\^;^' 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 University of California. 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 ^____, y^> 44'-^Ar>^X).-C^.^<i 
 
 Class 
 
This Book IS Presented By tKe Autkor. 
 Please Acknowledge to 
 
 G. A. TOWNSEND, 
 
 GaplanJ, Maryland. 
 
(Baplant) jSMtion 
 
 GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND'S 
 
 POEMS OF MEN AND EVENTS 
 1899 
 
POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 MEN AND EVENTS 
 
 GEORGE ALFRED TOWNSEND 
 
 GAPLAND EDITION 
 
 B. jf. Bonaventure 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 1899 
 
 O"^ THE ^ 
 
 f'JNIVERSJTY^ 
 
Copyright, 1870, 1880, 1881, 1899 
 All rights reserved 
 
 five f)un^re^ Copies printe^ 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I HAD devised a publication of all my verses ; 
 but upon arraying them for this edition, with its 
 limited page-type, found that the printer's nicety 
 had overreached me, and I believed that my noble 
 friends, the subscribers, would be better satisfied 
 with a selection of representative compositions 
 than with quantity. I therefore omitted the 
 Poems in my book of 1875, and those published 
 in " Tales of the Chesapeake," and " Bohemian 
 Days," and " Poetical Addresses," and set to the 
 front my latest pieces, not till now published, and 
 added to them particular reproductions bearing out 
 the title of this book, or in line with my present 
 preferences and ideas. Forty-three years have 
 gone by since I printed my earliest verse. Al- 
 though the newspapers have been my bulrushes, 
 holding me up. Poesy has been Pharaoh's daugh- 
 ter, raising me. 
 
 Gapland, Md,, March 6, 1899. 
 
 
SUBSCRIBERS 
 
 Calvin S. Brice 1 
 
 John Hat 2-7 
 
 Chas. H. Tatlor 8-12 
 
 S. H. Kauffmann 13-14 
 
 Russell Algbr 15 
 
 Crosby S. Notes 16-21 
 
 B. H. Warner 22 
 
 Detroit Public Librart 23 
 
 e. s. postlethwaite 24 
 
 Charles Hervet Townsend 25 
 
 George C. Boldt 26-27 
 
 John Russell Younq 28 
 
 Congressional Librart 29 
 
 William C. Whitnet 30 
 
 Mrs. J. S. Whitney 31 
 
 H. P. Whitnet 32 
 
 Thomas Regan 33 
 
 Harrt MacDonna 34 
 
 Benjamin Le Fevre 35 
 
 J. N. Camden . . 36 
 
 D. O. Mills 37-41 
 
 R. C. McCormick • 42 
 
 J. Watts De Petster 43 
 
 Frank Hecker 44 
 
 Henrt W. Cannon 45-49 
 
 John D. Archbold 50-60 
 
 Samuel F. Hunt 61 
 
 Edwin S. Stuart 62 
 
 R. R. Hitt 63-67 
 
 Joseph R. Hawlet 68 
 
 D. C. Walsh 69 
 
 Arthur W. Soper 70-74 
 
 Edward W. Me ale y 75-77 
 
 Sylvester T. Everett 78 
 
 William H. Egle 79 
 
 Pennsylvania State Library 80 
 
 Edmund C. Stedman 81-83 
 
 James McMillan 84 
 
 Charles F. Manderson 85-86 
 
 Robert Dun Douglass 87 
 
 Benjamin Douglass • 88 
 
 Francis L. Minton 89 
 
 Jonathan J. Broome 90 
 
 Jacob Juvenal 91 
 
 Edmond F, Bonaventure 92-101 
 
Alexander R, Shepherd 102-106 
 
 John G. Moore 107-127 
 
 William R. Moore 128 
 
 Wm. B. Allison 129 
 
 A. W. DiMOCK 130-131 
 
 Walter E. Hildreth 132 
 
 M. G. Seckendorff 133 
 
 Shelby M. CpivLom 134 
 
 Gkoroe Q. Cannon 135 
 
 Francis B. Loomis 136 
 
 Richard Fisher 137 
 
 Edwin C. James 138 
 
 N. O. Hart I39 
 
 E. R. Bacon 140 
 
 Worcester (Mass.) Public Library .... 141 
 
 M. H. De Young 142 
 
 Frank H. Mason 143-144 
 
 Arthur P. Gorman 145-149 
 
 Edward O. Wolcott 150-154 
 
 Thomas P. Ochiltree I55 
 
 A. Loudon Snowden 156 
 
 Garret A. Hobart I57 
 
 H. C. Hansbrough 158 
 
 William McKinley I59 
 
 John D. Crimmins . . I6O 
 
 Victor F. Lawson 161 
 
 Samuel Bancroft, Jr 162 
 
 Howard Jones, M.D 163 
 
 Henry C. Lammert 164 
 
 Alex. P. Brown 165-167 
 
 John K. Cowan 168 
 
 Lawrence Townsend 169 
 
 James W. Barbour I70 
 
 E. v. Murphy I7I 
 
 Charles G. Barber 172 
 
 Stephen B. Elkins 173-175 
 
 Levi P. Morton 176-177 
 
 Wm. H. Lambert 178 
 
 WiLLARD SADLSBURY 179 
 
 M. T. McMahon 180 
 
 J. B. Foraker 181 
 
 Simon Wolf 182 
 
 Eugene M. O'Neill 183-187 
 
 Thomas J. Emery 188 
 
 Chas. C. Glover 189 
 
 (To May 1, 1899.) 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 BiBTHDAT Thoughts 
 
 POEMS OF MEN 
 
 John Pabke Custis 
 
 Judges' Graves 
 
 William B. Allison 
 
 Blaixe 
 
 g 
 Planta Genista 
 
 Dante 
 
 Reading Gibbon ^ 
 
 Calvin Bbice 
 
 Sophie 
 
 To John Sherman '''''"'' 17 
 
 Kidnapped Parsee ^ 
 
 Jacob Gruber 
 
 Magruder 
 
 ROSCOE CONKLING 
 
 To James A. Garfield ^^ 
 
 R. B. Hates ^J 
 
 Andrew Johnson 
 
 William H. Seward t^ 
 
 "Used w Van" 
 
 POEMS OF EVENTS 
 
 With Greelet at Richmond j° 
 
 Irving at Burr's Trial *^ 
 
 Oak Hill 
 
 John Quinct Adams' Dlirt ^^ 
 
 To Edmund C. Stedman ^ 
 
 E. K- T ^ 
 
 Joshua ,_ 
 
 ^ . . o7 
 Ralston 
 
 Memminger's Life 
 
 PALOS f 
 
 In Grote's Greece ' 
 
 . . 73 
 Jefferson 
 
 Governor William Fbanklin •■•''•'- 
 
 At Ayr '^ 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 TRAVELERS' REST 78 
 
 WASniXGTON 95 
 
 C^SAR 95 
 
 J. B. Stillson 96 
 
 Politicians' Christmas 97 
 
 COMMANDER LINCOLN 99 
 
 Nothing Falls so Far 104 
 
 To Henrt M. Stanley. 106 
 
 Local Grkatness 107 
 
 MARYLAND POEMS. 
 
 Needwood Ill 
 
 Packhorse Ford 115 
 
 Freddie's Clock 120 
 
 Yertes' Spring 124 
 
 Baltimore 128 
 
 Sir John St. Clair 132 
 
 SOUTH MOUNTAIN 133 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY POEMS. 
 
 Smithsonian 156 
 
 Mart of the Capitol 161 
 
 Cloture 164 
 
 Guy Losel 166 
 
 Tangier 168 
 
 Bob White I73 
 
 QUEEN CHRISTINE ! 175 
 
 Washington Monument 185 
 
 Cloy I85 
 
 Rocking Chair 186 
 
 Sanctumonious 187 
 
 Respectability 188 
 
 Dying Letters 189 
 
 Richard ! O My King 190 
 
 Mirror Song 192 
 
 American Slaves in Tripoli 193 
 
 Shakespere's Friends 194 
 
 Songs of Youth 195 
 
 New England 197 
 
 Unserved 198 
 
 MORMON'S OLD WIFE '. 201 
 
 Harpers' Ferry Sunset 206 
 
 Her First Glasses 207 
 
 Bessie 208 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Mary Washington 209 
 
 War Correspondents' Memorial 213 
 
 News and Love. 215 
 
 Snowfall at Night 217 
 
 DELAWARE POEMS. 
 
 Georgetown 220 
 
 Swede and Indian Cantico 224 
 
 Dover 225 
 
 Land of No Account 230 
 
 The Oregon 232 
 
 The Circuit Preacher 234 
 
 Little Grisette 239 
 
 The Pigeon Girl • • ■ 242 
 
 The First Hunger 243 
 
 De Witt Clinton 247 
 
 PoE 247 
 
 Byron 248 
 
 John Jay 249 
 
 The Soul Driver 249 
 
 Psyche -250 
 
 LiNN^us 250 
 
 William Penn 251 
 
 Defoe 252 
 
 Brooklyn Bridge Towers 253 
 
 Bartholdi's Pharos 255 
 
 Physical Homage 257 
 
 Rowdy Shah 259 
 
 FROM GAFLAND 259 
 
 MoRSB 260 
 
 " Make Me a Lap " 261 
 
 First Blackbirds 262 
 
 Hanging Lamp 264 
 
 As the Crow Flies 265 
 
 Iron Hill 267 
 
 Building 
 
 269 
 
 Boccaccio 270 
 
 Old Kent 271 
 
 Saint George 274 
 
 Old Frank Blair 274 
 
 Ulysses S. Grant 277 
 
 Benjamin Harrison 281 
 
 Salt River 
 
 282 
 
 Death of the Siamese Twins 287 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 The Fire Guest 289 
 
 Spinoza 294 
 
 Events and Creeds 294 
 
 In Rama 295 
 
 Rachel 296 
 
 Angels in Mask 298 
 
 Ride from Five Forks 299 
 
 Land of Pocomoke 303 
 
 Old St. [Mart's 307 
 
 Herman of Bohemia Manor 309 
 
 Mecca from Oasis 326 
 
 Latter-Dat Saints 327 
 
 Plating House 327 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Portrait Frontispiece 
 
 Author's Birthplace, Georgetown, Delaware . facing p. 3 
 
 Author's Study, Gapland 
 
 Hall from the East, Gapland .... 
 
 Hall at Gapland 
 
 Library and Den, Gapland ..... 
 
 War Correspondents' Memorial, from the East 
 
 The Circcit Preacher, — The Author's Parents 
 
 Gapland, South Mountain, Maryland, the 
 Author's Seat 
 
 War Correspondents' Memorial, Gapland . 
 Vault at Gapland 
 
 37 
 58 
 111 
 156 
 213 
 234 
 
 259 
 299 
 end 
 
Of THf 
 
 university' 
 
Author's Birthplace, Georgetown, Delaware 
 
Of TMf ^ 
 
 . ■ 1 <; .' r- ri K I "p Y 3 
 
 POEMS 
 
 BIRTHDAY THOUGHTS 
 
 JANUARY 30, 1899 
 
 King Charles's soul took flight 
 This day from his cabal : 
 
 I am no Jacobite, 
 My date is radical. 
 
 Our place is in the van, 
 We move before the facts ; 
 
 The blood of Milbourne ran 
 For antecedent acts. 
 
 I know not if his name 
 
 And type were in my dam, 
 
 Our phantoms seem the same 
 And as he was, I am : 
 
 Stern to perceive and say, 
 
 Though not officially. 
 And quit the humble way 
 
 From vaulting sympathy ; 
 
 An English partisan 
 
 To swell our kingdom big, 
 My christening Georgean 
 
 And all my color Whig ; 
 
POEMS 
 
 Nor yet from landed dower 
 
 To reason and to speak, 
 Impetuous for power 
 
 To help the faithful weak ; 
 
 My quiU drawn from the goose 
 I hissed the cautious sense, 
 
 And wrote to be of use, 
 And for my audience. 
 
 Events were all my Muse, 
 
 They warped my wish more pure 
 And dried the fresher dews 
 
 Of morning literature. 
 
 Imperfect everywhere 
 
 As is the cannon cast, 
 Small time did I forbear 
 
 To touch it into blast. 
 
 Nor loaded on my heart 
 That hungered to be free, 
 
 The convoluted art, 
 The printer's factory. 
 
 Strong manhood justly wrecked 
 I took my arms between, 
 
 Nor harmed the eagle pecked 
 By tits of concourse mean ; 
 
 Nor would with herds unite, — 
 The small peccary band : 
 
 I was the last Free Knight, 
 Goetz of the Iron Hand. 
 
BIBTHDAT THOUGHTS 
 
 To this withdrawing pride 
 
 From daws and choughs and rooks, 
 I owe the countryside 
 
 And company of books, 
 
 Preferring to be blind 
 
 And silent lines pursue, 
 As Milton's lonely mind 
 
 The light of Eden knew. 
 
 A few strong friendships kind 
 My castles did maintain, — 
 
 The conquests of the mind 
 To have its causes gain. 
 
 How blessed to have seen 
 
 And known wide Freedom's day ! 
 Whose generations lean 
 
 The forests hid away, 
 
 Since Indians lost among 
 
 Beneath the cypress firs. 
 My fathers learned their tongue 
 
 And were Interpreters. 
 
 Now almost lost again 
 
 Amidst a mighty race, 
 Amidst the teeming men, 
 
 My art is like the chase ; 
 
 My bow is well outclass'd. 
 
 My arrows shoot to err. 
 But to a forest Past 
 
 I was Interpreter. 
 
POEMS 
 
 POEMS OF MEN 
 
 JOHN PARKE CUSTIS 
 
 To Boucher's school I will not go 
 
 If Nelly's gate I must go past ! 
 At school, I learn so very slow ; 
 
 From Nelly I learn twice as fast. 
 Sweet Nelly Calvert, are you there ? 
 
 Blue jacket, boy's hat, riding whip ? 
 Mount Airy has not too much air 
 
 When swells my heart to Nelly's lip. 
 
 Turn from the road ! the pines are green, 
 
 Our teacher shall be the wood dove ; 
 Stepfather Washington is keen 
 
 And thinks that school-boys should not love. 
 What did he know of love, I ask, 
 
 When in my mother's gate he turned ? 
 Love is the most delightful task 
 
 That two together ever learned. 
 
 Here is a hazel-berried sprig, 
 
 I'll set it in your fillie's fore. 
 Kiss me if I am not too big ! 
 
 Reprove me not if I adore ! 
 This budding spring is perfect bliss ; 
 
 Who would not rather on thee look 
 Than dawdle at Annapolis, 
 
 Or at Mount Vernon hug a book ? 
 
JUDGES' GRAVES 
 
 At Nottingham my boat is moored 
 
 I sent it round Potomac way, 
 We'll put our hunters both aboard 
 
 And canter on to Herring bay ; 
 So far our guardians won't pursue 
 
 But let us have an all-day freak 
 And I will bathe you in the blue, 
 
 Sky-feathered wing of Chesapeake. 
 
 Or sail you down the golden roads 
 
 Patuxent's ships are lost within, 
 To dream more love than Ovid's odes 
 
 Sighed to your high mysterious kin ; 
 Thy grandam sm-ely was a queen, 
 
 I feel her sceptre in thy moods, 
 Thy government is as serene 
 
 As Pocahontas in her woods. 
 
 There flashed a fox I She's like a bow 
 
 And arrow on her courser's stride. 
 Sweet mistress — Yoricks ! Tally ho ! 
 
 The way to take you is to ride. 
 Like a hawk's shadow see her flow ! 
 
 To horn and hounds her strain is bred. 
 She's galloped into Marlboro' : 
 
 Nelly, we're found out : let us wed ! 
 
 JUDGES' GRAVES 
 
 Pretty Edenton ! dreammg on the Sound, 
 In thy level cotton-fields is a burial ground 
 
6 POEMS 
 
 Near a planter's dwelling, past a miller's creek : 
 (Hold the foxhounds back whilst the tombs I 
 seek !) 
 
 To the States and province both of foreign birth, 
 Guests of courteous Johnstons even in the earth, 
 Iredell and Wilson like water oaks of gnarl 
 Sleep, as often in one bed, by shining Albemarle. 
 
 Washington's own Justices on his bench supreme, 
 Here fortuitous they meet in everlasting dream, 
 Young in years, in wisdom deep and mutual 
 
 partisan. 
 They lie like David in the cave, asleep with 
 
 Jonathan. 
 
 How the rigid cedars grow, drinking of their skulls ! 
 
 As the lawyer from their minds imknowing of them 
 culls. 
 
 How the cotton lint is blown on their rusted grill ! 
 
 How the bluebird sings to them and they a cen- 
 tury still ! 
 
 As their court in robes is bowed to the bench recess, 
 While the bar stands to the sound sudden of " 
 
 yes ! " 
 These preceding in their shrouds that God-visaged 
 
 one, 
 Cried unto the final Judge their caller, Washington. 
 
 Ye who dream that passions quit Justices divine. 
 Pause and read Iredell's memoir by Wilson's un- 
 marked shrine ! 
 
WILLIAM B. ALLISON 7 
 
 He who Independence signed, on the Bench grew 
 
 pale, 
 Lest the Sheriff drag him down to the debtors' 
 
 jail. 
 
 Knightly Raleigh who, hard by, planted Roanoke, 
 Harried to the axe and block by abusive Coke, 
 No more wantoned in career than this Scottish 
 
 chief 
 On whose breast the humid light twines the myrtle 
 
 leaf. 
 
 Broken-spirited he hid where he might not dwell, 
 
 By the wealth-untroubled home of his friend 
 Iredell, — 
 
 He of Ireton's Cromwell race, of his name un- 
 done. 
 
 Followed Wilson on the bier, out from Edenton. 
 
 As they rode their circuits round, till the General 
 
 Term, 
 They assemble where the Chief Justice is the 
 
 Worm ; 
 In the air their Institutes like a shedding tree 
 Annually blossom forth greenest Liberty. 
 
 1887. 
 
 WILLIAM B. ALLISON 
 
 The talent nature gives of Graciousness 
 Ambition most perverts, but it outlasts 
 
 Wide combinations and august address, 
 And at its table gentles and outcasts 
 
» POEMS 
 
 Holy Communion take, like Christ's repasts. 
 
 Allison ! framed to give, not to refuse. 
 By grace is made refuser of the state ; 
 
 He sayeth "no" the heart not to abuse, 
 He smooths the suppliant not in vain to wait, 
 
 His largess falls where needful like the dews 
 That o'er the chilly zone precipitate — 
 
 And freshening influence on the land diffuse ; 
 Like Providence his years we do not count, 
 
 Nor see the frost around the living fount. 
 
 BLAINE 
 
 (BY GAIL HAMILTON DODGE) 
 
 A WISTFUL spirit sensitive 
 
 Whose onset ended in " forgive ! " 
 And who was timid not to live ; 
 
 He seemed a ruler of affairs 
 
 But pined away with little cares, 
 
 His port the hound's, his heart the hare's. 
 
 Inspiring love, hate echoed it. 
 He was uncautious in his wit 
 And wounded men of savage grit ; 
 
 They kept him from the diadem. 
 
 They stabbed the steed which trampled them. 
 
 The people kissed his garment's hem. 
 
 He did not have the moral might ; 
 He had the leman's tender lio-ht 
 That greatness visits in the night. 
 
PLANTA GENISTA 
 
 A transport still thou didst bequeath : 
 
 That thou wert only underneath, 
 
 Take, Blaine ! the white Camelian wreath ! 
 
 This book it also is thy tomb ; 
 
 Two women watched it, one to doom, 
 
 A light of Maries fills its gloom. 
 
 So is thy end as thou didst rise ; 
 Not with a sword thy sculpture lies ; 
 The pen for penmen must suffice. 
 
 1897. 
 
 PLANTA GENISTA 
 
 Peetty honne of black Angers, 
 
 Sweeping daily in my room ! 
 Do I from you breathe the airs 
 
 Of the yellow-flowering broom ? 
 Plant that the crusaders set 
 
 In the helmets of Anjou 
 And were called Plantagenet 
 
 From the broom that busies you ? 
 
 Fleurs de lis have made me tire, 
 
 Stale the French camelias bloom, 
 But my homesick thoughts inspire 
 
 Tender memories of your broom : 
 How the housemaids, o'er the sea, 
 
 Ran my boyhood round the room 
 And the broomstick fell on me. 
 
 When I fought them for the broom. 
 
10 POEMS 
 
 Could I be a boy again, 
 
 Would I have that struggle o'er ? — 
 While I see you, pretty wren, 
 
 Hopping on my sunlit floor 
 With your high cap's snowy lace, 
 
 On your cheeks a rosy bloom, 
 While your instepped slippers chase 
 
 Waltzes round the flashing broom ? 
 
 Now I see how Geoffrey's son 
 
 Was the Queen of France's groom ! 
 Round his whisking youth she spun 
 
 Like the spirit of your broom ; 
 Swept his mind up like the floor. 
 
 In it one cool vision set. 
 Till there were but Eleanore 
 
 And the bold Plantagenet. 
 
 Your forefathers came to harms 
 
 By Plantagenetic arts 
 Rifling for concealed arms 
 
 All too near Sicilian hearts, 
 In my heart your hand is deep 
 
 And my blood runs like a flume, — 
 At your masthead you do sweep 
 
 Up its river with your broom. 
 
 Would you give me but my due 
 
 If I grew a moment gay ? 
 As the red Fulk of Anjou 
 
 France's Northmen drove away? 
 
PLANT A GENISTA H 
 
 Or like Anjou's Margaret 
 
 In the Roses' wars of doom, 
 In your widowed helmet set 
 
 All the terrors of the broom? 
 
 Rent's knightly orators 
 
 Gave not sweeter tunings vent 
 In the tilts of troubadours 
 
 Than your household implement ; 
 I can see the bright-skinned slaves 
 
 Dusting in my fever room, 
 Like the cool tree shadows' waves, 
 
 When your white arms move the broom. 
 
 You are of King Robert's race 
 
 And his daughter's romance owe — 
 Fiammetta's bending grace 
 
 To a lone Boccaccio ; 
 Lean your broom by me in trust, 
 
 I can tell you tales as fair ; 
 You have swept my mind of dust 
 
 With Griselda's light and air. 
 
 One sweet kiss that shall Angers 
 
 Ever on my spirit bloom ! 
 On my heath of barren cares 
 
 Plant the blossoms of the broom ! 
 Hyssop with your lips my sins ! 
 
 For the lists my courage whet ! 
 And among your Angevins 
 
 Crown one more Plantagenet ! 
 
12 POEMS 
 
 DANTE 
 
 Like some bronze statue rust the more restores, 
 Dante ! thou standest in the junk of old : 
 Armor and crosiers, catapults and oars, 
 That make thee Pluto in a hell of mold. 
 All that hell was thy bony features hold, 
 Death and imagination, monkish stern ! 
 A savage Christ, thou Virgil's hand did fold, 
 Mild pagan company in hell's sojourn, — 
 Poet who might'st in thy dark age have told 
 The light of Friar Bacon, Bannockburn ! 
 Letters melodious in a barbarous tongue 
 Thy banished genius turned thy age upon. 
 And feudal night with acclamations rung 
 As when in Florence wheeled her gonfalon. 
 
 READING GIBBON 
 
 Some penance for my father's wrong. 
 
 In purgatorial cell. 
 His son would do that memory strong 
 
 They named an Infidel ; 
 
 He who, exiled from sire and home 
 
 For his credulity. 
 Made of the mighty tale of Rome, 
 
 Homerian history. 
 
 The pulpiteers they did instil 
 
 Aspersions partisan, 
 I bought his book and kept it till 
 
 I read it when a man. 
 
BEADING GIBBON 13 
 
 Then Koran, Talmud, Testaments, 
 
 Old Moses or his scribes 
 Like whimseys seemed in Arab tents 
 
 Took down by savage tribes. 
 
 The vast procession of mankind 
 
 Like some great circus seemed 
 In his kaleidoscopic mind, 
 
 Metempsychosed or dreamed. 
 
 Still, in the terms of them who pray, 
 
 I thought his book so wise 
 He seemed like Christ on judgment day. 
 
 Who held the great assize. 
 
 He wove the bad with so much glad. 
 
 In my astonishment 
 Haroun al Raschid in Bagdad 
 
 Was less magnificent. 
 
 By night or day in cave or camp. 
 
 His touchstone had such skill 
 Aladdin with the burning lamp 
 
 Was Edward Gibbon still. 
 
 No creedsman and no mountebank, 
 
 Nor of his soul afraid, 
 He had the instinct of the Frank, 
 
 And was the last crusade. 
 
 Nor in the literary life. 
 
 His gallantry was sunk ; 
 His love was Necker's noble wife, 
 
 For her he was a monk. 
 
14 POEMS 
 
 He left the gates of faith ajar 
 For science yet to hope : 
 
 A gentleman, a warrior, 
 An Emperor and Pope. 
 
 CALVIN BRICE 
 
 " I HAVE been everywhere," 
 
 Said Calvin Brice, 
 " In battle and affair, 
 Society and snare : 
 If there's anything up there, — 
 
 Purgatory, Paradise, — 
 I would like to go and see 
 For curiosity ! " 
 
 Said Calvin Brice. * 
 
 The spirits in the air 
 
 Heard Calvin Brice ; 
 They knew how he would dare, 
 So seeing and so fair. 
 Country-hearted, debonnaire. 
 
 And with never avarice : 
 " He shall have his wish and come ! 
 Play the dead-march on the drum 
 
 For Calvin Brice ! " 
 
 From the dead line, sans care, 
 
 Stepp'd Cahdn Brice, 
 Topographer to dare 
 And with gods to pay his share, 
 
 Spoken by Mr. Brice to Hon. Edward Wolcott. 
 
SOPHIE 15 
 
 Or with apparitions fare, — 
 However fall the dice. 
 
 He has gone beyond the goal, 
 
 The pioneering soul 
 Of Calvin Brice. 
 
 And if they keep him there, — 
 
 Our Calvin Brice — 
 With his Absalom hair, 
 And his nose large and square, 
 'Tis because that everywhere, 
 
 He is without artifice. 
 Hell and heaven must delight 
 In a soul so apposite, 
 As Calvin Brice. 
 
 SOPHIE 
 
 ALBERT GALLATIN TO LAFAYETTE 
 
 MAY 28, 1825 
 
 Let me sit by Sophie's grave 
 Where the hemlock woodlands wave 
 Far above the river's rave — 
 
 My tender Sophie ! 
 She was all I had to bless 
 In the savage wilderness ; 
 Brief the time of our caress. 
 
 My angel Sophie ! 
 
 O'er the mountains following 
 Like the leaping fairy spring. 
 
16 FOE MS 
 
 How she made the young birds sing, 
 
 To see my Sophie ! 
 Folded on my breast so tight, 
 Round us fell the Indian night : 
 She was hidden morning light — 
 
 My bride, my Sophie. 
 
 It was spring she brought with her ; 
 Summer's precious loiterer, 
 Autumn dug her sepulcher. 
 
 My darling Sophie ! 
 O, my heart was like the stone, 
 Lettered only with my moan ! 
 Earth and I were here alone ; 
 
 The winds wailed, " Sophie ! " 
 
 Then I quit my shaggy glen. 
 Plunged into the strife of men ; 
 Glory was a wild beast's den 
 
 Without my Sophie. 
 Cruel seems it to achieve 
 And her dear mould here to leave ; 
 Can she suffer as I grieve, 
 
 My lonely Sophie ? 
 
 Though she sent a sister down 
 My sad life of man to crown, 
 I am dreary with renown — 
 
 It is not Sophie ; 
 The wild laurel on her breast 
 Of all my laurels is the best : 
 Leave me here to sob and rest 
 
 By what was Sophie ! 
 
KIDNAPPED PABSEE 17 
 
 Let me weep on Sophie's grave ! — 
 Life is timid, death is brave — 
 I go mad to think how clave 
 
 To me, child Sophie. 
 Blessings on thee, little wren ! 
 Though I never come again 
 To her mound, I'll hear thee, when 
 
 I think on Sophie. 
 
 New Geneva, Pa. 
 
 TO JOHN SHERMAN 
 
 Thy blue eyes look from thy unguileful mind 
 
 Like the boy orphan's in thy mother's brood, 
 
 Or tender on the wife thy manhood wooed. 
 
 Who now is speechless though her look so kind : 
 
 The violets are not more freshly dewed 
 
 Than thy bright eyes and country heart behind. 
 
 Industry, Freedom, Solvency thy heirs, 
 
 They have marched on beyond the old frontiers, 
 
 Clean are their wheatfields thou hast cleansed of 
 
 tares. 
 And their remembrance thy retirement cheers. 
 I think how oft that million-blessing palm 
 Has crossed my hand with no official feare 
 And seem to talk to Nestor in his calm 
 When Homer knew liim in the vale of years. 
 October 24, 1898. 
 
 KIDNAPPED PARSES 
 
 In Leitersburg along the mountain line 
 I fed my horses while I stopped to dine 
 
18 POEMS 
 
 Amidst the gravestones by a blood-red church 
 
 That like a red bird in a tree had perch 
 
 Upon a summit near the wagon-stand, 
 
 Where flows Antietam into Maryland. 
 
 The fleeing slaves here watched by bloody men 
 
 Unto their slavery were turned again 
 
 Just as they saw salvation's bright'ning day 
 
 Upon the sill of Pennsylvania. 
 
 A generation since then had gone by, 
 And all the landscape laughed in liberty : 
 Free schools and railways, factories and roads, 
 And on the mountain chateaus and abodes, 
 Orchards of fruit and never-tiring wheat 
 Made Freedom's evolution thrice complete. 
 
 Here Jacob Leiter in the West so far 
 Had pitched his town just after Braddock's war. 
 When southward moving o'er the mountain crown 
 The Germans like a bursting dam streamed down 
 And spread their hamlets o'er the valley thick 
 And made a Germany of Frederick. 
 
 Joseph, his heir, near three score years dwelt here 
 
 And died not till Emancipation year. 
 
 I read on slender monuments the life 
 
 Of Joseph Leiter and of Ann his wife 
 
 And drowsy in that summer noon I lay 
 
 Between their graves and dreamed this dream away. 
 
 " What sort of nigger is this we see 
 Riding a horse like a white man free ? 
 
KIDNAPPED PABSEE 19 
 
 Come show your pass ere you go that way!" 
 The man said only, " Parsee. Bombay." 
 
 " He's a Indian nigger but he will sell ; 
 Virginia niggers are bred too well : 
 We'll cross Potomick with him 'fore day ! " 
 He sobbed and muttered, " Parsee. Bombay." 
 
 They pulled him down and they took his horse, 
 The fierce kidnappers without remorse ; 
 They chained his feet as they hid him away 
 And gagged him, mocking, " Parsee. Bombay." 
 
 He drew a drug from his straight, black hair 
 And swallowed it with a gurgling prayer 
 To the Sun that was setting, fiery red, 
 And he fell in the shamble stony dead. 
 
 They found him there whom they meant to sell 
 Cold as a clapperless, copper bell 
 In the shop on the undertaker's lot, — 
 Joseph Leiter, who knew it not. 
 
 Joseph Leiter had bom a son 
 That day as the light was almost done ; 
 At night he came to his carpenter's shed 
 To finish a coffin for some one dead ; 
 
 His lantern fell on the sulphur face 
 
 Of a stranger of some alien race 
 
 And the dead lips bubbled or seemed to say : 
 
 " Me poor Parsee from me home, Bombay." 
 
20 POEMS 
 
 Joseph Leiter the dead man put 
 
 In the coffin ; the lid he shut. 
 
 Thus to his wife his pity ran : 
 
 " They'll steal a coffin who steal a man ! " 
 
 Two days passed and the dead forgot, 
 Light one night was in Leiter's cot ; 
 Soft he looked and the dead man stood 
 Out in his kitchen cooking food. 
 
 Thinking he saw a ghost or witch, 
 Leiter's heart had a deadly twitch: 
 " Gruehre jire^^ did the dead man say, 
 " Ormuzd raised me ! Parsee. Bombay ^ 
 
 Panther men through the window pane 
 Watched the Parsee living again : 
 " Where is he ? " they asked his host. 
 "He is dead and ye saw his ghost." 
 
 In his coffin at noon they saw 
 Him still dead who had found no law ; 
 In the churchyard his pit was dug. 
 He had swallowed a second drug. 
 
 Their dead neighbor the clods immerse, 
 While on the undertaker's hearse 
 O'er the mountain, the midnight through, 
 Leiter drove with the dark Hindoo. 
 
 Still in the West the dusk of night 
 Covered the vale from the mountain's height : 
 Gettysburg in its East repose 
 Bloomed with the sunrise like a rose. 
 
KIDNAPPED PARSES 21 
 
 Rose from stupor the tranc'd Parsee ; 
 Worshipp'd the sun on his bended knee ; 
 Cooled in the West his eyeball far, 
 Shuddering, " Ahriman ! slavery ! WAR ! — " 
 
 Bathed in the summit's springs with bliss, 
 Gave unto Leiter a freeman's kiss, 
 Slipped a ruby his finger upon 
 Saying '-'• Keep it for little son!" 
 
 " Nay," spoke Leiter, whose greed was strong, 
 " We have treated a stranger wrong. 
 You that are risen like Lazarus 
 Owe no present, like that, to ws/" 
 
 Putting the jewel back in his hair, 
 Gorgeously glowing a planet there. 
 The Parsee like a Prince did say : 
 " Iran will give to thy son, Bombay ! 
 
 " I have seen where the inland seas 
 Drop in the West like our great Ganges 
 Into thy Hindostan of wheat. 
 Where shall arise Calcutta's seat ; 
 
 " Send thy son to that infant mart ! 
 Teach him the Parsee's merchant art ! 
 He shall beget one beautiful ! 
 She shall marry the Great Mogul ! " 
 
 There they parted but back, anon, 
 Leiter bending above his son. 
 Little fingers felt in his hair. 
 Clutching a ruby tangled there. 
 
22 POEMS 
 
 " This was meant for our baby's dower ; 
 That dark man was a man of power : 
 With the jewel the boy shall grow, 
 Lighted by wisdom to Chicago ! " 
 
 Long but sure was the infant's fate ; 
 He was a merchant where trade was great ; 
 From his life like a lance's sheen, 
 Grew a daughter that looked a queen. 
 
 She was loved by a statesman wise, — 
 Mighty India was his prize 
 Millions held in the famine's sway 
 Knelt as she landed at Bombay. 
 
 Tall and fair from her hair to her feet 
 She was saluted : " Lady of wheat ! 
 Spirit of bread! as we die we pray 
 Be our white lily, Queen of Bombay ! " 
 
 But the bride of the Viceroy sees 
 One, most agfed of the Parsees, 
 Piping to her like the croon of the wind, 
 " Lady of Leitersburg ! Ruby of Ind ! 
 
 " Red as the ruby thy veins they wave 
 
 Through the star'd midnight where groped the 
 
 white slave ! 
 Thou and thy country are messaged with light ! 
 Day of the Guebre ! Freedom from Night ! " 
 
JACOB GBUBER 23 
 
 JACOB GRUBER 
 1819 
 
 Sally Howaud, Sally Gruber, dat one nigger 
 
 left to you 
 Makes me seem so inconsistent ! Lawyers named 
 
 her — she is Sue! 
 When I glaze and paint de parsonage boys in 
 
 Fred'rick going past 
 Yells at me, " Presiding Elder, has you bought a 
 
 soul at last? " 
 
 Well ! For de Redeemed de devil sets a woman 
 
 in his trap 
 And I loved you, Sally Gruber, with your nigger 
 
 in your lap. 
 When I said, " Emancipate her ! Set her free and 
 
 say good-bye," 
 Then you and that nigger Susan hugged each 
 
 other for to cry. 
 
 I had said to dem soul drivers what de gospe 
 
 bade me tell 
 When at Hogeboom's woods I thundered " Slavery 
 
 is part of Hell 1 " 
 Then dey bound me over, Sally, for de court at 
 
 Hagerstown 
 I de venue moved to Fred'rick ; was acquitted 
 
 with renown. 
 
 Lawyer Taney spoke two hundred dollars' worth 
 of eloquence. 
 
24 POEMS 
 
 For I paid de money to him, two years' hire for 
 
 my defence, 
 Jury, people, Methodism, patted Gruber on de 
 
 back : 
 Lord amercy ! Here in Frederick I must own dat 
 
 gal so black ! 
 
 If I was agin a blacksmith, people at me would 
 not hoot, 
 
 Shoeing horses with my nigger, both of us as 
 black as soot; 
 
 But as Freedom's whitest hero, Susan in my 
 servitude, 
 
 Nigger-buyers yell behind me : " Gruber by him- 
 self is Sued ! " 
 
 Like de richest men in Fred'rick if uncurrent 
 
 bills I shave 
 Then dey call me " Jacob Greedy dat has married 
 
 Sally's slave." 
 But de Book Concern expects me for dem books 
 
 at par to pay, 
 And to get back lawyer's money I can find no 
 
 other wa}'. 
 
 When I feed de oats I cany, my necessity to fit, 
 To my critter at the roadside, sinnere call me 
 
 " Hypocrite." 
 Tavern keepers twit me, saying, " He's converted 
 
 mighty good, — 
 Preacher owning of a nigger and too stingy to 
 
 buy food!" 
 
MAGBUDER 25 
 
 I was sharp myself at scooting veils, high bonnets, 
 
 coffee, tea, 
 Dogs and canes, campmeeting courting : now day 
 
 throw dem up to me. 
 Vendues scattered when dey saw me in my drab 
 
 and broad brim come. 
 Now de asses call me " Balaam," sajdng " Cuss us 
 
 Slavery some ! " 
 
 Your blue eyes and pious beauty touched me in a 
 
 tender cord. 
 And like Abraham in Egypt where King Pharaoh 
 
 was Lord, 
 I did call you " Sister Sarah," never thinking 
 
 what would be : 
 Love decoyed me in your image to bow down to 
 
 Slavery. 
 
 Could I know de slave's affection Freedom's gift 
 
 would be above 
 And within de house of bondage Hagar stay for 
 
 Sarah's love ? 
 Love, excuse our inconsistence ! Love has put us 
 
 all astray. 
 Call de handmaid in, my Sarah, and we three wiU 
 
 kneel and pray. 
 
 MAGRUDER 
 
 Magkxjder was our foemen's name. 
 They won my seat and youthful fame 
 And drove me from the public aim ; 
 O how my father, tawny, fierce. 
 
26 POEMS 
 
 On my swift downfall was a brooder ! 
 
 As lightning doth a black cloud pierce 
 He flashed " Farewell, my son — Magruder ! " 
 
 Betwixt our houses, forked, sleek, 
 
 Spread into bays a salty creek, 
 
 And rival neighbors stiU must speak ; 
 
 My father foxed and rioted, 
 Took hand and cup with each intruder, 
 
 But in his laugh was something dead 
 At greeting each fair-haired Magruder. 
 
 Meantime the law I learned to plead 
 And in a distant place succeed, 
 I took a wife of different creed 
 
 And my deep temper like a monk 
 I strove to alter when I wooed her. 
 
 Till of the chalice as I drunk 
 I said " Communion with Magruder ! " 
 
 My mother fled and sought my side 
 
 And sighed unto me as she died 
 
 " Dear son ! have not thy father's pride ! " 
 
 In holy ground I had her laid. 
 The Jesuits would not exclude her, — 
 
 Hard poverty came to my aid 
 And in my cares I lost — Magruder. 
 
 High handed was our Irish race ; 
 I won our old colonial place 
 By tricking of the populace. 
 
 In the State Senate, thorough willed, 
 I led my party like a Tudor 
 
MAGBUDEB 27 
 
 Till came a sound, " Thy father killed 
 In lust and choler young — Magruder ! " 
 
 He slew the boy beside his board, 
 Into his breast he drove a sword. 
 Because a child they both adored ; 
 
 Magruder's heart was young and bright, 
 My sire was gloomier and ruder. 
 
 He fled for hoary shame by night 
 And on his hearth expired Magruder. 
 
 The old man died of black despair 
 Hard by me in a mountain lair, — 
 A faithful slave hid with him there 
 
 And in his garden him interred: 
 No printer to it was alluder ; 
 
 The old plantations only heard 
 That by our name was slain Magruder. 
 
 Magruder's race died of chagrin ; 
 They got no justice for their kin. 
 I grew more humble for our sin 
 
 Till came my time when high in station 
 I leaped, an unknown interluder. 
 
 And wrung the withers of the nation 
 And trembled for the sound — " Magruder." 
 
 I brought a wail from ruined trade 
 As from the homicidal blade, — 
 O had Magruder's buried shade 
 
 Told but his tale I had been ended. 
 My furious race's last concluder ! 
 
 To solemn heights I still ascended 
 And crossed myself to lay Magruder. 
 
28 P0E3fS 
 
 The paroxysm left me long, 
 But party frenzy, deadly strong, 
 Lured my old age to human wrong ; 
 
 I smote the helpless from my height 
 As hi my father's frosty pudeur : 
 
 The world cried out in my despite. 
 But not a raven croaked " Magruder ! " 
 
 Five years and forty since the crime 
 Had left me but a wrinkled mime. 
 To seal that record old with grime 
 
 I wrote my life, I passed it bland 
 To one who would still be excluder 
 
 Of that which would my pandect brand 
 And on my statue write " Magruder." 
 
 Then in that Jesuit's guarded spot 
 Wherein my father's grave was not, 
 I thought his shade would be forgot 
 
 That I would be beyond the crowd 
 My secret knowing no obtruder : 
 
 I quit my coffin in my shroud — 
 The tombstones next me spelled " Magruder.'' 
 
 There do they stand in pallid white. 
 They see my spectre every night 
 And balk my purgatorial flight : 
 
 " Justice ! " they cry, " thou, Justice Chief ! 
 Thy fame was won as a deluder I 
 
 Thy neighbor's life took like a tliief 
 Stands in thy court of death, — Magruder ! " 
 
 Frkdekick, Md., August 30, 1898. 
 
BOSCOE CONKLING 29 
 
 ROSCOE CONKLING 
 
 The peevish school exclaims, 
 
 That thj return so gladdens great New York ! 
 These spiteful leaders make us miss the more 
 
 One man of lofty mark ; 
 
 One young man yet sincere, 
 
 Whose scorn is scorn and his affection sweet. 
 Whose mind was never humbled to the crowd, 
 
 Nor cowered by defeat ; 
 
 Who thinks exalted things. 
 
 And typifies the Empire of our State 
 
 His brain amidst the atmosphere of kings, 
 And strong among the great; 
 
 For such New York forgives 
 
 His manly frailties in the love of her, 
 
 Her pride contented while a statesman lives 
 To be her Senator. 
 
 No lobby Warwick made 
 
 This royal nature to be bought and sold. 
 His honors never were the gains of trade, 
 
 Nor compliments of gold. 
 
 He walked to our respect. 
 
 Nor crept and courted like a devious dog ; 
 His forehead bore the sign of one elect. 
 
 Beyond the demagogue. 
 
 In his inherent strength 
 
 Of classic mind and national intent, 
 
30 POEMS 
 
 All schools and parties sought the leader out, 
 Within his argument. 
 
 There shall he shine a star, 
 
 When baying foes and envious presses cease, 
 His record gallant in the time of war, 
 
 And gentlest after peace. 
 
 1876. 
 
 TO JAMES A. GARFIELD 
 
 A PKOPHECT 
 
 Thou who did'st ride on Chickamauga's day, 
 All solitary down the fiery line. 
 And saw the ranks of battle rusty shine. 
 Where grand old Thomas held them from dismay, 
 Regret not now, while meaner pageants play 
 Their brief campaigns against the best of men ! 
 For those spent balls of scandal pass their way. 
 And thou shalt see the victory again. 
 Modest and faithful, though these broken lines 
 Of party reel and thine own honor bleeds, 
 That mole is blind which Garfield undermines, 
 That dart falls short which hired malice speeds, 
 That man will stay whose place the State assigns, 
 And whose high mind a mighty people needs. 
 1874. 
 
 R. B. HAYES 
 
 The silent taker of abuse 
 
 Not friendless proves when death, as still, 
 Takes him into the camp of truce 
 
 And beats the taps on good and ill ; 
 
ANDBEW JOHNSON 31 
 
 Soldier, who did life's work fulfil, 
 
 However compromised by fame ! 
 The sunny world respects thy end, 
 
 The states united speak thy name, 
 The soldiery thy grave attend. 
 
 And wives of gentles do the same, 
 To join thee to the beauteous mold 
 
 Who waits her bridegroom in that wood, 
 Where but the good denotes the bold. 
 
 And all of beauty is the good. 
 
 ANDREW JOHNSON 
 
 They who in Northern hamlets drew 
 The warrior breath of freedom in, 
 
 The Southrons' struggle little knew — 
 
 That obdurate and sturdy few 
 
 Whose feet were set against their kin, 
 
 Who for the Union sought the hills 
 
 And lived like hunted things of prey ; 
 In household feud and civil ills 
 That put to test their iron wills — 
 Those renegadoes held their way. 
 
 Tall, bony men of Iiish stock. 
 
 And local loves that bound them fast. 
 The Union only was their rock, 
 And like the pines they stood the shock 
 And grew the tougher for the blast. 
 
 The fife and drum they did not hear 
 That mustered millions to resist ; 
 
32 POEMS 
 
 The State's command, high and austere, 
 Reached not their mountain atmosphere ; 
 The Nation's roar alone they list. 
 
 But peace renewed a hundred ties 
 
 The Northern statesmen never feel : 
 Traditions steadfast as the skies, 
 That slowly fade among the wise, 
 
 And wounds of pride that slowly heal. 
 
 No negro was the mountaineer 
 
 Whose freedom was his fathers' spoil — 
 "What time they mustered with Sevier — 
 He felt himself the planter's peer. 
 And nothing servile for his toil. 
 
 Yet rights like his, with blood bequeathed, 
 
 Were now the bondsman's easy prize ; 
 For this his willing sword unsheathed. 
 The peon's brow with bays had wreathed — 
 Himself, his brood the sacrifice. 
 
 So Andrew Johnson's neighbors spoke, 
 And half their sullenness was his ; 
 
 He was a man of lowly folk. 
 
 And restive under every yoke. 
 Except the yoke of prejudice. 
 
 He governed men from that estate 
 Of humble birth and old neglect 
 When on his tailor's bench he sate, 
 And, sewing, mused on man and fate 
 And tyranny of caste and sect. 
 
ANDBEW JOHNSON 3S 
 
 Still in his soul the phrases clung 
 
 His wife from ancient charters read ; 
 They grew inspired upon his tongue, 
 And to the hills his challenge rung, 
 And unto Fame the echoes led. 
 
 One grand invective was his life, 
 
 But rounded yet by reverence ; 
 His one superior was his wife, 
 His route to power only strife. 
 
 His egotism ne'er pretence. 
 
 The slavery he hated most 
 
 Was slavery of the freeborn mind ; 
 
 The freedom that he made his boast 
 
 Was not a sentimental toast, 
 
 But freedom for his white mankind ; 
 
 And honest hands made courage sure. 
 
 Thrift grew on blessed penury ; 
 A Congress mighty but impure. 
 In freedom's plea, could not endure 
 
 This lonely man of Tennessee. 
 
 The subtler Lincoln suckled still 
 
 A poor white Southern mother's breast"; 
 
 So freedom chose to work her will. 
 
 One ruler from the Southern hill, 
 Another from the prairie West. 
 
 And freedom came from such as these. 
 
 Who felt the slavery they broke ; 
 
 Not from scholastic halls of ease, 
 
 Not from the dreamy Eastern seas. 
 
 But from the hovel and the yoke. 
 1870. 
 
34 FOEMS 
 
 WILLIAM H. SEWARD 
 
 Son of New York ! sit thou amongst us daily 
 
 Where all go by, 
 And Broadway's currents meet and flow most gayly 
 
 In our bright sky ! 
 Reveal that pen whose hidden work was greater 
 
 Than cannon's roar, 
 And boyish brow, the placid agitator 
 
 Of times of yore ! 
 
 Sit with thy books, thou man of gentle story ! 
 There is no heaven 
 
 For thee, unless the clangor of its glory- 
 Shall have their leaven ; 
 
 Not on the sword, the ermine, or the gavel 
 Thy farewell look. 
 
 Thou rounded life's adventures with a travel. 
 And made a book. 
 
 And from thy closest thoughts of power departed, 
 
 Like eagles freed. 
 And distant foemen saw a lion-hearted 
 
 Hero indeed. 
 Domestic traitors held thy life abhorrent. 
 
 Thy name a spell. 
 And still the spring that fed the swelling torrent 
 
 Was but a cell. 
 
 Child of the State, whose sceneries imposing 
 
 Are like its acts — 
 The storm upon its lakes and mountains dozing 
 
 And cataracts — 
 
WILLIAM H. SEWABD 35 
 
 Thine was the pen that clove the war's disorder 
 
 With our decree, 
 And wrote on histor)^ the Godlike order : 
 
 Let man be free I 
 
 Not in a general's dress, a sword and tassels, 
 
 Thou greet'st the age, 
 Like one who came to free another's vassals 
 
 By might of rage ; 
 But in the simple vesture of thy neighbors, 
 
 With book and pen, 
 A tired lawyer resting from his labors, 
 
 And citizen. 
 
 There where the crowds of every nation haunt thee 
 
 And ne'er desist. 
 Cosmopolite or pioneer, we plant thee. 
 
 Thou optimist! 
 Thy mind as various as the race of people 
 
 Thy heart forsaw ; 
 Thy lesson loftier than the Christian steeple — 
 
 A Higher law ! 
 
 Son of New York ! sit thou amongst us daily 
 
 Where all go by. 
 And Broadway's currents meet and flow most gayly 
 
 In our bright sky ; 
 Reveal that pen whose hidden work was greater 
 
 Than cannon's roar. 
 And boyish brow, the placid agitator 
 
 Of times of yore ! 
 1875. 
 
36 POEMS 
 
 "USED UP VAN" 
 
 " We three will make our New Year call 
 
 Upon Van Buren after night, 
 When lonesome in his palace hall 
 
 Turned out the people and the light ! 
 Seward is master in New York, 
 
 The banks are broke, the wealthy beg ; 
 We'll find the President a stork 
 
 Dozing upon a single leg." 
 
 Webster and Clay picked up Calhoun 
 
 To comfort Van in his despair. 
 The White House bathing in the moon 
 
 Ducked in its brand new porte cocMre. 
 The well-known trio passed the door. 
 
 Their echoes chased them in the gloom, 
 And on the Turkey carpet floor 
 
 They tip-toed to the great East Room. 
 
 " He's lost in space, a bumble bee," 
 
 Growled Webster, " rising less and less ! " 
 " His Independent Treasury " 
 
 Quoth Clay, " is hollow emptiness." 
 " He lies in my usurped bed 
 
 Beside my bride in damned doom," 
 Calhoun, the blue-lit Hamlet, said 
 
 And rapped like death upon a tomb. 
 
 Light, laugh and shout burst through the door ; 
 Along the parlor's grand extent 
 
■^« A R V 
 
 '' OF THt 
 
 of 
 
*' USED UP VAN'' 37 
 
 Playing at leap-frog on the floor 
 
 They saw the ruined President ; 
 His grown-up sons along the row 
 
 Made him, another playmate, stoop, 
 And o'er his bald head winged with snow 
 
 They jumped their father with a whoop. 
 
 Son Abram's Carolina bride, 
 
 Angelica, just out of school. 
 Was laughing " fit to split her side " 
 
 To see the great man play the fool. 
 Martin and John, like heralds stem, 
 
 Kept parent Martin on the run. 
 And made him leap-frog in his turn 
 
 And saw that he leaped every one. 
 
 " Good friends," the President exclaimed, 
 
 " These boys their mother left to me ; 
 I promised not to be ashamed 
 
 Ever to keep their company ; 
 To keep them and myself so young 
 
 And of each other ever fond. 
 That when our worldly pride was stung 
 
 Our fireside would not have despond. 
 
 " My wife my schoolmate cousin was ; 
 
 These youngsters are ray cousins, too. 
 You will not find them frivolous 
 
 When there are harder things to do. 
 Good-natured Dutch, within our roost 
 
 We keep up holidays with rout, 
 I play with them as mother used, — 
 
 They will not leave their father out." 
 
38 POEMS 
 
 " This is the secret of his court," 
 
 Said Webster, " Let us learn his joys ! 
 We were too solemn for the sport: 
 
 He practiced leaping with the boys. 
 Take off your coats, Calhoun and Clay ! 
 
 And take a lesson how to leap ! 
 We'll jump Saint Martin yet some day 
 
 Who plays the boy when we're asleep." 
 
 WITH GREELEY AT RICHMOND 
 
 MAY 18, 1872 
 
 At Rocketts' pier the bugles blow, 
 
 The clattering horsemen ride, 
 And squadrons wheel with naked steel 
 
 By James's peaceful tide. 
 And up the stones of Richmond town 
 
 The column files at will, 
 As if a traitor rode to die 
 
 Up Tower or Tj'burn hill. 
 
 A poor old man, grey-haired and bent. 
 
 Amongst the troopers rides ; 
 He sees the captured capital 
 
 O'erlooking floods and tides. 
 Where, in his power, the standards blew. 
 
 Unfurled at his command, 
 That waved in sight of Washington, 
 
 And dyed the Rio Grande. 
 
 Now silently the people peer 
 Who used to cheer his name, 
 
WITH GREELEY AT RICHMOND 39 
 
 As if it were a time of fear, 
 
 And his were all the blame ; 
 They soon forget both fame and power 
 
 Who but disaster win, 
 And he who ruled, an Empire's chief, 
 
 Must make his jail an inn. 
 
 They bring him to the traitor's court, — 
 
 This old and broken man ; 
 And e'en the judge looks down in grudge, 
 
 Like any partisan. 
 The la wy el's wait to tell his crimes. 
 
 The jury hate, forewarned, — 
 By heaven ! it is a fearful thing 
 
 To see a strong man scorned ! 
 
 Then one stepped out from all the throng, 
 
 And said : " This must not be ! 
 My pen which wrote his cause unjust. 
 
 Shall write his liberty. 
 On yonder hill the grass is green — 
 
 With pleasant spring's increase. 
 So green be all the fields of war, 
 
 And all our duty Peace. 
 
 " Ye dare not test him lest he 'scape ; 
 
 Ye shall not keep him pent ; 
 Each foe stands now a citizen, 
 
 A flock for every tent ; 
 Let kindly law again prevail, 
 
 And victory do no crime. 
 For hand in hand we twain must walk 
 
 Down all the paths of time ! " 
 
40 POEMS 
 
 They marvelled much who loved him not, 
 
 This quaint old man to see, 
 Whose name the planters' children knew, 
 
 An ancient enemy ; 
 And though some mocked his loving zeal 
 
 With many a coarse retort, 
 He made the rebel chieftain feel 
 
 The North had still a heart ! 
 
 IRVING AT BURR'S TRIAL 
 
 1807 
 
 My Rip Van Winkle twenty years asleep 
 
 I see reversed with Colonel Burr come down, — 
 
 Youth, startling these long-haired Virginians. 
 
 The Cainish outlaw of New York is here 
 
 A Jesus in the temple, routing doctors : 
 
 How masterful serene ! how lustrous eyed ! 
 
 Delight of women ! linnet of the cage ! — 
 
 Fresh are the species of America ! 
 
 I threaded Europe lately with the pang, 
 
 " I must return," but this is wonderful. 
 
 And yon Chief Justice is Praxiteles 
 
 Gazing on Phryne, the stripp'd courtesan. 
 
 Whom he means to acquit for loveliness. 
 
 I marvel not my brothers were for Burr ; 
 
 I, mourning Hamilton, compassionate 
 
 This beauteous heifer which did gore his life, 
 
 Gentle but in her bovine period. 
 
 That deer-split hoof, his hand, did fire the shot 
 
 Which emptied nature of Minerva's child : 
 
 The sons of God were yet like Aaron Burr, 
 
IRVING AT BURR'S TRIAL 41 
 
 Daughters of men these freakish Jeffersons. 
 
 Men say he ruins women : women never 
 Have thrown a stone at Burr, their Antony. 
 His fawns were white. His sacerdotal touch, 
 Like Eli's sons, was holy to his dupes, — 
 Heir of the Eleusinian mysteries. 
 
 Treason or misdemeanor his offenses ? 
 Ridiculous alternatives, i' faith ! 
 Treason is levying War against Us only : 
 Yon Randolph, Burr's defender, breathed it so, 
 Gouverneur Morris phrased it thus exact : 
 Virginia's limitation. New York's words. 
 Burr is but traitor to Virginia's cockloft 
 And each one there than he more traitorous : 
 Madison wrote Secession Resolutions, 
 Monroe delivered our flag to France, 
 Randolph betrayed us from the cabinet, 
 This Wilkinson is in the pay of Spain, 
 And Jeffereon plotted the Excise war. 
 Burr, driven away by their conspiracy. 
 Drew from the times the filibuster's dream, — 
 Miranda's, Rogers Clarke's, Eaton's and Lewis's, — 
 To speed our destiny before its ripeness 
 In the indefinite Hispanian waste, 
 His febrile fancy fired by Bonaparte 
 And the bright recollections of his youth 
 In martial camps these coistrils never joined. 
 Long will that West the hunted stag allure. 
 It is Imagination's substitute 
 For the fenced Paradise of cherubims 
 Whose swords on none but their fall'n equals 
 flame : 
 
42 POEMS 
 
 Hark to the British cannon off Virginia ! — 
 Our sailors' shrieks ! ^ O for one hour of Burr 
 And Hamilton ! 
 
 Twig now yon other Randolph 
 Who brought in the indictment ! 'Tis high treason 
 With him to be born anywhere but here : 
 He looks the snipe with railing faculties 
 Run lean, — a skeleton in excitation. 
 John Wickham of Long Island, bred to arms 
 At Arras, France, o'er-matches William Wirt, 
 Co-amateur with me in lightsome Letters, 
 Who has the heavy vividness of armor. 
 The treatment for this trial is humor : 
 A cat fight in one's party brought to bar. 
 Our Constitution makes theology. 
 That curser is one Jackson, Tennesseean, 
 Who would not vote respect to Washington 
 And now damns Madison, — an Almohade. 
 What height is in that Scott, the fledgling lawyer ! 
 He's out of Amadis de Gaul ; if years 
 Are sold by inches he'll outlast us all. 
 Virginia's genius in its women lies. 
 Their love of pleasure not their men's indulgence : 
 How lovely were those shoulders at the ball ! 
 And every sylph for Burr but no man for him. 
 
 Two lawyers here are drunk by early morning. 
 There is old Callender, the libeller, 
 Diogenes in his newspaper tub, 
 Wherein he wallows, gnashes and snuffs plunder, 
 And yet I like him better than this Ritchie, 
 The vaunted genius of his occupation, 
 1 Firing on the Chesapeake Frigate. 
 
IRVING AT BUBB'S TRIAL 43 
 
 Who like Marat learned medicine to torture 
 And has a narrow controversial soul. 
 This city rules by him newspaper-mongers 
 And he is edited by Jefferson. 
 'Tis dissipation of belles lettres minds 
 To excel in these midnight exhalations. 
 The rainbow 'twixt Newspaper and Letters 
 Is broke in mid air ; I'll find the far end ; 
 It may be long or never, but my mind 
 Shall not be a slave driver's with my quill, 
 Nor in opinion-fact'ries pewtered out ! 
 
 The prosecution is the President, 
 Who learned his passions in the sects of France, 
 Wrathful for liberty that in Robespierre, 
 The smug and incorrupt, destroyed his kind. 
 Few are not spoiled whom Europe magnifies, 
 Yet is our politics all European, — 
 Philology of accusations fetched 
 To plague plain stay-at-homes like Washington : 
 Democrat, Monarchist, Aristocrat, — 
 Words mighty in the foreign tourists' pride. 
 The name that bless'd me and the Chief whose 
 
 hand 
 Was raised above me in my nurse's arms 
 Will stand with Caesar's when these tribunes fade. 
 He never would have scoured the coasts for Burr 
 And dragged him hither through so many States 
 To try him in the tyrant's local province. 
 Indicted by his cousin. Not ere long 
 This slayer did preside upon the trial 
 Of a high Justice and this grand juror 
 Did curse the Senate which would not convict : 
 
44 
 
 POEMS 
 
 Now Jeffrey's circuit moves to Richmond town, 
 But yon loose-jointed Judge has in his orbs 
 The mighty globe and Richmond is his throne. 
 Who knows what Revolutions may rise here ? 
 What slavery President like Burr from jail 
 Be brought to crave his bail and find his Portia ? 
 Then this Boi Petion^ hunted to the caves, 
 Saved from the executioner by wolves, 
 Will be the sign of mercy shining down. 
 
 Petion's Madame Roland there I see, 
 
 Burr's matron daughter. Blennerhassett's wife 
 
 Was in Queen Theodosia's silver crown 
 
 As in her father's sword hilt. Why had fate 
 
 Mismated so ? Burr married with his mother, 
 
 Theodosia, her son, and that one with 
 
 An idiot. Burr needed a fine woman 
 
 And made her of his child but on illusions 
 
 Wasted their substance. 'Tis a gypsy court ! 
 
 Jefferson's comely daughter I have seen, 
 
 Who sought to be a nun in lawless Paris. 
 
 All these are finer women than in France 
 
 Around the condottieri Emperor. 
 
 Could faction run its length these ladies might 
 
 Go to a guillotine. Their stay is Burr, 
 
 Lex scripta and the plain colonial thought. 
 
 In climate Liberty refrigerates ; 
 This summer heat made deadly by strong drink 
 And carnal by the Slavery around it, 
 Will soon relinquish to the Northern star 
 Direction, as the constellations do. 
 
 In some day not too far. Literature 
 
OAK HILL 45 
 
 Will sit upon the chaos of these presses 
 
 And soften partisans to courtesy. 
 
 Our area is like the field of stars : 
 
 The more they be the light is more diffused, 
 
 The wider radiance soothes mankind to peace, 
 
 And woman's softness, paramount at night. 
 
 Her prejudices drowsy in her realm, 
 
 Will draw the soul of strife to love and rest. 
 
 Yon golden West will govern in its prime. 
 
 With mildness known not to old colonies 
 
 Ripped from the civil wars and Bible-cracked. 
 
 Then Liberty's haranguers need not scream ; 
 
 'Twill be the nature of the fertile sea 
 
 Of land and woodlands and the snow-warmed lakes ; 
 
 Men will roam free and sociable as cattle 
 
 Which in their increase drive the bisons back. 
 
 Faint in that mellow sunset may appear 
 
 Among the bars of music one, far down. 
 
 Leaning on earth : the Crime of Aaron Burr. 
 
 OAK HILL 
 1893 
 
 Where through the Hog Back Mountain knots 
 the Goose creek's two arms wind 
 
 Stands on a knoll a portico with its plain house 
 behind, 
 
 A portico that faces South in Doric columns Hned. 
 
 On segment arches this tall porch wide as the 
 house expands 
 
46 POEMS 
 
 And holds a Grecian order up in its columnar 
 
 hands, 
 With one eye in its pediment winked on the 
 
 templar's lands. 
 
 The stiff, square house with chimneys four to 
 
 lowly wings descends 
 And in the rear it has its door as if for humble 
 
 friends ; 
 In front o'er double drawing-rooms that portico 
 
 portends. 
 
 A hall that clips the little wings the two square 
 
 parlors airs 
 And adds a state solemnity for balls and feasts 
 
 and stairs 
 But to that rostrum portico the whole house 
 
 gives its cares. 
 
 Here, one would think, some rustic man lived 
 
 in his home, snug, slow. 
 Until he had a public call to come in front and 
 
 show 
 And then he showed another man in that great 
 
 portico. 
 
 Monroe, the last Virginia chief, here spent his 
 
 funds and age, 
 His Northern wife died in the jowl of this sad 
 
 hermitage. 
 The portico his former hut took into patronage. 
 
 He was a politician's flower, raised from a common 
 weed, 
 
OAK HILL 47 
 
 Fit for no enterprise in life but following to lead: 
 To watch the great and imitate, to listen and suc- 
 ceed. 
 
 Mount Vernon, Monticello and Montpelier tem- 
 ples show — 
 
 Wide land and Cincinnatian rest, sageness and 
 portico. 
 
 So all he had into Oak Hill put President Monroe. 
 
 Some few weak apprehensive years from public 
 
 pay's release, 
 He took the only office left, a justice of the peace, 
 And then the sheriff took his peace and he took 
 
 his surcease. 
 
 As in this lofty portico his form plebeian bent 
 He wound beneath the porticoes of every high event 
 As the Virginia creeper scales the Doric shaft's 
 ascent. 
 
 With timid men he passed for brash, with bold 
 men for a worm, 
 
 He was a soldier on the staff proved by his uni- 
 form ; 
 
 He set the lines at Bladensburg and braved a 
 thunderstorm. 
 
 Confederate Congressman, he bored that system 
 
 to its doom ; 
 Opposed the Constitution since some other State 
 
 might bloom ; 
 But when his Senator was dead stepped in his 
 
 shoes and room. 
 
48 POEMS 
 
 There bully for his State's cabal he set domestic 
 
 slur 
 On Hamilton, above the State the golden minister, 
 But bared the soldier's pervious place to single- 
 combat Burr. 
 
 To France he went in room of Burr whom he had 
 undermined 
 
 And with the bloody Jacobin's our tender streamers 
 twined, 
 
 Then hurled a book at Washington, for voters in- 
 terlined. 
 
 The dying chief Virginia stung with " Governor 
 
 Monroe," 
 His weakling face inspired the slaves such tool to 
 
 overthrow, 
 Virginia sent him back to France annoyances to 
 
 sow. 
 
 He saw upon the river Seine his country's steamer 
 
 ride, 
 With Livingston's and Fulton's fames he wrote 
 
 his name beside, 
 Abortive treaties ever made and nowhere did 
 
 abide. 
 
 But as the Brahmins may revere the sacerdotal 
 cow 
 
 Virginians ever kept him place beneath their feed- 
 ing mow 
 
 And with the heifers of his chief he drave a sub- 
 soil plough ; 
 
OAK HILL 49 
 
 Measured Virginia's mites beside the giants of his 
 view, — 
 
 The Nelsons, Pitts and Bonapartes the world of 
 physics grew, — 
 
 And empire-hearted men at home by later knowl- 
 edge knew. 
 
 The faction feared their sharpened tool, his hardier 
 
 address, 
 He knew their differential arts and shaken selfish- 
 
 ishness. 
 And practiced on a wider range an easier success. 
 
 He ruled the land by men of stuff in all his 
 
 cabinet, 
 Enlarged the state and in array its weak defenses 
 
 set, 
 But plagued himself with cavilling, infirmity and 
 
 fret. 
 
 High policies he fought against and called them 
 
 by his name. 
 Looked ever on where he might lean or, failing, 
 
 next might blame ; 
 When every opposition ceased, no veneration 
 
 came. 
 
 Lamenting powers he did not have when all but 
 he so willed. 
 
 He saw not slavery's blighting spread while free- 
 dom throve and tilled 
 
 And Marshall's genius shone abroad to strengthen 
 and to build. 
 
50 POEMS 
 
 Here to Oak Hill old Lafayette with Quincy 
 
 Adams came 
 On wretched roads in bankrupt times to company 
 
 but tame, 
 The host was trouble-borrowing and lobbying his 
 
 claim. 
 
 Unto John Adams' frosty child Kentucky passed 
 
 the key, 
 Virginia's nation-hearted son locked out her 
 
 dynasty, 
 And force with lictors came behind, — the sheik 
 
 of Tennessee. 
 
 Perfect the classic portico takes in its hollow ken 
 The sheeplands where, in warlike times, by night 
 
 rode Mosby's men. 
 The Bull Run mountains' sapphire blue and Little 
 
 River's glen. 
 
 Toward Potomac, Goose creek falls through locks 
 
 of old canals, 
 Telling of public spirit spent for counties and 
 
 cabals ; 
 The grim old mills at Oatlands grind their drowsy 
 
 madrigals. 
 
 Fertile and noble rolls the land and^ watered like 
 to France, 
 
 With kine and horses plentiful and sparse inhabi- 
 tants ; 
 
 The white pike road beneath the ridge shines like 
 a flashing lance. 
 
OAK HILL 51 
 
 But naught is here of that old man who reared 
 
 his portico ; 
 Richmond that made him has his bones where 
 
 James's rapids flow ; 
 The spirit of his Northern wife the Fortress of 
 
 Monroe. 
 
 His western States he never loved, marched o'er 
 
 his mountain's bar, 
 On roads he vetoed, to his forts made for defensive 
 
 war; 
 Free millions flout o'er Africa the faint Monrovian 
 
 star. 
 
 New York, Virginia's conqueror, received him, 
 debtor-spent ; 
 
 Fourth of July, his dying day, scarce felt the 
 slight event ; 
 
 No man has read his manuscript on balanced gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 His jockey son-in-law awhile Oak Hill inhabited, 
 Defaulter in official life to sanctuary fled ; 
 No ghosts are in the portico ; the tedious are the 
 dead. 
 
 Contractors city horses breed in Monroe's stables, 
 
 where 
 He demonstrated country hearts of cities must 
 
 beware ; 
 Over his mutton modern men his waste of land 
 
 unswear. 
 
52 POEMS 
 
 The sacrifice he did not try ; the means he did not 
 
 prove ; 
 The shiftless motive principle that only seems to 
 
 move ; 
 The office-getting for itself : these bankiupt power 
 
 and love. 
 
 He saw the people as they were by mean self- 
 measurement, 
 Rivals his mediocrity preferring for descent, 
 And wore the nation's patience out to furious 
 discontent. 
 
 Few pilgrims come to see his shrine, the few who 
 
 come less know ; 
 The whip-poor-will's inquiring cry is answered by 
 
 Echo, 
 Within the hollow stories of the pillared portico. 
 
 Pale order! to neglected lands your Greek ex- 
 pression give 
 
 Of Academic genius and freedom formative ! 
 
 So perfect stands the portico its spirit still must 
 live. 
 
 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS' DIARY 
 1779-1848, 
 
 Lad ! I overlap thy life with mine ; 
 
 Art thou curious, prying and revering ? 
 
 Lift the lid, — the coffin be not fearing ! 
 
 Within my Koran book my prophet's bones calcine. 
 
TO EDMUND C. STED^fAN 53 
 
 Three score and ten of years I drew bow line 
 And shot ni}' arrows into friend and foe ; 
 Gather them as the Indian by his bow 
 And arrows lies I Nothing will I refine ! 
 What for the day seemed true the sun marked so, 
 And before night's small prayer I wrote not liber- 
 tine. 
 A barbarous age encaged me for its king, 
 Its captive eagle silenced by its vote. 
 Each night I pulled a feather from my wing 
 And dipped it in my cage-chilled blood and wrote. 
 For thine eye, boy, did I in slavery snatch 
 Moments of years to trace the dull events : 
 Judge thou my book when thou shalt read its match 
 Writ by another of thy Presidents ! 
 
 TO EDMUND C. STEDMAN 
 
 Thy pipe clear, cogent, summoning, I heard 
 
 Like the long locust's triU, when I was young, 
 
 Halting but not dissonant with the bird, 
 
 A louder chanson on a thrilling tongue ; 
 
 Current occurrence poetry became 
 
 In thy sweet glottis and thou didst not fear: 
 
 I list thy pibroch after years the same 
 
 And find thee sweeter as I come more near. 
 
 Thy Muse doth balance while thy wants take ramble 
 
 On Wall Street's deafening and deadly way, 
 
 Like him who walked the wire with many a gambol, 
 
 Along the foam line of Niagara. 
 
 Thy foot is on Apollo's lyre-strimg air ; 
 
 I know where thou art by a rainbow there. 
 
64 POEMS 
 
 E. R. T. 
 
 APRIL 13, 1897 ^ 
 
 Blind, seeing, dead : good night, Elizabeth ! 
 Thou didst not see and slipped on holy ground. 
 Thy sight restored thou sawest falsehood's death 
 And owned thy slip though ever bled thy wound. 
 Death ! Thou art Saviour to all women found 
 In nature's field ! Thou writest in the dust 
 And draw'st them to thee in repentance sound 
 When priests and congregations stone their trust ! 
 In that great day when graves give up and must 
 All shames be owned, matron ! Thou wilt be wise 
 Who faced the world and out by it was thrust 
 To stand with Magdalen in Paradise ; 
 Aye ! and with Mary of supernal fame 
 Whom Heaven o'ershadowed ere it overcame. 
 
 JOSHUA 
 
 The Shemite's roving eye is keen from his tent, 
 He sees the obvious and speaks sentiment ; 
 His nation a brood under Israel's hem 
 He knew but one city, Jerusalem. 
 
 Enter the Roman with world-wide polity ! — 
 *' Believe what ye will but be subject to me ! " 
 As from the rushes had Moses pedigree, 
 Joshua, the straw-bom, thought in poetry : 
 
 " Freer this sun the strangers' helmets flash, 
 Happy Israel whose creeds no longer clash ! 
 
 1 Totally blind, recovered her full sight. Died. — Report. 
 
JOSHUA 55 
 
 Gentiles we hated have stricken off our clogs, 
 Nobler are mankind than the harsh synagogues ! " 
 
 That subhmation like a blowing seed 
 Fell in the furrow that was smoking to breed : 
 Rome had oped the world with her ploughshare feet, 
 Joshua went forth and sowed it with bright wheat. 
 
 MoraUzingr without labor is disease. 
 Catch-cure-workers snare themselves in mysteries. 
 Agitation agitates sweet sleep away. 
 Science lay not with the Jew nor Joshua. 
 
 The ghost tales creep in the blood of conquerors. 
 
 A sure church ever toleration abhors. 
 
 Little miracles his followers must see. 
 
 And Jove's fatherhood vouch for democracy. 
 
 Superstitions strove and his girl head was bowed, 
 Tears came between him and the simple crowd, 
 Winds, understood not, whispered from the sky 
 Imaginations of the old Genii. 
 
 Youth is the quickenmg, age the mummifying, 
 Youth thinks of loving and age thinks of dying : 
 Joshua, distempered, coimted life a loss, 
 The beauty of the lilies droops at his cross. 
 
 When we know nothing of our own planet's plan. 
 Fancy must prophesy and priest dream for man, 
 Joshua who loved the Earth, his one pet bird, 
 Never to his singing mate has since said word. 
 
 Stubborn idolatry mistakes all it can. 
 
 Jew-named Christians burnt alive their fellow-man. 
 
56 P0E3IS 
 
 Science with miracles to shame sorcery- 
 Bent to the Roman priest the pagan-freed knee. 
 
 Japhet in the West took Physics for his mate 
 And she nursed him like the wolf the twins of state, 
 Walled her Europe with the towers that suns descry, 
 Felt her hemispheres of breasts the globe's augury. 
 
 Arsenalled her arms with chemistry's retorts, 
 Made old Rome her polity, chivalry her forts ; 
 States gave stability to tribes' disarray : 
 Europe for poetry set up Joshua ; 
 
 Fought for his grave and his peasantry set high, 
 Put his brethren in its shields of victory ; 
 Joshua's living type they banished and slew : 
 Europe took the Jewish and enslaved the Jew. 
 
 Wider than Joshua, Spinoza loved Space, 
 
 In his matter-loving thought all worlds had grace ; 
 
 Socialistic Joshuas a new earth drew 
 
 But the church of Joshua rejected Jew. 
 
 We have with us Joshua perfectly new 
 In the juvenescence of each sanguine Jew, 
 In his friendly vehemence, Shemite to brim, 
 But the doors of Japhet's race are shut to him. 
 
 He, in Joshua's delight, hails the events, 
 His disbanded nationhood to all presents. 
 Drives his golden wedge into Japhet's schism 
 Profiting honestly by his optimism. 
 
 Joshuas arrogate anarchistic powers, 
 
 Build themselves no sepulchre but lie in ours; 
 
BALSTO:^ 57 
 
 Joshua, pastoral, preaches and roams, 
 Turning mobs against the genius of homes ; 
 
 Rails at society that taketh providence 
 As the roving Arabs hate Yemen's defense, 
 Hates the riches that refine and in us dwell 
 For the riches that o'erburden Ishmael. 
 
 Joshua pushes hard as if earth were slow, 
 And he imperium in imperio ; 
 Unto him as Caesar's coin we render odds, 
 But refuse to his assault the things of Gods. 
 
 Joshua never sought Kepler's wonder laws : 
 Sentimental, sensuous, effect and cause 
 Unto him were platitudes : genius wild. 
 He is reigning and will reign, the little child. 
 
 RALSTON 
 
 He who attempts too much success 
 
 And frets his destiny, 
 Shall like Napoleon find an isle 
 
 Or Ralston find a sea. 
 
 Yet in the loss of so much power 
 The generous world must weep, 
 
 As when some battlemented tower 
 Falls down a lofty steep. 
 
 Roll ocean on the golden gate 
 
 With thrice thy usual sound ! 
 There's nothing left of mortal state 
 
 Like him that thou hast drowned. 
 1875. 
 
68 POEMS 
 
 MEMMINGER'S LIFE 
 
 (SECRETARY OF CONFEDERATE TREASURY) 
 
 1875 
 
 Flylng from Napoleon, 
 
 Flpng to Calhoun, 
 Little Wurtembiirger ! 
 
 'T was Caesar to Mahoun. 
 To one you were a conscript. 
 
 Cipher in t" other's eye ; 
 One would unify you, 
 
 One would nullify. 
 
 O, had Carolina 
 
 Heads like thine, not hot. 
 She had weighed the iron 
 
 Ere she fii-ed the shot ! 
 All her waste of fury 
 
 No hero left to her 
 But the man of Jewry, 
 
 Meniminger. 
 1893. 
 
 PALOS 
 
 I WAKE at Huelva ; sunrise shines 
 On Palos, name I know so well 
 
 Where Rio Tinto from its mines 
 Comes on to join the Odiel. 
 
 I seek the quay and hire my boat 
 Among the many vessels there 
 
 And down the tawny river float 
 In that same raw Columbus air, 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 Of 
 
 -ALIFORH^ 
 
PALOS 59 
 
 In this four hundredth happy spring, 
 Since in this port his sail he furled 
 
 Who, like yon coots on fluttering wing 
 Low flymg, dipped them down the world. 
 
 Amidst his scenes I sit in awe 
 
 Hushed by my country's cradle story 
 
 And watch the hump of Rabida 
 Draw nearer on its promontory. 
 
 The scaffolds round the shaft just raising 
 To him, I thmk one more depiction 
 
 By painters, after time amazmg. 
 Of Jesus raised for crucifixion. 
 
 And as I climb the Prior's height 
 
 Where Christus paused in this far region 
 
 His globe soul half eclipsed in night 
 I feel a natural religion. 
 
 Yon only window well I mark 
 
 Above the postern where his hand 
 
 Fray Perez waved, as from the ark. 
 To take the dove in brinofingr land. 
 
 And where the travellers entered twain 
 I leave behind all harsh complaints, 
 
 One gentle priest then lived in Spain 
 Whom Science ranks among her saints. 
 
 The cool patios they're restoring, 
 
 The vaults uptorn, the monks' small cells, 
 
 The Saviour nailed for his adoring. 
 The convent jail, the Moorish wells, 
 
60 POEMS 
 
 The stable like the inn's for Mary, 
 The loggia that o'erharigs the sea, 
 
 I thread as in some cave of faer}', 
 Up to the Prior's library. 
 
 Where books of dread by pagans written 
 But lamplight threw on that dark sea 
 
 And through the windows redly litten 
 The sandalled monks spied sorcery. 
 
 But Palos tars, accused of robbing, 
 Tested that stranger s serious worth, 
 
 Her doctor felt a twin world throbbing 
 And helped the young idea forth. 
 
 Off to the court the country pastor 
 Made the first voyage, tonsure-curled, 
 
 And on a donkey, like his master, 
 Rode into town to save a world. 
 
 They thank him for the invitation 
 And send their Notary right about 
 
 And fine poor Palos from the nation, 
 To take the expedition out. 
 
 For that, O Palos ! I am risking 
 (No saddle and no stirrup mine) 
 
 This ride and were my mare a-frisking 
 I might leave thee my broken chine. 
 
 The houseless road with flowers is sprinkled, 
 The pinegroves moan, low flaps a stork, 
 
 I see old ocean's head unwrinkled 
 Beyond the sea strand's trees of cork. 
 
PAL OS 61 
 
 And soldiers guard lest thieves assail us 
 The ancient road on Tarshish strand : 
 
 There is more danger still by Palos 
 Than in the wide Columbian land. 
 
 This is not Palos, these wine caverns 
 Backed into hillocks with low walls ! 
 
 Where be the port, the sailors' taverns. 
 The smell of tar, the boatswains' calls ? 
 
 This is some farmers' hameau stranded 
 High up the land ; the old chuich tower 
 
 In a high gravel pit upstanded 
 
 Just peeping o'er this many an hour. 
 
 As when the Norman pirates entered 
 The Moorish peace of Cadiz bay 
 
 And in this mosque the learned centred 
 Round Almegist and Algebra. 
 
 The distant age of printing-paper 
 
 Found Ismail's star o'er Spain senescent, 
 
 They might have crossed the sea by vapor 
 And on the Indies put the crescent. 
 
 Some Koran ever there to read is 
 
 Whose gibberish Geber's lore may throttle ; 
 Mahomet bullies Archimedes 
 
 And Torquemada, Aristotle. 
 
 With me the problem now is bitter, 
 
 How to get off this Rozinante 
 And not to make all Palos titter. 
 
 Which crowds to see this Yankee ••' ant€." 
 
62 POEMS 
 
 And like Columbus' standing eggs, 
 To save my shell requires address ; 
 
 They bring a chair ; I bless its legs : 
 Something in Palos I must bless. 
 
 I disapprove those eyes of her 
 
 Who from one trellised yard grimaces 
 
 And on my country puts the slur, 
 That of one blood are all man-races : 
 
 "Was she not here, ancient of species, 
 
 When up the streets like sharks with fins on 
 
 The sailors all had Beatriches, 
 
 And Peter's cock crowed thrice at Pinzon ? 
 
 Let realisms not displease us ! 
 
 Old Niebla jail : memento mori ! 
 One thief went in to heaven with Jesus, 
 
 And fifty thieves to Salvadore ! 
 
 Diogenes and cynics bicker 
 On honest men alone to settle, 
 
 The wise man asks, whose blood is thicker, 
 " Is this my tool, a tool of mettle ? " 
 
 The Palos people cease to chatter : 
 
 All gravity they hear me say, 
 " America was found by matter ! 
 
 And matter was America." 
 
 With this I scatter silver shekels 
 
 (And while they scramble get me gone) 
 
 To various admirals in freckles, — 
 And, no doubt, of Columbian spawn. 
 
PALOS 63 
 
 " Palos, the Marshy " one stone lane 
 
 Drops to its port ; the main street forks 
 
 To Moguer where they sell their grain 
 And olive oil and fungus corks. 
 
 There in the forks his farmhouse stands, 
 Good Pinzon's, with arched gate and walls ; 
 
 He left a substance for dreamlands, 
 Nor parleyed for Viceregal halls. 
 
 I like his life because 'tis short, 
 He gives to Palos fame its own, 
 
 He made Columbus no retort 
 
 Nor troubled history with a moan. 
 
 And later, stout Iberian men. 
 From Pinzon's spirit did absorb, 
 
 Nunez who gazed from Darien, 
 Magellan, circler of the orb. 
 
 Palos was naught but situation 
 
 Beyond the straits, a nook unfriended 
 
 "Where no adjacent sjjying nation 
 
 Might hear its wail of doom, world-ended. 
 
 That wail I hear in Palos church : 
 " Mary ! O Mother ! Slay this devil ! 
 
 This crow who on our cross does perch 
 And picks our eyes out for his revel, 
 
 " Picks son and husband, lover, brother. 
 And sails to ports that never were : 
 
 Thou ait; our friend, God's virgin mother ! 
 O Venus ! have us in thy care ! " 
 
64 POEMS 
 
 Prayer volatile as bird or bee is 
 
 And man more oft than Gods hath bended, — 
 Could wooden women halt ideas 
 
 Columbus in this church had ended. 
 
 So prayed that day afflicted creatures, 
 Against the good luck to them blown. 
 
 They clawed their wooden virgin's features, 
 And seldom since has she been shown ; 
 
 To me they fetch her from a closet, 
 A human bowsprit full of scars, 
 
 With once blue eyes and cheeks of roset. 
 Like Irish wives of Palos tars. 
 
 So in Phoenicia's golden crisis. 
 
 When Hiram's ships would counter truly. 
 The Tyrian woman plead to Isis 
 
 And stopped his galleons short of Thul^. 
 
 The men of Thul^ were not craven, 
 They wintered on the western shore, 
 
 But unreturning as the raven, 
 Vineland, Red Eric saw no more. 
 
 The plain white church with chapels cool 
 And floor of tile and altar fret 
 
 That day became an urchins' school 
 To teach the Pope his alphabet. 
 
 And in its pulpit as I stand, 
 
 The same as in that day's suspense, 
 
 I feel the strength of Ferdinand 
 And government's beneficence. 
 
PAL OS 65 
 
 My country is like Spain anon, 
 
 In chivalry's reunion sure, 
 Castile is one with Aragon 
 
 And in Granada still the Moor. 
 
 Not hard far-off adventures be, 
 
 But hard it is not to oppress : 
 Drive not the Moors to Barbary 
 
 And have barbarian happiness ! 
 
 And hark ! ye priests, for signs who search 
 And pulpits close to week day rule : 
 
 Think how Columbus of this church 
 Made heaven's earthy vestibule ! 
 
 Loquacious Jews whose God began it, 
 Whose victim died for his deep wit, 
 
 Did your Messiah to our planet 
 Know that he trod but half of it ? 
 
 That this, the only world he treasured. 
 
 For it dissolved his Trinity — 
 Was like the smallest orange measured 
 
 In the Arcana's orangery ? — 
 
 Was less in night's cerulean bosk. 
 Than one low arch amid the grove 
 
 Of arch on arch in that vast mosque 
 The Dryads at Cordova love ? 
 
 A preacher's blood I feel in me. 
 
 In Palos pulpit where I stand. 
 To pound its iron tracery, 
 
 Like Goetz, who wore the iron hand. 
 
 Of Thj 
 
 >^ 'DIVERS/ 
 
 or 
 
66 POEMS 
 
 And as that lone Italian drave, 
 Into the Palos mind of murk 
 
 The flash light of the western wave, 
 I am Columbus' handiwork. 
 
 Ocean its revelations clear 
 
 Made not to Arab, Jew or Greek, — 
 The drifting things from some near sphere 
 
 That of a human neighbor speak. 
 
 One notched chip, one rotten apple. 
 That in earth's faithful currents swum. 
 
 Did more the brother worlds to grapple 
 Than all the prayers of Christendom. 
 
 Long as he took the wheel to plan, — 
 Eternal surface smooth and clear, — 
 
 Came to the rutted mind of man 
 The comprehension of the sphere ; 
 
 Slowly it passed from Greek to Goth 
 And to the wisest seemed a fact ; 
 
 A sailor groped in ocean's froth 
 And shaped the problem to an act. 
 
 For no new world Columbus sought ; 
 
 Embargoed Ind he hoped to clutch ; 
 His aptness grasped the spheroid thought 
 
 And knew extremes did somewhere touch. 
 
 There is a mean amidst extremes, 
 There is a half-way happiness ; 
 
 Between the continents he dreams 
 The lost Atlantis lay to bless. 
 
PALOS 6T 
 
 As in a tube a hyacinth, 
 
 Flowered knowledge in the steel-clad camp : 
 Religion was a labyrinth 
 
 But science was a kindling lamp. 
 
 Man's bony frame of shadows sick 
 Beat starved against his prison bars, 
 
 The owl-bright eye of Copernik 
 
 Was out by night to catch the stars. 
 
 In the Italian schools the Moor, 
 
 Though beat by these new monarchies, 
 
 Hung on the lance of Avenzoar 
 The lamp of old Maimonides. 
 
 And in the minds of gentlemen 
 
 There came a crisis and a jar. 
 As in the mines of Almaden 
 
 Quicksilver moves in cinnabar. 
 
 His iron casque had pinched the Don : 
 Eight hundred years he fought the Moor. 
 
 The bastard Ime of Aragon 
 Taught Barcelona literature. 
 
 From those Sicilian vesper bells, 
 That Popes and poetry enticed, 
 
 Down where Amalfi's infidels 
 
 The loadstone compass left to Christ, 
 
 Letters made merchants of the Jews, 
 And sharpened the Italian scent. 
 
 But Letters only, that refuse 
 
 Bright Physics' hght, are sentiment. 
 
68 POEMS 
 
 Physics and martial music came 
 To Europe in the Turkman's hand : 
 
 Constantinople's dying flame 
 Lighted the birth of Ferdinand 
 
 And hushed the soft Petrarchian pipes 
 And broke the Minnesinger's trance 
 
 And Printing flew her beacon types 
 Along the walled towns of the Hanse. 
 
 Physics her apparatus played 
 
 As in some school for grown-up boys 
 
 And in the Nuremberger's trade 
 
 The Globe appeared among his toys. 
 
 Thus geometric as the Moor, 
 Perforce, his propositions lined, 
 
 Learning descended to the poor 
 
 And taught her objects to the blind. 
 
 'Twas thus the Genoese was taught. 
 On some small isle by Exile's sea ; 
 
 A new Herodotus was wrought 
 To Poetry's audacity. 
 
 Upon King Joao's smirk he waits 
 
 Who would with halfpence fame attain,- 
 
 Small are the souls of little States ! 
 He turned him to United Spain. 
 
 And Salamanca's monks did snub 
 
 The noblest issue ever seen. 
 He was no member of a club 
 
 Nor author in a magazine ; 
 
PALOS 69 
 
 Not frittered into piecemeal things 
 Are minds of comprehensive ends, 
 
 He ranked his genius with kings 
 
 And found them in his simple friends. 
 
 He had a clean, transparent mind 
 One wick of truth could all illume, 
 
 That lighted friendship in his kind 
 And scented it with his perfume. 
 
 They thought him wholesome more than right ; 
 
 He had the good in Adam's fall ; 
 He knew one thing with all his might 
 
 And gods forbid he knew it all ! 
 
 Ye Palos gentles ! in the land 
 
 That by your help Columbus found, 
 
 Althoucrh his love was contraband 
 
 His mind's descendants there abound : 
 
 Men who at Pavia learned not long 
 Nor wranglers were in smug debates 
 
 But in the realm of physics strong 
 Columbian blessings left on States. 
 
 Palos ! as friends of old acquaint, 
 Ne'er may your Spain in her eclipse 
 
 Match Compostello's burly saint 
 Against Columbia's battleships! 
 
 Or ye may find your samt's cuirass 
 Fade like the Ottoman's lone moon 
 
 And Archimedes' burning glass 
 Be yonder sun of afternoon ! 
 
70 POEMS 
 
 Columbus turned the missal's page : 
 But love of slu-ines shall I condemn 
 
 Who make to Palos pilgrimage 
 As he would see Jerusalem ? 
 
 From superstition half he woked 
 
 Who gazed on Physics' grand demesne 
 
 As through the church tower I am poked 
 To see Algarve's vision scene. 
 
 Beyond her tile roofs' wrinkled net, 
 Skin of her shrivelled usufructs, 
 
 On Huelva, Palos' look is set 
 
 Flashing her Roman aqueducts, — 
 
 Huelva ! Whose villas sparkle white 
 Above her port of copper mesh 
 
 Like the pomegranate's seeds of light 
 Dotting its lush and purple flesh. 
 
 There friar Bacon's fire retort 
 
 Melts wealth from ore and Spanish dross 
 With British ships crowds Huelva's port ; 
 
 Palos has nothing but the cross. 
 
 Nature here noble, man ungrown, 
 The tawny rivers at the flood 
 
 O'erflow and like the Amazon 
 
 Their lambent boundary stain with mud. 
 
 The sailor men of Palos hire 
 
 Like Indians in the copper mines ; 
 
 Her strand is nought but empty mire 
 Where hke one shell my shallop shines. 
 
PALOS 71 
 
 But reverent I look upon 
 
 The sailor-scrivener's index page, 
 
 As piously a preacher's son 
 
 Visits his youth's old parsonage 
 
 And thinks how by Gennesaret 
 All night disciples nothing waft 
 
 While on this farther side their net 
 
 Was cast and drew the mighty draught. 
 
 The port's lane echoes to my tread 
 
 Like sounds from ocean's chambered shells ; 
 
 Towns live their period like the dead. 
 And never wake by miracles. 
 
 Palos ! I leave thee with a sigh 
 
 Gravely and sweet thou treated me ; 
 
 Across the drowned marsh I fly 
 As o'er the Saragossa sea. 
 
 I feel that space has worlds to find 
 Unknown on Matter's universe, 
 
 No waterspouts are in the mind 
 No tyrants chain discoverers. 
 
 One prayer will be never misspoken, 
 
 It needs no tinkling holy bell, 
 It is the Public Spirit's token 
 
 To wish all things constructive well. 
 
 Skyward our Argonautic prow 
 
 Turns Hke the thunder-slayer's Kite ; 
 
 The human Mind is Palos now, 
 Its expeditions infinite. 
 
72 POEMS 
 
 As 'twixt the stars lost monads scatter, 
 And pollen floats from sphere to sphere, 
 
 We shall see God, pervasive Matter, 
 That hath in motion just career. 
 
 IN GROTE'S GREECE 
 
 From folks insipid and unfeeling 
 Came one who needed no annealing. 
 Love childless kept him from congealing. 
 
 He lived beside his money-lending. 
 Learning his concubine and vending 
 All day, he read at night's descending. 
 
 His favorite work was Say on Barter, 
 He was Republican, no martyr. 
 And varicosely spurned a garter. 
 
 A Benthamite, old ills he flouted 
 
 Till came the chance and then he doubted ; 
 
 He hated slavery till 'twas routed. 
 
 He would the ballot give the many 
 
 Until too many, then not any. 
 
 And in the pound stuck at the penny. 
 
 But o'er this money groat's existence 
 The purple Greece shone in from distance 
 And gave his vagaries consistence. 
 
 Like old Mortality a tintster, 
 Among the marbles in the Minster 
 They put away this withered spinster. 
 
GOVEBNOR WILLIAM FBANKLIX 73 
 
 JEFFERSON 
 
 Why does this politician keep 
 
 The power a century to stir? 
 In war so weak, in peace so deep 
 
 And feminine in character ? 
 Suspicious of his fellow-chiefs, 
 
 Insinuating and apart 
 And di'opping his posthumous leafs 
 
 The foUage of a withered heart ? 
 Is it because, when Virtue feared 
 
 Science would be Religion's wraith, 
 He took the prophets by the beard 
 
 And cheered the ever-living faith ? 
 And in his century's slave kiosk, 
 
 Forced for the Moors himself to brand. 
 Stood like Averroes by the mosque 
 
 With Aristotle in his hand ? 
 
 GOVERNOR WILLIAM FRANKLIN 
 
 1784 
 My father's policy is %vade. 
 
 He manages the selfish town, 
 Vindictive, placid is his pride. 
 
 Pie has the pride of pulling down ; 
 My dull Lords Penn, King George, the clouds, — 
 
 I've seen him draw them from their height ; 
 His gainful wisdom tickles crowds, 
 
 His lever is his paper kite. 
 
 I know my mother's humble place ; 
 A vassal ship she came upon, 
 
74 POEMS 
 
 The pilgrim mother of his race ; 
 
 I am his German leman's son, 
 To him, to her, I owe the span 
 
 Of life's delightful ecstacy. 
 Yet when he talks the Rights of Man 
 
 I feel a bastard's injury. 
 
 Docile to him in filial fear, 
 
 Born to his foot, like Mercury's wing, 
 Obedience gave me a career, 
 
 I rose above him with his king; 
 His conscience pricked him at my height, 
 
 My subjects might his virtue mock : 
 As when a boy I flew his kite 
 
 And down the cord he felt the shock. 
 
 England than Franklin more humane 
 
 Raised me to honor's pedigree, 
 A lady by my rank was lain 
 
 And took my spurious son with me ; 
 His grandsire's tact my offspring won — 
 
 I kept my oath and wrecked my house - 
 The Revolution took my son, 
 
 I wail a broken-hearted spouse ! 
 
 Isaac beneath his father's knife 
 
 Was not more still than I obey, 
 Honoring him who gave me life 
 
 And all that bless'd it lured away : 
 My native land for which I fought. 
 
 The love domestic that endears. 
 God spare me thy rewarding thought, 
 
 I must live long as father's years ! ^ 
 
 ^ Their united ages were 168 years. 
 
AT AYB 75 
 
 AT AYR 
 
 There are no towers like Melrose 
 
 About the land of Ayr, 
 But all the morning gates unclose 
 
 To who goes pilgrim there; 
 No Abbotsford demands largess. 
 
 Nor money-warders prance, 
 To show the poet of success 
 
 And banker in romance. 
 
 But as the little towns of Burns 
 
 Their names familiar say, 
 The stranger to the native turns 
 
 And smiles between them play ; 
 A social glee like Bobby's rhymes 
 
 In eye and heart prevails, 
 As when in Canterbury times 
 
 Sly Chaucer told his tales ; 
 
 Till Ayr its flat, wide street begins 
 
 And midst his haunts we stand 
 Who made its humble brigs and inns 
 
 Like scenes in Holy land 
 And he who water turned to wine, 
 
 And hved not half his span, 
 Lies in the Scottish Palestine 
 
 The glorious Son of Alan. 
 
 We drink his tankard full of ale 
 
 And toast him prodigal 
 As if it were the Holy Grail 
 
 Ourself Knight Parsafal 
 
76 ' POEMS 
 
 For that wherever life was sad 
 
 Or self-oppression ruled 
 He made the hovel-hearted glad 
 
 The dying firelog Yuled. 
 
 His spirit was the gale that blows 
 
 Across the Irish sea, 
 Witli independence to oppose 
 
 And voice of liberty, 
 The cattle feel it in their hair 
 
 It cools the ploughman's noon 
 And blooms the thistle and the tare 
 
 Along the banks of Doon. 
 
 Doon's crystal slide on pebbly floor 
 
 In many a stream we find 
 But not the poet peeping o'er 
 
 With his swift, minnoNvy mind : 
 The mind that poises, flashes, falls, 
 
 With instant instincts rife. 
 And prisoned in by river walls 
 
 Reflects and loses life. 
 
 They tire like Gods who would create, 
 
 They sublimate their hour, 
 Life's quickening to illustrate 
 
 Drains every vital power ; 
 In zenith like the laboring bee 
 
 By beauty's regent charmed, 
 They from a moment's jubilee 
 
 Drop to the earth deformed. 
 
 Gorged on green leaves the silkworm weaves 
 His nature earthy, fine ; 
 
AT ATB 77 
 
 Beauty and health are poet's leaves, 
 
 He needs good meat and wine ; 
 Grudge not his sweets who drink them up ! 
 
 Thy nectar was his soul ; 
 His Highland Mary one day's cup, 
 
 And Jean Armour his bowl. 
 
 His butts they were the stiff and smirk. 
 
 His sinners sham and cant, 
 He railed like Jesus at the Kirk 
 
 And flogged the Covenant ; 
 John Knox so plied on faith his thong. 
 
 Burns went to Luther's school, — 
 Who loved not woman, wine and song 
 
 Was all his life a fool. 
 
 Wide as our British race his wand 
 
 To conjure formalism ; 
 The young world charm from false despond 
 
 And flout the catechism ; 
 Kirk Alloway's a ruin dull, 
 
 Its windows gaping niches. 
 Except when Tam o' Shanter's full 
 
 And sees it full of witches. 
 
 Great babe ! who haled thy Scottish sect 
 
 And put its saints thy debtors, 
 And made thy wayside dialect 
 
 A language of belles lettres ! 
 I do not kneel but bow thy due, 
 
 Ent'ring thy hut's low portal : 
 The unsevere see Nature through. 
 
 The joyous troll immortal. 
 
78 POEMS 
 
 TRAVELERS' REST 
 
 (HOUSE OF GEN. HORATIO GATES) 
 
 1781 
 Mrs. Gates: Well! Here, in one county, are 
 four of ye of mark, 
 Retired for public reasons : Gates, Stephens, 
 
 Lee and Darke ; 
 WhUe poor Dan Morgan, teamster, and Battle- 
 town's bully. 
 Will get the county's ballot before the best of 
 
 ye. 
 
 Gen. Gates : A natural soldier, Mrs. Gates, his 
 rank well won. 
 As great in valor as in caution, Washington. 
 Mrs. Gates: Pity your caution hadn't seen to 
 this day's work. 
 When you and Congress fought him so, close 
 
 by at York ! 
 He's put Cornwallis in a coop at Yorktown 
 three. 
 Gen. Gates : I hope we'll hear this night, my 
 
 dear, of a great victory ! 
 Mrs. Gates : Then you've come down, to wish 
 
 that much for Washington — 
 Gen. Gates : I see all things more humbly since 
 
 we lost our son. 
 Mrs. Gates : Now, father, sit thee down ! take 
 my wine-cellar key ! 
 I said I wouldn't open it, but will, for thee. 
 Hark! there's the pack of General Lee: that 
 key give back ! 
 
TBAVELEBS' BEST 79 
 
 Gen. Gates : Darling, his sword is broken, too. 
 
 Give him some sack ! 
 Mrs. Gates : Your -worst adviser, General Gates, 
 since that Conway 
 And drunken AVUkinson who made you such, 
 repay. 
 Gen. Gates : Mary, he is my oldest friend since 
 Indian frays : 
 He has no Mary Valence in his dark'ning days. 
 Mrs. Gates : I'll give him no Madeira. A julep 
 will do — 
 
 ( Cren. Charles Lee enters : pacTc of hounds hays.') 
 
 Gen. Lee : There's nothing like a julep, Madame, 
 made by you ! 
 Well, drink Horatio I to the French. The deed 
 is done. 
 Gen. Gates: Let's toast Virginians first, old 
 
 friend ! To Washington ! 
 Gen. Lee : Ne'er to that mediocrity I'll bend my 
 
 knee ! 
 Mrs. Gates : 'Tis all the greater done by Medi- 
 ocrity ! 
 Is Yorktown taken ? 
 Gen. Lee : That's the news to Charlestown come. 
 The men are drunk, the women dance, the boys 
 
 they drum. 
 I rode from Cherry tavern here to tell you first, 
 Though Mistress Dun, at Prato Rio, cooled my 
 thirst. 
 Mrs. Gates : Madeira it shall be for our country 
 is free. 
 
80 POEMS 
 
 Ye victors in the past ! huzza this victory ! 
 When you, Gates, took Burgoyne there was lost 
 
 Brandywine, 
 But Washington sent cheer to the New Eng- 
 land line : 
 'Tis turn and turn about — 
 Gen. Lee : I'll see him damned before — 
 
 Mks. Gates : Peter, bring back the key of the 
 
 wine-cellar door ! 
 Gen. Lee : Halt ! Here's to us Commanders ! 
 let us all drink hard I 
 Washington, and Lee, and Gates, and old Arte- 
 mas Ward ! 
 Mrs. Gates : Now add your engineer, my gallant 
 Polish beau. 
 Who drew the lines around your foes, Kosciusko ! 
 He lay in Travelers' Rest, which the wounded 
 
 enjoy, — 
 They all could live but him, my dear, my only 
 boy! 
 Gen. Lee: Lady Gates, your charity to the 
 Continental line 
 Will make you and your son the Family Divine. 
 I have no wife nor child and I live with my 
 dogs — 
 Mrs. Gates : With dogs, in tubs or ruins, lived 
 
 all demagogues ! 
 Gen. Lee : And Jezebel also ! Your Madeira may 
 be good 
 But you let it stand so long it tastes bitterwood. 
 Gen. Gates: Mary, let's make a night! we 
 beaten men and thee : 
 
TEAVELEBS' REST 81 
 
 'Tis our duty to get tipsy : give me the key ! 
 There ! stingy puss. Treat, the last time, the 
 
 Gates cabal! 
 Come, bring the lantern, Lee I and smell of 
 
 Portugal I 
 
 (^Uxit Gates and Lee.") 
 
 Mrs. Gates: They love each other, dear, poor 
 men of Braddock's fight ! 
 
 Girls ! light the banquet fire and set them out 
 a bite I 
 
 I think Horatio looks pale : he loved his son. 
 
 Now in his grief I'll have him write to 
 "Washington. 
 
 Husband lived lonely once as Lee till I came 
 West 
 
 And tried to make him happy in his Travelers' 
 Rest. 
 
 How he did farm ! Poor ofiicers of England's 
 line ! 
 
 They do their best. But Lee is such a libertine ! 
 
 Till he came here my husband was aye com- 
 plaisant. 
 
 And General Washington chose liim for Ad- 
 jutant: 
 
 Gates left alone is Washington: Lee comes 
 between. 
 
 He thinks so many things and husband's so 
 serene. 
 
 Perhaps we're punished for our Saratoga pride. 
 
 The laurels turned to willows and our dear 
 boy died. 
 
82 POEMS 
 
 He loves tliis country and his soldiers Gates 
 
 respect : 
 If not the first commander, be the first subject ! 
 
 (^Reenter Crates and Lee with bottles.^ 
 
 Gen. Lee : ' Subject ? ' Shame, Madame ! And 
 shall we so re-gorge 
 That after George the Third we want another 
 George ? 
 Mrs. Gates : At least four kings you've had : 
 two Georges, Stanislow, 
 Don Joseph, debauchee^ but you like not kings 
 
 now. 
 At Poniatowski's table volunteer you sat : 
 He gave you no command : but our Congress 
 did that ! 
 Gen. Lee: Madame as Tragedy is Queen of 
 
 every feast. 
 Mrs. Gates. You had been a better man if 
 
 married by some priest. 
 Gen. Gates: Now, wife and friend, be merry I 
 We conquer in age : 
 Think of your friend Burgoyne, and of my 
 
 friend. Gage ! 
 We both are seniors, neighbor, of Washington : 
 He is only forty-nine, though the war is done. 
 To-day his name is royal and we cannot pluck 
 The baton from his glory by calling it luck. 
 Mrs. Gates : Eat a bit. The pheasant's cold ; 
 the mutton's better. 
 {TJiey sit. " Yelp I yelp /" from the cellar.') 
 You careless men the pork-house door have left — 
 
TBAVELEBS' BEST 83 
 
 Gen. Lee : My setter ! 
 
 (JDog with meat rushes through hallJ) 
 
 She'll drive me out with my pack! 
 Gen. Gates : I thought of old Nace 
 
 Who robbed that cellar and was hanged. I see 
 
 his face. 
 He earned all he stole; his price they paid to 
 
 me 
 I shall give with interest to the slaves I free. 
 
 (^Mrs. Gates returns.) 
 
 Gen. Lee : Chicken heart ! 
 
 Mrs. Gates: Must we live with your dogs and 
 
 your strife ? 
 Gen. Lee: Sweetheart, take my dogs and you 
 take my only wife. 
 I sent some quail to you and my dog stole but 
 
 one. 
 I always think of Mary Gates when I do gun. 
 Gen. Gates : For this wine Mary's father paid 
 thirty pounds cool 
 Out 'of dock ere he died, solid man of Liverpool. 
 Gen. Lee : How delicious ! King Jozay had no 
 such wine 
 Though his nobles' wines and wives he made 
 
 concubine. 
 One more glass and I will sing you what I sang 
 Jozay ! 
 
 (^Mrs. Gates retires.) 
 
 Gen. Gates: Sing it softly! her bereavement 
 Mary takes away. 
 
84 POEMS 
 
 Gen. Lee (^sings') : 
 
 Drink to the lass that lingers in the glass ! 
 Oft as she may pass she's a peri ; 
 O what a body she, 
 And an eye of yellow glee ! 
 And she makes you bend the knee, — 
 Miss Madeira ! 
 
 Her breath's boukay, excels the new-mown hay. 
 And she holds her age for an era ; 
 Like honey are the drips 
 From her glue-gold kissing lips, 
 And she gui-gles while one sips 
 Miss Madeira. 
 
 Gen. Gates : Hark ! 'tis a hymn for victory. 
 
 Our German choirs 
 Have come from Mecklenbui'g to sing to their 
 
 esquires. 
 Mrs. Gates (entering} : Get them our pear 
 
 cider worked in whiskey barrels ! 
 Set it out upon the lawn ! I love those carols I 
 
 German Choir: 
 
 King Fritz he gave his sword 
 To the blessed of the Lord, 
 And he only waits the word 
 From Washington to die : 
 Send him up ! Ye Luther's choir ! 
 In a chariot of fire ! — 
 He has seen his heart's desire : 
 Washington has the Victory ! 
 
TEAVELEBS' BEST 85 
 
 Cornwallis through our gates 
 Burst over our estates : 
 Behind York's fortress grates 
 
 With his army does he lie, 
 And in spite of all his boasts 
 He is drowned upon our coasts — 
 Shout to the Lord of Hosts : 
 
 Washington has the victory ! 
 
 O God ! to us most kind, 
 Give us one united mind ! 
 And our States united bind 
 
 While our tyrant we defy ! 
 We have passed the Red seas o'er 
 And are on the farther shore : 
 Sing ! thy people evermore ! — 
 
 Washington has the victory I 
 
 Gen. Gates : The voice of a nation I surely hear 
 at last ! 
 
 Gen. Lee : You are on the army list but I am out- 
 cast. 
 
 Mks. Gates : Come among our neighbors and 
 with their joys entwine I 
 
 Gen. Lee: They won't stand like the French. 
 I'll stay here and drink wine. 
 
 (^Uxit General and Mrs. Gates. ) 
 
 Now if they come not back the whole bottle is 
 
 mine ; 
 That's why I like a dog: he cannot di'ink my 
 
 wine. 
 And all I say he wags his tail at, backing me up. 
 
86 POEMS 
 
 (^Bog scratches at hack door.') 
 Come in, Cracow ! Hide there ! I'll talk to thee 
 
 and sup. 
 Gates and his wife with his small parentage 
 
 concur : 
 His father was the butler, mother housekeeper 
 To the Duke of Leeds; that's why they like 
 
 Virginia, 
 Where land and money do not need insignia. 
 I was a General's son, sent to school in Swissland, 
 And, bred in barracks, made Indian in this land, 
 Named Boiling Water by Mohawks at Johnson 
 
 Hall, 
 I crossed these States on foot and fought at 
 
 Montreal, 
 Commanded a division of the Portuguese, 
 Was Major General for the Poles, the same for 
 
 these 
 Damned rebels, whose rump Congress treats us 
 
 worse than Draco : 
 Its test of Generalship is how to hoe tobacco. 
 
 (^Cheers outside.) 
 
 Hear how the Anabaptists and Reformed cheer 
 Gates ! 
 
 The greedy Dutch for once eat victuals out of 
 plates ! 
 
 Gates has one greatness: he likes me, a lady's 
 son. 
 
 I hoped to make and rule him as my Wash- 
 ington ; 
 
 Indulgent rustic squire and hero on the staff 
 
TBAVELERS' REST 87 
 
 As Governor Jefferson's cock he lost his gaff 
 At Camden ; Jefferson from Tarlton ran away 
 But like all writing men will fight some other day. 
 These politicians of Virginia see their fate 
 If Union be resolved and Washington be great ; 
 Young Monroe is far-sighted : he says Madame 
 
 Gates 
 More ready income has than any in these States, 
 'Twill work upon the populace by printing 
 
 presses. 
 Against a King and Kingdom we'll foment 
 
 addresses. 
 
 (^Enter Gen. and Mrs. Gates.') 
 Mrs. Gates : Bless me ! I smell a dog. General, 
 
 I suppose it's you, 
 Who live with dogs so much you're dogg'd and 
 
 doggy too. 
 More wine ? Well, those poor folks to General 
 
 Gates were sweet: 
 Horatio ! go get what you will to drink and eat ! 
 
 (^Mrs, Gates gives the key : Gen. Gates is 
 followed doivn hy Gen. Lee's dog.) 
 Gen. Lee : Lady ! Virginia's queen ! To you all 
 will defer. 
 Hast heard Gates takes Tom Nelson's place as 
 
 governor ? 
 He drafted and conscripted and he must resign ; 
 His house at Yorktown he has shelled till it's a 
 mine. 
 Mrs. Gates : That's honor : to destroy your home 
 where foes be guest ; 
 
88 POEMS 
 
 I'd fire a cannon heartily on Travelers' Rest, 
 If round its humble limestone fort our f oemen put 
 Circumvallations ; I would burn it like some hut. 
 Gen. Lee : This is no home for General Gates : 'tis 
 
 too submiss. 
 Mrs. Gates : The Tower of London's governor 
 
 was Cornwallis. 
 These stiff grey walls and chimneyed ends to 
 
 me are dear: 
 My son's life bubbled like our springs and 
 
 ended here. 
 I see his image everywhere o'er these slate lands. 
 He loved the sheep they pastured, the sheep 
 
 dog, his hands ; 
 Blue mountain tops above our wolds my spirits 
 
 enjoy : 
 I think they're heaven where father and I shall 
 
 find our boy. 
 Ambition did us harm : I want Horatio good ; 
 He needs excel in nothing else: we have no 
 
 brood. 
 No more than General Washington or you, 
 
 Charles Lee, 
 Washington was for the cause, the public family. 
 That's why his character stands out, the best 
 
 of you. 
 As from North Mountain chain out there abuts 
 
 Fairview. 
 
 (^Enter Gen. Gates.) 
 
 Gen. Gates : Eight thousand foot and sailors 
 fifteen hundred were 
 
TBAVELEBS' BEST 89 
 
 Taken at York — the prisoners come to Win- 
 chester — 
 Charles Washington sends me a post, of him 
 
 'tis kind ! 
 Lord Fairfax heard the news and he has lost his 
 mind. 
 Mes, Gates : Poor man ! He has seen in his life 
 William and Mary, 
 The Huguenots suppressed in France, — all 
 
 things contrary; 
 Cross'd love drove him into his wilds, our Lord 
 
 Lieutenant ; 
 Child Washington with Indians carried his pen- 
 nant, 
 Surveying his Culpepper realm. 
 Gen. Lee : He now knows why 
 
 The devil showed him so much land worship- 
 fully! 
 Mrs. Gates : You haven't done so badly, sir : 
 Congress paid you 
 For every acre you possess ere you wore blue I 
 Gen. Gates : Lincoln received CornwallLs' sword 
 who once took his 
 And neighbor Otho Williams made a General 
 
 is. 
 That young West Indian, Hamilton, stormed a 
 redoubt — 
 Gen. Lee : And if he lives you planter men will 
 find him out — 
 Bastard to Adam Smith, accountant and blade. 
 Mrs. Lee: Father, the Martinsburgers come to 
 serenade 
 
90 FOE MS 
 
 And, don't you tliink ! their music is the Hes- 
 sian band 
 You took at Saratoga, paroled in Maryland ! 
 I've venison for them ! They shall drink all the 
 stout ! 
 {Dog below hotvls at the Hessian music and bursts 
 into the room and is seized by Mrs. Gates.') 
 
 Gen. Lee : Don't beat ray dog ! 
 
 Mrs. Gates : He's got a paper I'll make out ! 
 
 {Exit General and Mrs. Gates with dog.) 
 The Hessian Band: 
 
 I. 
 
 Our Landgrave did not right 
 When he sent us here to fight 
 Good German brothers white 
 That we thought were savage red 
 And our Duke has us misled : 
 Our drums now they say, 
 " We have light ! 
 Ye have right ! " 
 Hear us Peace's music play ! 
 « We shall be of one band ! 
 This shall be our motherland ! 
 Hail ! great America ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 Rash Britain is undone 
 
 By our Gates and Washington. 
 
 Our liberty is won 
 
TBAVELEBS' BEST 91 
 
 And the long war finished ! 
 To the hving and the dead 
 Our drums now they say, 
 " To the right ! 
 Is the might ! " 
 Hear the march that we will play ! 
 " We shall bring by our Band 
 Thousands from our German land — 
 Hail ! great America ! " 
 
 in. 
 
 For this Columbus sailed 
 And the Saxon race prevailed ; 
 Independence exhaled 
 From the mountains of the West, 
 Where the eagle builds his nest. 
 Our drums now they say, 
 " O how bright ! 
 After Night ! " 
 And the loud Assembly play ! — 
 " We shall enter, hand in hand, 
 To the beauty of your land ! 
 Hail I great America ! " 
 
 Gen. Lee {solus) : The wine makes me friendly ; 
 I wish I were like others ! 
 
 They are drinking and kissing like sweethearts 
 and brothers. 
 
 I sit with my last friend in Europe or o'er here : 
 
 Stand by me, my Bottle! my last brave gren- 
 adier ! 
 
 I could not be second; I was second and fell; 
 
92 POEMS 
 
 The last time I was principal I fell as well ; 
 
 Mixing ink with my whiskey I wrote with my 
 fist 
 
 And Congress countersigned it, " Charles Lee is 
 dismissed." 
 
 When my fingers were shot off why left he my 
 hand? 
 
 I have duel'd with career and scorned repri- 
 mand. 
 
 No fighter should write till his history is done ! 
 
 From me to a star is less than to Washington. 
 
 (^Se hoivs his head beside the bottle.^ 
 (^Enter General Gates.') 
 
 Gen. Gates : Sad ? I have you now. 'Tis the mood 
 will do you good : 
 After Camden all my pride like a son I subdued ; 
 I said : " To my father I will arise and go I " 
 My father was a servant and his son fall'n low. 
 I went to General Washington and claimed his 
 
 hand, 
 He took me to his heart and I felt he was grand. 
 Gen. Lee: I, Lee of Villa Veltra's fight? — 
 Gen. Gates : What's that renown ? 
 
 Europe stands tiptoe gazing on him of York- 
 town. 
 I would not have you stand in shadows from 
 
 that light, 
 'Twill search us all. 
 Gen. Lee : Good Dunker ! Be not too contrite ! 
 Clinton has an army left: he knows a cam- 
 paign— 
 
TBAVELEBS' BEST 93 
 
 (Enter Mrs. Grates.^ 
 
 Mrs. Gates : I reckon it is this one, out of 
 
 Charles Lee's brain, 
 Marked '' Copy of the plan left with Howe in 
 
 New York : " 
 The dog you taught to steal thought it had the 
 
 smell of pork 
 And he slipped it through his collar — 
 
 (She hands the plan to General Gates.) 
 
 Gen. Gates: Why, General Lee? 
 
 What's this ? "J. plan to break the public 
 
 enemy — 
 Garrisons on tide-water — cut Virginia off 
 And raid the Dutch farmers in the mountain 
 
 trough ; 
 Burn their barns and mills ; they are greedy and 
 
 ivill pause 
 And cry out for peace though they love the rebel 
 cause.'''' 
 Mrs. Lee : This explains why Arnold and Corn- 
 wallis further down 
 Raided far up the country into Charlotte town. 
 Lee pointed out his neighbors' wealth in these 
 
 designs — 
 To save himself, deserter from the English lines ! 
 Gen. Lee : 'Twas versatility when prisoner, — 
 
 time slack. 
 Mrs. Gates : You didn't fight at Monmouth 
 
 when ordered to attack. 
 Gen. Gates : I cannot take the view that this is 
 matter light. 
 
94 POEMS 
 
 You were fresh from our lines and showed Howe 
 where to smite. 
 Mrs. Gates: Showed him our plantation to 
 
 burn, where you are drinking ! 
 Gen. Lee : I did not think — 
 Gen. Gates : One cannot draft a plan unthinking. 
 This plan we had discussed ; it was all in reason. 
 I am in commission : great God ! is this treason ? 
 Gen. Lee: Why, I overflow with such military fun! 
 Mrs. Gates : I am no Margaret Arnold though 
 
 I have no son. 
 Gen. Lee : Madame, you seek to drive me out 
 
 from Travelers' Rest. 
 Mrs. Gates : This is Major General Gates ; you 
 are a dangerous guest ! 
 O Lee ! had you pure-hearted been, outside your 
 
 lines 
 You never had been captured by your concubines. 
 While Washington to save your neck played all 
 
 the man. 
 You sold your talents to our foes and drew this 
 plan ! 
 Gen. Lee: I'll never come here more while 
 
 that female is nigh. 
 Gen. Gates : Madame Gates is my wife — 
 Mrs. Gates : Here to live and to die ! 
 
 Gen. Lee : I shall quit Virginia : farewell ! 
 Gen. Gates : I fear 'tis best. 
 
 Gen. Lee : Woman and serpent ! guard ye well 
 
 your Travelers' Rest. 
 (^Greneral Gates weeps. His wife lights General 
 Lee to the door. The dogs hay.') 
 
C^SAR 95 
 
 WASHINGTON 
 
 Rare the chance to be the hero and the pioneer ! 
 Washington has squared the circle and has cubed 
 
 the sphere. 
 While he lived fame lagged behind him, when he 
 
 died went on 
 Like the loadstone in his compass and the stars 
 
 at dawn. 
 They who mock him as the children mocked 
 
 Elisha's cloak, 
 Meet the she-bears of the forest and the towns 
 
 in smoke ; 
 Shallow skeptic, simple rustic, in his faith unite. 
 And his portrait like the sunburst fills the world 
 
 with light. 
 
 C^SAR 
 
 (FROUDE) 
 
 C^SAR how far thy arrowy name 
 Pierces the future with its flame ! 
 The greatest name that Jesus knew. 
 The mightiest man that Shakespere drew, 
 Plutarch survives but for thy tale, 
 Peter and Paul by thee prevail. 
 Namesakes from thee Popes, Kaisers, Tsars, 
 And every land's Imperators ! 
 
 As when thy mother called thee nigh 
 We lisp thy name in warm July, 
 And to thy calendars go back. 
 The Gospels and the Almanac. 
 
96 POEMS 
 
 The German learned his name by thee, 
 
 No Gaul was there till thou did'st see, 
 
 And British men in every age 
 
 Begin their story with thj^ page ; 
 
 Spain, Greece, the Moor, the Parthian horde, 
 
 Arab, Egyptian, felt thy sword ; 
 
 Rome's village standard thou unfurled, 
 
 The narrow town became the world. 
 
 Its Senate let Barbarians in 
 
 And all the races made akin. 
 
 Then on the fields, all smoothed to sow, 
 
 The seeds of Jesus silent blow. 
 
 Jesus, thy friend was priest to Jove, 
 
 And Jesus, Caesar, Jove, are Love ! 
 
 J. B. STILLSON 
 
 DECEMBER 26, 18S0 
 
 Dead courier that from battle came so fleetly 
 
 Thy bugle full of music for the land. 
 Thou fall'st at last so weary and so sweetly 
 
 The bells of Christmas tremble where they stand. 
 And draw the tuneful trumpet from thy hand. 
 
 What beauty in thine eyes and locks of raven 
 When youth and emulation loosed thy rein ! 
 
 What tender welcome on thy lips engraven 
 That friendship never shall behold again ! 
 
 What honor guided aye thy pen so skilful 
 That mercenary art can never know ! 
 
 What indignations womanly and wilful 
 Bent every golden tendon in thy bow 
 Till broke thy string and winter laid thee low ! 
 
POLITICIANS' CHRISTMAS 97 
 
 POLITICIANS' CHRISTMAS 
 
 A. D. 1 
 
 " There is no room for you in the inn," said the 
 
 landlord to the pair. 
 "The travel this month is lively, and the house 
 
 filled everywhere ; 
 The Emperor taxes the world he rules, and all 
 
 Judeans must go 
 Up to the city of Bethlehem, whether they will or 
 
 no." 
 
 "'Tis not for me," the traveler said, a carpenter 
 
 tough and tried, 
 "I crave a bed but for the maid who has ridden 
 
 all day at mj side." 
 "The maid, forsooth," the landlord said, "hath a 
 
 matronly look to me ! " 
 And he passed a wink to the hotel clerk, who 
 
 snickered chivalrously. 
 
 The guests about the hotel clerk, they did look on 
 
 askant — 
 The Pharisee, and the Sadducee and the Greek of 
 
 the Levant, 
 To mark this comely, drooping girl, awhile aside 
 
 they drew 
 From the themes of taxes and of tolls and internal 
 
 revenue. 
 
 " There is a stall within the barn no camel yet 
 hath ta'en ; 
 
 'Twill rest the young girl pleasantly, unless per- 
 chance it rain : " 
 
98 POEMS 
 
 It was a groom who whispered thus ; a husband he 
 
 had been, 
 And cheerfully his lodge he gave to this poor 
 
 Nazarene. 
 
 Ye fathers nursing on your knee the first-born of 
 
 your dears, 
 The priceless for their sufferings, the costlier for 
 
 their fears, 
 Think over in these winter nights this Virgin's 
 
 lonely moan, 
 And Joseph's loving tenderness for offspring not 
 
 his own ! 
 
 All night the politicians talked about the Roman 
 yoke; 
 
 The inn blazed up with moving lights, and roared 
 with many a joke : 
 
 They all agreed the Jewish state somehow must 
 be made free. 
 
 But ever about the " patronage " were sure to dis- 
 agree. 
 
 The dromedaries in the stalls also did ruminate ; 
 The asses and the saddle-nags chewed o'er the 
 
 themes of state ; 
 None saw a little new-born star out of the heavens 
 
 fall. 
 And with a holy glory kiss the stranger in the 
 
 stall. 
 
 None heard the mystic choirs that sang across the 
 glimmering moors ; 
 
COMMANDER LINCOLN 99 
 
 None saw the reverend sages ride up to the hostel 
 
 doors ; 
 And when the earhest Christmas mom o'er crowded 
 
 Bethlehem crept, 
 The statesmen in the manger knelt, the politicians 
 
 slept. 
 
 Still taxed, still taxing, o'er the world the wise and 
 
 noisy spin, 
 They get the tavern clerk's best cheer, the best 
 
 rooms in the inn. 
 Thank God ! whose stars of choice, scarce seen, 
 
 upon the lowly fall ! — 
 
 The mother fainting by the way, the baby in the 
 
 stall ! 
 1870. 
 
 COMMANDER LINCOLN 
 
 (ADDRESS BEFORE THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC SOCIETY, 
 
 1883) 
 
 Civil soldiers ! reassembled by the river of your 
 fame, 
 
 Ye who saved the \drgin city bathed in Washing- 
 ton's clear name I 
 
 Which of all your past commanders doth this day 
 your memory haunt ? — 
 
 Scott, McDowell, Burnside, Hooker, Meade, Mc- 
 Clellan, Halleck, Grant? 
 
 There is one too little mentioned when your proud 
 
 reunions come. 
 And the thoughtful love of country dies upon the 
 
 sounding drum ; 
 
100 POEMS 
 
 Let me call him in your muster, let me wake him 
 
 in your grief ! 
 Captain by the Constitution, Abram Lincoln was 
 
 your chief ! 
 
 Ever nearest to his person ye were his defence and 
 shield. 
 
 He alone of your commanders died upon the battle- 
 field. 
 
 All your generals were his children, leaning on him, 
 childish-willed, 
 
 And they all were filial mourners round the 
 mighty tomb he filled. 
 
 Tender as the harp of David, his soft answers now 
 become, 
 
 When amid the care of kingdoms rose and fell 
 some Absalom ; 
 
 And his humor gilds his memory like a light 
 within a tent. 
 
 Or the sunken sun that lingers on the lofty mon- 
 ument. 
 
 Like the slave who saw the sunrise with his face 
 
 toward the West, 
 As it flashed, while yet unrisen, on a slender 
 
 steeple's crest ; 
 So while victory turned her from him ere the 
 
 dawn in welcome came. 
 On his pen Emancipation glittered like an altar 
 
 flame. 
 
 FeeUng for the doomed deserter, feehng for the 
 drafted sire. 
 
COMMANDEB LINCOLN 101 
 
 For the empty Northern hearthstone and the 
 
 Southern home afire, 
 Mercy kept him grim as Moloch, all the future 
 
 babes to free. 
 And eternal peace to garner for the millions yet to 
 
 be. 
 
 Not a soldier of the classics, he could see through 
 learned pretence — 
 
 Master of the greatest science, military common- 
 sense. 
 
 As he watched your marches, comrades ! hither, 
 thither, wayward years. 
 
 On his map the roads you followed you can trace 
 them by his tears. 
 
 In the rear the people clamored, in the front the 
 generals missed. 
 
 In his inner councils harbored critic and an- 
 tagonist, 
 
 But he ruled them by an instinct, like the queen's 
 among the bees, 
 
 With a health of soul that honeyed Publicans and 
 Pharisees. 
 
 Faint of faith, we looked behind us for a chief of 
 
 higher tone. 
 While the voice that drowned the trumpets was 
 
 the echo of our own ; 
 Ever thus, my old companions. Genius has us by 
 
 the hand. 
 Walking on the tempest with us, every crisis 
 
 to command ! 
 
102 POEMS 
 
 Like the bugle blown at evening by some home- 
 sick son of art, 
 
 Lincoln's words unearthly quiver in the universal 
 heart ; 
 
 Not an echo left of malice, scarce of triumph in the 
 strain. 
 
 As when summer thunder murmurs in pathetic 
 showers of rain. 
 
 Years forever consecrated, here he lived, where 
 
 duties be. 
 Never railing on the climate, nor the toil's 
 
 monotony ; 
 Here his darling boy he buried and the night in 
 
 vigil wept, 
 Like the Lord within the garden when the tired 
 
 disciples slept. 
 
 How his call for men went ringing round the 
 
 world, a mighty bell, 
 And the races of creation came the proud revolt 
 
 to quell. 
 Standing in the last reaction, on the rock of human 
 
 rights, 
 Worn and mournful grew his features in the flash 
 
 of battle hghts. 
 
 Once, like Moses from the mountain, looked he on 
 
 the land he won. 
 When the slaves in burning Richmond knelt and 
 
 thought him Washington, 
 Then an envious bravo snatched him from the 
 
 theatre of things, 
 
COMMANDEB LINCOLN 103 
 
 To become a saint of nature in the pantheon of 
 kings. 
 
 Faded are the golden chevrons, vanished is the 
 
 pride of war, 
 Mild in heaven his moral glory lingers like the 
 
 morning star. 
 And the freeman's zone of cotton his white spirit 
 
 seems to be. 
 And the insects in the harvest beat his army's 
 
 reveille. 
 
 All around him spoiled or greedy, women vain and 
 honor spent, 
 
 Still his faith in human nature lived without dis- 
 couragement ; 
 
 For his country which could raise him, barefoot, 
 to the monarch's height. 
 
 Could he mock her ? or his mother — though her 
 name she could not write ? 
 
 Deep the wells of humble childhood, cool the 
 
 springs beside the hut, 
 Millions more as poor as Lincoln see the door he 
 
 has not shut. 
 Not till wealth has made its canker every poor 
 
 white's cabin through, 
 Shall the great republic wither, or the infidel 
 
 subdue ! 
 
 Stand around your great commander, lay aside 
 
 your little fears! 
 Every Lincoln carries freedom's car along a 
 
 hundred years. 
 
104 POEMS 
 
 And when next the call for soldiers rolls along 
 
 the golden belt, 
 Look to see a mightier column rise, and march, 
 
 prevail and melt ! 
 
 NOTHING FALLS SO FAR 
 
 Every falling star 
 
 To its fate is lit. 
 Nothing falls so far 
 
 As we pity it. 
 Woman like the dove 
 
 From her blasted tree, 
 Finds some fallen love, 
 
 Some fierce sympathy. 
 
 Out into the night 
 
 Is not wholly dark ; 
 On the billows' might 
 
 Rides the human bark. 
 What can break the womb 
 
 Dies not in the pit ; 
 Hell's a better home 
 
 Than we pity it. 
 
 Nothing falls as deep 
 
 As we pity it : 
 By your side may sleep 
 
 Crime's long hypocrite, 
 While the bold, frank wolf 
 
 Acts that dreamer's part, 
 Taking to his gulf 
 
 No such sneaking heart. 
 
NOTHING FALLS SO FAB 105 
 
 All the felon's lusts 
 
 Are the good man's joys. 
 Age its millions trusts 
 
 To the convict boys ; 
 In the ranks enrolled, 
 
 Colors never furled, 
 Firm the guilty bold 
 
 Guard the coward world. 
 
 Human nature's chief 
 
 From the gibbet tree 
 Took the dying thief, 
 
 Not the Pharisee, 
 To his heavenhood, 
 
 Fellow judge of his : 
 Nothing is so good 
 
 As we think it is. 
 
 Every heavenly orb 
 
 Has the rust of ours, 
 All that breathe absorb 
 
 Errors with their powers ; 
 Habits, virtues are. 
 
 Stars erode by grit ; 
 Nothing falls so far 
 
 As we pity it. 
 
 Death is not as hard 
 
 As we pity it : 
 It is life's reward, 
 
 Age's sweet acquit; 
 No more pain than birth. 
 
 No worse end than rust. 
 
106 POEMS 
 
 Thou indulgent earth ! 
 Take thy loan of dust ! 
 
 HENRY M. STANLEY 
 
 AT THE LOTOS CLUB, NOVEMBER 27, 1886 
 
 Ah ! little did I ever think, 
 
 Aladdin's lamp, that op'd the dark, 
 One plain reporter's skull outshone — 
 To light a dark world with his wink : 
 That at my side was Mungo Park, 
 Who would discover Prester John ! 
 
 Yet he who wrote the mighty strife 
 
 Where Ethiop's freedom was the gage, 
 Well-lived to beat Da Gama's cruise, 
 And strike at slavery's fountain life, — 
 
 Marched overland through Pluto's age, 
 And was the Orpheus of the News. 
 
 Old correspondent of our war ! 
 
 You gild our humble craft with gold 
 That from the Afric sands you bring ; 
 You ride the night like Bethlehem's star ; 
 And magi follow to behold 
 That in our stall was born the king. 
 
 You go where Shakespere's fancy ceased — 
 Beyond the Roman and the Nile ; 
 Decatur stopped where you began ; 
 And drooped the missionary priest, 
 Lost to his gospel and his isle. 
 And all but one brave fellow man. 
 
LOCAL GBEATNESS 107 
 
 Then, darker lands of envious doubt 
 
 You found returning to your own — 
 The shrug, the sneer, the pedant's scorn, 
 The laz}^ printer's rival pout : 
 
 Which met Columbus at thef throne, 
 And were the Saviour's crown of thorn. 
 
 Though courts and kings may now avail 
 For wealth or glory, of your use, 
 And in your name think lineage be, 
 I only see in Stanley's mail 
 
 The youthful herald of the News, 
 And courier of Democracy. 
 
 LOCAL GREATNESS 
 
 The wide land has a million streams 
 
 That babble as they flow. 
 And sweet the plaint of local themes 
 
 The thousand valleys know ; 
 They tell their tales just as they were, 
 
 Not as they ought to be, 
 And in humanity lay bare 
 
 Our truer history. 
 
 In every place a lady fair 
 
 Had lovers thrilled by her. 
 Love's pastoral was tender there 
 
 And rare with character ; 
 Some Helen, Menelaus wed 
 
 And Paris stole upon. 
 And in their small republics bred 
 
 The wars of Ilion. 
 
108 POEMS 
 
 Out steps a man in public strife — 
 
 Twenty as good remain ; 
 The weakling drew the famous life, 
 
 Homes drew the men of brain ; 
 They give his nursing starhood sup, 
 
 They fix his astrolabe, 
 And local kindness holds him up 
 
 As if he were their babe. 
 
 Up to their priest the hearers look ; 
 
 So purely shaved and friared, 
 They hear him read his holy book 
 
 And think he is inspired; 
 Heaven's love he macerates at length, 
 
 But while his pleadings roll, 
 The congregation is his strength. 
 
 Some lady there, his soul. 
 
 The suave historian portrays 
 
 As he would have it seem. 
 And straightens out a nation's maze 
 
 Like Joseph, Pharaoh's dream : 
 Not miracles can make us see 
 
 Beyond convincing sense. 
 Their local probability 
 
 Supports the Testaments. 
 
 The criminal of an era starts 
 Beside some loved hearthstone, 
 
 And tramples over kindred hearts 
 To infamy alone ; 
 
 But neither in the hell below 
 Nor in the heavens above 
 
LOCAL GE FATNESS 109 
 
 Can they the million outlaws know, 
 Saved by the fireside love. 
 
 The silent boy has memories strong, 
 
 Though he seems not to look, 
 He wins the cup inscribed erelong : 
 
 "For Lo\dng of a Book." 
 And all his life the local things 
 
 Men marvel where he found ; 
 His genius drank the haunted springs 
 
 Wherein Narcissus drowned. 
 
 Yon miser note, who guards less well 
 
 His lady than his hoard I 
 She is not true ; a silent yell 
 
 Goes from his broken board. 
 On other lands at his decease 
 
 Great wealth he showers free, 
 The flower of local injuries, 
 
 Some World's philanthropy. 
 
 The terror of the village goes 
 
 To its long, glad relief. 
 And from some savage border grows 
 
 To be the Nation's chief ; 
 No clue to his high soul they find 
 
 In his extraction rude ; 
 His isolation was his mind. 
 
 His virtue Fortitude. 
 
 A life that failure has pursued 
 
 Till but its honest grit 
 To some volcano's altitude 
 
110 POEMS 
 
 In splendor carries it, 
 The Magi of the East go round, 
 
 Their touchstones to employ. 
 And nothing but a nugget found, — 
 
 His father's country boy. 
 
 A millionaire some goddess fair 
 
 To his protection draws, 
 And thinks she fell into his snare, — 
 
 Himself the great first cause ; 
 But all his joys, the vagrant boys. 
 
 Her idle townsmen had ; 
 From huts they stray their wanton way, 
 
 Who make the monarchs glad. 
 
 Not palaces these sweets enclose 
 
 That every hamlet keeps — 
 The perfume of the wild, wild rose, 
 
 The laborer who sleeps, 
 The young heart that its mate has caught, 
 
 The tears poor mothers shed, 
 The Self in only second thought, 
 
 The baby and the dead. 
 
OF THE 
 
NEEDWOOD 111 
 
 MARYLAND POEMS 
 
 NEEDWOOD 
 
 Under the blue South Mountain, Needwood, the 
 
 home of the Lees, 
 Stands in the flowing springs and among the 
 
 exotic trees ; 
 An old gray house, mysterious, like a Zurbaran 
 
 monk. 
 Cowling his face in the shadows that into his soul 
 
 have sunk. 
 
 Once 'twas a school of learning, drawing the 
 planters' youth 
 
 To the classical keeping of Reverend Bartholo- 
 mew Booth : 
 
 He, a recusant rector, hewed him a school of logs 
 
 Out in this western exile, ancient of pedagogues ; 
 
 Washington's nephew, Bushrod, under his Latin 
 was drudge. 
 
 Here on the lawn of Needwood starting to be a 
 judge ; 
 
 Often in court he nodded, dreaming his brain was 
 cooled 
 
 By the long verdurous mountain over his copy- 
 book ruled. 
 
 Thomas Sim Lee came sleighing over the fences 
 and rigs. 
 
112 POEMS 
 
 From Prince George, with his lady, Mary of Mel- 
 
 wood-Digges, 
 He was a second son's second, landless except in 
 
 wife, 
 Almost as tall as a giant and born for the era of 
 
 strife. 
 
 Soft as a glove are the Lees and corded in neck 
 like the bull ; 
 
 Wide were the lands of Needwood rolling and 
 beautiful. 
 
 Let down between the mountains like an apron of 
 flowers. 
 
 And the blue distance castled with Nature's bat- 
 tlement towers. 
 
 Thomas's kith in Virginia headed the war for a 
 
 nation, 
 Thomas's lands and stature singled him out for a 
 
 station ; 
 He was domestic and settled but of such is the 
 
 mastiff and ready one, 
 Maryland made him her governor after the war 
 
 was a steady one. 
 
 He had a work to do after the South was invaded 
 
 And all the Chesapeake rivers British blockaded ; 
 
 Shifted the base of the war to the Maryland moun- 
 tains. 
 
 Flour and whiskey and beeves to be fed from their 
 fountains ; 
 
NEEDWOOD 113 
 
 Wagons and vessels to press with a tact and up- 
 rightness, 
 
 Noblesse of France to amuse and entreat with 
 politeness ; 
 
 Down at Annapolis day was all straining anxiety, 
 
 Night was all dancing and loveliness, state and 
 society. 
 
 Thus, Comwallis was taken and Needwood was 
 home again ; 
 
 Lee from his lands and his dear ones hoped never 
 to roam again, 
 
 But to watch harvests' and winters' annual re- 
 volving, 
 
 And her blue floodgates of mountains Potomac 
 dissolving. 
 
 But the old drums continental rolled his reelection. 
 Out in the West had the whiskey folks made 
 
 insurrection ; 
 Soldiery streamed tln-ough the State like the gold 
 
 in a pennant, 
 Under his cousin, Hal Lee, the Commander's 
 
 lieutenant. 
 
 Carroll of CarroUton, Hanson and Harper, his 
 cronies. 
 
 Visited Needwood in coaches or canvassed on 
 ponies ; 
 
 Singly the Maryland Fed'rahsts had to be baited. 
 
 Like the lone wild cats that lasted till exter- 
 minated. 
 
114 POEMS 
 
 Beat, then, the reveillS over his lifetime of action, 
 Triumphed o'er Washington's friends the Virginia 
 
 faction ; 
 Of Madison's cabinet craven, the governor read 
 
 would. 
 Chased from their burning metropolis, almost to 
 
 Needwood. 
 
 But on his age and Tom Johnson's, his governor- 
 neighbor, 
 
 Fell the sweet notes of the human birds piping to 
 labor, 
 
 Building the road to the West and the Armorers 
 merry, 
 
 Tinkering muskets and sabres close by, at the 
 Ferry. 
 
 Far waved his wheat like his panther rugs yel- 
 lowed by fire ; 
 
 Stacked like the arms of his armies, his corn rows 
 retire ; 
 
 Dropped in his dozing the tinkle of church bells 
 ancestral, — 
 
 Plenty and Liberty sang him their anthem or- 
 chestral. 
 
 Farms he divided from Needwood to daughters 
 
 and sons ; 
 Pure in their paths were his seed as their kinsfolk, 
 
 the nuns ; 
 So he passed out of the vista of life like a bird, 
 That in the deep vault grows lesser and, last, is 
 
 not heard. 
 
PACKHOBSE FOBD 115 
 
 Cannon of ci\dl war belching and squadrons like 
 
 bees 
 (When on the South mountain passes the last of 
 
 the Lees 
 Fought for he knew not what) wakened him 
 
 never : 
 Thomas Sim Lee had passed over the blue bar 
 
 forever ! 
 
 Needwood, old manse! long neglected, thy 
 
 shadows of trees, 
 Hug round thee of moonlight and mmgle their 
 
 ghosts in the breeze ; 
 Thy form, antiquated, pieced out and partitioned 
 
 and sluunk, 
 Seems the cells of a soul's transmigration, but ever 
 
 a monk. 
 
 PACKHORSE FORD 
 
 (NEAR SECEPHERDSTOWX, VA.) 
 
 The Stone Age man learned first the ford, by 
 hammer stones his footing taught ; 
 
 The bison next, which dammed the flood and with 
 his dusty nostril, thought ; 
 
 The Indian from his moccasins their deer foot 
 crossing instinct caught. 
 
 The wild goose had it in his blood and squawked 
 
 the trail the panther dyed. 
 The wild crane stalked the ford for pike and 
 
 stood a guide post, man to guide, 
 
116 POEMS 
 
 The river in more shallow tones expressed the 
 shallows it might hide. 
 
 So, when the hunted outlaw came, he saw the 
 trodden ramparts slant. 
 
 The trail go down and reappear like ends of rain- 
 bows consonant ; 
 
 He told the peltry hunter where to guide the 
 woods-lost emigrant. 
 
 From Rhenish plains where feudal fields minions 
 
 of barons taxed upon, 
 And Baltic coasts and Holland swamps, some 
 
 wilderness in right to own, 
 A living river found the ford while planets 
 
 brooded Washington. 
 
 The Golden Horseshoe picnic knights from one 
 
 blue Gap had looked afar, 
 Then, sank in tideland like the orb that is both 
 
 morn and evening star. 
 Before the Germans flanked the sun, slow as their 
 
 Georgian calendar. 
 
 Behind the mountain lines they slid along the 
 
 crystal drains of snows. 
 And found the Tuscarora's gaps he ambushed 
 
 for Catawba foes. 
 And passed the ford at dusk's red hour while 
 
 sunset's vizor masks and glows. 
 
 Potomac's flowing cools their lives and in the 
 ripples cattle bend ; 
 
PACKHOBSE FORD 117 
 
 The packhorse feels his burden fall, the smith's 
 
 tire smokes the kit to mend ; 
 Their white knees laving, as they pray, the songs 
 
 of pilgrim maids ascend : 
 
 Stout Luther's hj-mns and Baptist staves from 
 John of Leyden's choral tongue. 
 
 And Simon Memmo's madrigals, the Dunker 
 lovers tuned 'among ; 
 
 They stood upon Virginia's rim and every hope 
 was virgin young. 
 
 The katydids the hollow night with their re- 
 sounding snoring fill, 
 
 The Switzer whistler calls to him the country- 
 wondering whippoorwill. 
 
 Leaps in the moonbeam gleaming trout and into 
 Echo sounds distil. 
 
 Yost Hite and Jan Van Meter led the Teutons to 
 
 their grants of space ; 
 Above the ford New Mecklenburg glassed in the 
 
 river lake its face, — 
 Lord Fairfax measured all within his patent tied 
 
 with royal lace. 
 
 At Greenway court his banished life in As You 
 
 Like It joys were sinned, 
 Young Washington invaded there for Liberty, his 
 
 Rosalind, 
 And stretched Virginia's sandal foot far as the 
 
 Gansres of our Ind. 
 
118 POEMS 
 
 The men of Morgan crossed the ford nor stopped 
 till Boston's siege they swelled, 
 
 They drowned the fame of Gates and Lee who 
 past the Packhorse crossing dwelled, 
 
 And greeting them, his old chainmen, the great 
 Surveyor's eyes o'er welled. 
 
 To Rumsey's steamboat screamed reply the fierce 
 
 bald eagle o'er the ford, 
 As the experimental trip the Cincinnati's chiefs 
 
 record : 
 A thousand years are but a day to Evolution and 
 
 the Lord. 
 
 The bridges o'er Potomac span, and still the old 
 
 ford had its loves ; 
 Josephs and Maries came this way, untaxed amidst 
 
 the thirsty droves 
 That panted down the cool ravines and lapped the 
 
 pools by willow coves. 
 
 Then, closed the vine its vestibules and river 
 
 travelers knew it not ; 
 The Packhorse Ford in slumber lay like some old 
 
 ferry right forgot 
 Till on its bank. Armies appeared, roused by an 
 
 angry nation's shot. 
 
 The natural route of savage times the savage 
 
 issues had restored 
 And like the loadstone to its star. Northward 
 
 revolved the gleaming sword ; 
 Redder than sunsets was the blood that swelled 
 
 the moan o'er Packhorse Ford. 
 
PACKHOBSE FOBD 119 
 
 As, hereabout, the ridges cease, in countermarches 
 
 parallel, 
 South Mountain in the Short Hills lost, the Blue 
 
 Ridge in Elk Mountain's swell. 
 Reverberated on the ford the Northern cheer, the 
 
 Southern yell. 
 
 Antietam, Gettysburg respond to Strasburg's roar 
 and Winchesters ; 
 
 The armies, like the bisons, dam the waters that 
 the guns immerse ; 
 
 Then, swiftly, peace grew like the corn and Free- 
 men's was the universe. 
 
 The armies paused as, on the Rhine, the German 
 
 host and German France 
 Held truce in times of Charlemagne and perished 
 
 every dissonance. 
 Except the finished German tongue and the soft 
 
 parley of Romance. 
 
 A blended race one destiny swelled like Potomac's 
 current down. 
 
 Each old ingredient making rhyme in the Ameri- 
 can renown ; 
 
 The old ford still its beauty held, like lovely giils 
 of Shepherdstown. 
 
 The raccoon ogled with the doves that cooed 
 
 above in sycamores, 
 The fisher cast his fly for bass, wading upon the 
 
 pebbled floors. 
 And grounded on the hidden path the skiff with 
 
 its suspended oars. 
 
120 POEMS 
 
 How lovely everything appears, as if composed 
 
 it ever stood ! 
 We do not see the prints of time beneath the 
 
 riffles and the flood. 
 The ford that our forefathers crossed is in the 
 
 river of our blood. 
 
 FREDDIE'S CLOCK 
 
 " Nothing to eat ; neither pork nor crock,- 
 We must sell the old tall Clock ! " 
 Dandy Grimes with a tear in his 'eye 
 Kissed wife Freddie a smug good-bye. 
 
 She was used to being alone ; 
 Only the Clock she could call her own : 
 Its two cherubs, the Sun and Moon, 
 Her sole babies, would leave her soon. 
 
 'Twixt them, upside, rode a ship; 
 'Twixt them, downside, a house did slip ; 
 Human-faced were the Moon and Sun : 
 Save these babies, Freddie had none. 
 
 Everything had been sold to live : 
 Dandy was shiftless and fugitive. 
 Now he had gone away in the snow : 
 How the wind on the cape did blow ! 
 
 Middletown valley the snowdrifts block 
 From the creek to the high White Rock ; 
 Midst the mountains the old frame house 
 Was going down, like her ruined spouse. 
 
FREDDIE'S CLOCK 121 
 
 Orphan cliild, she had married him, — 
 So parental, important, prim, — 
 Cradle he gave her but nothing to rock, 
 Only the twins in the old tall Clock. 
 
 Now he was old and she was young ; 
 Over a Poor House fate she hung : 
 Faitliful, filial, never at times 
 Saw she a life beyond Dandy Grimes, 
 
 Close to the old tall Clock she stood. 
 In its coffin of cherry wood, 
 Varnished, respectable and plumb ; 
 Staid as she to her pendulum. 
 
 Round its fadmg dial of white, 
 Gold and colors remained as bright 
 As the face of Freddie in tears. 
 Midst her dial of golden years. 
 
 Tall as the minute hand her stand : 
 Dandy was shrunk like the hour hand. 
 Merry as Dandy, full of his swig, 
 Clicked the second hand's thingumagig. 
 
 But the Moon with its hairless brow 
 Wondered, black-eyed, at Freddie now ; 
 Red its cheek as an apple's blush, 
 Ticking to hear from her : " Baby, hush ! 
 
 " O, how lonely I will be. 
 Children, dear, when ye go from me ! 
 Time I will know by the farmers' bells 
 When my little ones Dandy sells. 
 
 Of THE 
 
 "'' VERSfT Y 
 
 OF 
 
 1- f ■ilVM*^ -■■' 
 
122 POEMS 
 
 " Down in the Poor House of Montdvue 
 Frederick's bells, I will think, are you, — 
 By-o-babies ! " was Freddie's cry — 
 Sobs were choking her lullaby. 
 
 Fire went out and Freddie, wrapped 
 In her last thm coverlets, napped, — 
 Feeling the old house tremble and rock, 
 Hearing the notes of the old house Clock. 
 
 Dreaming of officers fetched from far. 
 Friends of her father in the great War, — 
 Some she nursed, in her child's short frock : 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 There was one, who had called her " Wife " ; 
 Saying her beauty would scent his life ; 
 Saying her youth was his hollyhock : 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 "Where is Dandy? I hungry grow: 
 
 He is feeble and deep the snow ! 
 
 Dandy has neither a glove nor a sock." 
 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 Sudden, sleigh bells trembled a-cold : 
 Stood in the doorway a stranger bold, 
 Sapng, " Pardon me not to knock ! " 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 " Are they dead like the old man here, 
 I have fetched in my sleigh, his bier? 
 Frozen woman ! no fire ! no sock ! " 
 « Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
FBEDDIE'S CLOCK 123 
 
 Making a fire of the fanner's fence, 
 Chafing her body without pretence, — 
 Fair as a child in her frozen smock, 
 (" Tick I tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock.) 
 
 The good stranger performed his task, 
 Warmed her throat from liis brandy flask, 
 Called her " Freddie, his hollyhock " — 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 She arose in a fine man's arms. 
 Bare as the house were her tmgled charms : 
 " Dandy is frozen ! " she cried with a shock : 
 " Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 « Child ! who nursed me out of my death ! 
 Take back from me the warmth and breath 
 I remembered from thy limbs' lock ! 
 (" Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock.) 
 
 « Not thy face, though it is as sweet : 
 
 I remember thy beautiful feet. 
 
 Straight as the corn ere the battle's shock : 
 
 (" Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock.) 
 
 " Far have I come, in a widower's glow, 
 To thy bloom, in the pure, white snow ; 
 Round thy poverty snowbirds flock. 
 (" Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock.) 
 
 » I have the blessing men call wealth ; 
 Thou hast the riches of beauty and health : 
 Take my name and adorn my gold ! " 
 Freddie clasped him, it was so cold : 
 
124 POEIfS 
 
 " Do not sell my Clock from me ! — 
 
 Its dear babies will honor thee. 
 
 They are the last of Dandy's stock : " 
 
 « Tick ! tick ! tick ! " said the old tall Clock. 
 
 YERTES' SPRING 
 
 (NEAR GAPLAND) 
 
 " The fairy spring wells up from sands, 
 Beneath the mountain's heavy hands, 
 And from its pebbly basin's bath 
 A brook's white feet have worn a path. 
 While circling round, old beech trees dream, 
 Like eunuclis guarding an hareme ; 
 So close beneath the mountain bowed 
 It seems a lakelet in a cloud." 
 
 Lionel said so, bending him 
 Over the percolating brim 
 Whose many sources flash and cease 
 With effervescing, silent peace : 
 
 " Could I some elf-appointment make. 
 
 At midnight, by this spring-starred lake. 
 
 Imaginations might arise 
 
 Like to these twinkling, fluvial eyes 
 
 Within my fluent cells of brain 
 
 That fill with thoughts like springs of rain ! " 
 
 A pheasant boomed his thought away, 
 
 A crow called downward "stay! stay! stay!" 
 
YEBTES' SPUING 125 
 
 Lionel bathed Lim in the pool 
 And, lying down, with life blood cool, 
 Fell into sleep, till midnight drew 
 Between the peaks her baldi'ic blue. 
 
 Lionel woke. The fairy lin 
 Spirits effulgent held within ; 
 From every vortex whirled a sprite, 
 A quivering lily, chemised white, 
 A lady toiletted for night. 
 
 He thought the Dunker maids, baptized, 
 Had lingered here etherealized, 
 From the near settlement sedate 
 On Love feast night to recreate ; 
 But as he sidled round the rim 
 Their white arms flashed to signal him, 
 Their voices like the cascade sing : 
 " Thou hast desired us at the spring." 
 
 Lionel old drew near to list : 
 
 The first young maid he ever kissed 
 
 Dandled upon a silver jet — 
 
 He breathed the osculation yet ; 
 
 She said, " My love, our love was brief, 
 
 As in my eddy spins a leaf ! " 
 
 Another nymph Lionel sprayed, 
 
 A different and a country maid : 
 
 Sighing " beneath a bridge at dark 
 
 You w^ere my daring city sjjark I " 
 
 Another Naiad's voice liquate 
 
 Flowed, " Love came to us through a gate ! " 
 
 A fourth with i-hythm like a rune, 
 
126 POEMS 
 
 " Lionel, once in my ripe June 
 
 I lower'd my eyes that flashed a dart 
 
 Into thy Tincourageous heart ! " 
 
 " We never touched," said one, " our lips, 
 
 Only our trembling finger tips, 
 
 But they remembered it till dead ! " 
 
 Another, " Love, we rioted. 
 
 Like these swoll'n sources after storm : 
 
 Long have I banqueted the worm ! " 
 
 *' Widow am I, than thou more old, — 
 
 Thou would'st have wed me when boy-bold ! " 
 
 " Lionel, I am one, whose grief, 
 
 At my cold hearthstone, for relief. 
 
 Fled to thee like a maniac : 
 
 Thou wert a friend and led me back ! " 
 
 "I, one illiterate, in a mart 
 
 Who read thy exile with her heart ! " 
 
 " I am the Nun whose holiday 
 
 Thy touch made everlasting May ! " 
 
 " I, twinkling from this spiral sill. 
 
 Am she whose action was thy Will ! " 
 
 " And I, thou called Rose beauteous 
 
 And would have twisted from her pride, 
 
 For womanhood lived duteous 
 
 And scenting Virtue for thee, died ! " 
 
 Thus, from the mountain syphon rise 
 To Amoroso's faded eyes. 
 His nymphs, who in life's sources moved, 
 Exhilarated, bubbled, loved; 
 Returned in hydrostatic power — 
 They were a hundred in an hour, — 
 
TEBTES' SPEING 127 
 
 Flowing from Lionel's brain cells 
 And from the menstruum of the wells ; 
 Earth's drip from out her cavern chasm 
 And waste of parent protoplasm, — 
 The saturation of life's plant 
 And spill of Pluto's adamant. 
 
 Upon the sand-baked mountain's lymph 
 Glides each liquescent, fluent nymph ; 
 And each one, had it vorticed well, 
 Might have been dame to Lionel I 
 Each had combined with his some part, 
 'Livened some recess of his heart. 
 To its pain's ache her balsam lent 
 And purled away its sediment. 
 
 The constellations over pass 
 And in the Spring a period glass. 
 Each shattered in the short embrace 
 By life's resurging in its face. 
 
 Life's active Spring, pneumatic strong, 
 Retains no orb's impression long, 
 No dalliance can make it glow, 
 Like energy of birth below. 
 
 The pressure of the life to be, 
 
 On ever}i;hing lies equally ; 
 
 And like the bubbles, which escape, 
 
 One or another takes our shape. 
 
 For momentary- is love's touch. 
 
 The hungry one his food must clutch. 
 
 The pair that float adown the stream 
 
 Give and receive the instant's gleam I 
 
128 POEMS 
 
 Lionel felt that all was good, 
 And man's refreshment, womanhood ; 
 Love's every passing chemistry 
 Had left some immortality. 
 The scent of its capricious hours, 
 Was still like banks of graveyard flowers ; 
 She who in myrtle's streamlets lies 
 And sends up tendrils of blue bell, 
 Entwined our instant's destinies 
 And kissed our heart up from a well. 
 
 The camps of stars put out their lights ; 
 
 Day breakfasted upon the heights 
 
 And sowed with gold the furrowland ; 
 
 Lionel's hand was in some hand : 
 
 " What were they, husband ? " said his wife. 
 
 " Bubbles, once beautiful, of life ! " 
 
 BALTIMORE 
 
 Hanging from the bay bough's azure heights - 
 
 Affluent bough like matron's flowing breast ■ 
 Baltimore in black and golden lights 
 
 Flashes like the oriole from its nest ; 
 Round the red warehouses on their slips. 
 
 Through the old commercial city's maze, 
 Stands a phantom fleet of yarded ships. 
 
 Rumbles the long serenade of drays. 
 
 First of Western cities in our land, 
 Last born sailor-city of the East, 
 Inland reached its pike-roads like a hand, 
 
BALTIMOBE 129 
 
 Oceanward, like Venice, it increased. 
 Washington beheld it as a weed, 
 
 Ere he died its splendor looked upon, 
 Growing with the genius and speed 
 
 Of its one compeer, Napoleon. 
 
 He, the Doge of Europe, reaching o'er, 
 
 Adriatic Chesapeake to wed, 
 Dropped a wedding ring in Baltimore, 
 
 Left his last successor in its bed ; 
 Still its beauteous women like the noon 
 
 With their dusky eyelids' sweeping wings. 
 Give the strangers' heart a summer swoon; 
 
 Whom they love are happier than Kings. 
 
 Fleeing Congress sought it a retreat ; 
 
 Base of vict'ry gathered at Yorktown ; 
 Samson grinding in its mills of wheat, 
 
 All the bayports fell to its renown. 
 Iron, marble, bitumen and brick 
 
 Grew as shellfish near its deep'ning piers ; 
 Landsmen banded in its mecanique ; 
 
 All its water-men were privateers. 
 
 Athens might old tyrants fawn upon ; 
 
 Spartan Baltimore, our young recourse, 
 Formed her phalanx around Madison — 
 
 Taught America another force. 
 When our flag the smoke o'er Henry clomb, 
 
 Key's bright anthem, in spontaneous flow, 
 Arched it like the streaming of the bomb — 
 
 Arch that rounded in the pool of Poe. 
 
130 POEMS 
 
 As the blue streams flow toward the bay 
 
 And the golden wheat toward the mills, 
 To the milling city take their way 
 
 Blue and flaxen Germans from the hills. 
 Like the twilights on the Chesapeake, 
 
 Which through crystal bars their purple pour, 
 Latin, Creole, Moorish contrasts streak 
 
 British, Celtic, Baltic Baltimore. 
 
 Stepping down the spires to the ships, 
 
 Like the cascades from their woodland wells, - 
 Like the melodies of lovers' lips, — 
 
 Chime the foundry city's tender bells. 
 And the pungy fleet from Eastern Shore 
 
 Skimming like the wild fowl on the dawn, 
 Brings the pearly sweets to Baltimore, 
 
 Riding in the basin like its swan. 
 
 First in War, his column calm upon. 
 
 Stands the great Virginian, looking o'er. 
 Where the victor ranks of Wellinsrton 
 
 Broke before the boys of Baltimore ; 
 And the last survivor, left alone 
 
 Of the Magna Charta's daring theme. 
 Laid the nave's cathedral corner-stone 
 
 O'er the young nativity of Steam. 
 
 As the tree its annual growth compiles. 
 Binding silently the circle's marks. 
 
 Grew the beech tree Annual of Niles, 
 Budded evergreen the staff of Sparks. 
 
 O, ye merchants ! on your commonweal 
 
BALTUIOBE 131 
 
 Sits the raven, saying " Nevermore " 
 To the native palette of your Peale ; 
 Wirt and Kennedy were Baltimore. 
 
 Forum of the Capital, herein 
 
 Met the Tribunes in Convention first, 
 Making Presidents amidst the din. 
 
 Where the local factions fretted worst ; 
 Jackson broke Virginia's cabal. 
 
 Pierce, Van Buren passed the chariot score, 
 Lincoln crowned upon the Lupercal 
 
 Faced his martyrdom from Baltimore. 
 
 As for Helen's beauty, all the Greeks 
 
 Troy besieged, the valiant armies tore 
 All thy ports and plateaus, Chesapeake ! 
 
 For thy bloom's possession, Baltimore ! 
 In thy heart two spouses did contend 
 
 And to each one thou had'st given thy hand. 
 But the ring thou cherished to the end 
 
 Was thy mother's blessing, Maryland I 
 
 Gliding in the current like the boat. 
 
 That in times colonial was their chaise. 
 Dove-pure, in the hurly-burly float 
 
 Faces of the old tidewater days ; 
 Matrons of the Marylander peace. 
 
 Daughters of the old housekeeping life ; 
 In their arms is " Multiply ! Increase I " 
 
 In their souls, religion of The Wife. 
 
 As the white mists go up from the bay 
 To the marble heights that oversee. 
 
132 POEMS 
 
 All the life colonial clears away 
 
 To the city's higher destmy. 
 On the railways of the mainland shore, 
 
 Midst the Cinque Ports' warden cities strung. 
 Shines the jewel light of Baltimore, 
 
 Like a star, Orion's Belt among. 
 
 SIR JOHN ST. CLAIR 
 
 BUILDER OF THE FIKST ROAD ACROSS THE MOUNTAINS 
 
 His name is lost save in a brook of water 
 
 That darkly plunges down a forest glen. 
 Like that lean army pioneered to slaughter 
 
 Through lonely shades to horrible Duquesne ; 
 
 But in the road he hewed across the mountains. 
 Where Braddock sleeps beneath his wagon wheels, 
 
 A living brook goes on from Eastern fountains, 
 No wars arrest, no killing frost congeals. 
 
 His was the skiff that hardily descended 
 
 The wild Potomac to the roaring falls, 
 His were the floats the soldiery befriended 
 
 To pass the torrent, under mountain walls ; 
 
 His were the bridges over the Opequan 
 And the Antietam in the morn of time, 
 
 Crossed by a multitude no man can reckon 
 To sceneries and destinies sublime. 
 
 Behind his axes formed the van of movement. 
 His picks and shovels were the conquering 
 swords : 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 133 
 
 And in the rift of light he ope'd, Improvement 
 Went single file, through hidden savage hordes, 
 Until the pack mules with their bells were merry 
 
 Where rolling drums in vain inspired the fight. 
 And sheep and shepherds tarried by the ferry 
 
 That drowned a host amidst the battle's fright. 
 
 High-mettled Scot ! thine is no glory hollow : 
 
 Shall we forget thee in our Westward Ho ? — 
 When thy canoe the laden barges follow 
 
 And up thy path the steaming engines blow ? 
 
 No I while the sky the Alleghany arches. 
 The good road builder's name shall be revealed : 
 
 Sir John St Clair's victorious army marches 
 Above the army lost on Braddock's field. 
 1874. 
 
 SOUTH MOUNTAIN 
 
 A BROWN STUDY 
 
 Bill ! my black horse, end your pawing ! 
 
 We must have our Sunday canter 
 On the sky line of South Mountain : 
 
 Take it easy, Billy I Saunter ! 
 Till, above the Gap, five hundred 
 
 Feet you rise and find the level, 
 Then, warmed up, your eye and nostril 
 
 Take the beauty of the devil 
 And you show me kingdoms many, 
 
 Fertile valleys bounding free. 
 But your horse sense never mentioned 
 
134 POEMS 
 
 " Take them all and worship me ! " 
 Nature's worship is the freest from idolatry. 
 
 Like Bellerophon's high saddle, 
 
 Ramps the gap of Solomon, 
 Where the Blue Ridge swerves Potomac : 
 
 Drooping low, its course is done. 
 Like its colts, low mountains gambol 
 
 Round its neck, in woodlands bended ; 
 To McClellan's height they ramble 
 
 And Antietam's vale extended 
 Far as Kittatinny's wand, — 
 Nation-vale of Cumberland. 
 
 Southward, valleys like white arms 
 Separate from breathing charms 
 Of pink hillocks ; Cupid's locked in 
 Venus mountains of Catoctin : 
 Through their embrasures I see 
 Aurora kiss Monocracy. 
 Four republics interlock 
 From the dome of the White Rock ; 
 Penn and Calvert, Smith and Brown, 
 Circle round me their renown. 
 Bayward, hke an antistrophe. 
 Tiptoes, tender Sugarloaf. 
 
 O ! how silent in the air. 
 
 Whilst the churchbells low to prayer ! 
 
 Here, where thunder clouds are riven 
 
 And the Christians quail at heaven, 
 
 Not a being, scarce a bird. 
 
 In the golden light is heard 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 135 
 
 Of this long catliedral nave, 
 "Where, of yore, the hunted slave 
 Walked this mountain's bulwark far, 
 Worshipping the polar star. 
 Hoping to escape the rod 
 Of them, downward, praising God I 
 And the high-souled mountain, free, 
 Leaped at birth from slavery, — 
 Without company set forth 
 For its destiny in the North ; 
 Striding rivers, till it passed 
 To New England's rock, at last.'^ 
 
 Where the edged-up rock is crusted 
 
 Hangs a shelf of green debris^ 
 
 Like a mantel for Penates 
 
 In the Greek mythology 
 
 And along its cornice grooved. 
 
 Riding o'er the deep abyss, 
 
 To be Ovid, I am mov^d, 
 
 In a metamorphosis. 
 
 What is that I see, resolving 
 
 From a rock, to be a man ? 
 
 By his flat nose and his hoofness, 
 
 'Tis the pagan fellow. Pan ! 
 
 1 The South Mountain of Maryland is the Blue Kidge of 
 the South, or rather its countermarch, beginning a few miles 
 south of the Potomac, while the Blue Eidge dies out a few 
 miles north of the Potomac, near Antietam battlefield. The 
 "fault" or dislocation is so marked, that the sections of 
 former Slavery and Freedom appear to be broken by nature, 
 in these oppositely-proceeding ridges. 
 
136 POEMS 
 
 " Buy my rattler's rattles, Mister ? 
 I hoodooed the snake with words : 
 Me and him was brother and sister — 
 Hissed and kissed like a couple of birds ! " 
 
 " Pan, thou rascal ! Well I know thee ! — 
 Son of Dryops, Hermes by : 
 Woods and mountain were thy parents, 
 Tangled in the tingling sky ! " 
 
 " Hi yi ! Mister, you're on to me 
 And your Greek I understand ; 
 When they Christianized old Hellas 
 I moved into Maryland. 
 Every preacher has a sect yer 
 And United Brethren split, — 
 Sunday mornings, how they lecture, 
 When the old zinc churchbells quit ! 
 Nymphs and swains I make afraid ; 
 My South Mountain thunder storms 
 Beat all preachers in the trade. 
 And I sell all the Reforms. 
 Breeches hide my fetlocks hairy, 
 I go courting like a younker. 
 And trail up the mountain fairy 
 With my long beard, like a Dunker." 
 
 " Pan, I like thee ; come with me ! 
 Let us worship Poetry ! " 
 
 " My spHthoof is no soft sock : 
 I will race you to Black Rock ! 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 137 
 
 There I have a noble fountain, 
 Wrist-thick, plunging from the mountain, — 
 Nectar hidden in a spring, 
 Jove's own cuckoo bird, to sing : 
 Give your snaffle-bit release : 
 Follow me to Gods and Greece ! " 
 
 Scarce my horse could keep in sight 
 
 Pan, who skipped from Gap to height ; 
 
 All the battle crest he passed, 
 
 Now and then a smirk to cast 
 
 Back to me, to beckon on. 
 
 When the folks to church had gone ; 
 
 In his head I seemed to trace 
 
 Satyr Lincoln's kindly face. 
 
 Who his armies thence did see, 
 
 And made all the sorry, free. 
 
 When his pipe friend Pan inhales 
 
 Fancy may free all the vales, 
 
 Move the stones of ignorance 
 
 And make stocks and reptiles dance ! 
 
 Worship hushed their hector tune. 
 As we lost the bells of Boon, 
 And betwixt two mountains strode. 
 Up a ravine-smothered road. 
 Then unto the ridge we cling, 
 Till we, three, bend to a spring. 
 And we hear a chorus rise 
 From the woodlands to the skies. 
 
 " Hist ! " said Pan, and horn-piped free : 
 " Hear Grandfather's family ! " 
 
138 POEMS 
 
 THE IIVOIORTALS 
 
 Father ! 'twas thy power 
 Sired us life's fond hour ! — 
 Thy delight bequeathed 
 When thy strong love breathed : 
 Bless thy wilful rove ! 
 We are thine by Love. 
 
 Mother ! 'twas thy charm 
 Made thy lover warm ! 
 And the mingled blood 
 Cannot but be good : 
 Bless the nuptial grove ! 
 Thou art ours by Love. 
 
 JOVE, JUNO, LETO, THEMIS, DIONE 
 
 Children ! Human fruit ! 
 
 Evil to impute 
 
 To the hands that pull 
 
 Ye, life beautiful, 
 
 Is life to reprove ! 
 
 Ye are ours by Love. 
 
 PAN AND THE BIRDS 
 
 The mountain is so slim. 
 There is only room for him 
 I bring this Sunday prim, 
 To know the Gods of old — 
 Cheery jug Jioo-e, pu twit chee ! 
 He loves them for themselves, 
 The woods and fauns and elves : 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 139 
 
 His repartee is bold, 
 
 And he dropped at once on me : 
 
 Jug jug cheery, ha tu pu tsee ! 
 
 Than from the black firs nigh, 
 
 As startled vultures fly, 
 
 There came a fluttering, — 
 
 Great shadows shook a-wing, — 
 
 And Pan to me exclaimed : 
 
 " Push on or be heaven-shamed ! " 
 
 He stooped upon his haunches 
 And bent aloft the branches. 
 I followed on the ledge 
 Out to the mountain's edge, 
 And such a landscape burst 
 Upon my sense, that first 
 I gave not Gods their duty, 
 In our own Planet's beauty. 
 
 The whole world seemed my own, 
 And I its lover lone. 
 The great Black Rock my throne. 
 Its broken pulpits swing 
 Dizzily staggering 
 Up from the debris scorched, 
 Where furry forests, torched, 
 Blackened the acres strown 
 Of mountain overthrown. 
 Then grew again in stone : 
 Pluto's wide blasted mines, 
 Encompassed by green pines. 
 That like concentric weaves 
 
140 FOE 318 
 
 Moaned in the mountain caves, 
 And, farther, yet away, 
 The lands like ocean lay, — 
 Towns, woods in fainter tone 
 Fading into a zone. 
 Till nothing was defined, 
 But magic, on the mind 
 And Love, that thrilling is, 
 Like fear before the kiss. 
 
 " O ! blue -^gean waves 
 Of land, that Hellas laves, 
 Among the isles of arts, — 
 Along the Lydian marts. 
 And Thessalonian caves ! 
 Can no Minerva sway 
 Thy dull inertia? 
 No Graces oversee 
 Thy Christianity? 
 No Muses come to teach 
 The dervishes who preach? 
 Nor wake thfe moral Three 
 Who sleep eternally ? 
 Xerxes is overthrown 
 But Pallas is unknown. 
 Venus is Vulcan's love 
 But where is golden Jove ? 
 Olympian genius, rise ! 
 And charm our destinies ! " 
 
 The sound of sledges, breaking 
 Of gravestones, for a larking, 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 141 
 
 And ba-a-ing lambs a-quaking. 
 And cut-throat dogs a-barking, 
 
 Came to me, echoing up, 
 Like Tantalus's cup. 
 
 " Welcome, thou friend of Pan ! " 
 A hidden voice began. 
 
 Around me, on the rocks. 
 
 In store clothes and in frocks, 
 
 A gypsy party lay. 
 
 In silent holiday, — 
 
 A strolling minstrel band. 
 
 All rose and shook my hand. 
 
 Behind the life that plods, 
 I recognized the Gods. 
 
 As one, high Jove, I deemed. 
 An eagle rose and screamed. 
 
 I said unto him, then, 
 
 " Father of Gods and Men ! " 
 
 He looked a wise man-reader 
 And sapient woman pleader 
 And, all around, safe leader. 
 
 " Stopped is the world," said Jove, 
 " When Gods do never move : 
 We move, where most we love. 
 With men, our Goddish boys. 
 As urchins love their tovs 
 
142 POEMS 
 
 And think them real things, 
 "We are infantile kings. 
 Our origin was wrack 
 But never look we back, 
 No more than suns lament 
 Nebulous sediment: 
 Onward and formative 
 We join or would not live. 
 Conversions we despise, — 
 Sect-makers so entice. 
 A natural man art thou ? 
 So are thy Gods, I trow ! 
 
 Strong policy and span 
 Rule all the breathing mass. 
 
 I love thee, for the Man, 
 That is my looking-glass ! " 
 
 CHORUS OF HOURS 
 
 Man ! for whom Sabbaths were made ! 
 
 Walk in the cornfield and pluck ! 
 Hunger, the God thou obeyed ; 
 
 Ere thou couldst see, thou hadst suck : 
 Tottering ere thou couldst talk, 
 
 Laughing before thou didst teethe. 
 Why shouldst thou crawl, who can walk ? 
 
 Why shouldst thou mope, who can breathe ? 
 
 THE GRACES 
 
 Woman ! for love thou wert born, — 
 Hast thou no goddess of Love ? 
 
 Fade, in the amorous morn. 
 All thy sky sisters above : 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 143 
 
 Venus the star of the Even, 
 
 Jupiter star of the Morn, 
 Moon, the soft mistress of heaven. 
 
 Loveless thy life is forlorn. 
 
 THE injSES 
 
 Mind ! in a barren infinity. 
 
 Lost are thy glorious parts ! 
 Dwarfed in a mystical trinity 
 
 Tranced are the beautiful arts : 
 Fancy, asleep, that enthuses, 
 
 Thought that is stagnant in creeds ; 
 Greed has degraded thy Muses, 
 
 Form has enslaved thee with needs. 
 
 Here, Neptune upon Billy springs : 
 The horae immediately had wings 
 And bore him off to crystal wells. 
 Proud as of winter's sleighing bells. 
 
 Mercury, with his pinions loosed, 
 (Pan's father) Juno introduced, 
 A stalwart dame, who said to me, 
 " They libel me with jealousy ; 
 Seldom with Jove am I at odds ; 
 True Gods are never jealous Gods. 
 He is not of that passive lymph 
 Jocund to be with one poor nymph. 
 He sometimes plays a prank with me, 
 To test my femininity : 
 I stamp my foot and make him beg." 
 (She had a straight, celestial leg.) 
 
144 POEMS 
 
 " Of all the motliers e'er I saw, 
 
 I would take you for mother-in-law ! " 
 
 " Here, H^W, (laughter ! Lemonade ! 
 Heaven only keeps one servant maid. 
 And, more than one, makes earth's distress. 
 Among the servant-scourged rieltesse."' 
 
 The red bird dyed not the bough-tryst 
 Bright as the cup on H^bd's wrist : 
 
 " I would that H^b^ made a slip — 
 Many — betwixt her cup and lip ! " 
 
 She made me tender Iris know 
 And said, " Here is my only bow ! " 
 
 Mars, in an old blue soldier cloak — 
 Frog in his tliroat, — next to me spoke : 
 " This is my friend, Venus the flighty, 
 The wife of Vulcan, — Aphrodite ! " 
 
 A trim brunette raised her grey eyes, 
 She was of loving, precious size, 
 Her features Greek and regular. 
 The soft soul of the evening star. 
 She had a vestal, hearthside look. 
 Its twilight glow my being shook ; 
 Her bosom, perfect as the dove, 
 Breathed coolest imiocence of love. 
 Something of trust her quiet shed. 
 As on my heart to lay her head. 
 
 " O thou for man not always best ! 
 Whence bringest thou that soul of rest ? " 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 145 
 
 " Man's mightiest needs I rule," said she, 
 " Mother of Immortality." 
 
 The glorious landscape faded quite, 
 Love was a world more infinite; 
 No stranger was this lady now: 
 Once I had kissed her low, white brow 
 And trembled at my daring femt ; 
 She was my neighbor and a saint. 
 
 " Hark ! sir, my husband is mending 
 Bicycles, for our descending ! " 
 
 VULCAN 
 
 (^Sings.') 
 
 The mountain forges throb no more ; 
 
 They lost their iron soul 
 When failed the ore banks of the ore. 
 
 The woodlands of charcoal : 
 Far West the fuel and the vein 
 
 Into each other flow, — 
 But Vulcan's hammer wakes again 
 
 Ech6! Ech6! Ech6! 
 
 (^Echoes repeat.^ 
 
 The mountain streams know not the mill. 
 
 Far West the grain fields sweep ; 
 In ruined mills the whippoorwill 
 
 Lulls, with its plaint, to sleep ; 
 But tender arts still haunt the glen. 
 
 Light winks the dynamo, — 
 And Vulcan loves the sons of men : 
 
 Echo! Echo! Ech6! 
 
146 POEMS 
 
 Now, Pan set up his pipe to blow, 
 And all the Gods formed in a row 
 To trip it to the spring and spout — 
 Apollo led the happy rout, — 
 A fine book-agent, starved off here. 
 And dieted on atmosphere. 
 
 He said " all books these good Dutch lack, 
 But one, ' Hagerstown's Almanac' " 
 
 Pallas-Minerva took my arm : 
 She had a man-in-woman charm, 
 Her precious book to me she lent, 
 " Darwin on Species and Descent." 
 
 " Goddess," said I, " from Jove's own head, 
 
 Born never in a mother's bed, — 
 
 Why are not more born from the skull ? " 
 
 " Because all would be beautiful." 
 
 " Hast thou not loved, who art so kind ? " 
 
 " Yes, men love me when they grow blind. 
 I am, in their descending life, 
 The evening lamp, the second wife. 
 No beauty have I to repine, — 
 Never youth's wedded concubine. 
 My tongue is mellow as my theme 
 And leads them to the love Supreme. 
 Prudence, my mother, swallowed. 
 Grew, to her time, in father's head : 
 He paid of birth the cruel tax, 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 147 
 
 And was delivered with the ax ; 
 Let men so suffer Wisdom's birth, — 
 I shall have sisters round the Earth." 
 
 Mercury's turtle shell strung lute 
 And Minerva's pure toned flute, — 
 Jove, bandmaster, singing bass, — 
 After Pan's wildpipe made chase. 
 To Apollo's harp piano 
 Swayed the quiver of Diana. 
 Down the wood's track to the glen 
 All the troupe went dancing then : 
 When Gods are social, so are men. 
 
 Neptune's trident surely shook 
 From the mountain slide, the brook 
 That spills down the cairn and cavern, 
 Near the short-lived drinking tavern, 
 By whose stone foundations course 
 Springlets up without a source, 
 Cool as evening mists distil ; 
 Cooler yet where bursts a rill 
 In the roadlet down the height, 
 Like a naked beam of light, 
 Or a mountain bather naked. 
 Chilled by tourists overtak^d. 
 
 As upon a roof's descent 
 Pigeons cluster confident, 
 On this mountain pitch to sing 
 The Olympians drank the spring 
 And beneath them, deep and long, 
 Earth heard the Libation song. 
 
148 POEMS 
 
 JOVE 
 
 Mortal ! friend ! down from my height 
 
 I salute thy gallant worth ! 
 Rain, Alluvial, Dew and Light 
 
 My libations to thee. Earth ! 
 Back to me reciprocal, 
 
 Thou libation sendest up : 
 Faithful son, thy prodigal 
 
 Father, Jove, drains mutual cup ! 
 
 JUNO 
 
 Nephew ! often in thy night 
 
 To thyself thou slumb'rest dull, 
 I stoop o'er thee with my light 
 
 And I see thee, beautiful. 
 And I know when I am old 
 
 Welcome in thy home I'll be : 
 In her chalice flashing gold, 
 
 Hearty Hera drinks to thee ! 
 
 THE GODS 
 
 Cousin ! take this pledge from us, 
 
 As through youth thy genius plods : 
 Steady and industrious 
 
 Thou art pattern to all Gods ! 
 In thy orbit spaced afar 
 
 Bravely all thy lights are set. 
 Glory to thee ! little star ! 
 
 Thou may'st sway thy system yet ! 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 149 
 
 "Hist ! " spoke Pan. " The Dunkers I smell ! 
 Grandfather ! whisker us by thy spell ! " 
 Whiskers were on us in a flash, 
 All but the shaven, beau moustache. 
 " Now," cried Pan, " as his special treat 
 That one Mortal shall wash our feet ! 
 Sunday Love Feasts please these churls, 
 Washing the feet of the men and girls." 
 
 I was girt with a napkin swift : 
 
 Juno's foot stretched out from her shift. 
 
 She as a convert was slightly chipper — 
 
 I thought I had pulled down the Great Dipper. 
 
 Iris's foot was a blue-veined bow ; 
 
 A silver thimble was Hebe's toe ; 
 
 Diana ne'er had shed but by candle 
 
 The deerskin shank of her corded sandal ; 
 
 Pallas-Athena was flat on the sole ; 
 
 Venus's foot was sleek as a mole ; 
 
 All the Muses declaimed together 
 
 To be assisted out of leather; 
 
 Meek were the Graces for heavenly powers ; 
 
 Fidgety feet had the three young Hours. 
 
 Parian cold, from celestial fountains, 
 
 " Beautiful feet upon the mountains I " 
 
 I preached in tingled soul, when through ; 
 
 Apollo's wood dove cooed " Cuckoo ! " 
 
 Leathern scabbard a lady's boot, 
 Gleaming sword is her naked foot, 
 Armorers tempered it express 
 Duelling blade of her loveliness. 
 Hand in hand is a soothing sense, 
 
160 POEMS 
 
 Frank young foot is a confidence. 
 Women none were there at meat 
 When they washed Disciples' feet, 
 Had they brightened that repast 
 Would the Supper have been the Last ? 
 
 Dunkers, new to the situation, 
 Muttered that man was an innovation 
 The feet of Schwesters to dry and cool. 
 Jove said ours was a later school. 
 Languid after the foot-bath rites, 
 Nectar sufficed for our appetites : 
 Cider of pears it seeemed to me 
 Or honey and water stung by a bee. 
 " Give us ad wise ! " chirped old St. John. 
 The Dunkers hearing the hymn were gone 
 
 APOLLO TO THE DUNKEKS 
 
 Not everything is God's ! 
 
 Beware the levity 
 To think Olympus nods 
 
 When trifles trouble thee ! 
 Take to the Gods thy joys ! 
 
 Take to thyself thy moan ! 
 When life's fulfilment cloys, 
 
 The failure is thine own. 
 
 Some other life had been 
 
 A substitute for thee : 
 Blessed art thou of men, 
 
 By love's fortuity ; 
 The bee that finds his queen 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 151 
 
 High in the golden light, 
 Dies in that heaven serene 
 For love's wild appetite. 
 
 So grasp life's real span, 
 
 Nor cheat thyself with dreams, 
 Thou planetary man I 
 
 What is, is but what seems. 
 A dead man's helpless hand 
 
 Can never heal thy sore.^ 
 So live to understand : 
 
 Thy children may live more. 
 
 The beauteous evening, red and pale. 
 
 Moved slowly up the golden dale. 
 
 " Come forth, sweet Nymphs ! " Pan softly blew ; 
 
 "We saw their fire-fly eyes shine through 
 
 The bosky woods, their shoulders gleam 
 
 Out of the dripping spring and stream, 
 
 In every rock and shaggy tree 
 
 Coquettish sensibility. 
 
 The charmed snakes, autocthones ran, 
 
 Gliding from serpent forms to man ; 
 
 Tree crickets, members of liis quire. 
 
 Resounded to Apollo's lyre ; 
 
 Diana's silver quiver spilled 
 
 Her arrows where the wise owl trilled, — 
 
 Minerva's bird ; and round us browse 
 
 Mercury's herd of mountain cows. 
 
 Jove drew me from those twinkling elves — 
 
 All priests are gentle by themselves. 
 
 ^ Healing by a dead man's hand is one of many mouutain 
 superstitions. 
 
152 POEMS 
 
 " Now, tell me, Zeus ! why do men, 
 When born of women, fall again ? " 
 
 " Son, why do rocks melt mto sands 
 Unless to soften fertile lands ! 
 Climbing to fall, the circle's revel, 
 That once was Nebulous and level. 
 Vigor ascends, a radiant star. 
 To slide in pleasure back as far ; 
 No depths, no heights, no fall, no rise. 
 No female and no destinies. 
 Heaven is a lazy dream of statics ; 
 The Sibyls' books are mathematics. 
 
 " My sect calls me the great First Cause 
 
 And proves it, by my breaking laws ; 
 
 Gods no occasion had to be 
 
 Unless to aid society. 
 
 What need of Gods for blank and dearth ? 
 
 Olympian Gods succeeded Earth. 
 
 Man was the model made in clay, 
 
 We were the statues made to stay : 
 
 What made us ? Matter I Not some Spell ! 
 
 Spell's Gods are immaterial. 
 
 O Ignorance I reversing laws 
 
 And calling impotence, the Cause ! 
 
 Nothing sustains thy faith's far end, 
 
 But Something is irreverend ! 
 
 Was Light made first out of the night? 
 
 Thou knowest Matter to be Light ; 
 
 Matter the whirler and the ball. 
 
 And quenchless Matter made us All. 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 153 
 
 " Why am I, alien from my parts, 
 
 In minds of scholars still a force ? 
 I supervised real arts 
 
 And was the soul of intercourse. 
 Not when my sway was imbecile. 
 
 Did I all people drown but one, 
 And millions let go wild until 
 
 I thought to give myself a son ; 
 My happy reign, my temples grand, 
 
 For Popes the Cliristian artist paints : 
 I was the Genius of my Land 
 
 And made my family its saints." 
 
 Now, by the old burnt tavern's site 
 It seemed there was a country fight, 
 And to my feet, by discord thrown, 
 There fell an apple hke a stone ; 
 Three ladies, Venus, Juno, Pallas, 
 Ran after it with pretty malice, 
 And each one pleaded, " Give it me ! " 
 Said Jove : " Name thy divinity ! " 
 
 The apple could its mistress read. 
 Attracted toward her by its seed. 
 Had apples three been on the stem 
 The ladies three had taken them. 
 But like to Eve, I had but one. 
 
 And One was in my heart alone. 
 
 In simple mind, a Paris man, 
 
 (Not taking cue from winking Pan), 
 
 I said to Venus, without art, 
 
 *' What's mine is thine, my old sweetheart ! " 
 
164 POEMS 
 
 " Nature," said Jove, " is always wit : 
 Venus, he is no hypocrite ! " 
 " Paris I knew," she said, " in France : 
 Come be my partner in the dance ! " 
 
 Now, as it chanced, the thickets from. 
 Were Dunkers playing Peeping Tom, 
 With mountaineers, whom Jove abhors 
 To eavesdrop on his visitors ; 
 Their wild beard tufted from their throats, 
 Jove turned them all to billy-goats ; 
 Then on the turf beside the spring 
 Jove led off with a Highland Fling. 
 The Muses and Wood Dryads met 
 In a dec6rous minuet. 
 
 Venus with buskin like a glove. 
 In somnolent, mesmeric move, 
 Grew to me as the woodbines creep 
 Or dreams glide in the mind asleep. 
 Drowsy the breath she drank of mine 
 And hers inspiring as a wine. 
 Her motion passive but as close 
 As to the rose stem hangs the rose. 
 Submission is the female might. 
 Her yielding coy and recondite : 
 When in the waltz I turned her round 
 I seemed to bear her from the ground. 
 She brimmed my being with her mould 
 And we were timid more than bold, 
 Though on my breast her little brain 
 Lay like a throb of parting pain. 
 
SOUTH MOUNTAIN 155 
 
 « Thy horse ! " the Goddess faintly sighed, 
 « Give me the night wind ! let ns ride ! 
 My rivals watch us and their hate 
 Means something evil in your fate." 
 
 Her wish, straightway, unto us brings 
 Billy, Bellerophoned with wings ; 
 She raised her foot my hand unto 
 And in my palm she left her shoe. 
 
 Out in the air and o'er the knolls 
 
 Catoctin's ragged valley bowls. 
 
 We sprang so high that o'er both heights 
 
 We saw the pulsing, pearly lights. 
 
 Amid the plain with hamlets thick. 
 
 Of Hagerstown and Frederick. 
 
 The earth dropped smaller yet and far. 
 
 We entered in a glowing star ; 
 
 Its scented atmosphere we clove 
 
 And rested in the planet. Love. 
 
 I felt a chaste, maternal kiss 
 
 And sighed 'twixt holiness and bliss. 
 
 « Look out ! " spoke Venus, " do not fear ! 
 
 See of thy system every sphere ! — 
 
 And each does every other draw : 
 
 Attraction is eternal law. 
 
 So thou selected Venus well ; 
 
 In equilibrium is her spell. 
 
 She is the tender influence 
 
 Of centre and circumference. 
 
 Be to thine own attraction true. 
 
 And to thy friend will fit my shoe ! " 
 
156 POEMS 
 
 I woke next morn at Gapland Hall 
 And found black Billy in his stall. 
 
 But though my story is all true, 
 I cannot fit that Venus shoe. 
 
 WASHINGTON CITY POEMS. 
 
 THE SMITHSONIAN 
 
 See'st thou the Abbey of warm stone 
 On the green island, orient red? 
 
 What does it here in States our own, 
 When feudal Priors long are dead ? 
 
 Its Baron like the Norman was 
 Unto high dukes of bastard kith, 
 
 And gave his fortune's overplus 
 Beneath the royal name of Smith, 
 
 To us, the land of guardian hope, 
 
 That he a conqueror's rank would score. 
 
 And have his Ishmael brethren cope 
 
 With them who Learning's peerage bore ; 
 
 Whose cold cabal denied him space 
 And made him unto dice betake : 
 
 The gamesters' nature saves the race, 
 And sacred issues play a stake. 
 
 In foreign exile plighting troth, 
 To powers occult he gave his word 
 
'""Vf»S,T 
 
THE SMITHSONIAN 157 
 
 (A gracious devil took his oath) 
 
 " The voiceless tyros shall be heard ! 
 
 " My two proud parents, wilful willed, 
 Did shame and gold on me entail : 
 
 I will to bastard Science build 
 
 An Abbey heaven shall aye assail ! " 
 
 And first Respect refused the trust 
 
 And Patriarchy did control, 
 Fire laid the battlements m dust 
 
 And all the fund the People stole. 
 
 They built anew the abbey towers 
 Around the purpose so grotesque 
 
 And into Gothic tracery flowers 
 A fortalice of Romanesque. 
 
 And Merlin is its resident, 
 
 Aladdin its conspu-ator, 
 Its regent aye our President, 
 
 Lord Justice its High Chancellor. 
 
 What vested fear would fain repress 
 Within came forth lite vagrant rats 
 
 And cavernous influences 
 
 Worked in the Abbey like the bats. 
 
 Original ideas found 
 
 A publication never given, 
 A distribution underground, 
 
 A circumvention over heaven. 
 
 New mischiefs to facilitate 
 
 And lead the earth some young turmoil, 
 
158 POEMS 
 
 The Abbey spirits ruminate 
 
 Around a magnet's serpent coil ; 
 
 Where humble finders rank their peers 
 And Aristotle's laws dispute ; 
 
 A newsboy pulls the Mufti's ears 
 And mocks the Royal Institute. 
 
 For, o'er that Abbey devil's jag 
 A genii's banner flaunts its creed ; 
 
 The unheraldic people's flag 
 
 Waves, of the hordes unpedigreed ; 
 
 Their parents did beget them snug 
 And secondary made the rite. 
 
 They see not with the sleek and smug 
 But with the gift of second sight ; 
 
 They see refractedly from straight, 
 At no precedent Afrite fright'ning, 
 
 As into Paradise's gate 
 
 The Peri's zigzag glance of lightning. 
 
 They diagnose the pretty fibs 
 
 The old nurse tells her nubile boy. 
 
 As in the horse's wooden ribs 
 
 The Greeks the gossip heard in Troy. 
 
 This Abbey rests not pilgrim heads 
 But sets tall-shafted thoughts a plinth 
 
 And lends the clues that wind the threads 
 Through Nature's wizard labyrinth. 
 
 The pre-historic man it brings, 
 
 Who knew not metals but in stone 
 
THE SlflTHSONIAN 169 
 
 Reveird with implemental Kings 
 
 And thought the golden age his own. 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " the Prior laughs in glee, 
 " Who cares for thunder, bell or ban ? 
 
 Matter is immortality 
 
 And no one knows the age of man ! 
 
 " Ay ! thou Sesostri, come and see 
 
 The myths these Western mounds declare ! 
 
 Oasis made society 
 
 And Adam's birth was everywhere. 
 
 " If fifty thousand years had gone 
 
 Ere to this skill his hand could school, 
 
 How long was it to human dawn 
 Before the monkey made a tool? " 
 
 Lo ! there the Prior's museum 
 
 To mock man's sole decline and fall ! 
 
 Where forward to perfection come 
 His mechanisms, one and all. 
 
 From wheels that are not circular 
 And scoopfed boats of idiot wit. 
 
 To telescopes trailed on a star 
 That magnify and mirror it. 
 
 See ! when the long tree shadows wave 
 
 In the electric lantern's track. 
 The fallen Prior's lost conclave 
 
 In their Satanic suits of black, 
 
 Gather within the Abbey red, 
 
 Around some vampire snail or mole. 
 
160 POEMS 
 
 As if it were of lioly dead 
 
 And the}^ were seeking for its soul ! 
 
 See'st tliou the slitted windows' height 
 On which the sunset broke its heart? 
 
 Within, they burn the pictured light 
 That spoiled the churchly Raphael's art ! 
 
 And see'st thou the battlements 
 
 From which bright fancy's angels fall 
 
 In gravity's incontinence 
 And flight unanatomical ? 
 
 Go not within or say a prayer 
 By cerements of Pharaoh's corse ! 
 
 The skull of wizard Lincoln's there 
 And incantation tools of Morse. 
 
 So this loose gotten son of dukes 
 Himself a dispensation swears, 
 
 Stands not with peers in their perukes 
 Nor lets Delilahs clip his hairs, 
 
 But from the grave's green, grassy withes, 
 He burst a Samson, love-betrayed. 
 
 And heading the heroic Smiths, 
 Among the Titans flings his shade. 
 
 I hear the sprinkled church bells ring ; 
 
 I see on Freedom's dome her fire : 
 I will go cite this Abbey's King 
 
 Though he may curse me in his ire : 
 
 " Ho, Prior ! On thy door I smite ! 
 
 This Battle Abbey who begun ? " 
 " William the Norman I am Tiight : 
 
 Robert the DeviVs bastard sony 
 
MABT OF THE CAPITOL 161 
 
 MARY OF THE CAPITOL 
 
 " One of our senators, surely ? " 
 
 Said the queer old girl to me ; 
 I answered to her demurely 
 
 " Only a Member you see." 
 " There is something dear about you," 
 
 She said, with an ag^d bloom, — 
 " Were I young I would never doubt you : 
 
 Is this your Committee room?" 
 
 " Come in ! " I said to the lady, — 
 
 'Twas a Saturday hoKday — 
 " Shut the door ! it will be more shady : 
 
 Are you December, or May ? 
 Whichever, a magnetism 
 
 You shed on my widower life. 
 Your eyes are of crystal chrism, — 
 
 You make me think of my wife." 
 
 « O thank you ! that sounds so holy ! 
 
 To many a wife I have been, 
 Though ever the wayward, lowly. 
 
 And penitent Magdalene ; 
 But ever my Lord and Master 
 
 I knew from his kingly ken : 
 'Twas my glory and my disaster, 
 
 To worship the Congress men. 
 
 " Some women for sailors tarry, 
 
 Some are vivandieres in the camps, 
 
 Some Virgins are Wise and marrj^ 
 Some are Foolish and trim no lamps ; 
 
162 POEMS 
 
 American or Roman, 
 
 Since this bright world began, 
 The proper place for woman 
 
 Is where she comforts Man ! " 
 
 Reluctant admiration 
 
 My cold thoughts melted through : 
 " I see that you love our Nation ? " 
 
 " I love all the men who do ! 
 Great men deserve love younger, — 
 
 More beauteous than men common. 
 And ardently did I hunger 
 
 To be some patriot's woman. 
 
 " I heard a trumpet sounded 
 
 In my quiet countryside, 
 I followed the note as it bounded — 
 
 Se loved me here and he died, — 
 Died while my youth betrothing ; 
 
 Our souls were as pure as flame. 
 O, could I drop to nothing ? 
 
 Or should I be true to Fame ? 
 
 " Next, an old benevolent gentle 
 
 And a Senator called me his, 
 He was moral rather than mental 
 
 But he had a grandfatherly kiss ; 
 I found he was somewhat roving 
 
 And it seemed just a little ingrate, 
 So I paid him off in loving 
 
 A dashing young Delegate. 
 
 " His State, it was soon admitted, — 
 Not I to the wedded state ; 
 
MABY OF THE CAPITOL 163 
 
 But his frailty I pardoned and pitied, 
 
 And called it political fate. 
 Then, a Christian statesman named me his spotise, 
 
 His church, and his bride of affairs ; 
 He set me up in a furnished house 
 
 And helped me to say my prayers. 
 
 " They came from near and they came from far, 
 
 Bright spu'its born to control. 
 As into a well burns a glorious star 
 
 Their ardor drank up my soul ; 
 None dared, none needed, my love to buy, 
 
 And my beauty lasted well, 
 I yield to love my aged sigh — 
 
 Love is too sweet for hell. 
 
 " Smile not ! I bear my testament. 
 
 Though not just the one who should, 
 That women are queer and different, 
 
 But all of the men are good ! 
 Whenever this poor old life of mine ends, 
 
 I vow by the angels above, 
 I parted, with one and all, good friends. 
 
 And never did spite to love ! 
 
 " Thank you ! a little wine is good : 
 
 My head it is weak to-da3% 
 Kind friend, say, am I misunderstood? 
 
 See I am so old and grey ! 
 Let all your charity abide. 
 
 And Christ-like may you prove ! 
 Here is a woman poor in pride 
 
 But rich as God in love ! " 
 
164 POEMS 
 
 Her face grew long, her sight was dull, 
 
 Down sank the old grey head. 
 The old belle of the Capitol 
 
 Within its walls was dead. 
 Still follow Gods, who most forgive, 
 
 The loving and unclean. 
 And where the public heroes live 
 
 There loves the Magdalene. 
 
 CLOTURE 
 
 1893. 
 
 The Senate sloths sit up to-night — 
 
 Dear Kitty come with me ! " 
 The crowded Capitol was bright, 
 
 Dark was our gallery ; 
 They crowded me and Kitty so. 
 
 Her courage to assure 
 My arm around her waist I throw : 
 
 « The subject is Cloture.'' 
 
 " How mad they get," said Kitty soon, 
 
 " On matters so demure ! 
 They rush upon each other close, 
 
 Is that not like Cloture ? " 
 "No, This more like that thing occult" — 
 
 She cuddled up demure : 
 " I hope we'll come to some result 
 
 And early pass Cloture.'' 
 
 Nought did we hear that blessed night 
 
 Yet sat in perfect bliss ; 
 When noise and wrath were at their height 
 
CLOTUEE 165 
 
 Cloture concealed a kiss : 
 " Are you in favor of repeal ! 
 
 I think 'tis quite obscure." 
 " Light up the subject with your lips ! — 
 
 Dear Kitty, press Cloture ! 
 
 " Why do we need so much Reserve ? 
 
 I'm sure we are secure. 
 I think more faith would give them nerve, — 
 
 And therefore more Cloture.^' 
 " Kitty, our circulation's high, 
 
 This panic may endure. 
 And Legal Tender's in my eye 
 
 If you but say Cloture f " 
 
 At panic prices we drove back, — 
 
 That Herdic tilted sure ; 
 Kitty came sliding down the hack 
 
 And all went on cloture : 
 " I've changed my mind ; 'tis nice to wait, — 
 
 Engagements can endure. 
 But never let them close debate 
 
 While viQ can have Cloture^ 
 
166 POEMS 
 
 GAPLAND POEMS 
 
 GUY LOSEL 
 
 Guy Losel's heritage in hand, 
 
 He had a daring thought to rove, 
 
 And pleasure find from land to land 
 
 In an inconstancy of love ; 
 
 He said Farewell to one, his dove, 
 
 Round whom his springtime hlood had purled, - 
 
 Her heart was his did he command ; 
 
 She was too modest to reprove 
 
 His flourish cool, " I'm going round the world ! 
 
 So, unengaged, he did depart, 
 Handsome and liberal and clever, 
 Though with some twinges at his heart 
 From Mary's beauty so to sever ; 
 But frowardness is selfish ever 
 And Mary's singleness he trusted. 
 He named Experience and Art 
 The vagrant quests of his endeavor : 
 Forbidden fruit, — it was for that he lusted. 
 
 He threw himself in British revels. 
 They had the pall of Mammon's play ; 
 French demoiselles were painted devils, 
 The Belgic idols broken clay. 
 Yonder and farther, yet away, 
 Of flaxen Swedes Guy Losel sated 
 
GUY LOSEL 167 
 
 And pined in Pommeranian levels ; 
 
 The Viennese were soulless gay. 
 
 Spain's lazy loose, they all were pawned or mated. 
 
 Europe exhausting, lonely, lost, — 
 
 Spite of his wish a Benedict, — 
 
 Guy Losel heathen waters crossed. 
 
 Himself of pleasure to convict. 
 
 He would be loved in candour strict 
 
 Where conscience lax allowed of freedom. 
 
 Arab, Egyptian, Moor, they tossed 
 
 Mocking deceit him to afflict, 
 
 And left his heart a wilderness of Edom. 
 
 " Is there no land where pleasure reigns 
 And love halts not its choice to ponder ? " 
 " Not here, for here love has fond pains, — 
 'Tis in the next land, — yonder ! yonder ! " 
 The Persians, Guy was told were fonder ; 
 The Persians pointed Ind to him ; 
 The Hindoo, Java's lapse explains ; 
 Javans at China's frailty wonder, 
 And China says, " Pleasures in Yedo brim." 
 
 « This world is better than its fame. 
 
 Each heart seeks one, so I have found it. 
 
 I have the only heart to blame 
 
 In all the world — I have been round it. 
 
 Some broken heart, I may compound it. 
 
 Exchanging with it my desire. 
 
 But love is never safe with shame. 
 
 One heart I left — O did I wound it ? — 
 
 Dear Mary's heart ! There are no hearts for hire." 
 
168 POEMS 
 
 Guy Losel hasted to his city ; 
 
 Mary was blooming like the rose, 
 
 Blushing and dSbonnaire and witty ; 
 
 He lost no moment to propose : 
 
 Her face grew pale, her lips shut close : 
 
 " I am engaged," at last she spoke, 
 
 " You wrote me not." " O God ! in pity. 
 
 Reclaim thy word ! assuage my woes ! 
 
 If I have not thy heart, my heart is broke ! " 
 
 Penance he did ; back round the earth 
 In spirit crawled. The time was long. 
 Cold was his heart and eke his hearth. 
 When vows are passed the chain is strong. 
 But woman loves, though man is wrong : 
 She could not leave him solitary. 
 The night of anguish waked to mirth, 
 His sighing ceased in wedding song. 
 The land of Houris was the land of Mary. 
 
 TANGIER 
 
 Farthest away in space and time, 
 
 I take in this Columbian year 
 
 One day its winding lanes to climb — 
 
 The ancient city of Tangier. 
 
 Old was it in Mahomet's dawn, 
 
 Old when the Csesars ruled these shores ; 
 
 Since ancient nations have withdrawn 
 
 The oldest people are the Moors. 
 
TANGIEB 169 
 
 Tarifa's towers our eyes release ; 
 Gibraltar's outlines grow more soft, 
 The pillars fade of Hercules 
 And Atlas holds the world aloft ; 
 Atlantic's gales the billows high 
 The open roadstead dash upon, 
 Beyond the breakers props the sky 
 The mountain named for Washington. 
 
 He tribute paid to these corsairs, 
 Wild, nervous men, who know not fear, 
 And while we Christians mutter prayers 
 Row to the beach of old Tangier ; 
 Row past her mole, Tangier her dower, — 
 The sea reflects the shivered beam, — 
 When English Charles, Braganza's flower 
 Sultana made of his hareme. 
 
 The turbaned Customs men scarce nod. 
 The saw-toothed walls their gates retain, 
 We climb the street that Musa trod 
 When Tarik plucked the cross from Spain ; 
 A thousand years we backward stem — 
 The sight our modern age dispels — 
 We are in old Jerusalem 
 When Jesus told the parables : 
 
 The potter shapes, the blind man grieves. 
 The palsied woman starts to walk. 
 And yonder marked the Forty Thieves 
 On Ali Baba's door with chalk ; 
 Aladdin's uncle bawls his lamps, 
 The barber bleeds them who would shear, 
 
 / 
 
170 POEMS 
 
 The camel drivers pitch their camps 
 Outside the walls of old Tangier. 
 
 I see the Koran teacher's school, 
 Where little hairless heads, like eggs 
 Some pelican would overrule, 
 Wag to the texts he in them pegs ; 
 And the high caller unto prayere 
 Does not disturb him who recites 
 Tinkling his bell, on di'owsy airs, 
 Tales from the soft Arabian Nights. 
 
 The squatted Berbers dreamy chant 
 
 In a caf^ some desert troll, 
 
 Love is their sole intoxicant 
 
 And on its kiss no alcohol. 
 
 In hidden haunt, less lewd than poor, 
 
 With lancing height and bowstring thew, 
 
 The antelopfed, hussy Moor, 
 
 Dances with filly of the Jew. 
 
 In little shops their prices quote 
 Dealers in arms and stuffs and balms : 
 " All merchants cheat," Mahomet wrote, 
 " Therefore do ye requite in alms." 
 Though in the mosques we may not see, 
 Their sociahsm feel we may ; 
 Religion is of Arabs three, — 
 Moses, Mahomet, Joshua ! 
 
 His amputated hand in salt, 
 In the high jail, a festering man 
 Dies slowly for his desperate fault, — 
 The robber of the caravan ; 
 
TANG IE B 171 
 
 No lawyers here acquit a thief, 
 Nor wealth ill-gotten can illude 
 Him at Maroc, the Great Shareef, 
 Who is of Mahmoud's holy blood. 
 
 Plain as the desert round Tangier, 
 Whose paths the cactus does not shade, 
 Are the few laws they need them here. 
 Where are no engines grasping trade ; 
 One tyrant answers for a brood, 
 And immemorial is his right, 
 Marked like the palm's tall sohtude 
 Against the Atlas mountain's height. 
 
 Morocco's state leans on the sky. 
 Its moon and stars the Arab's light, 
 No Ottoman's fell victory 
 Here has usurped a cahph's right ; 
 For Muley Hassan's banner green 
 He did not get by barbarous force ; 
 It streams like yonder green marine 
 That bounds in freedom like his horse. 
 
 Can we not blend with Islam's life 
 Our Christian slavery, so complex ? — 
 The scullions' rule, the dress-thralled wife, 
 And houses built to tax and vex ? 
 Thou desert robber ! my cloak great 
 Strip off ! it loads me like a chain ; 
 To pass thy enemy in wait 
 I'll go with thee, miles, one or twain. 
 
 But climate, moisture, living chance, 
 More than his Gods make man excel : 
 
172 POEMS 
 
 O had Arabia conquered France 
 
 She had made gracious Charles Martel ! — 
 
 Softened the vandal Christian's clan 
 
 That malt and mead had muddled thick, 
 
 And knighted into Solyman 
 
 The lame, black soul of Genseric. 
 
 Beneath my blind"she cannot pierce, 
 A tall, young Berber mother slips. 
 Her babe she drops in hunger fierce. 
 She draws a knife, her face she strips. 
 And cuts some grass around my inn, — 
 Her clean and stringy lines I've booked ; 
 'Tis by her creed a deadly sin 
 That on her charms a man has looked ! 
 
 Such Moors their conqueror Akbah bought 
 
 With gold, a thousand pieces each. 
 
 To blend their Arab grace with thought, 
 
 O, could their like some Soldan teach 
 
 Woman's religious hate to cease. 
 
 That curses Christians passing through ! 
 
 At Tafilet to treat a peace 
 
 And loose the slaves at Timbuctoo. 
 
 With such sweet airs as Westward blow, 
 From lands where zealots rage in vain. 
 The States of Barbary might know 
 A wealth they never had in Spain ! 
 Their beauteous women might be free. 
 Their shambles might again be homes ! 
 As when the Gods of poetry 
 Were rich Numidia's and Rome's. 
 
BOB WHITE 
 
 173 
 
 Like desert springs wMch flood with rain, 
 These Berber wastes the sects outpoured 
 That deluged Islam's star in Spain 
 And withered it like Jonah's gourd ; 
 Preachers like Balaam and his ass 
 Their sinewy state a sect made be : 
 They see the ships of Europe pass, — 
 Wild Ishmaels of theology. 
 
 This fragment of a former age 
 Thrust into Europe's feverish breath, 
 Is like our childhood's limpid page. 
 Or unawakening, restful death. 
 No wheels nor mechanisms here. 
 We have no adventitious power, 
 And, like the dead in dead Tangier, 
 Naked we shall be in that hour 1 
 
 BOB WHITE 
 
 I HEAR in the orchestral morn, 
 Midst the flute, the jewsharp and the horn, 
 A bird with a note like a vote, 
 Straight and sweet from the throat ; 
 Like the voice from the light after night : 
 " Bob White." 
 
 I know 'tis the Quail calling so, 
 But his language is English, I know ; 
 How human the bird with that word ! 
 By my heart it is heard — 
 Like friendship by love done despite, 
 " Bob White." 
 
174 POEMS 
 
 The friend of his youth he would find, 
 There's no name but his friend's on his mind, 
 His life is all boyhood and joy, — 
 What is constant as boy ? — 
 O, my friend of the mom and the light, 
 Bob White ! — 
 
 I roved through the stubble with thee. 
 Barefooted, to hawbush and tree, 
 By brook and by vale like the Quail ; 
 Every day without fail 
 I called at thy gate, early bright. 
 Bob White ! 
 
 You answered, dear partner, my bleat. 
 Like the mate of the Quail from the wheat, 
 My heart to your halloo pursuant. 
 To school or to truant. 
 You parted from me not till night. 
 Bob White. 
 
 The orchards, the fields, they were ours. 
 And the sky and the seed and the flowers, 
 The farmer, not we, paid the tax ; 
 At the sound of his axe 
 Low whistled our warning or fright : 
 "Bob White!" 
 
 Where are you, my chum, all these years ? 
 Has the world swallowed you in its fears ? 
 Or, mated, say, have you a flock ? 
 Are you hen now, or cock ? 
 Do I hear you out yonder aright. 
 Bob White? 
 
QUEEX CHRISTINE 175 
 
 If you, O, the sweet notes again, 
 Raise them boldly, whom ever thy hen ! — 
 Say, '• Madame, that friend was my first. 
 In the dawn-hoiir of erst. 
 And he called me, ere you were my sprite, 
 ' Bob White ! ' " 
 
 Then I will forget night and bhght — 
 Do you hear how I whistle. Bob White ? 
 O, lonely are all things in truth. 
 But the birds have our youth. 
 Say on, make me boy, set me right. 
 Bob White ! 
 
 QUEEN CHRISTINE 
 
 FOTJKDEE. OF DELAWAEE STATE 
 FOXTAISEBLEAU, 1657 
 
 Father, is he dead ? Then I'll confess me : 
 His period is my pause where Aftertime 
 Will lay my book down and consider me. 
 You shall be my posterity and judge ! 
 
 I had no child but Sweden and foreswore it; 
 Homeless by choice, I chose a homeless staff 
 From generosity ; the man just slain 
 Monaldeschi, was nothing but a servant. 
 Marquis I made him like the ]\[arquis Ancre, 
 King Louis' father slew. Italian like 
 He mixed in my concerns, my lonely state 
 Unpitymg, set his wits to work to spoil 
 My independence ; forged his comrade's hand 
 
1T6 POEMS 
 
 And traded in my livery like a traitor. 
 
 His plot he brought me : 'twas assassination ; 
 
 Thinking a Queen ten years o'er Sweden's council 
 
 Could be so shallow. " Let me execute him ! " 
 
 The jockey swore. The table's turned : he's dead. 
 
 His lesson is not lost on Latindom. 
 
 Let women twit ! Christine was crowned a King. 
 
 Defence I scorn, whose court, like old King Lear's, 
 Is where I visit. Am I yet a nun ? 
 Vasa's resentment certain as his justice 
 "Wakes in his grandson's child. Father and son 
 I executed, ere I abdicated. 
 For prodding my resignment ere its time. 
 Absolute Queen I pass from throne to Pope, 
 No subject anywhere, my rent crown lands, 
 My confidence state secrets ; treason, death ! 
 She who of late by armies executed, 
 Visited kings with thunders, dyeing rivers 
 Blood red, was gloriously commended ; 
 Heretic then she was, but worth conversion. 
 This day I sentenced one, — but one, — all shrived, 
 Who articled with me, and mutinied. 
 
 What did my Judas sell ? That's perished with him: 
 I trapped him ere he bit. Was he my lover? 
 Cowards will say so for two hundred years. 
 Eve had it said of her, all nature's mother. 
 Listen, thou priest ! 'Twas Knowledge bit us both. 
 Knowledge has bit thy church. At Westphalia 
 I forced to peace the Thirty Years of war. 
 And Toleration was my crown. Therefore 
 I took the cross in Lenity's crusade, 
 
QUEEN CHBISTINE 177 
 
 To minimize the consequence of creeds, 
 Nor ever have I Sweden asked to follow. 
 
 I went to Rome to help the milder dawn, 
 When warring sects shall merge their strength 
 
 for earth, 
 And fill the moats of feudal states with Heaven, — 
 Sunlight's illusion on the cold-throned Alps, 
 Mass's illusion in smug churchmen's hearts. 
 Women's illusion in their sex-sick heads, — 
 Heaven, not hell, makes earth yawn wide from 
 
 man. 
 And draws its small portcullises of churches 
 Upward or down like selfish castellans. 
 
 My filial shame was Christ's triumphant day : 
 A white-horsed Amazon, the penitent 
 Rode like Alaric or the Vandal king 
 Through Rome : Herodias with her father's head. 
 
 Then French and Spanish parties played for me. 
 
 Like Pilate's Roman dicers. Up I gat 
 
 With my small suite and sought politest France. 
 
 Italians ruled it ; Mazarin, step-monarch. 
 
 His nieces, queens. Ladies wore warriors' crowns. 
 
 None felt my sarcasm when the magdalen, 
 
 Ninon de I'Enclos, mistress of an abb^, 
 
 I singled out and wrote around her shme : 
 
 " Frondeurs unsinning ! shng the first stone here ! " 
 
 The woman is a plant, her flower early, 
 Her reproduction her biography. 
 My mother pined and died for her Gustavus ; 
 His only child I was, to wear his sword ; 
 
178 POEMS 
 
 His sister had a son who wooed me hard ; 
 
 I felt the Vasa jealousy of partners 
 
 And fed my brain and let my bosom starve. 
 
 My mind had no companionships in Sweden : 
 
 I sent abroad for scholars. Soon contempt 
 
 Of amorous thought withered my wedding wreath. 
 
 Our Lutherans were lusty, women forward ; 
 
 Magnus, my fancy, wedded Charles's sister ; 
 
 I promised Charles my crown without my hand 
 
 And formed the Order of the Amaranth, 
 
 The monks and nuns of Learning ; one stood fast. 
 
 My frame grew steel, my mind became all man : 
 
 Monaldeschi trifled with an Amazon. 
 
 But I have proved the sexes have reversion — 
 And from Minerva's brain Mars can be born : 
 The King I chose has rounded Sweden's bounds 
 And beaten Poland. Scania is a fief 
 Of the Roman empire and Clu-istina ends 
 Semiramis, like Margaret of the North. 
 
 The Woman left in me was my Conversion : 
 I tired of sermons but to woo my soul 
 Was an amour, sweet, timorous, and sighful, 
 Like the annunciation of the Virgin. 
 Spain, Portugal, the Pope, sent pursuivants 
 Who talked in liquid tongues, which I had learned 
 Without a master, of supernal love. 
 Long I coquetted with those Jesuits, 
 Resisted, threw them off, returned and yielded, 
 And never told the soft solicitation : 
 One woman kept a secret ; it was pure. 
 To learn our fate we seek the fortune teller 
 
QUEEN CHBISTINE 179 
 
 Who promises it all : Rome outbid Luther. 
 We know not much ; on them who swear they know 
 We lay our doubts : Rome has one Swede ; she, 
 Rome. 
 Rome's civil law and Koster's printed bible, 
 Fermented in rude states ; the age is loosed : 
 High intellects are readjusting knowledge. 
 The Northern Schools Kepler and Tycho Brahe 
 Have graduated to revise the lights 
 And Earth's circumferential to her Sun. 
 Rome has reformed ; Christine reforms to Rome, 
 To be Hypatia to the fading Gods. 
 
 The year my father fell in Lutzen fight 
 Old Galilei did abjure the truth 
 In Rome. No more will Rome science suppress. 
 Intolerance will take its stand in France 
 And from this old chateau, who knows, but Louis 
 Will shame his grandsire Henry more than I 
 Gustave Adolphus ? Priest-kings are the worst. 
 I will against intolerance be Protestant 
 In Rome itself. The earth awakes from sleep 
 By revolution. France may turn too swift. 
 
 Who's yonder ? Henriette of England comes ; 
 Cromwell supplies the head of her and Charles. 
 Von Wallenstein took counsel of the stars 
 But fell like Monaldeschi, Captain-slashed. 
 The forest here has a Black Huntsman in it. 
 King Henry's apparition ere he died ; 
 There will I ride alone, who ne'er saw ghost. 
 How indolently safe to trust one's priest ! 
 
180 POEMS 
 
 Nature ! I sighed thee that I had no babe ! 
 There was one, Little Sweden, that I swaddled 
 In the new world ; its mart was named for me. 
 The Dutch have taken it and changed the name ; 
 In neither Sweden have I left a chick. 
 
 Error preserves us often, like misfortune. 
 The wayward child is still the best beloved. 
 I took my crown off for sweet Independence. 
 Fashion I like not ; business wore me out. 
 I will be humble when I live in Rome. 
 
 Meantime these French who bought my father's 
 death 
 Shall keep me for two years at their expense ! 
 I will resume my study, — true devotion; 
 My books, — the holy graves of saints ; myself, — 
 Portent of learning in the female plant. 
 As Mazarin collects his books for France, 
 I will become Rome's vestal bibliophile, 
 Cumsean sibyl for new oracles. 
 The riddle of the woman who shall bruise 
 The serpent's head, bear children and be ruled 
 By her desire of husband, therein lies, 
 As in the Sibyl's books Christ was acrostic. 
 
 The negative of man is his child-bearer. 
 
 The serpent's head is this small female head, 
 
 Which coils on man's and has no separate growth ; 
 
 The quickening contact mounts not to her reason. 
 
 Diana's priestesses had each one breast ; 
 
 One was too many for symmetric art 
 
 And Sappho's lyre was lovesick. Woman grew 
 
QUEEN CHRISTINE 181 
 
 Half on, with single breast, and Greece was dam 
 To the strong brood of woman-minded thoughts, 
 In the harmonious temples of her head ; 
 That, draggled through the Arab caliphs' lusts, 
 Glanced off from Spain and lodged in Italy, 
 And on the barren rock of Peter grew 
 The lillied Renaissance. Still negative 
 Is woman, led by France and fashion down 
 Below the stature of her column's head : 
 Man grows a tree and woman grows a vine 
 And chokes the tree of Knowledge. Earth's o'er- 
 brooded ! 
 
 All faiths that are have superstitious ends. 
 Earth has no end in its continual sphere. 
 Material truths one day will be a faith, 
 When woman comprehends and holds the ground 
 That man has won. The vast negation waits. 
 
 When I was at Nykoping, Oxenstiern, — 
 A greater mind than Richelieu's, but in Sweden, — 
 Gave me a dog called FidSs, saying " Chris., 
 Thou learn'st too much from books; learn from 
 
 this setter ! " 
 We had an Echo on the water there ; 
 My dog's bark barked at him and the first night 
 He barked all night at Echo. The next night 
 FidSs kept all awake. My aunt cried " Kill him ! " 
 " 'Tis his devotion," said my uncle John, 
 " He Avorships at the unaccountable." 
 
 How ghostly seem we to ourselves in mirrors 
 At dusk, as they reflect our coming shade ! 
 
182 POEMS 
 
 In dusk I ferried Fides tow'rd his Echo. 
 I spoke myself one name for the last time ; 
 « Magnus." 
 
 Art listening, priest? 
 
 (He is asleep. 
 The death he has seen done this hour prostrates 
 him.) 
 The rest I'll tell to Echo, whispering here, 
 In the long halls where Henry kissed Diana 
 In Rondelet's fireplace, where kiss quenched flame^ 
 In her Initial, Henry is the cipher. 
 She subdued him when Dauphin, nineteen years 
 Her junior. But she married at thirteen ; 
 Widowed at thirty-two : it is my age ! 
 She was re-born and turned a man in love. 
 Once in an age old woman has her reign. 
 (Would I had tilted with Montgomery ! ) 
 The renaissance at Fontainebleau was Love. 
 
 Mary of Scots was here a bride and Philip 
 
 Of Spain did wed his murdered son's affianced ; 
 
 Francis was satyr to his market girls ; 
 
 Navarre in love-war met his Ravaillac. 
 
 Kings get no more than peasants from the sex ! 
 
 The furious love scenes painted by Italians 
 Are just effaced by Anne of Austria, 
 Lest Mazarin admire them more than her. 
 In this chateau, where art was stripped to Isis 
 A hundred years ago, they stand me off. 
 Who am an honest monk, a maiden queen. 
 
 When brother Guises in some such chateau 
 Were foully stabbed, the Valois line expired ! 
 
QUEEIf CHEISTINE 183 
 
 My traitor wore a corselet like a woman, 
 His sentence paralyzed his lizard tongue. 
 I'll whisper to this sleeping priest my secret, — 
 God's drowsy ear, the old maid's deaf confessor. 
 
 'Twas play for Poland, which the Jesuits 
 Have made another Spain, and smothered knowl- 
 edge, 
 Has been the silent secret of my soul ! 
 
 Sweden is flanked by Denmark, our oppressor ; 
 
 Poland and Russia are conjoined with it. 
 
 Jagellon's Ime concluded with a woman 
 
 Who wed my father's uncle, John of Vasa ; 
 
 Sweden and Poland were their son's demesnes, — 
 
 Sigismund. Re would force the Poles' religion 
 
 Upon our Lutherans, who did depose him. 
 
 The Dissidents he persecutes in Poland, 
 
 Its Huguenots, who do solicit me 
 
 To be their Henry of Navarre and join 
 
 Against the Russians our united powers. 
 
 Else Russia will devour both Swedes and Poles. 
 
 I must be Catholic if Queen in Poland ! 
 
 I set my cousin Charles upon my throne, 
 He in my secrets as my ardent lover. 
 To shatter Denmark and Kiag Sigismund, 
 And stepped me down, a wondrous Catholic. 
 
 Learning had taught me silliness of churches : 
 Religions are the national costumes. 
 More silken Southward and more woollen North. 
 I could afford to humor them I vanquished, 
 They were not subtle to discern my play. 
 
184 POEMS 
 
 Like FidSs^ Echo from the farther side 
 Returned to this, as I to it went nearer 
 (The dog did reason it when he was hoarse). 
 "Who shall chase Echoes from opposing shores ? 
 What of Christine is altered by exchanging 
 The creed of Odin for the creed of Venus ? 
 The toasted babes in Thirty Years of war 
 Called on the motherhood in my dry milk 
 To taste the sacrament that I had humbled, 
 As Jesus dipped with John. Not by the Cross 
 But by the Dove was ^vrit the sign of Conquer ! 
 
 Poland, Bohemia, Sweden, Hungary, 
 
 Beneath a woman's love, would wall the Tartar 
 
 And Bear, out of Midgarden's paradise : 
 
 I wished to be the tolerant queen of Poland ! 
 
 Lest this might be, the Jesuits mine equerry 
 Hired, — Monaldeschi, — to snook over me. 
 I caught him with my letters, trapped him here. 
 And send his ghost to Rome to give me awe ! 
 
 Rome wUl sit squat. Her morals are Conversion. 
 
 Public Opinion, ever absolute, 
 
 In midnight tyranny as in the day, 
 
 Now has Christine beneath its microscope : 
 
 Poland, I fear, is frozen from my love ! 
 
 The woman's reign in Eden was not long ; 
 The curse of children was her balance wheel. 
 Sweden is lost to me ; Poland affrighted ; 
 Rome is uneasy with its roving convert: 
 I have no other home. Father, awake ! 
 Absolve Rome's daughter from her passing sin ! 
 
CLOY 185 
 
 WASHINGTON'S MONUMENT 
 
 LONG UNFINISHED 
 
 Sunk in the sands by its own weight, the Sphinx 
 
 Intelligible lies ; its nobler part, — 
 
 That sweet, great face — still touching every 
 heart, 
 That 'midst the lonely ruins walks, and thinks 
 
 On perished states, made perfect by such art. 
 But thou! our Sphj-nx, — lone column, strong and 
 white. 
 
 When this our empire totters to decay. 
 The senile riddle of thy broken height 
 
 And feeble unfulfillment, who shall say ? 
 
 "A race unstable and degenerate," they 
 Who pass may cry, " here sought some shrine to 
 lift — 
 
 Not such as carved complete yon wondrous disk 
 In Egypt, but some brood ingrate with thrift. 
 
 And souls unfinished like this obelisk ! " 
 
 1871. 
 
 CLOY 
 
 As the Earth is surrounded 
 
 By naked air. 
 Life's sphere is bounded 
 
 By an azure care ; 
 Only moments of time 
 
 Is the rainbow bended, 
 And wherever we climb, 
 
 The world is ended. 
 
186 POEMS. 
 
 There's a hopelessness 
 
 In careers succeeding, 
 More than the distress 
 
 Of the dying and bleeding 
 The nature which scaleth 
 
 Cathedral towers, 
 Hears nearer where waileth 
 
 The tolling hours. 
 
 ROCKING CHAIR 
 
 'Tis not Diana on her bow 
 
 I seem to see, so straight and spare, ■ 
 A lady moving to and fro 
 
 So calmly in a rocking chair. 
 
 Like some old clock's slow pendulum, 
 Her wavy line, her features fair, 
 
 Across my memories go and come, — 
 The lady in the rocking chair. 
 
 In woman's realm, a little home, — 
 Her little arc of life's career, — 
 
 I see sweep past her silver comb ; 
 The lady in the rocking chair. 
 
 It makes me weep, it makes me sleep, 
 That gentle motion • tell me where 
 
 I felt it o'er the ocean deep ? — 
 Dear mother, in thy rocking chaii- ! 
 
SANCTUMONIOUS 187 
 
 SANCTUMONIOUS 
 
 The Editor and Writer met in Twilight's lonely- 
 lane, 
 
 Bohemian and Sadducee, enforced to meet again : 
 
 " When next we walk, successful friend ! the dark- 
 ness will he deep " ; 
 
 Said the Bohemian, " Tell me, now, what have 
 you done to keep?" 
 
 " My self-esteem, my spotless work, my influence 
 
 austere ! 
 I edited the Higher Thought, the economic seer ! 
 Never to error did I stoop and when the State 
 
 must fall. 
 Let history consult my files : I did predict it all. 
 
 " You wrote and lived incontinent ; I had to let 
 you drop ; 
 
 And still you are a rolling-stone and I the per- 
 fect stop ; 
 
 The ink-di'ops from my Draco's pen fall like the 
 gibbet's rope 
 
 And splash into that stoic blank where but Bo- 
 hemians hope." 
 
 Finished the sinless Sadducee and the Bohemian 
 said, 
 
 " The measure of a fellow's length is taken when 
 he's dead. 
 
 I have had all of life's good things yet never wor- 
 shipped me ; 
 
 You, born with introverted eyes, Avorshipped your 
 cavit3\ 
 
188 POEMS 
 
 " You superseded God at school, j'our country later 
 
 on; 
 Plenty of earth you have possessed but none of 
 
 horizon. 
 My talent I have not improved ; I kept it in my 
 
 hand: 
 Mine is the faith my fathers had in my dear, native 
 
 land! 
 
 " One drop," the old Bohemian said, " within its 
 
 channel strong, 
 I mingle in the mighty tide and with it move 
 
 along, 
 I have no other creed than this, no power of my 
 
 own : 
 Flow, beauteous river ! Not in thee have ever I 
 
 thrown a stone ! " 
 
 From Twilight lane they parted last, the years 
 were growing dark; 
 
 Neither upon the century left more than finger 
 mark ; 
 
 " Silentia " was the epitaph upon the scolding 
 man, 
 
 But all the bands of music play past the Bo- 
 hemian. 
 
 KESPECTABILITY 
 
 Perhaps I owe to my temerity 
 
 Some lost advantages of little force ; 
 
 At life's outgoing they mil quit my corse, 
 
DYING LETTEES 189 
 
 I shall have seen what I desired to see, 
 Eye-single, not with Ishmael's remorse. 
 But by the beam of nature given me. 
 Some question Shakespere for his way apart, 
 Because invited little by the great ; 
 He kept his pedigree, a country heart. 
 And laureated was to illustrate. 
 
 Than imitation is no meaner fate. 
 
 To be respectable is not to rise ; 
 
 There is a strength that does not borrow state, 
 
 It is to serve the light within thine eyes. 
 
 DYING LETTERS 
 
 Heke strangled in the West 
 
 See gentle Letters lie ! 
 Where he had hoped the best 
 
 Despair is in his eye. 
 'Twas Mammon stabbed him first 
 
 And piracy severe, 
 The gash that bled hun worst 
 
 Was dealt him by a sneer. 
 
 » Go to ! " says worldly wise, 
 
 " What time have we to read? 
 The past is full of books, — 
 
 Enjoy the present deed ! 
 Down with ideal things ! 
 
 Melt down the wizard bell ! 
 Strike off the poet's wings ! ^^ 
 
 We still can buy and sell." 
 
190 POEMS 
 
 Yes, for ye all are sold 
 
 To what your souls despise, — 
 The avarice of gold 
 
 And small anxieties ; 
 To wives who spend and pine 
 
 And scandals base discuss, 
 To sons who die in wine. 
 
 And daughters frivolous. 
 
 Read not or wanton read. 
 
 That wanton dreams may be ! 
 Have authors like your need. 
 
 Serfs of 3^our pleasantry ! 
 Here strangled in the West 
 
 See gentle Letters lie ! — 
 "Where he had hoped the best 
 
 Despair is in his eye. 
 
 RICHARD, MY KING 
 
 VERSAILLES, OCTOBER 3, 1789 
 
 Richard, O my king ! 
 
 Beneath thy prison bars 
 
 1 touch the lute's light string, 
 
 Soft as the light of stars ; 
 They steal into thy sight, 
 
 Unto thy soul I sing : 
 Awake ! O captive knight ! 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
 QChoru8, repeat.^ 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
RICHARD, O MY KING 191 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
 Not of thine arms I sigh ; 
 The love to thee I bring 
 
 Is of thy Poesy. 
 Thou king of troubadors ! 
 
 List to the night bird's wing, 
 And twang thy prison bars, 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 • The air it is thine own, 
 Made in thy life's young spring 
 
 Before thou had'st a throne ; 
 Then music filled thy heart 
 
 Far more than anything, — 
 Thy sceptre was my Art, 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
 Richard, O my king ! 
 Thy voice is singing now ; 
 
 1 hear its deep notes ring 
 
 Like stormwind on the bough. 
 Song pierced thy stone redoubt, 
 
 'Tis thy recovering : 
 Thy song has found thee out, 
 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
 (^Chorus, repeat.') 
 O Richard, O my king ! 
 
192 POEMS 
 
 MIRROR SONG 
 
 FROM DECATUR, AN OPERA 
 
 The lily's mirror is the pond, 
 The rose's mirror is the dew, 
 
 The empress's the diamond, 
 And in my mirror I see you. 
 
 O am I fit for you to cull ? 
 
 In your eyes am I beautiful? 
 
 Your glorious strength shall I consume, 
 
 And with my weakness make perfume ? - 
 
 Our features blend as man and wife 
 
 And flower in immortal life ? 
 
 The star has mirrors in the air. 
 The rainbow, mirrors, in the rain, 
 
 But thou art mirrored everywhere. 
 In all my bliss, in all my pain ! 
 
 let me gaze upon the charms. 
 Worthy to enter in thy arms ! 
 My mind is but a giddy scroll, 
 My beauty is my only soul, — 
 
 Be thine career ! the glorious strife ! 
 Take me in thy immortal life ! 
 
 Thy fame has mirrors in the crowd. 
 Thy courage shines in thy cuirass. 
 
 The guns reflect thy victories loud : 
 My echo is my Looking Glass. 
 
 O, till thou drink me in thy kiss, 
 
 1 no assurance have but this, — 
 That I am fit to blend with thee. 
 
AMEBIC AN SLAVES IN TBIPOLI 193 
 
 My face in immortality 
 
 "With thine, whose eyes reflect thy wife, 
 
 In crystal of immortal life ! 
 
 AMERICAN SLAVES IN TRIPOLI 
 
 1805 
 
 Farewell, our native land ! 
 
 Farewell, O fresheninor sea ! 
 We choose the suffocating sand 
 
 To shame and liberty. 
 Earth shall not rue that we existed, — 
 
 This is our one reply : 
 We swore to die when we enlisted. 
 
 Go, show us where to die ! 
 
 Perhaps our cheerful parts, 
 
 Our hearty work, our songs, 
 May soften our taskmasters' hearts 
 
 And mitigate our wrongs. 
 On honest bread we have subsisted. 
 
 We would not terrify. 
 We swore to die when we enlisted, 
 
 Go, show us where to die ! 
 
 Where'er we go our name, 
 
 Our land's example wins, 
 Degraded realms we shall reclaim 
 
 And soften Jacobins ! 
 Unfurl the flag that we assisted ! 
 
 Dear country, hear our sigh ! — 
 We swore to die when we enlisted, 
 
 Go show us where to die ! 
 
194 POEMS 
 
 SHAKESPERE'S FRIENDS 
 
 FROM TALBOT'S HAWKS. A ROMANCE 
 
 Beneath the roots of these old trees 
 
 That shade the river bends, 
 There lie the buried images 
 
 That once were Shakespere's friends ; 
 As still as in his theatre, 
 
 Beside their thrilling dames, 
 They never stir, beneath the fir. 
 
 That lulls the river James. 
 
 The vine, whose dye of royal red, 
 
 The locust tree ascends. 
 Takes splendor from the perishdd 
 
 That once were Shakespere's friends ; 
 His mind luxuriant seems to bloom, 
 
 His ardent nature flames. 
 And from their charnel sheds perfume 
 
 Along the river James. 
 
 Around their rest no hates endure, 
 
 His noble mind forf ends — 
 The holy rites of Literature 
 
 Were said o'er Shakespere's friends ; 
 They talked the lofty style he wrote 
 
 And coursed heroic fames, 
 And through the Tempest sailed their boat 
 
 Unto the river James. 
 
 These saw the bard a man, hke them. 
 Though so his scope transcends 
 
SONGS OF YOUTH 195 
 
 That we would think his garment's hem 
 Was kissed bj Shakespere's friends ; 
 
 But poor disciple fishermen, 
 That fancy lifts to fames, 
 
 Were no more apostolic, then, 
 
 Than those who fished the James. 
 
 If men would of his Scripture learn 
 
 Life's universal ends, — 
 Bend o'er this old colonial urn, 
 
 That once held Shakespere's friends ! 
 There is for each his own career. 
 
 But dust for all our aims, — 
 Imagination bounds our sphere ; 
 
 Life is the city, James. 
 
 Yet far, afar, dissolving forms 
 
 Will find infinite blends, 
 Like to the moisture in the storms. 
 
 The dew of Shakespere's friends ; 
 The globe, evaporate, goes on, 
 
 Itself the mote reclaims. 
 And nought is lost when all is gone : 
 
 Bloom on ! O city James ! 
 
 SONGS OF YOUTH 
 
 The songs I wrote when I was young, 
 I did not think were good ; 
 
 I sat me down to write some songs, 
 When life was understood. 
 
 But, everywhere, the bright and fair, 
 
196 POEMS 
 
 To my first numbers sprung, — 
 
 They did not want my songs of care, 
 
 But songs I made when young. 
 
 The love I made when I was young, 
 
 Was not love dehonnaire ; 
 I thought love would refine its tongue 
 
 When I could love prepare ; 
 But, everywhere, the bright and fair, 
 
 I, stranger, seemed among ; 
 They did not want my sober air, 
 
 But love I made, when young. 
 
 The travels made when I was young, 
 
 Were not in wisdom's way. 
 Again I travelled in those lands 
 
 In life's meridian day ; 
 But, everywhere, the bright and fair. 
 
 My lonely heartstrings wrung ; 
 My settled thoughts they did not share. 
 
 But thoughts I had, when young. 
 
 Song, Love, and Travel ! ye are young. 
 
 And I am almost old. 
 The golden bell vibrates when rimg, 
 
 The cracked old bell is tolled. 
 Ye young and fair ! my time beware ! 
 
 In morn's bright Arc be swung ! 
 Wait not for evening time to pair, 
 
 Life's life is but life young. 
 
NEW ENGLAND 197 
 
 NEW ENGLAND 
 
 (TO JOHN GODFREY MOORE) 
 
 New England's head is cool, 
 
 Her heart a living spring, 
 Her hand a tempered tool, 
 
 Her throat was made to sing, 
 Her genius comprehends, 
 
 Her habits ever steady, 
 Her means embrace her ends. 
 
 Her spunk is right and ready. 
 
 She did conceive our land 
 
 A Continental nation. 
 She made the mighty stand, 
 
 She forced the Declaration, 
 She gave us clocks to heed. 
 
 She set the West in motion. 
 She made our fathers read, 
 
 Her food fields were the ocean. 
 
 Wherever went her sons 
 
 The mill wheels churned the waters, 
 The spin wheel swifter runs 
 
 For her free-jointed daughters, 
 Her poverty can lend, 
 
 She never is depender, 
 A teacher or a friend 
 
 New England is the lender. 
 
 Who blames her that she strove 
 To be the saint-elected? 
 
198 POEMS 
 
 As from the brain of Jove 
 Minerva was projected? 
 
 Idealist alone, 
 
 She drew her out of Edom ; 
 
 A Book is still her throne, 
 Her influence is Freedom. 
 
 Fatter are others' fields ; 
 
 Her dower is some duty. 
 Her rocky verdure yields 
 
 The most transcendent beauty. 
 Organic as some realm 
 
 And scented like a blossom, 
 Her spread is hke her elm. 
 
 The Mayflower 's in her bosom. 
 
 UNSERVED 
 
 Our nation leads the age 
 
 But every man is drafted. 
 The mighty heritage 
 
 Into our sap is grafted ; 
 We somewhat know our wives 
 
 And know our children's faces 
 And when old age arrives 
 
 We have no resting spaces. 
 
 'Tis money makes our friends, 
 Its want our disconsoling, 
 
 Life's sweet endeavor ends 
 
 When ends our burden-rolling; 
 
 The evening hour is dull, 
 
UNSERVED 199 
 
 'Tis sleep or dissipation, 
 For home life beautiful 
 "We made no preparation. 
 
 The poor they know us not ; 
 
 Our servants haste to leave us ; 
 Our wealth has them forgot, 
 
 Their free-born thoughts perceive us ; 
 Our distance they respect. 
 
 We are our money's sequels, 
 Deserting us, select. 
 
 They seek their hearty equals. 
 
 I think upon a time 
 
 The kitchen was our play-house, 
 The cliimney's whitewashed grime 
 
 'Twixt air and home, half-way house, 
 Our orphan bounden maid 
 
 The sweetheart that we read to. 
 And ere compelled to bed, 
 
 Her loving lap we fled to. 
 
 Her dishes washed, she walked 
 
 Into the high folks' sitting ; 
 She and the old cook talked 
 
 With mother round the knitting ; 
 Our neighbors did not start 
 
 Nor look oui- " help's " demission, — 
 It was as if some heart 
 
 Played shuttle through condition. 
 
 Little we knew that maid 
 Had source so sentimental : 
 
200 POEMS 
 
 Her mother was betrayed, 
 
 Her father was a gentle. 
 Wealth does no more allow 
 
 Those tender patronages, 
 And foreign convicts now 
 
 Eat all our poor folks' wages. 
 
 In outskirt huts I note 
 
 The laborer's straight-limbed daughters. 
 Wild music in their throat, 
 
 And leap of mountain waters ; 
 They never seek his door, — 
 
 The poor, rich man they border, — 
 Both poor and rich are poor. 
 
 Without a Servant order. 
 
 Helpless our lady hears 
 
 Her kitchen tales' distresses. 
 With diamonds in her ears 
 
 And only silken dresses. 
 Untaught with heart to speak, 
 
 In nature's sister spirit, 
 Unto her sex's meek, 
 
 Who shall her earth inherit. 
 
 What patriotic guild. 
 
 Exploiting past condition. 
 Can match the woman-willed 
 
 In wife's or daughter's mission ? — 
 Morgiana to set free, 
 
 'Neath Ali B aba's eaves, 
 Who served the family. 
 
 And boiled the Forty Thieves ? 
 
MOBMON'S OLD WIFE 201 
 
 MORMON'S OLD WIFE 
 
 Abed, and failing and old and gray, 
 
 On the thirtieth morn of her wedding day, — 
 
 First wife in time, but the ninth in number, 
 Old Betsy Perkins awoke from slumber ; 
 
 And she heard the bells of Salt Lake shedding 
 Their melody, over her husband's wedding ! 
 
 This morn he wedded the tenth young spouse, 
 In the cloisters of the Endowment House ; 
 
 One fair enough midst the daughters of men, 
 To make an old man gallant again ; 
 
 For he in the church was a reigning star. 
 One of the Twelve and a Counsellor, 
 
 And many missions had made him wise, 
 
 And deepened the lights in his handsome eyes. 
 
 While she, bedridden, with babes and cares, 
 Lost the rose from her cheeks and the brown from 
 her hairs ; 
 
 Lost hope and husband, and all but belief 
 In the church of the Saints and the might of its 
 chief. 
 
 And the wedding bells were strong and sharp 
 As arrows shot from the chords of a harp. 
 
202 POEMS 
 
 Ah ! tenderer bells had pealed for her 
 That wedding morn in Exeter, 
 
 When in the Parish Church she stood, 
 Upon the threshold of womanhood. 
 
 And trustfully, heartily, gave her all 
 
 To the strong young blacksmith, frank and tall ; — 
 
 His silver watch his thrift confessed ; 
 
 A nosegay smartly bloomed on his breast ; 
 
 His Cornish accent, deep and queer, 
 
 Like Psalmist's melody thrilled on her ear ; 
 
 Of reverent mind and serious fashion. 
 
 His love had something more than passion ; — 
 
 And she felt on his broad breast, anchored fast, 
 The peace that understanding passed. 
 
 Now over her grey, adob^ home, 
 
 The Wahsatch mountains, dome on dome, 
 
 Alone kept sentry ; their snowy spears 
 Had changed no feature in twenty years — 
 
 The rills that babbled about her lot 
 Talked cold in the orchards of apricot ; 
 
 And her sight grew dim in the lonely days, 
 Like the vale of Deseret lost m the haze. 
 
 Alone, neglected, her daughters the prize 
 Of solemn Bishops and " Seventies " ; 
 
MORMO:S''S OLD WIFE 203 
 
 Her sons engrossed in their wives and farms 
 And her husband sealed in a maiden's arms, 
 
 She cried, " Oh ! blessed Master above ! 
 This morn of my weddmg I perish for love ! 
 
 " I am chill and blind. Let me lean once more 
 On the breast that received me so gladly of yore ! 
 
 " If ever my heart cried its pain and hmiger. 
 
 To see him look down m the eyes of one younger, 
 
 " Or uttered my crushed love's agony 
 
 To hear, oft repeated, the vow made to me, 
 
 " When happy in girlhood my bridegroom stood by 
 
 me, 
 This prayer of my old age, my Saviour ! deny me ! 
 
 " Not all, but a moment of love I entreat. 
 
 To hear on my thi-eshold the soimd of his feet, 
 
 " To hide on his bosom, and die on his kiss — 
 Oh, Jesus ! thou comforter, grant me but this ! " 
 
 The light on the mountains grew dark as she spake, 
 And the rills of the canons that ran to the lake ; 
 
 As cold as the Jordan in winter, the room. 
 And like snow on the fire died her hope in the 
 gloom. 
 
 But a hand like a lover's she felt in her palm 
 And a voice that was healing, spoke out of the 
 calm: 
 
204 POEMS 
 
 " Oh, weaiy and laden one, come unto Me I 
 Your prayer it is answered ; your love you shall 
 see." 
 
 By the bedside, all brightness, One beautiful, stood, 
 But the prints on His feet and His side were like 
 blood. 
 
 But like the ideal she had wept to embrace, 
 
 The groom of her gii-lhood He seemed by His face. 
 
 And she cried : " O, my lost one, for absence aton- 
 ing, 
 
 You have suffered like me, you have bled without 
 moaning ! 
 
 " Oh, tarry a day, ere forever we part ; 
 For the bliss of your coming brings death to my 
 heart ! " 
 
 Then it seemed that the cot and the mountains 
 
 sank do'^Ti, 
 And the stai-s thronging round, hid the lights of the 
 
 town; 
 
 But her fears were assuaged on the breast of her 
 
 choice, 
 "And the comfort, unspeakable, borne on His voice : 
 
 " Oh, soul-seeking love ! to requite for thy loss. 
 In the sight of my mother, I wedded the cross, 
 
 And espoused in my pain, wdth my arms opened 
 
 wide ; 
 The old and neglected, by men cast aside ! " 
 
IWBMON'S OLD WIFE 205 
 
 John Perkins, Apostle, as seldom of late. 
 Came up to old Betsy's and opened the gate. 
 
 He stole through the orchard, passed softly the 
 
 door. 
 And set his great basket of gifts on the floor ; 
 
 There lay on the cot, with her face to the South, 
 The wife of his youth with a smile round her 
 mouth ; 
 
 The smile that she wore in her freshness of charms. 
 When he woke in the morn and she slept in his 
 arms; 
 
 Like the light on Twin Peaks, when the day lin- 
 gers low. 
 It lay 'neath her white hair sand tinted their snow : 
 
 Recognition of love everlasting it spake, 
 When father and mother and husband forsake. 
 
 " Oh, Gentiles ! " cried Perkins, and knelt by place, 
 "Can your wives die like ours with a smile on 
 their face ? 
 
 " O women ! who yield up all heaven for a kiss ! 
 Ye pity our old wives, who slumber like this ! " 
 
 Salt Lake, 1871. 
 
206 POEMS 
 
 HARPER'S FERRY SUNSET 
 
 Rosy glow the rugged heights 
 
 Half way up the mountain hole, 
 As sunset o'er the funnel, lights 
 
 With wine, the grand communion bowl ; 
 'Twixt farther peaks Potomac's sheet 
 
 In pale wide bays extends its floss, 
 These and the sky seem hands and feet 
 
 "When stretched the Saviour on the cross ; 
 Rock bars, the scars of civil wars. 
 
 Like music scales on rift and ridge, 
 Sing of the Sunday when the cars 
 
 Stopped, like an organ, on the bridge : 
 His gallows' beams o'ertop the town. 
 
 The mountains, only, hanged John Brown. 
 
 Name so lowly, sponsored never, 
 
 Parent of his mighty thought. 
 Rhapsody was his endeavor, 
 
 Like Prometheus he fought. 
 Nothing since has here abided 
 
 But the^spell of Nature's spasm, 
 He the scenery divided 
 
 And his spectre fills the chasm. 
 Armorers and all their din, 
 
 Feudal times, he gathered in ; 
 Him suspended, when he went. 
 
 He suspended government ! 
 As a whirlpool leaves a tragic 
 
 Rift aghast where it sucked down, 
 In the camera of magic 
 
 Swims thy maelstrom face, old Brown ! 
 
HEB FIBST GLASSES 207 
 
 HER FIRST GLASSES 
 
 " I CANNOT see," my lady writes ; 
 " Get glasses for my blinded sights ! " 
 The plaintive cry brings tears to me 
 That those bright orbs no longer see. 
 
 A centurj^'s third has o'er us past, 
 Since childliood's eyes to eyes we cast, — 
 Her eyes so black, my eyes so grey, — 
 They looked the love we dared not say. 
 
 Those glorious eyes beamed in my soul 
 And warmed my blood beyond control, 
 O'er lands, o'er seas, they softly shone, 
 I fled, I plead, — they were my own. 
 
 And all our children bore her eyes ; 
 Some look down on me from the skies ; 
 Some watch me in this human wild. 
 And some in children of our child. 
 
 Those radiant lenses, fading some, 
 Tell years autumnal almost come, 
 I feel remorse to hear her plea : 
 " Give me my eyes to look on Thee ! " 
 
 The faithful service rises up, 
 It fills my eyes, it fills my cup, 
 It puts my small complaints to rest ; 
 I only feel I have been blest : 
 
 One gentle being lived for me. 
 Looked on me long as she could see, 
 And will look on me from the skies. 
 With love eternal in her eyes. 
 
208 POEMS 
 
 BESSIE 
 
 Bless her heart ! I see her shake 
 All the lawn weeds from her rake, 
 In her home she seems to take 
 Such a comfort, such a care, 
 As if these old mountain fields 
 Were her precious annual yields, 
 And her back theii* warrior shields, 
 Like the children she did bear. 
 
 Now the peach tree boughs she strips. 
 Now her flower borders clips : 
 These are the same earnest lips. 
 Thirty years and three agone, 
 That to me in beauty came, 
 Fearing not my fiery flame. 
 Sinking in my name her name — 
 That dear lady on the lawn. 
 
 Dihgence was all her art, 
 Open as the day her heart, 
 Nothing subtle, double, smart — 
 Now I know it, now I weep ; 
 For her hair is growing grey. 
 And I feel some lonely day, 
 None will rake the spring-time hay, 
 Where she lowly lies asleep. 
 
 But no rust is in her hair, 
 In her hands or anywhere ; 
 Like some gold-piece lost by wear, 
 She has wasted grain by grain. 
 
MAEY WASHINGTON 209 
 
 After her will live her fruit, 
 May they get her tireless foot ! 
 There can be no dust nor soot 
 In the orbit of that brain. 
 
 MARY WASHINGTON 
 
 READ AT HER MONUMENT'S DEDICATION, FREDERICKS- 
 BURG, VA., MAY 10, 1894 
 
 The Rappahannock ran in the reign of good Queen 
 Anne, 
 All townless from the mountains to the sea, 
 Old Jamestown was forlorn and King Williams- 
 burg scarce born — 
 'Twas the year of Blenheim's victory, 
 Whose trumpets died away in far Virginia 
 
 On the cabin of an old tobacco farm, 
 Where a planter's little wife to a little girl gave 
 life 
 And the fire in the chimney made it warm. 
 
 It was little Mary Ball, and she had no fame at all, 
 
 But the world was all the same as if she had ; 
 For she had the right to breathe and to tottle and 
 to teethe. 
 And to love some other cunning little lad : 
 Though he proved a widower, it was all the same 
 to her. 
 For he gave her many a daughter and a son. 
 And the family was large and the oldest, little 
 George, 
 Was the hope of little Widow Washington. 
 
210 POEMS 
 
 That name resounded not in the time we have 
 forgot, 
 It was nothmg more than Smith or Jones or Ball ; 
 And George's big half brothers had the call on 
 their stepmother's 
 Affection, like the babes of her own stall ; 
 They paid the larger taxes and the Ayletts and 
 Fairfaxes 
 Received them in their families and lands, 
 While the widow thought upon it, as she rode in 
 her sunbonnet. 
 Midst her slaves who tilled her gulleys and her 
 sands ; 
 
 Till they sought to take her George upon the royal 
 barge. 
 And give him a commission and a crest, 
 When her heart cried out " O, no ! something says 
 he must not go ; 
 My first born is a father to the rest." 
 She could find him little schooling, but he did not 
 learn much fooling, 
 And he dragged the mountains o'er with chain 
 and rod. 
 The Blue Ridge was his cover and the Indian his 
 lover 
 And his Duty was his Sovereign and God. 
 
 Still her rival in his heart was the Military art, 
 
 And the epaulettes she dreaded still were there. 
 There are households still where glory is a broken- 
 hearted story, 
 
MARY WASHINGTON 211 
 
 And the drum is a mockery and snare. 
 From the far-off Barbadoes, from the yell of 
 Frenchmen foes, 
 From the ghosts of Braddock's unavailing strife, 
 She beheld her boy return and his bridal candles 
 burn, 
 And a widow like herself become his wife. 
 
 By Potomac's pleasant tide he was settled with his 
 bride. 
 Overseeing horses, hounds and cocks and wards, 
 And it seemed but second nature to go to the 
 legislature 
 And play his hand at politics and cards ; 
 Three-score-and-ten had come when the widow 
 heard the drum : 
 " My God ! " she cried, " what demon is at 
 large ? " 
 'Tis the conflict with the King, 'tis two worlds a 
 mustering. 
 And the call of Duty comes to mother's George. 
 
 " O war ! To plague me so ! Must my first born 
 ever go ? " 
 The answer is the bugle and the gun. 
 The town fills up again with the horse of Mercer's 
 men. 
 And the name they call aloud is " Washington." 
 In the long, distracting years none may count the 
 widow's tears ; 
 She is banished o'er the mountains from her farm ; 
 She is old and lives with strangers, while ride wide 
 the King's red rangers. 
 
212 POEMS 
 
 And the only word is " Arm ! " and " Arm ! " 
 and " Arm ! " 
 
 "Come home and see your son, the immortal 
 Washington ! 
 He has beat the King and mighty Cornwallis ! " 
 They crowd her little door and she sees her boy 
 once more, 
 But there is no glory in him like his kiss. 
 The Marquises and Dukes, in their orders and 
 perukes. 
 The Aids-de-camp,' the Generals and all. 
 Stand by to see and listen how her aged eyes will 
 glisten 
 To hear from him the tale of Yorktown's fall. 
 
 Upon that her lips are dumb to the trumpet and 
 the drum ; 
 All their pageantry is vanity and stuff. 
 So he leans upon her breast she cares nothing for 
 the rest — 
 It is he and that is victory enough ! 
 In the Hfe that mothers give is their thirst that 
 man shall live 
 And the species never lose the legacy, 
 To love again on earth and repeat the wondrous 
 birth — 
 That is gloiy — that is immortality. 
 
 Unto Fredericksburg at last, when her four-score 
 years are past. 
 Now gray himself, he rides all night to say : 
 
WAE GOBBESPONDENTS' MEMOBIAL 213 
 
 "Madame — mother — ere I went, to become the 
 President, 
 I have come to kiss you till another day." 
 " No, George ; the sight of thee, which I can hardly 
 see. 
 Is all, for all — good-by ! I can be brave. 
 Fulfill your great career as I have fulfilled my 
 sphere ! 
 My station can be nothing but the grave." 
 
 The mother's love sank down, and its sunset on 
 his crown 
 Shone like the dying beams of perfect day. 
 He has none like her to mix in . the draught of 
 politics 
 The balm that softens injury away. 
 But he was his mother's son till his weary race 
 was done ; 
 Her gravity, her peace, her golden mean. 
 Shed on the State the good of her sterling woman- 
 hood, 
 And like her own was George's closing scene. 
 
 WAR CORRESPONDENTS' MEMORIAL 
 
 (-AT GAPLAND, MD., 1896) 
 
 Arch aerial, view ethereal. 
 
 Sky and stars and moonlit cloud. 
 
 Harvest fields of golden cereal, 
 
 Rainbow on the mountains bowed ; 
 
 Mountain ridges stepped like bridges, 
 
214 POEMS 
 
 O'er the rich campagna vale ; 
 Stonn which marches with lightning torches 
 
 Firing volleys of bullet hail ; 
 Windstorm boreal, rainstorm oriel, 
 
 Snow pictorial on knob and town — 
 All are revealed through our Memorial, 
 
 Grim as a cyclop staring down. 
 
 Born so rigid, stony and frigid. 
 
 Moor and Roman it must be. 
 Long erected, a gate dissected 
 
 From some castle's feudality ; 
 Or set in the passes, where saying masses, 
 
 Pilgrims, crusaders, kneeling them, 
 Gazed and trembled, with undissembled 
 
 Joy, in the sight of Jerusalem. 
 Vale of Catoctin, like jewels locked in 
 
 An azure casket, flash thy lights ! 
 Like the Escorial, our Memorial 
 
 Guards them all from the mountain heights. 
 
 Yawning fortalice, tliine the portal is 
 
 Freedom opened with her pen. 
 When the valley so musically 
 
 Pealed with bugles of armed men ; 
 Walls of mountain burst with a fountain, 
 
 Smitten from rock by our Moses, 
 Frowning height arched with the light, 
 
 Bloomed the Bastile into roses. 
 Prison and light, ruin and right, 
 
 Show in the gap, grhn and lean ; 
 Homely, manorial, our Memorial 
 
 Witnesses what it has seen. 
 
ff 
 
 ■*,^f\--~'\^J 
 
 
 WaK COUUESl-OXDEXTS' MiCMOKIAL AUCH, FUOM THE EAST 
 
NEWS AND LOVE 215 
 
 Windows stand triple, each of them typal, 
 
 Each an evangel's page white ; 
 One is Depiction, one is Description, 
 
 One is Photography's hght. 
 These in acclivity, arch on activity, 
 
 Horse-shod the Centaur uprears ; 
 Unicorn-towered, forest embowered, 
 
 Sun dial, sentry of years ; 
 Letters amidst the arms, history o'er the farms, 
 
 Socketing moon and the stars, 
 High and pictorial, our Memorial 
 
 Tells of the tellers of wars ! 
 
 NEWS AND LOVE 
 
 1862. 
 
 The fight just done, I snatched my notes, 
 While Jack, my gelding, ate his oats. 
 And ran my chance without a guard. 
 And for Pamunkey I rode hard ; 
 What made me want to leave the camps, 
 
 And beat the mail with what I penned? 
 It was not glory and not " stamps " ; 
 
 It was my girl at the other end. 
 
 I wound the oaks and pines among 
 And felt so buoyant and so young. 
 You would not think I had a list 
 Of dead and wounded in my fist ; 
 What said those sweet birds in the brush ? 
 Why made that squirrel seem my friend ? 
 
216 POEMS 
 
 What made my nag so gaily push ? 
 It was my girl at the other end. 
 
 Last night our flanks the rebels turned ; 
 I see the sutlers' wagons burned, 
 The sunken sloops at Putneys see — 
 It was Jeb. Stuart's cavalry ! 
 What makes me out alone so far ? 
 
 (I may to Libby prison wend !) 
 You bet your life it is not war ! 
 
 It is my girl at the other end. 
 
 And now I reach the morning boat, 
 The large lump passes from my throat, 
 The crooked river glides so flat, 
 While I am writing on my hat ; 
 And when I sign my name below 
 
 I hope to kiss it one will tend ? 
 Is it the Public ? Buncombe ! No ; 
 
 It is that girl at the other end. 
 
 I change my boat ; I vault ashore 
 
 The second morn at Baltimore, 
 
 And make such steps, 'twould shame a stork. 
 
 To catch the first train for New York ; 
 
 Why do I toil and amplify. 
 
 And style and matter so much mend ? 
 'Tis for the pride in her black eye — 
 
 The one dear girl at the other end ! 
 
 The " 0£Qce " makes for me a stir, 
 Up to the managing editor ; 
 They say it was a real " beat," 
 
SNOWFALL AT NIGHT 21T 
 
 And I must rest and clothe and eat ; 
 Though grateful all these praises be, 
 
 Why do I want one gentle friend 
 To put the crown of love on me ? — 
 
 That one dear girl, at the other end ! 
 
 SNOWFALL AT NIGHT 
 
 GAPLAXD OR CRAMrTOX'S GAP 
 
 The fire of forest wood 
 
 My mountain woodlands grew, 
 Warms my thin winter's blood 
 
 And boils the tempting brew. 
 I hear the farmer's sleisrh 
 
 Come to ray hermit's den ; 
 The sleighbell's roundelay 
 
 Makes my heart young again. 
 
 They let the snowdrift in, 
 
 iNIy study's light streams out ; 
 Spirits in raiment thin 
 
 Are whiskering about ; 
 The old wives' cheeks are roses, 
 
 The young wife's eyes are spells. 
 The farmer's heart jocose is 
 
 And every voice has bells. 
 
 Like Santa Claus' party 
 
 They muffle up and go, 
 Their bells, their good night hearty 
 
 Melt in the falling snow ; 
 
218 POEMS 
 
 And as I read my history 
 Of Northern hosts at Rome, 
 
 White camps in silent mystery, 
 Are pitched around my home. 
 
 At morn I look in wonder : 
 
 The argent valleys shine 
 'Twixt mountains drawn asunder, — 
 
 Potosi's sUver mine. 
 Blue woods, in plumage hoary, 
 
 Descend from peaceful skies, 
 A seraph host of story 
 
 Set guard on Paradise. 
 
 One crow like Satan croaking 
 
 Flaps o'er the saintly plan, 
 This silver shield no joking 
 
 When he would blacken man ; 
 The rabbit's feet wide springing, 
 
 His burrow would conceal. 
 That tell-tale snowbirds, singing, 
 
 Unto the dogs reveal. 
 
 The roofs are sheets of paper, 
 
 My doves their loving crest ; 
 With lace some subtle draper 
 
 (And bridal wreaths) has dressed 
 The vines, the weeds, the sedges ; 
 
 In filigree so light. 
 The quail his covey fledges. 
 
 And truly calls " Bob White." 
 
SNOWFALL AT NIGHT 219 
 
 The mountain laurel's stringers 
 
 Are chased in silver net, — 
 The peach tree's baby fingers 
 
 Wear mits of fairy fret, 
 Like woodmen's blows with axes. 
 
 The starving crows at morn, 
 Caw on their withheld taxes. 
 
 Due from the farmer's corn. 
 
 Still as the meteor falling 
 
 Across the disc of night. 
 These few strong sounds are calling 
 
 Adown earth's urn of white ; 
 Like marble statuary 
 
 The noble landscapes stand 
 In one grand cemetery. 
 
 Above a hero-land. 
 
 Of old Antietam's story, 
 
 The sculptor of the snow 
 Carves out the allegory. 
 
 Like Michael Angelo : 
 These peaks of alabaster 
 
 Entomb the scene of peace. 
 Where Pollux fought with Castor, 
 
 And Freedom came to Greece. 
 
220 FOEMS 
 
 DELAWARE POEMS 
 
 GEORGETOWN 
 
 DELAWARE 
 
 Between the Indian River, that of the ocean tastes, 
 
 And springs that seek the Nanticoke tlirough sandy- 
 forest wastes, 
 
 And mill-ponds that in mighty swamps the buried 
 timber soak. 
 
 And deluge all the cypress lands to gain the Poco- 
 moke, 
 
 The court-house village cleaves a space and little 
 has to spare — 
 
 So many miles, by statute, from each and every- 
 where. 
 
 The houses are of shingle, and gardens hem them 
 round. 
 
 Lean grow the elms and maples about the court- 
 house ground, 
 
 And in the public corner, like some old town- 
 pump's ghost. 
 
 The chicken thief of moonhght observes the whip- 
 ping-post, — 
 
 He who has clasped it fondly knew not, I fear me, 
 then, 
 
 It was a peaceful heirloom from gracious William 
 Penn. 
 
GEOBGETOWN 221 
 
 No house is so forsaken the chickens are not there, 
 Tax dogs, tax hogs, but mulct ye not the hens of 
 
 Delaware ! 
 They won the mains at Valley Forge, and should 
 
 be quartered now 
 Upon the ancient arms of State beside the brindled 
 
 cow. 
 Let mountain people eagles love and on their 
 
 standards plant 'em. 
 The bird of Sussex fights or fries — it is the azure 
 
 bantam. 
 
 Around the stores to empty carts the yokes of oxen 
 stand, 
 
 Or drag the knees and keels of ships from saw- 
 mills close at hand ; 
 
 The solemn bank is locked at noon to let the 
 CrcESus dine, 
 
 And grave old county clerks come forth to tipple 
 apple wine. 
 
 Not unobserved their noses bloom, for at the win- 
 dow blinds. 
 
 Old ladies sit the whole day long of criticising 
 minds. 
 
 With sheriffs' sales and country studs the tavern 
 
 walls are filled, 
 And, save in the election heats, all politics is 
 
 stilled ; 
 Then nature to disorder runs, society to fear, 
 Lest Jones or Smith might get a place worth ninety 
 
 pounds a year. 
 
222 POEMS 
 
 So old they grow by quiet lives, the graveyard fills 
 
 but slow, 
 And only age and infancy upon the tombstones 
 
 show. 
 
 Old lawyers to their students speak when evening 
 
 comes apace. 
 Of many a mighty advocate in many a storied 
 
 case — 
 How Robert Frame took but a dram to make him- 
 
 seK austere, 
 And John M. Clayton got a fee would keep a man 
 
 a year. 
 The church bell sounds at twilight, and shadows 
 
 cross the square. 
 Young couples full of wedlock and widows full of 
 
 prayer. 
 
 The peach trees grapple with the pines and drive 
 
 the forest back, 
 And move to town the teams of fruit o'er many a 
 
 woodland track; 
 Far cities stretch their hands to take the crimson 
 
 harvest in, 
 And bribe the negro to release his haul of terrapin. 
 The perch in all the inlets run, the crabs unslip 
 
 their shells, 
 And deep in sweet potato vines the heifers clink 
 
 their bells. 
 
 Then, when the fodder of the corn is bundled in 
 the stack, 
 
GEORGETOWN 223 
 
 And through the turning autumn leaves the mill- 
 ponds glisten black, 
 
 The hunting dogs grow restive and round their 
 masters pant — 
 
 They sniff the odor of the quail, the flavor of the 
 brant. 
 
 And bid adieu by half the town, some one old lady 
 starts 
 
 By railroad to the city to see the styles and arts. 
 
 Now, chuckling low of winter nights beside his 
 office fire, 
 
 The old Recorder reads the wills of many a family 
 sire, 
 
 Who made his mark and left a sow to several 
 various heirs, 
 
 And had the barrow slaughtered to pay for funeral 
 prayers. 
 
 "Ho! ho!" he quoth, "how some proud heads 
 would never bow to me. 
 
 If ever they should know I poked about their fam- 
 ily tree ! " 
 
 And level as the sandy land is human life diffused ; 
 
 To preacher turns the stricken lad a maiden has 
 refused ; 
 
 A little lawsuit with its cares the rival homesteads 
 haunts, 
 
 And hastens to untimely graves the aged litigants ; 
 
 So are the years repeated, as tell an ancient few. 
 
 Since Lewes lost the court-house, soon after Ninety- 
 Two. 
 
224 POEMS 
 
 So life moves on from year to year, unstirred by 
 
 fears or schisms, 
 And old men read their Bibles and nurse their 
 
 rheumatisms ; 
 The moss grows on some older roof, familiar signs 
 
 grow dim. 
 Or from a venerable tree falls some decrepit limb. 
 So still it is, I almost hear the cry I raised, that 
 
 morn. 
 When here, past thirty years ago, my mother's son 
 
 was born. 
 1876. 
 
 SWEDE AND INDIAN CANTICO 
 
 1638 
 
 Little Minqua girl on the Christine kill ! 
 
 Go get your sisters five 
 And stand them here twixt the kill and the hill, 
 
 Till the boatswain pipes alive ! 
 Then, whistle, my Jack ! and fiddle, Mynheer ! 
 
 Till the Minqua girl so neat. 
 Can not stand still for the Uttle brown ear 
 That tells such tunes to her feet ! 
 
 Then whistle, my Jack ! and fiddle Mynheer ! 
 
 And the brandy wine kag tip more ! 
 The Minqua maid is my little brown dear, — 
 The Swede man's happy ashore ! 
 
 The Kalmar Nyckel's a right fine ship. 
 
 The Vogel Gripen's fast. 
 But the Minqua girl has a cherry lip 
 
DOVER 225 
 
 And a lean like tlie vessel's mast ; 
 Then whistle, my Jack ! and fiddle, Mynheer ! 
 
 Till the Minqua girl so young, 
 Shall feel no man but the Swede man near, 
 And teach him the Minqua tongue I 
 
 Then whistle, my Jack I and fiddle, MjTiheer ! 
 
 And the brandywine kag tip more ! 
 The Mmqua maid is my little fawn deer, — 
 The Swede man's happy ashore ! 
 
 I love our queen, the little Christine, 
 
 Nor Stockholm's lassies slur. 
 But the Minqua girl has the red doe's lean, 
 
 And the sleek of the beaver fur ; 
 Then whistle, my Jack ! and fiddle. Mynheer ! 
 
 Till we fire the Kalmar's gun 
 And the Minqua girl runs away with fear 
 In the woods where is venison ! 
 
 Then whistle, my Jack I and fiddle, Mynheer ! 
 
 And the brandywine kag tip more ! 
 The Minqua maid is my little game deer, — 
 The Swede man's happy ashore I 
 
 DOVER 
 
 DELAWARE 
 
 In a bracket mortised. 
 Like a bust with fractured head 
 Of some lady dehcate. 
 Stands the Delawarean State. 
 
226 POEMS 
 
 Counties, three, are all her own, 
 Rismg like a triple stone ; 
 Down her profile like her hair 
 Showers the golden Delaware. 
 
 In her lids, retiring shy, 
 BroAvn Newcastle is her eye ; 
 In the ocean's ewer thrust 
 Rosy Lewes tips her bust. 
 
 In her throat's slim mterval 
 Dover is her capital, 
 Like a modest brooch within 
 Velvet recess of her chin. 
 
 From its agate to the bay 
 Ribbons a soft creek away. 
 Through the lotos lily ponds 
 And the marshes' diamonds. 
 
 Humid in the groves it stands, 
 Like some town in Netherlands, 
 Rising steepled o'er the fen, — 
 A mirage of Hindlopen. 
 
 As within the locket's lid 
 Him, the lady loved, is hid, 
 Delaware, her face demure, 
 Shows in Dover's miniature : 
 
 Edmond Andi'os wigged so grand, 
 Francis Lovelace granting land. 
 Royal York and William Pemi 
 And the Calvert gentlemen. 
 
BOVEB 227 
 
 While the Dutchman trapped for furs, 
 Here were glebe and worshippers 
 Whilst the separate State began, 
 In the fresh years of Queen Anne. 
 
 And the sheriff set his stocks 
 In St. Jones's splatterdocks ; 
 When its rent it would not pay 
 The Assembly drove away. 
 
 In his marshes wrote with grace, 
 By his cornered fire-place, 
 Dickinson, with eagle wing, 
 " Farmer's Letters " for the King. 
 
 Here the bell, like falchion keen. 
 Rang the soldiers to the green, 
 Who, erewhile, to court had come 
 At the beating of the drum. 
 
 Like a trumpet of his Lord's, 
 Guarded by the gentry's swords. 
 Preached the schoolhouse steps upon 
 " Tory " Freeborn Garrettson. 
 
 Barratt's chapel was the lists, 
 Where old Wesley's Methodists 
 Bishops did themselves create , 
 In a new Episcopate. 
 
 Whatcoat's grave is in the town. 
 Bassett, convert of renown, 
 (Landed statesman in the strife,) 
 Bayard gave his child to wife. 
 
228 POEMS 
 
 Found by Presbyterian kirks 
 Are the heroes and their works, 
 With the Irish and the Scot 
 And their kindred Huguenot. 
 
 Every nook its own equips, — 
 Jones, McDonough fought their ships 
 With the country-hearted air 
 Breathed in sylvan Delaware. 
 
 h\ke the gamecock first to crow, 
 While imperial states were slow, 
 Delaware her blessing sent 
 To a Federal government. 
 
 Count de Segur bringing gold, 
 Peeped on Dover's sleep, and told ; 
 Marshal Grouchy, gunning thi-ough, 
 Shot more than at Waterloo. 
 
 Through our borders making tours, 
 Here came Du Pont de Nemours, 
 With his sons Lavoisier taught 
 To make powder full of thought. 
 
 Straight as it were almost new. 
 The cool house of Quaker Chew 
 Echoes more than war's renown 
 Round his hall at Germantown ; 
 
 Not his daughters, royal fine. 
 Not his old Madeira wine. 
 But all filial war's surcease : 
 Clayton's, Bulwer's solemn peace. 
 
DOVEB 229 
 
 Clayton to young Fisher there 
 Told the lore of Delaware ; 
 Local-hearted was his breast 
 As the fishhawk to its nest. 
 
 Bayards four, to Senates sent, 
 From the rented State house went. 
 Cross the square, unspeaking, three 
 Rival brothers Saulsbury ! 
 
 Who shall know a maerazine 
 Crept to print on Dover green? 
 Or that Smithers, lawyer prim. 
 Here composed in Latin hymn ? 
 
 Or that jurist Ridgelys sank 
 Sterling talents in a bank ? 
 And, her Blue Hen's chickens canned, 
 Dover gave the world her brand. 
 
 Surgery its native realms 
 Founded under Dover elms 
 And, its green retreats within. 
 Letters gave to medicine.^ 
 
 Delaware's tranquil increase 
 Comes from times of Prince Maurice, 
 Fragment of their souls' concern — 
 Grotius and Oxenstiern. 
 
 Down her creek ports from the ways 
 Glide her sloops, where cattle graze, 
 
 1 Doctors James Sykes and Edward Miller, 1799. 
 
230 POEMS 
 
 Ever fattening, never gone, 
 
 On Van Rembrandt's river lawn. 
 
 Jurisprudence of its courts 
 Dignified by its reports ; 
 By its Senators sustained 
 The equality it gained. 
 
 Not the fractious rights of States 
 Riots in her water gates ; 
 Kirtled in her slender zone, 
 Daughter of our Union. 
 
 Ancient blendings in her type 
 Give her beauty rare and ripe, 
 All of Europe's races born 
 In the orient of her morn. 
 
 Wanton cities spoil her not ; 
 Like her peach and apricot. 
 She, within her little tree. 
 Has the orchard's luxury. 
 
 LAND OF NO ACCOUNT 
 
 A TOAST to them the sage contemn, 
 
 As only fit for pelf : 
 Here's to the State of people great 
 
 That never knew itself ! 
 We never knew our statesmen true, 
 
 Our quorums and our twelves, 
 Our senators and congressmen — 
 
 They never knew themselves. 
 
LAND OF NO ACCOUNT 231 
 
 The traveled prig whose soul was big — 
 
 That patronizing elf — 
 The college sprig, saw through his wig 
 
 The State knew not itself. 
 We humble fools, a million schools 
 
 Made of us reading elves ; 
 We sat on stools, we plied our tools, 
 
 We never knew ourselves. 
 
 We had no lords, we wore no swords, 
 
 Not Ghiblin nor yet Guelf, 
 Our parent fount of no account 
 
 We never knew ourself ; 
 More wooden we in company 
 
 Than our good axes' helves, 
 We read our fate not to be great 
 
 And never knew ourselves. 
 
 Yet still we grew, as simples do, 
 
 And wealth was on our shelf ; 
 From sea to sea all folks were free, — 
 
 Our neighbor was ourself. 
 " See yonder lout ! ' He comes not out. 
 
 He dickers and he delves ; 
 Let's smite his hip, blow up his ship ! " — 
 
 They never knew ourselves. 
 
 To farthest world our shots are hurled — 
 
 Old Spain has dug her delf — 
 Hapsburgers great! Beware the state 
 
 That never knew itself ! 
 Lest if we quit our humble wit — 
 
232 POEMS 
 
 The dry goods on our shelves — 
 All hell may feel our home-made steel 
 And we may know ourselves ! 
 
 THE OREGON 
 
 I AM coming, Uncle Sam ! 
 And a little sore I am ; 
 Twelve thousand miles of palm, 
 Through tropics twain, I trode, 
 From my own golden gate 
 Down past Magellan's Strait, 
 And round the Horn Avith freight, 
 Precious load. 
 
 Four hundred sons of mine 
 From the groves of giant pine, 
 The vineyards of the vine, 
 The mountain and the dall. 
 They come along with me 
 Their Uncle Sam to see ; 
 Oh, next time, let it be 
 By canal ! 
 
 We outsailed Captain Cook 
 And Sinbad in the book; 
 Our steel frames never shook, 
 For our smiths we swore upon ; 
 The Stars and Stripes they blew 
 Past the Incas of Peru, 
 And the Patagonian knew 
 Oregon. 
 
THE OBEGON 233 
 
 No cable of our own 
 Spoke in our uncle's tone ; 
 All voiceless and alone, 
 Deep laden with our guns, 
 We slipped the Spaniard's snares 
 In the Bay of Buenos Ayres 
 By the good saint in our prayers — 
 Washington. 
 
 They gave us right good will, 
 The Repubhc of Brazil ; 
 Of fuel we took fill, 
 And out again we wheeled ; 
 The Equator it was hot, 
 But we never slacked our trot. 
 To reach that hotter spot — 
 Battlefield. 
 
 The Amazon's wide mouth, 
 We crossed its burning drouth, 
 Left Orinoco south 
 And all the brood of Spain's ; 
 Till the air it seemed our own, 
 And the stars were purer sown, 
 And we felt our native zone 
 In our veins. 
 
 They may waylay us yet, 
 But the world will not forget 
 What workmanship we set, 
 That could stand this mighty trip ; 
 It will fear our Arts afar 
 
234 POEMS 
 
 More than our guns of war, 
 And the ship shall be our star : 
 Workmanship. 
 1898. 
 
 THE CIRCUIT PREACHER 
 
 His thin wife's cheek grows pinched and pale with 
 anxiousness intense ; 
 
 He sees the brethren's prayerful eyes o'er all the 
 conference ; 
 
 He hears the Bishop slowly call the long "Ap- 
 pointment" rolls, 
 
 Where in his vineyard God would place these 
 gatherers of souls. 
 
 Apart, austere, the knot of grim Presiding Elders 
 
 sit; 
 He wonders if some city " Charge " may not for 
 
 him have writ ? 
 Certes ! could they his sermon hear on Paul and 
 
 Luke awreck, 
 Then had his talent ne'er been hid on Annomessix 
 
 Neck! 
 
 Poor rugged heart ! be still a pause, and you, worn 
 wife be meek ! 
 
 Two years of banishment they read far down the 
 Chesapeake ! 
 
 Though Brother Bates, less eloquent, by Wilming- 
 ton is wooed, 
 
 The Lord that counts the sparrows fall shall feed 
 liis little brood. 
 
ClKCXIT PKEACllEK AM> W IFE : THE AlTHOK's PAKENTS 
 
OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
THE CIECUIT PEEACHEE 235 
 
 " Cheer up, my girl I Here Brother Riggs our cir- 
 cuit knows 'twill please. 
 
 He raised thi-ee hundred dollars there, besides the 
 marriage fees. 
 
 What ! tears from us who preached the word these 
 thirty years or so ? 
 
 Two years on barren Chincoteague, and two in 
 Tuckahoe ? 
 
 " The schools are good, the brethren say, and our 
 
 Church holds the wheel ; 
 The Presbyterians lost their house ; the Baptists 
 
 lost their zeal. 
 The parsonage is clean and dry ; the town has 
 
 friendly folk, — 
 Not as Rehoboth half so dull, nor proud like Poco- 
 
 moke. 
 
 " Oh ! thy just will, our Lord ! be done, though 
 
 these eight seasons more, 
 We see our ague-crippled boys pine on the Eastern 
 
 Shore, 
 Wliile we, thy steward, journey out our dedicated 
 
 years 
 Midst foresters of Nanticoke, or heathen of Tan- 
 
 giers ! 
 
 " Yea ! some must serve on God's frontiers, and I 
 
 shall fail, perforce. 
 To sow upon some better ground my most select 
 
 discourse ; 
 At Sassafras, or Smyrna, preach my argument on 
 
 ' Drink,' 
 My series on the Pentateuch, at Appoquinimink. 
 
236 POEMS 
 
 " Gray am I, brethren, in the work, though tough 
 
 to bear my part ; 
 It is these drooping little ones that sometimes wring 
 
 my heart, 
 And cheat me with the vain conceit the cleverness 
 
 is mine 
 To fill the churches of the Elk, and pass the 
 
 Brandywine. 
 
 " These hairs were brown, when, full of hope, 
 
 ent'ring these holy lists. 
 Proud of my Order as a knight, — the shouting 
 
 Methodists, — 
 I made the pine woods ring with hymns, with 
 
 prayer the night-winds shook. 
 And preached from Assawaman Light far North as 
 
 Bombay Hook. 
 
 " My nag was gray, my gig was new ; fast went 
 the sandy mUes ; 
 
 The eldest Trustees gave me praise, the fairest sis- 
 ters smiles ; 
 
 Still I recall how Elder Smith of Worten Heights 
 averred 
 
 My Apostolic Parallels the best he ever heard. 
 
 " All winter long I rode the snows, rejoicing on my 
 way; 
 
 At midnight our Revival hymns rolled o'er the sob- 
 bing bay ; 
 
 Three Sabbath sermons, every week, should tire a 
 man of brass, — 
 
 And stiU our fervent membership must have their 
 extra Class ! 
 
THE CIECUIT PREACHER 237 
 
 "Aggressive with the zeal of youth, in many a 
 
 warm requite 
 I terrified Immersionists, and scourged the Mil- 
 
 lerite ; 
 But larger, tenderer charities such vain debates 
 
 supplant. 
 When the dear wife, saved by my zeal, loved the 
 
 Itinerant. 
 
 " No cooing dove of storms afeared, she shared my 
 life's distress, 
 
 A singing Miriam, alway, in God's poor wilderness ; 
 
 The wretched at her footstep smiled, the frivolous 
 were still ; 
 
 A bright path marked her pilgrimage, from Black- 
 bird to Snowhill. 
 
 " A new face in the parsonage, at church a double 
 
 pride ! — 
 Like Joseph's Mary and her babe they filled the 
 
 ' Am en-side ' — 
 Crouched at my feet in the old gig, my boy, so fair 
 
 and frank, 
 Naswongo's darkest marshes cheered, or sluices of 
 
 Choptank. 
 
 " My cloth drew close ; too fruitful love my fruit- 
 less life outran ; 
 
 The townfolk marvelled, when we moved, at such 
 a caravan ! 
 
 I wonder not my lads grew wild, when, bright 
 without the door 
 
 Spread the ripe, luring, wanton world, — and we, 
 within, so poor ! 
 
238 POEMS 
 
 "■ For, down the silent cypress aisles came shapes 
 
 even me to scout, 
 Mocking tlie lean flanks of my mare, my boy's 
 
 patched roundabout, 
 And saying : ' Have these starveling stocks, thy 
 
 congregation, souls. 
 That on their dull heads Heaven and thou pour 
 
 forth such living coals ? ' 
 
 " Then prayer brought hopes, half secular, like 
 
 seers by Endor's witch : 
 Beyond our barren Maiyland God's folks were wise 
 
 and rich ; 
 Where climbing spires and easy pews showed how 
 
 the preacher thrived, 
 And all old brethren paid their rents, and many 
 
 young ones wived ! 
 
 " I saw the ships Henlopen pass with chaplains fat 
 and sleek ; 
 
 From Bishopshead with fancy's sails I crossed the 
 Chesapeake ; 
 
 In velvet pulpits of the North said my best ser- 
 mons o'er, — 
 
 And that on Paul to Patmos driven, drew tears in 
 Baltimore. 
 
 •' Well ! well I my brethren, it is true we should 
 
 not preach for pelf, — 
 (I would my sermon on Saint Paul the Bishop 
 
 heard himself !} 
 
LITTLE GBISETTE 239 
 
 But this crushed wife, — these boys, — these hairs ! 
 
 they cut me to the core ; 
 Is it not hard, year after year, to ride the Eastern 
 
 Shore? 
 
 " Next year ? Yes I yes I I thank you much ! Then, 
 
 my reward may fall. 
 (That is a downright fine discourse on Patmos and 
 
 St. Paul !) 
 So, Brother Riggs, once more my voice shall ring 
 
 in the old lists. 
 Cheer up, sick heart I who would not die among 
 
 these Methodists ? " 
 1866. 
 
 LITTLE GRISETTE 
 
 Little Grisette, you haunt me yet; 
 
 My passion for you was long ago, 
 
 Before my head was heavy with snow, 
 Or mine eye had lost its lustre of jet. 
 In the dim old Quartier Latin we met ; 
 
 We plighted faith one night in June, 
 
 And all our life was honeymoon ; 
 We did not ask if it were sin, 
 
 We did not go to kirk to know, 
 We only loved and let the world 
 
 Hum on its pelfish way below : 
 Marked from our castle in the air, 
 
 How pigmy its triumphal cars — 
 Eight stages from the entrj^ stair. 
 
 But near the stars ! 
 
240 POEMS 
 
 Little Grisette, rich or in debt, 
 
 We were too fond to chide or sigh, — 
 Never so poor that I could not buy 
 
 A sweet, sweet kiss, from my little Grisette. 
 
 If I could nothing gain or get. 
 
 By hook, or crook, or song, or story, 
 Along the starving road to glory, 
 
 I marvelled how your nimble thimble. 
 As to a tune, danced fast and fleeting, 
 
 And stopped my pen to catch the music, 
 But only heard my heart a-beating ; 
 
 The quaint old roofs and gables airy 
 
 Flung down the light, for you to wear it, 
 
 And made my love a queen in faery. 
 To haunt my garret. 
 
 Little Grisette, the meals you set 
 
 Were sweeter to me than banquet feast ; 
 
 Your face was a blessing fit for a priest ; 
 At your smile the candle went out in a pet. 
 The wonderful chops, I shall never forget ! 
 
 If the wine was a trifle too sharp or rank, 
 
 We kissed each time before we drank. 
 The old gilt clock, e'er wrong, was swinging ; 
 
 The waxed floor your feet reflected ; 
 And dear B^ranger's chansons singing, 
 
 You tricked at picquet till detected. 
 You fill my pipe ; — is it your eyes 
 
 Whereat I light your cigarette ? — 
 On all but me the darkness lies, 
 
 And my Grisette ! 
 
LITTLE GBISETTE 241 
 
 Little Grisette, the soft sunset 
 
 Lingered a long while, that we might stay, 
 
 To mark the Seine from the breezy quay 
 Around the bridges foam and fret ; 
 How came it that your eyes were wet, 
 
 When I ambitiously would be, 
 
 A man renowned across the sea? 
 I told you I should come again, — 
 
 It was but half way round the globe, — 
 To bring 3-ou diamonds for your faith, 
 
 And for your gray a silken robe : 
 You were more wise than lovers are ; 
 
 I meant, Sweetheart, to tell you true, 
 I said a tearful "J.w revoir ; " 
 
 You said : '•^ Adieu ! " 
 
 Little Grisette, we both regret ; 
 
 For I am wedded more than wived ; 
 
 Those careless days, in thought revived. 
 But teach me I cannot forget. 
 Perhaps old age must pay the debt 
 
 Folly contracted long ago, — 
 
 I only know, I only know. 
 That phantoms haunt me everywhere 
 
 By busy day, in peopled gloam, — 
 They rise between me and my prayer. 
 
 They chafe the holiness of home ! 
 My wife is proud, my bo}'- is cold, 
 
 I dare not speak of what I fret : 
 'Tis my heart's rest with thee, I fold. 
 
 Little Grisette ! 
 
 Flobence, 1863. 
 
242 POEMS 
 
 THE PIGEON GIRL 
 
 On the sloping market-place, 
 
 In the city of Compi^gne, 
 Every Saturday her face, 
 
 Like a Sunday, comes again ; 
 Daylight finds her in her seat. 
 With her panier at her feet. 
 
 Where her pigeons lie in pairs ; 
 Like their plumage gray her gown, 
 To her sabots drooping down ; 
 And a kerchief, brightly brown. 
 
 Binds her smooth, dark hairs. 
 
 All the buyers knew her well, 
 
 And, perforce, her face must see, 
 As a holy Raphael 
 
 Lures us in a gallery ; 
 Round about the rustics gape. 
 Drinking in her comely shape, 
 
 And the housewives gently speak, 
 When into her eyes they look. 
 As within some holy book. 
 And the gables high and crook. 
 
 Fling their sunshine on her cheek. 
 
 In her hands two milk-white doves, 
 
 Happ}'- in her lap to lie. 
 Softly murmur of their loves. 
 
 Envied by the passers-by ; 
 One by one their flight they take. 
 Bought and cherished for her sake. 
 
THE PIGEON GIBL 243 
 
 Leaving so reluctantly ; 
 Till the shadows close approach, 
 Fades the pageant, foot and coach, 
 And the giants in the cloche 
 
 Ring the noon for Picardie. 
 
 Round the city see her glide, 
 
 With a slender sunbeam's pace ! 
 Mirrored in the Oise's tide, 
 
 The gold-fish hover on her face ; 
 All the soldiers touch their caps ; 
 In the caf^s quit their naps 
 
 Gargon, guest, to wish her back ; 
 And the fat old beadles smile 
 As she kneels along the aisle, 
 Like Pucelle in other while, 
 
 In the dim church of Saint Jacques. 
 
 Now she climbs her dappled ass, — 
 
 He well-pleased such friend to know, — 
 And right merrily they pass 
 
 The armorial chateau ; 
 Down the long, straight paths they tread 
 Till the forest, overhead. 
 
 Whispers low its leafy love ; 
 In the archway's green caress 
 Rides the wondrous dryadess — 
 Thrills the grass beneath her press. 
 
 And the blue-eyed sl^y above. 
 
 I have met her, o'er and o'er, 
 
 As I strolled alone apart, 
 By a lonely carrefour 
 
244 POEMS 
 
 In the forest's tangled heart, 
 Safe as any stag that bore 
 Imprint of the Emperor ; 
 
 In the copse that round her grew 
 Tiptoe the straight saphngs stood, 
 Peeped the wild boar's satyr brood, 
 Like an arrow clove the wood 
 
 The glad note of the cuckoo. 
 
 How I wished myself her friend ! 
 
 (So she wished that I were more) 
 Jogging toward her journey's end 
 
 At Saint Jean au Bois before. 
 Where her father's acres fall 
 Just without the abbey wall ; 
 
 By the cool well loiteringly 
 The shaggy Norman horses stray, 
 In the thatch the pigeons play, 
 And the forest round alway 
 
 Folds the hamlet, like a sea. 
 
 Far forgotten all the feud 
 
 In my New World's childhood haunts. 
 If my childhood she renewed 
 
 In this pleasant nook of France ; 
 Might she make the bleuze I wear. 
 Welcome, then, her homely fare 
 
 And her sensuous religion ! 
 To the market we should ride. 
 In the Mass kneel side by side. 
 Might I warm, each eventide. 
 
 In my nest, my pretty pigeon ! 
 1864. 
 
THE FIB ST HUN GEE 245 
 
 THE FIRST HUNGER 
 
 The apples are water, Dearest, 
 The dates are only sweet. 
 
 There is no flesh in the juice of the grape, 
 Nor life in the berry we eat ! 
 
 In the blood of the kid we have slain 
 In our new and terrible greed. 
 Lie the gristle and marrow we need, — 
 
 In the pitiful yield of the grain : 
 
 The barley that beards the wild rain. 
 The corn that the crow contests. 
 The milk in the white wheat's breasts, — 
 
 Behold my red hands as I speak, 
 
 And the curse of the sweat on my cheek ! 
 
 The garden was all before us 
 
 Where reaches to-day a waste. 
 Its plentiful clusters o'er us. 
 
 Eternity in their taste ; 
 I could lie in your tresses, and reach 
 
 In the roses, the flush of the South ; 
 
 Power fell, with the figs, in my mouth, 
 And youth in the bite of the peach ; 
 I am weary, but still they beseech, — 
 
 These sinews, that hunger and thirst 
 
 In their famine the fiercest and first ; 
 And thine eyes, where love's wishes I read. 
 Look the eloquence only of — bread. 
 
 No more shall the noons be luscious. 
 The nights be tender strolls. 
 
246 POEMS 
 
 Sweet sleep delightful hushes 
 
 In the fond talk of our souls ; 
 Yoked this stature, thou praised, to the clod. 
 Farewell to the leisure so dear ! 
 No more by the streams shall we hear 
 The intimate thoughts of our God, 
 But harrow our hearts with the sod, — 
 Dismissed our high quests to the winds, 
 And the infinite wish of our minds. 
 And the beautiful dreams that we prize. 
 Like the birds that forsake Paradise. 
 
 I must seek so late thy kisses. 
 So soon thy side discard, 
 
 And my tenderest caresses 
 Bestow with hands so hard. 
 
 It is not for my lot that I plead. 
 Too proud at my burden to groan, 
 Nor yet, O my wife ! for thine own, 
 
 But the races of men which succeed : 
 
 The cannibal children of greed. 
 
 Who fight at the bosom they crave, 
 And walk from the cradle to slave, 
 
 Till populous hunger shall shed 
 
 The blood of its brethren for bread. 
 
 The world from the sun slips farther. 
 
 As we far from God's face ; 
 There is war declared eternal 
 
 'Twixt nature and our race. 
 But it is not the end that we dread ; 
 
 Fighting up to God's feet as we toil, 
 
POE 247 
 
 We shall trample this curse from the soil, 
 And conquer the bondage of bread, 
 Making Nature our slave in our stead. 
 Till the frost shall say truce, and the rain 
 Draw near, at the beck of the grain. 
 And our sons, with the sheaves at their knee, 
 Reach again of the fruit of the tree. 
 1865. 
 
 DE WITT CLINTON 
 
 In thy Dutch veins thy Irish current ran, 
 A tempest in the phlegm of a canal; 
 Hibernian spirits made thee partisan, 
 De Witt milk tranquilized thee cosmical 1 
 Wasted thy youth in faction's offices 
 Thy lofty mind thy scullions drove afar. 
 And, looking downward from thy banished star, 
 Thou saw'st an isthmian labor like to Suez 
 When Amrou slashed it with his scimeter : 
 Niagara's dam to Amsterdam to draw, 
 The Indian oceans through the lunar Nile 
 And to another Persia give access ! 
 Letters and Physics are the stones of Law : 
 Thy inspiration makes an empire smile. 
 
 POE 
 
 Kepler of verse ! who beauty's starry laws 
 Didst rescue and her orbits calculate ! 
 
248 POEMS 
 
 Thou hadst no prince, no Tycho, in thy cause, 
 
 No fellow-centre for thy solar mate ; 
 A dark polemic age hollow applause 
 
 Gave to the weird ellipsis of thy fate. 
 But thou art in the heavens like a pause. 
 
 Like Al Aaraf's swift and unearthly date, 
 A diadem'd outlaw like Tamerlane. 
 
 Thy heart strings were a lute like Israfel's, 
 The raven led thy fame to Ulalume ; 
 
 Thou art the Psyche unto Sappho's pain. 
 So sibylline the leaflets from thy plume 
 
 They sigh like Orpheus melting Pluto's spells. 
 
 BYRON 
 
 First Englishman to hail my country's scions — 
 
 Henry, Boon, Washington, — in courtly rhyme ! 
 "Still one great clime in full and free defiance 
 
 Yet rears her crest unconquered and sublime," 
 And hears thy trumpet of la belle alliance : 
 
 Tyrtaeus, to whose overture we chime ! 
 Old friends are dearest : as I read agog. 
 
 In youth the rich invective of thy verse, 
 I stood beside the trophy of thy dog 
 
 At Newstead, as by tender ^sop's hearse, 
 And felt that man and nature were thy debtors. 
 
 That thou wert noble by thy discontent. 
 That thou hadst widened heart and thought and 
 letters 
 
 And breathed afar the glorious Occident. 
 
THE SOUL-DEIVER 249 
 
 JOHN JAY 
 
 Among the portraits of thy Federalists, 
 
 In thy old Bedford manse upon the Highlands, 
 Where, bathed beneath thee in the snow or mists, 
 
 Manhattan's Greece tints its ^Egean islands, 
 I^see thee life's full third pass in thy grot 
 
 But in no monkish mummeries enshrined ! — 
 The soul undaunted of the Huguenot 
 
 Built his God's temple in his classic mind. 
 "Washington was thy Henrj^ of Navarre ; 
 
 For him thou held thy state in loyal fief. 
 His mystic presence to the knightly bar. 
 
 His dove-winged envoy to our kinsman chief. 
 Thou, Sully I with thy eagle quill at work, 
 
 Wert Zeus at the birth-throes of New York ! 
 
 THE SOUL-DRrV'ER 
 
 The child's awe that I felt of Slavery, 
 
 When from our door they dragged the faithful 
 cook, 
 I did not need to join a sect to see. 
 
 Nor have it preached at me from any book ; 
 And when the freedmen wail the horrid laws 
 
 And massacre is slavery's aftermath, 
 I only feel what the volcano was 
 
 From these red lavas of its senile wrath. 
 He who was absolute must sometimes kill, 
 
 His Berber sons arrest the mails of light, 
 His nation float his soon forgotten bill, 
 
250 POEMS 
 
 Its flag and trade be halted for his spite. 
 When absolution tempts me with its fruit, 
 I think that Slavery was absolute. 
 
 PSYCHfi 
 
 Thou art but child ; thy willow limbs 
 
 Have hardly set their mould ; 
 Light of the fawn, thy large eye brims. 
 
 Thy hair is spun of gold ; 
 So perfect is the woman's might 
 
 Within thy tendril's move. 
 My look meets thine almost in fright : 
 
 Hast thou conjectured love ? 
 
 Thy sex's power at once begins, 
 
 When it has one day's bloom, 
 And man's supremest homage wins 
 
 When he draws near his tomb ; 
 Thy youth, for which he hungereth, 
 
 Is aU that can contain 
 His immortality from death : 
 
 By love he hves again. 
 
 LINN^US 
 
 Carl Von Linn fell in the leashes 
 
 Of a female hind : 
 Nature is a fight for Species, 
 
 Not for morals nor for mind ; 
 " Lo ! the lilies," spoke the teacher, 
 
 " Looking not above, 
 How their clothes outshine the preacher, 
 
WILLIAM PENN 
 
 Dyed in purpling love ! " 
 Through the air, a blood-clrop fallen, 
 
 Speeds the red bird free, 
 Carrying the golden pollen 
 
 To the female tree ; 
 So the Swede, in passion richest, 
 
 Straight at Nature aims ; 
 He who flushed the Magdalena 
 
 Fetched the flowers. Names. 
 Stockholm, 1889. 
 
 WILLIAM PENN 
 
 (HEPWORTH DIXON'S LIFE) 
 
 Manly teller of the tale ! 
 Thou hast made me thrill and pale. 
 Almost tears have dimmed the page, 
 I have felt in Penn's own age. 
 
 His the nature one appeal 
 From a worldly life could wheel, — 
 Quit the brink of rank and rule 
 To go live with ridicule ; 
 
 For his soul decision had. 
 To part instant with the bad. 
 And from youth full stature find 
 For the conscience in his mind ; 
 
 Not the wigged court to gain. 
 But be noble with the plain. 
 In his hat he talked to kings 
 On the plane of kingly things, 
 
 251 
 
252 POEMS 
 
 Till his father's giant pride 
 Humbled his strange son's beside, 
 Seeing that he did not quail 
 Rotting in the stinking jail. 
 
 Treading down the earth's contempt 
 Dreams high-hearted aye he dreamt, 
 Grasped across the ocean's health 
 More than Milton's Commonwealth; 
 
 And he touched it with his hand. 
 And he landed in his land, — 
 Brought the persecuted in ; 
 Made them of his wish the kin. 
 
 Pennsylvania, wholesome grove ! 
 Philadelphia, brother's love ! 
 There the Continental men 
 Wrote the will of William Penn. 
 
 DEFOE 
 
 Born a Foe, he sought out foes, 
 (There are always hosts of those ; ) 
 Writing for the grown folks, he 
 Gained the height of pillory. 
 Then he sat, Himself before, 
 Solitary, shipwrecked, poor. 
 And gave forth his lonely joys 
 To the fresh hearts of the boys : 
 Entering there, the world was won. 
 All the world knew Robinson ! 
 
BliOOKLYX BRIDGE TOWERS 253 
 BROOKLYN BRIDGE TOWERS 
 
 (AS U>-COXXECTED) 
 BRONTES. 
 
 Brother ! are you waiting 
 
 Faithfully for me ? 
 Stand fast and at last 
 
 I'll reach my hair to thee. 
 Though of vacant sight, 
 
 Blindly we are feeling 
 Tow'rd each other, till the light, 
 
 Through our sockets stealing 
 O'er the stream, in one beam 
 
 Shall meet, and see ! 
 
 ARGES. 
 
 Brother I I am listening 
 
 To the words you say, 
 As they reach me, whistling 
 
 Across the windy bay. 
 Though my feet are cold, 
 
 And they long divide us. 
 Here I'll hold till I am old ; 
 
 Our echoes shall provide us 
 On bounding feet a pathway fleet, 
 
 Till we behold ! 
 
 bront:6s. 
 
 Like two gates asunder 
 Something swings between 
 
254 POEMS 
 
 On our heads the thunder 
 
 Strikes. We stand serene ! 
 Earliest on our brows, 
 
 Still the latest tarry 
 The rosy clouds ; the birds in crowds 
 
 Sail round to see us marry. 
 We will win, though, my twin, 
 
 Waves intervene ! 
 
 arg:^s. 
 
 Hark, behind ! the churches 
 
 Faintly lift their bells. 
 And far below come and go 
 
 The city's hollow swells ; 
 Frightened ferry fleets 
 
 Disappear in vapor. 
 And the camps of twinkling lamps 
 
 Struggle for a taper. 
 To them all, starry tall, 
 
 We are sentinels ! 
 
 BRONTES. 
 
 Aye ! I cannot see them. 
 
 Yet I feel them there ; 
 And clambering stars their silver bars 
 
 Wind o'er me like a stair. 
 Brother, does a pulse 
 
 Start not in thy shoulder. 
 For a mystic destiny, — 
 
 Something better, bolder — 
 When the rainbow its skein 
 
 Twineth in air ? 
 
BABTHOLDI'S PHABOS 255 
 
 AEG^S. 
 
 Yes ! A host of spirits 
 
 In procession creep 
 O'er me silently, 
 
 From darkened deeps of sleep. 
 Far away I hear 
 
 Wheels imperious driven 
 Up the heights of the atmosphere, 
 
 By the image of Heaven ! 
 His path we span, and, brother ! Man 
 Is the charioteer ! 
 1875. 
 
 BARTHOLDI'S PHAROS 
 
 (RECITED AT THE LOTOS CLUB DINNER, NOV. 14, 1884) 
 
 Manhattan Bay in glory lay 
 
 When Verrazano entered ; 
 His heart was cold, on thoughts of gold 
 
 And ivory concentred : 
 " Now go about and sail we out ! — 
 
 Although this scene entrances ; 
 For we Italians seek rich mines, 
 
 To satisfy King Francis." 
 
 The Portugee came in from sea, 
 
 Sir Estevan de Gomez ; 
 " I smell," said he, " no spicery 
 
 Nor gum, such as at home is ; 
 King Charles of Spain, he would raise Cain 
 
 And cuss-words use terrific, 
 
256 POEMS 
 
 If we clove not this granite main 
 To cloves of the Pacific." 
 
 The Half -Moon next our harbor vexed — 
 
 The Dutchman made appearance — 
 The Northwest Passage was his text, 
 
 And Albany his clearance ; 
 The Indian damsels pleased his ways, — 
 
 He was a gay deceiver, — 
 And nothing met his sordid praise 
 
 But buffalo and beaver. 
 
 Next came Lord Howe, guns at his prow, 
 
 His nose and clothes vermilion, 
 With Hessian bayonets, to plough 
 
 The hills around new Ilion ; 
 Seven years the fleet stayed here to eat, — 
 
 King George he paid the ration, — 
 Till French and Yankees down the street 
 
 Saw an evacuation. 
 
 The artisan American 
 
 Came now — a buoyant schemer — 
 With fleets of fire-winged birds to span 
 
 The shores with many a steamer. 
 At Fulton's wand our sparkling pond 
 
 Leaped into life and duty, 
 But nothing came to correspond 
 
 Unto the sense of Beauty. 
 
 The gold we made, the South-Sea trade. 
 
 The peltries and the spices. 
 And mechanisms, like crystal prisms. 
 
PHYSICAL HOMAGE 257 
 
 Refracted our devices. 
 Yet in the heart the spell of Art 
 
 Slept, like the winter throstle, 
 Or Faith, in old Diana's mart, 
 
 Awaiting an apostle. 
 
 The son of France his kindling glance 
 
 Threw o'er this radiant Edom, 
 And like a Bayard of romance 
 
 Knelt to the strength of Freedom ; 
 He saw arise athwart our skies 
 
 A Goddess ever living, 
 Illumination in her eyes. 
 
 And flame to darkness giving. 
 
 Lift high thy torch and forward march, 
 
 O dame of Revolution ! — 
 All heaven thy triumphal arch. 
 
 All progress the solution ; 
 And from the earth and all its dross 
 
 May man behold the story — 
 Friendship is pious as the cross, 
 
 And only Art is glory ! 
 
 PHYSICAL HOMAGE 
 
 When in the bath men strip together, 
 A perfect man has admiration. 
 
 The mould of grace, the thews of leather, 
 The noble port of native station; 
 
258 POEMS 
 
 No more excelleth moral duty, 
 The master mind appears a fakir ; 
 
 But procreant health and manly beauty 
 Become the image of their Maker. 
 
 When to the life the beauteous creature, 
 
 The woman, walks, behold the wonder ! 
 Divinity in every feature. 
 
 Her worshippers are rent asunder; 
 Her beauty rules her moral being, 
 
 Like genius is her stately doing, 
 The regent of the Ever-seeing, 
 
 She bends the heavens to her wooing. 
 
 The beauty of the worlds in motion 
 
 Attracts each other in their courses; 
 Space has its wooings like the ocean. 
 
 And planets feel persuasive forces ; 
 Perfection everything convulses. 
 
 Beauty is moral elevation. 
 The sjTnmetry that stii-s our pulses. 
 
 Is an eternal admiration. 
 
 Health and selection, joy determine. 
 
 Their progeny our orb inherit; 
 " Behold the lilies ! " saith the sermon : 
 
 Beauty is the immortal spirit. 
 What is unlovely shall not witness 
 
 Final survival of the fitting. 
 And separating foul from fitness, 
 
 Venus to judge the world is sitting. 
 
FBOM GAPLAND 259 
 
 ROWDY SHAH 
 
 There once was a shah of Persia, 
 
 Common and rowdy and pert, 
 Who married by hundreds, virgins. 
 
 To strip them and slide them in dirt; 
 A platform over a mudhole 
 
 He built with precipitous slides. 
 And called on the court and people 
 
 To see how he muddied his brides. 
 
 The fine Events that are blushing — 
 The newspapers strip them of pride; 
 
 And I think of the Shah and the mud-hole, 
 As I see them rushed down the slide. 
 
 FROM GAPLAND 
 
 How blue the mountain is to-day ! 
 It is not half so far away. 
 Distinct on it the shadows play ; 
 Above it a long band of light, 
 Below it a long band of land, 
 Revealed in shocks of gathered corn. 
 In village spires, wax-candle white. 
 And fields like a wide-open hand. 
 Shining from a reversed morn 
 Below those hills so blue to-day. 
 
 The clouds those hills, so blue to-day. 
 Seem to throw upward as they lay. 
 
260 POEMS 
 
 From that bright landscape's underplay. 
 Make all that blueness far away. 
 The clouds our lives project above 
 Follow so close our long career, ' 
 They paint it with distinctive strength, 
 They bring it nearer human love, 
 Tone it like echoes to the ear, 
 And accent through their graceful length 
 The heights that are so dark to-day. 
 
 MORSE 
 
 The simplest life told well 's a treat. 
 
 One push makes any life complete ; 
 
 One grapple with our deadly fears 
 
 Carries us to victorious years : 
 
 One night in the dark with foes at hand, 
 
 A starving year in a foreign land. 
 
 To hold a pen and take a stand : 
 
 The effort is the fort betaken. 
 
 The bolder that your heart is shaken ; 
 
 And every young accomplishment 
 
 Is a lady in the soldier's tent. 
 
 When all but avarice is sated, 
 
 And thou hast lived with her thou mated, 
 
 Tell all thou didst with truthfulness, — 
 
 Thy book shall also be success ! 
 
'''MAKE ME A LAP'' 261 
 
 "MAKE ME A LAP" 
 
 Back in those days ere I thought of love, 
 Kissing at games in a picnic grove, 
 Cried one lass as she made a spring : 
 -" Make me a Lap ! you stingy thing ! " 
 Down in my lap sat the tired madcap 
 And in a snap she had " made her a Lap. ' 
 
 Lissome, pliant, innocent vine, 
 
 Still to my heart I can feel her twine. 
 
 Trustfully as my kitten's play, 
 
 Light as the birds in that greenwood day ; 
 
 Sweet as the sap in the fruit tree's tap. 
 
 Vine-like her wrap as I " made her a Lap." 
 
 Country heart ! there is no mishap, — 
 Some good husband has " made thee a Lap " ; 
 In thy lap to thy trust's behove. 
 Children sprmg in the gush of love : 
 Thou had'st no trap of " setting thy cap," 
 Teaching a chap how to " make thee a Lap." 
 
 Earth is wide but its infinite map 
 
 Is peopled by courage that leaped in a Lap. 
 
 Cold, prude hearts that would Love go round 
 
 Consolation have partly found. 
 
 Boldly they rap who would wake from his nap 
 
 The partner whose snap can " make them a Lap." 
 
 Widow young I whose grief has been true. 
 But who has brightened to life anew ! 
 
262 POEMS 
 
 There is a lonely man somewhere 
 Waiting for thee if thou wouldst but dare : 
 Fill up the gap in his life's mishap ! 
 Set him thy cap ! he can " make thee a Lap." 
 
 Maid, too long ! art thou not exact ? 
 
 Not far off must thy worth attract. 
 
 Do not shrink from the fate to be ! 
 
 How did thy mother love for thee ? 
 
 Smooth thy rough nap ! for thyself keep no scrap ! 
 
 So did it hap ere She " made thee a Lap." 
 
 Man to man, be not too removed ! 
 
 Bashful friendship is not oft loved. 
 
 Thou must leap in the heart of thy friend, 
 
 If he would carry thee out to life's end. 
 
 Throw up thy cap ! Say, " Love me, old chap ! " 
 
 Thou wilt be loved ; he wUl " make thee a Lap." 
 
 Father ! Son ! if there come a space 
 'Twixt your affectionate embrace, 
 Let it not grow o'ershadowing home, — 
 Ye must kiss in the death to come ! 
 Close up the gap ; ye have mutual sap : 
 Sonny and pap ! " make each other a Lap ! " 
 
 FIRST BLACKBIRDS 
 
 As IJsit at my window bay 
 
 Just o'er a Gap's abyss, 
 A sound mysterious comes my way — 
 
 It sounds so like a kiss I 
 
FIEST BLACKBIBBS 263 
 
 Who is it, kissing fierce and fast 
 
 Within my library ? — 
 As I kissed her I caught at last 
 
 When I was young as she ? 
 
 No, 'tis not there, though kisses were — 
 
 They come up from the woods ; 
 Are angels kissing in the air, 
 
 Or mountain girls, in hoods ? 
 With smacks like those, old satyrs wooed 
 
 Cold n}Tnphs a stream conceives : 
 (Such kisses leave babes in the wood 
 
 Among the trampled leaves.) 
 
 It sounds like fright and appetite, 
 
 Complaint and jubilee, 
 Like sleighbells coming in the night, 
 
 And boiling punch, or tea. 
 So ends this last of mysteries 
 
 As I my door unlock : 
 It is the blackbirds in my trees, 
 
 The first October flock ! 
 
 I start them from their chilly roost, — 
 
 They fly like bolts from bows ; 
 Like inky authors, bedlam-loosed, 
 
 Who mui-miir and compose. 
 StUl crackles all the morn like frost. 
 
 That sighing music is ; 
 It says that summer's something lost. 
 
 And life a farewell kiss. 
 
264 POEMS 
 
 The earth shall some day cool and we — 
 
 We know not what or for — 
 Will flock together dismally 
 
 Along the Equator. 
 But life will dye the snowflake red, 
 
 As long as it can float, 
 And from the frozen sun o'erhead 
 
 Will kiss the blackbird's note ! 
 
 HANGING LAMP 
 
 I WISH my father had the story known — 
 
 Its interest his sermon would have nerved — 
 How the cathedral lamp was ever blown 
 That Galileo with his pulse observed, 
 
 And as it swung, he counted his heart's 
 
 beating. 
 And planned a miracle in that dull meeting. 
 
 Imagination came to me, I wot. 
 
 In those old churches by the piney forest, 
 But mathematics was not in my thought, 
 
 Not measure in the bawling Christian chorist ; 
 Romance, that is theology again, 
 I drank in church and useless am to men. 
 
 O, had the dogma with some wise restrainting 
 Child-fancy forced on grooves exact to swerve. 
 
 As old Mahomet did forbid them painting 
 
 And made them draw the cosine and the curve. 
 
 In algebraic strength I had projected 
 
 More than Aladdin's lamp ways did traverse. 
 
AS THE CBOW FLIES 265 
 
 And into heaven passed the God-elected 
 Among the sure feet of astronomers. 
 
 The Popes who Copernik were negativing 
 
 And Galileo silenced but not sieved, 
 Were not as ignorant as preachers living 
 
 Who know not Copernik has ever lived, 
 But follow heathens in their horrid fearing 
 
 Of horned Gods like Babylonian kings, 
 While Learning bends the heavens with persevering. 
 And parting symbols, finds eternal Things, — 
 
 Finds not our human semblance domineering, 
 But motion as susceptible as strong. 
 
 Worlds without end exquisitely insphering 
 And praise intuning, tenderer than song. 
 
 For us, the heirs of countless predecessors, 
 
 By Time unanxious to our boyhood brought, 
 We do not enter Nature as transgressors. 
 
 But on our hand the signet ring of Thought ; 
 Death is our mellowing ; facts kill its terrors : 
 
 Both Birth and Death hke noble brethren go. 
 The sum of our exaggerated errors 
 
 Is that we romanced, and we did not know. 
 
 AS THE CROW FLIES 
 
 The air paths go unto homes we do not know. 
 
 But we see that the birds fly straight ; 
 They have errands where the bow 
 Gilds the storm and in the glow 
 
 T 
 
 ^ 
 
266 POEMS 
 
 That is rosy at the sunset's gate : 
 
 As the dove flies, 
 
 As the crow flies, 
 At the end of everywhere is a mate. 
 
 The soul's paths go to a home they cannot show, 
 
 But not to a home of hate ; 
 As the stag to seek his doe, 
 As the arrow from the bow, 
 The errand of the soul is straight : 
 
 As the dove flies, 
 
 As the crow flies. 
 Darts the soul that is homesick to its mate. 
 
 The seed paths go to a home far down below. 
 But we know that the sprouts rise straight 
 To the light that is aglow. 
 To the air that kindles so. 
 To the heaven of the recreate : 
 
 As the dove flies, 
 
 As the crow flies, 
 The errand of the flower is to mate. 
 
 The rain paths go to the caves of frost and snow. 
 
 But we see that the springs flow straight 
 To the fields the farmers mow. 
 To the cattle lowing low. 
 
 To the rivers that are wide and great : 
 
 As the dove flies. 
 
 As the crow flies, 
 The spirits in the elements must mate. 
 
IROIf HILL 267 
 
 The world's paths go upon arcs so calm and slow, 
 
 That we know not we course like fate, 
 But the stars in groups that go 
 Sired the planets twinkling low, 
 And the universes pair in state : 
 
 As the dove flies, 
 
 As the crow flies. 
 Flash the lights, never meeting, to their mate. 
 
 Forever, loving man ! drive on thy caravan I 
 
 Thou canst not be selfish and great ; 
 For what is thy little span 
 To the universal plan, 
 And the faith of the congregate ? 
 
 As the dove flies. 
 
 As the crow flies. 
 Immortality seek in thy mate. 
 
 IRON HILL 
 
 (DELAWARE) 
 
 Yon blue plateau to all seems low, 
 Whose minds some mountain fills. 
 Except us there in Delaware, 
 Who ne'er saw higher hills ; 
 At Newark's 'old academy, 
 It almost shook our will, 
 To walk so far and scale that bar 
 The dome of Iron hill. 
 
 On holidays we saw the haze 
 Around its woodlands lie ; 
 
268 POEMS 
 
 To climb those goals, our level souls 
 
 Seemed tempting destiny ; 
 
 The lesser boys they cease their noise 
 
 And hold their laughter still, 
 
 To come more near those heights of fear. 
 
 On shaggy Iron hill. 
 
 Beneath its head the iron, red. 
 Of ancient ore banks stood, 
 Where gobhn Swedes their evil deeds 
 Revealed in stains of blood ; 
 Their metal arts our country hearts 
 Uncanny thought and ill, — 
 From murdered man the oxides ran 
 That tinctured Iron liill ! 
 
 The tombs we search at old Welsh church 
 
 That guards the cairn's ascent ; 
 
 In Cymric writ, those stones of grit 
 
 Increase our fear's ferment : 
 
 Beneath, the dead, above blood, red ! — 
 
 The lonely wood paths thrill 
 
 Our ghost-awed wits ; the old ore pits 
 
 Seem graves on Iron hill ! 
 
 We think we see from some tall tree. 
 
 The blue-veined landscapes, where 
 
 One far-off streak is Chesapeake, 
 
 Another Delaware ; 
 
 Their long white length this knoll has strength 
 
 To sunder by its will ; 
 
 It disarrays those mighty bays — 
 
 The wand of Iron hill. 
 
BUILDING 
 
 In those small years, upon sucli fears 
 
 My fancy learned to thrill. 
 
 An elevation on me lay, — 
 
 The swell of Iron hill. 
 
 The misty moods of altitudes, 
 
 Romance's glow and chill ; 
 
 And not more high Mount Sinai 
 
 To me, than Iron hill. 
 
 BUILDING 
 
 The mountain summit grows apace 
 
 With walls and walks and spires, 
 The tribute to ancestral place 
 
 By one of waning fires, 
 Who never loved but haunts of men. 
 
 And earned in cities, bread, 
 Yet sought the shaggy rock and glen 
 
 To lay, at last, his head. 
 
 The thrill of Nature in his craze 
 
 Was like his love of play — 
 Medicinal for some brief days, 
 
 And, then, to turn away : 
 To try the mart and measure Art 
 
 With captains of his guild. 
 Then, in the lonely mountain's heart. 
 
 To dig and plan and build. 
 
 His habitation who can know. 
 
 When life is but a breath ? 
 Or that his bones are safe below 
 The cheerless den of death? 
 
 269 
 
270 POEMS 
 
 Yet, in their day, all builded well, — 
 Like warrior ants their hills, — 
 
 And tender beauty haunts the cell 
 Taste and Industry wills. 
 
 No house stands faster than this earth 
 
 Which no abiding gives, 
 Yet love and hope and faith and birth 
 
 Build, while the changeling lives. 
 Our heaven is promised mansions, too, 
 
 Not made with human hod, 
 As if the angels nothing knew 
 
 Like Building round their God. 
 
 So if we leave where nothing stood 
 
 Some structure pure and true. 
 Succeeding times will count it good 
 
 And others learn to do. 
 The bookman's art is left behind 
 
 And letters only vex ; 
 Write, then in stone, ye men of mind ! 
 
 And live as architects ! 
 
 BOCCACCIO 
 
 Religion is of sex, love sacramental, 
 So say the physiologists of love. 
 
 Then is not Literature testamental 
 
 Born of the soiled and unangelic dove ? 
 
 Boccaccio, gallant of light Maria ! 
 
 In thy amour Italian language sprang 
 
 More than from Dante's stately Jeremiah 
 
OLD KENT 271 
 
 Or Petrarch's lute that had the proper twang ; 
 Thy look upon King Robert's daughter, mated, 
 
 Thy tales blushed into progeny impure, 
 The tongues of Europe were articulated 
 
 And stolen kisses started Literature. 
 Out of the ages black and castellated, 
 
 There climbed the lawless and luxuriant vine, 
 And Christian lore, when love was satiated, 
 
 Told legends of the Heavens concubine. 
 Monks shrinking from the tender imitation, 
 
 Sang in the chorus of the passion-blest. 
 And in the hives of Romanesque creation 
 
 Returned the Isis-bee of human rest. 
 So, Europe's Letters broke the dungeon portal ; 
 
 Love's spasms set all tongues to twittering ! 
 Love, only Love, can feed the life immortal ! 
 
 When love is rested angels cannot sing. 
 
 OLD KENT 
 
 I AM back in the court-house village ; 
 
 The houses remam as before ; 
 One or two old roofs may have perished. 
 
 But the neighbors have builded no more ; 
 The river creeps under the drawbridge, 
 
 The wharves are a little more rotten, 
 The streets are as grassy and sandy. 
 
 And the college more lone and forgotten. 
 
 It is sad that the faces are stranger 
 When the place so familiar appears ! 
 
272 POEMS 
 
 I came with my heart expectant, — 
 
 It is only twenty years ; 
 But the big boys stare at me queerly, 
 
 And the little boys flatter my tailor, 
 While the old men look suspicious 
 
 From the constable down to the jailer. 
 
 Only the innkeeper greets me 
 
 Like the long-expected one, 
 And makes me believe a little 
 
 In the tale of the prodigal son ; 
 The fatted calf he slaughters, 
 
 The calf that is tough and arid, 
 Like the townsfolk's beauteous daughters, 
 
 Who have all " gone off and got married." 
 
 There is Mary, with seven children. 
 
 And Marion, jilted and wan, 
 Saffronia gone to the shambles, 
 
 And Emma, gone under the lawn ; 
 Proud Sally, an editor's conquest, — 
 
 What a fate for an exquisite creature ! 
 And Margie, whose husband is richest, 
 
 A note-shaving Methodist preacher. 
 
 Not so were the old-time preachers, 
 
 Who rode on this Eastern Shore ; 
 I seek out the grim brick pai-sonage, — 
 
 Two years 'twas my father's door ; 
 I see blink northward the window, 
 
 In the gable so broad and bulky, 
 The lot of grass for the old gray mare, 
 
 And the stable for saddle and sulky. 
 
OLD KENT 273 
 
 There was his study lattice 
 
 Where often he wrote and prayed ; 
 And there the garden wicket 
 
 Whence he came to promenade ; 
 And bowed to white and to negro, — 
 
 A pastor, no partisan, — 
 The women said : " He is handsome ! " 
 
 And the men said : " A gentleman ! " 
 
 By starlight on Sunday morning 
 
 He kissed my mother adieu, 
 And threaded the Necks of the Chesapeake, 
 
 In the snow-storm or the dew ; 
 Old cross-roads chapels grew temples 
 
 While he lit with his radiant face. 
 The truest and longest sermons 
 
 That ever brought sinners to grace. 
 
 No priest of the Roman conclave 
 
 Had tact or bonhommie more ; 
 ■ No brigand, armed to the gorget. 
 
 Felt safer the wild woods o'er ; 
 Priest, friend, Franciscan and doctor. 
 
 At length his renown appears, — 
 A spirit of civilization, 
 
 A statesman on man's frontiers ! 
 
 And so, I shall quit the village. 
 
 Content my escutcheon to show ; 
 Content that nothing is stirring. 
 
 But the worm that's at work below, 
 And the soul of the seed, hence wafted. 
 
 Which the Lord of the Harvest must seek, 
 In the little old-fashioned places, 
 
 That doze by the Chesapeake. 
 
274 POEMS 
 
 SAINT GEORGE 
 
 When I behold the web around us di-awn 
 
 From infant pulp to ignorance's end, 
 
 To forestall knowledge and the mind transcend 
 
 With superstitions from the Arab dawn ; 
 
 When I see woman, whether doe or fawn. 
 
 Hold man's mind back and her stag offspring bend, 
 
 And her one half of our progression pawn 
 
 At Mont de Pi^t^ ; when I do count 
 
 The unproducing host of medicine men, 
 
 Who nibble learning on the convent lawn. 
 
 To low, like cattle, from their twilight pen, 
 
 That what we know not is life's only fount : 
 
 I see a task to make my spirit mount, 
 
 I feel my strength is as the strength of ten. 
 
 OLD FRANK BLAIR 
 
 No more that lost old twain to town 
 
 Shall trot in various weather — 
 The broad-brimmed hat and great coat brown 
 
 And snow-white braids together ; 
 The snug green home at Silver Springs 
 
 One hermit less shalFpension, 
 She waits to hear the warning wings 
 
 And summons of ascension. 
 
 Scotch as the pibroch of Argyle, 
 
 Hard as the granite Highland, 
 Their fire domestic smoked the while. 
 
 Blue as o'er Ellen's island ; 
 
OLD FRANK BLAIR 275 
 
 And there they nursed the loyal love 
 
 Of old Saint Andrew's story, 
 And deemed the Lord's high court above 
 
 Stern as his reign of glory. 
 
 Not rebel flames around their roof 
 
 New Orleans' guns could silence, 
 Nor Freedom's statue look reproof. 
 
 Like Jackson's grim surveillance, 
 Which met the^traitors in their mart 
 
 And made their leader tremble, 
 And never bent the statesman's art 
 
 To palter or dissemble. 
 
 Van Buren's long and subtle skill 
 
 And Benton's various knowledge, 
 And stout Old Hickory's lofty will 
 
 And Kendall's lore of college. 
 And plastic grace of Silas Wright, 
 
 Their golden era bounded. 
 While Francis Blair, both squire and knight, 
 
 The Koran's page compounded. 
 
 Not for the bondman's smothered sighs, 
 
 Nor labor, low and humble, 
 JSe hailed the Northern columns rise, 
 
 The Southron's kingdom crumble ; 
 He only saw the dark Calhoun 
 
 Above the thunderous action, 
 And Jackson's spirit, not too soon, 
 
 Ride forth to smite the faction ! 
 
276 POEMS 
 
 The long revenge of stubborn years — 
 
 The private vindication — 
 He heard above the cannoneers, 
 
 When others hailed a Nation. 
 And scarce had victory stiiick her tents, ■ 
 
 The feudal code revising, — 
 He felt, in hardening heart and sense, 
 
 The old reaction rising. 
 
 The grass-grown forts that to his door 
 
 Brought bloody retrospections, 
 A less irreverent echo bore 
 
 Than Freedom's full elections ; 
 Yet neither back nor forward halt 
 
 The rival waves of passion ; 
 Alack ! the times were all at fault — 
 
 The Blairs were out of fashion ! 
 
 And so, in bootless intrigue pressed 
 
 His clannish boys their mettle ; 
 And one, most gallant, passed to rest, 
 
 The other lived to fettle, 
 Till darkness fell on Silver Springs — 
 
 Death's oft-deferred intention ! — 
 But one awaits the warning wings 
 
 And summons of ascension. 
 
 Rest there, thou loyal advocate 
 
 And undissembled Hector ! 
 Where o'er the sward the dome of State 
 Throws its impartial spectre ! 
 
ULYSSES S. GBANT 211 
 
 Not less than thou we littler pens 
 
 Forget in one devotion, 
 Time's infinite circumference, 
 
 And history's boundless ocean. 
 
 1876. 
 
 ULYSSES S. GRANT 
 
 MARCH 4, 1869 
 
 Yonder the Capitol stands ; the people perhaps 
 
 are assembling. 
 I know the inaugural music by the ground and 
 
 windows trembling ; 
 I tremble a little myself, as, with a Cadet's desire, 
 On the field of Palo Alto I first went under fire. 
 
 My carriage waits at the gate ; the manes of my 
 
 span are rippling 
 Like those of the great wild studs I broke in Ohio, 
 
 a stripling ! 
 But I never owned a cloak as my coachman's half 
 
 so good. 
 When I reined down the streets of St. Louis on 
 
 my wagon-load of wood. 
 
 I know that this is no dream ; my fancy was never 
 so strong 
 
 As to dream a great deal higher than just to get 
 along ; 
 
 And that was enough for an honest dream — as 
 Lincoln used to say 
 
 That better than building castles was steady " peg- 
 ging away." 
 
278 POEMS 
 
 The four gold stars on my shoulder, the sword 
 
 upon my hip, 
 I have put away with my salesman's pen and my 
 
 teamster's leather whip, 
 And perhaps these different keepsakes my children 
 
 would rather choose 
 For the symbols of their Father than the Politician's 
 
 screws. 
 
 Still wise are the politicians, and the fact that is 
 
 most to be prized 
 In this world of infinite wisdom is. Nothing must 
 
 be despised. 
 But God, whom I thank, has thus far permitted 
 
 me success 
 By the soberest endeavor and a simple No or Yes. 
 
 I sat up late last evening with the speech I am to 
 deliver, 
 
 Thinking again of barrack-life out on the Colum- 
 bia river, 
 
 When I used to conceive in the pipe-smoke that 
 curled about my tent. 
 
 What sort of a strange old chap might be at the 
 head of the government : 
 
 Whether he ever wondered what we poor Captains 
 
 won, 
 With our wives and babies camp-bound by the 
 
 mud or by the sun. 
 Away from civilization without a play or a school, 
 Save the music of a fifer or the bray of a teamster's 
 
 mule : 
 
ULTSSES S. GBANT 279 
 
 Whether he felt our impulse half Mexico to bag, 
 Or to march upon Vancouver's and lower the 
 
 English flag, 
 To summon the Indian traders up to a Drum-head 
 
 Court, 
 Or to court the Indian woman who loitered around 
 
 the fort. 
 
 It seemed a lost, lost youth to me, and somewhat 
 
 did I reck 
 The school to Cerro Gordo, the way to Chapul- 
 
 tepec, 
 When, by such devious civil paths, the heights of 
 
 empire came. 
 And Fame was but an accident, and Power lived 
 
 close to Shame. 
 
 Now, looking back, the way seems plain, as from 
 
 the mountain crags 
 At doubtful Chattanooga I read the signal flags ; 
 The frontier post, the tannery, the farm of barren 
 
 land. 
 Were parts of the line of battle, and Providence 
 
 had command. 
 
 I felt the guns of Sumter like old acquaintances 
 
 Come back to me in anger and give but one 
 redress — 
 
 An earthquake split the nation, and when the frag- 
 ments blent 
 
 Myself was on the pinnacle and millions in the 
 rent! 
 
280 POEMS 
 
 Upon the dizzy height I stood, as yonder, looking 
 
 down. 
 Stands Freedom, poised upon her sword, above 
 
 the gazing town — 
 And politicians, creeping up, explain the State to me 
 Much as the devil described the world to him of 
 
 Galilee. 
 
 The drums I hear sound hollo wer than those which 
 
 beat to arms ; 
 To some they beat to holiday, to me they beat 
 
 alarms — 
 To battle-drums fell soldiers' feet on sacrifices bent ; 
 These feet leave all the battle to the coming 
 
 President. 
 
 Ten thousand office-seekers to their own inaug- 
 ural wind ; 
 
 A million feeble partisans walk thoughtlessly 
 behind. 
 
 When those be disappointed, then these will be 
 malcontent. 
 
 And still on his lonely pinnacle must stand the 
 President. 
 
 Yet by the strong attrition which crumbled Trea- 
 son's wrath, 
 
 In summer or in winter fighting it out on that 
 path, 
 
 I shall move on the works civilian till the govern- 
 ment adored 
 
 Of the people, by the people, for the people be 
 restored ! 
 
BENJAMIN HAEBISON 281 
 
 BENJAMIN HARRISON 
 
 1888 
 
 Hail to the grandson better 
 Than the old grandsire's fetter 
 
 Of lands and station I 
 Hail to dependence done ! 
 Hail to the Harrison 
 
 New as the nation ! 
 
 Wide lands of Sjonmes may roll 
 In suck of SjTnmes's hole, — 
 
 The pole star winking ; 
 But all the land is his 
 Whose victory Freedom's is. 
 
 And bu-thright, Thinking. 
 
 The an\41s sound the gains 
 From melted slaverj^'s chains, — 
 
 The Bourbon wonders, 
 While batteries of the mills 
 Speak out to all the hiUs 
 
 The furnace thunders. 
 
 By God-forsaken farms 
 The market city swarms 
 
 And ends dejection, 
 Free ships the railways bear ; 
 Free Trade is everywhere 
 
 And all's Protection. 
 
282 POEMS 
 
 Thy grandsire British fought, 
 Thy father toiled for naught 
 
 And died unnoted ; 
 The music of the mills 
 Can never pierce the hills 
 
 Where slaves are voted. 
 
 The late taskmasters arm 
 And call their hate Reform, 
 
 And us their Neighbor ; 
 None but wage-payers can 
 Feed the free artisan 
 
 And muster labor ! 
 
 Roll on, old ball ! once more, 
 My fathers rolled of yore, — 
 
 Roll mightier, wider ! 
 May Henry's cup come back 
 In Benjamin's corn sack. 
 
 And all have cider ! 
 
 SALT RIVER 1 
 
 A STATELY river like a silent aisle. 
 
 Led through the cliffs of limestone mile on mile. 
 
 And far inland a green and cool retreat. 
 
 Lay all embowered and hid from human feet. 
 
 The laurel grew to arbors for repose. 
 
 The long blue grass was dyed by many a rose, 
 
 1 Defeated candidates for the Presidency were long said to 
 have " gone up Salt River." 
 
SALT BIVEB 288 
 
 The high gray walls with oaks were corniced o'er 
 
 And dropped their creepers to the crystal shore ; 
 
 And there were walks in groves where silence grew 
 
 Profounder for the note of the cuckoo, 
 
 Where the}-, the philosophic few, could walk 
 
 In high Arcadian fellowship and talk ; 
 
 Who climbed each step but one of power's ascent, 
 
 And, losing that, were doomed to banishment : 
 
 A little handful driven from the sun 
 
 Of power to a lonelier Pantheon, 
 
 Here they discussed the empire they resigned 
 
 And nobler empires of the human mind. 
 
 One year in four the wafted vessel sped; 
 
 A wounded eagle guided it o'erhead. 
 
 The beaten hero who had lost a realm 
 
 Blew onward without mariner or helm. 
 
 Fate filled the wind, nor foe nor friend pursued, 
 
 But grander nature gave her solitude. 
 
 No more the world its censure or applause 
 
 Heaped on his head, liis memory, or his cause. 
 
 Grave and respectful was his welcome made. 
 
 And immemorial in this high arcade 
 
 He kept converse with statesmen as they came, 
 
 And felt how Time was kinder still than Fame. 
 
 Once on the strand they who the sceptre lost, 
 Waited at four years' close him to accost 
 Whose boat was due. And oldest of them all 
 Was one of figure soldierly and tall ; 
 At Bemis Heights an army back he bore 
 And took the sword their sullen General wore. 
 
284 POEMS 
 
 For this he sought to pierce the splendid sun 
 Where steadier fortune set her Washington. 
 Cast down for such presumption, he abides 
 The oldest exile on these silent tides. 
 
 In stature less, but not in spirit so, 
 
 Stand two who once were mortal foe and foe : 
 
 One fell before the other's deadly aim, 
 
 But all the winds of Heaven blew his fame ; 
 
 The other sought in various empires place. 
 
 And lived a long and solitary race. 
 
 Still, as they meet in this sequestered spot, 
 
 Where mind is mind and rivalry is not, 
 
 The victim knows, perchance, their fate reversed, 
 
 Had made the martyr of the man accursed. 
 
 Again in talk old York's redoubt they storm, 
 
 And at Quebec the ranks of Arnold form ; 
 
 The Senate's head and the Exchequer's source 
 
 Twinkle with themes for luminous discourse. 
 
 Riviere du Sel ! What Lethe flows in thee 
 
 Where such as Burr and Hamilton agree ? 
 
 Who comes with this judicial, searching face — 
 Scotch in his nature. Southern in his grace ? 
 'Tis he a Congress chose to lead the crowd. 
 But to the spite of rancorous faction bowed. 
 Two exiled here and two who might have been 
 Poured on his head their jealousy and spleen ; 
 Since then, tumultuous assemblies make 
 Rulers, or exiles to this lonely lake. 
 Yet serving well through good or ill report, 
 None fear in fame with Crawford to consort. 
 
SALT BIYEE 285 
 
 No, nor that trio yonder in the glen, 
 With heads of gods on bodies like to men ; 
 The one whose eyes hke diamonds in a vault 
 Might lead the mind high heaven to assault, 
 And prove that God's intention was at fault : 
 None lost the sceptre with so deep regret, 
 No mind on power was so divinely set. 
 None in its fulness was more fit to rule. 
 None in its loss to play the graver fool. 
 Still in the wildness of his whitened hair 
 There lies the pallor of a long despair. 
 Rejected from his kingdom like a Saul, 
 He raised a prophet and foreboded all. 
 Yet all he saw by logic came to pass : 
 A nervous giant in a house of glass. 
 Debate and hate, revolt, contention, gore — 
 The slave a freeman and the master poor. 
 Though in the mart his wasted ashes lie, 
 Here in Valhalla walks Calhoun for aye. 
 
 Earnest as he, but lighted like a star. 
 Shines there the visage of an orator : 
 Ithuriel's stature and a trumpet's tone : 
 Where'er he walks he leads, and he alone. 
 Thi-ice in the lists he rode to take the crown. 
 Thrice in the dust his prmcely head went down. 
 But though defeated, all the world agree 
 He had the plenitude of chivalry. 
 Still in his smile this twilight turns to day, 
 And nature brightens at the name of Clay. 
 
 Austere, revered, voluptuous, endowed 
 With fii-e and darkness like a thunder cloud. 
 
286 POEMS 
 
 Roves he whose eyes mth tender greatness shine ! 
 Who stood hke Moses on the mountain line, 
 Worthy to take God's tablets of the law 
 And break them to a multitude in awe ; 
 But not to pass into the promised state, 
 To die unmurmuring, even at the gate. 
 And leave the name of Webster to the land, 
 One just too human to be wholly grand. 
 
 Here stands but one who wore the crown awhile 
 And lost it with a wrinkle and a smile — 
 The live Van Buren, greater in defeat 
 Than blandly minist'ring in Caesar's seat. 
 The torch he wielded better than the sword ; 
 In his revolt reeled down the feudal lord. 
 He tarried long behind his time and went 
 To exile like a veteran to his tent. 
 
 Yet there is one whom death bequeathed the 
 
 tlirone. 
 And sought to win it, livmg, for his own : 
 The gracious Fillmore, fasliioned best for love. 
 To play Apollo at the fall of Jove ; 
 He saw, like Seward, an invader sail 
 To conquest, though himself had raised the gale. 
 And both recite in this enshrined retreat 
 Their country's glory in their own defeat. 
 
 So also he who found the mountain path — 
 Fremont — but not the road that glory hath, — 
 And martial Scott, whose many cubits bring 
 The office of the Guardsman, not the King. 
 Together these the limpid ripples glass : 
 
DEATH OF THE SIAMESE TWINS 287 
 
 The subtle Douglas and the timid Cass ; 
 The yearning Chase, with ermine on his breast, 
 Over a heart sick in a sceptre's quest ; 
 High-mettled Breckinridge by exile bowed ; 
 And young McClellan, Hamlet of the crowd ; 
 With cautious Seymour in the whirlwind spent, 
 That threw a soldier forward from his tent. 
 They speak together, hearty and unvexed, 
 " Who spies the shallop ? Who is coming next ? " 
 1872. 
 
 DEATH OF THE SIAMESE TWINS 
 
 Chang and Eng were gallant twins 
 
 Discovered in Siam, 
 And Eng grew up at Sabbath school, 
 
 While Chang he loved a slam ; 
 A gristly rivet joined the twain. 
 
 The which would not unscrew, 
 So pious Eng was always slain 
 
 When Chang got on a slew. 
 
 In politics Eng was a Wliig, 
 
 And Chang a Democrat, 
 And when they held an argument 
 
 It ended in a spat, 
 And often when the vote was slick, 
 
 And both sides scored a brother, 
 'Twas thought throughout the bailiwick, 
 
 They must contest each other. 
 
288 POEMS 
 
 Poor Eng he loved a Quaker maid 
 
 Who would not roost with Changy, 
 Because he came to bed so drunk 
 
 And said his prayers so slangy ; 
 They compromised, and took a pair, 
 
 And lived in great dejection, — 
 The brothers wanted a divorce, 
 
 The sisters a dissection. 
 
 And Eng he loved to sing a hymn, 
 
 And Chang to fight a chicken ; 
 Whenever Eng exhorted Chang 
 
 He got a martyr's lickin' ; 
 If in the church Eng led his class 
 
 'Twould make an angel kick up. 
 To see the one with unction pray, 
 
 And t'other sleep and hiccup. 
 
 They called a hundred surgeons in 
 
 To pass the righteous sentence. 
 If 'twould be safe to take a knife 
 
 And cut their own acquaintance. 
 The Doctors of their hyphen felt 
 
 And came to this solution : 
 'Twas an action 'twixt the Little Belt 
 
 And the navel Constitution. 
 
 At last Chang would not sleep at all. 
 
 So much he was a soaker, 
 And kept his brother sitting up 
 
 To while him at draw poker ; 
 And when he died the wretch remarked : 
 
THE FIBE GUEST 289 
 
 " The Lord must raise our bodies — 
 And I shall have all Eng's reward, 
 And likewise all those toddies." 
 
 The ladies sold the frail remains 
 
 To serve a human mission ; 
 The Doctors beat Sir Barnum out 
 
 And gave an exhibition ; 
 They found the belt a derrick was, 
 
 Two sacks — one thin, one thicker — 
 And Eng had had to brace the beam, 
 
 While Chang contained the liquor. 
 1874. 
 
 THE FIRE GUEST 
 
 CARRIERS' ADDRESS, CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 1872 
 
 The fire burns bright on my hearth to-night ; 
 Thanks to God for its warmth and light ! 
 "Warming the toes of our laughing boys, 
 Radiant over their Christmas toys ; 
 Chasing the ghosts around the ceiling, 
 Filling our hearts with grateful feehng, 
 Ushering in the visions of rest, — 
 Welcome forever, thou beautiful guest ! 
 
 See the fire from the engine gleaming ! 
 See it over the lighthouse streaming I 
 Faithful and cheery, see it shine, 
 Down in the tunnel and deep in the mine ! 
 Whence, O servant ! didst thou inherit 
 Thy willing power and mighty spirit ? 
 
290 POEMS 
 
 Forests of giant trees, they say, 
 
 "Waved once their boughs in the light of day, 
 
 And down their gorgeous blossoms hurled 
 
 In the profligate life of a young, new world ; 
 
 But the world rolled back and they crackled and 
 
 bowed, 
 Like the stars of heaven rolled under a cloud, 
 And still in their crystal caverns deep, 
 Blossom, and beauty, and strength they keep ; 
 And the tints of the forest return to invest 
 The blooming anew of our beautiful guest. 
 
 Alas, thou truant ! Thou canst not see 
 
 The ache in our hearts for the freak of thee, 
 
 When leaping out of thy cage one night, 
 
 Across the city thou took'st thy flight, 
 
 Knowing no more of the havoc and wrack. 
 
 Than the harmless heart of a maniac. 
 
 Thou thought'st it merry to imitate 
 
 On a grander scale, the glow of thy grate ; 
 
 And the noise thou mad'st in thy diligence 
 
 Drowned the cry we lifted in impotence : 
 
 " O God ! O Fire ! Our hearthstones spare ! 
 
 Oh, best of servants, return, forbear ! 
 
 Oh, worst of masters, be satisfied 
 
 With the rent thou hast made in the mart of our 
 
 pride I " 
 In vain ; we heard in thy wild carouse 
 The buried forest's thunderous boughs. 
 And the brilliant blossoms that grew so high. 
 Again in their splendor climbed the sky. 
 We fled from the blaze like the prairie quail, 
 
THE FIRE GUEST 291 
 
 Or birds from their nests at the scream of the gale, 
 And stood in the night by the ruins' gleam, 
 Like the highway vagrant aroused from his dream. 
 Our Altars were gone and our walls overthrown ; 
 Our temples were razed and our monuments prone ; 
 Our boast — God forgive us ! thou doest all best — 
 Chicago had flown like its beautiful guest. 
 
 O beautiful fire ! returned anew. 
 
 To show us the faces courageous and true, 
 
 Assembled again around hearthstones low. 
 
 But warmed into hope by thy innocent glow ! 
 
 The paintings were gone that reflected thy ray ; 
 
 The books that beguiled the close of the day ; 
 
 The burnished mirror, the carriage and span. 
 
 And the trophies of artist and artisan ; 
 
 But something remained from the embers and 
 
 wreck — 
 The wife heroic that clung to our neck ; 
 Our sons that are never degenerate ; 
 Our purpose, returned, like the flame in the grate, 
 To build the beautiful city again, 
 As a tower unto fate and example to men. 
 Oh ! fire of the household, what carrier doves 
 Flew into our windows laden with loves, 
 From human nature — from foreign queen — 
 From Pharisee and from Magdalene ! 
 Then, never till then, as thou canst attest. 
 We wept in thy presence, our beautiful guest ! 
 
 This New Year's time, O kindly fire ! 
 "We gather around thee closer and nigher. 
 
292 POEMS 
 
 Be unto us a scourge no more, 
 
 But be that kindlier friend of yore, 
 
 Which warmed the cold limbs, sore and wet, 
 
 Of river-seeking, good Marquette, 
 
 And made the prairie like an inn 
 
 To lonely father Hennepin ! 
 
 Burn brightly, while we keep in peace 
 
 Our dream of empire and increase. 
 
 As when the white man's vessel started 
 
 Our river's ripples long ago. 
 
 And calmly slept the lion-hearted 
 
 La Salle, beside the camp fire's glow ! 
 
 Show us, O fire ! in thy graceful curling, 
 
 The hut of the negro pioneer. 
 
 And the flag of Dearborn first unfurling 
 
 In the prairie's smoky atmosphere ; 
 
 The low pirogues of the bold post trader 
 
 Set under the bank of poplar trees. 
 
 And the prowling form of the Indian raider, 
 
 Gartered with skunk's skin around the knees ! 
 
 And hide, O fire I that scene in phlebotomy. 
 
 When the garrison filed through the stockade wall, 
 
 And Winnebago and Pottowattamie 
 
 Kept time to the tune of the dead march in Saul ! 
 
 Who said that Chicago was perished, but blun- 
 dered. 
 
 Though the silence of nature returned to the 
 moor. 
 
 The gray wolf howled where the cannon had thun- 
 dered. 
 
THE FIRE GUEST 293 
 
 And the wild goose piped to the voyageur: 
 To divide up our raiment contended all races, — 
 The French of St. Louis, the folks of Calumet ; 
 Toledo, Milwaukee, and other small places, 
 The which to enumerate is to forget. 
 But the soldiers returned to their station, 
 Again the artillery spake, 
 And like a divine exhalation, 
 Chicago arose by the lake ! 
 It was thee, O thou tyrant ! that glowest, — 
 Unaware of thy freak or our ire, — 
 'Twas by thee that we conquered, thou knowest, — 
 Thou builder and spoiler, the fire ! 
 To thy harness return, we forgive thee ; 
 For the traffic thou gav'st, go in quest ! 
 And the city revived shall enshrine thee, 
 Its beautiful guest I 
 
 Ah, me ! The cold toes this winter, 
 
 And the candles burnt out in the socket ; 
 
 Let us give them that tinder-box, money. 
 
 And burn a warm hole in their pocket ! 
 
 There's a carrier s foot I Who would shun him? 
 
 Perhaps his extremities ache ; 
 
 Let us heap coals of fire upon him. 
 
 And burn him alive at our stake I 
 
 Then, to-night, be he son or be sire, 
 
 As he counts o'er his coins of bequest. 
 
 He will smile at that terrible fire. 
 
 And call it his beautiful guest ! 
 
294 POEMS 
 
 SPINOZA 
 
 Sweet type of Jew ! except that thou 
 Earned with thy hands thy frugal food, 
 And led not crowds but solitude, 
 I almost seem to feel thee, now, 
 The highest proof of Holyrood ! 
 Polishing lenses for the light 
 That is the Revelation pure, 
 Thy convex mind infinite sight 
 Glassed of the wide Infinitude 
 And graved peUucid Literature : 
 Nature and Mind one substance were, 
 The bread and wine religions take ; 
 God-will aboundeth everywhere 
 And cannot anything forsake. 
 
 EVENTS AND CREED 
 
 (RANKE'S HISTORY OF THE POPES) 
 
 Events rule all : irruptive Rome made Christ : 
 Irruptive Greece Italian knowledge woke. 
 The Christian fantasy, by facts advised, — 
 When classic Art pontificates enticed, — 
 Erudite monks the see of Caesars broke : 
 Wickliife and Huss, Luther and Bruno spoke 
 While modelled Angelo and Raphael ; 
 The voice of Letters dealt the void a stroke 
 As finds its tongue the dumb, sepulchral bell. 
 So cannot rest the aye resurgent mind ; 
 Wave upon wave resultant movements thresh 
 
V 
 
 IJ^ RAMA 295 
 
 The rock of Peter or the caves of hell, 
 And every human billow that does grind 
 The dikes of credence, keeps the ocean fresh. 
 
 IN RAMA 
 
 A LITTLE face there was, 
 
 When all her pains were done. 
 Beside that face I loved : 
 
 The}^ said it was a son. 
 A son to me — how strange — 
 
 Who never was a man, 
 But lived from change to change 
 
 A boy, as I began ! 
 
 More bo}nsh still the hope 
 
 That leaped within me, then : 
 That I, matured in him. 
 
 Should found a house of men, 
 And all my wasted sheaves. 
 
 Bound up in his ripe shock, 
 Give seed to sterner times 
 
 And name to sterner stock. 
 
 He grew to that ideal, 
 
 And blossomed in my sight. 
 Strange questions filled his day. 
 
 Sweet visions in the night ; 
 Till he could walk with me. 
 
 Companion, hand in hand. 
 But nothing seemed to be 
 
 Like him, in wonder-land. 
 
296 POEMS 
 
 For he was leading me 
 
 Beyond the bounds of mind, 
 Far down eternity, 
 
 And I so far behind. 
 One day an angel stepped 
 
 Out of the idle sphere ; 
 The man had entered in. 
 
 The boy is weeping here. 
 
 My house is founded there. 
 
 In heaven, that he has won. 
 Shall I be outlawed, then, 
 
 O, Lord ! who hast my son ? 
 This grief that makes me old. 
 
 Those tears that make me pure, 
 They tell me time is time. 
 
 And only heaven mature. 
 1874 
 
 RACHEL 
 
 (DELAWARE GUNNER'S WHISTLE) 
 
 Down in the marshes of the Christeen creek 
 Lives a little reed-bird on which I sneak, 
 She is so fat that she looks right short 
 But when she flies she is real good sport. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! why don't you run ? 
 
 Don't you know, Rachel, I carry a gun ? 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! I love you the most. 
 
 If I could get you how you would toast ! 
 
 She has a nest on the Christeen creek ; 
 Come to it softly and don't you speak ! 
 
RACHEL 297 
 
 Down in the reeds on the flood-tide bog 
 I have a skiff and a pointer dog. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel I why don't you fly ? 
 
 When he sees Rachel the dog points shy. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel I I tremble too, 
 
 Loading my heart in my gun for you ! 
 
 Soft are the stars in the Christeen creek 
 When in the evening my bird I seek, 
 Plump is her breast in her yellow gown 
 Soft is her plumage as reed-bird down. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! why don't you tweet ? 
 
 WTien you know, Rachel, I could you eat ? 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! for you I gun, 
 
 I have my bag full when you are won ! 
 
 Like thorn hedges by the Christeen creek 
 Tinted with red is my reed-bird's cheek. 
 Trim as the hedge tops her father clips 
 Are the soft lines to my sweet bird's lips. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! why don't you come ? 
 
 Let me take Rachel to my own home ! 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! thou fat mai-sh chick. 
 
 How for my supper thy plushing would pick ! 
 
 Fall comes fast on the Christeen creek ; 
 Soon I must migrate unless thou speak : 
 Dear little Quaker of frost bethink ! 
 I will be gone with the Bob-o-link. 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! why don't you wed ? 
 
 Winter, my Rachel ! in my marsh bed ! 
 
 Rachel ! Rachel ! the wind blows bleak. 
 
 Fly to my boat on the Christeen creek I 
 
298 POEMS 
 
 ANGELS IN MASK 
 
 As from the throng of moving masks 
 
 I drew a space apart, 
 Well known to some unknown to me, 
 
 By my imperfect Art, 
 One, in the habit of a nun. 
 
 Stopped short, as in surprise. 
 And through her domino I saw 
 
 Two soft, regarding eyes. 
 
 Long looked we both, for half I felt 
 
 Her gaze no mischief spoke. 
 And knew it, when a' woman's hand 
 
 Reached to me from the cloak ; 
 A voice I never heard before, 
 
 But most sincere and sweet, 
 Said, " Ah ! my love, do we once more 
 
 Touch hand to hand and meet ? " 
 
 " Fair domino," I said, " indeed, 
 
 Unmask before you go. 
 And tell your trouble in my ear, 
 
 Why do you tremble so ? " 
 " I tremble for the virgin years 
 
 When o'er my mind supreme, 
 You were the hero of my fears, 
 
 The gallant of my dream." 
 
 " And did I never know your will. 
 When then, perchance, my heart 
 
 Like yours, was longing for a shrine, 
 A mistress, or an art? " 
 
£^ 
 
 Arch oi' the \Vau ( ouhesi'undents, Gapland, Mu. 
 
EIBE FEOM FIVE FOEKS 299 
 
 " No, mine was all the pleasant pain, 
 
 And heaven permits it here. 
 To say that still, as when a child, 
 
 I follow 3-our career. 
 
 « My husband passes — Nay ! you must ! 
 
 No guilty secret mine." 
 A strong man's hand came frankly forth, 
 
 I saw his dark eyes shine ; 
 " In honor's way God keep you long ! " 
 
 These manly sounds I heard, 
 " And never may you cease to be 
 
 Our favorite household word." 
 
 They vanished in the moving crowd 
 
 And left me wondering quite, 
 Until I heard my comrade say : 
 
 " Whom have you seen to-night? " 
 " To guess," I said, " were fruitless task. 
 
 When all this maze I see ; 
 But, if they ever come in mask. 
 
 Two angels spoke to me." 
 
 RIDE FROM FR^E FORKS 
 
 APRIL 1, 1865 
 
 Ho ! pony. Down the lonely road 
 Strike now your cheeriest pace ! 
 
 The woods on fire do not burn higher 
 Than burns my anxious face ; 
 
 Far have you sped, but all this night 
 
300 POEMS 
 
 Must feel my nervous spur ; 
 If we be late, the world must wait 
 
 The tidings we aver : — 
 To home and hamlet, town and hearth, 
 
 To thrill child, mother, man, 
 I carry to the waiting North 
 
 Great news from Sheridan ! 
 
 The birds are dead among the pines. 
 
 Slain by the battle fright. 
 Prone in the road the steed reclines 
 
 That never reached the fight : 
 Yet on we go, — the wreck below 
 
 Of many a tumbled wain, — 
 By ghastly pools where stranded mules 
 
 Die, di'inking of the rain. 
 With but my list of killed and missed, 
 
 I spur my stumbling nag. 
 To tell of death at many a tryst, 
 
 But victory to the flag ! 
 
 " Halt! who comes there ? The countersign ! " — 
 
 " A friend." — " Advance ! The fight, — 
 How goes it, say ? " — " We won the day ! " — 
 
 " Huzza ! Pass on ! " — " Good-nig-ht ! " — 
 And parts the darkness on before. 
 
 And down the mire we tramp, 
 And the black sky is painted o'er 
 
 With many a pulsing camp ; 
 O'er stumps and ruts, by ruined huts. 
 
 Where ghosts look through the gloam, — 
 Behind my tread I hear the dead 
 
 Follow the news tow'rd home ! 
 
HIDE FBOM FIVE FOBKS 301 
 
 The hunted souls I see behind, 
 
 In swamp and in ravine, 
 Whose cry of mercy thrills the wind 
 
 Till cracks the sure carbine ; 
 The moving lights which scare the dark, 
 
 And show the trampled place 
 Where, in his blood, some mother's bud 
 
 Turns up his young, dead face ; 
 The captives spent, whose standards rent 
 
 The conqueror parades. 
 As at the Five Forks roads arrive 
 
 The General's dashing Aides. 
 
 woncbous Youth ! through this grand ruth 
 Runs my boy's life its thread ; 
 
 The General's fame, the battle's name, 
 The rolls of maimed and dead 
 
 1 bear, with my thrilled soul astir. 
 
 And lonely thoughts and fears. 
 And am but History's courier 
 
 To bind the conquering years ; 
 A battle-ray, through ages gray 
 
 To light to deeds sublime, 
 And flash the lustre of this day 
 
 Down all the aisles of Time ! 
 
 Ho ! pony, — 'tis the signal gun — 
 
 The nightrassault decreed ; 
 On Petersburg the thunderbolts 
 
 Crash from the lines of Meade ; 
 Fade the pale, frightened stars o'erhead. 
 
 And shrieks the bursting air ; 
 
302 POEMS 
 
 The forest foliage, tinted red, 
 
 Grows ghastlier in the glare ; 
 Though m Her towers, reached Her last hours, 
 
 Rocks proud Rebellion's crest — 
 The world may sag, if but my nag 
 
 Get in before the rest ! 
 
 With bloody flank, and fetlocks dank. 
 
 And goad, and lash, and shout — 
 Great God ! as every hoof-beat falls 
 
 A hundred lives beat out ! 
 As weary as this broken steed 
 
 Reels down the corduroys, 
 So, weary, fight for morning light 
 
 Our hot and grimy boys ; 
 Through ditches wet, o'er parapet 
 
 And guns barbette, they catch 
 The last, lost breach ; and I, — I reach 
 
 The mail with my despatch ! 
 
 Sure it shall speed, the land to read, 
 
 As sped the happiest shell ! 
 The shot I send strike the world's end ; 
 
 This tells my pony's knell ; 
 His long race run, the long war done, 
 
 My occupation gone, — 
 Above his bier, prone on the pier. 
 
 The vultures fleck the dawn. 
 Still, rest his bones where soldiers dwell. 
 
 Till the Long Roll they catch. 
 He fell the day that Richmond fell. 
 
 And took the first despatch ! 
 
LAND OF P0C03f0KE 303 
 
 LAND OF POCOMOKE 
 
 (EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND) 
 
 One day, worn out with head and pen, 
 And the debate of public men, 
 
 I said aloud, " O ! if there were 
 Some place to make me young awhile, 
 
 I would go there, I would go there, 
 And if it were a many a mile ! " 
 
 Then something cried — perhaps my map. 
 That not in vain I oft invoke — 
 
 " Go seek again your mothers lap. 
 
 The dear old soil that gave you sap. 
 And see the land of Pocomoke I " 
 
 A sense of shame that never yet 
 My foot on that old shore was set, 
 
 Thougli prodigal in wandering. 
 Arose ; and with a tingled cheek. 
 
 Like some late wild duck on the wing, 
 I started down the Chesapeake. 
 
 The morning sunlight, silvery calm. 
 From basking shores of woodland broke. 
 
 And capes and inlets breathing balm, 
 
 And lovel}'- islands clothed in palm. 
 Closed round the sound of Pocomoke. 
 
 The pungy boats at anchor swing. 
 The long canoes were oystering. 
 
 And moving barges played the seine 
 Along the beaches of Tangiers ; 
 
 I heard the British di-ums again 
 
304 POEMS 
 
 As in their predatory years, 
 
 When Kedge's Straits the Tories swept, 
 
 And Ross's camp-fires hid in smoke. 
 They plundered all the coasts except 
 The camp the Island Parson kept 
 
 For praying men of Pocomoke. 
 
 And when we thread in quaint intrigue 
 Onancock Creek and Pungoteague, 
 
 The world and wars behind us stop. 
 On God's frontiers we seem to be 
 
 As at Rehoboth wharf we drop, 
 And see the Kirk of Mackemie : 
 
 The first he was to teach the creed 
 The rugged Scotch will ne'er revoke ; 
 
 His slaves he made to work and read, 
 
 Nor powers Episcopal to heed. 
 That held the glebes on Pocomoke. 
 
 But quiet nooks like these unman 
 The grim predestinarian, 
 
 Whose soul expands to mountain views ; 
 And Wesley's tenets, like a tide. 
 
 These level shores with love suffuse, 
 Where'er his patient preachers ride. 
 
 The landscape quivered with the swells 
 And felt the steamer's paddle stroke, 
 
 That tossed the hollow gum-tree shells, 
 
 As if some puffing craft of hell's 
 The fisher chased in Pocomoke. 
 
 Anon the river spreads to coves, 
 And in the tides grow giant groves. 
 
LAND OF POCOMOKE 305 
 
 The water shines like ebony, 
 And odoi-s resinous ascend 
 
 From many an old balsamic tree, 
 Whose roots the terrapin befriend ; 
 
 The great ball cypress, fringed with beard, 
 Presides above the water oak, 
 
 As doth its shingles, well revered, 
 
 O'er many a happy home endeared 
 To thousands far from Pocomoke. 
 
 And solemn hemlocks drink the dew, 
 Like that old Socrates they slew ; 
 
 The piny forests moan and moan, 
 And in the marshy splutter docks, 
 
 As if they grazed on sky alone, 
 Rove airily the herds of ox. 
 
 Then, like a narrow strait of light. 
 The banks draw close, the long trees yoke, 
 
 And strong old manses on the height 
 
 Stand overhead, as to invite 
 To good old cheer on Pocomoke. 
 
 And cunning baskets midstream lie 
 To trap the perch that gambol by ; 
 
 In coves of creek the saw-mills sing, 
 And trim the spar and hew the mast ; 
 
 And the gaunt loons dart on the wing, 
 To see the steamer looming past. 
 
 Now timber shores and massive piles 
 Repel our hull with friendly stroke. 
 
 And guide us up the long defiles, 
 
 Till, after many fairy miles 
 We reach the head of Pocomoke. 
 
306 POEMS 
 
 Is it Snow Hill that greets me back 
 To this old loamy cul-de-sac ? — 
 
 Spread on the level river shore, 
 Beneath the bending willow-trees 
 
 And speckled trunks of sycamore, 
 All moist with airs of rival seas ? 
 
 Are these old men who gravely bow, 
 As if a stranger all awoke, 
 
 The same who heard my parents vow, 
 
 — Ah well ! in simpler days than now 
 To love and serve by Pocomoke ? 
 
 Does Chincoteague, as then, produce 
 These rugged ponies, lean and spruce ? 
 
 Are these the steers of Accomack 
 That do the negro's drone obey? 
 
 The things of childhood all come back ; 
 The wonder tales of mother day ! 
 
 The jail, the inn, the ivy vines 
 That yon old English churchside cloak, 
 
 Wherein we read the stately lines 
 
 Of Addison, writ in his signs. 
 Above the dead of Pocomoke. 
 
 The world in this old nook may peep, 
 And think it listless and asleep ; 
 
 But I have seen the world enough 
 To think its grandeur something dull ; 
 
 And here were men of sterling stuff. 
 In their own era wonderful : 
 
 Young Luther Martin's wayward race, 
 And William Winder's core of oak. 
 
OLD ST. MARY'S 30T 
 
 The lion heart of Samuel Chase, 
 And great Decatur's royal face, 
 And Henry "Wise of Pocomoke. 
 
 When we have raged our little part, 
 And weary out of strife and art, 
 
 Oh ! could we bring to these still shores 
 The peace they have who harbor here. 
 
 And rest upon our echoing oars, 
 And float adowTi this tranquil sphere ! 
 
 Then, might yon stars shine down on me. 
 With all the hope those lovers spoke, 
 
 Who walked these tranquil streets I see, 
 
 And thought God's love nowhere so free. 
 Nor life so good, as Pocomoke. 
 
 OLD ST. MARY'S 
 
 (CAPITAL OF COLONIAL MARYLAND) 
 
 This is the river. Like Southampton water 
 
 It enters broadly in the woody lands. 
 
 As if to break a continent asunder. 
 
 And sudden ceasing, lo ! the city stands : 
 
 St. Mary's — stretching forth its yellow hands 
 
 Of beach, beneath the bluff where it commands 
 
 In vision only ; for the fields are green 
 
 Above the pilgrims. Pleasant is the place ; 
 
 No ruin mars its immemorial face. 
 
 As young as in virginity renewed. 
 
 Its widow's sorrows gone without a trace. 
 
 And tempting man to woo its solitude. 
 
308 POEMS 
 
 The river loves it, and embraces still 
 Its comely form with two small arms of bay, 
 Whereon, of old, the Calverts' pinnace lay. 
 The Dove — dear bird ! — the olive in its bill. 
 That to the Ark returned from every gale 
 And found a haven by this sheltering hill. 
 
 Lo ! all composed, the soft horizons lie 
 
 Afloat upon the blueness of the coves. 
 
 And sometimes in the mirage does the sky 
 
 Seem to continue the dependent groves. 
 
 And draw in the canoe that careless roves 
 
 Among the stars repeated round the bow. 
 
 Far off the larger sails go down the world, 
 
 For nothing worldly sees St. Mary's now ; 
 
 The ancient windmills all their sails have furled, 
 
 The standards of the Lords of Baltimore, 
 
 And they, the Lords, have passed to their reposej 
 
 And nothing sounds upon the pebbly shore 
 
 Except thy hidden bell. Saint Inigo's ! 
 
 There, in a wood, the Jesuits' chapel stands 
 Amongst the gravestones, in secluded calm. 
 But, Sabbath days, the censer's healing balm. 
 The Crucified with His extended hands. 
 And music of the masses, draw the fold 
 Back to His worship as in days of old. 
 
 Upon a cape the priest's house northward blinks, 
 To see St. Mary's Seminary guard 
 The dead that sleep within the parish yard. 
 In English faith — the parish church that links 
 The present with the perish'd, for its walls 
 
HEBMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOB 309 
 
 Are of the clay that was the capital's, 
 When halberdiers and musketeers kept ward, 
 And armor sounded in the oaken halLs. 
 
 A fruity smell is in the school-house lane, 
 The clover bees are sick with evening heats, 
 A few old houses from the window pane 
 Fling back the flame of sunset, and there beats 
 The throb of oars from basking oyster fleets, 
 And clangorous music of the oyster tongs, 
 Plunged down in deep bivalvnlous retreats. 
 And sound of seine drawn home with negro songs. 
 
 Night falls as heavily in such a clime 
 As tired childhood after all day's play. 
 Waiting for mother who has passed away. 
 And some old nurse, with iterated rhyme 
 Of hymns or topics of the olden time, 
 Lulls wonder with her tenderness to rest : 
 So, old St. Marj^'s ! at the close of day. 
 Sing thou to me, a truant, on thy breast ! 
 
 HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 
 I. — THE MANOR 
 
 " Mr corn is gathered in the bins," 
 The Lord Augustin Herman said ; 
 
 " My wild swine romp in chincapins ; 
 
 Dried are the deer and beaver skins ; 
 And on Elk Mountain's languid head 
 The autumn woods are red. 
 
310 POEMS 
 
 " So in my heart an autumn falLs ; 
 
 I stand a lonely tree unleaved ; 
 And to my hermit manor walls 
 The wild-goose from the water calls, 
 
 As if to mock a man bereaved : 
 
 My years are nearly sheaved. 
 
 " Go saddle me the Flemish steed 
 My brother Verlett gave to me, 
 What time his sister did concede 
 Her dainty hand to hear me plead ! 
 
 Poor soul ! she's mouldering by the sea 
 And I with misery." 
 
 The slave man brought the wild-maned horse- 
 All wilder that with stags he grazed — 
 
 Bred from the seed the knightly Norse 
 
 Rode from Araby. Like remorse 
 
 The eyes in his gray forehead blazed. 
 As on his lord he gazed. 
 
 " Now guard ye well my lands and stock ; 
 
 Slack not the seine, ply well the axe ! 
 The eagle circles o'er the flock ; 
 The Indian at my gates may knock ; 
 
 The firelock prime for his attacks ! 
 
 I ride the sunrise tracks." 
 
 Swift as a wizard on a broom, 
 The strong gray horse and rider ran, 
 
 Adown the forest stripped of bloom. 
 
 By stump and bough that scarce gave room 
 To pass the woodman's caravan. 
 Rode the Bohemian. 
 
HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 311 
 
 "Lord Herman, stay," the brewer cried, 
 
 " And Huddy's friendly flagon clink ! " 
 And martial Hinoy6ssa spied 
 The horseman, moving with the tide 
 That ebbed from Appoquinimink, 
 Nor stopped to rest or drink. 
 
 " Where rides old Herman ? " Beekman mused ; 
 " That railing wife has turned his head." 
 
 " He keeps the saddle as he used, 
 
 In younger days, when he infused 
 
 Three provinces," Pierre Alricks said, 
 " And mapped their landscapes spread." 
 
 Broad rose Zuydt River as the sail 
 
 Above his periauger flew ; 
 Loud neighed the steed to snuff the gale ; 
 But Herman saw not, swift and pale. 
 
 Two carrier pigeons, winging true 
 
 Northeast, across the blue. 
 
 They quit the cage of Stuyvesant's spy, 
 And lurking Willems' message bore: 
 
 (" This morn rode Herman rapid by, 
 
 Tow'rd Amsterdam, to satisfy 
 Yet wider titles than he tore 
 From shallow Baltimore ! ") 
 
 n. — REPLEVIN 
 
 The second sunset at his back 
 
 From Navesink Highlands threw the shade 
 Of horse and Herman, long and black. 
 
312 POEMS 
 
 Across the golden ripples' track, 
 
 Where with the Kills the ocean played 
 A measured serenade ; 
 
 There, where to sea a river ran. 
 
 Between tall hills of brown and sand, 
 
 A mountain island rose to span 
 
 The outlet of the Raritan, 
 
 And made a world on either hand 
 Soft as a poet planned : 
 
 Fair marshes pierced with brimming creeks, 
 Where wild-fowl dived to oyster caves ; 
 
 And shores that swung to wooded peaks, 
 
 Where many a falling water seeks 
 
 The cascade's plunge to reach the waves, 
 And greenest farmland laves ; 
 
 Deep tide to every roadstead sb'ps, 
 And many capes confuse the shore, 
 
 Yet none do with their forms eclipse 
 
 Yon ocean, made for royal ships, 
 Whose swells on silver beaches roar 
 And rock forevermore. 
 
 Old Herman gazed through lengthening shades 
 Far up the inland, where the spires, 
 
 Defined on rocky palisades. 
 
 Flung sunset from their burnished blades, 
 And with their bells in evening choirs 
 Breathed homesick men's desires : 
 
 " New Amsterdam ! 'tis thine or mine — 
 The foreground of this stately plan ! 
 
HE B MAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 313 
 
 To me the Indian did assign — 
 Totem on totem, line on line — 
 
 Both Staten and the groves that ran 
 
 Far up the Raritan. 
 
 " B}^ spiteful Stuyvesant long restrained, 
 Now, wliile the English break his power, 
 
 Be Aehter Kill again regained 
 
 And Herman's title entertained ! — 
 Here float my banner from my tower ! 
 Here is my right, my hour ! " 
 
 ni. THE SQUATTERS 
 
 He scarce had finished, when a rush, 
 
 Like partridge through the stubble, broke. 
 
 And armed men trod down the brush ; 
 
 A harsh voice, trembling in the hush, 
 As it must either stab or choke. 
 Imperiously spoke : 
 
 " Ye conquered men of Aehter Kill, 
 Whose farms by loyal toil ye got. 
 
 True Dutchmen ! give this traitor will — 
 
 And he is yours to loose or kill — 
 All that ye have he will allot 
 Anew — field, cradle, cot. 
 
 " Years past, beyond our Southern bounds. 
 
 On States' commission sent by me. 
 He mapped the English papists' grounds, 
 And like a Judas, o'er our wounds. 
 Our raiment parted openly : 
 This is the man ye see ! 
 
314 POEMS 
 
 " Yet, followed by my sleepless age, 
 
 Fast as he rode my pigeons sped — 
 Straight as the ravens from their cage, 
 Straight as the arrows of my rage, 
 Straight as the meteor overhead 
 That strikes a traitor dead." 
 
 They bound Lord Herman fast as hate, 
 
 And bore him o'er to Staten Isle ; 
 Behind him closed the postern gate. 
 And round him pitiless as fate. 
 
 Closed moat and palisade and pile : 
 " Thou diest at morn," they smile. 
 
 IV. — STUYVESANT 
 
 Morn broke on lofty Staten's height. 
 O'er low Amboy and Arthur Kill ; 
 And ocean dallying with the light, 
 Between the beaches leprous white, 
 And silent hook and headland hill, 
 And Stuy vesant had his will ; 
 
 One-legged he stood, his sharp mustache 
 
 Stiff as the sword he slashed in ire ; 
 His bald crown, like a calabash. 
 Fringed round with ringlets white as ash. 
 And features scorched with inner fire ; 
 Age wore liim like a briar. 
 
 •'Bring the Bohemian forth! " he cried; 
 " Old man, thy moments are but few." 
 " So much the better, Dutchman ! bide 
 
HEBMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 315 
 
 Thy little time of aged pride, 
 Thy poor revenges to pursue ! — 
 Thy date is hastening, too. 
 
 " No crime is mine, save that I sought 
 
 A refuge past thy jealous ken, 
 And peaceful arts to strangers taught. 
 And mine own title hither brought, 
 
 Before the laws of Englishmen, 
 
 A banished denizen. 
 
 " Yet that thy churlish soul may plead 
 
 A favor to a dying foe, 
 I'll ask thee, Stuyvesant, ere I bleed, 
 Let me once more on my gray steed 
 
 Thrice round the timbered enceinte go : 
 
 Fire, when I tell thee so ! " 
 
 " What freak is this ? " quoth Stuyvesant grim. 
 
 Quoth Herman, " 'Twas a charger brave — 
 Like my first bride in eye and hmb — 
 A wedding-gift ; indulge the whim ! 
 
 And from his back to plunge, I crave, 
 
 A bridegroom, in her grave." 
 
 Then, muttered the uneasy guard : 
 " We rob an old man of his lands. 
 
 And slay him. Sure his fate is hard, 
 
 His dying plea to disregard ! " 
 
 " Ride then to death ! " Stuyvesant commands; 
 " Unbind his horse, his hands ! " 
 
316 POEMS 
 
 V. THE LEAP 
 
 The old steed darted in the fort, 
 
 And neighed and shook his long gray mane ; 
 Then, seeing soldiery, his port 
 Grew savage. With a charger's snort, 
 
 Upright he reared, as young again 
 
 And scenting a campaign. 
 
 Hard on his nostrils Herman laid 
 
 An iron hand and drew him down, 
 Then, mounting in the esplanade, 
 The rude Dutch rustics stared afraid: 
 " By Santa Claus ! he needs no crown. 
 To look more proud renown ! " 
 
 Lame Stuyvesant, also, envious saw 
 
 How straight he sat in courteous power, 
 
 Like boldness sanctified by law, 
 
 And age gave magisterial awe ; 
 
 Though in liis last and bitter hour, 
 Of knightliness the flower. 
 
 His gray hairs o'er his cassock blew, 
 
 And in his peak'd hat waved a plume ; 
 A horn swung loose and shining tlirough 
 High boots of buckskin, as he drew 
 The rein, a jewel burst to bloom: 
 The signet ring of doom. 
 
 " Thrice round the fort ! Then as I raise 
 This hand, aim all and murder well!" 
 His head bends low ; the steed's eyes blaze. 
 
HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MAN OB 317 
 
 But not less bright do Herman's gaze, 
 As circling round the citadel, 
 He peers for hope in hell. 
 
 Fast were the gates ; no crevice showed. 
 
 The ramparts, spiked with palisades, 
 Grew higher as once round he rode ; 
 The arquebusiers prime the load 
 
 And drop to aim from ambuscades; 
 
 No latch, no loophole aids. 
 
 But one small hut its chimney thrust 
 Between the timbers, close as they ; 
 
 Twice round and with a desperate trust 
 
 Lord Herman muttered : " Die I must : 
 
 There, CHARGE ! " and spurred through beam 
 and clay — 
 
 " By heaven ! he is away ! " 
 
 VI. — THE KILLS 
 
 In clouds of dust the muskets fire. 
 
 And volleying oaths old Stuyvesant from : 
 " Turn out ! In yonder Kills he'll mire 
 Or drown, unless the fiends conspu-e. 
 "Mount! Follow! Still he must succumb — 
 That tide was never swum." 
 
 Through hut and chimney, down the ditch 
 
 And up the bank, plunge horse and man ; 
 And down the hills of bramble pitch, 
 Oft stumbling, those old gray knees which, 
 Hunting the raccoon, led the van ; 
 Now, limp yet game he ran. 
 
318 POEMS 
 
 But cool and supple, Herman sat, 
 
 His mind at work, his frame the horse's, 
 And knew with each pulsation, that 
 Past foe and fen, past crag, and flat, 
 And marsh, the steed he nearer forces 
 To the broad sea's recourses. 
 
 " Old friend," he thought, " thou art too weak 
 To try the Kills and drown, or falter, 
 The whUe from shore their marksmen seek 
 My heart. (Once o'er the Chesapeake 
 I paddled oarless.) Lest the halter 
 Be mine, I must not palter — 
 
 " Thou diest, though my marriage-gift : 
 I still can swim. Poor Joost, adieu ! " 
 
 Ere ceased the heartfelt sigh he lift, 
 
 The prospect widened ; all adrift, 
 The salty sluice burst into view. 
 Where grappling tides fought through 
 
 And sucked to doom the venturous bear. 
 And from his ferry swept the rower — 
 
 How wide, how terrible, how fair ! 
 
 Yet how inspiriting the air — 
 
 How tempts the long salt grass the mower ! 
 How treacherous the shore ! 
 
 Far up the right spread Newark Bay, 
 To lone Secaucus wooded rock ; 
 
 Nor could the Kill von Kull convey 
 
 Passaic's mountain flood away : 
 In Arthur Kill the surges choke. 
 The wild tides interlock. 
 
HER3IAN OF BOHEMIA 31 AN OR 319 
 
 O'er Arthur Kill the Holland farms 
 
 Their gambril roofs, red painted, show ; 
 
 Beyond, the newer Yankee swarms — 
 
 His cider-presses spread their arms. 
 Before, the squatter ; back, the foe : 
 And the dark watei^s flow. 
 
 As that salt air the stallion felt. 
 
 He whimpers gayly, as if still is 
 Upon his sight his native Scheldt, 
 Or Skagger Rack, or Little Belt, — 
 Their wa\ing grass and silver lilies, 
 Where browsed the amorous fillies. 
 
 And o'er the tide some lady nags 
 
 Blew back his challenge. Scarce could Herman 
 Hold in his seat. " By John of Prague's 
 True faith I " he thought, *' thy spirit lags 
 
 Not, Joost! Thy course thyself determine I" 
 
 And plunges like a merman. 
 
 Leander's spirit in the steed 
 
 Inspired his stroke, not Herman's fear ; 
 And fast the island shores recede. 
 Fast rise the rider's spirits freed. 
 
 The golden mainland draws more near — 
 
 " O gallant horse ! 'tis here ! " 
 
 Vn. — ELUSION 
 
 Across the Kills the muskets crack — 
 
 " Ha ! ha I "' Lord Herman waves his beaver : 
 " Die of thy spleen ere I come back. 
 
320 POEMS 
 
 Old Stuyvesant ! " With a noise of wrack 
 The fort blew up of his aggriever ! — 
 But not without retriever ; 
 
 For from the smoke two pigeons fly, 
 
 One south, one westward, separating, 
 And straight as arrows crossed the sky, 
 With silent orders (" He must die 
 
 Who comes hereafter. Lie in waiting ! ") 
 Their snowy pinions freighting. 
 
 They warn the men of Minisink ; 
 
 They warn the Dutchmen of Zuydt River. 
 Now speed to Jersey's farther brink. 
 Old horse, old master, ere ye shrink ! — 
 Or ambushed fall ere moonrise quiver 
 On paths where ye shall shiver. 
 
 On went the twain till past the ford 
 That red-walled Raritan led over, 
 
 And lonely woodland shades explored. 
 
 Unarmed with firelock or with sword, 
 Free-hearted rode the forest rover, 
 Of all wild kind the drover : 
 
 Fled deer and bear before his coming, 
 The wild-cat glared, the viper hissed ; 
 
 And died the long day's insect-drumming. 
 
 Where things of night began their humming. 
 And witchly phantoms went to tryst. 
 Was Herman exorcist. 
 
HERMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 321 
 
 " No land so tangled but my eye 
 
 Can map its confines and its courses ; 
 
 Yet on life's map who can espy 
 
 Where hides his foe — where he shall die ? " 
 So Herman said, and his resources 
 Resigned unto his horse's. 
 
 All night the steed instinctive travelled — 
 
 His weary rider wept for him — 
 Through unseen gulfs the whirlwmd ravelled, 
 Up moonlit beds of streamlets gravelled, 
 
 Till halting every bleeding limb, 
 
 He stands by something dim. 
 
 And will not stir till morning breaks. 
 
 " What is 't I see, low clustering there. 
 Beyond those broadening bays and lakes, 
 That yonder point familiar makes ? — 
 
 Is it New Amstel, lowly fair. 
 
 And this the Delaware ? " 
 
 VIII. THE ECHO 
 
 Lord Herman hugged his horse with pride ; 
 
 He raised his horn and blew so loudly, 
 That more than echoes back replied : 
 Horns answered louder ; horsemen cried. 
 
 And muskets banged, as if avowedly 
 
 On Stuy vesant's errand proudly ! 
 
 " Die, traitor ! fleer ! though thou 'scape 
 
 Our ambush on thy devil's racer, 
 Caught here upon this marshy cape, 
 
322 POEMS 
 
 Thy bones the muskrat's brood shall scrape, 
 The sturgeon suck — Death thy embracer ! " 
 So shouts each sanguine chaser. 
 
 To die in sight of Amstel's walls, 
 
 And gallant Joost to die beside him ? — 
 
 O foolish blast, such fate that calls ! 
 
 O river, that the heart appalls ! 
 
 Dear Joost may live. And the^/ bestride him ? 
 " By hell ! none else shall ride him ! 
 
 " My steed, thy limbs like mine are sore ! 
 
 Few years are left us ere the billows 
 Roll over both. Come but once more, 
 And to the bottom or the shore, 
 
 Bear me and thee to happy pillows. 
 
 Or 'neath the water willows ! " 
 
 He strokes old Joost. He bends him low. 
 
 He winds his horn and laughs derision. 
 One spring ! — they've cleared the bog and sloe. 
 And down the ebb-tide buoyant go — 
 
 That stately tide, so like a vision 
 
 Of home, to Norse and Frisian, 
 
 Where full a league spread Maas and Rhine, 
 And in the marsh the rice-birds twitter ; 
 
 The long cranes pasture and the kine 
 
 Loom lofty in the misty shine 
 
 Of dawn and reedy islands glitter : 
 Yet death all where is bitter. 
 
HEBMAN OF BOHEMIA MAN OB 323 
 
 Ere out of range a volley peals, 
 
 But greed too great made aye a blunder. 
 
 His horse Lord Herman's self conceals, 
 
 Yet once his horse and he go under, 
 And rise agrain. No wound he feels. 
 They hold their fire in wonder ! 
 
 Short of the mark the bullets splash : 
 
 " Now drown thee, wizard ! at thy pleasure," 
 
 The Dutchmen hiss through teeth they gnash. 
 
 He answers not ; for o'er the plash 
 
 Of waves he hears Joost's gasping measure 
 Of breath's fast wasting treasure. 
 
 IX. — PEGASUS 
 
 The sighs when dying comrades fall, 
 
 Struck by the foe, are only sad ; 
 They leaped the ditch and climbed the wall. 
 And shared the purpose of us all ; 
 
 The fame they have ; the joy they had : 
 
 " Rest in thy tracks, brave lad ! " 
 
 But thou, poor beast ! unknown to fame, 
 
 "Whose heart is reached while ours is bounding, 
 Amidst the victory's acclaim — 
 By thee we kneel with more of shame. 
 
 That bore us through the fight resounding. 
 And dumbly took our wounding ! 
 
 Lord Herman saw the blood drops seethe, 
 
 The nag's neck droop, the nostril bubble, 
 And loosed the bridle from liis teeth ; 
 
324 POEMS 
 
 Yet swam the old legs underneath, 
 Invincibly. The gap they double ; 
 But further swim in trouble. 
 
 And lovely Nature stretched her aid, 
 
 Her sympathetic tow and eddy ; 
 The oars of air with azure blade, 
 And silent gravities persuade 
 
 And waft them onward, slow and steady — 
 
 On duteous deeds aye ready. 
 
 High leaped the perch. The hawk screamed joy. 
 
 Under Joost's belly musically 
 The ripples broke. Bright clouds convoy 
 The brute that man would but destroy, 
 
 And all instinctive agents rally 
 
 Strong and medicinally. 
 
 In vain ! The gurgling waters suck 
 
 That old life under. Herman swimming 
 Seized but the horse tail. Like a buck 
 Breasting a lake in wild woods' pluck, 
 
 Joost rose, the glaze his bright eyes dimming, 
 And blood his sockets brimming. 
 
 Then, voices speak and women cry. 
 
 The treading feet find soil to stand. 
 Above them the green ramparts lie, 
 And 'twixt their shadows and the sky. 
 
 The wondering burghers crowd the strand, 
 
 And Herman help to land : 
 
HEBMAN OF BOHEMIA MANOR 325 
 
 " Now to Newcastle's English walls, 
 
 Hail, Herman ! and thy matchless stud ! " 
 
 Joost staggere up the bank and falls, 
 
 And, dying, to his master crawls. 
 Yields up his long solicitude. 
 And spills his vems of blood. 
 
 In Herman's arms his neck is prest. 
 
 With martial pride his dark eye glazes ; 
 
 He feels the hand he loves the best 
 
 Stroke fondly, and a chill of rest. 
 As if he rolled in pasture daisies 
 And heard in wmds his praises : 
 
 " O couldst thou speak, what wouldst thou say ? 
 
 I, who can speak, am dumb before thee. 
 Thine eyes that drink Olympian day 
 Where steeds of wings thy soul convey, 
 
 With pride of eagles circling o'er thee : 
 
 Thou seest I adore thee ! 
 
 " Bound to thy starry home and her 
 
 Who brought me thee and left earth hollow ! 
 An honored grave thy bones inter. 
 And painting shall thy fame confer. 
 Ere in thy shining track I follow, 
 Thou courser of Apollo ! " 
 
326 POEMS 
 
 MECCA FROM OASIS 
 
 The people of Mahomet 
 
 In desert places dwell, 
 The palm tree is their fortress, 
 
 Their citadel a well ; 
 Once in their lives so lonely, 
 
 They shall one city view — 
 Mecca ! Mecca ! Mecca ! 
 
 We pilgrims long for you ! 
 
 (Repeat Chorus.^ 
 
 "We Arabs love to circle 
 
 Around the Caravan, 
 Our hearts are ever social, 
 
 We love our fellow-man. 
 But Ishmael, our father, 
 
 No habitation knew : 
 Mecca! Mecca! Mecca! 
 
 We pilgrims long for you ! 
 
 Mahomet's mighty pity 
 
 His lonely people gave 
 One chance to see a city. 
 
 Around his holy grave, — 
 O, ope the golden wonder ! 
 
 The city let us view ! 
 Mecca ! Mecca ! Mecca ! 
 
 We pilgrims long for you ! 
 
PLATING HOUSE 327 
 
 LATTER-DAY SAINTS 
 
 All evidences of a living church 
 
 Are here, although imposture is its fame. 
 
 The angel who made for a prophet search 
 And showed him Revelation to reclaim 
 
 Of his own hemisphere, that Chi'istians smirch. 
 But foreign superstition never blame : 
 Miracles, portents, exodus and flame, 
 
 The Pentecost of tongues, martyrs, belief. 
 Virtuous women to believers wife, 
 
 Disciples watching with their doomed chief, 
 Apostles victrix over pagan strife, 
 A Promised Land, a strictly-ordered life. 
 
 Reason alone these evidences prods — 
 
 Reason, that is the judgment seat on Gods. 
 Utah, 1889. 
 
 PLAYING HOUSE 
 
 Within me lay a little boy 
 
 When I thought I was a man ; 
 He was too poor to own a toy 
 
 And many a toy would plan ; 
 A mystic hole — some cellar once — 
 
 Lay in his father's parsonage lot : 
 The fancy of this little dunce 
 
 Built in the hole Aladdin's grot. 
 
 He saw a staircase there descend 
 And he saw apartments rise — 
 Stone walls, bright halls, rooms for a friend 
 
328 POEMS 
 
 And the maid with bashful eyes ; 
 And Cinderella's steeds did browse 
 
 In fancy on that pasture ridge, 
 And fancy dropped from fancy's house, 
 
 A road down to the springlet's bridge. 
 
 All fairy things the urchin planned, 
 
 But Aladdin's uncle's lamp, 
 Yet that alone was in his hand — 
 
 The friendless little scamp : 
 Inquiry, wistfulness, desire, — 
 
 To find what is in what but seems, — 
 The tinder wick to turn to fire 
 
 The rusty lamp of golden dreams. 
 
 What is it yonder on the mount 
 
 Like a palace that I see ? — 
 After the forty years I count 
 
 In the caverns of mystery ? 
 A King's highway drops down the steep 
 
 To a bridge across a brook. 
 And I see a child who walks in sleep 
 
 Descend with a lamp and book : 
 
 It is my bridge below my dome, 
 
 My road, my steeds, I spy ; 
 The hole in the pasture is my home 
 
 And the little boy is I. 
 Oh cruel uncle, leave me not 
 
 Without my lamp's bright spark ! — 
 Though I am king of the golden grot, 
 
 I am poor if it is dark. 
 
Tomb at Gaplaxd 
 
'•^VNHO.Hny^' 
 
 JC 
 
 AJ.I8a3AiNn 
 
 3HX JO 
 
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