UC-NRLF 
 
 SB E73 hEE 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 AND OTHLR 5ONNLT5 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE ALBERT ALDRICH 
 
 [RICH. GALDJ 
 
 eg 
 
 C\J 
 
 m 
 
 
GIFT OF 
 
WASHINGTON 
 
 AND OTHER SONNETS 
 
THE THINKER" 
 
WASHINGTON 
 
 AND OTHER SONNETS 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE ALBERT ALDRICH 
 
 [RICH. GALD] 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 A. M. ROBERTSON 
 
 MDCCCCXVI 
 
COPYRIGHT 1916 
 
 BY 
 GEORGE ALBERT ALDRICH 
 
 PHILOPOLIS PRESS 
 SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA 
 
DESIROUS, EVER, OF BECOMING PERTINENCE WITH 
 ALL THINGS OF THE MOMENT, AND FEARFUL LEST 
 A BENIGHTED SONNET-WORLD SHOULD LANGUISH, 
 AND FADE INTO THE OBSCURITY OF A POSSIBLE 
 NEW-ERA APATHY, WE ONCE AGAIN ESSAY UPON A 
 GENEROUS AND CONSIDERATE PUBLIC; REQUESTING, 
 HUMBLY, WE MAY BE AT LEAST READ. 
 
'The "WASHINGTON" sonnet appeared in the San 
 Bernardino, California "Index", on the twenty-second of 
 February, nineteen-sixteen. 
 
 T^^WAR" sonnet has been republished from a for- 
 mer edition, circulated in nine teen-fifteen. 
 
 The "CHARM OF SCENE" sonnet was composed at 
 the Berkeley Campus-theatre, Berkeley, California, while 
 patiently awaiting the beginning of a certain afternoon 
 performance. 
 
 THE AUTHOR. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 WASHINGTON ...... 9 
 
 WAR 10 
 
 SONNET . . . . . . . .11 
 
 A SUMMER DAY . . . . . 12 
 
 RODIN'S "THINKER" 13 
 
 HOPE EPHEMERAL ..... 14 
 
 THIS CHARM OF SCENE . . . . 15 
 
 INTERPOLATE THY WILL AS LOVE . . 16 
 
 AGONY . . . . . . . 17 
 
WASHINGTON 1 / : 
 
 This welcome peneplain of sunshine days: 
 These fields Elysian of beauteous peace : 
 This wonder-warmth, a wealth without surcease : 
 
 This innocence of woe and warlike craze, 
 
 Where 's naught of cannon-roar or watch-fire blaze 
 This life poetic, distant far from Greece: 
 This pasture green, of lambkin and of fleece, 
 
 Hath need of Washington's redeeming ways. 
 
 Then, clang ye forth ye cymbals, and ye drum ; 
 
 And twang the bow-string or melodious lute, 
 Then, sound the trumpet-blast (or banjo strum), 
 
 The soft oboe, or e'en the woody flute: 
 But, bear in mind you love your country some; 
 
 And hate all ways of war-gods, too astute. 
 
 [9] 
 
WAR. 
 
 Oh ! poetry of distance now appeal ! 
 
 Enchantment true ! 
 ******** 
 
 We want not thundrous war : 
 
 We would not dwell 'neath doom's mephitic star : 
 Nor see and bleed ; nor groan at cruel steel. 
 To stagger at the blow ; to cringe, to reel, 
 
 [Great Jove's relentless mockery of God!] 
 
 Preferring bloody dust-bathed Earth, ill-trod 
 With vengeance, lust, rapine ; the voidal meal ! 
 
 We yearn for prolegomena ; for truth : 
 
 That something which, if worlds were justly made, 
 Would govern savage man in days of youth ; 
 
 And consummate all plans as they were laid. 
 Here, strife's incarnate, vain, reptilic tooth 
 
 Sunk deep of human flesh, must die or fade. 
 
 [10] 
 
SONNET. 
 
 To while away a Lincoln Day once more ! 
 Again to dwell in mem'ry of the past : 
 And then to taste its nectar, while 'twould last, 
 
 As honey-bees the rose e'en to its core ! 
 
 To dip and sip : to sip and dip its store 
 Of precious product dissipative fast : 
 [E'er victim of the frost or wintry blast] 
 
 And waft to some Elysian, mystic shore ! 
 
 To while away a Lincoln Day again : 
 
 To mingle with the ghosts of master-mind ; 
 
 And patriotic hearts which pulsed in pain, 
 
 When Christ's bright standard fell so far behind ; 
 
 And made man's real purpose here too plain, 
 Too evident, ah me, too sadly blind ! 
 
A SUMMER DAY. 
 
 Now chant we gratitude to all the gods : 
 
 In rhythmic measure, too, our thanks pour forth : 
 And inward, turn to love's undoubted worth ; 
 
 Equating ends, with product of Earth's odds, 
 
 To study smaller thoughts of herbs and pods. 
 A newer brighter sun is now gi'en birth ; 
 And doubtless, too, the blessings crowning Earth 
 
 Divine its yields from mellow soils and sods. 
 
 Dissolving, let us fuse in summery heat ; 
 
 And deem it opportunity well sought. 
 But, being sought, the acme of heart's beat : 
 
 The something seldom gotten, rarely bought : 
 Our Deity's sublimest weather-treat : 
 
 For which the soul hath, eons, yearned and fought. 
 
 [12] 
 
RODIN'S "THINKER". 
 
 AN APOSTROPHE. 
 
 "This hunched ; this crook'd and knotted manly self; 
 
 All gauched in corporeal muscle-screw ; 
 
 Thigh-elbowed on the left, in * mental-stew ', 
 Would think. But paucity of thought, thou elf, 
 Secreted 'neath this gruesome, sombred pelf, 
 
 Rejects e'en help its primal gods would brew; 
 
 And calls gray melancholy, chill, its due; 
 Encuddling poverty, that bitter wolf! 
 
 Yet, still it hath the keenest truth at heart: 
 
 Bones steeped in liquored progress of the world : 
 
 And brachycephalous, fair brow, whose part 
 
 Unnumbered thoughts, to light, have long unfurled. 
 
 It knoweth man's still man, as at the start: 
 
 That he hath loved this stature knit and knurled." 
 
HOPE EPHEMERAL. 
 
 Now hope, ephemeral, doth us possess; 
 
 And flowered Nature smiles, once more, upon 
 
 A half-lost bosom, wretched, quite forlorn : 
 And, with poetic touch, our rust-pens dress, 
 To lift us up to skies of painted guess, 
 
 Instructing all the gods we're poet-born; 
 
 And dwell in harmony of song in rosy morn, 
 'Till night its murky curtain hath o'erpressed. 
 
 Then, let us live, again, in golden strain; 
 
 And, crying forth the memories ot old, 
 Recall in rhyme our fathers' best refrain; 
 
 When they saw poesy in burning-gold: 
 And found a Parthenon in each bold brain : 
 
 Eternal song in tales of wealth untold. 
 
THIS CHARM OF SCENE. 
 
 This charm of scene should justify, oh Muse, 
 
 Another essay of poetic pen ; 
 
 And thou, our eidolon, shall signal when 
 To realize surcease of gross abuse; 
 Release from homeliness of life obtuse 
 
 And substitute thy love for hate of men ; 
 
 Injecting sunshine to man's prosaic den; 
 And understanding of himself abstruse. 
 
 Then sing again the song of mellow gold, 
 
 And laugh once more with all the happy pasts, 
 
 To glorify romantic tales of old, 
 
 And save our souls, while method ancient lasts, 
 
 Rejuvenating memories untold, 
 
 To shape our fate devoid of War's crude blasts. 
 
 P5] 
 
INTERPOLATE THY WILL AS LOVE. 
 
 Interpolate thy will, oh Muse, as love ; 
 
 And let us find in peace a breathing space ; 
 
 That we may win, at length, the noisy race ; 
 To soar in immortality above. 
 Light-winged on righteousness, as does the dove 
 
 Of Christ's best choice. Ambitious life apace, 
 
 Ill-doomed to many ever of the chase, 
 Hath found the gods impossible to prove ! 
 
 Then (having love as guide), once more our song 
 Of gold, refulgent as the dawn of joy ; 
 
 And cast away all noisome bent to wrong ; 
 And give us opulence to be our toy ; 
 
 Our heart's desire envied of the throng ; 
 Our ultima tbule without alloy. 
 
 [16] 
 
AGONY. 
 
 Thrice-wrinkled brow, with fevered face ; 
 
 And stoop enow to curb one's pace ; 
 
 Thrice- crook'd of spine ; and bleared of eye ; 
 
 Habitually doomed to sigh ; 
 
 To groan and moan ; a soul alone, 
 
 A pitiless heart, long turned to stone. 
 
 And now a scream ; mayhap a dream, 
 
 As life seems floating down the stream ; 
 
 And then a screech ! God may but reach 
 
 The anguish it is meant to teach ! 
 
 Agony ! 
 
YB 12458 
 
 337737 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY