 To nature s inoffensive kind. 
 
 Malevolent and poison-spuming herbs 
 
 Their nauseous, malodorous fumes exhale, 
 
 A warning that we may resist their spell. 
 
 Far worse than these are perfumed buds that lure 
 
 Us unsuspectingly upon their sting: 
 
 As some insinuate into our lives, 
 
 Infuse between, and spoil our harmony. 
 
 Deceptive is this lofty atmosphere 
 
 And causeth us to oft misjudge our view 
 
 Of that mysterious and vague, called space. 
 
 Not above, not below us, but afar, 
 
 As if mere atoms on the plan of life, 
 
 Walk many who bethink they move with us : 
 
 And we oft think so, too, and grieve to view 
 
 Their circumstantial drifting out of range. 
 
 But tis a fact, we drift our destined way, 
 
 Each separate, dividual, alone. 
 
 Relationship s a shallow sentiment, 
 
 Save where it dwells in perfect harmony. 
 
 Love ringeth true and solemn as a chord, 
 
 Whose intervals are perfectly attuned. 
 
 Ah, friends! 
 
 Beware of o er much hospitality : 
 There often lies some snare behind its mask. 
 The quest of pleasure leadeth to destroy; 
 And discontent a sister is to woe. 
 
 By clinging to the frivolous we err, 
 
 156 
 
E en tho their light seems brighter than the True. 
 
 Beware the mood that craves exciting scenes : 
 
 That fevers to be foremost in the dance, 
 
 For show and not the urge of grace. 
 
 These are the unawaked whose frothy minds 
 
 Subsist upon the bubble s empty dream : 
 
 We pay the fiddler dearly for the dance. 
 
 Eternity should mingle as the light 
 
 In each and ev ry pleasure of this life : 
 
 Let it lay hold within, that we may live 
 
 Devoutly joyful and divinely sad. 
 
 Joy is that ecstasy we feel to sense 
 
 The balmy effervesce of creeping spring: 
 
 The soft unfolding of the early bud, 
 
 When winter s chilling tide hath scarce retired. 
 
 Earth seems unfaithful in her promises: 
 
 The rainbow and the mountain peak deceive; 
 
 The sunbeam hath its cloud, the rain its sleet ; 
 
 The bloom, the rivulet, the murm ring winds ; 
 
 The shadows and all else of Nature s own 
 
 Seem fickle as the season s changeful mood, 
 
 The twilight promises serene repose, 
 
 But dawn awakes to restlessness and strife. 
 
 The bubble of achievement leads us on, 
 
 But lo ! the grave seems our finality. 
 
 Then let us fix our faith above deceit, 
 Nor trust our futures to uncertain fate : 
 We must ignore earth s dissipating views, 
 Work while we may and keep the mind aloft. 
 
 157 
 
The semiphores of space display their lights 
 To guide our thoughts unto exalted heights. 
 
 Now do I sense the feel of steadfast calm 
 That settles o er mid-summer s tranquil days; 
 When verdure fears nor frost nor storm, 
 And yester and tomorrow are the same. 
 We need this hopeful, trustful little span 
 To feather for the last autumnal flight : 
 Just as congested waters gather force 
 For their last leap into the great unknown; 
 These energetic streams, their labors o er, 
 Repose erewhile upon the valley s breast ; 
 Then ebb toward their deep finality. 
 
 A butterfly, joy laden, flutters by : 
 
 Too bright the day , too rich the way with bloom, 
 
 Each moment frivoled o er a nectared cup, 
 
 Hath brought the night with creeping pace anear; 
 
 How soon its little day is spent ! 
 
 The ants and bees, so diligent all day, 
 
 Are in their kingdoms snugly tuckt away : 
 
 Time wingeth heavier for them. 
 
 The snail that creeping leaves a slimy track, 
 Upon its back its dwelling ever trunds : 
 While it may frequent change its biding place, 
 The character must e er remain the same. 
 
 O sense reputed owl, thy wisdom s vain : 
 Seeing but night thou hast no faith in day. 
 
 158 
 
The fabled sun, thy wing d companions songs; 
 Are thine to joy and yet thy reason scoffs. 
 While round about thee nature s beauties vie, 
 Thou seest them not with thy benighted eye 
 E en so, thou needst look wise, unwittingly. 
 
 The sense of some emotion new and vast, 
 
 Uplifts besodden thought on airy wing, 
 
 As urged by oft recurring themes, recalled 
 
 By each familiar object on my path, 
 
 I press ravineward t ward a cavern s arch, 
 
 Where Time and Tempest in their constant wear 
 
 Have breached the earth into a mighty vault 
 
 O er whose damp corridors the lichens cling, 
 
 Whose air is heavy with the mold of years. 
 
 Led inward by a vague, subconscious urge, 
 
 A fascination strange possesseth me; 
 
 Akid winding down a rough, declining path, 
 
 I pause, immersed within the cavern s night. 
 
 The grandeur of the lofty archivolts 
 
 I can but with my inward sight review: 
 
 The silence of the stone-upheaving walls 
 
 Weighs heavy on my sound-exploring ears. 
 
 Anon my steps dislodge a loosened rock, 
 
 That bounding, thrills the lifeless air and wakes 
 
 Wierd, voiceful echoes, like a hidden choir 
 
 Whose anthem dies upon some distant way. 
 
 How like some breasts 
 Whose empty halls are silent of response 
 Until outpressed by sorrow s tread. 
 
 159 
 
I pause to hear a gurgling brooklet tune 
 
 Its crystal drops to dripping melody. 
 
 A pale narcissus lifts its longing face 
 
 There close beside the mirror s holy font, 
 
 Oft dipping in its sacramental tide. 
 
 Thou pale and ardent bloom, oft we have mused 
 
 In our love s old, together days, upon 
 
 Thy more than cruel fate. 
 
 Oppressed by solitude and night, I turn 
 
 My gaze toward the outer sweep of sky. 
 
 Space hath o erturned its starry cup and spilled 
 
 Its glints upon the robe of night : 
 
 The mellow moon diffuseth her soft glow, 
 
 Where, spreading like a sea before me rolls 
 
 The viewless waves from out God s mid-air deeps. 
 
 Great thoughts like fleet-winged messengers, o ersail, 
 
 Cleaving with feathered prow my fluent soul. 
 
 How vast and how unsearchable is space ! 
 
 I cast desire into its mighty sea, 
 Where tideful reaches never cease; 
 
 And o er the ebb that ripples back to me, 
 There breaks a wave tranquil of peace. 
 
 I cast my thoughts far into starry space, 
 Beyond the hushing western slope; 
 
 And sweet, an echo from that after place, 
 Sings to my soul a song of hope. 
 
 160 
 
I cast despair into the yester-flow, 
 
 Where doubt and bitter pain are thrust ; 
 
 And o er me beams the full, enlambent glow, 
 Of that bright orb of perfect trust. 
 
 A faint, low whisper of an olden time 
 
 Lisps o er the meditative now : 
 
 And hark! what melody is that 
 
 That weaves its theme into ecstatic song? 
 
 So languishing, so dulcet is its flow 
 
 Ye aerial harps, are touched by unseen hands? 
 
 Whence are those tones, soft as a wafting breeze? 
 
 They call to mind as doth a perfumed breath, 
 
 A sacred moment of the past. 
 
 Art thou a songlet, straying? Or art lost 
 And murmuring unto the heedless pines? 
 If that be so, then stray no more ; for I, 
 Receptive to your pure infiltrancy, 
 Do long to make your theme a part of me : 
 Be thou of earth or air, sweet Spirit, sing! 
 Breathe o er again, the swan-song of my soul ! 
 
 A melodized commingling of night winds 
 Sweeps thru the harmonizing forest reeds; 
 That swaying neath a deft, inspiring touch, 
 Send missioned forth the world s sublimest theme. 
 Hush thought ! Mar not the sweet aeolian strain : 
 Be silent, heart, lest thou disturb the tune! 
 O pulse, suspend your throbbing for a while, 
 
 161 
 
That I may sense the sentient rhapsody, 
 Unhindered by the consciousness of life. 
 
 O touch my heart gently, sweet singer, 
 Lest fond recollections awake; 
 
 Reviewing the visions long vanished, 
 Reviving the tears and heartache. 
 
 O dwell not long on the cadence sad, 
 Lest some treasured spirit arise ; 
 
 A face that is now but a memory, 
 Since lost to my o erwistful eyes. 
 
 Intone not too fervently, singer, 
 For the slumbering yester s sake ; 
 
 Pass the yore-waking words o er quickly, 
 Lest my heart neath the old strain break. 
 
 O lend to thy mood more abandon, 
 Trip lightly some wave-winging lay; 
 
 But glow not the embers, O singer, 
 That have smouldered many a day. 
 
 My thoughts in high ecstatic sweep, alert 
 
 Unto the inward flow of leav ning life, 
 
 Begin to soar subjectively aloft, 
 
 O er all objective and material. 
 
 Intuitive, I seem to hold at once 
 
 All senses primed unto the hereward trend 
 
 162 
 
Of some occurrence that doth fix my soul. 
 
 A presence unmistakable and real, 
 
 Seems hovering, tho viewless, round about. 
 
 My yearning arms outreach unto the sky 
 And with the force of tense, up-pent desire, 
 I call upon all space to render back 
 To me that dearer self, so sweet, since lost; 
 Which like a chord dropt from my melody, 
 Hath left life s theme unsingable. 
 
 "Long lost! 
 Could you return to me, anear and now 
 
 My lonely solitude to cheer; 
 Could I but feel your breath upon my brow 
 
 And with these eyes behold you, dear. 
 Could you but come, beloved, my joy would sing 
 
 A song, would flame thy spirit heart; 
 Twould woo thee from angelic minis tring 
 
 And we should never, never part." 
 
 Naught but the echoes of my voice respond 
 
 To break the placid stillness of the night. 
 
 Yet scarce my last sigh dies, when soft as air, 
 
 A cooling breath across my temples breathes ; 
 
 And then a hand, more gentle than the breeze, 
 
 Is softly laid upon my burning cheek. 
 
 A nervous wonderment possesseth me, 
 
 As mingled doubts and vague forebodings sweep 
 
 163 
 
Like misty phantoms from some vapored grot. 
 I feel no terror such as you might think 
 Would seize one in this most uncommon hour, 
 But with desire renewed I do invite 
 The soothing ministrant appear again. 
 
 "Come, lay thy hand upon my heart 
 
 And stay the faintness there; 
 I need the tonic of thy touch, 
 I need thy buoyant air. 
 
 O lend the music of thy speech 
 
 To my o erburdened ear, 
 And lull the tumult of my thoughts 
 
 With words I long to hear." 
 
 O soul ! If such thou art and hov ring near, 
 From out thy viewless state to me appear! 
 
 Sinking upon a rock beside the way, 
 
 Wherefrom the landscape opens wide to view ; 
 
 I watch the reflex of the passing day, 
 
 And meditate upon a new-found sense. 
 
 A sense that seems to lift on soaring wing 
 
 Above the common dreaminess of rest: 
 
 An airy buoyance whose exquisite mood 
 
 Treads tinted atmospheres from height to height ; 
 
 Till like a mist awaft upon the wind 
 
 My soul pursues an ever onward course, 
 
 164 
 
Cleaving soft dews in sweetly perfumed show rs 
 That speed to bathe some bright celestial dawn. 
 
 Departing night now ushers graying morn, 
 As o er a murm ring rivulet I pass; 
 Anear whose tide, in meditative mood, 
 Mid memories of golden hours so bright 
 They cast around the radiance of dawn, 
 Sits she whom my lone spirit seeks. 
 
 Lest my drear shadow cloud her happiness, 
 I hold aloof and watch her from afar, 
 Till, sensing my rapt presence she bestirs, 
 And wafting to my arms, meets my embrace. 
 
 Half-fainting from o erwhelming joy, I weep, 
 Till her warm lips dry ev ry springing tear, 
 And leading me unto a bower d grot, 
 She bids me rest upon her breast awhile, 
 Ere we do stray anon as lovers may, 
 O er Heav ns elysian garden ways. 
 
 As storm spent mariner beholds the shore 
 Or thru the mist the saving lighthouse gleam 
 As soul greets soul after the pain of death, 
 So my emotion fain would compass her, 
 But spends its joy in wordless utterance. 
 
 Tuned to the ripple of a joyous brook, 
 We dally neath a leaf-embowered bough 
 
 165 
 
That swings song-laden in the fragrant breeze ; 
 Hearing soft melodies while lip to lip, 
 Our Spirits thrill in love s divine embrace. 
 
 With tenderness she holds me to her breast, 
 The while her breath doth cool my burning lips. 
 
 O rapturous moment, 
 
 O joy unrepressed! 
 Enfolded, encradled, 
 
 Upon thy fond breast. 
 
 Thus soul in soul wafted, 
 
 In ecstatic flight, 
 Love s heavenly splendor 
 
 Enfloods us with light. 
 
 O thus I could perish 
 
 Or live as it be; 
 On earth thus enheavened, 
 
 Uplifted by thee. 
 
 Now moving t ward desire, instinctively, 
 We press thru everglades of green-lit vines : 
 Pass busy grottos where the hum of life 
 Throbbing the living centers of high space , 
 Fulfills, on earth, the rapt inventor s dream. 
 Thence into regions of sublime delight 
 Where inspiration wends in crystal tides, 
 
 166 
 
Breaking into unnumbered beams upon 
 
 The unresponsive heights of human thought. 
 
 Thence into silence, deep, delicious, calm, 
 
 Wherein we muse on love s together days: 
 
 Recalling all the raptures of our yore, 
 
 Till on the wings of our past joys, replete, 
 
 We soar to blisses so divinely rapt, 
 
 No human measure may describe or feel: 
 
 Thence into dreamland s most exquisite mood. 
 
 The waves of snowy clouds rim into spray 
 Upon the shimm ring sands of airy seas, 
 Dewing the air with phosphorescent mist, 
 O ervaporing the higher atmospheres 
 Whose starry regions lend their soft ning glows. 
 
 Lifting horizonward like billow d Alps, 
 A range of mountains rims the western sky, 
 And varied atmospheres inlay their mists 
 O er peak and crag and deeply cavern d cleft. 
 Neath calciums of everchanging light, 
 On winds adrift, and falling silently, 
 The aerial gardens shed their floral glows, 
 And shimm ring petals fall like tinted snows, 
 Till ev ry summit yields a difFrent hue, 
 And perfumes waft like incense on the air. 
 
 These are the dawns and twilights of this sphere, 
 Wherein the combined rays of heaven s suns, 
 Reflect the ultra-violet of light, 
 
 167 
 
Which is less bright than day and softer than 
 The silvery pallor of earth s moonlit night. 
 
 I wake unto the clang of distant bells 
 
 And feel her lips still pressing on mine own ; 
 
 As bending o er me she doth hold my soul 
 
 Rapt in the thraldom of her radiant eyes. 
 
 Such orbs as one might glimpse thru that dim haze 
 
 Of half awakened senses after sleep. 
 
 Reviving from the swooning of o erjoy, 
 
 We wander forth into the starry night : 
 
 Scarce do my arms release her, nor do I waste 
 
 One golden moment s bliss, tho I do crave 
 
 To hear of that far-distant Spirit land 
 
 Whose border she hath crossed. 
 
 What better proof of our hereafter state 
 
 Than her warm lips, whose sweet response I feel? 
 
 Awhile we wander, almost waftingly; 
 
 Our souls communing in a speechless truce. 
 
 Then seated on a rock that overhangs 
 
 The verdant valley and the sleeping glades, 
 
 We watch the sphere-light spangle in the spray 
 
 Of dashing rivulets, while joyously 
 
 In glowing words, she stories of beyond: 
 
 SHE 
 
 The hush of death is so exceeding deep, 
 A dreamless meadow tis, that lies between 
 
 168 
 
The sun-kissed world and heav ns elysian groves. 
 But blest the waking, past its silent tide : 
 
 We breathe upon the air a breath; 
 It disappears you call it death : 
 What then is death ? A grewsome word 
 For pleasant journey, long deferred. 
 
 The juggler but deceives our sight ; 
 The coin is passed from left to right ; 
 And that which we no longer see 
 Becomes to us a mystery. 
 
 I viewed my corse in sleep profound. 
 I knew the features set, were mine, 
 I knew the form s ill-wasted line ; 
 And pangs of pity swept my heart, 
 From that dear servant to depart. 
 I pressed the lips of ashen grey, 
 And turned from where by body lay. 
 It seemed to me that I had cast 
 A garment by, whose use had passed: 
 And then, care-free and thrilling deep, 
 My soul began its upward sweep. 
 As my vibrations, more refined, 
 Made coarser objects less denned, 
 The earth translucent as the sky, 
 Unbosomed to my raptured eye ; 
 Revealing wonders I had ne er 
 Experienced nor could compare. 
 
 169 
 
 12 
 
Vibration seems the princip that evolves 
 
 From viewless chaos to material : 
 
 These rocky cliffs that seem a solid mass, 
 
 Are nothing more than atoms unified. 
 
 If you could gaze with sight as keen as mine, 
 
 Into the mountain s pulsing fountainhead, 
 
 You would remark its strange anatomy. 
 
 Great arteries of ore wind from its heart ; 
 
 Nodules of nerve centres sense the thrill 
 
 Of Heaven s masterful intelligence. 
 
 Unsightly monsters, as bacilli writhe 
 
 And battle in the earth s florescent flesh; 
 
 While fevers burn, unquenchable, beneath 
 
 The healthful aspect of the mountain s glow : 
 
 And tears, deep fountained, sear their hoary cheeks. 
 
 Coarse substances evaporate like mist, 
 
 When view d from this hereafter perfectness. 
 
 The soul, vibrating from the Master Mind, 
 
 Refined, unshackeled from material, 
 
 Defies all matter, for it is but naught. 
 
 God-given sight, which sees through mind alone, 
 
 May penetrate these spheres, unknown to flesh : 
 
 Thus, tho life s spark depart within a room 
 
 Whose walls are stone, all tightly sealed between ; 
 
 It meets no more resistance than in air: 
 
 Impediments obstruct the mortal eye, 
 
 But not the all-wise majesty of Mind. 
 
 That I appear as I do now to thee 
 
 Is not remarkable, when once we know 
 
 The principle which governs Spirit life. 
 
 170 
 
Intuitive, thought may communicate 
 
 With those departed, should we so desire ; 
 
 And may return with wondrous dreams impressed. 
 
 Thus, when you come to me as now, we must, 
 
 Through your desire and mine, upgather force, 
 
 As draws the magnet its affinity. 
 
 The pow r to heal is of the Spirit s sphere, 
 
 Whose fountain floweth from Almighty God. 
 
 The true import of Christ s example was 
 
 The demonstration of this after-Life : 
 
 His was the Master-hand that forged our link 
 
 Into the chain of Immortality. 
 
 It is not possible for those of earth 
 
 To stay a soul s progression past the grave. 
 
 The Spirit s upawaking to new life 
 
 Sees clearly solved its purposed mystery. 
 
 Whatever interest in earth remains 
 
 Frets not the mind in its illumined view : 
 
 Clouds are below ; the heavens do not weep, 
 
 But lend their azure to day s hopeful glance. 
 
 Your sorrows and your errors are not seen, 
 
 For purity sees naught but good. 
 
 It is our privilege to aid the struggling ones, 
 
 But cannot enter into their distress : 
 
 Once we have passed the gates, earth binds no more 
 
 Its vain delusions we have left without: 
 
 Seeing aright, how can we sorrow more? 
 
 We view the body as the rainbow tints 
 
 171 
 
Discover to your gaze the unseen mist : 
 
 Or as the wire with oscillating pulse 
 
 Doth clothe its pulsing thread with harmony 
 
 Distinctive of its kind and temperament. 
 
 The aura emanation of the soul 
 
 Draws round it quick ning particles aweave; 
 
 Constructing veinous matter to its form, 
 
 Awire with sensitives that telegraph 
 
 The great Life center from external cause. 
 
 This center, strong in spirit mastery, 
 
 Rejects all messages that might destroy , 
 
 As one would sort the tare from out the grain. 
 
 The censorship of mind is man s defense, 
 
 And death his metamorphoses. 
 
 The spirit being deathless fades from view, 
 
 Just as the sun lifts from the viewless mist, 
 
 The tints that made it visible. 
 
 The mist is there tho ye behold it not. 
 
 As thou wert my whole heart s concern on earth, 
 So art thou still my lum nous star, my goal. 
 Since that rapt moment thou didst teach me love, 
 I ve had no wish but to be shrined in thee: 
 This is a woman s highest aim : But oft, 
 Indifference and scorn have driv n her mad, 
 And set adrift, she hath no aim, no will, 
 But like a leaf upon a changeful wind, 
 She flutters to the sheaf of blighted hopes. 
 I know scarce more of other realms than you, 
 
 172 
 
"For God s great wisdom is unsearchable." 
 I have but crossed the threshold and can see 
 With clearer understanding past the grave. 
 Ye should not seek these portals thru the aid 
 Of those who seem to have an occult pow r : 
 Grave dangers lurk beneath external means; 
 The danger of an all-combating doubt. 
 Ye mortals are but weaklings after all, 
 And demonstrate within a narrow sphere. 
 There is but one true medium thru whom 
 We may commune in perfect trust and whence 
 Inflows the spirit of unquestioned Truth : 
 And that source is our own upyearning heart ; 
 Where, in the silence of our soul s retreat, we feel 
 The inspiration of unending Life. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (As night uplifteth on the wings of day, 
 There overwafts the chill of dewy air. 
 A mighty tumult rages in my breast; 
 A trembling consciousness of anguish deep, 
 Like that which thrills when last we kiss 
 The silent lips and feel the fleeting breath. 
 I know our parting hour has come again 
 And twixt despair and hope my senses flit. 
 I cannot part from her again and yet 
 The look of calm compassion on her face 
 Revives my sinking soul as thus she speaks:) 
 
 SHE 
 
 I hear a summons from the land of dreams 
 
 173 
 
And into viewless thought I must resolve. 
 
 How soon wilt thou forget what thou hast seen? 
 
 How soon outlive the mem ry of tonight? 
 
 Creation lifts its voice in praise of Him ! 
 
 Look to the east; behold that mellow glow: 
 
 Soon it will dim the moon s decrescent light; 
 
 Upgath ring shadow in its gorgeous flood, 
 
 With onward sweep twill gild the east with dawn ! 
 
 Hark ! Hear you not a music purer far 
 Than mortal inspiration yet hath framed? 
 
 (The many-tinted blossoms wound 
 Their chordant colors into sound, 
 And as they slowly ope d their eyes, 
 The softest music gan to rise: 
 The dewdrops, quiv ring from their lips, 
 A cadence wove in prismic drips; 
 Commingling with the melody 
 That swept across eternity.) 
 
 The worldly wise will call this all a myth, 
 Questioning the soundness of your mind. 
 Each day ye crucify your Christ with doubt ; 
 But He is nearer to the heart than to the head, 
 And blest are they who find Him in a tear. 
 We know He lived and healed, then why conceal 
 The post-climax of His symbolic life, 
 
 174 
 
That He arose and walked again with men. 
 
 O ! is it fear, all ye who read His word? 
 
 Why do ye doubt and say, "We do not know?" 
 
 Oblivion is the ash of despair ; 
 
 Eternity s the blossom of desire: 
 
 I am desire and I will lead you on. 
 
 I am thy goal. If thou but follow me 
 
 Unspeakable the joy awaiteth thee! 
 
 Be brave; this breast doth throb but to repay 
 
 In perfect fullness ev ry sacrifice. 
 
 I go, yet I depart not from your life: 
 
 Tho to your vision I may not appear, 
 
 Yet, thou shalt view me in the absolute ; 
 
 For I will dwell forever in your heart. 
 
 Go bravely forth; 
 
 Turn sorrow into gladness and assail 
 Life s mighty problems with undaunted will: 
 Obey thine inmost promptings, tho alone 
 You stand. One steadfast soul redeemeth all. 
 
 No evil shall assail thee, 
 No ill thy house abide ; 
 
 Christ s spirit will avail thee, 
 A sure and steadfast guide. 
 
 But shouldst thou crave companionship with me; 
 Desire it with thy pure unswerving love; 
 Then will I come, your monitor and guide. 
 
 175 
 
ask with thy deep earnestness and He 
 That holdeth not the faithful ones apart, 
 Will grant unto our beings unity. 
 
 There are no barriers between the spheres, 
 Save those upreared by unbelieving man. 
 Alas, how few aspire beyond the last farewell! 
 Unbosomed there so wide the gates of grief, 
 The dove of faith in solitude repines, 
 To hear again the wooing voice of love 
 If we would mingle, Spirit and mortal, 
 Your soul must cleave to mine in constancy. 
 
 For I will prove 
 
 No fanciful and fleeting paraclete : 
 Not shadowy unreal, but tangible. 
 Twill test the constancy of mortal love 
 And prove the fixture of unswerving faith. 
 Think o er it well, then shouldst thou so desire, 
 I ll come ; if not, I ll wait thy journey hence. 
 Good-night ! A little while and we shall meet, 
 A little further on, dear wanderer, 
 And you will scale the heights into my arms. 
 
 Give heed unto thy dreams, for I attend 
 Unconsciousness to waken thee betime. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (She vanishes from my pursuant gaze, 
 Tho her rapt spell still holds me in its thrall. 
 
 1 hear the gleeful shout of children s play; 
 Their songs o erflowing with their guileless joy ; 
 
 176 
 
Unbroken, save by exclamations rapt, 
 Of long absented dear ones, new restored. 
 One constant murmur of delight o ersweeps 
 The meadows of the sun-kissed border-land : 
 Commingling with the clasp of greeting friends, 
 Our sphere conjoineth with glad revelry. 
 
 Passing as if upon a trackless way, 
 A host of reflects from the Spirit realm 
 Move undeterminedly, as if they still 
 Preferred to linger near to lowly earth. 
 They vanish in the shadows of the glade ; 
 These are the unawakened, seeking still. 
 
 I seem to view afar into that realm, 
 
 And all there do appear of mortal mold : 
 
 Each seeming to pursue some special thought, 
 
 As if in full continuance, inborn, 
 
 Of earth aroused desire. But most I mark 
 
 The countenance of each seems to have lost 
 
 The pinch of care, as safe beyond the fear 
 
 Of life s uncertain end. Now light as air 
 
 Two spirit lovers waft in fond embrace: 
 
 The souls sublimest passion I can trace 
 
 In that long kiss that holds them face to face. 
 
 And then, 
 
 As if a great cathedral, music filled, 
 Had burst awide its sound-restraining walls, 
 There comes upon me o er the lovers wake 
 A flood of most exquisite harmony. 
 
 177 
 
The air is vibrant with the rhapsody 
 Of nature s voices all commingled in 
 The chant of joyous, Spirit bands : 
 Infusing as one instrument whose keys 
 Were fingered with the mastery of God. 
 
 This is the motive of enharmoned Life, 
 And follows wheresoe er True lovers stray. 
 
 I fain would join that grand recessional, 
 But gentle hands do motion me away. 
 Then fainter and more distant, fading quite, 
 The concourse swerves toward the open sky : 
 The music softens to a whisper, low, 
 Leaving an echo mid the murm ring pines. 
 The mists begin to lift their curtains white, 
 And dark ravines merge on the valley s breast, 
 Lifting green billows to yon snowy crest. 
 
 The sun sweeps in between the distant heights, 
 And morning woos my Spirit back to earth.) 
 
 178 
 
PART VII. 
 
THOU SHALT WAKEN 
 PART VII 
 
 Deep in the forest s tinted halls, 
 
 Rondolently the waterfalls 
 
 Asperse the battered boulders grey, 
 
 That curve the brooklet s winding way. 
 
 The wood-cock drums a reverie 
 
 Upon a hollow maple tree : 
 
 Riant zephyrs rake the glade, 
 
 In rustling sheafs the leaves are laid. 
 
 Fair Autumn, twilight of the year, 
 
 How like Spring s morn your tints appear; 
 
 Yet, art thou not the after-glow 
 
 That marks the winter s hereward flow? 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 The Sexton s journeys shorter grow, 
 His tread more faltering and slow ; 
 He leaneth heavy on my arm 
 Indeed, it fills me with alarm 
 To see his eyes fixed distantly, 
 As in absenting reverie. 
 
 Old age is nodding on the brink, 
 Where life to fairer dreams doth sink. 
 
 The distant walks, once his delight, 
 Are traveled but in mental flight : 
 
 181 
 
The dells, the hills and wooded ways 
 He wanders o er in thoughtful gaze. 
 From his soft pillow d easy chair 
 He drinketh in the landscape fair, 
 Oft bending ear to hear the song 
 That wafts from out the forest s throng. 
 Oft I have moved him, in the night, 
 Close to the window where the light 
 Of waning moon hath kissed his hair, 
 Leaving stray spangles glowing there. 
 
 How oft at night, o er heaven s ebon field, 
 
 We ve watched the stars come trembling thru. 
 
 Or when too feeble he to write, 
 
 From his rapt lips I would indite 
 
 Some thought from that deep astral tide, 
 
 Where vital reasonings abide. 
 
 Thus deeply tranced his Spirit wings, 
 
 Hearing seraphic melodies. 
 
 [night? 
 
 "Whence are those sounds that thrill the tranquil 
 What rhythmic cadence borne from yonder height? 
 It grandly falls upon my raptured ears : 
 Is it a requiem of passing spheres? 
 
 Each orb alert, doth mark God s rhythmic beat, 
 And with full voice they swell the chorus meet ; 
 As gath ring round the radiant stars rehearse, 
 God sets the tempo of His universe. 
 
 182 
 
The lucent ether jars the astral shafts, 
 And o er the earth an heav nly music wafts : 
 Is it a dirge o er Bethlehem s lost star 
 That falls from out the glowing regions far? 
 
 Sing on ! O, sing ! majestic choirs above ; 
 Waft me the theme of His eternal love : 
 Ring ! Joyful ring ! from out the gladdened skies, 
 Till o er the night my Spirit doth arise. 
 
 Recall me not from my ecstatic spell, 
 My soul shall find Thee, Star I love so well ! 
 Soon I will join you o er yon azured bars, 
 Thou mighty choir of love-enharmoned stars." 
 
 Some days I ve watched the Sexton s face with dread, 
 And marked the pallor o er his features spread. 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Come, my son, sit close beside me, 
 I ve a wish I would confide thee : 
 Your fortitude this hour requires, 
 Ere long, my lamp of life expires. 
 The twilight gathers o er my way, 
 I soon shall greet eternal day. 
 
 My sun long past its mortal median, 
 
 I feel the shadow d twilight s swift approach : 
 
 The tumult softens into starry hush, 
 
 183 
 
My eyes begin to feel the drowse of sleep. 
 As weary childhood nods in slumber s hour 
 Soon unresistingly I shall repose. 
 
 Stay thy vain tears, thou art Awake! 
 Thine eyes have seen ; thy Spirit feels ! 
 
 The dying never weep ! 
 But gazing t ward some distant land, 
 Their life ebbs out like grains of sand 
 
 That seaward creep. 
 
 The dying never weep ! 
 As clouds along the eastern bourne 
 Await the burst of golden morn ; 
 
 They do but sleep. 
 
 Our parting shall but transient be, 
 For thoughts commune eternally. 
 
 A wish I have, concerns me deep, 
 And ere my Soul hath quit its keep, 
 I fain would this one thought confide 
 Before I launch on even s tide: 
 It is that you not linger here 
 In this self-shrinking atmosphere. 
 You are acquaint with problems deep 
 And should speak out nor silence keep ; 
 
 184 
 
You must launch forth into the world, 
 Where learning s challenges are hurled. 
 Contact with the argumentive kind 
 Doth round and broaden out the mind. 
 Go make a wake, and like the gull 
 Success will hover round your hull : 
 O er tranquil waters, one strong wave 
 Doth set the surface all arave: 
 Strike deeper where the sullen flood 
 Needs an infusion of new blood. 
 There plant the Truth and let it shine, 
 Whatever fate be counted thine. 
 Know, too, that fear is not a fact, 
 So may it never prompt an act: 
 Do thou, and dare and do not pause 
 To listen for the world s applause. 
 
 If you depend on human power 
 To help you, you will rue the hour ; 
 Tis work, not sterling worth alone, 
 Can place you surely on the throne. 
 Sequacious mortals are oft led astray: 
 Too wavering and unreliant they, 
 Following blindly, whether wrong or right, 
 Their oracle that showeth its small light, 
 Learn to construe the right and stand for it! 
 
 However strange, tis unfortunately true 
 That fiction hath effaced the deep regard 
 That credence owes to things mysterious ; 
 
 185 
 
 13 
 
That superstition is an instrument 
 
 On which the fictioners have learned to play 
 
 Their tunes, sensational and ghostly wierd. 
 
 Thus Spirit means unto the callow mind 
 
 A something frighting to behold. 
 
 How far from that perfection God devised, 
 
 Ye chose to live, unmindful of His word ! 
 
 Ye could dwell nearer those who have passed on, 
 
 Were ye in true accord with His desire. 
 
 Spirit is an indefinable life, 
 
 Discernible to some, to others not: 
 
 Denied by those who have not Seen nor Felt. 
 
 It is not subject to material, 
 
 Suggestion or any other ism. 
 
 It sleeps until awakened thoughtfully, 
 
 Or in that great release from anchorage, 
 
 Called death. 
 
 It sweeps aloft in strength ; in feebleness 
 
 It soars no farther than its wings may lift. 
 
 We know the way no farther than we ve flown, 
 
 And then we ve passed o er many a Truth. 
 
 Numbers have had visions and have oft seen 
 
 With mortal sight, these way-lost travelers, 
 
 Not full aroused from all their doubts, yet bound 
 
 To matter that did please perverted view ; 
 
 Lost in the vagaries of mortal mind. 
 
 Tho Spirit is Immortal, vague, 
 
 Tis fixed, not volatile, tho aeriform : 
 
 Tis no mere apprehension of the mind, 
 
 186 
 
Nor an eduction of unbalanced thought. 
 Distinct from temporalities, it Is, 
 And quickeneth the life of man. 
 
 Inaudant, o er some impulse to the ear, 
 The Spirit s voice descends upon the mind: 
 Tuning the harp to charming harmony, 
 More rich with import of the Life to come 
 Than all the noisome reasonings of men. 
 
 "We are promised an heritage of peace :" 
 
 The poor man thinks to find it in great wealth ; 
 
 The rich man strives to find it in bequest: 
 
 The artist and the artisan alike, 
 
 Are feverish in their inventive zeal: 
 
 All labor cries up from oppressive stress. 
 
 There is but one release from discontent; 
 
 It is contained in those sweet words of peace, 
 
 And each may share it equally withal : 
 
 Tis coming with each hereward throb of Time, 
 
 Whose gentle stroke mows down the varied yield. 
 
 Let each one strive to bear his burden well, 
 
 Building upon that heritage beyond, 
 
 And not the morrow s unreal promises. 
 
 Enchanted by life s bright, alluring glare, 
 We love it tho it sears our precious souls. 
 From day to day we feel securely strong, 
 And build upon the future s treach rous sands. 
 
 187 
 
O, wise forethought that made uncertain time 
 To scarcely whisper of Fate s mystery ; 
 Folding the hereward moment s message from 
 Man s arrogant and all too heedless view. 
 
 When wealth is scattered in employment s sphere, 
 Industry sparkles with increasing light, 
 And progress smiles o er feud and discontent ; 
 A peaceful safeguard to aspiring zeal. 
 
 These periods of blighting want are born 
 Of man s perverted, selfish view of needs. 
 God made enough, that each might share alike ; 
 But some ordain that they should have it all. 
 The clash of arms will not aright the wrong; 
 The remedy is generosity. 
 
 To kindly impulse lend thy gentlest speech ; 
 Constrain thy thoughts to do no person ill : 
 There s more of good than bad in ev ry heart ; 
 But our opinions misconstrue intent. 
 Men are not equal, but of equal worth : 
 Great possibilities endow each breast; 
 And purpose, not possession, makes the man. 
 
 With a deep sympathy I d reach into 
 
 All solitary lives, bereft of love ; 
 
 Uplift with tenderness the drooping heart : 
 
 Inspire with vital warmth congealing blood. 
 
 188 
 
I d shine upon the yearnings, drear and lone, 
 Of unrequited and overcrowded life; 
 Where too much else doth fill the mind for peace, 
 And blest companionship is lost in self. 
 Accursed destroyer thou, Indifference, 
 How much of woe doth underlie your calm ! 
 The gods admonish and the angels weep, 
 Still drags your egoistic maelstrom down, 
 Forever down ! 
 
 O erview the world as from an lofty height ; 
 Above its follies, ills and temporalities. 
 Quaffing its beauties, O despise vain zeal, 
 As one that hath the painful lesson learned: 
 Thou and thy Spirit, one in realms of Light, 
 Find no real pleasure save within the Soul. 
 Attend thy dearest friend, sweet Suffering, 
 And tune your harp to rhapsodies of peace. 
 Go lend thy voice and sympathies to woe, 
 But scorn the phantom of vain, selfish greed. 
 Bespeak the shallows of the mighty deep: 
 Turn stagnant waters into living streams. 
 Go mingle with your fellows, but beware, 
 Thou dost not learn to serve their god, Conceit. 
 
 I have awakened from dull sleep to dream 
 Such dreams no dreamer ever dream d beyond. 
 Wherein, the Soul accomplishing its Will, 
 Took full possession of Life s energy. 
 The search for Truth hath turned my gaze within, 
 
 189 
 
So fixing thought, my soul hath found its own, 
 Sweeping with rapt volition t ward its goal. 
 Thou, too, by slow, but unresisting drift, 
 Oh world, shalt waken from dogmatic dusk 
 To find the everlasting spark is Will 
 The hills have found Him in the valley s hush 
 The streams have found Him in their seaward rush- 
 While I have found Him in deep solitude: 
 I sought within the beam and found the Sun. 
 I sped a wish unto the realms of space, 
 And it returned with tidings of sweet grace: 
 Be patient till your message comes, and then 
 Speak out, that all may hear and heed. 
 
 Pursue thy course as an way-faring guest 
 That any moment may pass further on, 
 Who so disposes his estate some joy 
 May light upon his fellow travelers. 
 Talk sparingly. Listen attentively; 
 Being unmoved by hateful, bitter speech. 
 Beware lest reaching out too earnestly, 
 You call upon your head, man s frailties. 
 Seek out the True and finding, hold it fast. 
 Give sympathy; accept, but ask for none. 
 Reserve thy heart for thine affinities, 
 Placing your trust above capricious self. 
 Beware of those that glibly comprehend : 
 Of seers of occult and foretelling sense; 
 Their readings suit but transitory moods, 
 And e er offend the dignity of Will : 
 
 190 
 
Each must expand thru dear experience. 
 
 Ask thine own Spirit of the future s store ; 
 
 Be captain master of thy craft. 
 
 Know every rope and sail s capacity: 
 
 Minding the helm of thought with steadfast poise ; 
 
 And when in stress of wrecking doubt, obey 
 
 The promptings of thy Monitor within: 
 
 Thy Spirit will direct thee safe to port. 
 
 It ever has been my desire 
 
 That when at last I should expire, 
 
 Fit disposition I might make 
 
 Of my old body past the break 
 
 Of the subjective from its coil, 
 
 And leave it not to common spoil. 
 
 In yonder cloister tis decreed 
 
 That they who from their faith secede, 
 
 May not repose within their field; 
 
 For fear that some contamning stain 
 
 May defeat their heavenly gain. 
 
 Since you are all that I have left, 
 Of brotherhood and all bereft; 
 I ,do consign unto your care, 
 This body when no life is there : 
 Dispose this husk where er you may, 
 It is but dross, unfeeling clay, 
 And has been naught e er since I found 
 The Truth that healed its ev ry wound. 
 
 191 
 
O, where more gentle hands than thine, 
 To close these drowsy lids of mine! 
 
 Could I choose where my wings to try, 
 Twould be upon a cloudless sky ; 
 When Nature dreams her rarest dreams, 
 And bloom-decked branches arch the streams, 
 There would I fly! 
 
 No stifling room my pinions fold, 
 No winding sheet my freedom hold ; 
 Unbind my tethered Soul, perchance, 
 With all creation for expanse : 
 Then would I fly ! 
 
 Go build a raft of timbers meet 
 And ere too feeble grow my feet, 
 Assist me to my rustic bed ; 
 Let mossy pillow rest my head. 
 Then when the sun hath tipped the west, 
 And rims the clouds with golden crest ; 
 When evening s lamps swing out aloft, 
 Unbind and let my ark drift soft 
 And silent on the river s breast, 
 Toward the ocean of sweet rest: 
 Tween branches arching, side to side, 
 Within the shadows, let me glide. 
 
 Thus launched upon a tranquil sea, 
 Eternal tides may trundle me, 
 
 192 
 
Mid calm and tempest t ward the Isle 
 That lies beyond the afterwhile. 
 
 Wait not too long before we sail ; 
 I am impatient for the gale: 
 I d fain be well upon my way 
 Ere morning wakes another day. 
 
 Far away I hear them calling, 
 Angel voices sweet and low ; 
 
 And I hear their chorus singing, 
 Soft and slow, so soft and slow. 
 
 How divine the heav nly music 
 Falls upon my raptured ear ; 
 
 Fills my inmost sense with longing, 
 Sounding clear, and ever near. 
 
 Far away like stars unnumbered, 
 Wends a radiant spirit band; 
 
 I can hear the glad bells ringing, 
 Happy land, bright, happy land. 
 
 I am coming! I am coming! 
 
 Open wide the mercy gates, 
 I shall soon be singing with you, 
 
 And the joyous thought elates. 
 
 193 
 
YOUTH 
 
 (To carry out his wish, I spend 
 My leisure at the river s bend ; 
 Cutting and hewing from the glade 
 Until his rustic ark is made. 
 Then o er the logs, securely bound, 
 Weave cypress branches all around : 
 The tinted maples braiding through, 
 To brighten o er the sombre hue. 
 Upon the prow a cross I rear 
 Of immortelles, his sight to cheer: 
 Make fast a sturdy helm astern, 
 To guide us round the river s turn. 
 The raft completed then I moor 
 It to the gently sloping shore, 
 Where silent eddies playful glide 
 From out the river s flowing tide. 
 
 The sun has just commenced to fall 
 Upon the lowlands western wall : 
 October s chilling ev ning breeze, 
 Scatters the dead leaves from the trees. 
 
 Up the lofty mountains faintly 
 Lifts the chant of chorus, saintly ; 
 And to the organ s solemn march 
 The monks file slowly neath the arch 
 Of yonder fading, spectral wall, 
 To worship in the cloister s hall. 
 
 194 
 
I pause a moment at the latch 
 
 Of the old Sexton s lowly thatch, 
 
 And softly press the creaking door. 
 
 A shadow sweeps across the floor : 
 
 Waiting a moment as I heard 
 
 His soul to fervent pray r was stirred. 
 
 Conquering my deep emotion 
 In a spirit of devotion, 
 I kneel down softly by his side ; 
 Open the dark ning shutters wide. 
 The sun is laying tints of rest 
 Upon the altars of the west. 
 Released, the fluffy mists afloat, 
 Enwrap the eve with ermine coat. 
 Swift riding in upon the breeze, 
 The crisp air stings the sighing trees, 
 Beading their boughs with dewy globes 
 That spangle on the twilight s robes. 
 
 The pouting river languid waits 
 
 The moon that yonder cliff belates ; 
 
 And kissed by day s soft, slumb rous glance, 
 
 Faint blushes on the ripples dance. 
 
 His face glows with the pallid light 
 Of ethereal visions bright. 
 
 He lifts his slender hand to bless, 
 And on my brow his fingers press. 
 
 195 
 
He craves to be alone awhile : 
 I go, but mark his gentle smile 
 That beams just as the cadence thrills, 
 Of the Angelus, o er the hills. 
 
 Echoes cleave the ambient air 
 And nature bows in silent prayer. 
 
 As music in his soul awakes 
 
 His voice upon the silence breaks:) 
 
 SEXTON 
 O render me some melody, 
 
 Upheld with chords divine; 
 Unwind some impulse of your soul, 
 
 Enweave it into mine. 
 
 O lend the strings a pressure soft, 
 Sustaining, clear and deep; 
 
 In tenderness weave in a tear 
 Play on! I fain would weep. 
 
 Play on and let the great chords ring! 
 
 Press out the surging swell ; 
 Then soften to a faint low hush, 
 
 Like distant, dying bell. 
 
 And if you have a tender voice, 
 Express one golden word 
 
 That shall fall on my listn ing ear, 
 The sweetest ever heard. 
 
 196 
 
Then leave me, with the lights adim, 
 While flooding fancies swoon; 
 
 With the infinitude beyond, 
 
 My thoughts would fain commune. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (Like gentle billows that caress the shore, 
 Emotion s surge doth break upon my heart ; 
 And inundates with ever-pressing tide, 
 These sun-parched sands of solitary life. 
 
 Fearing to break his raptured spell 
 I wait until the tolling bell 
 Hath hushed beyond the ebbing tide ; 
 He calls, I hasten to his side.) 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Come hither, son ; my hour is near, 
 And you must lead me to my bier 
 Before my life escapes the cleft, 
 While this last flush of strength is left. 
 Lend me your arm, O ever true! 
 This pray r shall now ascend : 
 
 Softly the night winds 
 Fan amid the flowers; 
 
 The gathering shadows 
 Mark the passing hours. 
 
 197 
 
The moonbeams quiver 
 Gently from above; 
 
 AJ1 earth and heaven 
 Speak the Savior s love. 
 
 Father be near us 
 
 Thru the coming night ; 
 Guide our Spirits to 
 
 The realms of Light. 
 
 O for the many 
 
 Weary souls athirst, 
 From dark ning clouds may 
 
 Floods of blessings burst 
 
 Give to the homeless 
 Shelter in Thy heart ; 
 
 Let not the tempted 
 From Thy path depart. 
 
 Unto my weakness 
 Lend a helping hand, 
 
 And safely guide me 
 To the Morning Land. 
 
 I ll give one parting glance around, 
 O er this enhallowed bit of ground. 
 Farewell ! thou dark encloistered hall ! 
 Farewell ! thou sombre, silent wall ! 
 
 198 
 
Good-night, dear brothers of the hood ; 
 Above, all creeds are understood ! 
 I now must fare the mystic way, 
 From whence devoted never stray. 
 
 Out from the shadow of the cross, 
 Casting my burdens away ; 
 
 I m passing from all that is dross, 
 Leaving this casket of clay. 
 
 Out from the crude, unfinished life, 
 
 On into one just begun ; 
 A pause in the struggle and strife, 
 
 Seeing the goal nearly run. 
 
 Launched on the silent, vast unknown, 
 With never a fear nor dread ; 
 
 Gentle hands are guiding my own, 
 Ethereal paths I tread. 
 
 Death s but the sigh of fleeting breath, 
 The changing of steeds o er night : 
 
 Release from the thraldom of wrong, 
 Into the freedom of Right. 
 
 Free as winged thought the astral springs, 
 And mounts to Heaven on fleet wings: 
 Assist me now, to my last bed, 
 Where winds this fragile, earthly thread. 
 
 199 
 
YOUTH 
 
 (Slowly the hill we mutely passed; 
 Each falt ring step did seem his last. 
 
 Upon the raft 
 
 At last I place him, tenderly, 
 To dream his final reverie, 
 Tossed on the river s bosom, light, 
 Awaiting for the hour of flight. 
 
 My faithful skiff I place in tow, 
 That when I leave him I may row, 
 When we dissever on the main, 
 Safely unto the shore again. 
 
 Just as the young moon gins to climb, 
 The Sexton beckons that tis time, 
 And severing the ropes that bind, 
 We slowly down the river wind. 
 
 With barge and pole, 
 Light o er the shoal, 
 
 We glide, we glide; 
 The crystal stream 
 Whirls in a dream, 
 
 And wide, and wide. 
 
 The trees bend o er 
 The sloping shore, 
 And dip, and dip, 
 
 200 
 
The current bends 
 The leafy ends, 
 
 That skip, that skip. 
 
 The fish below 
 Dart to and fro, 
 
 And leap, and leap; 
 While round the bend 
 We slowly wend, 
 
 O er deep, o er deep. 
 
 A startled deer 
 From tangle near, 
 
 Takes flight, takes flight, 
 O erleaps the ground 
 With graceful bound, 
 
 So light, so light. 
 
 We pass the steep 
 Where brooklets leap, 
 
 Awhirl, awhirl; 
 And dash with spray 
 Their mossy way, 
 
 And purl, and purl. 
 
 The day sinks low 
 With golden glow, 
 
 So bright, so bright; 
 And shadows creep : 
 Adown the steep 
 
 Comes night, comes night. 
 
 201 
 
 14 
 
The moon sails o er 
 With silver lore, 
 
 Of beams, of beams; 
 Casts them away 
 O er slumb ring day, 
 
 And streams, and streams 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 How blest, permitted thus to die, 
 Night s fairest visions passing by. 
 
 Hark! tis the vesper chanting, clear, 
 Upon the drowsy atmosphere. 
 Soft lights from out the cloister flush, 
 Then vanish into deep ning hush. 
 
 A watchful shepherd guards his flock, 
 That slumbers round, on yonder rock; 
 While countless stars press thru the sky, 
 And twinkle o er with brilliant eye. 
 
 Now the kaleidoscopic scene 
 
 Fades where the mists creep in between. 
 
 The little streams, with varied drip, 
 Their tinkling, rhythmic cadence trip; 
 Weaving a song into night s woof, 
 As raindrops thrum the pattered roof: 
 Then prattle on their bubbling way, 
 A sheen of moon-enbrightened spray. 
 
 202 
 
We sweep the rapids quickly o er 
 Neath brushing branches close to shore, 
 Where wild impulsive waters rush, 
 Whose murmurs fainter grow and hush 
 An echo on the wind s low breath, 
 O melancholy calm of death. 
 
 Why doth the note of sadness 
 Pervade the gayest song? 
 
 Why grows the singer silent, 
 As life steps quickly along? 
 
 Why -that contra melody, 
 
 Distracting the dreams that surge? 
 Behind the gay musician 
 
 Stands Death, and he plays a dirge ! 
 
 What peace it is indeed, to drift, 
 While heav nly hands reach down to lift 
 My soul up thru the fleeting night, 
 Unto eternal realms of light. 
 
 What melody doth charm my ear ! 
 Descending out the atmosphere. 
 
 As the fragrant breath of morning 
 Weaves soft zephyrs o er the lea ; 
 
 So a gentle, loving Spirit, 
 Wafts its sweetness over me. 
 
 203 
 
Life strains, exulting at the breach ; 
 Long fettered, now its wings outreach : 
 Like captive bird, it longs to try 
 Its pinions on the azure sky. 
 
 The body suffers, but the Mind exalts, 
 And in rapt inspiration, pain defaults. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (Soon the river banks grow distant 
 And the current less insistent; 
 While the water s heaving motion 
 Tells us we are on the ocean. 
 
 From out yon night-hid, rocky height, 
 Beameth the lighthouse beacon bright ; 
 Seeming to lay a path for me 
 Unto the wave-kissed reach of lea. 
 
 His rapt gaze, as in a dream, 
 Is fixed upon yon ev ning star 
 That gloweth down the night afar. 
 
 Now over the tide 
 
 The deep shadows glide, 
 
 As night wings over the spray ; 
 The still waters gleam 
 With the shimmering beam 
 
 Of harbor lights o er the way. 
 
 204 
 
I hear the soft knell 
 
 Of a distant bell, 
 Awaft from a ship afar; 
 
 Where the seamen hear 
 
 And greet with a cheer, 
 The lights o er the home harbor bar. 
 
 Fair Luna slanteth o er the west ; 
 Unrolls upon the ocean s breast, 
 And o er her gleaming carpet, spread, 
 The tide sweeps on with stately tread. 
 
 Zephyrus, shepherd of the waves, 
 Herds them to his sheltering caves; 
 Neath his soft breath their fleecy spray, 
 Gambols along the rocky way. 
 
 Northward, Boreas frowning waits; 
 As hungered wolf he contemplates 
 The tranquil herd, and longs to clasp 
 The weary straggler in his grasp.) 
 
 SEXTON 
 
 Thru the murkiness of night 
 Sweeps a glow of spectral light: 
 Thru a misty veil I see 
 Phantom faces smile on me. 
 There s a form glides over there 
 On the light, vibrating air; 
 
 205 
 
That of old I laid to sleep, 
 
 Where enpurpled myrtles creep. 
 
 She is bending o er me now 
 
 And glad welcome wreathes her brow. 
 
 Streaming free, like threads of gold, 
 
 On the breeze her locks unfold. 
 
 Now she guides my rustic ark 
 Thru the meadows of the dark ; 
 With a shining, silver strand, 
 Held within her slender hand. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (We re drifting on the open sea 
 Where dimly fadeth now, the lea. 
 A wondrous stillness, deep, profound ; 
 Doth fall upon the waters round. 
 
 many the sounds that we never hear ; 
 Sounds all too faint for the untrained ear : 
 The opening bud sings a song its own 
 And the passing hour hath a monotone ; 
 The deft fall of night hath its melody, 
 
 And the bright, waking dawn its symphony; 
 While the fluttering stir of the Soul s rapt flight 
 Is lost to our sense as Heav n to the sight.) 
 
 1 faint, O Master! while I contemplate 
 The awful majesty of death. 
 
 206 
 
SEXTON 
 
 Not yet, O comrad ! falter not ! 
 Tho wearied with the toilsome way; 
 And faint of heart, thou seest the peak 
 Whose summit dawns upon thy view : 
 Or reaching forth, the goal you seek, 
 Seems but a step remote from you : 
 Fail not, it is not yet thy day. 
 Faint not, O comrad! only wait. 
 When sickness guised in error creeps 
 Upon thee to pollute thy flesh; 
 With Truth s negating power resist; 
 With healing thoughts thy mind refresh. 
 Thy soul will conquer, but persist : 
 Faint not, assail the upward steeps ! 
 Faint not, O ! comrad, trust and wait ! 
 
 When ideal becomes the real, 
 And the unseen is the seen ; 
 
 When the make-believe finds Truth, 
 And the Spirit lives serene; 
 
 Then we shall have found the state, 
 Wherein all perfection beams, 
 
 And the haven of desire 
 
 Be the Heaven of our dreams. 
 
 From wave to wave in perfect trust, 
 Unmindful of the tempest s gust; 
 
 Love pilots me. 
 207 
 
The undiscovered now is found, 
 
 Its shore line girds the heavens round ; 
 
 Love pilots me. 
 
 From cloud to cloud upon the air, 
 Unburdened forth my Soul doth fare; 
 
 Love pilots me. 
 
 Heavenward, star to star I rise, 
 The stepping stones to paradise ; 
 
 Love pilots me. 
 
 Fulfilled, my duties now are o er, 
 I ll trust my pilot evermore 
 And wake to view a sunlit shore ; 
 
 Love pilots me. 
 
 calm serene of dewy night 
 
 When moon and stars are glowing bright 
 And wind and wave ahush. 
 
 Release the helm, that I may roam, 
 With Love to light me safely home: 
 Good-night, dear Youth, God comfort thee ! 
 
 1 am restored eternally. 
 
 YOUTH 
 
 (I ease the helm and bending near, 
 His feeble breath I strive to hear. 
 
 A leaden chill is on his cheek; 
 Yet finds he strength enough to speak : 
 "We ll meet again!" and then I heard 
 His last pray r flutter word to word : 
 
 208 
 
SEXTON 
 
 "O tide eternal, 
 
 Swift bear me over 
 To shores supernal, 
 
 Where angels hover: 
 Waters are dashing, 
 Thunders are crashing, 
 Lightnings are flashing 
 O er abysmal dread. 
 
 You whom I cherish, 
 O weep not but wait ! 
 
 Souls cannot perish 
 That God doth create. 
 
 He ll not forsake me, 
 
 But homeward take me; 
 
 Speak and awake me 
 And bid me to rise. 
 
 When all is over 
 
 May Thy will be done ; 
 This homeless rover 
 
 Then faces Thy throne: 
 Sweet be the waking, 
 Heaven s dawn breaking, 
 Earthly dust shaking, 
 Forevermore." 
 
 At that last word his waiting thought 
 Departed to the regions sought, 
 
 209 
 
And left his body pulseless, cold : 
 Thus passed he from my loving hold. 
 
 how I longed the tuneful sound 
 Of his dear, songful voice, but found 
 His lips were sealed past all recall : 
 Then wept I long upon his pall. 
 
 There is a path no bird of air hath found, 
 Whose silver thread beyond the stars is wound. 
 
 Have you ever stood in the after hush 
 
 That follows the last good-bye; 
 When the heart grows faint with receding steps, 
 
 And the fevered eyes are dry? 
 
 While your lips yet thrill with the last long kiss, 
 
 Your thoughts follow on and on ; 
 And the future mocks with the ling ring glance, 
 
 Of one that is gone ! is gone ! 
 
 Alone with death upon the sea, 
 And waters murm ring mournfully. 
 
 1 strew the dead leaves gently o er him ; 
 
 The quickening breeze sweeps them before him. 
 
 Bury the hopes have lived and perished, 
 The phantom dreams thy heart hath cherished ; 
 Under the leaves : 
 
 210 
 
Bury the pain of sad awakings, 
 
 The tears and sighs of rude heart breakings; 
 
 Under the leaves : 
 
 Bury them all where the night wind weaves 
 A tinted shroud of the dying leaves, 
 And from the tomb, where your sorrows sleep, 
 A new and glorious Life shall leap. 
 
 I leave him then, and pull for shore ; 
 
 The distance tween grows more and more. 
 
 The moon, concealed by misty pall, 
 Retires behind the ocean s wall, 
 And darkness draws her garments tight 
 Around the glowing form of night: 
 The stars fade pallid o er the scene : 
 A master wave sweeps in between 
 And we that were in life so near, 
 Have parted now, each to his sphere. 
 I t ward yon beacon on the shore ; 
 He t ward his Star forevermore. 
 
 As morn s refreshing wind awakes, 
 The stirring sea, white-crested, breaks. 
 
 Anearing now the misty shore, 
 I pause anon to rest my oar; 
 Scanning with eager, wistful eye, 
 The graying rim of seagirt sky. 
 
 211 
 
From out the north a threat ning cloud 
 Peals forth its vibrant thunder, loud. 
 Swift, fleeting vapors hurry on, 
 Before the rousing glance of dawn. 
 
 The fretting billows, tempest prest, 
 O er-serf with white, befoaming crest ; 
 High heading o er the troughing deep, 
 Urged by the wind s increasing sweep. 
 
 The sea-gulls lifting on the wing, 
 Storm buffeted, shrill-shrieking swing; 
 While o er the crash of spray doth moan 
 The under-surge s monotone. 
 
 Distinctly, thru the lifting night, 
 The cross upon the raft glows white; 
 Now driven by the winds caprice, 
 Now vanishing beneath the fleece 
 Of frenzied breakers onward rush ; 
 Then pausing in a moment s hush. 
 
 A dark, advancing ridge appears, 
 And reaching skyward as it nears, 
 Headmost it leaps above the rest, 
 Lifting the bier upon its crest ; 
 Where poising for a moment brief, 
 The white cross glows in bold relief. 
 The wave then dashes grandly on : 
 
 I glance in vain the barge is gone ! 
 
 212 
 
Thus do our earth-born friendships sever. 
 
 Backward and forward swings the sea 
 In wearisome monotony; 
 Now lovingly it laves the shore; 
 Now like some monster, curveth o er. 
 O dark, unfathomable deep! 
 What mysteries forever sleep 
 Within your mighty confines, dark, 
 Where lies the lore of hapless barque ! 
 Roll on, thou, in God-given course ! 
 Roll on with unconquerable force! 
 Your glowing streets of coral red, 
 No mortal feet may ever tread : 
 Your em rald banks and silvered caves 
 Are safely hidden neath the waves. 
 
 Up from the east Sol s warming ray 
 Begins to crimson o er the gray, 
 And rears his golden shafts of day, 
 High o er the banks of marbled spray. 
 
 As wings bright morn across the sea, 
 A sense of peace comes over me : 
 A surcease from the night s sad quest, 
 And wearied fancy longs for rest. 
 For God hath placed in each a soul 
 That restless longs to know its goal, 
 And faring on unceasingly, 
 O ersweeps the great eternity. 
 
 213 
 
Until such moment we must swing, 
 With steadfast Faith, this mortal fling: 
 Content to gaze on wave and sky, 
 Undoubting what beyond doth lie, 
 Inspired to cultivate the Mind 
 To rise above the ills that bind 
 Us ever to our mortal part ; 
 Love doth emancipate the Soul. 
 
 Thou shalt waken ! Thou shalt waken ! 
 
 Ere the final flight is taken, 
 
 And the mystic way, revealing 
 
 Thru the pow r of Sense and Feeling, 
 
 Lead thee True, the false forsaken; 
 
 Thou shalt waken ! Thou shalt waken ! 
 
 Man is of God, Omnipotent, 
 
 Is heir to All that Is; 
 The ages are his stepping-stones, 
 
 Eternity is his. 
 
 O er resonating cliffs, dynamic heights, 
 Leap liquid harmonies whose weaving sprays 
 Drift misty melodies upon the air. 
 
 The sea-bird rookeries adown the cliffs, 
 With shrieking, flutt ring tenants throng; 
 That by some unaccustomed sound disturbed, 
 Arise, a swarming, darkening cloud awing. 
 
 214 
 
The creeping wave-lines on the sands bemark 
 The inward sweep of ever-reaching tide; 
 Whose undulating lustre scintillates 
 Beneath the slanting sun s caressing beam. 
 
 With canvas swelling to the fore, 
 A ship stands in towards the shore, 
 And joyous voices chant of home. 
 
 One wistful, seaward glance and then 
 I face the busy haunts of men. 
 
 215 
 
.^ 
 
 if-r>o 
 
 /\ TP ^S ^^ j_~- * "~ " 
 
 . . r- _^-^== ====:=::: ^ 
 
YC 1 4605 
 
 671529 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY