LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIKT OK Received . .>/ gj^.+ .., 1890.. . . . .., . Accessions No^t >*/- Shelf No. &&^ < O COPYRIGHT, 1888, By O. M. DUNHAM. Press W. L Mershon & Co., Rahway, N. J. CONTENTS. MOTHER CAREY S CHICKENS .... i SEA-BORN 4 THE NEOPHYTE ....... 7 TRINITY CHURCH 8 GONE " . . 10 AN ICONOCLAST . . ... . .11 THEIR DAYS OF WAITING ARE So LONG . . 13 THE WILLOW TREE .15 MALVERN HILL 17 THE DAY-DREAM ....!.. 23 IN THE MOONLIGHT 26 BUTTERCUPS 30 AUGUST ... ...... 32 WINTER S ADVENT 34 CHIVALRIE 35 J. EDITH 36 FAME 40 PYGMALION TO APHRODITE 41 ROLLIN . . . . . . . . . 42 To MY PIPE . .44 To AN AMATEUR CORNETIST .... 45 Two TURKEY-COCKS 48 ii CONTENTS. VIATICUM. ALMA MATER 53 VIATICUM 55 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS ...... 65 SONNETS. NATURE . 77 HELEN OF TROY 7 8 LOVED EVEN YET 79 AFTER SICKNESS 8l A YEAR 8 3 EMERSON -84 LONGFELLOW 86 BRYANT . 88 . - 8 9 MOTHER CAREY S CHICKENS NELSON STANLEY SPENCER MOTHER CAREY S CHICKENS. |HEN seas were calm, and, far away, Blue sky and dark blue water met, As tranquil as the day wherein There brooded not a cloudy threat, They hung o er ocean s gently heaving breast, Flitting with languid grace from crest to crest. When waves uprearing high and fierce Curved stalwart necks in wild disdain, The little waifs yet onward plied, Tangled in nets of flying mane, Hoping, perchance, to find at last a nest In the vague distance of the gray-bound West. 2 MOTHER CARETS CHICKENS. And when the quiet night came down And peace had quelled the tempest s wrath, Still by the stars I could descry Those patient hearts upon our path ; They may have seen beneath the waters dark The lamps that sent up here and there a spark. I mused the hours away, and thoughts As fugitive and sombre-hued As our dear faithful followers, Rose in my mind a pensive brood. I found of life a stern epitome In these staunch children of the air and sea. On restless pinions fluttering, Impelled by genius of the age, Neath skies impenetrable gray, O er billows black and wildering rage, We are mere storm-waifs hoping to divine A shore that ever proves horizon-line. MOTHER CAREY S CHICKENS. 3 And ever foiled and ne er dismayed, We strive with eager sense to sound The constant riddle of the years The Infinite that hems us round Until it takes us to itself. One morn The sea-birds, fading into blank, were gone. SEA-BORN. SEA-BORN. safe seclusion of her prairie home, Queen of a bluff, out-spoken heart that holds Her wish his law, and of a red-cheeked brood, Her outward life is trite and full of peace. But oft when winds run billowing through the grain, Or wail at night like frenzied castaways, Unreal, yet how vivid, will arouse Mem ries of what could not have been a dream ; And in her ears a longing music dwells, Like murmur of the conch, that seems to breathe From far away where skies are gray and sad. Awaking with a start at dead of night, When rains flee hurrying before the blast, SEA-BORN. 5 And beat and break in waves upon the pane, Again she doth live over awful hours, Till then forgotten, of her former life. She knows that voice that howls among the boughs, Long ages since it haunted wonder-land. Before her heart had dreamed of the All- Good, Or the first vague and tremulous thought of God Unprompted came beneath the silent stars, She knew there was an Evil One whose voice Shrieked hideous through far abysms of space, Who did inhabit darkness as the birds White-winged dwelt upon the noonday air. The green wheat sinks and rises at her feet, She gazes o er the pulse of silent waves And it doth seem but yesterday anon It seems unreckonable years agone, When she would look o er leagues of gentle surge And listen to its crooning lullaby. SEA-BORN. Those magic, yearning voices haunt her life ; She must have lived from all eternity ; Before the world became what now it is Those were the sounds that ever filled her ears. And quenchless as the rhythmic monotone That still flows on and on within her mind, Life will stretch out beyond the dim unknown. She kens not when or in what clime her eyes Opened upon the world. She never felt A father s clasp or knew a mother s voice. The grim and garrulous and kind old sea Her youth did rock, as in a mother s arms, And filled for aye the chambers of her soul With sounds that whisper in his deepest caves, THE NEOPHYTE. THE NEOPHYTE. |N fervent clasp his youth s ideal He raises o er the tide ; Across the deep he fain would bear it, And reach the thither side Still holding it aloft, in sunlight bathed, By all the wildering turbulence unscathed. His better self ! will he preserve it And life s long turmoil breast? Ah ! he who bears a soul s ideal Within the realms of rest Must greatly cope, though single-armed, and saves A treasure from the hungry maws of waves. TRINITY CHURCH. TRINITY CHURCH. |BOVE the haunts where Mammon- worshippers Madden in strife for Wall Street s yellow hoards, Doth Trinity in tapering silence point Aloft, to show the earth is still the Lord s. Days come and pass, the life-tide ebbs and flows, And beats about its base with tumult rude; It greets alike, with calm and massive peace, The restful night, the seething multitude. Below are tablets, weather-worn and quaint, Marking what once were graves, in other times ; The mounds have long been leveled, and the men Are gone where go the softly distant chimes. TRINITY CHURCH. 9 Between three worlds the silent world be neath, The world above the sod where discords dwell, The world on high where franchised spirits are Stands Trinity, a carven sentinel. It rises from the graves to mount beyond This realm of earthy aims and groveling sins, Higher it pierces in that tranquil blue, Somewhere above, Earth ends and Heaven begins. io GONE. GONE. | EAR it away, earth s crumbling heritage ! Yet tenderly, for where he once made stay, And told the hours of Time s disquiet stage, To our bereft hearts still is sacred clay. This we have cherished, this could him en cage ; Not earth s blue dome can shut him in to day. AN ICONOCLAST. n AN ICONOCLAST. |HIS day I have cast all my statues low, My idol men, empedestaled and grouped The nowaday Olympus of the mind. They were my dreams ideals brought to life, And I have found them flesh and fallible. O Thou whom craving man has toiled to house Neath dome and arch, in formula and creed, And hoped to reach through wine-drenched . hecatombs, And Druid incantation, and the march Of priestly state and choruses of praise, Resounding like the forest racked with wind ! Thou whom through twilight that ne er grows to day We seek, whose glory would our vision blast 12 AN ICONOCLAST. Could we behold ! O Thou to whom the soul Instinctive leaps as vainly ardorous As flame-tongues for the sky ! Grant me a peace Me, the bereft, but wiser grown than erst, Bowing to forms where guiled and yearning youth Beheld the likeness of the Time-old Quest Give patient resignation to await. DAYS OF WAITING. 13 THEIR DAYS OF WAITING ARE SO LONG. [HEIR days of waiting were so long, so long ! Greeting with smiles that over brimmed in tears ; Parting for sluggard months but hope was strong To draw a solace from the coming years. And o er the barren hours, their life to be Hover d in blissful dreams by night and day, As, in mid-azure o er the sleeping sea, The wizard dreams of glad lands far away. But days of waiting were so long ! Their time of living was so short, so short ! A twelvemonth of unrippled heart-content. The long past faded and they took no thought Of morrow hid where blue horizon bent. 1 4 DA YS OF WAI 7 ING. If they had asked aught, they would have prayed Only to drift for aye, unchanging, blest, Nor dreamed they on that Heaven could in vade A cloud to mar the bliss of perfect rest. Their time of living was so short ! Their days of waiting are so long, so long . For she was summoned, smiling through her tears, And he is desolate but hope is strong To draw a solace from eternal years. No cloud their blissful greeting may invade Upon the quay of gold by pearl-strewn sands ; The long past shall anew dissolve and fade In silent kiss and clasp of wistful hands. But days of waiting are so long ! THE IV I L LOW TREE. THE WILLOW TREE. IELLOW TREE, o wuiow Tree, Why cast down so utterly ? Earth s heart freed from frosty rest Beats beneath her grassy breast, And the warm blood of her veins To thy topmost limb attains ; Sky is blue with June the sun Thrills each other leafy one. Sunlight chiding shunneth thee, Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, Thine is silent threnody. Speechless motion of thy leaves On the grass a darkness weaves. Men are dreamers of a dream, Life is myth, and fate supreme, Earth a mound-scarred tomb to thee, Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! 1 6 THE WILLOW TREE. Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, I inhale thy sympathy.. I did lay a loved form low Neath the frozen turf and snow. Lids like fringed petals drew Close for aye o er hearts of blue. Smiles that lit her latest breath Lingered on in waxen death. I became like unto thee, Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! Willow Tree, O Willow Tree, Peace to futile elegy ! Winter s day of anguish done, Sky is blue with June the sun Brings new blossoms where the blast Rent the dead leaves of the past. June doth stir my sluggish blood, Life again with hopes shall bud ; All my grief I bury deep In thy drooping sunless sleep. Alas, I. shall come oft to thee, Willow Tree, O Willow Tree ! MALVERN HILL. MALVERN HILL. (THE SECOND MORNING AFTER THE BATTLE.) [HE gray! you wear the gray? I was struck down When gray-coats broke retreating from the field ; The bugles and the yells were in my ears When sudden darkness fell too quick for pain. And when, through nightmare of my whole past life, I faltered back to self the air was still, Day like a murky twilight filled the sky, Dimly I saw the bodies piled and felt Their blood in streams I know it was the rain That flooded the ravine but then it seemed Those mangled flesh-heaps with exhaustless veins 18 MALVRRN HILL. Were bleeding, bleeding, drowning me in blood. I should have drowned here but for frenzied strength To prop my shoulders on this neighbor slain ; I swooned, the flood subsided ere I roused And I have lain all night again till now. Thank you ! you have a heart beneath your gray ; The brandy fills me with a life of flame. I smell the orchard perfumes that would steal Each morning through my window as I woke. And hark ! my redbreast s anthem ! God is good, Upon a lost field dying mid the dead, The bird I love, a robin, not a vulture ! No, do not raise me up, I need my strength ; The end is near, my feet are numb and cold, Up-creeping death will soon engulf my heart, And I would speak with you before I go. I did intend to die with breast unlocked MALVERN HILL. 19 And not leave e en to God the means on earth To set my memory aright with her Who was my conscience, but alas the world Takes hues through glaze of death it never wore ; The silence that was duty during life, Were at the grave s brink treachery to self. I place my vindication in your hands, Then lay me in that trench the rain has washed. She was my conscience once, my purer self, I grew to measure all things by the test Of what I knew her judgment would decide. She was from Carolina and had passed Her childhood in the South ; but I had heard My father daily at the family prayer Call down on Slavery the curse of God. Still I did love her tenderly and kept A prudent tongue, till at her hearth one night 20 MALVERN HILL. Her brother, reading from a Southern print, Detailed with smacks of lip and fiendish glee The story of a captured negro flogged Nigh unto death, and branded in the cheek Because he fled for liberty and failed. I seemed to sniff the hemlock scents from home, I was my father s son, I spoke for him, And with the pent-up anger of a year Denounced the infamy, the cherished crime That make our land the century s stumbling- block Forgive me if I wound your Southron heart, Forgive the truth from one about to die. Her father held the young man back from blows, In silence I was suffered to depart, And I have never spoken with her since. They carried her to Europe for her health, I followed, but they left no trace behind. I tracked misleading rumors to their source. Watched journals in all tongues and mixed with crowds MALVERN HILL. 21 In cities of all lands. I know not how She was immured that not a word or sign Could reach me in my agony of quest For three long years and then they reap peared, She was a wife and mother I have learned That they had won her from me by a lie ; I could not blame her that she did believe, For she was taught from infancy to think An Abolitionist was all things vile. A wicked story of unfaithfulness ! They said I was unfaithful though betrothed. And then my abnegation long began. I saw her one night through an. opera-glass, The ghost of her old smile would rouse at times .At witty flashes in the comedy ; But O ! the wearied sadness of that face, The look of having yet so many years To worry out before the end would come ! Naught could undo the past, I held my peace. The only hope of happiness for her 22 MALVERN HILL. Was still to think that I had been untrue, And build within the future of her child A new life on the ruins of her youth. And I did love her well enough to guard The torturing secret of my innocence, And thought to hide it with me in the grave. But O ! I can not wander forth like one Unshrived, still foul to her and unforgiven. Do me the tardy justice of the truth. He may not be a sharer in the lie, Her husband and when I am gone, her life May flow on peacefully if she know all ; Aye, happier, perchance, when she can think That this unquiet heart has reached repose. My new, last friend, if you will seek her out, Say that I loved her tenderly till now, Tell her it was a loathsome, cruel lie, Tell her no brandy now bend close your ear She lived in Petersburg a colonel s wife - Her name THE DA Y- DREAM. 2 3 THE DAY-DREAM. E had gone when the land was pining Neath Autumn s relentless blight ; When forests that whispered fore bodings Were painted with hectic light. The desolate earth was mourning As only a stricken one grieves ; And the joy of two hearts was buried For a season neath fallen leaves. He had folded her close to his bosom, And pressed on her lips a farewell ; He had gone and a loneness utter On her path like a darkness fell. But oft in the lapse of a day-dream, Thought s mazy wings were unfurled, To hover in azure and sunshine Beyond the gray rim of the world. TY; 24 THE DA Y- DREAM. And once when the spell had gathered Her wearied senses about, And opened the dream-world within her, And silenced the world without, Again did the land seem barren And bare save for drifted leaves, But apples hung low on the branches, And garners were piled with sheaves. Again o er the hills they wandered, And lingered in woodland nooks, Or followed the wayward windings Of sluggish and leaf-strewn brooks. From yellow expanses of stubble Came the cheery whistle of quail, And, through air of opiate purple, The muffled beat of the flail. Again neath the trees he kissed her The trance is dissolved by a gleam Of light that illumines her being - Was that but the kiss of a dream ? THE DA Y- ORE AM. 2 5 The dream is alive with a presence That close by her side remains, As she passes the mystic confines, And the portals of Sense regains, And feels tender arms about her. Her eyes that are freed from the spell In life-land behold, as in dream-land, The face that she loves so well. 2 6 IN THE MOONLIGHT. IN THE MOONLIGHT. |HE moon from Heaven was stretch ing A wand of magic afar ; Its shadow fell in the river, A wavering silver bar ; And from it a weird enchantment Dropped like impalpable rain, On a world that by eerie beauty Was chastened from care and stain. My darling sat by the window. Enshrined in the tender light, It was just a month since our bridal, And just such another night. We saw on the lawn beneath us, In the arbor this side the pines, Two forms whose outlines were muffled By the trellised curtain of vines. IN THE MOONLIGHT. 27 A smile leaped forth from the hidden Blue depths of two quiet eyes, A face with sweet mirth suffusing : My lady was earnestly wise : In course of our love-dream above stairs She had watched another below, And thought she beheld in the moonlight A romance of the broom and hoe. Without a word we descended For a frolic upon the lawn, Hoping only that stealthy footsteps Would not of our coming forewarn. In the spell of the vision unfolding For a moment we stood at gaze ; The river wound far where the distance Was gauzed with a silver haze ; And all the air was a glamour Upon the mute landscape hung ; And earth was a pictured legend. And life a poem unsung. We stole out within the shadow, Then paused, as if turned to stone, 28 nv THE MOONLIGHT, We eaves-droppers scared but shameless At sound of a voice well known. You have known my past and its sorrow, Have stood by the grave of my youth. I loved you at first for the reason T/iat we both loved her who is gone, And si-ffered together in silence When joy and hope vanished from earth. Your help and your solace full-hearted Through changing years grow more dear, And life s little remnant I offer With devotion and perfect trust. O, my grave and taciturn father ! O, gentle, beloved aunt ! Ye had plotted in closest secret The primmest romance extant. But while we dovelets of twenty Indoors were content to coo, Ye must needs, ensconced in the arbor, Make love mid moonlight and dew. LV T1IK MOONLIGHT. 29 And love from the land immortal Enwrapped human hearts below, As purely as moonlight that folded The earth in a dream of snow. BUTTERCUPS. BUTTERCUPS. llVE me the secret of life universal: How does the earth, like a poet s ripe brain, Bring forth the fruitage of fact and of fancy- Oak-trees and buttercups over the plain ? Whence the mysterious instinct that broodeth, Silent, immortal, through torpor and cold, Till the sun tempts one more summer, green- bladed, Forth from the tomb of the years in the mold ? Thus could I stand with my questions till doomsday, You, my sweet flowers, are heedless and mute : Yes though perchance the great All-soul of nature Bides just beneath in the soil at your root. BUTTERCUPS. 31 But I m beginning to moralize gravely, Touching on themes that sage heads have perplext ; Here will I pause you are my inspiration, You the whole sermon as well as the text. Yours unalloyed is the gladness of being : Tremble with rapture and spill on the ground Sunshine by thimblefuls each little chalice Lavish the infinite joy it has found. Then, as the winds in the distance awaken, Scattering fragrance abroad as they pass Shallops on breast of the meadow at anchor Ride the green, languorous billows of grass. Little it matters what fate is ordaining ; Children may wantonly pluck you in play ; Your fleeting span has been amply sufficient ; You have been beautiful for a whole day. 32 AUGUST. AUGUST. |T was one of those August days When, spiritualized by haze, The air is purple revery. The hills were a blur of deeper blue Like the horizon-line at sea. The breeze that would fitfully arouse Had been a-haying in the mows. Bent and shrunken the sallow maize Like sapless graybeards gone a-craze. Over the brook the leaves of a beech Like parched tongues lolled down, To water gurgling just out of reach O er pebbles musical and brown : The lazy brook was wider awake Than men and women or birds and boughs ; It glided between the patient cows That stood in tranquil, meek-eyed drowse. A UGUST. 33 And sprent the air with motes of spray Lashing the droning flies away. 11. Then there glittered a fire-fly spark, The trees were losing themselves in the dark That gathered the fading West in a cowl. From far came the curdling hoot of an owl. A shrill dispute of katy-dids ; The stars were waking with blinking lids ; A bat skated past in erratic flight ; The haze was a fog of murky light. In the East, that would be murkier soon, The crescent tip of a blood-red moon. 34 WINTER S ADVENT. WINTER S ADVENT. winds like heralding furies, From his realm of night in the north, From strongholds encastled with icebergs, The Winter came suddenly forth. And when the winds for a respite Shrank back and were still in their lair, The sky was o er-cast and leaden, And brooded in sullen despair. But gently and slowly from cloud-land Came fragments of diamond glint, Star-flakes, heaven-coined, still retaining The beauty and stamp of the mint. Then myriads scurrying downward Enfolded the barren dearth ; And the dark under-lining of Heaven Became the white carpet of earth. CHIVALRIE. 35 CHIVALRIE. |HAT, little Mabel! reading old romance ? Come here, and leave that dusty chimney-nook, And do put by that antiquated book I ll show you all you ve read at one swift glance. The sunlight gilds earth s carpet of soft snow, Behold without The Field of Cloth of Gold ! The trees are knights so valiant, tall, and bold, Steel-clad in icicle-mail from top to toe ; And see the evergreens upon the lawn- Fair ladies who will never lose their charms ; Soon will the wind sound loud the battle- horn There ll be a tournament with clash of arms. 3 6 /. EDITH. J. EDITH. HOU wast not born before th time, For thee the world is at its prime This Eastlake era ; day of pugs ; Of plush screens libelous of bugs ; Of tigers prone on glossy rugs, And tapers trim in brazen sconce ; This comely Queen Anne Renaissance ! The age awaited thee serene, Self-poised and wise and just sixteen. It seems nor jest nor masquerade When thou dost don the stiff brocade, The gold-clocked hose and yellow lace, With more than worthy grandma s grace. Think what poor things some mortals are Who never had a grandmama ! And she who spends her days at chores, Who never broiders, prinks or draws, /. EDITH. 37 And seeks at night hard, welcome cot The tragedy of such a lot ! Yet, thy patrician ways are sweet, And we do deem it not unmeet, In earnest half, and half in sport, To own thy sway and pay thee court. Thou ne er didst soberly despise The humblest heart neath homely guise, Who, raised by worth, her fate above, Could unembittered toil and love. For us of every day, thine own, Thy love informs each look and tone ; And love makes glad the loyaltie That faithful vassals bring to thee Of dainty port and tender mien, Gracious and fond at just sixteen. As keen as poet s rapture thine ! Life is a cup of bliss divine ; Thou canst do all save mount and fly For deeper draughts of sun and sky. Doffing the old, thou canst forget Staid, stately steps of minuet, 3 8 /. ED2TJI. And trip a gay, impromptu maze To thine own blithely warbled lays. A special dialect thou hast ; And honest, English words recast By those arch, saucy lips express All shades of dire coquettishness, Accompliced by demure, gray eyes Where Merriment in ambush lies, Anon to issue and retreat With Fancy s transformations fleet - Thy moods the iridescent sheen Of teeming joy at just sixteen ! I would not bid the Future ope, Or seek to cast the horoscope. Old Time (who s called a surly one, But has a grim, sly sense of fun,) May some day try to palm on me A portly matron form as thee. But, climbing to the garret s height, In dim, not irreligious light, Mid aged, eyeless tiger rugs, And screens by moth bereft of bugs, y. EDITH. 39 And ghosts of dead and buried pugs, I shall behold the real thee ; Again with pensive gladness see This age incarnate in its queen, Self-poised and wise at just sixteen. 4o FAME. FAME. E saw it on the moor-lands, Feebly and dimly bright, Dancing, luring, fleeing, A ghost of ruddy light. He followed, all forsaking Where dank marsh flowers wave O er death that lurks beneath them He found at last a grave. PYGMALION TO APHRODITE 4* PYGMALION TO APHRODITE. ODDESS fair of soft desires, Thou whose spirit is love-laden, Kindle passion s waking fires, Breathe thyself into this maiden. Love s sweet influence round her moving, Love her soul and essence giving, May her life be simply loving, May her love be simply living ! 4 2 ROLLIN. ROLLIN. ILKEN fur so sleek and glossy, Satin paws and velvet ears, Breast as white and soft as sea- foam, Eyes two yellow, jewelled spheres ! Facile grace that takes caresses As his birthright and his due ; Pure aristocrat that never Aught but wealth and purple knew ! Sensuous ease in air and posture, Eyes half closing faintly peep, Purr as gentle as the breathing Of a maiden lost in sleep ! ROLLIN. 43 Rollin lies before me dozing, On his head a sunbeam plays, Has not seen or heard the stanzas I have written in his praise. 44 TO MY PIPE. TO MY PIPE. LIGHT thee and conjure sweet visions in smoke, Siren-shapes forming and wreath. ing in play, Fairy-sea rising and falling in waves, With fragrance of spice as from isles far away. Thou hast been the true friend of my studi ous hours, Knowledge came with thy smoke and its eddying grace, And wisdom, though lingering, came too at last, And increased as the color grew dark on thy face. And whenever the world seemeth heartless and rude, Thy blue, floating fancies my solace shall be : I ll take thee, old friend, and evoke as of yore A poem between the world s coldness and me. TO AN AMATEUR CORNET1ST. 45 TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. i. [ANKIND would rend thee joint by joint, Or to a ling ring death would cane thee, Would vote thee worse than Hunter s Point, Arid pray the Board of Health to bane thee. When first thy prelude cleaves the night, Strong men on bent knees quaking tumble, Hearing the Last Trump, in affright Await the End s initial rumble. Then maddened at the false alarm, Helpless, but muttering profanely, They listen while through even s calm Float trills and flourishes ungainly. 46 TO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. Oh ! faint not ! Pour thy two tunes forth In rapt succession, slumber scorning, Till heavy eyes, and lips that froth, With anger greet the gray of morning. But I have seen your kindred grand On pedestals of homage posing (What time I strayed on Coney s strand), With eager crowds around them closing. And many now who toss and groan, Before the brazen calf were bending ; O ! choose your most blood-curdling tone, The harsh tornado s roar transcending ! And would your fellows might be sown Broadcast through this Philistine city, With lungs of iron, hearts of stone, To blast till daybreak, dead to pity ! That men may run, as from the Fiend, At sound of brass, imploring mercy : And human nature may be weaned From thralldom to a worse than Circe JO AN AMATEUR CORNETIST. 47 A fog-horn soloist who blares With turgid, cork-screw variations Your self-same two, long-suff ring airs, And struts and smirks through loud ova tions. Then blow ! Through trembling midnight blow ! In Art s true service you ve a station. O, friend, build better than you know ; Bring on your craft annihilation. 48 TWO TURKEY-COCKS. TWO TURKEY-COCKS. N sooth, thou rt not a pretty bird, Thy plumage lacketh tints and lustre, Why wilt thou stand with tail outspread ? While wondering kindred round thee cluster ? Yon peacock struts by Nature s right, He to a gorgeous tail is pendant ; But thou, O envious, would-be fop, Art not thus caudally resplendent ! Although thou rt sleek, thy beauty ne er Could gain the candid predilection ; . Thy virtues only will appear With sauce and knife and fork dissection. O ponder on thy certain doom, And strive presumptuous pride to govern ! In tragedy thy life must close, Think of the gravy and the oven. Tll O TURKEY-COCKS. 49 Ah, foolish, discontented one, That seekest with thy fate to quarrel ! But, turkey, I ve a human friend, And thou for him wilt point a moral. He is a giant round the waist, His legs are pillars short and bandy ; A Falstaff s form and ursine grace, At heart a Romeo and dandy. He is a ponderous gallant, And cultivates the tender passion ; He says his greatest joy in life Is but to hold a lady s sash on. His mind is filled with genteel lore, To feed society s scandal-hunger ; He has no peer in social art, He s an inspired gossip-monger. And yet the world laughs in its sleeve, Laughs at his ardor, his dimensions, His mincing, elephantine pace, His rakish manner and pretensions. 50 TWO TURKEY-COCKS. Ah, sad for him, he must compete With rivals younger far and thinner ! His truest forte would be to grace A cannibal s Thanksgiving dinner. VIATICUM, ALMA MATER. 53 ALMA MATER. LOVED Alma Mater, thine arms still around us Are clasped in their last and their fondest embrace ; We sever this day the ties that have bound us While blessings beam forth from thy time- honored face. We know not the future, tis veiled in the shadow By this pensive hour of sad parting cast ; But one wish we have, that the years yet before us May be but as happy and bright as the past. Like caravan halting equipped for the jour ney, We turn a last look on the joys we must leave, And hope that the blessing vouchsafed us at morning 54 ALMA MATER. May cheer the long day till the shadows of eve ; And oft as we toil o er the glare of the sand- waste We ll think of thy love so enduring and fond, That follows us over life s hot, arid desert, Until we shall reach the green pastures beyond. Hand clasped in hand and hearts beating one measure, Benisons grateful and loving we breathe ; Ever around this pure shrine of affection Chaplets of hallowed remembrance will wreathe. Here would we pledge in the strength of our manhood Ever to cherish the loves of the past ; Faithful through all to our dear Alma Mater, True to ourselves and to her to the last. College of the City of New York, 1875. VIATICUM. 55 VIATICUM. A POEM FOR THE TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CLASS OF 1875 OF THE COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. was in the days that we fondly recall, When the section-book held us in scholarly thrall, When "IDS" were the prizes of life in our eyes, When we bolted stale learning and Chellborg s fresh pies, When we revelled in lore at the city s ex pense, And rang the drear changes on case, mood and tense, 56 VIA TICUM. Ah, then Inspiration was lodged in our throats, Gushing forth in our song like the dust from old coats. But now, times have altered no longer our lives Are set unto music, but trammelled with gyves. The hopes and the fancies that gladdened life s morn Have flown like the birds when the summer is gone, And we sternly confront the long seasons to come With hearts that are earnest but lips that are dumb. But hold! what an elegy / some one I hear Are we wrinkled and bent, are you sixty and sere ? How precociously senile you poets would grow With your spinning of rhymes and your bor rowing woe! VIATICUM. 57 Are we so many midges to die ere the day Waxes half -way to noon ? we i m pl ore you delay Till your time comes your toothless, lugubrious strai?is, Or give us a poet with blood in his veins. And the point is well taken, our blood courses thick, Our pulses with energy curbless are quick ; We have stomachs whose craving no carking care dulls ; We have flesh on our bones and good brain in our skulls ; Of talents, the pleasing round number of ten; Aspirations surpassing our own boldest ken. Our names shall be by-words on far distant shores, The blue vault grow turgid with nations applause, And the age that contains our collective careers 58 VIATICUM. Phosphoresce like a match-box through all coming years. Which, being translated, means briefly that we Are launched on a squally, tempestuous sea, Where we paddle round barks, get upset, scramble back, But never lose sight of our course on the tack To success, which we ll gain, after long years of strife Unremitting and moist, in the tub-race of life. And ere life with waiting grows tedious and cloys, We hope to be blest with man s coveted toys. Wealth fountain of power we hunger to hold O er obsequious vassals the sceptre of gold. Position a part in political broils, To stir up the cauldron, and then when it boils A pretty loud voice in dividing the stew, Not forgetting our own purely personal due. VIA TICUM. 59 Distinction in letters the craving to fill White pages with spiderish ramblings of quill Our stock in oblivion that like ourselves Will moulder to dust rang d in order on shelves. And when all is over, pall-bearers of note, Expressions of sorrow got neatly by rote, Resolutions of condolence trink d out with rhymes, And a column at least in the Tribune and Times. Yet, with all this before you, I say you are old, And I charge you in frankness be never cajoled By your strength or ambition or glibness of tongue Into thinking your world is yet dewy and young. Can you dimly discern through the deepening haze, That purples the distance and thwarts the fond gaze, 60 VIA TICUM. That land than all others more verdant and fair, Where we breathed in the blue of the sky in the air, Where the moon winnowed silver on streams ( as they fled, Where sunlight unstinted o er nature was shed, And the white clouds adrift in the azure ex panse Were freighted with day-dreams from ports of Romance ? We wandered abroad, sunny-hearted estrays From the Golden Age fallen on prim, modern days, On pipelets of willow rude-shapen and shrill Woke music that erst churlish mortals would thrill, When Pan, the Great, hobbled at large on the plain, And tossed off a tune to his rollicking train. There pleasure was more than a fast-fleeting wraith, We were wise in the untutored wisdom of faith; VIATICUM. 6 1 We cared not for fate s decree, fortune s rebuff, For Life throbbed within us and Life was enough. In the world of our present, Life dwindles, its zest Is lost in the breathless and maddening quest For baubles that melt in the warmth of the touch, Eluding yet tempting the feverish clutch. And barren the days that bestow as they pass But blue of the sky and the green of the grass, And bring us not fame, useful knowledge and gold, In greed and ambition I say we are old. Shall we give up the strife then and seek to return To our dream-world, and, safely there, quickly unlearn The hard, bitter lessons these later years taught, And banish for aye the sad burden of thought ? 62 VIA TICUM. Ah no ! we are men, and the land that we love Is as far from our reach as the soft sky above. With a very ill grace we should idle away The days of our present world, playing at play. The joys would be tasteless the spirit has flown With the years that have past and the beards that have grown. (Moreover the law all our fine ardor damps With a stringent decree on the subject of tramps.) But to-night, as your poet, I fain would recall The life-poem revelled in once by us all ; And I charge you keep sacred and fresh to the last The stay for life s journey bequeathed from the past Recollections of rapture and virginal truth, That were ours in Fancy-Land, Fairy-Land, Youth. JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND BAR- TOLOME DE LAS CASAS. (HISPANIOLA, 1512.) PONCE DE LEON. |OST thou believe the tidings late arrived, "Of Bimini and of its sparkling fount Whereof one drinks and straightway sheds his aches, And all the malady of being old, As in the holy tale I ve heard at mass, They shed their ailments in the troubled pool ? LAS CASAS. I do believe it true, for God is great In our day as he was in Jesus Christ s, And oft doth send a wondrous miracle To waken an enthusiast faith in men, 66 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND Who else had only followed close the Church In all her rites, insuring Heaven at last, But meanwhile sucking every flower of earth For carnal sweets. PONCE DE LEON. This day my search begins. The risk is small a few blank, tremulous years In which no peace, but coveting the past. LAS CASAS. What would you with the fountain ? It was given To quicken sluggish faith a visible sign For sensual, purblind souls who needed one, And, having heard this marvel from His hand, Say A/i, yes, God is great, I had forgot. PONCE DE LEON. What would I with the fount ? my faith is sound, In much more excellent health than this poor frame. BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 67 I go to Mass ; my fat Confessor says I make the cleanest breast of any one. I have been over-virtuous and told My sins as they had been had I been young. I had committed them at least in heart, And it was pleasant to recount them thus. But this frail body ! why I cannot drink A flask of wine without a purge next morn, And lying by a long, dull week for rest. Inez will take my coin and flatter me, But well I know my boy receives unbought Her constant tenderness, perchance doth think (He s not so bad I would if I were he ) His sire would be better off gone hence, And wish that one could be both young and rich. Could I but win her heart from him I d LAS CASAS. Hold! You seek to make God s handiwork a pander. The sin of three-score years is not enough. 68 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND You needs must have a whole eternity Of grovelling with the swine. I ll pray this night That you may find the ocean s slimy bed, Or bleach with orbless sockets on the sun Upturned, ere you may see the fount of youth. PONCE DE LEON. Forgive me, father ; pray not thus I beg ; Forgive an old man s rambling tongue that aye Was lewder than himself. Behold this arm That now I scarce can strain above my head; Once I could grasp a lithe Toledo blade, And, whirling it in sport with dazzling speed, Clothe me in haloed lightning. I would play, Disguised like all the rest, the matador, For love of risk that still was never danger. The brute would corner me and gore the air, And feel my rapier searching twixt his ribs. Then I could swim a league in mad delight, The water boxed me in its vixen mirth, BARTOLOMZ DE LAS CASAS. 69 And hugged me with a woman s wantoning. Ah, life was worth the living till I turned Some two-score years, then it began to seem As if my day were over, but I still Must stay to tell old tales and bear dull jibes. If death were but a sleep and I could have In everlasting dream my vanished youth, I d quit realities and seek the dream. LAS CASAS. Thy fleshly soul is groping towards the light. Thou mayst have youth through all eternity, Not as a vague, unsatisfying dream, But as a live reality with God. PONCE DE LEON. Yea, I would have the live reality. I dream my youth o er often now at night, But ever there is something that withholds Just at the last the sweets I fain would grasp. I beg thy prayers that I may find the fount That giveth youth, not torturing dreams of it. 7 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND LAS CASAS. I ll pray for thee that God may cause the earth To swallow up the fount He summoned forth, And there may raise in sacred effigy His own Son bleeding on the holy cross. PONCE DE LEON. O pray not so ! wouldst arrogate to be Wiser than God on what is best for man ; He did create it and shalt thou gainsay ? LAS CASAS. How earthy blind thou art, as blind as he Who holdeth close his eye a paltry coin And doth shut out the very sun of Heaven ! Tear from thy spirit s eye the fleshly lust That hides eternity. Come thou with me ! This hour shalt thou find immortal youth ; Thou shalt be holy holiness is youth, The being like to God who changeth not - BAKTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 71 And thou shalt join, e en here on earth, the throng Of angels young from all eternity, And saints gone hence whose youth hath been restored. Plainer than spoken words, within thy heart Their prompting shall inspire to noble deeds, And by a thousand unmistaking signs Their guarding presence shall be manifest. Come thou with me ! thy few short years below Thou shalt pass toiling for these heathen souls Who ne er have heard of Him who died for them. Thou shalt hav,e youth immortal and sweet rest And never wish the fever back. Thou wilt ? PONCE DE LEON. I am a man of arms, a worldling born ; In battle I have slain a hundred Moors ; 7 2 JUAN PONCE DE LEON AND I should go mad within your brotherhood. father, pray that I may be restored To beauty, strength and hope and I will make Most ample recompense to thee and God. 1 will be valiant for all time on earth Against the heretics ; not one of them My vigilance and vengeance shall escape ; With fire and sword I ll purge them from God s sight, And hold the world forever true to Him. LAS CASAS. I ll pray for thee, thou poor, misguided one ! Knowest what thou dost ask so fervently ? To be shut out for aye from Paradise, And wallow here below in blood and lust ? Never to sit white robed at God s feet ? Ne er to behold sweet Mary Mother s face ? Never to walk with Christ in holy bliss? Ne er to reach sainthood and be pure in heart ? BARTOLOME DE LAS CASAS. 73 Thou canst not bribe me with the heretics, Ponce de Leon, I will pray for thee ! PONCE DE LEON. Pray not ! I read thy meaning in thine eyes. Thou It pray that I may search within a span, Yet never find the fountain of glad youth. Father, forget that I have asked aught, Forget me and pray not ! LAS CASAS. I ll pray for thee. SONNETS. ttA 7"URE. 7 7 NATURE. [HE Parcae stern who cowed the world in awe, When Thought was young and Art was in its bloom, Though Paganism fills a classic tomb, Rule modern Christians as the men of yore. Hoping to master Fate in prudent law, We toil and plot and close our eyes to doom, Or seek to guard against impending gloom, Devoutly nailing horse-shoes to the door. And all is vain. Some sit in stoic calm. Callous to ills that cruel fortune wreaks ; Some, with Promethean heart and Titan arm, Curse and defy the bristling vulture- beaks ; And some would find an anaesthetic balm, Thy will be done their upward gaze be speaks. HELEN Ot T HELEN OF TROY. |S it a joy to live for aye in song ? Uost thou with thirst that glory ne er can sate, Upon the dark flood s thither margin wait, To hear one poet more thy reign prolong ? Or dost contemn the worshippers who throng, And curse thy Nemesis far-eyed the fate That doomed through thee to lay earth desolate, And would not let thy name die with the wrong ? Remorse ne er bowed that head of wondrous gold Erect, defiant of immortal shame. But art so weary, of thy tale oft told ; Of man s idolatry and woman s blame ; Thou would st been born a beldame crook d and cold To have been spared eterne ennui of fame ? LOVED EVEN YET. 79 LOVED EVEN YET. JORGIVE thou wilt, dear Love, but O forget The mood estranged, the cruel shock and pain, The bitter, jealous words of lips insane, Whose wounds, beyond the heal of keen regret, Those brown eyes with a dewy trembling wet. Thou wilt forgive, nay, more, wilt search in vain On thy pure loyalty for speck of stain, And, crushed by love s requite, love even yet. o LOVED EVEN YET. Darling, a love as thine so true and good, For its own chosen one a shrine must build ; Know not too well this heart, its idolhood Unworthy, with unfaith ignoble filled ; Nor wake I still that presence bright would seem, Wrapped in the aureole of tender dream. AFTER SICKNESS. AFTER SICKNESS. DRIFTED out upon the un known deep, That hems our being round on every side, And thou with tearful hope a breeze did bide From Heaven to bear me homeward to thy keep. My thoughts were as the dreams of troubled sleep, My visions blurred as stars upon the tide ; But o er the narrow stretch that seemed so wide I saw a lonely watcher wait and weep. What if the breeze had drawn from off this shore, I would have wandered back from yonder coast ; 82 AFTER SICKNESS. Would st them have ta en me to thy heart once more, Or, horror ! would st thou not have known and fled, As blooming Life aye shrinkest from the dead, Not cried tis thou, but said alas / poor ghost? A YEAR. 83 A YEAR. NO has a year gone ; this again the snow ? Tis vain to summon recollec tions dim ; Visions as vague as August landscapes swim, Of Spring that came and set the world aglow, Of Summer s cloudless blue and green below, And Autumn s purple robe, again the rim Of Winter s ermine fringes every limb Tis but a dream that time doth onward flow. Ah love ! doth stealthy Time purloin our years, By making them like blissful phantoms fly, To pay them back in usury of tears, And leaden sorrow of reality, When one of us in waking anguish hears The other s dream-farewell ? God grant not I ! 8 4 EMERSON, EMERSON. thee the prayer of all was granted Light ! Thou hast felt life-warmth through the age s rime, Hast pierced the mask of flesh, the veil of time, That heart from heart and soul from soul benight. And whoso kens thy word to man aright Finds in the world a spiritual clime, Beholds the Present as a land sublime, Peopled with beings of heroic height. To eras gone their prophet-seers have brought God s new-born truth to feed a hungering race ; And thou, like those of old, hast read His thought EMERSON. 85 Writ in the stars by night ; His secret place, The solemn forest, thou by day hast sought, And heard His voice through boughs that hid His face. 86 LONGFELLOW. LONGFELLOW. GENTLE minstrel ! songs of thine can start In eyes of stony calm the boon of tears ; The thoughts that swell the current of the years Vex not the placid sweetness of thine art ; But whoso goeth from the fray apart To weep away his wounds, while in his ears Still rankle cruel taunts and sullen sneers, Will bless thee healer of the bruised heart ! The clamorous day heeds not thy plaintive notes, But when the night with wand of darkness stills LONGFELLOW. $7 The strife of bustling hands and blatant throats, And twilight s last gray lingers on the hills, Then through my reverie thy music floats, As through the dusk the song of whip-poor- wills. BRYANT. BRYANT. HE forest anthem from green choirs of trees Was ever in his ears ; the woodland brooks, Prattling like children through dim, mossy nooks, Were eloquent of sacred mysteries. A bard who sang afar from haunts of man ! (Man s heart is cankerous with greed and lust.) And he forgot life s sordid age and rust, Where earth is young as when Time first began. The poet with a sympathizing care, Enshrined the bloom of nature in his art, And sent it forth to glad the breathless mart : Here mid the noonday turmoil of the streets, His opened volume sheds upon the air The piny fragrance of those cool retreats. Z ENVOI. L ENVOI, (TO THE MUSE.) [HIS is the record of our secret joy, The stolen hours when we love- vigils kept While neath the stars the earth in silence slept. Thou art a mistress warm of heart but coy, And for the few hours spent in sweet employ When over waters hush d the moonlight crept, I have through lonely nights thine absence wept Whose constant love and beauty ne er could cloy. 9 L EttfOf. I cannot flee the haunts of toil and wealth, Choose poverty and follow thee alone, I still must chaffer in the market-place. And wilt thou yet with love s delicious stealth Grant sweet tryst of the cynic world un known, And soothe me with thy tender, dream ful face? U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES