UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BOOKS BY LLOYD MIFFLIN 
 
 THE HILLS 
 
 10. With eight reproductions from pen drawings 
 by Thos. Moran, N.A. 
 
 Privately Printed, 1896 
 
 AT THE GATES OF SONG 
 
 Illustrated with ten reproductions in half-tone after draw- 
 ings by Thos. Moran, N.A. First and second editions. 
 
 Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1897 
 
 Third edition revised and printed from new plates, with 
 portrait. Henry Frowde, London, 1901 
 
 THE SLOPES OF HELICON AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 With eight illustrations by Thos. Moran, N.A.. and with 
 two by the author. 
 
 Estes & Lauriat, Boston, 1898 
 
 ECHOES OF GREEK IDYLS Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1899 
 
 THE FIELDS OF DAWN AND LATER SONNETS 
 
 Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1900 
 
 AN ODE ON MEMORIAL DAY 
 
 Written and delivered at the request of the G. A. R. 
 
 Out of Print 
 
 ODE ON THE SEMI-CENTENNIAL OF 
 
 FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE, 1903 
 
 The Hoffer Press, 1903 
 
 BIRTHDAYS OF DISTINGUISHED 18TH CENTURY AMERICANS 
 
 With poetical quotations The Levytype Co., Philada., 1897 
 
 CASTALIAN DAYS 
 
 Fifty sonnets, with photogravure portrait. 
 
 Henry Frowde, London and New York, 1903 
 
 THE FLEEING NYMPH AND OTHER VERSE 
 
 Small, Maynard & Co. , Boston, 1905 
 COLLECTED SONNETS 
 
 Being a selection of 350 of the Author's Sonnets Published, 1905 
 MY LADY OF DREAM Jn Preparation
 
 COLLECTED SONNETS 
 
 OF 
 
 LLOYD MIFFLIN 
 
 RE VISED B Y THE A VTHOR 
 
 . . . . Gone far astray 
 Into the labyrinth of sweet utterance 
 
 Keats 
 
 HENRY FROWDE 
 Xonfcon 
 
 J 95 
 
 A II rights reserved
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1905 
 BY LLOYD MIFFLIN 
 
 Composition, Electrotyping and Printing by the Wickersham Printing Co., 
 Lancaster, Pennsylvania, U. S. A.
 
 "?' 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 FAGB 
 
 ABOVE THE ABYSM 325 
 
 ACROSS THE YEARS 73 
 
 AFRICA 186 
 
 AFTER DAYS, IN 191 
 
 AFTER SEVERANCE 93 
 
 AH, TELL ME NOT 117 
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 303 
 
 ANNUNCIATION, THE 17 
 
 ANTONY IN EGYPT 78 
 
 ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA 314 
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE " WELCOME " . . f 183 
 
 AT THE POINT OF DEATH 323 
 
 AWAITING SUMMONS 58 
 
 BARD, THE 187 
 
 BATTLE FIELD, THE 75 
 
 BEAST, THE 293 
 
 BELLONA 55 
 
 BELOVED DALES , 331 
 
 BENEFACTOR, THE 79 
 
 BEREFT 26 
 
 BLACK PORTALS, THE ...... .^ ... 45 
 
 BLIGHTED . . . 28 
 
 BLUFFS, ON THE 44 
 
 BOOTH AS HAMLET, EDWIN 160 
 
 BOUQUET, THE . 338 
 
 BUILDER, THE 351 
 
 BUILD THOU THY TEMPLES 155 
 
 BURKE 156 
 
 48&3S5 
 
 ENGLISH
 
 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CARYATIDES OF THE RUINED FANE, THE 68 
 
 CASTLE, MY 267 
 
 CATARACT, THE 32 
 
 CATTLE PICTURE BY CUYP, A 364 
 
 CLOSE OF DAY, THE . 116 
 
 COLOR PINK, THE 176 
 
 CONOWINGO WATERS, BY 180 
 
 CONQUEST 340 
 
 CORNWALL BEACH, ON THE 21 
 
 COUNTRY BURIAL, THE 49 
 
 DAWN IN ARQUA I 
 
 DAWN OF SCIENCE, THE 354 
 
 DAYBREAK, THE ,321 
 
 DEAR ARE THESE FIELDS 297 
 
 DECEMBER 347 
 
 DELAY, O LIGHT 350 
 
 DELPHIS REMEMBERS SIM^ETHA 298 
 
 DISILLUSIONED 324 
 
 DOORS, THE 27 
 
 DREAMERS, THE 41 
 
 DREARY DAY, THE 60 
 
 DUSK, THE . 283 
 
 DYING DAY, THE 290 
 
 EAST RAIN ON CYPRUS, AN =43 
 
 ELEGY, AN 91 
 
 EMPTY HOUSE, THE 61 
 
 END OF ALL, THE . 38 
 
 END OF EREBUS, THE 113 
 
 EROS 182 
 
 ESTRANGED 184 
 
 EVENING 65 
 
 EVENING BREEZE, THE . 352 
 
 EVENING COMES, THE 105 
 
 EVENING HOSTS, THE 287
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS v 
 
 PACK 
 
 EVENING HOUR, THE 326 
 
 EVENTIDE, AT , 341 
 
 EVENING VOICE, THE 385 
 
 EURYDICE 120 
 
 ECHOES OF GREEK IDYLS 
 
 BION 
 
 IDYL THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS. A SEQUENCE . . 199-208 
 
 IDYL THE HUSBANDMAN, THE FOWLER, AND LOVE . . . 209 
 
 IDYL THE TUTOR OF LOVE . .' . 210 
 
 IDYL LOVE AND THE MUSES . . . .. . . . 211 
 
 FRAGMENTS : 
 
 VANITY OF VANITIES . . . . v . ; . . . 212 
 
 To THE EVENING STAR . . . ...-. . . 213 
 
 To CYPRIS . . , . . . / . ; . 214 
 MOSCHUS 
 
 IDYL LOVE, THE ABSCONDER . . . .''.'. . 217 
 
 IDYL EUROPA AND THE BULL. A SEQUENCE . . . 218-232 
 IDYL THE LAMENT FOR BION. A SEQUENCE . . . 233-244 
 
 IDYL MEGARA'S LAMENT . . 245 
 
 IDYL BY THE GRAY SEA M ' .' . . 246 
 
 IDYL THE POWER OF LOVE . . . . . . . 247 
 
 BACCHYLIDES 
 
 FROM ODE ON VICTORY OF HIERO : 
 
 HIERO'S HORSE RACE . . . . . . . 251 
 
 THE EAGLE '. ' . 252 
 
 PHERENICUS A HIPPOP^AN . . ;. ,. . 253 
 FROM ODE ON THESEUS : 
 
 SONG FOR TWO VOICES. A SEQUENCE x . . . . 254-257 
 FROM ODE ON VICTORY AT NEMEA : 
 
 THE Discus THROWER 258 
 
 FROM FRAGMENT OF ODE ON THE TROJAN WAR : 
 
 BEFORE THE BATTLE 259 
 
 THE CONFLICT 260 
 
 FROM ODE ON HIERO'S CHARIOT VICTORY : 
 
 IN PRAISE OF VIRTUE . 261
 
 vi TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BACCHYLIDES CONTINUED 
 
 FROM FRAGMENT OF ODE ANTENORID.E : 
 
 MENELAUS TO THE TROJANS 262 
 
 FRAGMENT : 
 
 PEACE 263 
 
 FADING LIGHT, THE 59 
 
 FADING SHIP, THE . . . - , > J 94 
 
 FAME . . . ' . ... 2 95 
 
 FAN, THE . . . . . . .- -54 
 
 FAR FROM THE CROWD . . . 3*9 
 
 FEEDING THE PIGEONS ,64 
 
 FIAT Lux 81 
 
 FIDELIA ......... ... 163 
 
 FIELDS OF QUIET, THE 97 
 
 FIRST AWAKENING, THE . . . . . . . 3*3 
 
 FIRST HOAR-FROST, THE . . "5 
 
 FLIGHT, THE . . * 5 
 
 FROM THE ACRO-CORINTHUS . . l6 
 
 FROM THE BATTLEMENTS 15 
 
 FROM THE FOOT OF OLYMPUS 102 
 
 FROM THE PEAK 171 
 
 FROM THE PROMONTORY . . 343 
 
 FRONTIER, THE 19 
 
 FIELDS OF DAWN, THE 
 
 AFLOAT AT SUNSET 136 
 
 " ALONG THE REEDY SHORE " 135 
 
 APRIL FROM THE LAWN 132 
 
 AUGUST SHOWER, THE 143 
 
 BY VINE-CLAD EAVES 134 
 
 FEATHERED CHOIR, THE 131 
 
 FOOTFALLS OF THE RAIN 139 
 
 FOREST PATH, THE 129 
 
 FROM THE SHADOWY PORCH 138
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS vii 
 
 FIELDS OF DAWN, THE-CoNTiNUED 
 
 GRATEFUL SHADE, IN 142 
 
 GRASSES SERE, IN ...... 150 
 
 HAZY WOODLANDS . . ..-.'..-. . 148 
 
 LEGEND OF INDIAN SUMMER .... V f / . 149 
 
 NOVEMBER GRAY . . . . , . . . . 151 
 
 RELUCTANT SPRING . . * . . . . . . . . 130 
 
 RIVER HEADLAND, ON THE . ...'.". . , 137 
 
 SCARLET VINES, THE . 1 . . . ... .147 
 
 SEPTEMBER DAYS . ' , .'.;, 146 
 
 " SILENT THE HERON STOOD" . , ' '. . . . 145 
 
 SULTRY AUGUST . . . .... . . . 144 
 
 SUMMER MOON, THE . J 140 
 
 SUMMER SOUNDS > . . . . 141 
 
 SUNSET FROM THE SUMMIT . . ; * . . . .133 
 
 WILD NORTH BLOWS, THE . . ...... 152 
 
 WINTER STORM, THE '.'.'.. 153 
 
 GIFT, THE . .... . . . . . * . . . 117 
 
 GLOAMING, THE . . . . . t . -, t k . .337 
 
 GOLDEN DAYS I '. . .* . . . . rf . . , - . 8 
 
 GOLDEN DAYS II . . . * ... .... . 9 
 
 GRASSHOPPER TO AURORA, THE . * 318 
 
 " HARVEST WAITS, THE" . . . . 332 
 
 HE BUILDS THE CITY OF ENOCH . . . . , . . 316 
 
 HEIGHTS, THE * . . . 294 
 
 HELPERS, THE ''. .... 305 
 
 HE MADE THE NIGHT , . . ,-; . .. . 355 
 
 HE MADE THE STARS ALSO 311 
 
 HIDDEN WOUNDS 2 %9 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 100 
 
 IDYL, AN 348 
 
 IF THOU WOULDST COME 124
 
 viii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 INADEQUACY . . . . 12 
 
 IN BONDAGE . . ' , " 87 
 
 IN MEMORIAM .'...'.' 356 
 
 ISOLATION . . 77 
 
 " I STAND UPON THE BASTIONS " . 310 
 
 INSUFFICIENCY ........... 50 
 
 INVITATION, AN 159 
 
 INVOCATION I ........... 362 
 
 INVOCATION II 363 
 
 IN TWILIGHT REEDS s -, . ... . . . 312 
 
 JOURNEY, THE 119 
 
 LADRO ^ . . . . 192 
 
 LA PRIMAVERA 90 
 
 LANDSCAPE BY REMBRANDT, A . . . , ^ . ... 72 
 
 LAST SONG OF ORPHEUS, THE 122 
 
 LEAF-DRIFTED AISLES, IN ' . ' '. . . 57 
 
 LETHE . . .. , . . 320 
 
 LIKE BELLS UNTOLLED . ' . 268 
 
 LILY OF DAWN III . , , , . . . . , . . in 
 
 LONGFELLOW . . , ._ . , ..... A , 33 
 
 LOOKING AT THE WEST , , , ,. - , . . . A . 24 
 
 LOST ISLES , , , , . . . . . , ^ % 25 
 
 LURID CASTLE, THE . , , . , ., ^ . , . . 300 
 
 MADONNA, THE 168 
 
 MARGIN OF SWATARA I . . ... . . . ". ... 109 
 
 MARPESSA TO APOLLO . . . .--... . . ; 189 
 
 METROPOLIS, IN THE . . . . , . . . - .: . . 329 
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO AT FORTY-SEVEN . . . . ... 275 
 
 MIDNIGHT BY THE CATARACT .... :... .291 
 
 MILTON 70 
 
 MONARCH, THE 46 
 
 MORS VICTRIX 353 
 
 NICARAGUA . 82 
 
 NIGHTFALL ON THE DESERT n
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NILUS ,. ' ... -.. j . X 8i 
 
 " NOONTIDE GONE, THE " ... ..:'.., :-. -. . -." \. 360 
 
 NOVEMBER . .. . ' '\ % " ' ; . 18 
 
 " Now LIKE A RED LEAF " .. ;,. ... ... . . . "% gg 
 
 NYMPH, THE . . . ,. \.. . .', - -:'.. i"'C~ . 23 
 
 OCEAN ISLE, THE . , , " . ... -. , . . .. .... 317 
 
 OCTOBER DAYS . . , . . . . . . r , . 84 
 
 ONSET, THE . . , .. i. . . . . . . . 7 
 
 ON A PAINTING . . . . ^ . " . . , . . . . 281 
 
 ON PRESENTING A SONNET . . . . . . . . 279 
 
 ON THE AVON AT STRATFORD . . '. . --, . . . .167 
 
 ON THE UPLAND . . . . 276 
 
 OPENING OF THE URNS , }- 85 
 
 PALE RIDER, THE 179 
 
 PASSING OF THE QUEEN, THE 62 
 
 PASSING SHIP, A . . ' . ' . / . . 322 
 PICTURE OF MY MOTHER, A . . '~ .-'/ . . . . . . 52 
 
 POET, THE . . . . ' . . . . . . . 342 
 
 POLYPHEMUS TO ULYSSES . / ' 37 
 
 PROCESSION, THE . . 365 
 
 PRODIGALS . . , . . . ,71 
 
 PROMETHEUS CHAINED . . . . . . . . . 4 
 
 PSALM, THE ...... . . . . . , 304 
 
 PSAPHO . % . . . ..... . . . 178 
 
 PUPIL OF PHILETAS, THE . ..... . . . .361 
 
 QUEEN OF THE TIDES, THE . . -. -'-, - 106 
 
 QUESTION, THE . ...... . / . . -;. . . 327 
 
 READING FROM MILTON . . . . . - . . ". . . . 39 
 
 RELENT, O ATROPOS t;, ' + * . . 358 
 
 RELUCTANT SPRING '..-.. i . 130 
 
 REST AT NOON, THE I /.-. 344 
 
 REVERBERATE TONES .-, 161 
 
 RIVER AT SUNSET, BY THE 271
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 SAMSON . . . . . . . ".-..' 1 75 
 
 SANCTUARY . . 339 
 
 " SCORN FOR MYSELF I FEEL " 3 
 
 SEA, THE . . "' ,. .. .... ' . .... 34 
 
 SEA-GULL, THE . . . * . . . " 272 
 SEASONS, THE . . . ; . ... . . 14 
 
 SERVANT UNABLE TO READ, A . . . . . . .... 86 
 
 SESOSTRIS . ....... . . . . J 3 
 
 SHAKESPEARE . . . . 366 
 
 SHIP, THE . 89 
 
 SICILIAN IDYLS . . . .. . . . . ... 288 
 
 SILENCE AFTER ORPHEUS' DEATH, THE . . . . . ... . 121 
 
 SILENT GUEST, THE . . . . . . ... ". 22 
 
 SINGER, THE . . 349 
 
 SOME PEAK OF HIGH ACHIEVE 296 
 
 SONNET, THE . . ",.'.' ? 56 
 
 SONNETS' Music, THE . .164 
 
 SPECTRE, THE . v .' '. . . . . .69 
 
 SPIRIT, THE . . * . . . . . . 92 
 
 SPIRIT OF POESY, THE . . . '. . .96 
 
 SOVEREIGNS, THE . . 30 
 
 SOCRATES' DEATH . . . . . . . ... .170 
 
 STILL THOU THE TEMPEST . 302 
 
 ST. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK .. . 309 
 
 STORM-CLOUDS, THE . . . . ; ' . . . . . . . 83 
 STORMY PETREL, THE . . . . . . . . 173 
 
 STORM-SWEPT . . . . . . 292 
 
 SUBMISSION ............ 280 
 
 SUNRISE ON THE MARSH . . . .... . 51 
 
 SUNSET IN HELLAS . . ... . . . . . -333 
 
 TEMPLE OF APOLLO, THE 359 
 
 " THERE WAS A TIME " . 286 
 
 "THESE THINGS I SAW" 188 
 
 THESEUS AND ARIADNE 123 
 
 THRESHING FLOOR, THE 80
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " THESE WASTE THE SPIRIT " v - ; ! . . 112 
 
 THEY COME AT EVENING .... /,.-. .' . 172 
 THOUGH MAY HAS COME . . . . .. . . . . . 101 
 
 THRENE, A . . . .." . , 185 
 
 THRONE OF DEATH, THE . . . ../ . ...,..:. 42 
 
 THRUSH, THE .. ... > . 158 
 
 THORNY PATH BELOVED, THE .... . . . . .345 
 
 TITHONUS TO AURORA . . 269 
 
 TRANSMUTATION ; . . 98 
 
 TRAVELERS, THE .... .... . . . . 66 
 
 TRIO, THE . . . . . .... ... . . 29 
 
 TUSCAN LACRYMATORY, A . . 278 
 
 TUSCAN PASTORAL, A - 94 
 
 TWILIGHT FROM THE LAWN 35 
 
 TWILIGHT HEADLANDS, ON THE .31 
 
 To AN AGED POET .- 6 
 
 To A GENERAL OF THE REVOLUTION . . . , . ' . . . 166 
 
 To A MAPLE SEED . . . 2 
 
 To A NATURE STUDENT . ....... . . . 284 
 
 To AN OLD ANCHOR ; . . , 10 
 
 To AN OLD ANCHOR ON THE COAST . . . . . . . 315 
 
 To AN OLD LABORER . . .. . . . . j ."'. . . 107 
 
 To AN OLD VENETIAN PAINTING 47 
 
 To A YOUNG MAID . .. . . . . . 1, -.. . . .114 
 
 To BRIZO , . .... . . 346 
 
 To BYRON . '. . . . . . . , . . . . .118 
 
 To RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 74 
 
 To THE MILKWEED . . . . . ... <t . .125 
 
 To THE NEW CENTURY .,..."'..... 63 
 
 To THE POPPY . . ..- i *..- t . . ,. . . . 328 
 
 ULTIMATE DAY, THE , '. ^ . . . . . . 165 
 
 UNAVAILING GRIEF * ... 277 
 
 UNSOLACED 336 
 
 UPON THE HEARTH 104 
 
 UP WITH THE DRAWBRIDGE 157
 
 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 VALLEY OF DREAMS, IN THE 174 
 
 VENETIAN WINEGLASS, AN OLD 334 
 
 VICTIM, THE 190 
 
 VICTOR, THE .............. 53 
 
 VINEYARD OF ASTI, IN A . . . . . . . . . 259 
 
 VISION, THE V . . . 335 
 
 VOICE FROM THE BORDER-LAND, A . . . .... 282 
 
 VOICELESS, THE ." . . .330 
 
 VOYAGERS 274 
 
 VOYAGERS, THE 67 
 
 WATTEAU BEAUTY, A . . . . 36 
 
 WEDDING MORN, THE 48 
 
 WILL THESE FADE Too ? 308 
 
 WIND-GOD, THE .... . . . . . . .193 
 
 WIND ON THE HILLS 20 
 
 WINGS OF THE MORNING II . . no 
 
 WINTER WOODS 40 
 
 WITH A GREEK HERDSMAN 301 
 
 WITH FOLDED WINGS .... v ..... 357 
 
 WITHIN THE GATES . . ..'. . . . . 273 
 
 WITHDRAW, O WORLD . . . . 4 . ... 307 
 
 YOUNG EMBALMER, THE . . ' . . . . . . . .108 
 
 YOUTH IN LONDON , . . . . 162 
 
 " YOUTH ON THE PROW " . . , . . . . . . .' 169
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 
 MY FATHER 
 WHO THROUGHOUT A LONG LIFE 
 
 WAS AN ARDENT DEVOTEE 
 OF POETRY
 
 PREFACE 
 
 rHE present volume contains certain sonnets written 
 within the last year, heretofore unpublished, together 
 with a selection of others from the Author s several books ; 
 namely: At the Gates of Song; The Slopes of Helicon; 
 Echoes of Greek Idyls ; The Fields of Dawn; Castalian 
 Days, and The Fleeing Nymph. A few sonnets have been 
 added from an unpublished sequence. 
 
 Though all of the poems have been revised by the 
 Author, he is conscious of many shortcomings which he has 
 been unable to remedy; emendations, however, have been 
 made, where it was possible, in the hope of rendering the 
 sonnets less unworthy of that indulgence with which many 
 of them have been received, both in America and in Great 
 Britain. 
 
 Norwood, March 4th, 1905 L. M. 
 
 Gladly -would I have "waited till my task 
 
 Had reached its close ; but life is insecure, 
 
 And hope full oft fallacious as a dream : 
 Therefore, for what is here produced, I ask 
 
 Thy favor ; trusting that thou will not deem 
 
 The offering, though imperfect, premature. 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 COLLECTED SONNETS
 
 SCORN not the Sonnet; Critic, you have frowmd 
 
 Mindless of its just honours; with this key 
 
 Shakespeare unlocked his heart ; the melody 
 
 Of this small lute gave ease to Petrarch's wound ; 
 
 A thousand times this pipe did Tasso sound ; 
 
 With it Camoens soothed an exile's grief ; 
 
 The Sonnet glittered a gay myrtle leaf 
 
 Amid the cypress with which Dante crowned 
 
 His visionary brow ; a glow-worm lamp, 
 
 It cheered mild Spenser, called from Faery-land 
 
 To struggle through dark ways; and when a damp. 
 
 Fell round the path of Milton, in his hand 
 
 The Thing became a trumpet, whence he blew 
 
 Soul-animating strains alas, too few ! 
 
 WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.
 
 DAWN IN ARQUA 
 
 INSCRIBED TO THE MEMORY OF PETRARCA 
 Obiit July 18, 1374 
 
 SICK of mere Fame, and of Rome's Laureate leaf 
 His Latin Epic brought him, up he went 
 To steep Arqueto, where he found content 
 Among the Euganean Hills alas, too brief! 
 
 His was an irremediable grief: 
 That heart so loved, that head so opulent 
 Of gold, were long since dust. . . . Silent he bent 
 Above those Sonnets in that Golden Sheaf. 
 
 Far into midnight, lone he sat, and read 
 The RimZ once again oh, bitterest tears 
 By age, for love all unrequited, shed ! 
 
 Then in that volume slowly sank his head; 
 
 Thus, in the mountain cottage, bowed with years, 
 At early morn they found him, cold and dead.
 
 TO A MAPLE SEED 
 
 TO B. H. M. 
 
 ART thou some winged Sprite, that fluttering round, 
 
 Exhausted on the grass at length doth lie? 
 
 Or wayward Fay? Ah, weakling! by and by, 
 
 Thou wilt become a giant, strong and sound, 
 When, like Antaeus, thou dost touch the ground. 
 
 O happy Seed ! it is not thine to die ; 
 
 Thy wings bestow thy immortality, 
 
 And thou canst bridge the deep and dark profound. 
 I hear the ecstatic song the wild bird flings 
 
 In future summers from thy leafy head! 
 
 What hopes! what fears! what tender-spoken things 
 What burning words of love will there be said ! 
 
 What sobs what tears ! what passionate whisperings 
 
 Under thy boughs, when I, alas! am dead.
 
 "SCORN FOR MYSELF I FEEL" 
 
 WHENE'ER I think what some rare souls have done, 
 Who drank the dregs of dire adversity; 
 Who, on the Ixion wheel of penury, 
 Sang while they starved, as starry Chatterton ; 
 
 Those that a glorious martyrdom have won, 
 Dying in dungeons, chanting liberty : 
 Scorn for myself I feel, who, being free, 
 Held but my "farthing candle to the sun." 
 
 With organ-pealings deep and reaching far, 
 
 Like Bards long dead I should have spoken loud; 
 They, from the top of their Olympian cloud, 
 
 Flung jeweled harmonies oracular, 
 
 That on the forehead of the centuries proud 
 Live on forever deathless as a star !
 
 PROMETHEUS CHAINED 
 
 AH no! not tears held back, nor wail, nor shriek, 
 
 Tempestuous anger, nor delirious groan ; 
 
 Nor longings, unimagined and unknown ; 
 
 Nor the red javelin of the vulture's beak, 
 Not these shall make the indomitable meek ! 
 
 I stand against the gods for man alone. 
 
 This bed of anguish shall become a throne ; 
 
 These chains, O Jove ! shall consecrate this peak. 
 Nay, shouldst thou slide the multitudinous sands 
 
 Of Libya through an hour-glass in thy hands 
 
 To time the future of my doom forlorn, 
 Yield would I not! Thy tortures have I borne, 
 
 Thy vulture, thunder, lightning, and commands, 
 
 Yet thee I still defy defy and scorn !
 
 THE FLIGHT 
 
 UPON a cloud among the stars we stood: 
 
 The angel raised his hand, and looked, and said, 
 " Which world of all yon starry myriad 
 Shall we make wing to?" The still solitude 
 
 Became a harp whereon his voice and mood 
 Made spheral music round his haloed head. 
 I spake for then I had not long been dead 
 " Let me look round upon the vasts, and brood 
 
 A moment on these orbs ere I decide. . . . 
 What is yon lower star that beauteous shines, 
 And with soft splendor now incarnadines 
 
 Our wings? There would I go, and there abide." 
 Then he, as one who some child's thought divines r 
 "That is the world where yesternight you died."
 
 TO AN AGkD POET 
 
 WHAT if the boat be drifting down the stream, 
 And oars, well-worn, hang idly by the side? 
 Must man forever pull against the tide 
 Nor bask a little in the sunset beam? 
 
 O Worker in the glorious realm of Dream, 
 Rest thou awhile, and let the River guide ; 
 Far far beyond thee, as the waters glide, 
 Behold the Beauteous City, golden, gleam ! 
 
 Vex not thy soul, nor fear the coming night; 
 
 When evening goes, shall burst the morning light 
 O'er all the ocean of eternity : 
 
 Be sure, O Friend, there is a destiny 
 
 That holds the rudder, and that steers aright, 
 Then let the current sweep us to the sea !
 
 THE ONSET 
 
 AT the dread waving of Apollyon's rod, 
 
 Astride their frenzied chargers snorting flame, 
 On sulphurous clouds the winged Legions came, 
 With hate enpanoplied, and vengeance shod. 
 
 Up from the Nadir, myriads of them trod 
 
 The shining steeps to Heaven with wild acclaim ; 
 Furious they rushed, vindictive, and their aim, 
 To storm the inviolable gates of God ! 
 
 As swarms of sea-birds, by the sunset dazed, 
 Blot out the sky near Kolanara's coast, 
 So, countless, flew they where the splendor flared; 
 
 While eager on the peaks, with wings upraised 
 Dark 'gainst the fulgence of the surging host 
 The Heralds, from their lifted trumpets, blared !
 
 GOLDEN DAYS 
 
 i 
 
 WHO 's this a-coming through the mellow haze 
 
 Nude as young Bacchus, russet-skinned, embrowned; 
 His head with clustered grapes and grape-leaves bound 
 And trailing vines of scarlet all ablaze? 
 
 From golden wigwams of the Indian maize 
 
 He husks the red-grained ears; o'er stubbled ground 
 Bowls, in his mirth, the yellow melons round; 
 Dozes anear the cider-press for days, 
 
 Sipping the oozed juice of pomace lees; 
 And leaning on the cope of orchard walls, 
 Watches the golden apple till it falls; 
 
 Searches the velvet burr 'neath chestnut-trees, 
 And brings the partridge to him by his calls, 
 Who 's he that so delights in things like these? . . .
 
 GOLDEN DAYS 
 ii 
 
 WHO 's he that so delights in such soft ease? 
 
 Who, dreamless, lolls throughout the dreamy days? 
 
 Who spreads the dim and amethystine haze 
 
 In all the dells, and for the full-fed bees 
 Bursts the late pear, and makes its mell increase? 
 
 Who marks the glint of wings in woodland ways 
 
 The gold of flickers, and the blue of jays? 
 
 Who wafts the thistle-down to far-off seas, 
 And spins the spider threads across the fields 
 
 Of evening, golden in the setting sun? 
 
 Who, plucking clusters that the ripe vine yields, 
 Stains his lips purple ? . . . Ah ! there is but one 
 
 Autumn, that drowsy Faun, who glides away 
 
 Down through the fading woods and all is gray !
 
 TO AN OLD ANCHOR LYING FAR INLAND 
 AT MATAMORAS 
 
 PERCHANCE some Spanish galleon, after gold, 
 Dragged thy rude bulk along the coral reef; 
 Perhaps some blustering, buccaneering thief, 
 His mutinous crew held down within the hold, 
 
 Dropped thee in cypress inlets, while he rolled 
 His booty shoreward ere it came to grief, 
 Such swaggering, slashing Andalusian chief 
 As Pedro Alvarado, famed of old. 
 
 A faithful friend thou wast, now cast away, 
 Bent with the strain of dire adversity, 
 Man's great ingratitude thy only wage; 
 
 Like some dim Ammiral of a by-gone day, 
 Unthanked, abandoned in thy useless age, 
 Untombed afar from the familiar sea ! 
 
 10
 
 NIGHTFALL IN THE DESERT 
 
 IF on this earth one spot unstained by wars 
 
 Be found, it might be here. . . . Through solemn light 
 The sacred ibis wings his level flight 
 Where the brown women fill their water-jars. 
 
 This seems the home of Peace, where nothing mars 
 The primal silence aeons cannot blight: 
 The pyramids loom vaster; and the night 
 Grows splendid with Canopus and new stars : 
 
 Yet, as the camels of the caravan 
 
 Across the encrimsoned moon in silence file, 
 The dusky spears of some marauding Khan 
 
 Emerging from yon dark and palm-girt aisle 
 Dip, in pursuit, beyond the shadowy Nile : 
 Lo, even here, intrudes the plunderer, Man ! 
 
 11
 
 INADEQUACY 
 
 OH, the sweet sounds anear each starry gate 
 
 Of cloudy temples in the ether hung! 
 
 Oh, phantom voices from the spirit wrung 
 
 When lifted on her airy wings elate ! 
 Ah, for the power such tones to re-create ! 
 
 I heard the Seraph, but my halting tongue 
 
 Pronounced but infelicities ; I sung 
 
 Mere stammerings, vague and inarticulate. 
 So one adown weird pathways of the night 
 
 Hears in his sleep, by pale ethereal streams, 
 
 Music elusively beyond his reach, 
 And waking, ever fails to trace aright 
 
 Strains he hath heard, they lying beyond speech 
 
 In depths of incommunicable dreams. 
 
 12
 
 SESOSTRIS 
 
 SOLE Lord of Lords and very King of Kings, 
 
 He sits within the desert, carved in stone; 
 
 Inscrutable, colossal, and alone, 
 
 And ancienter than memory of things. 
 Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings ; 
 
 Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown 
 
 Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown. 
 
 The affrighted ostrich dares not dust her wings 
 Anear this Presence. The long caravan's 
 
 Dazed camels pause, and mute the Bedouins stare. 
 
 This symbol of past power more than man's 
 Presages doom. Kings look and Kings despair: 
 
 The sceptres tremble in their jeweled hands 
 
 And dark thrones totter in the baleful air! 
 
 13
 
 THE SEASONS 
 
 IN youth, I thought that April azure-dressed, 
 
 Was queen of all the year, her blue eyes beaming 
 With earliest love with passionate glances gleaming; 
 Later, I found in all my errant quest 
 
 Nothing so sweet as June; next loved I best 
 
 The rich late Summer, with her harvests teeming, 
 Throned on her slopes of gold; then fell I dreaming, 
 And worshipped Autumn on her misty crest; 
 
 But now the sweetest days are dull December's, 
 For in the darkness of my twilight room, 
 I peer into the hearth-fire and the embers, 
 
 And see fair visions rising through the gloom 
 Ah! dearer than all else the heart remembers 
 Faces of those beloved when in their bloom. 
 
 14
 
 FROM THE BATTLEMENTS 
 
 A THOUSAND years, I think, I have been dead, 
 And yet I have not seen her. Can it be 
 I am to miss her through eternity 
 I who on earth thrilled at her lightest tread? 
 
 Among the millions here that ever thread 
 
 These streets of gold, I surely soon shall see 
 The Rose that died in her virginity 
 Shall find at last my love long vanished. 
 
 I feel that I shall know her through disguise 
 Of spiritual splendors. I will stand 
 Upon the bulwarks, and will watch and wait. 
 
 It must be, that within the empearled gate 
 
 Long hath she entered from the dreamless land. 
 Ah! I shall know her by her love-lit eyes. 
 
 15
 
 FROM THE ACRO-CORINTHUS 
 
 ON this far-famed Rock at last I stand 
 The sought-for goal of many traveled days; 
 Before me glimmer in the purple haze, 
 The dreamy capes and cloudy rims of land 
 
 That fringe the fair ^tolia's phantom strand; 
 Arcadian coasts, dimpled with azure bays, 
 Loom o'er the sea beyond the beauteous maze 
 Of clustered islands girt with yellow sand ! 
 
 Breathing of perished gods, peopled anew, 
 Parnassus and the stately Salamis 
 Rise like a dream. Full many a warrior-town 
 
 Flashes snow-white, perched on her cliff of blue, 
 And far off sparkles that imperial crown, 
 The immortal splendor of the Acropolis. 
 
 16
 
 THE ANNUNCIATION 
 
 A PAINTING BY PIERRE MIGNARD IN POSSESSION Otf THE AUTHOR 
 
 THE radiant angel stands within her room. 
 
 She kneels and listens; on her heaving breast, 
 To still its flutterings, are her sweet hands pressed, 
 The while his lips foretell her joyful doom. 
 
 Tears happy tears are rising, and a bloom 
 Of maiden blushes clothes her that attest 
 The Rose she is. The haloed, heavenly guest 
 Lingers upon his cloud of golden gloom, 
 
 And gives to her the lily which he brings. 
 Each cherub in the aureole above 
 Where harps unseen are pealing peace and love 
 
 Smiles with delight, and very softly sings ; 
 While over Mary's head, on whitest wings, 
 Hovers the presence of the Holy Dove. 
 
 17
 
 NOVEMBER 
 
 A STATELY figure walking through the wood; 
 
 Her features faded ; in her eye a tear ; 
 
 Her face the grave of beauty, sad, severe ; 
 
 A queen dethroned, and in her solitude. 
 Her crimson robes that long the winds withstood, 
 
 Now trailing dark in mourning for the year. 
 
 In her pale hands the pendent ivy, sere ; 
 
 Stript of her coronal ; in widowhood ; 
 Yet still remembering her magnificence, 
 
 She walks superbly through the leafless glades ; 
 
 She feels the splendor of her opulence 
 Has faded from her as the leaf's, that fades; 
 
 A queen indeed! in royal impotence 
 
 She sweeps how proudly ! down into the shades. 
 
 18
 
 THE FRONTIER 
 
 O SOLDIER ! treading through the long day's heat, 
 With tattered banner and with drooping crest, 
 Now as the sun sinks down thy purpled West, 
 Thou who hast come so far with aching feet, 
 
 Thou who must march and never canst retreat, 
 Art thou not weary of the bootless quest? 
 Look'st thou not forward to a time of rest? 
 Sweet will it be beyond all telling sweet 
 
 After long marches with red danger fraught; 
 The wakeful bivouac ; the assault and flight ; 
 After thy scars of glory, sore distraught, 
 
 To camp afar beyond the plains of sight, 
 
 Wrapped in the blanket of a dreamless night, 
 Out past the pickets and the tents of thought! 
 
 19
 
 WIND ON THE HILLS 
 
 GREAT fleets of riven clouds intensely white, 
 Sailing wind-harried, 'thwart the lowering sky; 
 On the wild River, where the islands lie, 
 Long levels of insufferable light; 
 
 Cloud-shadows, moving in portentous flight, 
 Dimming the crimson of the steeps near by 
 And glooming golden ridges, crested high, 
 As the dread pinions of Apollyon might: 
 
 Weird slopes of tawny grasses, all astir, 
 As if some monster crept along the hill 
 Covered with hide of panther-colored fur; 
 
 While in the blustering air, grown bleak and chill- 
 The only wraith of Summer lingering still 
 Floats the blown milkweed's ermined gossamer. 
 
 20
 
 ON THE CORNWALL BEACH 
 
 HERE once were inland meads, and rolling plain : 
 From many a castle's rich, armorial gate 
 The plumed Knights rode forth with pride elate, 
 And lovelorn Ladies sighed in sweet disdain. 
 
 This the broad land where Lyonesse had lain 
 Where mythic Kings yet move in shadowy state 
 But now 't is sunken and obliterate, 
 Whelmed by the slow encroachment of the main : 
 
 Oh, meadows of our Youth ! Ah, marvelous coasts 
 Where beauty wandered down the golden ways 
 And love still seemed eternal, ye are ghosts! 
 
 Oh, shores once sanctified by love's own tears, 
 Sunk are ye 'neath the devastating days 
 The surge and inundation of the years. 
 
 21
 
 THE SILENT GUEST 
 
 TO-NIGHT, O Death, I feel thee near again ; 
 Cease peering in, but enter at the door 
 If thou must enter as thou didst of yore. 
 I did not call thee in this night of rain, 
 
 Yet thou art here Oh, may it be in vain ! 
 And yet, alas ! full many times before 
 Thou hast been near so near ! that now no more 
 Thou seem'st a foe, but one to ease all pain. 
 
 I know thy face so well that I could weep; 
 For thou art with me more than any friend. 
 I am too young to sink to thy black Deep; 
 
 Yet, if I must, Oh, gently o'er me bend, 
 Delude me into dreams that have no end, 
 Until I feel it is not Death, but Sleep!
 
 THE NYMPH 
 
 IN quiet stillness of a wild-wood dell 
 
 Knee-deep with fern, beneath the hemlock screen, 
 A brook, sliding the mossy rocks atween, 
 Plunged into foam and music, as it fell 
 
 Sheer to a pool, dark as a cloistered cell: 
 'T was in the afternoon, in this demesne, 
 I saw the goddess coming through the green ; 
 The dazzle of her beauty's miracle 
 
 Smote me as with a gleaming scymetar: 
 
 She alighted . . . panting, while her sister wings 
 Pulsed . . . slowly as a butterfly's that are 
 
 A-poise upon a flower the summer brings; 
 I knew her by immortal murmurings: 
 'T was Psyche, white-limbed, glowing like a star ! 
 
 23
 
 LOOKING AT THE WEST 
 
 YE Evening Clouds on which I sadly gaze, 
 Mine eyelids wet with untumultuous tears, 
 Because your beauty's poignant pathos sears 
 Itself into the soul, the while the ways 
 
 Are rich with ruby and with chrysoprase 
 
 Ye clouds of evening, in those promised years, 
 In the great oriel of some grander spheres, 
 Shall not such splendor glad our heavenly days? 
 
 God's smile it is that floods the sunset sky; 
 He cheers us with this parting, lest we might 
 Be daunted by the Dark's immensity. 
 
 How could we bear the absence of the light, 
 Unless, each eve, down-bending from on high, 
 From those great Doors of Heaven He beamed, "Good night? " 
 
 24
 
 LOST ISLES 
 
 T WAS long ago we roamed a summer sea 
 
 With pictured sails that fanned the fragrant air, 
 Far o'er the waters, yet we knew not where ; 
 Sudden an isle, dim as a memory, 
 
 Called like a siren to us, until we 
 
 Lay in her bosom an hour, at anchor there . . . 
 We sailed afar; then searched in sheer despair, 
 But never more we found where it could be ! 
 
 O lips of those who loved us, lightly pressed, 
 Where are you now, since life is growing gray? 
 Hands laid in ours ; dear faces once caressed 
 
 And left forever; and some tender breast 
 
 Where we were anchored, by sweet Love, a day, 
 Lost Isles are these from which we sailed away ! 
 
 25
 
 BEREFT 
 
 MY life was in its Autumn, as I lay 
 Dreaming upon an upland o'er the sea. 
 Lonely I was as Lydian Niobe 
 When all her pearls Apollo took away. 
 
 Then came a beauteous woman fair as day, 
 Who gave herself and all her love to me; 
 Anon sweet children clambered round my knee 
 Eager for kisses, and the time seemed May. 
 
 These children's children came, and I was grown 
 Aged and worn, but still on them I smiled 
 For love of them and of the mother mild. 
 
 Sudden I woke- childless, forlorn, alone. . . . 
 O Poesy! canst thou for this atone? 
 Thou who hast reft me thus of wife and child? 
 
 26
 
 THE DOORS 
 
 As through the Void we went, I heard his plumes 
 Strike on the darkness. It was passing sweet 
 To hold his hand and hear that thin air beat 
 Against our pinions, as we winged those glooms 
 
 Of Ebon, through which Atropos still dooms 
 Each soul to pass. Then presently our feet 
 Found footing on a ledge of dark retreat, 
 And opposite appeared two doors of tombs 
 
 Seen by the star upon the angel's head 
 
 That made dim twilight ; there I caught my breath: 
 "Why pause we here?" The angel answering said, 
 
 "The journey ends. These are the Doors of Death; 
 Lo, now they open, inward, for the dead." 
 And then a Voice, "Who next that entereth?" 
 
 27
 
 BLIGHTED 
 
 NOT like this stranded hulk along the bay 
 That rots by inches as the breakers pour 
 Their ebb and flow athwart the sunken floor, 
 Not in such slow and ignominious way 
 
 Didst thou, O Soul, approach thy final day; 
 But struggling with the surges evermore, 
 Amid the havoc and the deafening roar, 
 Thou in our sight didst still defy decay, 
 
 And, on the foaming billows to thy grave, 
 Blown by the storms of thine imperious will, 
 Wrecked by the blasts of Thought, didst fearless ride ; 
 
 Then, from the crest of Life's ensanguined wave, 
 Though rudely buffeted, yet battling still, 
 Didst sink to darkness in unconquered pride. 
 
 28
 
 THE TRIO 
 
 WITH wings upraised, and trumpet pointed high, 
 She poised upon the summit of a cloud; 
 " My name is Glory," blew her trump aloud, 
 " Who follow in my steps shall never die ! " 
 
 Then, at that blare, one rose and fixed his eye 
 Upon her, drawing from his skull the shroud, 
 And spake with voice, that though it whispered, cowed, 
 " Nay, all are mine forever ! Death, am I ! " 
 
 Thereat a baleful Power filled the air, 
 Shook all the shores of their dominion, 
 And cried from out the blackness to them there: 
 
 "I am the Vortex named Oblivion, 
 Aged I was ere Chaos had begun ; 
 Glory and Death! behold me. . . . and despair!"
 
 THE SOVEREIGNS 
 
 THEY who create rob death of half its stings; 
 
 Their life is given for the Muse's sake; 
 
 Of Thought they build their palaces, and make 
 
 Enduring entities and beauteous things; 
 They are the Poets they give airy wings 
 
 To shapes marmorean ; or they overtake 
 
 The Ideal with the brush, or, soaring, wake 
 
 Far in the rolling clouds their glorious strings. 
 The Poet is the only potentate; 
 
 His sceptre reaches o'er remotest zones; 
 
 His thought remembered and his golden tones 
 Shall, in the ears of nations uncreate, 
 
 Roll on for ages and reverberate 
 
 When Kings are dust beside forgotten thrones. 
 
 30
 
 ON THE TWILIGHT HEADLAND 
 
 THESEUS AND ARIADNE 
 
 DEAR Love, lean nearer let your finger-tips 
 Reach till they touch the rose within my palm. 
 Through the hushed dusk I feel the fragrant balm 
 Of your faint breathing as the tired breast dips 
 
 And rises, drowsful as a bee that sips 
 
 Honey too avid from the numbing flower. . . . 
 Close the sad eyes, and for one little hour 
 Let slumber soothe the dear, leave-taking lips. 
 
 Ah, sweet! were it not better for each heart 
 Before the cruel years achieve their will 
 For us, who must irrevocably part, 
 
 To pass the lintel of the door of Death 
 Lip touching lip, I breathing faintly still 
 The poignant sweetness of your fading breath? 
 
 31
 
 THE CATARACT 
 
 SUPREME ! from out the hollow of Thy hand 
 
 These torrents pour. These glories and these glooms, 
 These splendors wove on Thine eternal looms, 
 Are fragments of Thy power Thy command 
 
 Made visible. Thou didst but move Thy wand 
 Above the void and darkness, and the wombs 
 Of Chaos birthed this wonder that now fumes 
 In columned spray unutterably grand ! 
 
 As in the abyss the mighty waters pour, 
 The rocky canyon to its summit shakes, 
 And all the valley trembles under us ; 
 
 High o'er the mist the screaming eagles soar, 
 As in the abysm the boiling torrent wakes 
 Her everlasting anthem thunderous. 
 
 32
 
 LONGFELLOW 
 
 MELODIOUS Poet, on auspicious days 
 
 When o'er thy chaste and polished pages bending, 
 I read each sweet line to its golden ending, 
 Bound am I by the fetters of thy lays. 
 
 And as I follow every happy phrase 
 Music and beauty to thy matter lending 
 I seem to listen to a brooklet wending 
 Its lyric journey over pebbly ways. 
 
 Full oft thy verse sounds like a river flowing 
 Through windy reed-lands to the distant lea ; 
 Anon, thy voice above the storm-cloud going, 
 
 Peals as the sounding trumpets of the sea; 
 Or, like some mediaeval clarion blowing 
 From bannered turrets, rings out silverly. 
 
 33
 
 THE SEA 
 
 THE plunging, dark-maned Sea bellows and gores 
 
 Like some infuriated buffalo band 
 
 That sweeps headlong, and devastates the land ! 
 
 A hungry creature round the world she roars. 
 Her maw is ravenous as the Minotaur's. 
 
 In the deep cemetery of her sand 
 
 Rolls the smooth skull, and rests the mariner's hand. 
 
 The Kraken sleeps portentous on her floors. 
 She lifts vast voices. In her awful glooms 
 
 Peal the deep thunders of eternity. 
 
 Her soul is as a vortex, and she fumes 
 Restless as mortal man. Doth she foresee 
 
 The Seal of Doom is on her as she booms 
 
 Within her monstrous caverns, ceaselessly? 
 
 34
 
 TWILIGHT FROM THE LAWN 
 
 TO SAMUEI, WADDINGTON, ESQ. 
 
 DEEP in the west the slender crescent's rim 
 Sinks in the orange of the afterglow ; 
 The crane uncurves his neck and peers below 
 Through amber pools. Upon the river's brim 
 
 A line of silver lingers. On the limb 
 
 Hoots the lone owl ; and high above, the crow 
 Wings to the wood most wearily and slow ; 
 The hills are purpling, dimmer and more dim. 
 
 Against the glory of the going light 
 Stand the cathedral spires of the pines; 
 The swallows, whirling in concentric lines, 
 
 Swoop down the ivied chimney for the night, 
 
 While through the pane a star that will not roam 
 Twinkles the lamp, the Hesperus of home. 
 
 35
 
 A WATTEAU BEAUTY 
 1716 
 
 BETWEEN the vases, with beribboned cane, 
 She comes with buoyant, supercilious air ; 
 Within her eyes that glittering light which ne'er 
 From penance sprang. Ah, never will she deign 
 
 To heed your glance, this lovely scatter-brain, 
 Saucy and giddy, haughty, frail and fair! 
 Pray note, she seems to blush before you speak 
 Is 't rouge too thick upon her face and lips 
 
 The color heightened by white-powdered hair 
 Or that last sparkling goblet of Champagne? 
 Dainty she is, from the gloved finger- tips 
 
 To the black patch upon her baby cheek: 
 Coquettish, piquant, roguishly inane, 
 This modish Circe of the marble stair. 
 
 36
 
 POLYPHEMUS TO ULYSSES 
 
 REVENGE ! Revenge ! Ye have shut out the light 
 Burned out my single eye the while I slept; 
 But for each tear of blood that I have wept 
 Ye shall give forth a groan ! . . . I will incite 
 
 The avenging Sea against you, and will smite 
 
 You utterly . . . . Ai ! Ai ! not Jove shall intercept 
 My gathering wrath, ye treacherous wolves, that crept 
 In secret to my cave, and made day night ! 
 
 Now by my sire Neptune's oozy locks 
 
 And forked trident; by the boisterous shell 
 The demi- dolphin Triton's roaring horn 
 
 I swear 't were better ye had ne'er been born, 
 For I will whelm you with down-thundering rocks 
 Deeper than Trojan plummet ever fell !
 
 THE END OF ALL 
 
 MIDNIGHT was on the summits, and the lake 
 Livid with lightning. In the cavernous cloud 
 The demons of the thunder roared aloud 
 And made the everlasting mountains quake. 
 
 Then of the spirits, hovering in the gloom, 
 I asked the end of Man of Man, that proud 
 Imperious master with high front unbowed 
 "What, at the last, on earth shall be his doom?' 
 
 They answered, stern, "Not by submerging seas 
 Of ice, nor flame from crater nor from sky, 
 Shall Nations perish, but from utter dearth; 
 
 Like wastes of withering grasses shall they lie, 
 Famine shall mow their trillions of increase 
 Leaving one ghastly swarth around the earth ! " 
 
 38
 
 READING FROM MILTON 
 
 LEAVE the dim casement, where the twilight gloom, 
 Strange with great stars, holds us in charmed spell; 
 Light the soft lamp, as in some hermit cell, 
 And stir the back-log that it may illume 
 
 The brow of Pallas with a roseate bloom ; 
 Then let the Poet sound his classic shell 
 Attuned to murmur the Pierian spell, 
 And flood with melody the quiet room: 
 
 Turn the rich page, and while the embers glow, 
 Through arched groves Etrurian slowly tread, 
 Reading the thunderous numbers, doubly dear ; 
 
 Full let the organ-tones of Comus flow, 
 
 Nor fail to render that "melodious tear" 
 The Dorian threnody for Lycid, dead.
 
 WINTER WOODS 
 
 T is sweet to wander through new-fallen snow 
 Far in the wooded upland miles from town, 
 With head bent forward and eyes looking down 
 All unenticed by the surrounding show 
 
 The stir of small birds in the laurel low, 
 
 Or partridge whirring by on wings of brown, 
 Still wearing on the forehead as a crown 
 The recollections of the long ago; 
 
 And while the feet are moving 'mid the cold, 
 To pace beneath the olive and the vine ; 
 At every step to tread through temples old ; 
 
 To lie on Capri, basking by the pine, 
 
 And see far Naples where the sunset brine 
 Makes her a pearl within a shell of gold! 
 
 40
 
 THE DREAMERS 
 
 OH, not by Arethusan fountains fair, 
 
 Nor silver rivers musically fleet; 
 
 Ah, not on mountains trod by fabled feet, 
 
 Though flushed the snowy tops in sunset air; 
 They journey not by them not there not there! 
 
 On classic ground no need, though that were sweet, - 
 
 For them to roam in body who may greet 
 
 The spirits of Immortals everywhere. 
 Lovely the vales of earth, her hills and dells, 
 
 Yet they, ofttimes, on other slopes are led 
 
 Where Fancy ever lives, a conjurer; 
 Their footsteps fall in azure paths o'erhead, 
 
 And they, entranced, listening to faint-heard bells, 
 
 Wander afar in fields that never were. 
 
 41
 
 "THE THRONE OF DEATH" 
 
 A PAINTING BY G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 SOVEREIGN and beggar come, and each alone, 
 Trophy or burthen bringing to Death's feet. 
 The mailed warrior, proudly, as is meet, 
 Yields his unconquered blade. The glittering crown 
 
 That power imperial wears, a king lays down 
 Submissively. The Child, the Mother sweet, 
 And Age forlorn, bend to the winding-sheet 
 Which draws the World to that mysterious Throne. 
 
 The Judgment Book lies open but unread, 
 
 For who would gaze upon those cryptic things? 
 The Angel Death, inscrutable above, 
 
 Broods awesomely beneficent, his wings 
 Over himself and all the region spread 
 Darkness, not unilluminate with love.
 
 AN EAST RAIN ON THE ISLAND 
 OF CYPRUS 
 
 LET me walk here upon this headland high 
 Which jutting heavenward overlooks the main, 
 And feel upon my face the pelting rain 
 From soft savannas 'neath an Orient sky. 
 
 What cloudless dome can with this vapor vie? 
 For summer sunshine now I feel disdain ; 
 The driven mist, as thine, is my domain, 
 O dove-gray sea-bird drifting dimly by ! 
 
 Ah, shut me round and hide the half-seen ships; 
 Come, soft-blown rain, from tropic fields of rice, 
 From plumy capes of far Arabian seas; 
 
 Bring wafts of Malabar unto my lips; 
 Beat on my brow with airs that touched the teas 
 By palmy Ceylon and the isles of spice! 
 
 43
 
 ON THE BLUFFS 
 
 THE headlands here are in a sunset glow; 
 I read your letter, but I fail to find 
 The old sweet by-paths of a kindred mind 
 Down which your thoughts made music, long ago. 
 
 Ah, love! a worldling of the world you grow! 
 But I seek nobler heights, and now am blind 
 To words that still can wound, then let the wind 
 Whirl these torn scraps of pathos far below ! 
 
 I am as one who in a waking dream, 
 
 Strolling at eve picks up an Indian dart, 
 Dulled by long pain, indifferent to discern 
 
 How once it pierced some innocent victim's heart, 
 Yet, with a half-regretful unconcern, 
 Skims it beyond the cliff, sheer to mid-stream. 
 
 44
 
 THE BLACK PORTALS 
 
 SPIRIT of mine that soon must venturous spread 
 Through voids unknown thy feeble, fluttering plumes, 
 Hast thou no fear to wing those endless glooms? 
 No apprehension nor misgivings dread? 
 
 Those realms unfathomed of the speechless dead, 
 Which never gleam of eldest star illumes 
 Lethean caverns that the Soul entombs 
 Art thou not awed such sombre vasts to tread? 
 
 My Soul replied: "Wisdom hath made all things 
 Life and the end of life, He gives to thee. 
 Down Death's worn path the mightiest still have trod. 
 
 Where laureled poets and anointed Kings 
 Have gone for ages, it is good to be: 
 Rest thou contented with the will of God." 
 
 45
 
 THE MONARCH 
 
 DOWN in the cloudy towers of my sleep 
 
 A dungeon loomed wherein I heard the groans 
 Of those long ages prisoned moans on moans; 
 And peering further in the noisome deep, 
 
 In which no rays of daylight e'er could creep, 
 I saw a skeleton of whitened bones 
 A mighty king's the conqueror of thrones 
 Chained to the walls within that donjon-keep. 
 
 His crown still blazed upon him, golden-dull, 
 
 Whence, through the dark, glared jewels, tiger-eyed; 
 In awe I stood, and trembling, held my breath; 
 
 And then a Voice not his who there had died 
 Hissed from the hollow of that whitened skull : 
 "I am the King of Kings, undying Death!" .
 
 TO AN* OLD VENETIAN PAINTING 
 
 WHO was she this rare Beauty of appealing face? . . . 
 The eyes are laden with the weight of Love's fond burden, 
 The heart, with tremulous hope of Love's alluring guerdon. 
 Had she some wound, some grief which nothing would erase, 
 
 She whose impassioned look is raised in suppliant grace ? 
 Perchance some erring penitent in saintly adoration, 
 Or Doge's wilful daughter offering supplication 
 In all the sumptuous beauty of her languorous race ? 
 
 The plaintive mouth is saddened now from farewell-taking, 
 The sob still lingers in her smile, the eyes brim o'er, 
 As if sweet love, with her, had broken faith and trust. 
 
 How could such beauty be unless her heart were breaking? . . . 
 Peace! draw the veil: seek no revealment: ask no more: 
 Such loveliness shall sanctify her very dust. 
 
 47
 
 THE WEDDING MORN 
 
 LET the sweet Dawn kiss darkness from the ground; 
 The glorious sun rise like a globe of fire 
 Above the sea, and in his strong desire 
 Rosy the gables of her home, and round 
 
 Her lattice linger; breezes from the Sound 
 Turn all the waste of reeds into one lyre 
 For her; and let the swarm of marsh-birds choir, 
 Till from the rushes comes the wild redound! 
 
 And let old Ocean cease his rude uproar, 
 
 And waft in pearls and all his roseate shells ; 
 While on the top of his foam-crested swells 
 
 Let the poised curl hang whiter than before, 
 For here to-day, upon this Island shore, 
 Comes the sweet melody of marriage bells!
 
 THE COUNTRY BURIAL NOVEMBER 
 
 THE day is dull, the lingering leaf is sped 
 
 From tree and vine. The flowers are gone, and weeds 
 Border the fence-row, as the year recedes. 
 In drizzling mist slowly the mourners tread, 
 
 Following the hearse at the procession's head 
 Up to the church-yard, far above the meads, 
 There where the parson by the new grave reads 
 " Dust unto dust " and all the world seems dead : 
 
 But here come troops of children, young and sweet, 
 Down the steep lane ; they are the Future's flowers 
 Which soon shall bloom for other eyes than ours 
 
 In years to be; while all about the feet 
 Are silent monitors of Nature's powers 
 And in the ground sprouts the next summer's wheat. 
 
 49
 
 INSUFFICIENCY 
 
 THE spirit cannot spread at will her wings; 
 The dust clings to us, holding us to earth; 
 Some vague degeneracy of spiritual birth 
 Grapples us to the ground, and often clings 
 
 Like lead about us ; Heliconian springs 
 
 Then gush in vain ; while ever joy and mirth 
 
 Seem palsied by an universal dearth : 
 
 Yet sometimes, in such vein, the Poet sings. 
 
 And if he cannot always touch the mark 
 The soul has set, it is to be forgiven ; 
 Nor does that skyey minstrel, the rapt lark, 
 
 Chant ever at the very gate of heaven, 
 But oft, by changing mood of spirit driven, 
 Pipes plaintive notes, low by his nest, at dark. 
 
 60
 
 SUNRISE ON THE MARSH 
 
 DEEP down the sky, as yet Day sleeps serene; 
 She does not stir, but lies as in a swoon. 
 Silent the marshes, save at times the croon 
 Of some lone heron in the swamp's dark green. 
 
 The lyric fingers of the wind, unseen, 
 
 Play on the lute-strings of the reeds a tune 
 To be remembered ! All the glassed lagoon 
 Is hushed as in the desert's void demesne; 
 
 When, under the horizon far, I hear 
 
 Aurora's phantom heralds wind the horn, 
 As low above the dying twilight's bier 
 
 A few faint-flushed and feathery clouds appear; 
 Then o'er the far savanna's utmost bourn 
 Flare the wide wings of the flamingo morn ! 
 
 51
 
 A PICTURE OF MY MOTHER 
 
 UPON this old daguerreotype appears 
 
 Thy face, my Mother, crowned with wondrous hair. 
 
 What reconciliation in thine air; 
 
 And what a saintly smile, as if thy fears 
 The Lord had taken from thee, and thy tears ! 
 
 'T is my delight still to believe thee fair ; 
 
 And thou wast loved we know, in mute despair 
 
 We saw my Father's eyes, at eighty years, 
 O'erflow with love as oft we spoke of thee 
 
 We spoke of thee, I said, not he not he ! 
 
 He could not speak ! . . . Oh, peace be with thee, then, 
 Madonna-like, thy babe upon thy knee! . . . 
 
 My gentle Mother, lost on earth to me, 
 
 Shall I not know thee somewhere once again? 
 
 52
 
 THE VICTOR 
 
 I AM the Shadow, I whose brooding wings 
 
 Are gray with aeons. I depopulate 
 
 The world ; and all yon peopled stars await 
 
 My ravenous scythe. Through charnel dust of kings 
 I come, spurning the scepters. Though the stings 
 
 Of adders still are mine, I bear no hate, 
 
 But am beneficent. Minion of Fate, 
 
 I am the mausoleum of all things. 
 Stern and implacable sovereign of the dead, 
 
 But friend to him down-trampled in the strife, 
 
 I, shrouded, cryptic, through the darkness go 
 Silent for ever:' yet it hath been said 
 
 I lift the portals leading unto Life .... 
 
 And thou, at last, it may be thou shalt know.
 
 THE FAN 
 
 DEAR Lady, never was a gift more meet 
 Than yours this sultry day a palm-leaf fan. 
 The traveler journeying on from Karaman 
 To Cairo, southward, scarcely feels more heat 
 
 Than we at home, there the dark-sandaled feet 
 And the swart turbaned faces African 
 Scorch on the camels in the caravan, 
 While here, to-day, men drop upon the street 
 
 In curtained coolness of this quiet room, 
 
 With half-closed eyes, I lean back in my chair, 
 And slowly fanning, tread a land of dreams. 
 
 I seem to scent the Arabian roses' bloom ; 
 
 Soft gales of Ceylon reach me from her streams, 
 And Persian zephyrs stir the silent air. 
 
 54
 
 BELLONA 
 
 TO HENRYK SIENKIEWICZ 
 
 ROUND her the deafening cannon crashed and roared 
 'Mid sulphur smoke that blotted out the sky; 
 Upon the maimed she turned her gloating eye 
 And reveled where the red-beaked vultures gored. 
 
 Anear was seen the onset of a horde 
 
 Wading in slaughter 'mid heart-rending moans; 
 Gladly she heard from dying lips their groans, 
 And clenched, in reeking hands, her dripping sword. 
 
 Scarlet her sandals, saturate with the blood 
 
 That flowed from countless vassals and from kings; 
 Round her whirled dust of empires and of thrones; 
 
 While from her pyramid of human bones 
 
 "Havoc!" she screamed, and 'mid the carnage stood 
 Waving the horror of her crimson wings ! 
 
 55
 
 THE SONNET 
 
 STILL let a due reserve the Muse attend 
 
 Who threads the Sonnet's labyrinth. As some bell 
 That tolls for vespers in a twilight dell, 
 So in the octave, let her voice suspend 
 
 Her pomp of phrase. The sestet may ascend 
 Slowly triumphant, like an organ-swell 
 In opulent grandeur rising pause, and dwell 
 With gathering glories to its dolphin end: 
 
 So, oft at eve around the sunset doors, 
 
 From uppiled splendors of some crimsoned cloud 
 Storm-based with dark unrolling like a scroll 
 
 Forth the accumulated thunder pours 
 
 Across the listening valley long and loud, 
 With low reverberations, roll on roll! 
 
 56
 
 IN LEAF-DRIFTED AISLES 
 
 I LOVE "to linger on the hill-side brown 
 
 When all the verdure of the year is dead, 
 What time the sumac drops her darts of red, 
 With some dear friend, far from the noise of town; 
 
 And pacing slowly on the slopes, look down 
 Upon the dreamy islands that are wed 
 In bonds of blue together, while o'erhead 
 The glowing twilight settles as a crown. 
 
 Sweet as this is, yet I more dearly love, 
 Deep in the umber of the woodland ways, 
 Afar to wander, silent, and alone; 
 
 For ah! as through the dry leaves on I move, 
 I hear lost footsteps, loved in other days, 
 And voices touch me of the old sweet tone!
 
 AWAITING SUMMONS 
 
 FILLED with foreboding awe, beneath the trees 
 He waits the Voice. The seven seals of dread 
 Are set. No word of comfort may be said. 
 Above him e'en the gentle summer breeze 
 
 Brings apprehension, nor can hope appease, 
 As ever hangs above his conscious head 
 Held by a more attenuated thread 
 The horror of the sword of Damocles. 
 
 So one within a donjon hourly waits, 
 
 Doomed to the block, yet knowing not the day; 
 
 Hears unreturning prisoners leave their room, 
 And ominous uproar round the inner gates, 
 
 Yet still unsummoned, slowly wastes away 
 
 In dire anticipation of his doom.
 
 THE FADING LIGHT 
 
 THE dim aureola of the western glow 
 Lingers above the azure mountain rim, 
 And the sweet huntress, now a virgin slim, 
 Draws, in immortal fields, her silver bow, 
 
 Fair as in far Illyria long ago 
 In immemorial days divinely dim. 
 In lessening light the islands, glimmering, swim; 
 As twilight folds her pinions, soft and slow, 
 
 The gateways of the night begin to ope, 
 
 And through them throng as in a dazzling dream 
 The stars, that up the gentle evening slope 
 
 Through amaranthine meads of heliotrope 
 Tread on imperial, haughty and supreme, 
 Shod with those sandals of eternal beam.
 
 A DREARY DAY 
 
 FOR Autumn splendors now I search in vain; 
 The crimson thyrsus of the sumac bud, 
 And the haw's berries, dashed with Summer's blood, 
 Are dripping in the dull November rain. 
 
 No tasseled wigwams of the corn remain ; 
 
 The streams run yellow with the swollen flood, 
 And on the hill-side road the golden mud 
 Falls from the felloes of the laboring wain. 
 
 'Mid drizzling mist, upon its woodland perch 
 Where sombre pines are pointing to the skies, 
 Watched over by the quiet Quaker church, 
 
 With mounds unmarked the little grave-yard lies; 
 The only mourner there, the pendent birch, 
 Drops tears to-day above long-buried eyes. 
 
 60
 
 THE EMPTY HOUSE 
 
 STAND here, I pray you, at this iron gate 
 
 Beyond the house this gateway grim of stone ; 
 Dear as you are, let me go in alone 
 Among the ghostly chambers, where await 
 
 The sacred Presences, long called by fate 
 Beyond my touch, but not beyond the zone 
 Of sweet companionship. There is a tone 
 Of exquisite sadness in these halls sedate, 
 
 Unheard but by the heart. In upper rooms 
 I hear faint footfalls, silent for long years ; 
 Lost lips bend down anear me. Through the glooms 
 
 Loved faces throng the stairway, sweet with tears ; 
 And from the walls, where nothing now appears, 
 Each dim ancestral portrait looks and looms. 
 
 61
 
 THE PASSING OF THE QUEEN 
 1901 
 
 WHAT is the requiem heard upon the breeze 
 From the dark forests of Laurentian lands? 
 What note of mourning from the golden sands 
 Where Indus winds along the templed leas? . . . 
 
 "The Queen is dead! "the people's threnodies 
 Sound o'er the grieving world! Columbia stands 
 In heart-felt sorrow, as she joins her hands 
 With those who mourn by far Australian seas. 
 
 Peace to the Queen! Oh, new-born, may She meet 
 With long-lost faces! Through the endless days 
 Find youth again, find life, with love replete, 
 
 In amaranthine meadows where She strays 
 And hears celestial music, strangely sweet, 
 By the still waters and the lilied ways !
 
 TO THE NEW CENTURY 
 
 THE accursed rage for wealth, devoid of ruth, 
 Fumes in the breast of peoples and of kings: 
 Is this the guerdon that the Century brings 
 Insatiate avarice with relentless tooth ? 
 
 Where is the promise of the Nation's youth, 
 The dreams Icarian the auroral wings? 
 That earlier quest of immaterial things, 
 High principle, religion, honor, truth? 
 
 What shall relume our spiritual night 
 
 While brazen Progress, cloaking banal greed, 
 Crushes the soul 'neath her Mammonian car? 
 
 What dayspring rises for the Spirit's need? 
 What of the Soul's inviolable star? 
 Torch of the Years! is this thy vaunted Light? 
 
 63
 
 FEEDING THE PIGEONS 
 
 VENICE 
 
 SHE is a chrysolite ! her manners, too, 
 
 Are pure Venetian, haughty, yet endearing. 
 
 Didst ever see, my Claudio, such a bearing? 
 
 Just watch her as the pigeons round her woo 
 For more caresses, voice like some dove's coo, 
 
 And with that face so saint-like yet so daring 
 
 By Bacchus ! as you say here in your swearing, 
 
 She is as perfect as a drop of dew ! 
 Yet she is of the South the counterpart 
 
 Of vengeance with its hidden venomed dart . . . 
 
 Hush ! for the gargoyles hear ! . . . Though white as curds 
 That sweet soft hand the hand that feeds the birds 
 
 If you should hint about it certain words, 
 
 Would plunge its poisoned poniard through your heart. 
 
 64
 
 EVENING 
 
 'T is sweet at evening when the light of Mars 
 Glows softly earthward over vale and dune, 
 To saunter, solaced by the quiet tune 
 The evening sings with no discordant jars; 
 
 The cattle, dreaming, stand about the bars, 
 
 Where ripe wheat yellows all the hills of June, 
 
 What time the silver sickle of the moon 
 
 Reaps down, in golden swaths, the western stars. 
 
 The twilight to her purple caves has flown, 
 While dying thunders roll o'er dale and scar; 
 In the still pool the bittern sees the star, 
 
 And voices of the night begin to moan; 
 A single bell has ceased to toll afar, 
 And Silence listens, stiller than a stone. 
 
 65
 
 THE TRAVELERS 
 
 TO A CLASS OF GIRL-STUDENTS 
 
 How oft, at morn, from some lone Alpine door, 
 I watched the traveler toiling up the height, 
 His feet among the roses, but his sight 
 Fixed on the summits where the eagles soar. 
 'Steep was his path; thunderous the torrent's roar; 
 Upward he went with toil, yet with delight, 
 Until I lost him on the peaks of white, 
 And never in the lowland saw him more. 
 
 And from these dewy valleys, even so, 
 
 Long have we seen you scaling cliff and scar 
 Upon the Alps of Learning ; roses now 
 
 Bloom round you, yet, mount higher higher far, 
 Fair travelers ! pass the peaks, and onward go 
 Where knowledge, lustrous, leads you like a star.
 
 THE VOYAGERS 
 
 A REMINISCENCE OF THE ODYSSEY 
 
 THEY leave the Cyclops roaring in his cave, 
 Bereft of sight ; then to the marge they creep 
 And set their sails, and all the triremes sweep 
 Suddenly seaward on the luminous wave. 
 
 About the prows the lithesome mermaids lave 
 Star-crowned foreheads, while the slumbering deep 
 Heaves with the rocks hurled downward from the steep, 
 And at the galley bends the shackled slave. 
 
 The Auroran twilight, soft and silvery fair, 
 Spreads o'er the moving water silently, 
 Where dolphins sport upon the rolling swell ; 
 
 While, rising fulgent from the glimmering sea, 
 The Horses of the Morning paw the air, 
 And far away, a Triton winds his shell. 
 
 67
 
 THE CARYATIDES OF THE RUINED FANE 
 
 THEY SPEAK 
 
 ONLY the blue of Hellas still doth bend 
 Unchanged above; only the ancient seas 
 Murmur, at times, of fallen deities: 
 No suppliants at the altar hither wend; 
 
 No longer now the incense doth ascend 
 Lingering amid the sculpture in the frieze: 
 We bear our burden and the gods appease, 
 Saying to man, "Endure unto the end." 
 
 The Nations loom and fade : kings wax and wane : 
 Anchored and patient, here we stand alone 
 Eternal symbols, scorning still to swerve. 
 
 Time passes as a shadow: we remain 
 Immortal and immutable in stone, 
 More beautiful than beauty, as we serve.
 
 THE SPECTRE 
 
 As to some clock upon the dusky floor 
 Standing within the hall 'mid carven chairs, 
 Where, stately moving down the sumptuous stairs, 
 Funeral and bridal-train trooped by of yore 
 
 A stranger comes at night; opens its door 
 And stops the pendulum, and even dares 
 To mar the works, then through the darkness glares 
 And listens for the beating made before; 
 
 So, on some midnight when the house is still, 
 A Spectre, gliding with his furtive tread, 
 When I in slumber lie and fear no ill, 
 
 Shall stop this heart, and leaning down his head 
 Shall listen o'er my breast, and pause, until 
 No sound ensuing, he shall leave me dead.
 
 MILTON 
 
 His feet were shod with music, and had wings 
 
 Like Hermes ; far upon the peaks of song 
 
 His footfalls sounded silverly along; 
 
 The dull world blossomed into beauteous things 
 Where'er he trod ; and Heliconian springs 
 
 Gushed from the rocks he touched ; round him a throng 
 
 Of fair invisibles, seraphic, strong, 
 
 Struck Orphean murmurs out of golden strings; 
 But he, spreading keen pinions for a white 
 
 Immensity of radiance and of peace, 
 
 Uplooming to the empyreal infinite, 
 Far through ethereal fields and zenith seas, 
 
 High, with strong wing-beats and with eagle ease, 
 
 Soared in a solitude of glorious light ! 
 
 70
 
 PRODIGALS 
 
 As some crazed king upon a wild sea-shore 
 Takes from his coffers hoard of hidden gold, 
 His crown and sceptre, and his gems untold, 
 With all the royal orders which he wore, 
 
 And hurls them, one by one, into the roar 
 And hunger of the sea ; and then, when old, 
 Comes to his senses, shivers in the cold, 
 And mourns his kingdom's treasures evermore 
 
 So we, unwitting of the wealth of years, 
 
 Here by life's ocean fling away our gems 
 Sceptres of youth, and manhood's diadems; 
 
 Like fools we waste them with no future fears; 
 Reason returns, and us too late condemns 
 The beggared monarchs of a realm of tears! 
 
 71
 
 A LANDSCAPE BY REMBRANDT 
 
 AN ETCHING BY BURNET DEBAINES 
 
 A DRIFT of storm obscures the upper air, 
 And lower, glows a waste of dubious light; 
 It seems as if the legions of the night 
 Were slowly loosened from some cloudy lair. 
 
 Dim figures climb the winding cliff-path stair 
 And lose themselves in shadows which affright; 
 The gloom is ominous, and the inner sight 
 Sees half revealed spectres flitting there. 
 
 The sombre river lies as if asleep, 
 
 Save where the boatman with his vaporous oar 
 Troubles the waters. By the dusky shore 
 
 Two timid children stand alone and still; 
 
 While on the weird crest of the windy steep 
 Arise the white arms of the ghostly mill. 
 
 72
 
 ACROSS THE YEARS 
 
 THE old rememberable barn how gray 
 
 It loomed above the orchard and the spring! 
 The orchard where the robin used to sing, 
 Building his nest beneath the blossomed spray. 
 
 Where are the rose-bud maidens of that day? 
 Some, like the birds, afar have taken wing; 
 Some sleep below, but memories oft they bring 
 Faint as remembered odors of the hay. 
 
 Ah, yet once more across the shadowy years 
 
 She meets me in the gloaming! Down the lane 
 We hear the dropping of the pasture bars; 
 
 It is the trysting hour, and kindly stars 
 
 Bloom in the twilight trees . . . O Love ! O Tears ! 
 O Youth that was that will not come again! 
 
 73
 
 TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD 
 POET AND CRITIC 
 
 ON THB 74TH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH 
 
 O POET! while the Years in veiled array 
 As stately past the stern procession goes 
 Drop on thy head, at seventy-four, the snows, 
 Where once they placed the blossoms in thy May, 
 
 Let me unheeded Singer of to-day 
 
 Offer my tribute, with this mountain rose, 
 To one who is preeminent of those 
 That keep the Muse's temple from decay. 
 
 For Song's unpurchasable Knight thou art, 
 Who, with thy pen as with a sword of fire, 
 Guardest the sacred gates of Poesy ; 
 
 Therefore, O Master of the tender lyre, 
 Accept the homage which I bring to thee 
 With hope of long life from my heart of heart! 
 
 74
 
 THE BATTLE FIELD 
 
 GETTYSBURG 
 
 THOSE were the conquered, still too proud to yield 
 These were the victors, yet too poor for shrouds! 
 Here scarlet Slaughter slew her countless crowds 
 Heaped high in ranks where'er the hot guns pealed. 
 
 The brooks that wandered through the battle-field 
 Flowed slowly on in ever-reddening streams; 
 Here where the rank wheat waves and golden gleams, 
 The dreadful squadrons, thundering, charged and reeled. 
 
 Within the blossoming clover many a bone 
 Lying unsepulchred, has bleached to white; 
 While gentlest hearts that only love had known, 
 
 Have ached with anguish at the awful sight; 
 
 And War's gaunt Vultures that were lean, have grown 
 Gorged in the darkness in a single night! 
 
 75
 
 INDIAN SUMMER 
 
 How still the groves ! And has some silver flute 
 Ceased suddenly ? The Summer days are sped ; 
 The earth is quiet; and far overhead 
 All the blue altitudes of air are mute; 
 
 While those ^Eolian harps are destitute 
 Of music, for sweet Melody is dead, 
 And song to Silence in the woods is wed. 
 No longer now we hear the thrush salute 
 
 The laurels with soft-throated ecstasies. 
 
 Where Summer hummed with buzzing sound, we see 
 The straw-built hives, filled with immurmurous bees. 
 
 No sound is heard; but soft and tenderly, 
 Down the dim aisles of fading memory, 
 Drifts the deep plaint of countless threnodies.
 
 ISOLATION 
 
 I STOOD aside and watched the countless throng 
 Ascend the windings of the luminous street; 
 Lovers were there whose pure and saintly feet 
 Kept rhythmic measure as they wound along. 
 
 Glad groups of little children played among 
 The fadeless flowers ; Madonna-mothers sweet 
 Cooed o'er their babes; while from their golden seat 
 The harping choir sang some heavenly song. 
 
 In midst of these, enlaureled, but apart, 
 
 Dim forms moved slowly on and softly sighed 
 
 As though they searched for dreams beyond them flown : 
 
 The Poets they, who, each with aching heart, 
 Upon the earth had lonely lived and died, 
 And who, e'en there in heaven, seemed still alone. 
 
 77
 
 ANTONY IN EGYPT 
 
 No no, not death! my rapturous Queen, not death! 
 
 T is nature's error when two lovers die ; 
 
 As thy great heart in one wild ecstasy 
 
 Wells through these lips unto my soul, my breath 
 Burns with dark passion as it uttereth, 
 
 "Enough, Love's promised immortality! 
 
 Heaven is in mine arms, not in the sky, 
 
 O royal mate, when thou art there!" it saith. 
 Not death to-night ! Ah, Egypt, no not so ! 
 
 More life more love! not death more love instead! 
 
 Till we shall feel Love's burning flame impart 
 To plighted lips his full impassioned glow, 
 
 Yet, on the instant, should Love strike thee dead, 
 
 That instant would the dagger find my heart! 
 
 78
 
 THE BENEFACTOR 
 
 TO THE DISCOVERER OF ANESTHESIA 
 
 THOU, like to ^sculapius' shining sire, 
 That golden-tressed god the Delphian 
 Hast slain the serpent, and freed suffering man 
 From slow immitigable tortures dire. 
 
 No longer now, on Agony's dreaded pyre 
 Men writhe, since from our soil American 
 Thou cam'st, thou later Good Samaritan, 
 Whose legacy the days unborn shall choir! 
 
 So once that wise magician robbed by him 
 The injurious king of proud Parthenope 
 From his demesne drove torment with his wand; 
 
 So once the Son diviner paradigm 
 Spake softly his miraculous command 
 And drave the demons down into the sea! 
 
 79
 
 THE THRESHING-FLOOR 
 
 OFT may you see within some barn's wide door, 
 In winter underneath the snowy eaves, 
 A glowing depth of summer's opened sheaves, 
 And moving horses, tethered four and four, 
 
 Tramping in endless circles, o'er and o'er, 
 A seeming bootless task, as one believes; 
 Yet at the end, when day her work achieves, 
 Behold the yellow wheat upon the floor! 
 
 My soul, be thou contented, and full fain, 
 
 Though yearning for the boundless prairies sweet, 
 Still round life's circle trudge, with willing feet; 
 
 And from the sheaves of trial and of pain, 
 By patience strong and by endurance meet, 
 Tramp out, ere evening comes, the golden grain !
 
 FIAT LUX 
 
 THEN that dread angel near the awful throne, 
 Leaving the seraphs ranged in flaming tiers, 
 Winged his dark way through those unpinioned spheres, 
 And on the void's black beetling edge, alone, 
 
 Stood with raised wings, and listened for the tone 
 Of God's command to reach his eager ears, 
 While Chaos wavered, for she felt her years 
 Unsceptered now in that convulsive zone. 
 
 Night trembled. And as one hath oft beheld 
 A lamp within a vase light up its gloom, 
 So God's voice lighted him, from heel to plume : 
 
 "Let there be light!" It said, and Darkness, quelled, 
 Shrunk noiseless backward in her monstrous womb 
 Through vasts unwinnowed by the wings of eld! 
 
 81
 
 NICARAGUA 
 
 PROPOSED ROUTE OF THE ISTHMIAN CANAI,, 1900 
 
 I, LAKE of Nicaragua, lifted here 
 
 High on the mountains from my sister seas, 
 Have yet a yearning to be joined to these, 
 And feel at last my reunition near. 
 
 Far off arise and echo, silver clear, 
 
 Clarions of Hope ; and on the island-leas 
 
 Hymns of return hum through my tropic trees, 
 
 O day so long desired, soon appear! 
 
 Then many a ship that floats the stripes and stars 
 May cross my waters as with angel wings 
 Grain-laden for the famine-stricken East; 
 
 But battle- squadrons, bent on bloody wars, 
 
 Shall come, alas, the while that senseless Beast 
 Ramps in the heart of Peoples and of Kings. 
 
 82
 
 THE STORM-CLOUDS 
 
 IN MEMORY OF SAMUEI, S. HAI.DEMAN, U,. D. 
 
 I STAND beside the River as the night 
 Unrolls her sombre curtain o'er the day; 
 The pyres within the west have paled away 
 And only left their embers, dimly bright, 
 
 To illume the sullen hill-top's purple height; 
 Then, from behind the crags, the clouds of gray- 
 A troop of lions held too long at bay 
 Arise from out their antres in their might, 
 
 And low along the mountain ridges prowl, 
 Tossing their shaggy manes with lordly roar ; 
 While, by the lash of lightning still uncowed, 
 
 They, raging and rebellious, long and loud, 
 Send many an angry and deep-throated growl 
 Rumbling along the caverns of the shore!
 
 OCTOBER DAYS 
 
 'T is sweet to roam within the tinted woods, 
 To tread the crimson carpet of its floor ; 
 To hear the song, and let the silence pour, 
 Within the soul, entrancing interludes ; 
 
 To wade through plumy ferns in listless moods, 
 And find the wild grape on the sycamore 
 In bloomy clusters; sweeter still to explore 
 Brown paths that tend to umber solitudes; 
 
 To see the scarlet quinquefolia crawl 
 
 O'er rock and tree, shedding her splendor round 
 Dreamful to lie on banks of mosses browned 
 
 Listening the partridge pipe her liquid call; 
 To watch the goldfinch on the thistle-ball, 
 And hear, from hill-tops dim, the baying hound. 
 
 84
 
 OPENING OF THE URNS 
 
 ALONG the reaches of the sunset sea 
 A* troop of winged Spirits, mystic, fair, 
 Dim as the clouds and dreamy as the air, 
 Fluttered from out the twilight down to me: 
 
 "The golden vases which we brought to thee, 
 Time after time before thy brow with care 
 Was seamed, and too, since thou hast known despair 
 Hast thou worked out with them thy destiny? 
 
 In the past days that long have vanished, 
 
 What hast thou filled them with?" they softly said. 
 And I replied, not without shame and fears, 
 
 "Ah, Fate has filled them for me, through the years; 
 Lo ! Open them, and look ! " and bowed my head. . . . 
 "Alas!" they sighed, "these urns are full of tears!" 
 
 85
 
 A SERVANT UNABLE TO READ 
 
 WITH what a wonder born of mystery 
 She lifts the books, and reverently grave, 
 Moves 'mid these voiceless oracles; how brave 
 She bears that doom which naught can mollify. 
 
 With longing eyes, perhaps with yearnings high, 
 She turns the fervid pages Shakespeare gave 
 To all, it seems, but her, who was a slave, 
 And never sees a book without a sigh. 
 
 Justice is God's ! . . . Let not her heart rebel ; 
 
 For Knowledge, like that flower which blooms at night, 
 May burst at last full-blossomed on her sight; 
 
 And they, who here forsooth, seem learned and wise, 
 May wait without the walls of Paradise, 
 The while she enters in through serving well.
 
 IN BONDAGE 
 
 Man is a Dream of Shadows. PINDAR 
 
 IF speechless through the shadowy vale we stray, 
 Reft of the afflatus of the sacred Nine; 
 If mute, in joy or suffering we resign 
 The dirge to others, and the roundelay, 
 
 It will not, Friend, be ordered so alway, 
 For lips can be unlocked by touch divine ; 
 E'en Memnon's image by the palm and pine 
 Sang in the desert at the dawn of day. 
 
 I feel the Spirit call me from afar; 
 
 And if in silence now these steps I wend, 
 This forced aphonia may not last for long ; 
 
 Not here, indeed, but in some fairer star, 
 Fed from immortal rills, I hope to end 
 A life ineloquent, with affluent Song. 
 
 87
 
 REMBRANDT VAN RHYN 
 
 Low, avaricious, mean, thou wert, they tell, 
 
 Rembrandt ! thy inner life they vilify. 
 
 Do thorns grow figs? Can truth spring from a lie? 
 
 The tenderness of Dante rather fell 
 Upon thy sorrowing soul, I know full well, 
 
 Else the sad angel looking through the eye 
 
 Of those old portraits thou couldst not descry, 
 
 Diviner of the supernatural ! 
 Master of light, and color's crowned king, 
 
 O Painter of the glory and the gloom, 
 
 Wizard of luminous dark of glow of bloom, 
 Poet profound, who wore the unseen wing, 
 
 Thrower of splendors round the meanest thing, 
 
 With thee, thy mantle fell within the tomb!
 
 THE SHIP 
 
 I LAY at Delos of the Cyclades, 
 
 At evening, on a cape of golden land; 
 
 The blind Bard's book was open in my hand, 
 
 There where the Cyclops makes the Odyssey's 
 
 Calm pages tremble as Odysseus flees. 
 Then, stately, like a vision o'er the sand, 
 A phantom ship across the sunset strand 
 Rose out of dreams and clave the purple seas; 
 
 Straight on that city's bastions did she run 
 Whose toppling turrets on their donjons hold 
 Bells that to mortal ears have never tolled 
 
 Then drifted down the gateway of the sun 
 With fading pennon and with gonfalon, 
 And dropped her anchor in the pools of gold.
 
 LA PRIMAVRA 
 
 AT morning when the year is young and pale, 
 While yet the azure of the trembling skies 
 Is tender as the blue within the eyes 
 Of some sweet child; when in the quiet vale 
 
 About the feet, and in the far-off dale, 
 
 Close to the pool the earliest swallow flies ; 
 When down within the dell the dim haze lies 
 And dreams; when from the thicket near, the quail 
 
 Pipes to his mate ; and the brown sparrow sings 
 As if his soul were in his rapturous trills; 
 Then the fair goddess with her gauzy wings 
 
 Paces the mead serenely, toward the hills. 
 
 It is the Spring come back again, who brings 
 Hope to the heart amid her daffodils. 
 
 90
 
 AN ELEGY 
 
 IMMORTAL laurel of no growth terrene, 
 
 Gather, ye Muses, in Olympian air; 
 
 'T is for a shepherd, loved of Pan, to wear ; 
 
 Behold him lying on the headland green 
 That juts above the sea in this demesne, 
 
 As still as sculptured marble, and as fair. 
 
 Ye will not wake him if ye crown him there; 
 
 Wreathe him the while he seems to sleep serene. 
 The syrinx now lies useless by his head . . . 
 
 Was that a sigh within the cypress near? 
 
 Oh, soft, ye Muses ! softly round him tread, 
 Bring all your late reluctant garlands here; 
 
 Relax your haughty mien ; ye need not fear 
 
 To crown this Dorian now for he is dead! 
 
 91
 
 THE SPIRIT 
 
 THRIDDING the outer bulwarks in a light 
 
 Less lucent than mid-Heaven's refulgent glow, 
 I marked a Spirit coming, whom to know 
 Baffled recall. It seemed as if some blight 
 
 Of earthly memory had not left him quite 
 As if vague recollection still did throw 
 A shadow o'er his bliss, who, moving slow 
 Through airy regions, neared my curious sight: 
 
 Compassion locked my lips, nor asked the cause 
 Of his paled happiness, and he withdrew 
 To leave me wondering what dim Spirit it was: 
 
 I felt, "Not blest is he as Angels are;" 
 
 Then I recalled, on feet and hands, the scar, 
 Remembered Christ's last promise, and I knew. 
 
 92
 
 AFTER SEVERANCE 
 
 So all the vows of friendship which we swore 
 Are broke, and we estranged, at distance stand. 
 Across the chasm is stretched no beckoning hand 
 Of reconciliation. Now, no "more 
 
 We hold sweet talk of books and poets' lore; 
 The current of a discord, cold, austere, 
 Widens between us, year by bitter year, 
 And each drifts further from the other's door. 
 
 Thus some wide summer river that of yore 
 Floated the lover to his mistress dear 
 Across the sunset waters, now with snows 
 
 Engorged, rough-packed with jagged ice-wastes drear, 
 Barriers the way, nor intercourse allows 
 From incommunicable shore to shore.
 
 A TUSCAN PASTORAL 
 
 A PAINTING BY CLAUDE 
 
 THE russet levels of Italian leas 
 
 Reach far away to where the mountain clips 
 The quiet vale. Anear, the streamlet dips 
 Purling beside us. Vine-enwreathed trees 
 
 Rise, till their tops might hail the midland seas ; 
 And now a kid within their shadow skips 
 Near the recumbent goat that slowly nips 
 The thymy pasture as it lies at ease. 
 
 The brooklet falls in foam; a cooling breeze 
 Calls to the kine to quit the scorching noon 
 And plash in shallows where the leader sips ; 
 
 The dreamy goatherd, stretching sun-browned knees, 
 Leans from the bank and listens to the tune 
 The sliding syrinx wakes -along his lips.
 
 FOR A STATUE 
 
 PARAPHRASE FROM THEOCRITUS 
 
 THOU Traveler, here beneath the cypress stay 
 And view the statue of this bard of old, 
 Archilochus the Poet, virile, bold, 
 The maker of the strong iambic lay. 
 
 His fame hath blown from portals of the day 
 Clear to the far Hesperian gates of gold; 
 The themes he glorified were manifold, 
 And over mortals held he marvelous sway. 
 
 The Muses heard, and after loved him long, 
 For wondrous were his winged words of fire, 
 And Hellas, listening, gave the singer cheer; 
 
 Such genius had he in creating Song 
 
 That when he chanted to his stirring lyre 
 Apollo ceased, those golden strains to hear!
 
 THE SPIRIT OF POESY 
 
 NOT the close friendship of the closest friends; 
 Not wealth descending on her golden wings; 
 Titles nor honor, no ephemeral things, 
 Can, for the lack of her, e'er make amends. 
 
 She will not stoop to sublunary ends, 
 
 Nor touch the baubles which the base world brings 
 Her song unpurchasable, still she sings, 
 And all her soul upon the singing spends. 
 
 She treads her constellated paths alone, 
 Sandaled with starry aspirations bright, 
 Beyond the visions of this world how far! 
 
 Sadly she sits upon her dazzling throne 
 In fading splendor, like a lingering star 
 That pales at sunrise in the wastes of light! 
 
 96
 
 THE FIELDS OF QUIET 
 
 "SPIRIT, whose wings, unruffled, ever seem 
 Folded in calm across thy peaceful breast, 
 Who waitest near the Throne within the West, 
 Where are the Quiet Fields of which we dream ? 
 
 Lie they along that molten-golden stream 
 
 That flows at eve above yon mountain crest? 
 Are they the vales reclusive, named of Rest, 
 That through the opal gateways faintly gleam?" 
 
 And then a voice in faint seraphic strain 
 
 Came drifting downward on the twilight breath, 
 From realms unseen beyond the vesper sky: 
 
 "The Fields of Quiet, here ye seek in vain ; 
 Within the Dark those ashen regions lie, 
 Deep in the , kingdoms of the Monarch, Death ! " 
 
 97
 
 TRANSMUTATION 
 
 SOUTHWARD from India's spired citadel, 
 
 Where all the Orient wafts her odorous breeze 
 Along the reaches of Ceylonian seas 
 Beyond her beds of coral, there doth dwell 
 
 A jewel-making mollusk. In its shell 
 
 When atoms enter, then, the pain to ease, 
 Slowly it coats with nacre each of these, 
 Producing pearls that scarce have parallel. 
 
 Ah, 9 me ! all sufferings and all ecstasies 
 
 Of grief which to the Singer still belong 
 Heart-lacerations and the vortex-swirls 
 
 Of passion are by him, through agonies 
 Of spirit, turned at length to lyric *pearls 
 Transmuted by the alchemy of song.
 
 "NOW LIKE A RED LEAF" 
 
 IN youth how slowly passed the golden day ! 
 As if upon the stillness of some brook 
 You threw a rose-leaf, and the rose-leaf took 
 Its own sweet time to loiter to the bay; 
 
 The lark sang always ; life was endless play ; 
 We lived on nectar from a poet's book; 
 Drifting along by many a sunny nook, 
 Little we cared it would be ever May ! 
 
 Now, like a red leaf on the autumnal stream 
 That cannot steer nor stop that cannot sink 
 Swiftly I glide. As in some fateful dream 
 
 There is no time to pause no time to think ; 
 The cataract roars I see the white foam gleam 
 Within the gorge it draws me to the brink!
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND 
 
 As some stray carrier-pigeon onward hies 
 O'er alien spire and dim cathedral dome, 
 With weakening pinions that reluctant roam 
 Athwart the blank, inhospitable skies ; 
 
 Famished and faint, with eager, yearning eyes, 
 Whirled by the wind above the mad sea-foam, 
 Till, at the last outworn, he gains his home, 
 Falls at his mistress' feet, content, and dies: 
 
 So unto thee, sweet Mother of all Song, 
 Weak and full weary with world-wanderings, 
 We wing the trackless deserts of our sky; 
 
 Truant to thee, O Poesy, too long, 
 
 We reach thy feet at last with bleeding wings, 
 And fain would nestle near thy heart to die ! 
 
 100
 
 THOUGH MAY HAS COME 
 
 WHEN o'er the mead the jonquil-trumpet blows, 
 Spring sounds once more her soft exultant strain;. 
 Between the golden showers of the rain 
 I hear her laughter where the brooklet flows. 
 
 Beside her path the earliest crocus grows, 
 And daffodils go dancing in her train ; 
 Along green slopes within the country lane 
 She bends to greet the budding of the rose. 
 
 Ah yes, long-wished-for May at last I see, 
 With all her blossoms and with all her blue, 
 And gladly from December do I part; 
 
 And yet, Dear Love, it is not May with me, 
 For till the violet brings a sight of you 
 Still is it Winter in my lonely heart! 
 
 101
 
 FROM THE FOOT OF OLYMPUS 
 
 STILL doth Alpheus murmur as he flows 
 
 By myrtled banks, where floats the rich perfume 
 Of orange-blossoms clustered in the gloom 
 Of hidden glens. Lonely the traveler goes 
 
 Girt with cloud-shadows. By the mountain close 
 Flocks nip the sward the Judas-trees illume 
 With bending branches of purpureal bloom ; 
 And scarlet in the gullies flames the rose. 
 
 No sound of Satyr nor Bacchante here, 
 Pandean pipe nor purl of reedy oat, 
 Nor, as of old, the clanging cymbals' cheer, 
 
 While the mute herdsman, on the steep, remote, 
 Lagging behind the slowly-browsing goat, 
 Seems but a shadow on the upland drear. 
 
 102
 
 "LOVE AND LIFE" 
 
 A PAINTING BY G. F. WATTS, R.A. 
 
 SUFFERING and weak, what ill has come to thee 
 O piteous Life? Up what bloom-barren slope 
 Cam'st thou, so desolately fair, to grope 
 Thy perilous way in unvoiced agony? 
 
 Behold, Love pleads ! Oh, listen to his plea ! 
 Be lifted where thy spirit doth aspire, 
 For thou hast reached the rose of thy desire 
 Love leading Life from Infelicity. 
 
 O innocent One, masking thy grievous wound 
 In touching silence, who shall dare to tell 
 The yearning pain the bitterness profound 
 
 Of tremulous hope that looks through longing eyes 
 Made sadder by that smile ineffable, 
 And pathos of thine inarticulate cries? 
 
 103
 
 UPON THE HEARTH 
 
 A TREE will prove a blessing all life long; 
 
 From birth to death it brings us naught but good; 
 
 The shade will make a pleasant solitude 
 
 For one who lies and dreams the grass among ; 
 
 What golden globes upon the limbs are hung 
 In summer ! and when dead, the burning wood 
 Will foster sweetness in the poet's mood, 
 Hum on his hearth, and help his sylvan song. 
 
 Its death is like the day's, for still it throws 
 A lingering light roseate around our rooms, 
 As slow the fire its last of life consumes ; 
 
 Then sinks to embers like the sunset snows, 
 And dying, even in its ashes, glows 
 With bright remembrance of the spring-time blooms. 
 
 104
 
 THE EVENING COMES 
 
 THE evening comes : the boatman lifts the net, 
 Poles his canoe and leaves it on the shore; 
 So low the stream he does not use the oar; 
 The umber rocks rise like a parapet 
 
 Up through the purple and the violet, 
 And the faint-heard and never-ending roar 
 Of moving waters lessens more and more, 
 While each vague object looms a silhouette. 
 
 The light is going; but low overhead 
 Poises the glory of the evening star; 
 The fisher, silent on the rocky bar, 
 
 Drops a still line in pools of fading red; 
 
 And in the sky, where all the day lies dead, 
 Slowly the golden crescent sinks afar. 
 
 105
 
 THE QUEEN OF THE TIDES 
 
 SHE moves through heaven as the home of light, 
 Seeming a world beyond our own more blessed; 
 And when her silver shallop seeks the West, 
 Fain would we follow to her regions bright. 
 
 But she hath yawns of Darkness, black as night; 
 Riverless canyons ; sulphurous gulphs unguessed ; 
 And o'er her monstrous crater's lava crest 
 Never a cloud hath poised its fleecy white. 
 
 No flower is there; no grave, no gracious sod; 
 No blessed rain within those vales of stone; 
 She seems some incompleted thought of God; 
 
 And on that pallid orb as on a throne 
 
 Where no created thing perchance hath trod 
 Eternal Silence sits and broods alone. 
 
 106
 
 TO AN OLD LABORER 
 
 ON looking from the window to the street 
 Each eve is seen an old man trudging by, 
 Infirm and poor, with body bent awry, 
 And head bowed forward toward his tired feet. 
 
 Black with the dust, and sweltering with the heat- 
 Shoveling the coals each day incessantly 
 He never looks from pavement to the sky, 
 Nor any of the passers does he greet. 
 
 Thus every eve through sunshine or through sleet, 
 He may be seen, as slow he shuffles nigh : 
 Brave heart! let me salute you, as is meet; 
 
 We both are of the toilers, you and I, 
 
 You've fought for seventy years against defeat, 
 Now victory's near for some day you will die ! 
 
 107
 
 THE YOUNG EMBALMER 
 
 ANCIENT EGYPT 
 
 THE crypt was still, vine-shaded from the heat; 
 On the black marble lay the Maiden, dead, 
 Naked and brown, a lotus at her head, 
 The pale embalmer trembling at her feet. 
 
 He washed her heart in palm-wine, as was meet, 
 And' in the empty body deftly spread 
 Arabian nards, that heavy fragrance shed, 
 With myrrhy spices and the mystic wheat. 
 
 Sombre, at hand, stood the Canopian jars; 
 
 Touching her brow and holding back his tears, 
 He nerved his soul, and took her beauteous eyes 
 
 Each from its hollow dull lack-lustre stars 
 
 Once bright with love and 'mid low stifled sighs, 
 Placed in their sockets the obsidian spheres. 
 
 108
 
 MARGIN OF SWATARA 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 How silvery through the meadows parched and sere, 
 The limpid brook ran purling on its way ! 
 On either side we walked, the runnel clear 
 Kept our hands parted on that heavenly day. 
 
 You warbled, as we strolled, a careless lay 
 As blithesome as the bird, that rising near, 
 Trilled his rapt lyric in the blue of May, 
 'T was Love that made him sweetly carol, Dear ! 
 
 Ah, me ! once more across the years I seem 
 Once more with you to tread the summer air, 
 Watching the sunlight kiss your lustrous hair; 
 
 O Time ! give back again that golden dream 
 
 My Sweetheart, lost, long lost, who with me there 
 Rambled for lilies by the Indian stream ! 
 
 109
 
 WINGS OF THE MORNING 
 ii 
 
 YEA, I will build a tower on every crest 
 
 Where we two stood together in love's pride, 
 
 So that the River, flowing grandly wide, 
 
 May still remember where your feet have pressed! 
 
 These peaks shall not forget you, but attest 
 Your beauty on the mountains, and the tide 
 Where the bent currents near the boulders glide 
 Murmur of you when crimsoned by the West. 
 
 The wild swans, flying south, shall swerve more low 
 And by these landmarks reach the reedy sea ; 
 The eagle near shall poise in azure air; 
 
 Men now unborn, and maidens yet to be, 
 Seeing your memory coronated so, 
 Shall feel your loveliness and my despair! 
 
 no
 
 THE LILY OF DAWN 
 
 in 
 
 WHERE are you now for years have o'er us flown 
 Since last I touched the flower of your hand? 
 To what luxurious creature have you grown ? 
 Who bow before you in that foreign land? 
 
 Steeped in the languor of an orient strand, 
 Lulled by the odor of spice-laden breeze, 
 The dusky turbans move at your command 
 By palmy reaches of Ceylonian seas : 
 
 But when the crimson-arrowed evening falls 
 On minaret and many a gilded dome 
 Touching with splendor the white palace walls, 
 
 O pine you not for those enraptured days, 
 Yearning to walk again the blissful ways 
 Made dear by Love before you left your home? 
 
 ill
 
 "THESE WASTE THE SPIRIT" 
 
 LIKE to a pebble lying on the shore, 
 So is our life that for a space abides; 
 The dominant sea* o'errules us and o'errides, 
 Wearing each day a little from our store. 
 
 We rest resigned ; we listen to the roar, 
 And bear the slow abrasion of the tides; 
 While still with its irrevocable strides 
 Tramples the sea upon us evermore. 
 
 The unending friction of the night and day ; 
 And e'en the slow corrosion of our glee ; 
 The thunderous breakers capped with agony,- 
 
 These waste the spirit, as they sap the clay, 
 Until at last we're slowly worn away, 
 Gulfed in that dark, unfathomable sea. 
 
 112
 
 THE END OF EREBUS 
 
 As on the cliff's Cimmerian ridge I bent, 
 Precipitously steep, below the scaur, 
 Down down the abysm's perpendicular, 
 I listened for the rock my feet had sent 
 
 Thundering, to strike some bottom ; but it went 
 Noiseless into the nadir, as a star 
 Darkened by God in anger, from afar 
 Drops black into the gulphs ignipotent. 
 
 A voice swept past. The Pit below me brake 
 Into one crimsoned cauldron, and the glooms, 
 And all the heated peaks, began to take 
 
 The dye of dread vermilion ; for the wombs 
 Of hell belched upward, and I saw the quake 
 And frantic winnowings of a billion plumes. 
 
 113
 
 TO A YOUNG MAID 
 
 THOU bidd'st me speak of Love, and thou a girl, 
 A dove-like maiden, innocently sweet, 
 Whose gentle, duteous, and well-mothered feet 
 Know not the primrose path, nor the red whirl 
 
 Of passion's vortex. Thou art still a pearl 
 Ungathered and unworn. It were not meet 
 That I should call the dark winds of deceit 
 To waft my ship of words, so speech must furl 
 
 Her saif, and anchor here. Some tongue, not mine, 
 Shall tell thee later, sweet one ! what love is ; 
 Some lips, alas, not these, teach thee the bliss. 
 
 Long may that vestal nimbus which is thine, 
 Circle thee round unsullied by Love's kiss 
 And angel Innocence, more than half divine ! 
 
 114
 
 THE FIRST HOAR-FROST 
 
 TO A POET 
 
 THE meads to-day are white with rime, no mirth 
 Comes from the leafless thicket on the hill 
 Where birds once choired; and along the rill, 
 Ice-bound, no rippling music, but a dearth 
 
 Of cheer on this the day of Winter's birth; 
 
 Yet while the frosts the dormant wheat-fields fill, 
 We know that warmly beats, beneath the chill, 
 The unextinguishable pulse of Earth. 
 
 And though your life's December spreads its gray, 
 Lightly, in this first frost, within your hair, 
 Your spirit soars a falcon, now, in sooth, 
 
 More eager for the zenith, and her prey. 
 
 Why count the years while in our breast we bear 
 The bard's unalterable heart of Youth! 
 
 115
 
 THE CLOSE OF DAY 
 
 THE sun is gently sinking down the sky, 
 And all the air is growing hushed and still; 
 A tinge of rose has touched the purple hill 
 Where slow the silver river murmurs by. 
 
 The busy day has run the head-race dry; 
 The wheel rests, unrevolving, by the mill, 
 Where, like an amber thread, the dwindled rill 
 Slips past the ripening slopes of yellow rye. 
 
 As yet the fish is sun-tipped on the vane, 
 
 Though cottage lamps are lit beneath the boughs 
 At rest within the furrow, stand the plows, 
 
 And homeward o'er the hill-top goes the wain ; 
 While in a dusty glory all the cows 
 Come winding, slowly, up the golden lane. 
 
 lie
 
 "AH, TELL ME NOT" 
 
 AH, tell me not that passionate words of mine 
 Shall vanish from the world and fade away; 
 That these strong dreams which haunt me night and day, 
 Wrought into song, shall with my sun decline ! 
 
 Will not some poet, pacing by the brine, 
 
 Repeat these words to keep them from decay? 
 
 Or but the tone of one elusive lay 
 
 That I have sung, deep in his heart enshrine? 
 
 Or some fond lover, who is yet unborn, 
 Wandering about the reaches of the sea, 
 Sick of the world and filled with softened scorn, 
 
 Will he not read one line and think of me 
 And softly sigh, "What hidden grief had he 
 This Poet dead whose soul was so forlorn ? " 
 
 117
 
 TO BYRON 
 
 HE with a strenuous voice of vibrant tone, 
 ^Eolian in its sweep and majesty, 
 Untrammeled as the heavens, and as free, 
 In passionate throbbings from his bosom's throne 
 
 Flung Song from the /Egean's classic zone 
 Sublime in its impetuosity, 
 Like to the voice of the eternal sea 
 Filled with a wild unfathomable moan. 
 
 O Dust! far from the Minster by the Thames, 
 Reft of the oriel and the organ roll, 
 Unniched among thy land's illustrious names, 
 
 Where is he, living, who can touch thy goal? 
 Whose words, as thine, within the file of Fame's 
 Resplendent troop, so melt, so move the soul! 
 
 118
 
 THE JOURNEY 
 
 MY path lay through a valley white as lime 
 
 In sunlight. The long grasses looked as though 
 Covered with frost or thinnest coat of snow. 
 The trees were alabaster yet the time 
 
 Was Summer up their trunks did crawl and climb 
 Ivy, like marble and bleached mistletoe; 
 And while I mused, the semblance of a crow 
 Flew near, and whispered something to a Mime 
 
 Who beckoned me to follow up the glen : 
 I followed through interminable glooms 
 Of white, up to an eminence of tombs 
 
 As thick as snow-flakes on the hills, and then 
 A wind arose, and dust of buried men 
 Blew round such blackness as no light illumes. 
 
 119
 
 EURYDICE 
 
 THE eve was quiet, with no airs to fan 
 
 The silent rushes round the milk-white knees 
 Of the lone Naiad ; nor the faintest breeze 
 To stir still pools. There on the marge began 
 
 The print of sandals, faint, that onward ran 
 Those love-lorn foot-marks were Eurydice's. 
 She listened, as within the Cyclades 
 One listens to the sea cerulean. 
 
 Pale clouds lay on the stream and changed to red 
 A fear came to her, and her quick pulse beat ; 
 The heart of silence ached so that it bled ; 
 
 When through the laurel hot, pursuing, fleet 
 Rushed Aristaeus, and she turned and fled, 
 Nor heard the hissing adder at her feet. 
 
 120
 
 THE SILENCE AFTER ORPHEUS' DEATH 
 
 IT was the sweetest silence ever fell 
 
 Upon the ear of earth. Not the profound 
 Dark deeps of air which tremble and resound 
 When seraphim have ceased; nor far-off swell 
 
 Of seas that break on shores of asphodel, 
 And leave a stillness panting all around 
 With the remembered music of the sound ; 
 Not when some faint and spiritual bell 
 
 Tolled in the memory, ceases ; not the star 
 That throbs itself to darkness in the sky, 
 Leaving a void softer than voices are, 
 
 Not these were sweet as silence with her sigh 
 Around the head of Orpheus, floating far, ' 
 When Bacchic revelers stopped his melody. 
 
 121
 
 THE LAST SONG OF ORPHEUS 
 
 THAT silence ceased ; and on the golden shore, 
 The Thracian women, sanguine-handed, heard 
 Song from the River sweeter than the bird 
 That takes the night with rapture, or of yore, 
 
 Orpheus himself had sung. And more and more 
 It grew, and gathered to one lucent word, 
 So piteous-sweet, no pen could e'er record 
 Such honeyed sound as then began to soar. 
 
 The satyr pricked his goat-ears, wonderingly, 
 And dropped, atween his hoofs, his pipe of oat. 
 Bird, fish, and grove, moved to the melody 
 
 For the last time. On Hebrus, far afloat, 
 The soul of Orpheus, in one dulcet note 
 Passed, as his dead lips sang, Eu-ryd-i-ce! 
 
 Till listening mermaids in the ^Egean sea 
 
 Drew down the head, and sang with silver throat, 
 On rocks, and in sea-caves, the self-same note, 
 Eu-ryd-i-ce ! . . . . Eu-ryd-i-ce ! 
 122
 
 THESEUS AND ARIADNE 
 
 AX NAXOS 
 
 Thes. NAY, I have loved thee! 
 
 Ari. Thou hast loved, didst say? 
 
 Thes. I loved thee well at Crete. 
 
 Ari. Lov'st me no more? 
 
 Thes. Ah ! who can hold the wave upon the shore ? 
 
 Ari. Thou, if thou wouldst; and oh, is that the way 
 
 Thou speak'st to me, who gave thee, on that day 
 
 My flower of life? 
 
 Thes. There waits my sail and oar! 
 
 Ari. Did I not save thee from the Minotaur, 
 
 And wilt thou leave me? 
 Thes. Who can make love stay? 
 
 Wax is my heart, and takes full easily 
 
 The last print on 't. Past love is past recall. 
 
 Adieu ! . . . Love has the helm he guides not we. 
 Ari. Beloved Traitor! may thy black sail pall 
 
 Deep in the brine, thee, and thy' maidens all ! . . 
 
 Ye gods ! he leaves me and my babe to be ! 
 
 123
 
 IF THOU WOULDST COME 
 
 THAT day He stilled the tempest, and on land 
 Drave out the spirits. He was filled with power 
 And pity. Jairus said, "O Lord, my flower 
 My rose my daughter dies; do Thou demand 
 
 She live, and it shall be." One there at hand 
 Spake out, "She is already dead." . . . That hour 
 From Galilee, by many a palm and tower, 
 He came, and she arose at His command. 
 
 Were I to be within earth's darksome deeps 
 A thousand years, commingled with the clay, 
 I should not feel to-night as one who weeps, 
 
 If I could know, dear Lord, in that far day 
 
 Thou'dst come, and to the slumbering ashes say, 
 "Awake! arise! He is not dead, but sleeps." 
 
 124
 
 TO THE MILKWEED 
 
 NONE call thee flower! ... I will not so malign 
 The satin softness of thy plumed seed, 
 Nor so profane thee as to call thee weed, 
 Thou tuft of ermine down, fit to entwine 
 
 About a queen ; or fitter still, to line 
 
 The nest of birds of strange exotic breed. 
 The orient cunning and the somnolent speed 
 Of looms of Ind weave not a silk so fine. 
 
 Ah, could but he who in these pages sings, 
 On such adventurous and aerial wings 
 Far over lands and undiscovered seas 
 
 Waft the dark seeds of his imaginings, 
 
 That, flowering, some might say, Lo! look on these 
 Wild Weeds of Song not all ungracious things! 
 
 125
 
 THE FIELDS OF DAWN 
 
 Rambles of a Youth and Maid as Comrades
 
 THE FIELDS OF DAWN 
 
 THE FOREST PATH 
 I 
 
 AMONG the maple-buds we heard the tones 
 Of April's earliest bees, although the days 
 Seemed ruled by Mars. The veil of gathering haze 
 Spread round the silent hills in bluest zones. 
 
 Deep in the pines the breezes stirred the cones, 
 As on we strolled within the wooded ways, 
 There where the brook, transilient, softly plays 
 With muffled plectrum on her harp of stones; 
 
 Onward we pushed amid the yielding green 
 And light rebounding of the cedar boughs, 
 Until we heard the forest lanes along, 
 
 Above the lingering drift of latest snows 
 The Thrush outpour, from covert still unseen, 
 His rare ebulliency of liquid song! 
 
 129
 
 RELUCTANT SPRING 
 ii 
 
 VANISHED again, all heralds of the Spring! 
 The rath song-sparrow, yesternoon that shook 
 The elder with his lay, these dells forsook 
 Leaving no echo of his voice or wing, 
 
 And now in warmer glens is carolling. 
 Above the muffled bubble of the brook 
 We hear a bird-like sound, but when we look, 
 T is but the withered beech-leaves' twittering. 
 
 Silence is in the dale a waiting hush 
 As if the very hill-side listens too 
 That it may hear the birds their song renew; 
 
 While in the thicket's briery underbrush, 
 
 Where last year sang the unrivaled hermit-thrush, 
 The Raspberry bends her bows of palest blue. 
 
 130
 
 THE FEATHERED CHOIR 
 in 
 
 As chilling airs grew balmy once again, 
 Within the forest from a leafless spray 
 Some timorous songster tried his earliest lay, 
 For Spring was coyly coming up the glen. 
 
 The cardinal flashed by within our ken 
 
 A winged rose where all the groves were gray; 
 And like a flash of April came the jay, 
 While captious in the tangle chafed the wren. 
 
 But the brown-sparrow on the alder-tree, 
 Outrivaling better warblers of the wood, 
 Forced our applause by bursts of ecstasy; 
 
 As at Olympia once, dwarf Zenocles, 
 Amid the plaudits of the multitude, 
 Won the wreathed olive from Euripides. 
 
 131
 
 APRIL FROM THE LAWN 
 
 IV 
 
 IN the wild sky the lakes of shifting blue 
 
 Were, by wind-harried clouds, revealed or blurred; 
 Along the brook, in leafy mould interred, 
 We saw the snowdrop shyly peeping through. 
 
 The noisy grackles, in their raven hue, 
 
 Turned down the rudders of their tails, and whirred 
 Up to the walnut as a single bird, 
 Rasping their wheezy note as on they flew. 
 
 The shadow from the gnomon of the pine 
 Fell on the dial of the lawn, and told 
 In intervals of sun, the passing hours ; 
 
 The sap was waking in the eglantine; 
 
 Beneath the ground the jonquil forged her gold, 
 And hope was springing in the heart of flowers. 
 
 132
 
 SUNSET FROM THE SUMMIT 
 v 
 
 THE rhythmic music of our horses' feet 
 
 Woke the long bridge and echoed o'er the plains; 
 
 Within the forest oft their flowing manes 
 
 Were brushed by branches where the wildings meet; 
 
 The grape-vine's blossom in the air was sweet, 
 As on our saddlers' necks we dropped the reins, 
 And let them pick their way through rocky lanes 
 Along the margin of the dense retreat. 
 
 We reached the hill- top, and the late glow there 
 Lingered, reluctant still to leave your cheek, 
 Then faded slowly from the river's breast; 
 
 While on the summit, gazing from the peak, 
 We watched Hyperion drive his flaming pair 
 Down the gold highways of the crimsoned West. 
 
 133
 
 BY VINE-CLAD EAVES 
 
 VI 
 
 WE stooped a moment 'mid the golden hosts 
 Of buttercups to gather one bouquet; 
 Then wandered where the dandelion ghosts 
 Strewed all the greensward with a phantom gray. 
 
 The bursting white-oak leaf, that looks in May 
 A silver bloom, frosted the shooting tips ; 
 And all the bellefleur buds were out that day 
 As ruby-rosy as your own dear lips! 
 
 Along the windings of the avenue 
 
 The guelder-rose displayed her spheres of white, 
 And eaves were purpled with wistaria flowers; 
 
 While the faint aura, for the sake of you, 
 Toying among the clustered blossoms bright, 
 With rarest fragrance filled the balmy hours. 
 
 184
 
 "ALONG THE REEDY SHORE" 
 
 VII 
 
 To Vallombrosan valleys let them go; 
 To steep Sorrento, or where ilex-trees 
 Cast their gray shadows o'er Sicilian seas ; 
 Dream at La Conca D'Oro ; catch the glow 
 
 Of sunset on the Ischian cliffs, and know 
 The blue Ionian inlets where the breeze, 
 Leaving some snow-white temple's Phidian frieze, 
 Wafts their light shallop languorously slow. 
 
 Let us lie here along the reedy shore 
 
 Where Susquehanna spreads her liquid miles, 
 To watch the circles from the dripping oar; 
 
 To see the halcyon dip, the eagle soar; 
 ' To drift at dusk around these Indian isles, 
 Or dream at noon beneath the sycamore. 
 
 135
 
 AFLOAT AT SUNSET 
 
 VIII 
 
 OH, the wide River and her water-ways 
 
 Whose currents draw us through their rocky gates, 
 Winding between a thousand grassy aits 
 To glorious greeneries in unlooked-for bays! 
 
 The clustered islands swim in amber haze; 
 And the rich sun, reluctant, slow awaits 
 His destined setting, while he still creates 
 Upon the golden tide one dazzling blaze. 
 
 Silence around, save where the waters blue, 
 Among the sedgy inlets in a dream, 
 Murmur, alluringly, their liquid note ; 
 
 There, leaning listless in our long canoe, 
 With paddle trailing idly in the stream, 
 We, mirrored on the rippling surface, float. 
 
 136
 
 ON THE RIVER HEADLAND 
 
 IX 
 
 WE loitered on the headland's rocky knoll 
 Above the shining River, silver-bright; 
 And far below we saw the rapids roll 
 Their rushing waters into boiling white. 
 
 The morning sun, down-gleaming in his might, 
 Showed the lone fisher with his slender pole 
 Where the dazed vision lost at last control 
 Push his canoe across the blinding light. 
 
 We watched the sea-hawk mounting with his prey, 
 The brigand eagle meet him in the air, 
 And, swooping under, catch the falling fish; 
 
 'T was sweet with you to linger idly there, 
 Or, gently piloted by your dear wish, 
 To climb adown the crag-path's perilous way. 
 
 137
 
 FROM THE SHADOWY PORCH 
 x 
 
 UPON the porch vine-shadows touched our feet; 
 Across the rich fields of the level plain 
 A breeze, precursor of the summer rain, 
 Chased the gold billows o'er the sea of wheat. 
 
 The dazzling air, a-tremble with the heat, 
 Grew calm and blue in all the dells again; 
 And to the umbrage of the trees the swain 
 Drove the white flock within the cool retreat. 
 
 The fox-grape clambering o'er the oaken limb, 
 Swayed to and fro in many a green festoon, 
 And on the rolling lawn in sun-flecked urns 
 
 The fitful zephyr swayed each plume of ferns, 
 While rows of hollyhocks, like maidens slim, 
 Bowed to each other in the sun of June. 
 
 138
 
 FOOTFALLS OF THE RAIN 
 
 XI 
 
 BELOVED Fields ! from out your pure domains 
 Floats music softer than from viol strings; 
 Better the warbling of your feathered things 
 Than all the rolling organ's deep refrains; 
 
 What prima donna trills such liquid strains 
 As yon brown meadow-lark, that floating sings 
 Above her nest on slow-descending wings, 
 With plaintive sweetness that the soul enchains? 
 
 Not hers alone, but myriad notes there are 
 
 Too sweet for telling, where all sounds are sweet 
 The delicate footfalls of the showery rains; 
 
 The breezes rustling o'er the sea-green wheat; 
 The murmurous voices, faintly heard and far, 
 Of children gathering cherries in the lanes. 
 
 139
 
 THE SUMMER MOON 
 
 XII 
 
 THE long day over, 'mid the islets fair, 
 
 Homeward we headed then our slender boat 
 Across the crimson waters, slow to float 
 By many a lilied inlet lying there. 
 
 The distant rapids murmured through the air, 
 And as our oars the placid river smote, 
 The scarlet circles, widening on remote, 
 Carried away the very wraith of care. 
 
 The sunset darkened; from the hill the moon 
 Arose full-faced; and breezes rustling through 
 The reedy harps waked all their silent strings; 
 
 Then o'er the surface, smooth as some lagoon, 
 We drifted in the gloaming dim and blue, 
 As Evening spread abroad her shadowy wings. 
 
 140
 
 SUMMER SOUNDS 
 
 XIII 
 
 WITHIN the clover-fields abloom we hear 
 The mower whet his scythe; and far away, 
 O'er lowlands fragrant with the new-mown hay, 
 The rattle of the reaper, sharp and clear. 
 
 Across the reedy stretches of the mere 
 
 The grazing horses send their greeting neigh; 
 While, 'mid the silence of the golden day, 
 The locust's harsh staccato stabs the ear. 
 
 Dim shimmering in the heat the violet hills 
 Call to us vaguely from a realm of dreams ; 
 And from the meadow's blue, meandering streams 
 
 Come muffled murmurs of the distant mills; 
 While from the upland, as his barns he fills, 
 We hear the farmer calling to his teams. 
 
 141
 
 IN GRATEFUL SHADE 
 
 xrv 
 
 THE leafy fence-rows made a green retreat, 
 Where cattle stood within the shade to doze ; 
 The elder there upreared her bloom of snows, 
 And many a mavis made the dingle sweet. 
 
 Far o'er the corn fields, in the dazzling heat, 
 The silent women labored in the rows; 
 And where the hedge its sheltering shadow throws, 
 We heard at intervals the lambkins bleat. 
 
 We watched the harrows make their furrow wide; 
 The thievish grackles follow, round by round; 
 The running robins halting, as they eyed 
 
 With crafty caution all the mellow ground; 
 
 While, three abreast, in seeming conscious pride, 
 The stately horses passed without a sound. 
 
 142
 
 AN AUGUST SHOWER 
 xv 
 
 THE gilded Indian of the village vane 
 
 Swirls to the east ; and slow the tall tree-tops 
 Wave with the fitful wind that stirs, and stops, 
 And stirs anew ; while gently falls again 
 
 The gracious benefaction of the rain. 
 
 The pendent garlands of the garden hops 
 
 Sway with the breeze ; and the blown peach-tree drops 
 
 Her globes of crimson in the grassy lane. 
 
 The thunder, from its cavernous retreat, 
 
 Rolls hither o'er the fields and darkening fells ; 
 The brooklet in the meadow slowly swells ; 
 
 The shower has come, and gone. Past is the heat; 
 Now range the herds across the clover dells, 
 And flocks are nibbling in the stubbled wheat. 
 
 143
 
 SULTRY AUGUST 
 
 XVI 
 
 THE very weeds were wilted, leaf and blade ; 
 The Durhams stood and panted in the stream; 
 Deep in the pool we saw them slowly wade, 
 Mottled with gold of many a sunny gleam. 
 
 The tired plowman, in the heat extreme, 
 
 Stopped by the willows where no leaflet swayed, 
 
 And as he brought the water to his team 
 
 They stretched their sweating necks and softly neighed. 
 
 Beyond the dale, above the sultry steeps, 
 In fields of bluer and intenser light, 
 Poised the lone buzzard, rising in repose, 
 
 Where soaring upward through the zenith deeps, 
 In toppling mounds of unimagined white, 
 The rolling cloud unfolded as a rose! 
 
 144
 
 "SILENT THE HERON STOOD" 
 
 XVII 
 
 IN August noons, along the River green, 
 Faint lay the mountains in the sultry haze; 
 The sky was colorless ; a hot white blaze 
 Made the dim islands dimmer in its sheen. 
 
 The further hills were hardly to be seen 
 
 Until some cloud-thrown shadow gloomed the grays 
 Of wooded ridges, shutting out the day's 
 Insufferable glare with softened screen. 
 
 Listless we looked across the lifted oars 
 
 To where the silver fish, with sudden spring 
 Sent the small circle widening, ring on ring ; 
 
 While in the pebbly shoals that lined the shores 
 Under the umbrage of the sycamores, 
 Silent the heron stood and preened his wing. 
 
 145
 
 SEPTEMBER DAYS 
 
 XVIII 
 
 WITHIN the wood September sunlight lay 
 
 Dappling the golden soil; there was no sound 
 Save of the acorn dropping to the ground, 
 Or now and then, the bugle of the jay. 
 
 At times, a squirrel from the bending spray, 
 
 Leapt to the chestnut limb with venturous bound ; 
 Or on some wooded crest, the lonely hound 
 Woke the reverberations far away. 
 
 The corn was ranked in many a tasseled tent, 
 And bluest haze slept on the peaceful hills 
 Where once the Sagamores had fought and slain. 
 
 Anear, the plodding farmer slowly bent 
 
 Across the umber stretches, while the drills 
 Scattered the blessings of the future grain. 
 
 146
 
 THE SCARLET VINES 
 
 XIX 
 
 'T WAS our delight when Autumn days were here, 
 To stand in tawny ferns and see the sun 
 Break through the drifting clouds of dove-like dun, 
 And, for a moment shining summer-clear, 
 
 Turn to resplendent gold the hickory sere. 
 Then where the quinquefolia had o'errun 
 The oak's extremest branches, and begun 
 To fall in pendants, crimson tier on tier, 
 
 We watched the brilliant streamers as they swayed 
 Touched with the glorious light, and all aglow, 
 Like scarlet banners in some cavalcade 
 
 Of mediaeval tourney long ago, 
 
 Where bugles blared, and plumed palfreys neighed, 
 And lances fell on armor, blow on blow! 
 
 147
 
 HAZY WOODLANDS 
 xx 
 
 THE nearest woodlands wore a misty veil; 
 
 From phantom trees we saw the last leaf float; 
 The hills, though near us, seemed to lie remote, 
 Wrapped in a balmy vapor, golden-pale. 
 
 From somewhere hidden in the dreamy dale 
 Latona's sorrow yet within her note 
 Reft of her comrades, o'er the stubbled oat 
 We heard the calling of the lonely quail. 
 
 In the bare corn field stalked the silent crow; 
 Too faint the breeze to make the grasses sigh, 
 And not one carol came from out the sky; 
 
 But o'er the golden gravelly levels low, 
 The brook, loquacious, still went lilting by 
 As liquidly as Lara, long ago. 
 
 148
 
 LEGEND OF INDIAN SUMMER 
 
 MICABO 
 XXI 
 
 THERE is a legend the Algonquins tell 
 
 Of the weird power of the Great White One; 
 The God of Light he is, and of the Sun, 
 And in their strange lore hath no parallel. 
 
 He, in the Summer, from his citadel, 
 
 Comes to his cloudy gates of golden dun, 
 And throws them open when the day 's begun, 
 And shuts them in the evening. But a spell 
 
 Saps his puissance when the Autumn haze 
 
 Spreads its dim-shimmering silver on the rills ; 
 Then to the mountain-tops he slowly wends, 
 
 And, idly drowsing on the dreamy hills, 
 
 Puffs at his pipe, and as the smoke descends, 
 Behold our mellow Indian Summer days! 
 
 149
 
 IN GRASSES SERE 
 
 XXII 
 
 Low tangles of long grasses, sere and pale ; 
 The flower-less stalks of most pathetic weeds 
 Holding their heads up with a few scant seeds 
 Their hope of next year's life; the soughing wail 
 
 Of scentless winds that scour the bitter vale . 
 And find no fragrance now from all the meads; 
 The sorrow of the time that far exceeds 
 The deepest pathos of the saddest tale! 
 
 We met these sombre changes with a sigh, 
 Feeling the breath of Winter drawing near, 
 And wished at heart the days of Spring were here, 
 
 For now we saw but boundless wastes of gray 
 Where once appeared the glowing sapphire sky 
 With her unfathomable deeps of May. 
 
 150
 
 NOVEMBER GRAY 
 
 XXIII 
 
 BUT though November on the fading hill 
 Trod, in her sombre robes, with muffled feet, 
 Yet to our ears came music, silver-sweet, 
 From tinkling lyres in the hidden rill. 
 
 As days were coming with their bitter chill, 
 We dearer prized the pale sun's feeble heat; 
 As flowers were gone, eager we were to greet 
 The green which edged the mossed wheel by the mill. 
 
 The sycamores that by the old race grew, 
 Were lifting silently their marble arms 
 In the deep arches of immurmurous noon. 
 
 Our only birds were pigeons from the farms; 
 While in the rain-filled ruts the pools of blue 
 Held the frayed circle of the gray-faced moon. 
 
 151
 
 THE WILD NORTH BLOWS 
 
 XXIV 
 
 BLUSTERING the day, but as the rain was done, 
 We sought the slopes whereon the kalmia grew; 
 Far on the River loved of me and you 
 The whitecaps glistened in the streaks of sun. 
 
 The sky with hurrying clouds was overrun, 
 That, torn in shreds, across the heavens blew, 
 As o'er the wooded ridges wildly flew 
 The eagle-flighted North-Wind, Aquilon. 
 
 But down below, within the level vale, 
 
 Where the high fell the lower valley shields, 
 The plowman went his still recurrent round; 
 
 Careless of winds he plodded in the dale ; 
 His shining share up-turned the frosty ground 
 Against the future seeding of the fields. 
 
 152
 
 THE WINTER STORM 
 
 XXV 
 
 THE wind was rising to a wintry gale; 
 We left the valley, lying white below, 
 And from the untrod ridges deep with snow 
 Turned and looked down upon the shrouded vale. 
 
 The spirits of the North began to wail 
 Around the cliff, as toiling upward slow, 
 We reached the crest and saw the sunset-glow 
 Flare on the crags around us, crimson-pale. 
 
 Then all the twilight phantoms of the sky 
 Changed into ever-shifting dragon-form, 
 And close above the mountain, crouching, lay ; 
 
 Weird voices in the pines began to sigh, 
 
 And writhing branches lashed the shuddering gray, 
 As through the gathering darkness broke the storm. 
 
 153
 
 BUILD THOU THY TEMPLES 
 
 REWARD lies in the work, not in the eye 
 Nor voice of critic. Whether on the mart, 
 Or on the Heliconian hills apart, 
 Toil at thy temples builded in the sky. 
 
 Dreams are in sooth the only verity. 
 
 The world with scorn may lacerate thy heart 
 Insult with praise too late. Delve at thine Art:- 
 Beauty shall never unremembered die. 
 
 The sculptor, unillustrious and alone, 
 Pent in the still reclusion of his room, 
 Carves, through the vexed vicissitude of years, 
 
 Some marvel in Carrara ; but the stone 
 
 Men heed not till it stand above his tomb- 
 The cold commemoration of his tears. 
 
 155
 
 BURKE 
 1730-1797 
 
 His was that golden opulence of phrase 
 
 That sumptuous and impassioned diction splendid, 
 Upon whose fiery pauses hung suspended 
 Assembled multitudes in mute amaze. 
 
 That great heart still for Freedom was ablaze. 
 The battery of his eloquence defended 
 Man and his rights : too soon that power ended, 
 He died while in the lustre of his days. 
 
 So some great battle-ship magnificent, 
 
 Whose cannon, thundering o'er the listening world, 
 
 Their still triumphant detonations hurled 
 In pealing tones of conquest eloquent, 
 
 Sinks, suddenly her royal flags unfurled 
 
 Invincible, with all her armament. 
 
 156
 
 UP WITH THE DRAWBRIDGE 
 
 UNRESTRICTED IMMIGRATION 
 
 THIS glorious Castle, whose broad base was laid 
 With our forefathers' blood, whose turrets glow 
 Yet from our war, is threatened with worse woe, 
 While home-foes mine the walls in ambuscade. 
 
 The idle worthless pauper renegade, 
 
 Swarm on the moat. Shall Europe Python foe 
 Slough her skin here? Or Asia? Tell her, No! 
 This Tower, by sires, for us alone was made ! 
 
 See ! from the steerage, how they scale the wall ! 
 Shall our fair Castle sink into such hands? 
 Awake, ye Sentries ! 't is a Nation's call. 
 
 We welcome all the good of all the lands, 
 But bring not here the evil, outcast bands, 
 Quick to the gate ! Let the portcullis fall ! 
 
 157
 
 THE THRUSH 
 
 OFT have I heard at even-tide the thrush 
 Embowered in the topmost branches fair, 
 Warbling his love-lay in the golden air, 
 As on his beating breast the sunset flush 
 
 Lay like a glory, and the twilight hush 
 
 Deepened between the sobs of song that there 
 Filled the dark groves with eloquent despair ; 
 While all the listening laurel underbrush 
 
 Trembled and thrilled its myriad leaves among, 
 Till the white Dryad, as she silent stood, 
 Leaned forward her sweet neck a-listening long, 
 
 Held captive in the darkening solitude, 
 Chained by this necromancer of the wood, 
 Enraptured by the ecstasies of song! 
 
 158 

 
 AN INVITATION 
 
 MY box-wood, arbor-vita, and the pine 
 
 We planted in our youth, are standing green 
 About the porch, though Boreal winds blow keen: 
 Friend of past days, come worship at the shrine 
 
 We love ; sit at that table where no wine 
 They need who quaff immortal Hippocrene, 
 And from the hand of Poesy, serene, 
 Sup on Olympian viands all divine ! 
 
 Oh, leave that buzzing hive, the city mart ! 
 
 Come, while my gnarl'd oaks hold their wealth of snows, 
 Come to a country home, let mind and heart 
 
 Mellowed by midnight, while the back-log glows 
 Touch on the themes most dear the Muse and Art 
 Till in the east unfolds the auroran rose. 
 
 159
 
 EDWIN BOOTH AS HAMLET 
 
 O PRINCELY Shade, crowned with immortal bays 
 In amaranthine fields beyond our ken, 
 Look down with patience on the lesser men 
 That thou hast left to follow in thy ways ! 
 
 The fine rendition of Shakespearian plays 
 
 Passed out with thee, nor has it come again. 
 
 Thy Muse, alas ! is not the denizen 
 
 Of Thespian boards in these material days. 
 
 The stage thou trodd'st is made spectacular. 
 Where is the fire the pathos loved in thee? 
 The grace inimitable that was thine? 
 
 Thy wondrous eye was as a glorious star; 
 
 And when thy voice rolled out the sounding line, 
 We seemed to hear the surges of the sea! 
 
 160
 
 REVERBERATE TONES 
 
 AH ! who would listen ever to one choir ? 
 
 The lark's clear note, the dove's melodious moan, 
 The sweetest music unto mortal known, 
 With frequent iteration soon must tire. 
 
 Whoso shall lay his hand upon the lyre 
 
 For many a rapturous day, as I have done, 
 Needs must reverberate some earlier tone, 
 And often strike, alas, the self-same wire ! 
 
 So if with jarring note his harp resounds, 
 
 Blame not the struggling Lyrist nor the Muse ; 
 How can the rugged Saxon which we use, 
 
 Whose roughness cleaves these lines with ragged wounds, 
 Charm as an organ-roll of Umbrian sounds 
 That float from Vallombrosa or Vaucluse? 
 
 161
 
 YOUTH IN LONDON 
 
 1872 
 
 Alieni temporis flores 
 
 REMEMBER you the day we were to meet, 
 When I in London was a loiterer, 
 And you, all muffled in a wealth of fur, 
 Came tripping with your Cinderella feet 
 
 Through the cold drizzle that was almost sleet, 
 Bringing a sense of warmth and lavender? 
 And then, 'neath one umbrella, how we were 
 Drenched, but enraptured, wading down the street? 
 
 Love laughed at all, the miles of mud and slush, 
 The lurking fear that parting would be pain . . . 
 Where are you now, sprite of the mist and rain! 
 
 Your lips, your eyes, your dimples and your blush, 
 Your voice the mellow gurgle of a thrush 
 Your voice that I shall never hear again? 
 
 162
 
 FIDELIA 
 
 How shall we speak and yet not all dispraise 
 Her loveliness! that shy and unobtrusive 
 Beatitude of hers, the sweet effusive 
 Goodness, irradiating all her days! 
 
 Heaven seemed nearer when we met her gaze; 
 The look revealed, yet kept her soul reclusive: 
 Oh, how can words e'er tell of that elusive, 
 Immaculate charm that graced her innocent ways ! 
 
 For all our faults her eyes beamed but indulgence : 
 We worshipped her, but ah, she worshipped duty; 
 Something within her still seemed undiscovered; 
 
 A kind of saintliness around her hovered 
 That aureoled her with a strange effulgence 
 Abashing those who only loved her beauty. 
 
 163
 
 THE SONNET'S MUSIC 
 
 STILL hearken for the Sonnet's hidden chime 
 
 As on the shore we list the sea-voiced shells ; 
 
 The veiled music of the sonnet-swells 
 
 Should, in our song's cathedral nave sublime, 
 Roll down those rich reverberating halls 
 
 In soft antiphonies of recurrent rhyme. 
 
 Such tones were his who yet the ear enthralls 
 
 Sonorous Singer of the Italian prime. 
 So Echo to Narcissus calls and calls 
 
 Among the grottoes of Arcadian fells ; 
 
 At evening so, o'er cloud-built castle walls, 
 Faint from far towers of airy citadels 
 
 Through deeps of twilight rises, floats and falls 
 
 The sweet re-echo of ethereal bells. 
 
 164
 
 THE ULTIMATE DAY 
 
 For a Wind Passeth Over It, and It is Gone 
 
 MOUNTAINS shall wear away, from base to sky 
 Shall crumble, and by Rivers carried on, 
 Glut, through the aeons, the unfathomed yawn 
 Of deepest seas. The Sea itself shall dry, 
 
 Shriveled, the illimitable land shall lie 
 A desolate and sterile waste, whereon 
 No hand may pluck the rose ; the paling sun 
 Shall rise and set, nor beam on mortal eye : 
 
 And as some dreaded whirlwind in the night 
 Swirls through the air embers of dying fires, 
 So shall the Breath of God, foretold of yore, 
 
 Sweep star and sun and system, and their light 
 Shall be as sparks from smouldering funeral pyres 
 Darkened and dead, and Time shall be no more. 
 
 165
 
 TO A GENERAL OF THE REVOLUTION 
 
 1776 
 
 INTREPID Orator and Statesman bold, 
 
 At whose impetuous and impassioned words 
 
 Men dropped the plowshare and took up their swords 
 
 To fight for Freedom, in the days of old, 
 
 Forgotten art thou in this lust for gold, 
 
 Although thy strong and stirring life records 
 Deeds that were noble. But this age rewards 
 With calm neglect thy labors manifold. 
 
 Champion of Liberty, and of the Right; 
 Brother in perilous arms to Washington ; 
 Thou zealous Ruler of a glorious State, 
 
 Is there no way thy service to requite? . . ;' 
 Sleep, Patriot, Sleep ! nor ever know the great 
 Ingratitude of Freedom for her son ! 
 
 166
 
 ON THE AVON AT STRATFORD IN 1616 
 
 Shakespeare loquitur 
 
 DAY'S gathered beauty in the sunset lies 
 Rich on the clouds of Arden, as of yore; 
 So shall I pass in splendor! Now, once more, 
 Visions unfolding, greet mine inner eyes: 
 
 Again my Fancy's children fill the skies; 
 And Ariel-voices, from some spirit shore, 
 Bid this tried falcon slip the leash, and soar 
 To find in unwinged realms undreamt emprise. 
 
 Clarions of onset, now too long withdrawn, 
 
 Sound in my soul. Pageants and phantom files 
 Of new creations through my future stream ; 
 
 And from the prime, a shadow in my dream, 
 The sweet " Dark Lady " of Circean wiles 
 Calls from the primrose path of wasteful Dawn. 
 
 167
 
 THE MADONNA 
 
 WITH THE CHRIST CHILD AND JOHN THE BAPTIST 
 AN OLD PAINTING 
 
 BY premonitions, Mary, art thou stirred, 
 
 While the young Babe looks upward to thy face? 
 For thou so fondly pensive, seem'st to trace 
 An unknown grief impending, yet deferred. 
 
 Thy mouth is sweet with silence, not a word 
 Parts the pure lips; that calm brow doth erase 
 All look of suffering by its saintly grace, 
 And yet some voice prophetic thou hast heard! 
 
 Doth a dim prescience of the invading years 
 Cause thee, with such solicitude, to bend 
 Above the innocent pair about thy knee? 
 
 Dost thou divine the anguish deep the tears 
 For these two little ones the pitiful end 
 The shadow of Herod and of Calvary? 
 
 168
 
 "YOUTH ON THE PROW" 
 
 THE SUSQUEHANNA 
 
 As Evening, aureoled with her amber hair, 
 
 Walked o'er the mountain, robed in faded blue, 
 Sandaled with silence in the glowing air, 
 How sweet it was to drift alone with you ! 
 
 'T was ours to watch the heron as he flew 
 To purpling pools within his reedy lair; 
 Leaving the glimmering land, we bade adieu 
 To all the dwellers in the tents of Care. 
 
 We drifted noiseless o'er the deepening glow 
 Trailing our hands through miles of liquid gold, 
 Then moored in shallows where the lilies rest; 
 
 The somnolent River scarcely seemed to flow, 
 While o'er the hills, afar, began to fold 
 The crimsoned poppies of the fading West. 
 
 169
 
 SOCRATES' DEATH 
 
 FROM PLATO'S 
 
 THEN from the prison walls they saw the sun 
 Folding great wings within the western skies 
 A few friends round him there who slowly dies. 
 The grinding of the poison being done, 
 
 He spake, reproved their tears, and to each one 
 Gave cheer and comfort, and made kind replies ; 
 Then drank the hemlock, while his great grave eyes 
 Dwelt on his friends. The sands were nearly run 
 
 Down through his glass of life ; he from that bed 
 
 Smiling upon them faintly, turned and said, 
 "The chill is at my heart. ... Do not forget 
 
 To pay to ^Esculapius our just debt!" .... 
 Then Crito closed his eyes, for he was dead, 
 And looked up weeping and the sun had set! 
 
 170
 
 FROM THE PEAK 
 
 HIGH on the mountain, brother to the cloud, 
 I stand upon this elemental stone 
 Freer than kings upon their native throne. 
 The wind whirls the leaves onward in a crowd 
 
 And shrieks around the bleak crag wild and loud; 
 I hear the muttering and the thunder tone 
 Of dark and ominous storms, that not alone 
 Earth, but the cowering heavens, now enshroud. 
 
 Land of my birth ! so looking over thee 
 The Poet sees from his prophetic peak 
 Havoc and whirlwind brewing. We are free, 
 
 But powers are at work that crawl and sneak, 
 Yet hold, no less, the fatal lightning streak. 
 Be warned! This storm is aimed at Liberty. 
 
 171
 
 THEY COME AT EVENING 
 
 TO S. F. H. 
 
 THINK not because upon these slopes of green 
 Thou hear'st no footstep follow, that alone 
 I tread this vale, and on these crags of stone 
 At set of sun, or in the twilight sheen, 
 
 Walk by myself. Round me at times convene 
 Illustrious Shades, that from their airy zone, 
 Stand with me here upon this mountain throne, 
 And solace with low voices not terrene. 
 
 They come at evening as an avatar : 
 
 Great ones with laureled brows and glorious eyes 
 Bright with fulfillment of their prophecies; 
 
 With voices like the voices of a star: 
 
 Some hover near, and others faint, afar 
 Pace the horizon in the twilight skies. 
 
 172
 
 THE STORMY PETREL 
 
 TO G. B. M. 
 
 ONWARD forever by thy spirit borne, 
 Bird of the dim illimitable seas, 
 Winging wild gulfs of water at thine ease 
 When all the surging waves with winds are torn! 
 
 Thou for the shore hast unabating scorn; 
 With heart heroic to the howling breeze 
 Thou trustest life and all thy destinies 
 O wanderer of the wildering sea forlorn ! 
 
 Ah, by that demon, too, am I possessed, 
 
 That drives thee through the storm at any cost: 
 Bird of the wave ! my soul, as thine, is crossed 
 
 By the same spirit of undying quest 
 Far on the shoreless ocean of unrest 
 Driven forever, and forever tossed! 
 
 173
 
 IN THE VALLEY OF DREAMS 
 
 I YEARNED for knowledge and her starry beams, 
 For radiance of imperial thought I sighed ; 
 The more I searched that shining shore and wide, 
 The further from me flowed the wondrous streams. 
 
 Then in the cave of sleep that dimly gleams, 
 The rudder of volition slipped aside, 
 And night brought to me what the day denied 
 The rich phantasmagoria of Dreams : 
 
 So one at noon, within a sunlit field, 
 Peers at the blank impenetrable sky, 
 To find his vision bounded as with bars; 
 
 Then entering some deep shaft, he sees on high, 
 Up through its tube of darkness, there revealed 
 The imperishable splendor of the stars. 
 
 174
 
 SAMSON 
 
 BENT upon love, and beautiful as day, 
 
 Samson the youth to Timnath passed along; 
 Musing of her, he hummed a desert song, 
 When lo ! a lion barred his onward way. 
 
 Who would be victor in the unequal fray? 
 
 He thought of love, and laughed that he was strong, 
 And conquered. Little did he deem, ere long, 
 That lion Passion him would heartless slay. 
 
 How many a man in youth's supremest hour 
 Who fells the lions in his path, will find 
 Some dread Delilah, as the years entice ; 
 
 Shorn of his will and of his pristine power, 
 He following the primrose path of vice 
 Falls with the falling temple of his mind! 
 
 175
 
 THE COLOR PINK 
 
 SUGGESTED BY KEATS' SONNET ON 
 
 FIRST as a babe I saw its flower unfurl 
 
 Within a mother's cheek, and memory glows 
 Yet with the tint. Not broadcast nature sows 
 Such color ; oft 't is hidden in the whorl 
 
 Of voiceful sea-shell sweet-lipped like a girl, 
 Or in the wave where branched coral grows; 
 Or lovelier still, where the pursuing rose 
 Chases the fleeing green in mother-o'-pearl : 
 
 'T is the sky's jewel at each morning's brink ; 
 'T is Love's own tinge, and everywhere divine 
 And beauteous, but most ravishing I think, 
 
 When the flushed cheek of that dear Lady mine 
 At parting, pales pathetically pink 
 Leaning from out her latticed eglantine I 
 
 176
 
 THE GIFT 
 
 INSCRIBED TO THE REV. CANON WII/TON, M.A.. 
 
 SACRED and sylvan Poet! when I hold 
 
 Your book of Verse, which o'er the winter sea 
 
 You send a later flower of song to me, 
 
 I scent the Yorkshire hawthorn. On the wold, 
 
 Or where the billows of heather-bloom are rolled 
 Up breezy slopes ; by many a storied lea ; 
 By Yarrow and lona, pensively, 
 Lured by your lines I stroll where you have strolled: 
 
 But when, with eloquent words of ardent love, 
 Bent on that City of Immortal Light, 
 Your faith uplifts you to intemporal things, 
 
 I follow faltering to that realm above; 
 Fain would I equal your celestial flight 
 And mount, like you, on such triumphal wings ! 
 
 177
 
 PSAPHO 
 
 IN ancient times, 't is said, this Libyan 
 
 Tamed hosts of birds, and with a deep design, 
 Taught them to say, "Psapho's a god divine!" 
 Then turned them loose. And many a caravan, 
 
 Halting at wells 'twixt Cairo and Kairwan, 
 Hearing the birds, believed in Psapho's line; 
 While others doubted, and by palm and pine 
 Smiled on their camels tinkling to Assuan. 
 
 There 's many a clique within our daily ken 
 Which drills the voices of its pert Reviews 
 To utter and re-utter, like cuckoos, 
 
 That they divine are 'mong the ranks of men; 
 But as we read, we think of Psapho's ruse 
 The Libyan with his birds is back again ! 
 
 178
 
 THE PALE RIDER 
 
 t 
 
 AT last I felt the ominous black air quake 
 With far-off beating of their horned wings 
 Before they came enormous, baleful Things 
 Harpy, chimera, scaly winged snake 
 
 With dugs of witches, roaring in the wake 
 Of him who furious rode, and held the stings 
 Of adders in his hand. A million kings 
 Slain in his path could not his ravin slake. 
 
 Onward he plunged, and as he came, I saw 
 
 High on his eyeless skull a crown was wreathed; 
 Scepter he held, and sword he never sheathed; 
 
 Headlong he rushed. Gaunt was his empty maw 
 Though he devoured the world and all that breathed: 
 I looked, and fell before him dead, from awe. 
 
 179
 
 BY CONOWINGO WATERS 
 
 As Evening came, sedate in hooded gray, 
 A wondrous quiet on the valley fell ; 
 Across the fields a distant-tolling bell 
 Made a sweet threnode for departing day. 
 
 The mavis, on the topmost wildwood spray, 
 Ceased the low fluting of his late farewell, 
 And in dark flocks, above the bosky dell, 
 The crows winged slowly where the woodlands lay. 
 
 The twilight deepened. Pale ethereal seas 
 Of lilac 'mid the branches slowly grew 
 Star-studded depths unutterably blue; 
 
 While in the upper boughs a delicate breeze 
 Sent soft Druidic murmurs rippling through 
 The faint and tremulant lyre of the trees. 
 
 180
 
 NILUS 
 
 MEN say her source is in wild mountain glooms, 
 But where even the dark Sphinx never knows! 
 Kingdoms in ashes, past them all she flows, 
 And dust of monarchs and swart queens she dooms 
 
 To lie along her sands. She laves the tombs 
 Of tyrants long forgotten, even those 
 Who built their dais on her nation's woes 
 And in her people's heart-blood dipped their plumes. 
 
 And still her banks are strewn with human bones; 
 Her wave is crimsoned with the cruel things 
 Done by her despots ; on her shore the groans 
 
 Of dusky millions. . . . Hearken ! as she sings 
 The decimation of the tyrant thrones, 
 The fate of Empire, and the dirge of Kings ! 
 
 181
 
 EROS 
 
 'NEATH yonder moon-lit archway like the Moors', 
 Luscious of limb, and languorously dull, 
 Balefully sweet and darkly beautiful, 
 The Nautch girls, o'er the tessellated floors, 
 
 Come tinkling down the distant corridors 
 
 With somnolent sounds that soon all cares annul, 
 And leave the listener dreamy, in the glooms, 
 Lapped in the glamour of Circean shores: 
 
 'Mid scent of sandal-wood and strange perfumes, 
 One hardly hears the nightingale that pours 
 Her soul out by the fountain where she soars; 
 
 The air is love-oppressed; Love's very plumes 
 Pulse with the passion that his life consumes 
 Where clambering roses close the curtained doors.
 
 ARRIVAL OF THE "WELCOME" 
 
 IN COMMEMORATION OF THE FIRST LANDING OF 
 WILLIAM PENN IN PENNSYLVANIA 
 
 How beautiful she looked in that far day 
 With all her canvas flying to the breeze, 
 The stately "Welcome," from the stormy seas, 
 Wafted on dove-like wings along the bay ! 
 
 "Peace on the Earth," her fluttering pennons say, 
 And from her deck a voice: "Good-will to men!" 
 For he had come, the courtly Quaker, Penn, 
 Full of his dream of philanthropic sway. 
 
 And must the feet of Progress ever be 
 
 Incarnadined by still recurring wars, 
 
 While from her path is swept each barbarous horde? 
 Oh, may this Land, now under thrall of Mars, 
 
 End her red slaughter by the Asian sea, 
 
 And sheathe her once inviolable sword! 
 
 183
 
 ESTRANGED 
 
 WITHIN the sunshine of your gracious smile 
 I spread my leaves and rapturously grew, 
 Rearing my towering branches to the blue 
 Because your nature seemed so sweet the while. 
 
 And though I would not your fair fame revile, 
 The current of your being which I knew 
 Has changed, and I am wasting from your view, 
 Worn by the slow abrasion of your guile. 
 
 So some alluvial island in mid-stream, 
 
 Bowery with elm and bending sycamore 
 That kissed the summer waters in a dream 
 
 Is, by a change of channel, made the prey 
 Of currents whose corrosions gnaw the shore 
 And waste it irretrievably away ! 
 
 184
 
 A THRENE 
 
 MAURICE THOMPSON 
 
 A DEEPER hush is on the prairie's plain; 
 Far in the dark savanna's plashy meads 
 The heron, lonelier, stands among her weeds, 
 And e'en our woodlands have a touch of pain. 
 
 Gone is the singer of the sylvan strain 
 
 Whose note the indifferent world but little heeds; 
 Put by the syrinx of the seven reeds, 
 Our minstrel now will never pipe again ! 
 
 He who along the dewy forest streams 
 Fluted at dawn full many a silver hymn 
 Lies not within yon churchyard's lone retreat; 
 
 But in some region beyond telling sweet 
 In immaterial valleys, strange and dim, 
 He lingers, lapped in never-ending dreams. 
 
 185
 
 AFRICA 
 
 LIKE some nocturnal lily that shall bloom 
 
 In centuries hence, we watch thee ; in our dream 
 See in thy swamps the Prospero of our steam; 
 Thy doors unlocked, where knowledge in her tomb 
 
 Hath lain innumerable years in gloom. 
 
 Then shalt thou, waking with that morning's gleam, 
 Shine as thy sister lands with equal beam ; 
 But Indian-like, thy race hath met its doom: 
 
 As tidal waves that strike some midnight shore 
 Rush, and with white irrevocable hands 
 Sweep clean the coast of all the horde of sands, 
 
 So the great waves of Franks that onward pour, 
 Shall sweep thy swart race sheer from off thy lands 
 To death, and life shall know them there no more. 
 
 186
 
 THE BARD 
 
 FROM immemorial times men have agreed 
 Their greatest are the Poet, Architect, 
 Painter, Musician, those who do elect 
 To build the Beautiful ; to ever feed 
 
 The cravings of the soul with starry deed ; 
 Those who their solitary thought project 
 Into the ideal world, and there erect 
 The cloudy fanes of an ethereal creed. 
 
 Yet not to all, however great and strong 
 Though each a master of his subtile art 
 Not equally to these the bays belong; 
 
 But, in the vast Valhalla of man's heart, 
 Niched above all, and eminent apart, 
 The Poet stands, soul of immortal Song! 
 
 187
 
 "THESE THINGS I SAW" 
 
 I WANDERED on through dark mysterious deeps; 
 I stood on beetling cliffs that loomed sublime 
 Above vast valleys, where for countless time 
 Gathers fertility which useless sleeps 
 
 Where never through the soil one flower peeps; 
 Dark caves with floating pendants of green slime, 
 Through which strange Things did ever crawl and climb, 
 Near the dread Monster that encoiled keeps 
 
 Listening forever for the trump's commands; 
 
 Lovers were there, clasped with convulsive hands; 
 Jewels, and crowns and scepters ; precious stones 
 
 Rolled in the eyes of skulls; and whitened bones 
 Forever shifting over shifting sands: 
 These things I saw within the sea's dim zones. 
 
 188
 
 MARPESSA TO APOLLO 
 
 HAD I but chosen thee, immortal One, 
 Instead of him I clave to, then for me 
 Had been supernal joys with hope to be 
 Uplifted by communion with the Sun: 
 
 Thy winged pair, in time, I might have won 
 And held the reins of Dawn, triumphantly 
 Flushed the gray doors, and flamed the dusky sea 
 With flakes from crimsoned hoofs when day was done, 
 
 Have felt the heart of godhead stir my breast, 
 And spirit lips ethereal breathe on mine 
 From deeps of Being beyond mortal dream . . . 
 
 Ah yet, each evening, when along the West 
 Thou goest in splendor with thy radiant team, 
 Behold these Earth-dimmed eyes that yearn to thine! 
 
 189
 
 THE VICTIM 
 
 THE River, turning red, began to rise; 
 
 Dark thousands thronged the marge with sail and oar, 
 As priests of dread Osiris slowly bore 
 The Maiden, bound, a votive sacrifice. 
 
 Lashed to the stake death's horror in her eyes 
 They left her, quivering, by the river shore, 
 But ere the sunset, lo, a deepening roar 
 Of rising waters drowned the people's cries. 
 
 The Nilus lapped her feet, then from their ships 
 The swart crowd gloated at the river's might 
 As round her writhing form the current poured; 
 
 Touching her neck it reached her piteous lips, 
 
 Then wildly rushing, whelmed her down from sight, 
 While calm, above, the sacred Ibis soared. 
 
 190
 
 IN AFTER DAYS 
 
 AH, yes ! in those inevitable days 
 Not so far distant but I see the rim 
 Of their horizon looming then of him 
 It shall be said, who writes these roundelays, 
 
 "Lo, he is gone gone down Death's darksome ways." 
 But when they ope his heart, love's paradigm 
 Shall meet their look, and hardened eyes shall swim 
 A name graved there shall dash them with amaze. 
 
 So it befalls some traveler, in that zone 
 
 That followed on the age Silurian, 
 
 Who, with a mere incurious interest stirred, 
 Breaks carelessly a road-side rock in twain, 
 
 And, startled, finds the footmarks of a bird 
 
 Imperishably printed in the stone. 
 
 191
 
 LADRO 
 
 -i 
 STATUE IN METROPOLITAN MUSEUM 
 
 I AM that sacrilegious one, the same 
 
 Whose lie beheaded Nona; erewhile seen 
 By him, that tattling scribbler Florentine, 
 Ages ago in Hell ; and lest foul fame 
 
 Of me should fade, Albano lately came, 
 
 And carved in stone like life itself, I ween 
 
 Me the base church thief, tied with snakes unclean, 
 
 A marble perpetuity of shame! 
 
 Art's immortality of infamy 
 
 Now coats me ever as this viper slime. 
 Accursed be the sculptor! and may I 
 
 Burn this Carrara, kiln-like, into lime 
 Fanged as I am to death, unendingly, 
 By knots of venomed serpents, for my crime ! 
 
 192
 
 THE WIND-GOD 
 
 THOU dark-winged demon of Cimmerian lands, 
 Who com'st from caverns of the unfooted vast, 
 The raging tempest and the roaring blast 
 Thou holdest in the hollow of thy hands ! 
 
 Typhoon, the dreaded, raves at thy commands, 
 Leaving the mariner helpless and aghast; 
 Thou strewest many a ship and shattered mast 
 Thy cenotaphs unnumbered, on the sands ! 
 
 Lo, o'er the surging Ocean, even now 
 
 Speed the swift javelins of thy phrensied might! 
 O charioteer infuriate ! it is thou 
 
 Who, in thy mad ungovernable glee, 
 
 Across the blackness of the gathering night, 
 Lashest the wild-maned Horses of the Sea! 
 
 ,193
 
 THE FADING SHIP 
 
 FAR on the faint horizon's shadowy rim, 
 A moving vision o'er the evening sea, 
 How beautiful she seems so earthly free 
 With spectral sail and fading pennon dim ! 
 
 Is she a Ship of Dreams? or does she swim 
 Of Beauty the eidolon ? or is she 
 The sweet embodiment of mystery 
 Blending with twilight on the ocean's brim? 
 
 Some Spirit whose faintly glimmering wings 
 Fade in the far-off realms of halcyon air? 
 At last unfettered, as she outward springs, 
 
 Is she the Soul of Peace fleeing from Care, 
 Leaving behind the sad terrestrial things 
 Seeking nepenthe in the distance fair? 
 
 194
 
 ECHOES OF GREEK IDYLS 
 
 IN MEMORY 
 
 OF 
 THEOCRITUS 
 
 . . . To the Dorian mood 
 Of flutes and soft recorders
 
 SELECTIONS FROM BION
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 i 
 
 WOE, woe for sweet Adonis, he is dead! 
 The beauteous Adon, comely past compare! 
 The lily youth with hyacinthine hair 
 Low on the ground doth droop his princely head! 
 
 The hearts of all the Loves for him have bled. 
 No more, O Cypris, filled with thy despair, 
 In sleep thy purple raiment thou dost wear, 
 But, sable-stoled, thy feet the shadows tread. 
 
 Arise, thou wretched one, oh, now arise! 
 
 Make the air tremble with thy dolorous moan, 
 And beat thy breasts and wail unto the skies: 
 
 "Gone is that golden voice of mellowest tone, 
 Perished the love-light of his glowing eyes, 
 And I am left all desolate and alone!" 
 
 199
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 ii 
 
 UPON the hills Adonis lieth low, 
 
 The wooded hills beneath the Idalian sky, 
 And all the wondrous whiteness of his thigh 
 That looked as fair as newly-fallen snow, 
 
 Is by the boar's tusk gashed, and trickling slow 
 The dark blood stains the ground with crimson dye 
 Heavy and dim now droops his fading eye, 
 And marble-cold that ever beauteous brow. 
 
 His dying kiss has come to sudden pause, 
 That kiss that Cypris never would resign, 
 And from his face is paling out the rose; 
 
 For though his form her loving arms entwine, 
 He cannot feel that with her breath she draws 
 His very soul back ere it death ward goes. 
 
 200
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 in 
 
 AH, cruel, cruel was his deadly wound, 
 
 But in her heart doth Cytherea bear 
 
 A deeper hurt than his who lieth there ! 
 
 The very dogs each well-beloved hound 
 Bay o'er their master lying on the ground. 
 
 And Aphrodite, now in her despair, 
 
 h 
 Unsandaled, wretched, through the thorns that tear, 
 
 Wanders and wails with tangled locks unbound. 
 
 Through the lone woodlands is her anguish borne; 
 Lamenting him, she wildly raving goes, 
 Calling his name, not once, but o'er and o'er ; 
 
 While round his body, from his wound new-torn, 
 The scarlet stream of life-blood spouting flows, 
 Till all his blanched breast is dark with gore. 
 
 201
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 IV 
 
 SORROW her sacred beauty now doth slay; 
 Her cup of grief is filled unto the brim ; 
 And Cypris' loveliness is growing dim 
 Which, while Adonis lived, knew no decay. 
 
 Woe, woe for Cypris! all the mountains say; 
 While all the oaks, from every ancient limb, 
 Make solemn answer, Woe, ah, woe for him! 
 And mourning fills the groves, and glooms the day 
 
 The murmurous rivers purling in the vale 
 Moan for lorn Aphrodite as they go, 
 And weeping too are all the mountain wells; 
 
 The flowers in anguish red and redder grow, 
 While Cytherea through the upland dells 
 Shrills on the listening air her piteous wail. 
 
 202
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 v 
 
 FOR when she saw the wound of Adon bleed, 
 When she who loved him knew that he had died, 
 With her the hardest heart had mourned and sighed, 
 The end deploring of that bloody deed: 
 
 "Leave me not yet in this my bitter need!" 
 With arms aloft, she passionately cried ; 
 " O my beloved, stay with me abide ! 
 Lip pressed to lip! ah, hear me piteous plead! 
 
 Oh, wake, Adonis, do not from me go, 
 Kiss me again, my sweet, the final kiss, 
 Till from thy inmost heart deep into mine 
 
 Into my very soul thy love doth flow; 
 Kiss me again, O best beloved, divine, 
 That I may drain the very deeps of bliss!" 
 
 203
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 VI 
 
 "THAT kiss which thou hast left me will I prize 
 E'en as thyself, O thou most precious thing! 
 Thou who must face dark Acheron's hateful king 
 In realms Plutonian, far from mortal skies. 
 
 Wretched, forlorn, what means can I devise, 
 Being a goddess, ah, the cruel sting ! 
 To follow thee and to thy side to cling 
 Where streams Lethean greet the wondering eyes? 
 
 Take him, my lover, O Persephone, 
 For thou, alas, art stronger far than I, 
 And all of beauty drifts at last to thee! 
 
 Take thou my lord, who, fading, here doth lie; 
 Lo, Sorrow sets her burning crown on me, 
 And now all life seems but one lingering sigh!" 
 
 204
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 VII 
 
 "NAY, I am widowed since that thou art gone, 
 O thrice-desired, with thy comely grace, 
 Thou who didst love the dangers of the chase, 
 Following thy hounds at earliest flush of dawn 
 
 While in the fern yet sleeps the dappled fawn. 
 Thy death my beauty's girdle will efface ; 
 In all the world none e'er can take thy place, 
 Since thou art to the Stygian doors withdrawn." 
 
 Ah, for each drop the dying Adon bled, 
 
 Upon the earth, like rain, her grief she showers, 
 And all the groves are filled with sounds of rue; 
 
 Now that Adonis fair is cold and dead, 
 
 The blood and tears bring forth two lovely flowers, 
 His blood, the rose ; her tears, the wind-flower blue. 
 
 205
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 vm 
 
 "No more 'mid oaken woods, oh, now no more 
 May I lament for him and vainly weep; 
 These forest leaves, new-gathered in a heap, 
 Not fitting are for one that I adore ; 
 
 Oh, let him have my couch, and, covered o'er, 
 Let him as erst the holy slumber keep, 
 Fair as a babe new-fallen into sleep, 
 For e'en in death he is death's conqueror. 
 
 Strew wreathed flowers, dewy with the prime, 
 Upon the ground where he doth pale repose; 
 Sprinkle his body with Assyrian nard 
 
 And fragrant spices of some Austral clime; 
 Nay, perish all sweet scents from my regard, 
 He was my perfume, and my perfect rose ! " 
 
 206
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 
 IX 
 
 DRAPED in his purple raiment Adon lies, 
 
 And near him Loves are weeping in the air; 
 Sorrowing aloud, they clip their golden hair 
 And drop the ringlets with suffused eyes; 
 
 And one the darts hath broke, 'mid tender sighs, 
 Another, stooping, with the gentlest care 
 Hath loosed the sandals of Adonis fair, 
 While others, grieving, hover in the skies. 
 
 Many are sighing down the mournful wind, 
 And round his pallid form are fluttering now ; 
 One laves the wound the cruel tusk did plow, 
 
 And still another, coming from behind, 
 Draws near the dead, and piteously kind, 
 Fans, with his little wings, Adonis' brow. 
 
 207
 
 THE LAMENT FOR ADONIS 
 x 
 
 THE torches on the lintel of the door 
 
 Hymen hath quenched and made to flicker down; 
 And he hath torn to shreds the bridal crown, 
 And Hymen's hymn is sung no more, no more! 
 
 Woe, woe for sweet Adonis, o'er and o'er 
 The weepers sing, and mourn his bright renown ; 
 No gladness can their grief a moment drown; 
 Woe, woe for Adon, whom they all deplore. 
 
 Cease, Cytherea, from thy grieving sore, 
 
 Weep thou for him again another year; 
 
 For though the Muses call beseechingly, 
 He cannot come, in spite of prayer or tear; 
 
 No mortal voice he heeds on Pluto's shore 
 
 Held in the shadows by Persephone. 
 
 208
 
 THE HUSBANDMAN, THE FOWLER, AND LOVE 
 
 A FOWLER boy was hunting *in the glade 
 
 For merles and thrushes and the gentle dove, 
 When on a box-tree bough the winged Love 
 Perched, bird-like ; and the crafty hunter laid 
 
 His toils in vain, for hopping, unafraid, 
 The little restless Mischief did not move 
 From out the shadow of the ilex grove. 
 In hopeless quest the lad no longer stayed, 
 
 But, while his breast with anger sore was stirred, 
 
 Sought out the teacher of his art, who said: 
 "Give up the chase; let the sly elf alone; 
 
 Seek not to snare this evil-minded bird, 
 
 For, though he shuns thee now, when thou art grown 
 He'll come uncalled, and perch upon thy head ! " 
 
 209
 
 THE TUTOR OF LOVE 
 
 ONCE Cypris, leading Eros, said to me, 
 "Kind Shepherd, take this boy I bring to you, 
 Teach him to sing as sweetly as you do." 
 Straightway I showed him all my minstrelsy ; 
 
 Played on the flutes, and took him on my knee; 
 How Hermes made the lyre, I told him, too, 
 And how Apollo, god of music, drew 
 From golden chords goldener melody. 
 
 These, in my innocence, to Love I taught, 
 But he, not heeding, sang of man's desire 
 Of mortal's love, and of his mother's smiles. 
 
 Lo, I became the scholar, and I caught 
 
 The soul of all his songs, and all their fire, 
 Forgot my teachings as I learned his wiles! 
 
 210
 
 LOVE AND THE MUSES 
 
 THE wild boy, Love, though full of all deceit, 
 The Muses cherish and do never fear, 
 But follow him their darling, doubly dear; 
 From loveless-minded men, with hurrying feet 
 
 They flee away, nor teach them numbers sweet, 
 Nor honeyed tones Pierian, golden-clear ; 
 But when one, love-smit, chaunts, they give him cheer, 
 And 'gladly run his joyous steps to greet. 
 
 A witness to this truth myself I bring, 
 For if I venture upon other themes 
 Sky-born or merely mortal, even then 
 
 My music falters in my breast; but when 
 Of Lycidas and Love I gladly sing, 
 Forth from mellifluous lips the carol streams ! 
 
 211
 
 VANITY OF VANITIES 
 
 OH, if were doubled the brief mortal span 
 
 Through the wise gods or by inconstant Fate, 
 Ah, could he spend one-half in joy, elate, 
 And one in labor under labor's ban, 
 
 Then he could toil, and after resting, man 
 
 Might win reward ; but since is fixed his date, 
 How heavy is the weary, weary weight 
 Of burdens carried since his day began ! 
 
 When wealth is won we covet wealth again ; 
 Strangle our souls to lay base riches by; 
 Slave at laborious art, we know not why, 
 
 And seek the shades, alas, who knoweth when? 
 How brief the hour allowed to mortal men ! 
 Do they forget they are condemned to die?
 
 TO THE EVENING STAR 
 
 O HESPER, golden light of eve serene, 
 Lamp of the lovely daughter of the foam, 
 Thou sacred jewel of the deep blue dome, 
 Dimmer as much than Cynthia, silver queen, 
 
 Who sinking slowly, yonder now is seen, 
 As thou art brighter than all stars that roam 
 The skies! oh, guide me to the shepherd's home 
 The while I lead the revel o'er the green. 
 
 The moon wanes fast; lend me thy beams divine, 
 Illume the woods and dusky thickets nigh, 
 Show me the way with thy refulgent light, 
 
 And bring me safely to my longed-for shrine ; 
 No brigand, throttling travelers in the night, 
 But a true lover, bent on love, am I. 
 
 213
 
 TO CYPRIS 
 
 MOTHER of Love, mild goddess, Cyprus-born, 
 
 Daughter of Zeus, though child of foam and wave, 
 Why 'gainst immortals and all men dost rave? 
 Nay, rant of them in bitterest, scathing scorn? 
 
 Why wert thou so with passionate anger torn 
 That thy most beauteous body erewhile gave 
 Birth to that boy the subtle, wicked knave 
 The heartless Love who makes the whole world mourn? 
 
 Ah, why, sweet Cypris, didst thou give him wings 
 And teach the wily god to shoot so far? 
 His cruel mind is so unlike his shape, 
 
 And calm of spirit he doth ever mar; 
 
 Child though he is, oh, we may ne'er escape 
 The galling anguish of his bitter stings ! 
 
 214
 
 SELECTIONS FROM MOSCHUS
 
 LOVE, THE ABSCONDER 
 
 CUPID, the rogue ! my darling runaway 
 
 Oh, who hath seen him where the cross-roads meet? 
 His skin all blushing, and how honey- sweet 
 His wily voice, I, Cypris, may not say! 
 
 More than a kiss from me shall be thy pay 
 If thou return him ; but, oh, be discreet, 
 For on that saucy brow is writ deceit, 
 And both his tongue and tiny hands betray! 
 
 If thou shouldst see him, bind, and hither bring 
 The rosy scamp ; but do not his desire, 
 Let not his lips to thine an instant cling! 
 
 And should he tempt with gift of arrows dire 
 Or gilded bow, refuse each treacherous thing, 
 For all his armature is dipped in fire! 
 
 217
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 i 
 
 To fair Europa, once upon a time, ' 
 
 Sweet Cypris sent a mystic- laden dream : 
 'T was in the third watch, when rare visions stream 
 From out the dusky portals of the prime; 
 
 When sleep, more sweet than honey or than rhyme, 
 Lulls the lax spirit with some poppied theme 
 That binds the eyelids in that soft demesne, 
 When winged fancies float from other clime. 
 
 Then as the vision-bringing harbinger 
 
 Stood by the threshold of the shadowy door 
 Of virgin thoughts that trouble and perplex, 
 
 She saw two Continents at strife for her, 
 Asia the one, one th' Hesperian shore: 
 Both in the shape but vaster of her sex. 
 
 218
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 ii 
 
 AND one of these had glorious, sorrowing eyes 
 She was the stranger, come from that far land ; 
 The other took Europa by the hand, 
 Clung round her neck appealing in this wise: 
 
 "I nursed thee, child, and thee do idolize," 
 But still that other, 'neath her fillet-band, 
 Reproving looked, and spake in high command : 
 "By Zeus, fair maiden, thou shalt be my prize!" 
 
 With beating heart in fear Europa sped 
 
 Forth from her couch, so clear she viewed the dream- 
 For, though awake, she saw the vision still; 
 
 Then long upon her soft enticing bed 
 Silent she sat, and, like a little stream 
 Leaf-hid and timorous some faint-hearted, rill 
 
 219
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 in 
 
 HER voice went trembling on in dazed surprise 
 Sweet as the sacred brook Pierian: 
 "Oh, who of all ye gods that mortals scan 
 Hath sent these phantoms to my wondering eyes? 
 
 Are these strange visions meant to terrorize? 
 Or do they herald some celestial plan 
 Of happiness beyond the thought of man ? 
 Who was the alien woman in such guise? 
 
 For her a longing seizes on my heart; 
 
 How kind she looked, how graciously severe, 
 As she my cheek unto her bosom drew ! 
 
 It seemed as if I could not from her part: 
 Ah, all ye blessed gods, I pray you hear, 
 Fulfill my dream, oh, let it all come true!"
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 IV 
 
 THEN timid she arose and went to seek 
 The maidens of her train the lily girls 
 Whose loosely-filleted and wandering curls 
 Clustered around each glowing, rosy cheek; 
 
 Daughters that noble sires plain bespeak, 
 
 With voices sweeter than the morning merles, 
 Fresh buds of rarest maidenhood, the pearls 
 Of purple Tyre, sea-crowned queen antique. 
 
 In all Europa's sports they would engage, 
 
 And their most beauteous bodies oft would they 
 Bathe where the silver rivers meet the sea, 
 
 Or in the dance float on in bright array; 
 Then on some flower-marauding pilgrimage 
 Together pluck the lilies of the lea. 
 
 221
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 v 
 
 AND there she found her comrade-maidens dear 
 Along the ocean on the rolling dunes, 
 Where the spent sea leaves shallow blue lagoons 
 That show the roots of rushes, amber-clear; 
 
 Rare joy it was for them to wander here, 
 
 For, though 't was morning, the full-orbed moon's 
 Pale face smiled down, and far they heard the tunes 
 Sung by the surge across the sleeping mere. 
 
 And in her hand each maiden, o'er the leas, 
 A basket bare, for roses they would cull; 
 But fair Europa's was of gold, inlaid, 
 
 Sculptured, embossed, by great Hephaestus made, 
 Rich-wreathed with carven shapes of deities, 
 Once Telephassa's, and most wonderful! 
 
 222
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 VI 
 
 AND now the girls took ever fresh delight, 
 As soon as on the meads their feet were set, 
 In gathering flowers ; one the violet 
 Divine and blue; others the exquisite 
 
 Low-creeping thyme, and, in rich purple dight, 
 The hyacinth ; or with a faint regret 
 Dropt many a petal down all dewy-wet, 
 Or culled the poet's flower narcissus white. 
 
 But in the midst of this fair lily band, 
 The Princess, with her ardent little hand, 
 The sumptuous splendor of the scarlet rose 
 
 Plucked, lightly, with a touch imperial : 
 
 Then queenly 'mid the graceful group she goes, 
 And, like to Cypris, dwarfs her rivals all.
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 VII 
 
 THEN Zeus them seeing, changed himself at sight 
 Unto a bull, Europa's love to gain : 
 Not to such beast as in the burdened wain 
 Beneath the yoke still sweats in sorry plight, 
 
 Feeds in the stall, or from the dawn till night 
 Drags on the curved plough in toilful pain, 
 Nay, but a bull of an immortal strain, 
 Whose more than human eye doth love incite. 
 
 His lordly body brightest chestnut shone ; 
 A silver star was set within his brow; 
 His looks with soft desire did importune; 
 
 And from his foretop two branched horns were thrown, 
 As when a flake of cloud divides the bow 
 And leaves the two curves of the crescent moon.
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 VIII 
 
 HE came into the meadow in his pride 
 Among the beauteous daughters gathered there; 
 And they had yearnings deep to touch his hair 
 And lay white hands upon his silken hide. 
 
 His heavenly fragrance round was wafted wide, 
 Sweeter than perfume of the pastures fair; 
 He closer drew, Europa to ensnare, 
 And licked her cheek, and soft the virgin eyed. 
 
 Around his neck her arms she interwove, 
 
 While from his mouth she wiped the foam that ran, 
 And kissed his lips, by passionate love distraught; 
 
 Against his spell the Princess vainly strove ; 
 Then the bull lowed so sweetly, that you thought 
 You heard the dulcet flute Mygdonian !
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 IX 
 
 HE bowed himself before her sandaled feet 
 And bent his neck, and on the maiden gazed; 
 While his great loins enticed her and amazed; 
 Then gently did she her fair maids entreat: 
 
 "Come, dear my playmates, make my joy complete, 
 Mount me upon the bull, and be not dazed, 
 For ne'er a beast in fair Phoenicia grazed, 
 So honest, mild, so gentle and discreet ! " 
 
 Then on his back, secure, she smiling sat 
 And bade her rosy comrades follow too ; 
 But from the ground great Zeus arose thereat 
 
 Impelled by love's impetuosity 
 
 And, though she waved despairing hands in rue, 
 On, like a dolphin, sped across the sea.
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 x 
 
 AND straight the tossed foam settled into blue, 
 And waves were leveled in the ocean dells; 
 The dolphins tumbled in subsiding swells, 
 And Nereids rode upon their sea-beasts too. 
 
 While he, the Shaker of the World, came through 
 The briny paths whose ridged waves he quells, 
 To guide his brother, where, with whorled shells 
 The Triton trumpeters swept into view: 
 
 With human torso and with dolphin tail, 
 
 Round him they gathered in a joyous throng, 
 And in the wave their shining colors cast; 
 
 Each lifted to his lips the sea-shell frail, 
 And, as the bull-god and Europa passed, 
 Blew from the raised conchs a bridal song ! 
 
 227
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 XI 
 
 MEANWHILE Europa on the bull divine 
 Grew piteous pallid at her plight forlorn; 
 While one hand clasp'd the great beast's glowing horn, 
 The other in her mantle did entwine 
 
 Lest it should trail within the flying brine. 
 The azure robe on her sweet shoulders worn, 
 Puffed by the wind, sail-like, was backward borne, 
 As sped they to the dim sea's far confine. 
 
 But when no longer landmarks could be seen, 
 Far from surf-beaten headlands of her home, 
 Or lofty cliff well-loved, along the shore, 
 
 When all was moving mounds and wastes of green 
 With dark illimitable fields of foam, 
 Her voice brake forth and this the wail it bore :
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 XII 
 
 "On, whither wilt thou bear me, wondrous bull? 
 
 How know'st the paths the ocean-monsters take? 
 
 What food is thine? and what thy thirst doth slake? 
 
 Hast thou some spirit to guide thee like the gull, 
 And potency the rolling wave to lull? 
 
 The sea a path for flying ships doth make, 
 
 But beasts for this their pastures ne'er forsake ; 
 
 Nay, thou art then some god most worshipful ! 
 Lo, not the dolphin with his rainbow fin 
 
 Fares on the land, nor kine upon the deep ; 
 
 But fearless thou dost pass the sea and shores; 
 Across the boundless-bosomed hyaline, 
 
 And by the grottoes where the mermen sleep, 
 
 With thy wild hoofs thou speedest as with oars !
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 XIII 
 
 "PERCHANCE then thou wilt rise within the air 
 And speed on bird-like wings afar on high; 
 Alas for me ! no marvel that I sigh, 
 For my mischance is more than I can bear. 
 
 Far from my father's house I sadly fare ; 
 It may be in the gray sea I shall die, 
 For who could here a helpless maid descry? 
 Oh, lonely am I and I know not where ! 
 
 Surely some deity will give me aid! 
 
 Oh, thou the Shaker of the Earth, divine, 
 Propitious come, and meet me on the wave 
 
 Me, Telephassa's daughter, sore afraid 
 Surely I see thee coming me to save 
 Who drop these tears in the unfeeling brine!" 
 
 230
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 XIV 
 
 So moaned she, and the horned bull replied : 
 "Take courage, maid, the dread deep dread not thou 
 For Zeus am I, even I, though veiled now 
 In semblance of a beast which thou dost ride; 
 
 Still am I Zeus, and still am deified ; 
 Ah, 't was the love of thy fair lily brow 
 And bosom whiter than the Pelion snow 
 That in this bovine made my godhead hide. 
 
 In Crete, that loometh there beyond the sea, 
 With all her vast and opulent dominion, 
 There shall thy bridal bed be made, and then 
 
 Thou from the loins of Zeus yea, even from me, 
 Shalt bear great, golden-gifted, glorious sons, 
 Sole scepter-swaying monarchs over men ! " 
 
 231
 
 EUROPA AND THE BULL 
 
 xv 
 
 So said the god, and voiced the words of fate: 
 Soon o'er the wave the rim of Crete upreared; 
 And when the coast grew greener, and they neared 
 The yellow sands, he donned his godhead straight, 
 
 Then loosed the girdle of his lovely mate; 
 And by their side the rosy Hours appeared 
 To deck the bridal bed; and, golden-sphered, 
 The stars came out in more than regal state. 
 
 Mother she was of Minos called the Just 
 The king lawgiver by the Cretan seas, 
 Who, later, judged the souls by Pluto's chair; 
 
 Of Rhadamanthus of the Cyclades; 
 
 Sarpedon, who, self-banished, builded fair 
 Miletus of far Caria, long in dust. 
 
 232
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 i 
 
 WAIL, all ye woodlands and ye laureled glades, 
 And low lament, thou azure Dorian deep ! 
 Ye silver rivers of Sicilia, weep, 
 For Bion, well-beloved, hath sought the shades ! 
 
 Moan, all ye groves, along your dim arcades; 
 Ye lowly flowers, that in sad clusters creep 
 Among the tangled wildwood, sink to sleep ; 
 And as the touch of sorrow you invades, 
 
 O soft, ye roses, breathe yourselves away ! 
 Let the drooped petals of the hyacinth sigh, 
 And murmur through the woods their well-a-day; 
 
 Let blue anemones for grief turn red; 
 
 Yea, all green things that grow, despair and die, 
 For he, the dulcet Singer, now is dead! 
 
 233
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 ii 
 
 OH, all ye liquid-throated nightingales 
 
 Singing among the dusk leaves of the trees, 
 Pour forth your lamentable elegies 
 Along the twilight of Sicilian dales ! 
 
 Reiterate, ye birds, your lovelorn tales! 
 
 Murmur your sorrows to the evening breeze 
 Where Arethusa, from across the seas, 
 Listens beside the fountain in your vales ! 
 
 For him, who sang like you his deathless songs, 
 O swans Strymonian, chaunt some dolorous dirge 
 Immortal and melodious as his own ! 
 
 Not to the Thracian Nymphs he now belongs, 
 For he hath passed beyond the Stygian verge, 
 This Dorian Orpheus of mellifluous tone!
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 in 
 
 No more at eve unto his kine he sings, 
 The well-beloved herdsman passed away; 
 No more beneath the oaks, at dawn of day, 
 One hears afar his dulcet carolings ; 
 
 By Pluto's side he chaunts of other things, 
 Oblivion, and the fate of mortal clay ; 
 Ah, nevermore his gladsome roundelay 
 Shall sound in upland pastures by the springs! 
 
 The heifers wander by the bulls, forlorn, 
 With many an anxious and grief-laden low, 
 Nor will they touch the wealth of clover-deeps; 
 
 The mountains, too, are voiceless, eve and morn ; 
 The flocks are silent on the silent steeps, 
 Listening for him who fluted long ago! 
 
 235
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 IV 
 
 P,EAN himself lamented thy sad doom, 
 O Bion, master of sweet minstrelsy! 
 And e'en the uncouth satyrs mourned for thee ; 
 The garden gods, amid the dittany bloom, 
 
 Wore sable stoles to semble forth their gloom ; 
 The fountain fays beneath the ilex- tree 
 Rivers of tears are weeping ceaselessly, 
 And even Echo, grief doth now consume. 
 
 In anguish for thy fall, the orchard trees 
 
 Let drop their fruit throughout the silent vale, 
 And sorrow blights the beauty of the rose ; 
 
 Since thou art gone dark waves the galingale, 
 No milk hath flowed from udders of the ewes, 
 Nor is there honey in the comb of bees.
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 v 
 
 OH, not the swallows on the ridges high, 
 Nor plaintive note of piteous Philomels, 
 Nor dolphins rolling in the ocean swells 
 About the sea-banks, nor, in summer sky, 
 
 The halcyon shrilling forth her mournful cry, 
 Nor that strange bird of Memnon in the dells 
 Of dawn, e'er sang such touching, sad farewells 
 As were poured forth, when, Bion, thou didst die ! 
 
 O all ye swallows he once gave delight, 
 Taught you to twitter and almost to talk 
 There as ye sit together on the bough, 
 
 Mourn low for him ; ah, all ye warblers bright, 
 And nightingales in every bosky walk, 
 Bemoan yourselves he is not with you now ! 
 
 237
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 VI 
 
 WHO, Bion, who would dare to be so bold 
 As press his lips to thy mute instrument? 
 Since thou art gone, who so irreverent 
 To try his sleight on that rare pipe of gold? 
 
 For still from thy dead mouth the tune is rolled 
 Along the pastoral valleys, redolent 
 Of thee, and with thy beauteous spirit blent, 
 For there thy name is fragrant as of old. 
 
 And shall we let Pan try thy hushed pipe now 
 Since far thou wanderest in immortal meads? 
 Nay, even he, remembering, would refuse, 
 
 Lest he should touch the stops less sweet than thou! 
 Oh, never will the world thy warblings lose, 
 For Echo croons them standing 'mid her reeds.
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 VII 
 
 E'EN Galatea loved thy song divine, 
 The lily, who in sweet Sicilian lands 
 Clasped Acis, crushed to death at Cyclops' hands ;- 
 Not on the sea-banks now doth she recline; 
 
 She hath forsaken the cerulean brine, 
 And sitting lonely on the lonely sands, 
 Seeing unherded all thy lowing bands, 
 She thinks on thee and keeps thy wandering kine. 
 
 Now Cypris more thy memory enjoys 
 
 Than that last kiss by Aden's wounded side; 
 Sadly the loves are mourning round thy tomb ; 
 
 Ah, all desired gifts with thee have died, 
 The blissful mouths of maidens in their bloom, 
 And lovely kisses from the lips of boys!
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 VIII 
 
 MELES, most musical of rivers, flow, 
 In this thy second sorrow, to the sea; 
 Homer that sweet mouth of Calliope 
 Thou once didst lose; and now this newer woe, 
 
 The Herdsman's death, thou hast to undergo; 
 Wail, River, wail for him unceasingly, 
 For nevermore from reedy pipe shall he 
 Flute his soft Dorian adagio! 
 
 Ah, not of wars he sang, and not of tears, 
 
 But of the shepherds and of Pan would chaunt 
 Amid the pasture sweeter than a bird ! 
 
 Would gather rushes in some marshy haunt, 
 
 And make the pipes that still his song endears, 
 Or, rising, milk the heifers of the herd.
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 IX 
 
 PINDAR and Hesiod are regretted less 
 Than thou, O Bion, in Boeotian woods; 
 And not in Lesbos and her solitudes, 
 Alcaeus and thy lovelorn poetess 
 
 Cause, by their death, such utter hopelessness. 
 Not for Archilochus the lone Nymph broods 
 Deeper in Paros by the ^Egean floods; 
 Nor light is Mytilene's new distress. 
 
 Famed was Theocritus of Syracuse, 
 But unto Bion doth my dirge belong, 
 Who am no alien to the pastoral lute; 
 
 To me, when Bion died, he left his Muse 
 To me, a singer of Ausonian song 
 The deathless heritage of the Doric flute. 
 
 241
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 x 
 
 AH me, when all the garden mallows fade 
 And drop their petals with a seeming sigh; 
 When beds of parsley green begin to dry, 
 And tendrils of the anise low are laid 
 
 Withering upon the walks, we ne'er upbraid, 
 For if, when Winter comes, they seem to die, 
 We smile within our hearts, for by and by 
 Spring will remake them as the Spring has made. 
 
 But oh, we men, the mighty, and the wise, 
 Inheritors of splendors gone before, 
 We men, when once into the earth we go, 
 
 We meet the irremediable woe; 
 
 In darksome graves we close unseeing eyes 
 In dreamless sleep, that waketh nevermore!
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 XI 
 
 As evil men will lay a deadly bait 
 
 And kill the sweetest of the singing birds, 
 So, Bion, envious of thy honeyed words, 
 They poisoned thee because of rancorous hate. 
 
 Ah, who so basely could thy death predate? 
 
 Thee who could harm that knew thy song of herds, 
 Of kid and kine, of milkings and of curds? 
 No music lived within the vile ingrate ! 
 
 But for this deed which still my soul o'erwhelms 
 Thy death by lowest among craven men 
 They shall be judged by justice, whom they scorn, 
 
 And swift condemned in Rhadamanthus' realms: 
 But I shall never hear thy voice again 
 Fluting upon the hills, at eve or morn ! 
 
 243
 
 THE LAMENT FOR BION 
 
 XII 
 
 IF I, by my deep passion rendered bold, 
 
 Had sought the gloom of that Plutonian shore, 
 Like him, the famed lion conqueror, 
 Or that rare lyrist of the harp of gold, 
 
 Or wise Ulysses of the days of old, 
 
 I might, within that dark and Stygian door, 
 Have heard if there thou still didst sweetly pour 
 Thy rich Sicilian pastorals manifold. 
 
 There Dis shall drop his keys and dream of vales 
 He trod in Enna once, on hearing thee ; 
 And ah, what grief will touch Persephone 
 
 When that thou pipest of her long-lost dales! . . . 
 But as to earth came back Eurydice, 
 Mayst thou return among our nightingales! 
 
 244
 
 MEGARA'S LAMENT 
 
 "As a bird mourning for her nestlings dead, 
 Killed in the boscage by some serpent vile, 
 Flutters around her little fledglings, while 
 Her piteous note fills all the grove o'erhead, 
 
 But cannot bring the life back that is sped, 
 Yea, fears herself the reptile's fang and guile, 
 And wails the loss she ne'er can reconcile, 
 For all the comfort of her heart is fled, 
 
 So hath this soul been harrowed even mine ; 
 The children so beloved that beauteous brood 
 By my dear lord were killed before these eyes, 
 
 And all the floor swam crimson with their blood. 
 Ah, woe is me, who childless here repine; 
 Now naught is left but never-ending sighs!" 
 
 245
 
 BY THE GRAY SEA 
 
 WHEN all unruffled sleeps the silent sea, 
 
 Outward I look, and love the land no more; 
 Fain would my feet forever leave the shore 
 To drift upon that calm serenity. 
 
 But when wild ocean thunders angrily, 
 
 And torn waves shatter into foam, and roar, 
 Then I, ill pleased, seeking the greenwood floor, 
 Love the wind's harping through each swaying tree. 
 
 Ah, he whose life is passed upon the wave, 
 
 Whose wandering bark is but a house of death, 
 Toils through wild dangers to a watery grave: 
 
 Me, rather, let the forest lull to dreams, 
 
 Low lying on some bank, the boughs beneath, 
 In calm repose beside the woodland streams.
 
 THE POWER OF LOVE 
 
 BY Pisa, forth Alpheus ardent flows 
 Through Arcady to the Ionian brine, 
 Past many a shepherd piping 'neath the pine ; 
 Deep through the emerald wave he swiftly goes 
 
 Bearing his bridal gifts of laurel and rose 
 And sacred soil and sprays of eglantine: 
 Headlong he rushes to that fountain shrine 
 Fair Arethusa with a lover's woes ! 
 
 His currents, under Ocean, miles and miles 
 Unmingling wind, until they disembogue 
 In far Ortygia, fresh and sparkling free. 
 
 Ah, thus hath Love, the mischief-making rogue, 
 The teacher of all knavish, artful wiles, 
 Taught e'en a river to run beneath the sea! 
 
 247
 
 SELECTIONS FROM BACCHYLIDES
 
 HIERO'S HORSE-RACE 
 
 TO HIERO, OF SYRACUSE, WINNER OF THE RACE 
 
 I 
 
 THOU canst be judge, if any mortal may 
 High-destined King of golden Syracuse 
 Of honeyed music flowing from the Muse ; 
 And now, at rest awhile from sceptred sway, 
 
 Turn hither, listen to these strains, and say 
 If the fair-cinctured Graces do infuse 
 Aught of their charm unto these words I choose, 
 Who come from Zea's isle to tune this lay. 
 
 And if Bacchylides such votary I 
 Of golden-filleted Urania dare 
 In verse that race unparalleled to sing, 
 
 Won at Olympia by thyself, O king, 
 
 Be thou the judge, as thou art just and fair, 
 And hear me hymn thy royal praises high ! 
 
 251
 
 HIERO'S HORSE-RACE 
 
 THE EAGLE 
 II 
 
 ALOFT, and cleaving the ethereal air 
 
 With tawny wings, far in the dazzling skies, 
 The Eagle of the Thunderer grandly flies 
 Where other glorious soarers fear to dare; 
 
 Not the cloud-piercing peaks, snow-crowned, that glare, 
 Nor the torn ocean that man terrifies 
 Balk his free plume nor daze his dauntless eyes, 
 Imperious and imperial past compare ! 
 
 Still onward, upward through the regions dread, 
 Companioned by the wind above the seas, 
 Mounting in splendor sweeps the king of birds: 
 
 I, too, have empyrean paths to tread, 
 
 To chaunt your praises in, and winged words, 
 O sons illustrious of Dinomenes ! 
 
 252
 
 HIERO'S HORSE-RACE 
 
 PHERENICUS A HIPPOP^AN 
 
 III 
 
 CALL that man blest to whom the skies concede 
 A share of triumph from the multitude; 
 No mortal path is always flower-bestrewed, 
 But happy he whom pomp and station lead: 
 
 Thy horse, O Hiero, the storm-footed steed, 
 The fiery Pherenicus, chestnut-hued, 
 Was, near Alpheus' river, early viewed 
 Victorious, and on haunted, Delphian mead. 
 
 Matchless he was for conquest, failure-proof, 
 For by the holy Earth I swear it true, 
 That, as he furious swept anear the goal, 
 
 No dust could touch him of a rival hoof; 
 Swift as the winged Aquilon he flew 
 Amid the shouts the nations loud uproll!
 
 SONG FOR TWO VOICES 
 
 MEDEA TO ^GEUS 
 
 I 
 
 "O ^EGEUS, of the soft lonians, lord, 
 
 And king of Athens, why these notes of war? 
 Does the harsh trumpet of some conqueror 
 Crossing the frontier vast and unexplored, 
 
 To devastate the land with fire and sword 
 Sound on the air? Some rash conspirator 
 Who leaves the shepherds lying in their gore 
 And adds their flocks, new-stolen, to his hoard? 
 
 For if not this, O King, then what alarms 
 
 Thy soul? Tell me, of Circe's line, thy friend; 
 For thou who art the glorious warrior-son 
 
 Of great Pandion, thou hast men and arms, 
 And power supreme o'er thy dominion, 
 With glittering hosts thy borders to defend.", 
 
 254
 
 SONG FOR TWO VOICES 
 
 ^EGEUS TO MEDEA 
 II 
 
 "A HERALD, hurrying through the day and night, 
 From the extremest border brings the news 
 Of wondrous deeds of him of mighty thews, 
 Who kills tree-bending Sinis in his might, 
 
 Slays the man-slaying Crommyon boar at sight, 
 Spears Sciron by the sea, and then pursues 
 And lets death give brute Cercyon his dues, 
 Which ends the wrestling giant's cruel sleight; 
 
 Aye, strong Procrustes that in iron bed 
 Stretches the travelers that come anear 
 Until the hapless ones for mercy sue, 
 
 He conquers, these, and more besides are dead: 
 What else may not this alien wonder do? 
 By Zeus! then think you we have naught to fear?"
 
 SONG FOR TWO VOICES 
 
 MEDEA TO ^EGEUS 
 III 
 
 "BuT did the Herald give the stranger's name? 
 
 Whence sprung? and if he brought an armed force? 
 
 Comes he empanoplied? with myriad horse? 
 
 With clarion pealing, and with loud acclaim? 
 Or singly, yet with daring strength to tame 
 
 These potent ones he vanquished in his course? 
 
 Intrepid must he be, of vast resource, 
 
 Who all alone such mighty foes o'ercame ! 
 Or is he some bright creature of the sky 
 
 With heaven's mission in the world to fill, 
 
 Dispenser of the vengeance of the gods ? 
 It must be, else, in battling, his great skill 
 
 Should at the last meet with some fearful odds 
 
 Fatal to him ; this, time will verify."
 
 SONG FOR TWO VOICES 
 
 ^;GEUS TO MEDEA 
 
 IV 
 
 "THESE words the Herald brought: 'The warrior stands 
 With but two men beside him; and there gleams 
 A sword from shining shoulders ; glittering beams 
 Play round twin polished javelins in his hands; 
 
 A Spartan helmet clasps his hair in bands; 
 He wears a purple tunic as beseems 
 His rank ; a mantle of Thessalia streams 
 Across that breast high courage still commands. 
 
 Oh, youth sits throned in each lineament! 
 
 His eyes flash flame like some volcano's cone; 
 And where the battle's clangor calls afar 
 
 He plays the joyous game of crimson war; 
 And even now his vengeful feet are bent 
 For splendor-loving Athens and its throne.'" 
 
 267
 
 THE DISCUS THROWER 
 
 ILLUSTRIOUS he who binds his auburn hair 
 
 With wreaths triennial. Fortune hath such boon 
 Granted Automedes, and newly strewn 
 His path with victory the athlete fair, 
 
 Preeminent, as in the azure air 
 
 Of some cerulean-vaulted night of June 
 
 In her full glory is the orbed moon. 
 
 The amazed crowd pressed round at him to stare, 
 
 The wondrous discus-hurler, true and bold, 
 Unmatchable in all the wrestling bouts, 
 For with his brawn a nameless grace was blent; 
 
 And when the javelin through the sky he sent, 
 The assembled hosts of Hellas raised such shouts 
 As might have waked Enceladus of old!
 
 BEFORE THE BATTLE 
 
 i 
 
 As when on darkening seas the north-wind blows 
 Furious and wild, and the white-crested waves 
 Threaten the mariners with watery graves 
 Who on the midnight deck unconscious doze, 
 
 Then with the opening of the Auroran rose 
 The south-wind bellies all the sails, and paves 
 The sea- paths blue around the mermaid caves 
 And full of hope to port the sailor goes; 
 
 So the sad Trojans, when they heard that grim 
 Achilles, sullen, lingered in his tent, 
 Bereft of sweet Briseis, yellow-haired, 
 
 Rejoiced, and gladness through their legions went; 
 No longer felt they dreadful fear of him, 
 War's cloud was lined with light, and none despaired.
 
 THE CONFLICT 
 
 ii 
 
 THEN from the walls they rushed unto the shore, 
 And by the ship's stern fought an ear the flood, 
 Where furious Hector with his victims' blood 
 Stained the soil dark, while all the waters bore 
 
 The tint of carnage, and both sail and oar 
 
 Were crimson splashed . . . Ah, fools, to think they could 
 Despoil those blue-prowed ships with havoc rude, 
 And on the morrow shouts victorious pour 
 
 Along the god-built streets of Ilion ! 
 
 But they were counting without fate's decree, 
 And Nemesis and her avenging powers, 
 
 For they were doomed, before that time, to see 
 With Trojan blood Scamander's waters run, 
 Reddened by overthrowers of their towers.
 
 IN PRAISE OF VIRTUE 
 
 To Pheres' son these words Apollo told : 
 "One of two omens may thy lot assuage, 
 That thou shalt die to-morrow, or thy age 
 Be lengthened many a year till thou be old." 
 
 Live just and joyous; greet the cheerer, gold. 
 No stain the sun in all his pilgrimage 
 Finds in the sky ; no one, though wisest sage, 
 Through time to youth can e'er be backward rolled. 
 
 But virtue hath a radiance all her own, 
 
 Which dims not as ephemeral deeds of man, 
 Nor pales as doth the fleeting star of fame; 
 
 'T is nurtured at the holy Muse's flame 
 And shines forever, as it still hath shone, 
 White as the deathless gods Olympian ! 
 
 261
 
 MENELAUS TO THE TROJANS 
 
 THEN Menelaus to persuade them, spake; 
 "Warriors of Troy, 't is not high-ruling Zeus 
 That is the cause of all this world's abuse, 
 For men are free the paths of right to take. 
 
 Justice, chaste Order, and the Law, these make 
 Man blest. Ah, happy they whose children choose 
 These dwellers in their streets ! They only lose 
 Who basely gain, who faith and honor break. 
 
 And they who through contempt of equal rights 
 Court Arrogance and her pernicious train, 
 Bestowing gifts they never truly owned, 
 
 Though girt by flaming suns, yet walk in night's 
 Abysmal darkness ; and it was her reign 
 That shook earth's kingdoms, and her kings dethroned!"
 
 PEACE 
 
 O PEACE, what blessings come in thy sweet name! 
 Plenty from earth, and poesy from the skies; 
 For the immortals, thou dost bring the thighs 
 Of oxen and the long-wooled sheep that flame 
 
 On fiery altars; the athletic game, 
 
 The flute, the dance, and youth's festivities : 
 
 In hand-holds of the shield, the spider lies 
 
 And weaves her web; spear-points that overcame 
 
 The warrior in the battles' red retreats, 
 
 And two-edged swords, all rust, and rest from war. 
 No brazen clarion of the conqueror 
 
 Comes now caressing slumber to impair, 
 But joyous revelry doth fill the streets, 
 And notes of love-lays linger in the air. 
 
 263
 
 SONNETS
 
 MY CASTLE 
 
 How pale, how faint, how phantom-like it seems, 
 That vague and vaporous Castle, dimly bright! 
 From cloudy battlements burst on the sight 
 Innumerous valleys and unfading streams. 
 
 Inside, a golden-vaulted gallery gleams 
 
 With troops of luminous spirits, which alight 
 When Day drops down the drawbridge for the Night: 
 It is the airy castle of my dreams. 
 
 From shadowy turrets dim my soul commands 
 The spirit of the cloud; nightly I mark 
 The path of stars. Ah ! no assaulting bands 
 
 No hounds of Care swarm at the gate and bark; 
 And when Sleep comes, the winged Warden's hands 
 Let fall the still portcullis of the dark. 
 
 267
 
 LIKE BELLS UNTOLLED 
 
 SWEET are the songs the soul still leaves unsung! 
 Why should the spirit strive to set in speech 
 The poignant love that lies beyond the reach 
 And utmost eloquence of human tongue 
 
 Upon the shores of Silence, heaped among 
 Those splendid jewels of the soul, that each 
 Snatches and hides forever on the beach 
 Of Life, from Love's great tidal-wave upflung? 
 
 O lips that smile, and eyes that shed no tears, 
 What veiled sorrow doth within ye dwell! 
 O hearts that keep a silence all your years 
 
 Though breaking with a love ye will not tell, 
 Your sob dies with you like an untolled bell, 
 Or if at last ye speak, 't is Death who hears ! 
 
 268
 
 TITHONUS TO AURORA 
 
 So long ago that I forget the day, 
 
 I begged this boon of immortality 
 
 Which, granted, brought me endless agony. 
 
 Dazed by her beauty, I, in my dismay, 
 Forgot to ask for Youth; and here I stray 
 
 Dim-sighted, loveless, chill, and doomed to be 
 
 Aged forever. Through eternity 
 
 Worlds may be born at will, but I must stay 
 Cold in these clouds, who beauteous was, and drew 
 
 Eos to love me every rosy morn. . . . 
 
 Her sandals touch the hill-tops wet with dew 
 Divine she comes! . . . O Sweet, I am forlorn 
 
 Forlorn and old too old for love, and you ! 
 
 Grant me at last to die, ere Day be born !
 
 IN MEMORY OF AN ONLY SISTER 
 
 THAT day when thou wast in the church-yard laid 
 Can I forget? Thou wert so passing fair, 
 Thy sweet neck like the lily, and thy hair 
 Gold-chestnut on thy brow . . . O tender Maid, 
 
 Who would have thought thy loss could so invade 
 The sunshine of my years, and everywhere 
 Make my remembrance of thee my despair 
 Thou who, alas, art but a gentle shade ! 
 
 Had I but loved thee more ere thou hadst fled 
 Far from these fields, that timid hand of thine 
 Had oftener, in those twilights, lain in mine 
 
 To comfort and console ! Would I had fed 
 
 Thy heart with warmer love ! now thou art dead, 
 Alone I drink this wormwood for my wine. 
 
 270
 
 BY THE RIVER AT SUNSET 
 
 THE sting of this tarantula of toil, 
 
 The glitter of some vague Golconda's gold, 
 
 These goad us through our lives. We men have sold 
 
 Our birthright for this pottage drudge and moil. 
 
 Not only cities now our souls embroil 
 In haste, but in each hamlet too, behold 
 The roaring wheels of hurry on are rolled, 
 This writhing serpent never stops to coil. 
 
 Thou silent sun ! now sinking down the dale ; 
 Thou river fair ! unrippled by an oar ; 
 Restful yet mighty emblems ye, all hail! 
 
 Teach your repose to man for evermore, 
 
 That he upon life's lake that knows no shore 
 May move as peaceful as a folded sail.
 
 THE SEA-GULL 
 
 OH, had I but thy wings when storms arise, 
 Gray spirit of the sea and of the shore ! 
 When the wild waters round thee rave and roar, 
 Calm art thou 'neath the tumult of the skies. 
 
 Thy plume hath spanned the deep's immensities ; 
 Above that vast and ever-shifting floor 
 Thou, on thy gray wing roaming, still dost soar, 
 Forever drawn to where the distance lies. 
 
 From the dim sea's unknowable extreme 
 
 Thou comest, wandering through lone water-ways 
 To cliffs empurpled and cerulean bays ; 
 
 Then, rocking near some cavern's emerald gleam, 
 Thou seem'st the soul of halcyonian days 
 The restful Spirit of the sea supreme. 
 
 272
 
 WITHIN THE GATES 
 
 A GREATER fulgence, then, mine eyes assaulted, 
 And in a radiance which all suns transcended, 
 Low down my brow before the Throne I bended; 
 Unworthy e'en to look upon the vaulted 
 
 Heavenly dome, much less on Him, exalted 
 
 O'er Time and Death. Slowly my vision wended 
 Upward ; with trust and trepidation blended, 
 Reverent I moved, and near the Glory halted 
 
 That Glory which was God, supreme, celestial: 
 No sceptre held He, but a child most holy 
 A little child that beamed a look terrestrial ; 
 
 And while great wings of Spirits flamed supernal, 
 
 h 
 The Seraphs sang: Ye must be pure and lowly 
 
 E'en as this babe, to gain the Life Eternal. 
 
 273
 
 VOYAGERS 
 
 As happy children, in the May-time, go 
 To set their toy-ships on a mimic sea, 
 Full-sailed but rudderless, and watch with glee 
 The white-winged wonders driven to and fro 
 
 At the wind's will, wherever winds may blow; 
 Powerless to guide, recall, or make them flee; 
 Careless of what the unseen dangers be, 
 Knowing of none preferring not to know; 
 
 Thus we, in roseate dawns in days of yore, 
 Started our ships of Life to cruise the world, 
 Helmless, yet scorning rock and threatening gales; 
 
 What matter where those silken wings were furled? 
 Fond Hope forever fluttered o'er the sails 
 Alluring on from golden shore to shore. 
 
 274
 
 MICHAEL ANGELO AT FORTY-SEVEN 
 
 NINE years! nine years the Pope hath bade me stay 
 
 Stone-quarrying in these mountains, kept me here 
 
 Road-making round Pietra, like a mere 
 
 Dull drudge, who, still reluctant, must obey. 
 I watch the sunset burn the hours away; 
 
 Visions immortal, frescoed tier on tier, 
 
 Arise before me ! Sculptured forms austere 
 
 Leap into life from the imagined clay ! 
 T would seem the Pontiff values but my brawn ; 
 
 Fettered am I within this mountain lair; ^ 
 
 I who, with David and the Laughing Faun, 
 Lilied, with poesy, my Florence fair; 
 
 I who have dreams of carving Night and Dawn, 
 
 And building domes, unparalleled, in air! 
 
 275
 
 ON THE UPLAND 
 
 "THERE lies great Argos!" said our mountain guide, 
 Pointing due eastward toward the Cyclades : 
 
 <v 
 
 Around our feet the honey-laden bees 
 
 Hummed in the blooming thyme. Here, far and wide, 
 
 The cistus seemed a rose, while sunset-dyed 
 Blossomed the cliff, where drowsing at his ease 
 A goatherd, near the fallen marble frieze, 
 Dreamed of his flock along Cyllene's side. 
 
 The evening deepened and we caught the breeze 
 From meads of roseate oleander fair 
 On dusky banks of Inachus abloom ; 
 
 The nightingales were mute, but everywhere 
 The myriad tettix, from the twilight trees 
 Filled, with insistent chirp, the classic gloom. 
 
 276
 
 UNAVAILING GRIEF 
 
 PARAPHRASE FROM THEOCRITUS 
 
 O WHAT avails that thou shouldst weep for her 
 Until thine eyes with grief should flow away? 
 Youth is a rose which blooms but for a day 
 And on the morrow finds a sepulchre. 
 
 The will of Zeus what prayer of man can stir? 
 Unhappy Thyrsis ! cease to mourn or pray, 
 She cannot hear thee now thy Bloom of May 
 And back from Hades comes no messenger. 
 
 The beauteous maid, the slim and rosy girl 
 That round thy neck hung as a precious pearl, 
 Oh, what will grief subserve or bitterest tears 
 
 Since death his wolfish jaws has closed, and left 
 Through all thy desolate and defloured years 
 Not even her ashes unto thee, bereft ! 
 
 277
 
 A TUSCAN LACHRYMATORY 
 
 THY sweet brow low above thy lover bends 
 For he is dead thou fairest of all maids 
 That lived and loved in glad Etrurian glades 
 Where Vallombrosa now her vale extends. 
 
 To thee no comfort from the sky descends; 
 Thy fingers, ringed with jasper and with jades, 
 Clasp this small vase of sorrow. In the shades 
 Cold lies thy love, and so for thee all ends. 
 
 Thou weep'st, and dost endure such grief as sears 
 'The soul. No solace for thy heart in years 
 To come. . . . Dead Tuscan by the Umbrian sea, 
 
 Thou who art dust this many a century, 
 What lover shall I leave to weep for me 
 What amphora wan, filled with what woman's tears? 
 
 278
 
 ON PRESENTING A SONNET 
 
 POET, whose Muse beneath the southern vine 
 Hath trod where fond Alpheus gently flows 
 To join his Arethusa where she rose 
 In that famed Isle of olives and of wine ; 
 
 Thou who wast called by the Pierian Nine, 
 Who lov'st the Enna shepherd as he goes 
 Fluting 'mid heifers where the herds repose, 
 Along the valleys lost to Proserpine ; 
 
 Thou who with rare Theocritus communed 
 In sweet Sicilian dales, far off and dim, 
 Deign to accept this all unworthy lay 
 
 From one least of the train whose harps are tuned 
 To Poesy this page of Song, from him 
 Who loves like thee the Dorians passed away. 
 
 279
 
 SUBMISSION 
 
 'T is well, stretched out beneath the yellow trees, 
 Deep in the hollow near the silent run, 
 To watch the leaves, as slowly, one by one, 
 Like wounded birds they flutter on the breeze. 
 
 Silence is brooding o'er the golden dale, 
 But from the hill-tops, ever and anon, 
 Muffled and faint, is heard the cruel gun 
 Wakening the echoes in the distant vale. 
 
 'T is well afar from town or dearest friend, 
 Amid these Autumn ferns alone to lie; 
 To feel that life is drawing to an end 
 
 E'en as the leaves that drift adown the sky; 
 To endure that Fate we cannot comprehend, 
 And, like the Year, submit, and learn to die.
 
 ON A PAINTING 
 
 You mark at eve, far outward to the sea, 
 Enormous cliffs that rise and grandly loom, 
 Monsters portentous of some direful doom, 
 Guarding the gateways to immensity. 
 
 Low down the scarlet clouds are drifting free 
 Where dying roses of the sunset bloom; 
 And voices, as of phantoms from the gloom, 
 Reverberate the things that are to be. 
 
 Darkness is coming from the caves of sleep 
 To soothe the restless breezes, and to lull 
 The crimson billows that unceasing roll; 
 
 And silence broods upon the purpling deep 
 Where, like a disembodied, wandering soul, 
 Wavers the pinion of the lonely gull.
 
 A VOICE FROM THE BORDER-LAND 
 
 A MAIDEN SPBAKS 
 
 OH, bear me not where northern tempests blow 
 Amid the mountains of my native shore, 
 Where the great rivers with their thunderous roar 
 Dark through the pallid valleys plunging go ; 
 
 But on this golden coast, where breezes low 
 Float from pacific seas unknown before, 
 Here let me breathe until my day is o'er, 
 Far from the land of lone Laurentian snow. 
 
 Alas, if I so young must meet my doom, 
 Let it be here by Esperanza's lake 
 Where Bernardino's ranges rise and take 
 
 The splendors of the morning, or where bloom 
 Of Pasadena's roses still may make 
 Remembered fragrance round my dying room.
 
 . THE DUSK 
 
 *~ 
 
 A GENTLE air is in the twilight sky ; 
 
 The clouds are spirits, waving shadowy wings 
 Above the empurpled cliffs. The hour brings, 
 From o'er the wood, the whippoorwill's lone cry, 
 
 And voices faint, from out the gloaming, sigh; 
 Afar, some spirit of the belfry rings 
 Softly the evening bells, and silence clings 
 Like some loved arm around us, long laid by. 
 
 No other sound the sombre stillness mars 
 All hushed as are the poplars' minarets; 
 The dusky cattle dozing by the bars 
 
 Seem 'gainst the sky but shadowy silhouettes ; 
 And now, above the hills, the first few stars 
 Pace their steep paths and wear their coronets.
 
 TO A NATURE STUDENT 
 
 1904 
 
 THE trivial actions of the beast and bird 
 Why study these or waste on them a breath? 
 Matters at hand there are of life and death 
 To this our Country; they are veiled and slurred 
 
 By press and pulpit lest some fearless word 
 Should give offense. Cowards are we for pelf 
 Who have no freedom in our civic self 
 But vote like slaves, for baseness, by the herd. 
 
 Ye unsuspecting ! turn your hoodwinked eyes 
 Upon the secret machinators of your kind, 
 Who, with the poniard of the purchased pen, 
 
 Stab Freedom here. Too long have you been blind! 
 Shall Liberty be strangled? . . . Wake! Arise! 
 Look round on vulpine Man, and study men! 
 
 284
 
 THE EVENING VOICE 
 
 OFT have I seen o'er some gray orchard wall 
 The solemn cattle in the evening sun, 
 Awake, and slowly rising, one by one, 
 Hearing from home the master's welcome call, 
 
 Follow the winding pathway, great and small, 
 Nor wander from it till the barn was won; 
 Then quench each parched throat within the run, 
 And through the night sleep safe within the stall 
 
 E'en so would I, now in this lessening light, 
 Hearing a voice that calls me o'er the hills, 
 Rise and walk onward with no fear of ills, 
 
 Threading the dim path homeward as I might, 
 Then, drinking deeply from immortal rills, 
 Rest in the folds of Peace throughout the night.
 
 "THERE WAS A TIME" 
 
 THERE was a time when o'er my gentle books 
 From morn to tranced midnight would I pore, 
 Enchanted by their treasured wealth of lore. 
 Unheeding now, with far and dreamful looks 
 
 I pass them by: enough for me the brook's 
 Sweet counsel, and the torrent's roar; 
 For Nature still allures me more and more, 
 And draws me daily to her sylvan nooks. 
 
 There, like a hermit, I may muse alone ; 
 For vocal is the ground; the stars yet shine 
 That on the shepherds over Bethlehem shone; 
 
 The fields are volumes, and each page divine. 
 Few books he needs who listens at the shrine 
 Of Nature, and translates aright her tone. 
 
 286
 
 THE EVENING HOSTS 
 
 ABOVE the battlement and parapet 
 
 The warrior squadrons of the setting Sun 
 Hurl in the Twilight's face their gonfalon; 
 From scarlet tower and from minaret, 
 
 With purple pomp and plumed violet, 
 In splendid phalanxes they charge upon 
 The approaching legions of the Evening dun 
 Those grim battalions never vanquished yet. 
 
 They storm the bastions of the wavering Day 
 Whose crimsoned javelins fall within that host 
 Unconquered; they in that unequal fray 
 
 Make of those glorious troops a holocaust: 
 Then from the turrets on the ramparts lost 
 The Twilight cohorts flaunt their flag of gray.
 
 SICILIAN IDYL 
 
 PARAPHRASE FROM THEOCRITUS 
 
 THOU liest, Daphnis, by leaf-hidden streams, 
 Soft-breathing in thy poppied slumber deep ; 
 Thou dost not hear the tinkling of thy sheep 
 As far thou wanderest in the dale of dreams. 
 
 But wake, O shepherd! for it surely seems 
 Pan and Priapus, goat-eared twain, now leap 
 With satyr strides adown the rocky steep 
 To catch thee drowsing where thy grotto gleams. 
 
 The one with bronzed ivy-leaves is crowned 
 About his jocund head and caprine ears, 
 And both upon thy track are rushing straight ; 
 
 O rouse thee, shepherd ! for with frolic bound 
 They come, and one beside thy cavern peers, 
 Arise, and flee before it is too late!
 
 HIDDEN WOUNDS 
 
 The Heart Knoweth His Own Bitterness 
 
 AH, who shall tell of that disguised despair 
 Hid from the world in bitterest disdain ! 
 The ardor damped ; the new-born hope, new slain, 
 Joy's bud unfolding but a rose of care ! 
 
 The frailty and impermanence that dare 
 
 Mask as true love, while proving such love vain : 
 
 These daily poniards of recurrent pain 
 
 These may be borne as we have learned to bear: 
 
 But Oh ! the life with deeper anguish fraught : 
 Veiled lacerations of the poet-heart 
 That inward bleeding at the Triumph of Wrong! 
 
 The wounds from non- reciprocated thought 
 The throbbing ache from unaccomplished Art 
 And ceaseless pang of ineffectual Song!
 
 SOME PEAK OF HIGH ACHIEVE 
 
 'T is hard to be forgot, to have our name 
 Fade from a world we even half despise ; 
 And men have done gold deeds of vast emprise 
 Only to be remembered, so that Fame 
 
 Might fix them in her amber. Can we blame 
 Such spirits, yearning for the stars and skies, 
 If courting death, she them emparadise ? 
 Mere love mere life, for these, were all too tame! 
 
 So, as man's night comes on, fain would he weave 
 His name around some deathless star, or die 
 To give it to a flower. Ah ! but to leave, 
 
 Looming o'er wastes of mediocrity, 
 Some peak unscalable of high achieve 
 To daze the dim blue of Futurity ! 
 
 290
 
 MIDNIGHT BY THE CATARACT 
 
 WHIRLWIND, and Power, and Storm ! The endless boom 
 Of unseen waters lashed to seething white, 
 With thundrous clarions of Niagara's might 
 Bellowing through vasts inscrutable of gloom : 
 
 And from the unfathomed caverns of her spume, 
 Enormous voices, that the mind affright 
 Portents of that inevitable Night 
 Whose sound is like the angel-trump of Doom: 
 
 From the dark caverns down the abysm of Time 
 Reverberations reach the soul, sublime 
 And fateful. Then, henceforth, with fearsome breath 
 
 We list athwart the darkness, and we hear 
 Forever, sounding in the spirit's ear, 
 The roar of the insatiate scythe of Death. 
 
 291
 
 STORM-SWEPT 
 
 FAIR faces calm as though from sorrow free; 
 The placid brows Madonna might have worn; 
 Clear foreheads where no cares were ever born, 
 These are the gauds of Youth's vacuity. 
 
 Not so the fronts of those who life foresee ; 
 
 Scarred with the thunder-track of Thought, and torn 
 With eagle beaks of Art, they bear the thorn 
 Of passion in their souls, eternally. 
 
 Behold the infinite pathos of their eyes ! 
 
 Each face is as the sorrow which it knows 
 Gashed as the shield of Hector, but with blows 
 
 Immortal of the mind, that agonize. 
 
 And if e'er peace her seal to such bestows, 
 'T will be in Lethe where no thoughts arise. 
 
 292
 
 THE BEAST 
 
 DEEP in the earth's most fathomless profound, 
 In darksome caverns where there comes no light, 
 I heard a monster crawling through the night, 
 And, as it neared, its roaring shook the ground. 
 
 A Shape invisible, it glared around; 
 Only its eyes I saw a baleful sight 
 Green-blazing balls of terror and of might ; 
 Formless the horror came a moving sound. 
 
 Then, when I thought the Beast would strike me dead, 
 Prone in the dark I fell, and trembling, prayed; 
 Whereat, descending from the walls above 
 
 While splendor filled the cave from overhead 
 In dazzling beauty to my eyes displayed, 
 Appeared the white wings of the sacred Dove.
 
 THE DYING DAY 
 
 WHAT is thy trouble, Day, in that thine eyes 
 Are weighted with the beauty of despair? 
 That all the illusive glory of thy hair, 
 Like a fond hope fallacious, fades and dies? 
 
 Stabbed by the spear of empty prophecies, 
 
 Become the burthens, then, too hard to bear? 
 
 Or does the thought of realms thou must forswear 
 
 Flood thee, at eve, with these melodious sighs? 
 
 Or dost thou feel the intolerable weight 
 The iron crown of hours upon thy head? 
 And, sadly glad, as we at evening's gate, 
 
 Smile in thy heart that thou shalt soon be dead, 
 Because the splendors of an earlier state 
 And Dreams auroran now are vanished? 
 
 294
 
 FAME 
 
 WHAT does it profit, all the praise of men, 
 
 When these our ears are filled with silent dust? 
 
 What solace in the monumental bust 
 
 Which never more can reach our distant ken? 
 
 Better to let the fluent brush and pen 
 Drop from the hand into corrosive rust 
 Than feel this feverish and ignoble lust 
 For mere men's praises, never heard again. 
 
 And I, in youth, oft being much to blame, 
 
 Listening the trump the inglorious goddess blows 
 Beguiled by empty blare and loud acclaim 
 
 Spake rashly then, but now as one who knows, 
 That he who lets Love pass to clutch at Fame, 
 Gathers but ashes for life's fairest rose.
 
 THE HEIGHTS 
 
 STILL is Prometheus with his anguish fraught, 
 And each aspiring soul Thought's vulture-beak 
 Yet feels, defiant, and will not be meek 
 For peace with genius never need be sought. 
 
 'T is only in achieving, life is wrought. 
 
 Fame's clarion peals above the highest peak, 
 And the Icarian mind will ever seek 
 The starry upland of creative thought. 
 
 O - empyrean Youth ! who soared away 
 
 Up to the sun with thy fresh pinions free, 
 Then lost thy wings, and for a night and day 
 
 Fell headlong, sheer, within the abysmal sea, 
 Far greater thou, than Daedalus wise and gray, 
 Who, soaring lower, lived ingloriously ! 
 
 296
 
 DEAR ARE THESE FIELDS 
 
 TO MY BROTHER H. 
 
 THEN by the fence-row blooms the golden-rod, 
 When days are dreamy, tempting one to ease, 
 \ leave my house a wren's nest in the trees 
 And pace the dear fields I so oft have trod. 
 
 Here my impassioned father walked the sod 
 
 And flung Shakespearian numbers down the breeze 
 While slow we strolled, as brothers. Joys like these 
 Are mine no more, since him the folds of God 
 
 Long claim. And now alone I softly tread, 
 Musing, within these glades, and find repose. 
 And -when at evening pales the western rose, 
 
 I oft recall the sounding phrases read, 
 
 As he, enraptured, dwelt on some fine close 
 Timonian, ah, I hear each word he said! 
 
 297
 
 DELPHIS REMEMBERS SIM^ETHA 
 
 WHY do I seal these lips and never sing 
 
 Of love, who might so many a time have sung? 
 Ah ! passionate lips from mine own lips have wrung 
 Love ere it reached to song ! How could I fling 
 
 Love into verse whose poignant aspic sting 
 
 Silenced all voice? Love to these lips has clung 
 So fiery close, speech could not find among 
 Her burning words one word whose eagle wing 
 
 Could reach the cloud we soared in she and I ! 
 She would not hear my song ; and on my mouth 
 Laid her hot hand, and like the parched south 
 
 Hungered for rain. O Love ! though I should die, 
 What could I do but water such a drouth ? 
 I was made mute by Love's own ecstasy.
 
 IN A VINEYARD OF ASTI 
 
 ITAI.Y 
 
 O NYMPH of cheer that lurks within the vine, 
 You shall not so elude me as you think! 
 Eyes shall be bright for you, and cheeks be pink, 
 Though cool in clusters lurking, you recline. 
 
 On cheese of Parma some day we shall dine, 
 Faunian enough to make the Cyclops blink. 
 O sprite of Asti ! there shall be the clink 
 Of fluted glasses foamed with golden wine: 
 
 Some eve upon the Corso, down at Rome, 
 Giulio and I shall find you, bottled trim, 
 And, sipping softly, hear the hissing foam 
 
 Of rising bubbles bursting round the rim, 
 Then walk up to the Pincio for a whim, 
 And watch the sunset glorify the Dome.
 
 THE LURID CASTLE 
 
 PERCHED on the perilous crag, the Castle vast 
 
 Rose o'er the abysmal gulph a fearsome sight! 
 
 Against the ebon of the starless night 
 
 The turrets glowed vermilion, overcast 
 By some unearthly flame. A bugle blast 
 
 Blared from the bannered walls. Through casements bright 
 
 Were seen the moving revelers, gay bedight, 
 
 As to the towers I turned mine eyes aghast: 
 For lo ! the Castle wavered, as a shock 
 
 Trembled along the undulating floor 
 
 Where Knights and Ladies passed in brilliant show, 
 Then, like a maniac from his dizzy rock, 
 
 The lurid horror, swaying to and fro, 
 
 Plunged headlong down the chasm with deafening roar ! 
 
 300
 
 WITH A GREEK HERDSMAN 
 
 STILL doth the shepherd on the mountain-chain 
 Follow his flock along the thymy hills 
 Of Arachova, where the foamy rills 
 Carol their music to the Delphian plain. 
 
 As from some jutting bluff where he hath lain 
 Prone with his herd among the daffodils, 
 Seaward he stares, the nightingale's rich trills 
 Greet him with rapture of a wild refrain. 
 
 Behind him stand the twin Phaedriades 
 That in the blue of Hellas shadowy soar ; 
 Sleeps to the south the far Corinthian bay, 
 
 And dimly looms, adown the western way, 
 The Acarnanian and ^Etolian shore 
 Past capes of Elis to the Ionian seas. 
 
 301
 
 STILL THOU THE TEMPEST 
 
 THE sun upon the Galilean lake 
 
 Was setting red as though in sullen mood; 
 And Christ, aweary with the multitude, 
 Doing good works all day for pity's sake, 
 
 Entered the ship and slept. A storm made quake 
 The deep, and howling, thundered with its flood ; 
 But He, rebuking, stilled it where He stood 
 And winds were hushed where erst the tempest brake : 
 
 O gentle Pilot! when those waves of ill 
 
 Come roaring round me; and when tempest-tossed; 
 When doubt's black winds rise near me and are shrill; 
 
 When I am sinking, and am almost lost, 
 Arise from out Thy sleep, my hope fulfill, 
 And to the surging storm say, Peace, be still ! 
 
 302
 
 ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON 
 
 IN MEMORIAM, 1892 
 
 No more our Nightingale shall sing his lay; 
 
 The groves are mute, for he has taken flight; 
 
 He whose mellifluous voice was our delight 
 
 Has, by his death, brought sorrow and dismay. 
 There is a beauty gone from out the day; 
 
 There is a planet fallen from the night; 
 
 A splendor is withdrawn from out our sight, 
 
 A glory now for ever passed away. 
 A thousand hearts unused to bleed have bled, 
 
 And drops of pity dim the hard world's eye; 
 
 And oh, what memories of the day-spring fled! 
 What vanished hopes, what first love's ecstasy ! 
 
 Ah, we have lost what time can ne'er supply, 
 
 For now the Poet of our Youth is dead ! 
 
 303
 
 THE PSALM 
 
 TIER upon tier of seraphim, bedight 
 With most exceeding glory, not alone 
 In golden voids of Heaven, but near the throne, 
 Triumphant, with effulgent wings upright; 
 
 Peal upon peal of song, that took its flight 
 O'er walls of sardonyx and jasper stone, 
 Of such enrapturing sweetness as was known 
 Never to me who came from earth's dark night : 
 
 So did they sing ; so ever did they choir ; 
 Yet I who listened still am found unmeet 
 One strain of that wild rapture to repeat, 
 
 Though all of Heaven seemed turned into one lyre: 
 Prostrate I fell before their burning feet 
 Prostrate before their flaming wings of fire. 
 
 304
 
 THE HELPERS 
 
 NOT unto him who through inglorious days 
 Reaches, at last, his ignominious goal 
 Material wealth; nor him, whose shriveled soul, 
 Raised to scorned eminence by devious ways 
 
 Exults in power for which his honor pays; 
 Nor Conqueror, dealing universal dole, 
 Though blatant Fame his brutal acts enroll, 
 To none of these the laurel and the praise; 
 
 But unto them, true helpers of their kind, 
 Who, daily walking by imagined streams, 
 Rear fanes empyreal in Verse of gold, 
 
 Rare architects of figments and of dreams, 
 Who, from the plastic and creative mind 
 Build their fine nothings in immortal mold. 
 
 305
 
 IN QUIET FIELDS 
 
 ONE lies and dreams ; there is no dissonance 
 In all the slumbering air; and e'en the heat 
 The summer-colt that shimmers o'er the wheat 
 Is still ; the dells are dim with vague romance ; 
 
 Sweet echo is disconsolate no chance 
 Has she to-day the traveler to cheat, 
 For down is on the sandals of all feet, 
 And softly sighs the wind as if in trance. 
 
 Far in her golden fields of calm repose, 
 Deep bathed within the amber afternoon, 
 Hangs the pale remnant of the mid-day moon ; 
 
 And Day's sweet flower that at the evening close 
 Folds like a bud to open as a rose 
 Fades with the fading of this day of June. 
 
 306
 
 WITHDRAW, O WORLD 
 
 RECEDE ! recede ! all literal things that are ! 
 
 Welcome the voice that is not, but that seems! 
 
 Ye rapt illusions and resplendent gleams, 
 
 Drift out of darkness hither from afar! 
 Aerial ministers ! your gates unbar 
 
 And give me glimpses of eternal streams; 
 
 Take all that is, but leave me all my dreams 
 
 Rapt visions thronging through the gates ajar! 
 Recede, O World ! and let the mysteries 
 
 Sweep in upon me of the Spirit's birth; 
 
 Oh, come, ethereal unrealities, 
 Flood me and fill me beyond reach of dearth 
 
 With those immortal murmurs not of earth, 
 
 Memnonian music sweeter than the sea's! 
 
 307
 
 "WILL THESE FADE TOO?" 
 
 O SORROW, sorrow, leave me now alone ! 
 
 I hear the noiseless foot-falls of the dead 
 
 In all the paths; and in the blue o'erhead 
 
 I feel the yearning faces of my own. 
 There is each day a melancholy tone 
 
 Tolled from the cloudy towers of sunset red. 
 
 I know the wings of morning vanished, 
 
 And in the child's laugh hear my manhood's moan. 
 Oh, daily losses gathering to a pain, 
 
 Something is gone that will not come again! 
 
 Where is the glory fled? where are the gleams 
 The recreant Dawn's incomparable beams? . . . 
 
 Faded and flown ! . . . Will these fade too, and wane 
 
 These last delusions and desired dreams? 
 
 308
 
 ST. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK 
 
 THERE under Crete soft were the skies and blue; 
 Sudden the troubled heavens turned to dun, 
 The tempest, from swart deserts Nubian, 
 Raged with its furies; famished were the crew; 
 
 Two sennights, dreadful, wandering, drave we through 
 Terrific roarings of Euroclydon ; 
 The sky a wall of brass, no stars, no sun, 
 Where o'er us ever shrieked the lost sea-mew ; 
 
 Sharp spears of jagged rock rose 'mid that roar 
 Black in the foam of breakers ; it was land 
 Death-dealing, where the storm hurled us, and tore 
 
 The ship atwain ; we, dashed upon the sand, 
 By God's grace saved, lay on Mileta's shore 
 There where that beast, unvenomed, fanged my hand. 
 
 309
 
 "I STAND UPON THE BASTIONS" 
 
 I STAND upon the bastions of the day; 
 
 The troublous Dawn is laboring in the skies; 
 Vast shapes and vague, portentous effigies, 
 Stalk in the clouds and threaten, yet men say 
 
 That we are safe . . . Yes! Safe as once were they 
 Feasting in Babylon when Cyrus' wiles 
 Drew off Euphrates, and let in his files 
 His myrmidons to slaughter and dismay! 
 
 Safe say ye? Listen! Hear ye not the sound 
 Of stealthy sappers tunneling 'neath the walls? 
 That ominous rumble heard below the ground 
 
 When muffled millions dig no shout no calls, 
 But dark and secret workings all around 
 Safe? . . . Safe! Why wait ye till the Castle falls! 
 
 310
 
 HE MADE THE STARS ALSO 
 
 VAST hollow voids, beyond the utmost reach 
 Of suns, their legions trembling at His rod, 
 Died into day hearing the voice of God; 
 And seas new-made, immense and furious, each 
 
 Plunged and rolled forward feeling for a beach ; 
 He walked the waters with effulgence shod. 
 Then, this world made, He yearned for worlds to make 
 From other chaos out beyond our night, 
 
 For to create is still God's prime delight. 
 
 The large moon, all alone, sailed her dark lake, 
 And the first tides were moving to her might; 
 
 Then darkness trembled, and began to quake 
 
 Big with the birth of stars, and when He spake 
 A million worlds leapt radiant into light! 
 
 311
 
 IN TWILIGHT REEDS 
 
 ABOUT the hour the vivid sunset makes 
 The beauteous river's long unrippled blue 
 Turn to more sumptuous and refulgent hue, 
 Reflecting all its clouds and scarlet flakes ; 
 
 And when no wind the reedy inlet shakes, 
 When all is quiet as the falling dew, 
 The fisher, drifting in his still canoe, 
 Floats noiselessly upon these little lakes. 
 
 In twittering flocks, where rushes rise and shoot 
 Their spears above the shallows, golden-clear, 
 The marsh-birds settle down and have no fear. 
 
 So silent is the air, so hushed, so mute, 
 That e'en the sentinel heron does not hear, 
 But stands erect, nor drops his lifted foot. 
 
 312
 
 THE FIRST AWAKENING 
 
 FAR off I saw the seraph wings upraised 
 
 In flame ; with fulgence more than light the air 
 Burned, and the glory showed that God was there 
 Ineffable. Slowly mine eyes undazed, 
 
 As one, bearing a lily, unamazed 
 
 Called me by name ; and I was then aware 
 That love within me grew a flower of prayer 
 My spirit began to know her as I gazed: 
 
 She led me by still waters, even those 
 
 Foretold, and I was filled with peace, and knew 
 My troublous soul was entering Paradise : 
 
 Then memory bloomed, a slowly-opening rose, 
 And while I asked if Heaven indeed were true, 
 Her look of love answered from long-lost eyes! 
 
 313
 
 ANTONY TO CLEOPATRA 
 
 AFTER THE BATTLE AT SEA 
 
 HATH this mine arm lost valor, and mine eye 
 Its penetrant power? And will no smile 
 Leap to thy lips, my Lotus of the Nile, 
 To greet my coming, now that victory 
 
 Sits on the helmets of our enemy? 
 
 Who nobly die must nobly live the while; 
 
 Ah ! there I lapsed through love, but not through guile 
 
 And now portentous phantoms fill the sky. 
 
 The day is past defeat, and all its ills. . . . 
 Oh, let me lean this head upon thy breast, 
 As on the gentle shoulder of the hills 
 
 The gray and fading clouds of evening rest 
 
 Vanquished, my Queen ! not by War's plumed crest, 
 But by thy conquering kisses' fatal thrills! 
 
 314
 
 AN OLD ANCHOR ON THE COAST 
 
 BROKEN, I rust beside this Northern roar 
 'Mid rocks of desolation and of doom 
 I who once dropped through waters filled with bloom 
 Of lotus-lilies where flamingoes soar 
 
 In coves of El Dorado. I no more 
 
 Shall dip in green sea-beds of glimmering gloom, 
 Nor hear the warm white-crested breakers boom 
 Far on the stretches of the palmy shore ! 
 
 Ah ! ne'er again shall these corroded hands 
 Grapple the branched coral 'neath the waves 
 To hold the good ship safe against the breeze, 
 
 Nor wake the Mermaid, dreaming in her caves 
 On ocean ledges floored with fabulous sands 
 Deep in the dim unfathomable seas! 
 
 315
 
 HE BUILDS THE CITY OF ENOCH 
 
 YEARLY I till the vale and sow the seed, 
 But in the furrow rots the golden grain ; 
 My labor is accursed, and all in vain, 
 The very earth revolting at my deed. 
 
 God saith no man shall slay me, though I plead 
 Daily for death. He placed this scarlet stain 
 Here on my brow, and agonizing pain 
 Gnaws me beneath it, yet He gives no heed. 
 
 Enoch reproacheth me, the guileless lad, 
 
 With eyes too like that other long since dead. 
 Remorse engulfs me in her sanguine flood; 
 
 I build this City, else I should go mad; 
 
 But, as I work, the frowning walls turn red, 
 And all the towers drip crimson with his blood. 
 
 316
 
 THE OCEAN ISLE 
 
 ITS cliffs are peaks, ten thousand feet on high, 
 Sheer from the sea, they tower above the mist; 
 Each sunrise smites them gold and amethyst; 
 And there the noon clouds pause as they go by. 
 
 It looms a vision of the wave and sky. 
 
 From upland valleys which the dawn has kissed, 
 Vague waterfalls come streaming where they list, 
 And lose themselves in falling, dreamily. 
 
 Unutterably blue and dim, it seems 
 
 Some region rising from the sea serene. 
 Across the years the phantom waves of green 
 
 Boom at its base above the petrel- screams ; 
 But by none else hath it been ever seen 
 Only by me and only in my dreams! 
 
 317
 
 THE GRASSHOPPER TO AURORA 
 
 TITHONUS SPEAKS 
 
 O DAWN ! was this my punishment condign ? 
 How long it is since thou upon me beamed ! 
 That thou wouldst change me thus I never dreamed, 
 Who am become a voice, and here repine 
 
 Unknown to all, except to thee, divine. 
 
 Rechange! restore me to thyself, though seamed 
 With eld, to see thy chariot, radiant-teamed, 
 Come up the slopes of morning from the brine! 
 
 Let me return to thee though I be old! 
 Without thee, O Beloved! here I pine 
 Ages within the grass. T is I, behold ! 
 
 Who had a body beauteous e'en as thine; 
 Lift me above; and thou once more be mine 
 Far in the bosom of thy clouds of gold! 
 
 318
 
 FAR FROM THE CROWD 
 
 THE upland winds are blowing loud and shrill ; 
 Above this hollow lone, I hear them rave 
 'Mong autumn grasses o'er the summer's grave; 
 The silent cypresses that fringe the hill 
 
 Bend 'neath the fury of their angry will; 
 While here, this limpid pool beside the cave 
 Lies all unruffled by the wind or wave, 
 And holds the blue of heaven calm and still: 
 
 Then let her trump blare round them on their peak, 
 They who by blatant Fame enthroned are; 
 But I will make my soul a pool, and seek 
 
 The sheltering silence of the hills afar; 
 
 Then through the days it may of heaven speak, 
 And through the nights, perchance, reflect a star. 
 
 319
 
 LETHE 
 
 THE angel takes my hand and downward leads 
 
 Through those dim regions where Oblivion lies. 
 
 Upon the lava-rock that vitrifies 
 
 Around us there, no flowers grow, nor weeds. 
 Sole on her throne sits Darkness grim, and breeds. 
 
 Each cliff with cliff in solemn blackness vies ; 
 
 No voices from that midnight gloom arise; 
 
 Slowly the inky river flows and feeds. 
 The angel with me stops, and from the brink 
 
 Amid that troop of gray shades on the shore 
 
 Who pace for ages bids me stoop and drink. 
 I do his hest, and mark him upward soar ; 
 
 Then memory, with that draught, begins to shrink, 
 
 And I remember ah ! . .no more . . no . . more. 
 
 820
 
 THE DAYBREAK 
 
 THE Dawn has come ! with soft harmonious sound 
 Turn on your hinge each adamantine gate ! 
 Crumble, ye barriers ! be exterminate 
 All ye impenetrable doors profound 
 
 That bar the way to knowledge ! let redound 
 The psean, and to Man capitulate ! 
 To him ope your Cimmerian portal straight, 
 Ye Powers of Darkness that our souls confound ! 
 
 Young is the World, and man has just begun 
 To touch those havens of the unfathomed sea 
 That lie enshrouded dark in mystery 
 
 In that remote, unguessed, and dim region 
 Beyond auroral reaches of the sun : 
 This is the daybreak of the Day to be !
 
 A PASSING SHIP 
 
 How beauteous with her canvas to the breeze, 
 As slow she bends and rocks above the bay ! 
 She will not come anear us ; she will stray 
 Onward within the West. Mark how she flees 
 
 Along the sunset splendor of the seas! 
 
 Comes she from silken Fez or dusk Cathay, 
 With scents of sandal-wood that round her play 
 In all her wings ? Or bears she fragrant teas, 
 
 And pungent rolls of Ceylon's cinnamon ? . . . 
 
 She sails . . . and sails ! But whither will she steer r 
 It seems to one who waits, that far from here, 
 
 Between the crimson gateways she will run, 
 Deep down those glowing portals, golden-clear, 
 And cast her anchors in the flaming sun.
 
 AT THE POINT OF DEATH 
 
 TO THE SPIRIT OF POESY 
 
 COME nearer, my Beloved, it is night; 
 
 Bend down above my bed thy features mild ; 
 
 No wife have I to love, nor tender child 
 
 Thou wert my angel, wilt thou take thy flight 
 Thou ! with thine eyes of pity infinite 
 
 And leave me dying and unreconciled? 
 
 It was the sweetness of thy lips beguiled 
 
 Life of its pang and made the darkness bright: 
 Oh, lean down nearer nearer do not fly 
 
 Have we not loved each other well and long? 
 
 Leave me not now, my heart my soul my song 
 Beloved Poesy ! to thee I cry, 
 
 Wrap thy dear arms around me hold me strong 
 
 Oh, wake me with thy kisses when I die ! 
 
 323
 
 DISILLUSIONED 
 
 WHERE have the power and the splendor flown? 
 
 Where have the promises of morning sped? 
 
 Ambition where? her gonfalon outspread 
 
 Flaunting the spacious sky of youth alone ; 
 Making the neck of circumstance a stone 
 
 Whereon to mount, with high and haughty tread, 
 
 Up the sheer steep to her imperial throne. 
 
 Those starry aspirations are they dead? 
 Were they but as a phantom, then, that loomed 
 
 Across the desert of our days, unknown, 
 
 Uncomprehended ? and have they consumed 
 The pith of youth for naught? Will these atone 
 
 These hopes deferred for visions long entombed? 
 
 And is this all that life can give a moan ?
 
 ABOVE THE ABYSM 
 
 ON either side huge beetling peaks rose sheer, 
 And blackness filled the gorge for evermore ; 
 Up from the yawning chasm the cataract's roar 
 Thundered aloud from cliff to cliff austere. 
 
 Across the abysm, as thin as gossamer, 
 
 Was stretched a cord from perilous shore to shore; 
 To this a man clung where no bird could soar, 
 While low the thin thread sagged, his weight to bear. 
 
 In that unfooted region who could aid? . . . 
 Across the darkness there I heard no cry, 
 But still his vague form, dimly could espy 
 
 Where, with tense hands, he held, and swayed, and swayed ; 
 I sickened at the sight, and for him prayed ; 
 Nor knew, until he fell, the man was I. 
 
 325
 
 THE EVENING HOUR 
 
 STILL doth Apollo down the scarlet ways 
 
 Of sunset glory charioteer his team, 
 
 Where the long lessening lanes of crimson gleam 
 
 Athwart the solemn rifts of gathering grays. 
 Within a molten waste of chrysoprase 
 
 Dim, temporal domes arise as in a dream ; 
 
 While toward the zenith, over all supreme, 
 
 Torn shreds of splendor float within the blaze. 
 Dark grow the islands, as the sinking beam 
 
 Deserts each crag and sombre-wooded scar; 
 
 From o'er the empurpled gravel of the bar, 
 Faint to us comes the lonely bittern's scream ; 
 
 While on the darkening mirror of the stream 
 
 Falls the effulgence of the evening star.
 
 THE QUESTION 
 
 WITH folded wings we paced the gorge alone, 
 The shining nimbus round the angel there 
 Lighted my feet. Black in the zenith air 
 Rose the immeasurable mountain throne, 
 
 Peak above peak of everlasting stone : 
 "What is Eternity? O Guide, declare!" 
 " Conceive," said he, "an angel flying where 
 Rises aloft yon peak's Cimmerian cone, 
 
 And that his pinion's soft extremity 
 
 Should brush those walls of adamant, and wear 
 One grain away ; then, every thousandth year 
 
 Again his wing should touch it, flying by, 
 Till all the cliff, at last, should disappear 
 Then only would begin Eternity ! "
 
 TO THE POPPY 
 
 ELUSIVE Spirit of the vague inane 
 
 Whose keys unlock the cavernous doors of sleep, 
 
 Profound and dim, unfathomably deep, 
 
 Thou, with the soft links of thy noiseless chain, 
 
 Dost bind the frenzied body and the brain! 
 Soother of anguish for all men that weep! 
 Angel of mercy ! thou dost from them keep 
 The pangs of torture the wild throes of pain. 
 
 Strange lights thou bringest far beyond the gleams 
 Of beacons on the peaks of thought, while all 
 About thy feet move those unending streams 
 
 And labyrinthine by-ways past recall ; 
 
 And 'twixt two worlds, 't is thou that canst let fall 
 The cloudy drawbridge of dsedalian dreams.
 
 IN THE METROPOLIS 
 
 I LIKE not with the City's human stream 
 
 To be rushed onward, nor to hear the groan 
 Of restless, hurrying masses, avarice-blown 
 Along the streets, with trade their only theme: 
 
 How can the sylvan poet dream his dream 
 Amid the raging Babel round him thrown, 
 Canyons of brick paved with reverberate stone, 
 The whirl of traffic, and the shriek of steam? 
 
 But oh, far off from all the noise of these, 
 To pace the shores that to the soul belong, 
 In realms reclusive past the thought of care; 
 
 By the lone foam of sanctuary seas 
 
 To hear drift on, in deeps of sunset air, 
 The phantom caravels of deathless Song! 
 
 329
 
 THE VOICELESS 
 
 HE clomb where dreamers ever strive to climb; 
 
 Not at life's low unsatisfying lake 
 
 He sought a deep, insatiate thirst to slake, 
 
 But with unalterable faith sublime 
 He scaled the cliffs of midnight and the prime, 
 
 Gnawed by the vultures of his thought, nor spake 
 
 One word, mute-waiting for some Power to break 
 
 The torturing taciturnity of Time. 
 Stern with the soul's unconquerable will, 
 
 He stood, and trembled with ecstatic thrill, 
 
 While through the darkness gleamed his pallid face; 
 Uplooking to the stars, he listened still 
 
 For some apocalyptic Voice to fill 
 
 The Vasts of unimaginable space.
 
 BELOVED DALES 
 
 THOSE words believe not, for they were not true, 
 
 That lauding other lands disparaged mine. 
 
 If I have sung the olive and the pine; 
 
 If still from half-closed eyelids looking through 
 I dreamed of Capri, dimly vague and blue ; 
 
 If I have praised the castles of the Rhine, 
 
 Or Dorian inlets of the vEgean brine; 
 
 I have not therefore lost my love for you, 
 O river islands that in clusters lie 
 
 As beautiful as clouds ! ye are my own ! 
 
 Beloved dales, and crags that touch the sky, 
 The tendrils of my heart for years have grown 
 
 Around you all, ye cannot be o'erthrown, 
 
 Ye hold my heart, and shall until I die!
 
 "THE HARVEST WAITS" 
 
 GOD hath been patient long. In aeons past 
 
 He plowed the waste of Chaos. He hath sown 
 The furrows with His worlds, and from His throne 
 Showered, like grain, planets upon the Vast. 
 
 What meed of glory hath He from the past? 
 
 Shall He not reap, who hears but prayer and groan? 
 The harvest waits. . . . He cometh to His own, 
 He who shall scythe the starry host at last. 
 
 When the accumulated swarms of Death 
 
 Glut the rank worlds as rills are choked by leaves, 
 Then shall God flail the million orbs, as sheaves 
 
 Unfruitful gleaned; and, in His age sublime, 
 Winnow the gathered stars, and with a breath 
 Whirl the spurned chaff adown the void of Time! 
 
 332
 
 SUNSET IN HELLAS 
 
 How many an eve, on yonder peak at rest, 
 I watched the shadowy pageant of the sky, 
 The fading hosts in plume and panoply 
 Pass, on the cloudy ramparts of the West! 
 
 Huge Titans, hurling towers from the crest 
 Of serried bastions that embattled lie ; 
 And phantom galleons, slowly drifting by 
 'Mid amber seas, to havens of the blest! 
 
 Islands of desolate gold ; cities august 
 
 Empinnacled on the verge of scarlet deeps 
 
 Dim, rose-flushed heights, crowned with aularian fanes, 
 
 Slow crumbling into wastes of ruby dust; 
 
 And plunging slowly down the crimson steeps, 
 The Horses of the Sun, with flaring manes ! 
 
 333
 
 AN OLD VENETIAN WINEGLASS ROSE- 
 COLORED AT THE BRIM 
 
 DAUGHTER of Venice, fairer than the moon ! 
 From thy dark casement leaning, half divine, 
 And to the lutes of love that low repine 
 Across the midnight of the hushed lagoon, 
 
 Listening * with languor in a dreamful swoon 
 On such a night as this thou didst entwine 
 Thy lily fingers round this glass of wine, 
 Didst clasp thy climbing lover none too soon ! 
 
 Thy lover left, but ere he left thy room 
 
 From this he drank, his warm lips at the brim ; 
 Thou kissed it as he vanished in the gloom ; 
 
 That kiss, because of thy true love for him 
 Long, long ago when thou wast in thy bloom 
 Hath left it ever rosy round the rim ! 
 
 334
 
 THE VISION 
 
 ONE side the beetling ridge of heated stone 
 The fiery chasm lay, with flaming seas 
 And tongues of fire, and awful agonies ; 
 While many a sob, and many a hopeless groan 
 
 Rose wild around me as I stood alone. . . . 
 I looked above, and under summer trees 
 Saw troops of spirits strolling at their ease, 
 Who, ever harping, knew nor grief nor moan, 
 
 But filled the rosy air with ecstasies 
 
 Of song. "And who are those that never cease 
 To sing? who they that by the flames are blown ? : 
 
 "Those are the spirits who have championed Peace; 
 The souls that gloried in red War are these. 
 Lo, God is just they reap as they have sown ! "
 
 UNSOLACED 
 
 AN AUGUST THRENE 
 
 THE plowman slowly down the furrow goes ; 
 The harvest fields are of their fullness shorn; 
 The standing squadrons of the tasseled corn 
 Turn goldener each day in golden rows. 
 
 The yellow peach within the orchard grows 
 
 Encrimsoned toward the sun ; and faintly borne 
 O'er dale and dell, fond fancy hears the horn 
 September from her phantom hill-side blows. 
 
 Yet in the heart the fragrance of the rose 
 The summer's rose lingers with eloquence; 
 Nor can the autumn's rare magnificence, 
 
 Nor her soft voices and adagios 
 
 For rapture gone bring balm of recompense, 
 Or soothe the sadness that the soul o'erflows. 
 
 336
 
 THE GLOAMING 
 
 TO M. J. M. 
 
 THE tree-tops tremble with the gentle air; 
 Cool as a sister's fingers on my brow 
 I feel the fondling of the zephyr now, 
 As if some delicate spirit touched my hair. 
 
 The wings of twilight, opening darkly fair, 
 
 Shed round their velvet glamour, and the glow, 
 Pale on the western pyre, is burning low; 
 Hush ! for the Day is kneeling down in prayer. 
 
 Her life is o'er, and she is moving on 
 Into the shadowy caverns of the Vast; 
 Into the hollows void of moon or sun, 
 
 Down to the dim irrevocable Past; 
 
 Yet shall she thread those doors, nor look aghast 
 She walked in light until her race was run.
 
 THE BOUQUET 
 
 As one in late November 'mid low meads 
 Tramps to far fields upon the upland set, 
 And on some fence as on a parapet 
 Leans, and looks in on briery wastes, where feeds 
 
 The snow-bird, lonely, on the gray grass-seeds 
 While round, the wraiths of April's violet 
 And ghosts of pale rath roses bring regret 
 Then rambles in among those sombre weeds 
 
 By bloomless stalks of many a late wood-rose, 
 And gleans from them one handful of wild things 
 That, when at home, some recollection brings 
 
 Of sweet dead days: so may he find who goes 
 Through uplands of my Song where no flower blows 
 Some faint suggestion of far fairer Springs!
 
 SANCTUARY 
 
 WHERE shall I make my grave my soul to please? 
 
 In sultry wastes where silent Arabs tread? 
 
 Upon the brow of some stark mountain head? 
 
 Or in the lone, illimitable seas? 
 Beneath the umbrage of ancestral trees 
 
 Where I have laughed with loved ones who are dead ? 
 
 Or on the blue hills where my youth was sped? 
 
 Oh, yield me yet some wilder spot than these! 
 Place me at last, when my brief day is o'er, 
 
 And life's faint lamp burns out within my room, 
 
 Place me on high above the Cataract's shore 
 Amid the mist, the sunshine, and the gloom, 
 
 That I may hear, in that unending roar, 
 
 The thunder of God's presence round my tomb!
 
 CONQUEST 
 
 1900 
 
 THE thievery of the Nations, falsely great, 
 Goes ever on regardless of Thy laws : 
 E'en yet our Christian England's lion paws 
 Reek with the blood of India, and of late 
 
 Afric hath bled. The Tzar, at China's gate, 
 Thunders for empire ; and our crimsoned claws 
 Clutch for more spoils, immeasurable maws 
 For ever ravenous and insatiate! 
 
 O God, the God of millions who are weak 
 No less than of the nations that are strong, 
 Wilt Thou not aid the imperiled, and so wreak 
 
 Vengeance upon these robbers? For this wrong 
 Chide them as Thou didst Saul in lightnings speak 
 Thy fiery wrath! . . .How long, O Lord, how long? 
 
 340
 
 AT EVENTIDE 
 
 As one at twilight, silent and alone, 
 
 Pacing through some secluded garden-close, 
 Notes the ungathered blooms, and sadly knows 
 How all neglect their fragrance, and disown ; 
 
 Sees the parterre with crimson beauty strown, 
 And, where the nodding scarlet deepest glows, 
 Only the wind's hand take the bending rose, 
 Where, on unfooted walks, the leaves are blown 
 
 So, wandering through the garden of my lays, 
 Now, when the gathering shadows deeper fall 
 On lonely paths of unfrequented Song, 
 
 I see my roses undesired of all; 
 
 They bloom and fade unnoticed by the throng, 
 To drift, ungarnered, down untrodden ways. 
 
 341
 
 THE POET 
 
 THROUGH beds of asphodel he moves along 
 To amaranthine meadows of the prime ; 
 He is in love with hope, and longs, in time, 
 To add one bead more of denouncement strong 
 
 Unto the rosary 'gainst all human wrong; 
 He hopes beside so high his wishes climb 
 To leave, in the wild garden of his rhyme, 
 Some marvelous lily of immortal song. 
 
 And still he gives full freely of his store, 
 Walking this world as one entrancedly ; 
 And in life's turbid wave, for evermore, 
 
 Drops the crown-jewel of his melody, 
 
 As one who from some cliff upon the shore 
 Lets fall, unseen, a ruby to the sea.
 
 FROM THE PROMONTORY 
 
 I WATCHED for daybreak: ... To the templed height 
 The wind-borne murmur of the ^Egean sea 
 Surged in full anthem. The sublimity 
 Of the profound unfathomable Night 
 
 Waned, as the regal planets took their flight 
 On fading wings. Full softly, floating by, 
 Low vapors lifted and revealed the sky 
 Pallid with dreams of the auroral light. 
 
 A tremulous opalescence lit the gloom 
 
 Wherein the dim and folded flower of day, 
 Like some sweet rose reluctant still to bloom, 
 
 Paled at the thought of opening. Darkness ceased, 
 And spectral rifts of faint refulgent gray 
 Lilied the airy meadows of the East. 
 
 343
 
 THE REST AT NOON 
 
 A PAINTING BY GEORGE MORLAND IN THE AUTHOR'S HOME 
 
 THERE is no sound nor rustle of a breeze 
 
 Above the bank wherefrom the hawthorn dips ; 
 As the gray horse, plow-weary, gently sips, 
 The brook-rings widen by the bending trees. 
 
 Low voices of the tired laborers cease, 
 
 While Slumber, with hushed finger on her lips, 
 Touches their eyes, and by that sweet eclipse 
 Leads them through valleys of unending ease. 
 
 I pass within the picture, noiselessly, 
 
 Down the green lanes of Devon, where they rest ; 
 Their lids are heavy; sultry is the day, 
 
 And in their dreams, at least, they may be blest; 
 Breathe not a whisper hush ! and steal away, 
 As Morland saw them, still so let them be. 
 
 344
 
 THE THORNY PATH BELOVED 
 
 THE cup he quaffed was of ethereal wine : 
 
 Though Wealth, the golden, entered not his door, 
 He could have droned an idler, yet forbore 
 The lure of Ease upon her couch supine. 
 
 His heart's volition led him to incline 
 To ardent toil ; with brain and hand to explore 
 The realm of art, which like a phantom shore, 
 Enticed him on to her elusive shrine. 
 
 Now evening falls: Health, Riches, Honor, Fame, 
 These passed and left him; yet he trod the ways 
 Appointed by his soul, nor ever furled 
 
 The spirit's banner for a lower aim : 
 Ideal-led, he lived ecstatic days, 
 Spurning, with winged feet, the sordid World. 
 
 345
 
 TO BRIZO 
 
 DROWSY thou liest on thy poppied bed, 
 Inamorata of the realms of air ! 
 Goddess or queen or spirit, passing fair, 
 Rise from thy slumberous pillow where is spread 
 
 In lustrous darkness round thy starry head 
 The wondrous wealth of thine entrancing hair ; 
 Still whisper to me from thy dusky lair 
 Or Atropos shall cut the silver thread ! 
 
 Clear source and fountain of my fleeting lays, 
 Angel of peace, and saint that comforteth, 
 Thy lips were on my mouth I drew thy breath- 
 
 Fhine arms enwrapt me through thy shadowy ways- 
 O thou divine consoler of my days, 
 Be near me in the darkness after death! 
 
 346
 
 DECEMBER 
 
 THE snow lies white upon the frozen plain, 
 And loudly blows the hyperborean blast; 
 His cohorts, armed with lances of the rain, 
 Tilt fierce against me and go charging past. 
 
 The darling Summer that we loved in vain, 
 Oh, where is she and all her gold of yore? 
 Far, far the naiad of the brook has flown, 
 Her reeds are tuneless on the icy shore; 
 
 Gleams from the wood, white as Carrara's stone, 
 The Dorian column of the sycamore; 
 O'er barren hill-tops girt with windy trees 
 
 The songless thickets make their chilly moan; 
 
 And on the high crags where the wan snows freeze, 
 The gaunt gray Winter mounts his stormy throne. 
 
 347
 
 AN IDYL 
 
 NOT in these valleys where we now recline, 
 But far beyond the purple peaks aglow, 
 Lies the fair land I love. The winds are low 
 And soft. He of the thyrsus and the vine 
 
 Comes with his leopards and his skins of wine ; 
 Glimpses there are of Naiads to and fro 
 Flitting through groves ; and faint is heard and slow 
 The pipe of some brown Faun beneath the pine. 
 
 There upland streams, dissolving, reach the vales ; 
 And there are groves of ilex and of yew, 
 Unending valleys and Illyrian dales, 
 
 And gods reclining where the soft winds woo; 
 And azure seas there are, and sunset sails, 
 And shepherds piping on the capes of blue.
 
 THE SINGER 
 
 I LISTENED once, upon an Autumn day, 
 Unto a warbler in a golden wood; 
 As I, entranced by the music, stood, 
 Unequalled seemed to me his wondrous lay. 
 
 Then as I thought of all the choir of May, 
 Ecstatic notes in every solitude, 
 So changed by that remembrance was my mood, 
 That, disenthralled, I sadly turned away: 
 
 O Poet, chanting in these waning times, 
 Far from the fair Elizabethan Spring, 
 Outpouring here reiterated rhymes, 
 
 How full of pathos is thy sadder fate 
 Who by the spirit art impelled to sing, 
 Yet conscious that thy voice is heard too late! 
 
 349
 
 THE EVENING BREEZE 
 
 THE light is waning, and the gentle air 
 Touches the shallow pools along the shore 
 Not roughly, but as if it still forbore 
 To spoil that mirrored surface sleeping fair. 
 
 The water-lilies seem to have no care, 
 
 But dream on in the silence ; and the oar 
 
 Sleeps in the shadow by the sycamore. 
 
 I feel the zephyr's breath that here and there 
 
 Bends the poised arrow-heads, and interlocks, 
 Gently, their barbs ; and on the maple shows 
 The under silver of the leaves, and goes 
 
 Landward so faintly, that the twittering flocks 
 Of small birds settling down upon the rocks 
 Cease, in the dusk, their soft adagios. 
 
 350
 
 MORS VICTRIX 
 
 AT last had come the time long prophesied 
 The world was frozen ; ice now ruled again. 
 Dead lay the earth's last man. Feeling Death's reign 
 Was o'er, Life, though dismayed and terrified, 
 
 Thus spake to Death, "Since the last soul hath died, 
 Numbed with thy rancorous venom here and slain 
 Since man no more exists to suffer pain, 
 Lie down thyself, and die." But, furious-eyed, 
 
 Ravenous and grim, Death raised his haughty head 
 And pointed to the stars, "Yon worlds," he said, 
 "With all their multitudes, were made for me, 
 
 For me created and inhabited ; 
 
 And souls unborn on myriad orbs to be 
 Are mine, foredoomed through all Eternity!" 
 
 351
 
 DELAY, O LIGHT 
 
 DELAY awhile, delay, O sinking light! 
 Linger, a solace in the fading sky; 
 Spread not those golden pinions as to fly, 
 But stay for me, who watch upon the height: 
 
 Remain ! for soon too soon will come the night, 
 When from the crags around me here on high 
 Shall fade the sunset colors ; all shall die, 
 And shadow spread her universal blight. 
 
 Eternal Darkness, fold thy fateful wings! 
 
 And let the twilight we call Life that spark 
 
 A brief time longer last ; that he who sings 
 May strive, with bleeding plumes, to touch his mark 
 
 Delay ! for he has high imaginings 
 
 Imperative to utter ere the dark. 
 
 352
 
 THE BUILDER 
 
 As some worn mason by the village street 
 Works at a chapel day by day, alone, 
 And slowly hewing, places every stone, 
 Then some sad twilight, through the dusty heat 
 
 Treads homeward o'er the hills with weary feet, 
 Finds the sole light within his cottage gone, 
 The dark door enters, and there dies, unknown, 
 Leaving his building ever incomplete, 
 
 So I, at evening, o'er the hills shall roam, 
 
 Worn with my masonry and Art's sharp thong, 
 Missing the star that led my steps so long, 
 
 And lie, at last, within my darksome home, 
 Leaving the rude Cathedral of my Song 
 Unfinished still devoid of spire or dome. 
 
 353
 
 THE DAWN OF SCIENCE IN THE 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY 
 
 HARK, on the peak, the .Hosts of Morning choir ! 
 Fame's clarion blares, and Youth of stout emprise 
 With light of learning in undaunted eyes 
 Leaps to the front and nears his heart's desire ! 
 
 For new vibrations of the great World-lyre 
 Man listens ear to earth, and laboring buys 
 Success with Science ; yet how distant lies 
 The glorious height to which his steps aspire ! 
 
 As Humboldt heard, on Oronoko's shore, 
 
 The rocks at morning make melodious sound, 
 Filling with strangeness all the blue profound, 
 
 So, as the Century lifts her sunrise wings, 
 A vibrant music from the Harp of Things 
 Peals through the World a strain unheard before! 
 
 354
 
 HE MADE THE NIGHT 
 
 VAST Chaos, of eld, was God's dominion ; 
 
 'T was His beloved child, His own first-born ; 
 And He was aged ere the thought of morn 
 Shook the sheer steeps of dim Oblivion. 
 
 Then all the works of darkness being done 
 Through countless aeons hopelessly forlorn, 
 Out to the very utmost verge and bourne, 
 God at the last, reluctant, made the sun. 
 
 He loved His darkness still, for it was old ; 
 He grieved to see His eldest child take flight; 
 And when His Fiat Lux the death-knell tolled, 
 
 As the doomed Darkness backward by Him rolled, 
 He snatched a remnant flying into light 
 And strewed it with the stars, and called it Night. 
 
 355
 
 IN MEMORIAM 
 
 H. H. H., JR. OBIT. ROME 1879 
 
 THEN died for us more life than often dies, 
 
 The child, the lad, the youth, the unconscious Prince, 
 
 All untamed boyhood's thousand royalties 
 
 These passed with him, nor have they risen since. 
 
 His face drew downward from benignant skies 
 The chiseled beauty of the sculptured stone; 
 And all the luminous dark of Tuscan eyes 
 Was mirrored there, still lovelier, in his own. 
 
 And now, beyond the range of sorrow's dart, 
 He lives in fields of calm eternity, 
 A flower whose leaves shall never fall apart 
 
 Though gusts of half forgetfulness drift by: 
 His memory blooms a rose within the heart 
 Where deep affection will not let it die. 
 
 366
 
 WITH FOLDED WINGS 
 
 WHY should I, like the restless, ever roam, 
 
 And clip the world from shining shore to shore? 
 To-day beneath their native sycamore, 
 Beside the palm to-morrow, far from home; 
 
 They pass the sea and all its snowy foam, 
 Its vast and fitful rolling and its roar; 
 Mountains and vales, dread deserts they explore, 
 And glorious cities dim with many a dome; 
 
 Lone lakes they sail among the Pyrenees; 
 
 And in mute marble see the immortals bloom 
 Down the long aisles of gilded galleries, 
 
 And censers swinging in cathedral gloom: 
 Why should I travel, when I see all these 
 Within the silence of my lamp-lit room?
 
 RELENT, O ATROPOS! 
 
 O THOU who fill'st the caverns of the dead; 
 Whose icy heart stagnates with pallid blood ; 
 Whose orbs, implacable, beneath thy hood 
 Glare past the outposts of this World, and shed 
 
 Indifference worse than hate Destroyer dread, 
 At last relent! In pity look thou down 
 Where Love dear Love a-tremble at thy frown, 
 Fears the swift severance of the golden thread ! 
 
 Others we yield thee, thou insatiate soul ! 
 Passion and Wealth ; Beauty, or even Hope, 
 These from us take, whose steps grow faint with years, 
 
 But Love sweet Love ! Oh, on life's darkening slope 
 Leave him our desolation to console 
 A child is he and in his eyes are tears !
 
 THE TEMPLE OF APOLLO 
 
 AT DEI.PHI NEAR PARNASSUS 
 
 Two eagles, from the utmost East and West, 
 Freed by great Zeus, met here in times of old 
 And marked Earth's centre, where, in shapes of gold, 
 Men reared a semblance of them to attest 
 
 The spot whereon the Oracle should rest; 
 Desolate now ! statue and tripod rolled 
 To blank oblivion, lips that once controlled 
 The World, vanished beyond all human quest! 
 
 Yet from thy ruined Fane, thy sacred springs 
 Castalia and her sister as of yore, 
 Gush forth to-day potent with Delphian dreams: 
 
 God of the lyre ! as we have lost our wings, 
 Draw thou again anear us Oh, once more 
 Lead us to these inviolable streams!
 
 "THE NOONTIDE GONE" 
 
 IN murmuring silence of these cottage rooms, 
 The noontide gone, I rest beside the sea ; 
 And through the latticed window, thoughtfully, 
 Peer down upon the crowd that, flower-like, blooms 
 
 Along the beach and where the breaker booms. 
 The surge of Life's and Youth's intensity 
 Is there. Unmoved, I gaze beyond their glee 
 Far o'er the unfathomable ocean's glooms. 
 
 From the dim chamber of maturer years, 
 One looks with lessened ardor than before; 
 And through the lattice dark of hopes and fears 
 
 With small concern hails joy, and calmly hears 
 Love's surges beat against Life's lessening shore 
 As on a land that he shall touch no more! 
 
 360
 
 THE PUPIL OF PHILETAS 
 
 IN Cea's isle, fragrant with new-pressed wine, 
 Philetas, all attenuate by thought, 
 Sat 'neath the ilex and his pupil taught 
 The guarded secret of the sacred Nine. 
 
 Then the boy wandered to the upland pine 
 
 And piped above the sea. Soon Slumber wrought 
 Her poppied spell, and from his hushed lip caught 
 The falling flute that waked the strain divine. 
 
 In sunset dreams he saw himself, erelong, 
 Honored of Crowns ; as winged hours flew, 
 Laurels enwreathed him, and the listening Muse 
 
 Enthroned his name among the stars of Song. . . . 
 Waking, he smiled and touched his pipe, nor knew 
 The vengeful fate that lurked at Syracuse. 
 
 861
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 i 
 
 O GUARDIAN of the sough t-for sacred fire, 
 Mother of splendor springing from the mind, 
 Imperial Inventress, let me find 
 Melodious solace great as my desire ! 
 
 Grant me to waken thy impassioned lyre 
 To most mellifluent music, and unbind 
 The bands of silence ; oh, once more be kind, 
 E'en unto me, the least among thy choir! 
 
 Spirit of deathless Poesy and Dreams, 
 
 Stoop down above me all the day and night, 
 Be ever near the while I draw this breath; 
 
 Oh, flood me with thy visionary light, 
 
 And make me vocal with thy starry themes 
 Before the final aphony of death !
 
 INVOCATION 
 ii 
 
 O BREATH of Godhead, voicing mysteries 
 That mortal men, unheeding, seldom hear, 
 Fain would my spirit bend a reverent ear 
 To feast upon Thy heavenly harmonies! 
 
 Come through the sunset gates, or on the breeze 
 Memnonian, murmur to me, spirit-clear; 
 Breathe solace, and dispel this lifelong tear 
 By mystic music sweeter than the sea's! 
 
 Give to this essence flaming seraph wings, 
 Or burn it, incense-like, to Thee and Thine, 
 Upon Thy altar with its purging fire; 
 
 Strike Thou at last from out these trembling strings 
 Apocalypses of the Inner Shrine 
 O Breath of God! make of my soul Thy lyre! 
 
 363
 
 A CATTLE PICTURE BY CUYP 
 
 WITH MAN PIPING 
 
 LIST ! . . . 't is the cowherd's mellow tones that fill 
 The glowing spaces of the golden air, 
 While the rich group of kine, with sun-smit hair, 
 Dream their dull dream of wadings by the mill. 
 
 Tread softly through the grasses, hush ! be still . . . 
 Speak not above a whisper have a care, 
 Lest he should cease his flutings ! . . . Notice where 
 The shepherd, listening, pauses on the hill : 
 
 The very children gaze, and stop their play, 
 
 Bound to the place by music's magic bands. . . . 
 O piper of the picture, keep thy hands 
 
 Forever on thy flute, as here to-day ! 
 
 The world is full of noise, pipe on, we pray, 
 Thy note the spirit hears, and understands. 
 
 364
 
 THE PROCESSION 
 
 FROM caverns of the countless ages vast, 
 Along the twilight of the monstrous sky, 
 Huge, gloomy figures, dark with majesty, 
 Hooded, mysterious, stalked from out the past. 
 
 Slowly they filed, and as I looked, aghast, 
 Their distant voices seemed one hollow sigh 
 Filled with Remembrance and with Prophecy: 
 They peered upon me as a thing outcast. 
 
 Frowning reproof athwart the upbraiding skies, 
 No word they spake, but in each cloudy scowl 
 The cold aversion of averted eyes 
 
 Burned me as fire, and did my soul arraign ; 
 
 While from the smouldering orbs beneath each cowl, 
 I felt the deep, ineffable disdain. 
 
 365
 
 SHAKESPEARE 
 
 APRII, 23d, 1564-1616 
 
 APRII, SPEAKS 
 
 MY pride is not in that I cause to bloom 
 Each year the hawthorn by the cottage gate ; 
 Nor that I raise the rose's heart elate 
 With thoughts of climbing to my lady's room ; 
 
 But that, one golden dawn, I did illume 
 The world with him a light to dominate 
 And daze all time. It was my envied fate 
 To lay him in his cradle and his tomb. 
 
 When Nature gave him she became lovelorn, 
 Nor would she let him longer here abide ; 
 And if in memory of the time, men mourn, 
 
 Grieving, "This is the day that Shakespeare died," 
 
 I, April, answer from the Avon-side, 
 "This is the day my dearest child was born!" 
 
 366
 
 NOTES 
 
 Page 17. The author's thanks are due, and are here tendered, to the follow- 
 ing Magazines and Journals for permission to reprint sonnets which have 
 appeared in their columns: the Century Magazine , page 17 of this volume; 
 Everybody ' s Magazine, page 333; the Mail and Express, pages 74-82-103- 
 177; the Independent, page 185, and to any others if by inadvertency they 
 may have been omitted. 
 
 Pages 22-58-69. These sonnets and some others in this collection were writ- 
 ten during a period of great illness when the author's life was many times 
 despaired of an illness brought on, unknowingly, by over-application to 
 this his chosen work. 
 
 Page 44. A precipice on the Susquehanna near Columbia, Pennsylvania, 
 named Chicquesalunga. In this picturesque region, in the valley or upon 
 the rocky headland, the stroller may still occasionally find a stone toma- 
 hawk or flint arrow-head. 
 
 Page 79. In America the discovery of ether as an anaesthetic is, with author- 
 ity, attributed to Dr. Horace Wells, October, 1845. 
 
 Page 94. A Study of Trees by Claude Lorraine, in the National Gallery, 
 London. 
 
 Page 95. Epigram XIX. 
 
 Pages 102-301. The untraveled reader, curious as to modern Hellas, will find 
 great pleasure in the perusal of Prof. J. P. Mahaffy's Rambles in Greece. 
 
 Pages 109-110-111. Three sonnets forming a part of an unpublished Sequence 
 of sixty, entitled, Wings of the Morning. 
 
 Pages 109-180. Conowingo and Swatara two beautiful creeks in Lancaster 
 County, Pennsylvania, confluents of the Susquehanna, each bearing an 
 Indian name. 
 
 Page 167. During the years which elapsed between Shakespeare's return 
 from London and his death, it is surmised that he wrote nothing. Yet it 
 is reasonable to infer that he looked forward to another period of creative 
 work, it being unimaginable that this fountain should have run itself dry. 
 
 Page 168. An old Italian painting in the author's home.
 
 368 NOTES 
 
 Page 177. The writer of these lines was honored at different times, by re- 
 ceiving a copy of each of the late Canon Wilton's books of Verse, and by 
 personal letters which Cowper might have envied. 
 
 Page 189. The author here ventures beyond the limit of the myth and im- 
 agines that Marpessa, weary of her union with Idras, yearns for the re- 
 turn of her immortal lover. 
 
 Page 195. These attempts to put into the form of Sonnets some of the more 
 poetical portions of three of the Greek poets must not be taken too ser- 
 iously by the learned critic. No claim is made to scholarship, and the 
 reader is asked to consider a few embroideries on the text as venial faults 
 perhaps permitted to one who uses the rigid sonnet form as a vehicle of 
 expression. 
 
 When these sonnets were written the author had not seen E. C. Lefroy's 
 Echoes from T/teocritus, nor indeed, did he know of the book; he is, how- 
 ever, under many obligations, especially to Mr. Post's fine version of 
 Bacchylides, and to Mr. Lang's prose version of Bion and Moschus. 
 The exceeding and " importunate beauty" of the phrasing of portions of 
 this version of Mr. Lang's makes it, at times, almost impossible to do 
 otherwise than to echo some of his felicities of diction. 
 
 Page 246. This sonnet, written in 1897, is here reproduced from The Slopes 
 of Helicon. It will be seen that the author has made use of part of a line 
 used by Shelley in his version of this Fragment. 
 
 Page 277. Epigram VI. 
 Page 288. Epigram III. 
 
 Page 297. The author's father, who died in his eighty-second year, was until 
 the last passionately fond of poetry. Especially did he enjoy the sonorous 
 passages of Shakespeare, and he delighted in reading them, as all poetry 
 should be read, aloud. He was himself the author of a small volume of 
 Lyrics which was published in 1835. His progenitors were English 
 Friends who came to Pennsylvania from Warminster in Wiltshire, Eng- 
 land, in 1679, and took up properties in the settlement, which, three years 
 later, Penn named Philadelphia. 
 
 Pages 300-327. The germ of these two sonnets may be found in the late P. 
 G. Hammerton's essays. 
 
 Page 328. This sonnet is entirely impersonal, the author having no personal 
 knowledge of the effects of the narcotic in question. 
 
 Page 344. A water-color painting by Morland in the writer's possession. 
 Page 358. For the exquisite statue of Love and Atropos by Gustave Dore. 
 Page 359, line 10. Castalia and her sister, i. e. the stream, Cossotis.
 
 NOTES 
 
 Page 361. Cea, one of the ancient names of the island of Cos, in the 
 
 The author has made use of the supposition founded on Ovid's very in- 
 conclusive statement that Theocritus was strangled by order of Hiero II, 
 of Syracuse. 
 
 "To appreciate a collection of sonnets," wrote James Spedding, "you should 
 read them one by one, with intervals between long enough to let the im- 
 pression of each get out of the other's way. It is this which gives a col- 
 lection of sonnets a bad chance with professional critics, whose business it 
 is to pronounce judgment without delay upon all volumes that are brought 
 before them." 
 
 Leigh Hunt writes, " A sonnet is, or ought to be, a piece of music as well as 
 of poetry." 
 
 Wordsworth says, "Poems cannot read themselves. The reader must bring 
 out the music of the poem. I require an animated and impassioned reci- 
 tation, adapted to the subject."
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below 
 
 "
 
 PS 
 
 2591 Mifflin - 
 
 Al . Collected 
 1905 sonnets of 
 
 Lloyd Mifflii 
 
 PS 
 
 2391 
 Al 
 1905