I ? 
 
 S 5 
 
 ? s 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 111 
 
 I 1C 
 
 ss "3L > *-- x * ? "5, v 
 
 fymm*fr %) 
 
 ; QF-CALIFOty^ ^OF 
 
 
 i rrfr-in 
 
 i S
 
 
 s 
 %, 
 
 1 i 
 
 .\vwNivros/A 
 
 &v fi % 
 
 ^rjiDNV-sov 
 
 .5SK-WIVEW/A 
 
 &v 0*0 
 
 I 
 
 ftHOHV-SOl 
 
 s .< 
 
 %- 
 
 V/JWMNn-3 
 
 ^losAvcn 
 
 g 3 
 
 %83AIKfl] 
 
 I 3 
 
 I % 
 
 
 ^M-UBRARY^ 
 5 
 
 JITVD'JO^ 
 
 ; OFCA1IFOI?^ 
 
 AW 
 
 ! v 
 
 i i 
 I ^, 
 
 <^U!BRAR> 
 
 %OJITV3-J 
 ^OF-CAIJFO 
 
 S I 
 
 n 
 
 iftUMMIF 
 
 S 3 
 
 \\MINIVER%
 

 
 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN SAVAGE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "SYBIL, A TBAGEDY." 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 JAMES B. KIRKER, 
 
 699 BROADWAY. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D. C. : PHILP & SOLOMON. 
 
 1864.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1863, 
 
 BY JAMES B. KIKKER, 
 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States, for the 
 Southern District of New York.
 
 PS 
 
 By the same Author, 
 
 In Press. Library Edition. 
 
 SYBIL, 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS. 
 
 904257 
 
 -05
 
 TO THE 
 
 HON. CHARLES P. DALY, LL.D., 
 
 JUDGE OF THE COURT OF COMMON ELEA8, NEW YORK, 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 MY DEAB FRIEND : 
 
 With great esteem for your many virtues and 
 accomplishments, I dedicate this book of " Faith and Fancy" to 
 you, and sincerely regret my inability to make it more worthy 
 of your acceptance. While, however, I am thus proudly eager 
 to let my readers know how I value private worth and public 
 integrity ; how in your person I honor purity of feeling, up- 
 rightness of character, and steadfast devotion to principle ; and 
 admire the variety of talent and intellectual resources which 
 illustrate the unceasing promptings of your heart to generous 
 efforts in behalf of Letters, Science, Humanity, and Justice ; 
 while I thus take advantage of this Publication to boast sincere 
 affection and respect for one so widely useful and so generally 
 beloved, let me, under cover of the indulgence your public 
 services will command, add a very few words touching the vol- 
 ume I offer you. 
 
 Prefaces, it would seem, are not so much the fashion now as 
 in days gone by, though I am glad to see that some of our best 
 aud most powerful writers do not ignore the good old sociable 
 custom. I confess to a feeling of self-respect which would com- 
 pel me to raise my hat, by way of prefatory courtesy, to the 
 person who, either at his own or my desire, was going to be 
 the confidant of my hopes, woes, experiences, or sensations. 
 Every person who writes poetry, is in such a position of self- 
 exposure. If he aspire at all to transcribe or embody the feel- 
 ings which evoke or prompt human action, he cannot help
 
 6 DEDICATION. 
 
 writing largely from his own heart's blood, and in the hues it 
 has taken by contact with Men, Faith, and Nature. Hence, I 
 desire to appropriate a paragraph of this dedicatory epistle to 
 briefly convey to my kind readers what otherwise might be 
 stated in a Preface. 
 
 With few exceptions, the pieces herein collected have been 
 published some anonymously and a few as translations in 
 various periodicals, during the past thirteen years; and in 
 many instances received a degree of popular, and in some cases 
 critical attention. I did not anticipate. After reproduction in 
 various presses, some have found their way into collections; 
 others have been read by professional readers to large and ap- 
 proving audiences ; and others again in the earlier portion of 
 the volume have been quoted by eminent and popular speakers 
 on both sides of the Atlantic. The song at the opening of the 
 Book, is placed there out of respect, not only to the subject 
 which should be first in our hearts, but also to the gallant 
 soldiers who gave it its first eclat on the historical occasion de- 
 scribed in the note. However undue and unmerited the kind 
 approbation referred to, / cannot overlook it ; and in deeply 
 appreciating it, feel some justification in collecting the scattered 
 links of years between the Press, the Public, and myself; and 
 with the addition of a few others welding all into a chain 
 which, I trust, will bind me still more pleasantly and serviceably 
 to them. 
 
 Begging you to receive this dedication as an humble though 
 earnest tribute to good nature and great services, 
 I have the honor to be 
 
 Your friend and servant, 
 
 JOHN SAVAGE. 
 
 DECEMBER 13, 1863.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 FAOC 
 
 The Starry Flag 9 
 
 The Muster of the North 12 
 
 The Patriot Mother T. 22 
 
 Soldier's Song 23 
 
 God preserve the Union 26 
 
 A Battle Prayer 29 
 
 Requiem for the Dead of the Irish Brigade 81 
 
 Redemption 83 
 
 Flowereon my Desk 84 
 
 A Phantasy 88 
 
 Mina 40 
 
 "Remember we are Friends" 42 
 
 To an Artist 44 
 
 Lilla. 47 
 
 Haunted 49 
 
 Love's Imagination 61 
 
 " May God bless us" 53 
 
 Celia's Tea 58 
 
 A New Life 54 
 
 The God-Child of July 57 
 
 Breasting the World 60 
 
 At Niagara: 
 
 The Rapids 61 
 
 The Falls 62 
 
 Shane's Head... . 64
 
 8 CONTEKTS. 
 
 PAOB 
 
 St. Anne's Well 68 
 
 Winter Thoughts : 
 
 I. The Dead Year 72 
 
 II. A Frosty Night 78 
 
 III. Snow on the Ground 74 
 
 IV. Summer always 75 
 
 V. Faces in the Fire 76 
 
 Washington 77 
 
 The Plaint of the Wild-flower 80 
 
 Game Laws .' 83 
 
 Dreaming by Moonlight 85 
 
 Effie Gray 107 
 
 The Parting of the Sun 109 
 
 He Writes for Bread 112 
 
 NOTES .. 115
 
 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 THE STARRY FLAG. 1 
 
 AJ- Dteie't Land," Recitativo. 
 
 OH, the starry flag is the flag for me I 
 'Tis the flag of life ! the flag of the free ! 
 Then hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 
 For the flag of the Union ! 
 Oh, the starry flag, &c. 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 Where no "power in wrath can face it ! 
 
 On town and field, 
 
 The people's shield, 
 No treason can erase it ! 
 
 O'er all the land 
 
 That flag must stand, 
 Where the people's might shall place it.
 
 10 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 II. 
 
 That flag was won through gloom and woe ! 
 It has blessed the brave and awed the foe ! 
 
 Then hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 
 For the flag of the Union I 
 That flag was won, &c. 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah 1 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 Where the stripes no hand can sever 1 
 
 On fort and mast, 
 
 We'll nail it fast, 
 To balk all base endeavor ! 
 
 O'er roof and spire 
 
 A living fire 
 The Stars shall blaze forever ! 
 
 'Tis the people's will, both great and small, 
 The rights of the States, the union of all 1 
 
 Then hurrah 1 hurrah ! 
 
 For the flag of the Union ! 
 
 'Tis the people's will, &c. 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 Till it is the world's wonder ! 
 
 On fort and crag 
 
 We'll plant that flag 
 With the people's voice of thunder I 
 
 We'll plant that flag 
 
 Where none can drag 
 Its immortal folds asunder !
 
 THE STARRY FLAG. 11 
 
 IV. 
 
 We must keep that flag where it e'er has stood, 
 In front of the free, the wise, and the good 1 
 Then hurrah 1 hurrah 1 
 
 For the flag of the Union I 
 
 We must keep that flag, &c. 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 
 Hurrah ! hurrah ! 
 
 We'll raise that starry banner, boys, 
 On field, fort, mast, and steeple ! 
 
 And fight and fall 
 
 At our country's call, 
 By the glorious flag of the people I 
 
 In God, the just, v 
 
 We place our trust, 
 To defend the flag of the people I 
 
 On board U. S. Transport " Jlarion," Monday, May 18, 1881.
 
 12 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH. 
 
 A BALLAD OF '61. 
 I. 
 
 " OH, mother, have you heard the news ?" 
 
 " Oh, father, is it true ?" 
 " Oh, brother, were I but a man" 
 
 " Oh, husband, they shall rue !" 
 Thus, passionately, asked the boy, 
 
 And thus the sister spoke, 
 And thus the dear wife to her mate, 
 
 The words they could not choke. 
 " The news ! what news ?" " Oh, bitter news they've 
 
 fired upon the flag 
 
 The flag no foreign foe could blast, the traitors down 
 would drag." 
 
 ii. 
 " The truest flag of liberty 
 
 The world has ever seen 
 The stars that shone o'er Washington 
 
 And guided gallant Greene ! 
 The white and crimson stripes which bode 
 
 Success hi peace and war, 
 Are draggled, shorn, disgraced, and torn 
 
 Insulted star by star ;
 
 THE MUSTER OP THE NORTH. 13 
 
 That flag which struggling men point to, rebuking kingly 
 
 codes, 
 The flag of Jones at Whitehaven, of Reid at Fayal 
 
 Roads." 
 
 " Eh, neighbor, can'st believe this thing ?" 
 
 The neighbor's eyes grew wild ; 
 Then o'er them crept a haze of shame, 
 
 As o'er a sad, proud child ; 
 His face grew pale, he bit his lip, 
 
 Until the hardy skin, 
 By passion tightened, could not hold 
 
 The boiling blood within ; 
 
 He quivered for a moment, the indignant stupor Stroke, 
 And the duties of the soldier in the citizen awoke. 
 
 rv. 
 
 On every side the crimson tide 
 
 Ebbs quickly to and fro ; 
 On maiden cheeks the horror speaks 
 
 With fitful gloom and glow ; 
 In matrons' eyes their feelings rise, 
 
 As when a danger, near, 
 Awakes the soul to full control 
 
 Of all that causes fear ; 
 The subtle sense, the faith intense, of woman's heart and 
 
 brain, 
 
 Give her a prophet's power to see, to suffer, and main- 
 tain. 
 
 Through city streets the fever beats 
 O'er highways byways, borne 
 2
 
 14 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 The boys grow men -with madness, 
 And the old grow young in scorn ; 
 
 The forest boughs record the vows 
 Of men, heart-sore, though strong ; 
 
 Th' electric wire, with words of fire, 
 
 The passion speeds along, 
 Of traitor hordes and traitor swords from Natchez to 
 
 And like a mighty harp flings out the war-chant to the 
 
 And into caverned mining pits 
 ' The insult bellows down ; 
 And up through the hoary gorges, 
 
 Till it shouts on the mountain's crown ; 
 Then foaming o'er the table-lands, 
 
 Like a widening rapid, heads ; 
 And rolling along the prairies, 
 
 Like a quenchless fire it spreads ; 
 From workman's shop to mountain top there's mingled 
 
 wrath and wonder, 
 
 It appalls, them like the lightning, and awakes them like 
 the thunder. 
 
 The woodman flings his axe aside ; 
 
 The farmer leaves his plough ; 
 The merchant slams his ledger lids 
 
 For other business now ; 
 The artisan puts up his tools, 
 
 The artist drops his brush,
 
 THE MTTSTER OF THE NORTH. IS 
 
 And joining hands for Liberty, 
 
 To Freedom's standard rush ; 
 The doctor folds his suit of black, to fight as best he 
 
 may, 
 And e'en the flirting exquisite is " eager for the fray." 
 
 The students leave their college rooms, 
 
 Full deep in Greece and Rome, 
 To make a rival glory 
 
 For a better cause near home ; 
 The lawyer quits his suits and writs, 
 
 The laborer his hire, 
 And in the thrilling rivalry 
 The rich and poor aspire ! 
 
 And party lines are lost amid the patriot commotion, 
 As wanton streams grow strong and pure within the 
 heart of ocean. 
 
 The city parks are thronged ; 
 In country stores there roars and pours 
 
 The means to right the wronged ; 
 The town halls ring with mustering ; 
 
 From holy pulpits, too, 
 Good priests and preachers volunteer 
 
 To show what men should do 
 To show that they who preach the truth and God above 
 
 revere, 
 
 Can die to save for man the blessings God has sent down 
 here.
 
 16 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 And gentle fingers everywhere 
 
 The busy needles ply, 
 To deck the manly sinews 
 
 That go out to do or die ; 
 And maids and mothers, sisters dear, 
 
 And dearer wives, outvie 
 Each other in the duty sad, 
 
 That makes all say " Good-by" 
 The while in every throbbing heart that's pressed in fare- 
 well kiss 
 
 Arises pangs of hate on those who brought them all to 
 this. 
 
 The mustering men are entering 
 For near and distant tramps ; 
 The clustering crowds are centering 
 
 In barrack-rooms and camps ; 
 There is riveting and pivoting, 
 
 And furbishing of arms, 
 And the willing marching, drilling, 
 
 With their quick exciting charms, 
 Half dispel the subtle sorrow that the women needs must 
 
 feel, 
 
 When e'en for Right their dear ones fight the Wrong with 
 steel to steel. 
 
 With hammerings and clamorings, 
 
 The armories are loud ; 
 Toilsome clangor, joy, and anger, 
 
 Like a cloud enwrap each crowd ;
 
 THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH. 17 
 
 Belting, buckling, cursing, chuckling, 
 
 Sorting out their " traps" in throngs ; 
 Some are packing, some knapsacking, 
 
 Singing snatches of old songs ; 
 
 Fifers finger, lovers linger to adjust a badge or feather, 
 And groups of drummers vainly strive to reveille to- 
 gether. 
 
 And into many a haversack 
 
 The prayer-book's mutely borne 
 Its well-thumbed leaves in faithfulness 
 
 By wives and mothers worn 
 And round full many a pillared neck, 
 
 O'er many a stalwart breast, 
 The sweetheart wife's the maiden love's 
 
 Dear effigy's caressed. 
 God knows by what far camp-fire may these tokens 
 
 courage give, 
 
 To fearless die for truth and home, i not for them to 
 live. 
 
 And men who've passed their threescore years, 
 
 Press on the ranks in flocks, 
 Their eyes, like fire from Hecla's brow, 
 
 Burn through their snowy locks ; 
 And maimed ones, with stout hearts, persist 
 
 To mount the belt and gun, 
 And crave, with tears while forced away 
 
 To march to Washington. 
 2*
 
 18 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 " Why should we -not ? We love that flag 1 Great 
 
 God I" they choking cry 
 " We're strong enough 1 We're not too old for our 
 
 dear land to die I" 
 
 xv. 
 
 And in the mighty mustering, 
 
 No petty hate intrudes, 
 No rival discords mar the strength 
 
 Of rising multitudes ; 
 The jealousies of faith and clime 
 
 Which fester in success, 
 Give place to sturdy friendships 
 
 Based on mutual distress ; 
 For every thinking citizen who draws the sword, kno^ 
 
 well 
 The battle's for Humanity for Freedom's citadel I 
 
 XYI. 
 
 0, Heaven 1 how the trodden hearts, 
 
 In Europe's tyrant world, 
 Leaped up with new-born energy 
 When that flag was unfurled ! 
 How those who suffered, fought, and died, 
 
 In fields, or dungeon-chained, 
 Prayed that the flag of Washington 
 Might float while earth remained 1 
 And weary eyes in foreign skies, still flash with fire anew, 
 When some good blast by peak and mast unfolds that 
 flag to view.
 
 THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH. 19 
 
 XVII. 
 
 And they who, guided by its stars, 
 
 Sought here the hopes they gave, 
 Are all aglow with pilgrim fire 
 
 Their happy shrines to save. 
 Here Scots and Poles, Italians, Gauls, 
 
 With native emblems trickt ; 
 There Teuton corps, who fought before 
 
 Far Freiheit undfitr Licht ; 9 
 
 While round the flag the Irish like a human rampart go ! 
 They found Cead mille failthe* here they'll give it to 
 the foe. 
 
 From the vine-land, from the Rhine-land, 
 From the Shannon, from the Scheldt, 
 From the ancient homes of genius, 
 From the sainted home of Celt, 
 From Italy, from Hungary, 
 
 All as brothers join and come, 
 To the sinew-bracing bugle, 
 
 And the foot-propelling drum t 
 
 Too proud beneath the starry flag to die, and keep secure 
 The Liberty they dreamed of by the Danube/Elbe, and 
 Suir. 
 
 From every hearth bounds up a heart, 
 As spring from hill-side leaps, 
 
 To give itself to those proud streams 
 That make resistless deeps ! 
 
 No book-rapt sage, for age on age, 
 Can point to such a sight
 
 20 FAITH AND F4.NCY. 
 
 As this deep throb, which woke from rest 
 
 A people armed for fight. 
 Peal out, ye bells, the tocsin peal, for never since the 
 
 day 
 
 When Peter roused the Christian world has earth seen 
 w such array. 
 
 xx. 
 
 Which way we turn, the eyeballs burn 
 
 With joy upon the throng ; 
 Mid cheers and prayers, and martial airs, 
 
 The soldiers press along ; 
 The masses swell and wildly yell, 
 
 On pavement, tree, and roof, 
 And sun-bright showers of smiles and flowers 
 
 Of woman's love give proof. 
 Peal out, ye bells, from church and dome, in rivalrous 
 
 communion 
 
 With the wild, upheaving masses, for the army of the 
 Union! 
 
 XXI. 
 
 Onward trending, crowds attending, 
 
 Still the army moves and still : 
 Arms are clashing, wagons crashing 
 
 In the roads and streets they fill ; 
 O'er them banners wave in thousands, 
 
 Round them human surges roar, 
 Like the restless-bosomed ocean, 
 
 Heaving on an iron shore : 
 Cannons thunder, people wonder whence the endless river 
 
 With its foam of bristling bay'nets, and its cataracts of 
 drums.
 
 THE MUSTER OF THE NORTH. 21 
 
 " God bless the Union army 1" 
 
 That holy thought appears 
 To symbolize the trustful eyes 
 
 That speak more loud than cheers. 
 " God bless the Union army, 
 
 And the flag by which it stands, 
 May it preserve, with freeman's nerve, 
 
 What freedom's God demands 1" 
 Peal out, ye bells ye women, pray ; for never yet went 
 
 forth 
 
 So grand a band, for law and land, as the muster of the 
 North.
 
 22 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 THE PATRIOT MOTHER. 
 
 WHEN o'er the land the battle brand 
 
 In freedom's cause was gleaming, 
 And everywhere upon the air 
 
 The starry flag was streaming, 
 The widow cried unto her pride, 
 
 " Go forth and join the muster ; 
 Thank God, my son can bear a gun 
 
 To crown his race with lustre ! 
 Go forth ! and come again not home, 
 
 If by disgrace o'erpowered ; 
 My heart can pray o'er hero's clay, 
 
 But never clasp a coward 1" 
 
 n. 
 "God bless thee, boy, my pride, my joy, 
 
 My old eyes' light and treasure 
 Thy father stood 'mid flame and blood 
 
 To fill the freeman's measure. 
 His name thy name the cause the same, 
 
 Go join thy soldier brothers ! 
 Thy blow, alone, protects not one, 
 
 But thousands, wives and mothers. 
 May every blessing Heaven can yield 
 
 Upon thy arms be showered ! 
 Come back a hero from the field, 
 
 But never come a coward."
 
 SOLDIER'S SONG. 
 
 SOLDIER'S SONG. 
 
 I'D rather be a soldier 
 
 In a gallant, glorious cause, 
 To uphold a people's honor, 
 
 Their liberty and laws, 
 Than wearily and drearily 
 
 To pass my life away, 
 Living but for living's sake, 
 / And dying ev'ry day. 
 
 Chorus. I'd rather be a soldier I 
 
 A tramping, camping soldier 1 
 A soldier away to the field 
 Where the God of right above, 
 Smiles upon the flag we love, 
 As we fight, fall, but never yield. 
 
 n. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier 
 
 In the watchful bivouac, 
 'Mid night alarms, and calls to arms, 
 
 To meet the dawn's attack, 
 Than slumber hi the city's heart, 
 
 In callous, blank repose,
 
 24 FAITH AND FANCY 
 
 When every man should be awake 
 To face the nation's foes. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier, etc. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier, 
 
 In the flashing, crashing van, 
 And win the love of mankind, 
 
 By the blow I strike for man, 
 Than mope in subtle selfishness, 
 
 With empty pleas for " Peace," 
 While each delay to win the right 
 
 But makes the wrong increase. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier, etc. 
 
 IV. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier, 
 
 'Mid the battle's rage and ire, 
 With heart that mocks the sabre thrust, 
 
 And soul that scoffs the fire, 
 Than live to feel no glory 
 
 In my nation, flag, and race 
 Oh, better fall to crown them all, 
 
 Than live to their disgrace 1 
 I'd rather be a soldier, etc. 
 
 Then forward, gallant comrades ! 
 
 Welcome any fate that comes ; 
 We rise to freedom's bugle-blast, 
 
 We step to freedom's drums :
 
 SOLDIER'S SONG. 
 
 The God that gave us liberty, 
 Will see us through the foam 
 
 Of battle, while we bravely fight 
 For our dear ones at home. 
 
 I'd rather be a soldier, etc. 
 3
 
 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 GOD PRESERVE THE UNION. 
 
 i. 
 
 BROTHERS, there are times when nations 
 
 Must, like battle-worn men, 
 Leave their proud, self-builded quiet 
 
 To do service once again : 
 When the banners blessed by fortune, 
 
 And by blood and brain embalmed, 
 Must re-throb the soul with feelings 
 
 That long happiness hath calmed. 
 Thus the Democratic faith that won 
 
 The nation, now hath need 
 To raise its ever stalwart arm, 
 
 And save what twice it freed. 
 
 So friends fill up 
 
 The brimming cup 
 In brotherly communion 
 
 Here's blood and blow 
 
 For a foreign foe, 
 And God preserve the Union. 
 
 There are factions passion-goaded, 
 There are turbulence and wrath, 
 
 And swarthy dogmas bellowing 
 Around the people's path ;
 
 GOD PRESERVE THE UNION. 21 
 
 There are false lights in the darkness, 
 
 There are black hearts in the light, 
 And hollow heads are mimicking 
 
 The Jove-like people's might. 
 But, ah ! the Democratic strength 
 
 That smote an empire's brow, 
 Can with its regnant virtues tame 
 
 Mere home-made factions now. 
 
 So friends let's band 
 
 For fatherland 
 In brotherly communion, 
 
 Let every mouth 
 
 Cry " North and South," 
 And God preserve the Union. 
 
 While the young Republic's bosom 
 
 Seems with rival passions torn 
 Growing from the very freedom 
 
 Of the speech within it born ; 
 Europe, in its haggard frenzy 
 
 To behold no earthly sod, 
 Where its white slaves may unbend them, 
 
 Orl)end but to Freedom's God 
 Europe madly hails the omen 
 
 Strains its bloodshot eyes to view 
 A native treason toiling at 
 
 The work it strove to do. 
 
 So, friends, let's all 
 Like a rampart wall 
 In granite-built communion,
 
 28 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Stand firmly proud, 
 'Gainst the kingly crowd 
 And God preserve the Union. 
 
 Since that day, when frantic people 
 
 Round the State House rose and fell, 
 Like an angry ocean surging 
 
 Round some rock-reared citadel 
 When the Quaker City trembled 
 
 'Neath the arming people's tramp, 
 And the bell proclaimed to iron men 
 Each house in the land a camp 
 Democracy has kept that bell 
 
 Still ^pealing sound on sound, 
 Until its potent energy 
 Haa throbbed the wide earth round. 
 So let it ring, 
 So let it bring 
 Us brotherly communion ; 
 Here's heart and hand, 
 For life and land I 
 And God preserve the Union !
 
 A BATTLE PRAYER. 29 
 
 A BATTLE PRAYER. 
 
 GOD of the righteous, God of the brave ! 
 Strengthen our arms our country to save ; 
 Lead us to victory's peace-giving charms : 
 God of the righteous, strengthen our arms ! 
 
 God of the people's cause, God of the free ! 
 From hearth and hill-side we look up to Thee ; 
 Make us, when battle-clouds thunder and roll, 
 Titans in body, and true men in soul. 
 
 God of our hopefulness, God of the right I 
 Be to us armor and courage in fight I 
 Lift us on valorous fervor to be 
 Terror and wrath to the foes of the free 1 
 
 IV. 
 
 God of humanity, God of the heart 1 
 Let not the man in the soldier depart ; 
 And when beneath us the ruthless foe reels, 
 Teach us the mercy the true hero feels. 
 3*
 
 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Gird up our loins then, O Lord ! for the truth, 
 The safety of age, and the freedom of youth ; 
 Leads us to victory's peace-giving charms : 
 God of the righteous strengthen our arms !
 
 REQUIEM FOB THE DEAD OF THE IRISH BRIGADE. SI 
 
 REQUIEM FOR THE DEAD OF THE IRISH 
 BRIGADE. 
 
 COME, let the solemn, soothing Mass be said, 
 For the soldier souls of the patriot dead. 
 
 Let the organ swell, and the incense burn, 
 For the hero men who will ne'er return. 
 
 Men who had pledged to this land their troth, 
 And died to defend her, ere break their oath. 
 
 But if high the praise, be as deep the wail 
 O'er the exiled sons of the warlike Gael. 
 
 From their acts true men may examples reap ; 
 And women bless them, and glorying, weep. 
 
 Proud beats the heart while it sorrowing melts 
 O'er the death-won fame of these truthful Celts. 
 
 For the scattered graves over which we pray 
 Will shine like stars on their race alway. 
 
 Oh, what doth ennoble the Christian man, 
 If not dying for truth in freedom's van 1 
 
 What takes from Death all its terrors and gloom ? 
 Conscience to feel Justice blesses the tomb I
 
 32 . FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 And oh! what doth build up a nation's weal 
 But courage to fight for the truths we feel ! 
 
 And thus did these braves, on whose graves we wait, 
 Do all that make nations and races great. 
 
 I 
 
 OBEMTJS. 
 
 Ye living, your hearts combine 
 In praise and prayer, to the heavenly shrine : 
 
 Ye widowed and stricken, 
 
 Your trustfulness quicken 
 With faith in the Almighty Giver ; 
 
 And may blessed repose 
 
 Be the guerdon of those 
 Who fell at Antietam and James's river, 
 By the Rappahannock and Chickahominy ; 
 Requiem (sternum dona eis dominet 
 
 May their souls on the Judgment-day arise ; 
 
 Et lux perpetua luceat eis.
 
 BEDEMPTION. 
 
 REDEMPTION. 
 
 A sound heart la the life of the flesh. "-Proverbs. 
 I. 
 
 MISER, see that hoard of gold 
 
 Mistress, view that dower 
 Artist, look at yon fair mould 
 
 Beauty, wealth, and power : 
 There they are but what are these ? 
 False leaves decking sapless trees. 
 
 n. 
 
 Honesty for him hath naught 
 
 Truth for her no use 
 Yon fair shape no virtue brought 
 
 All are life's abuse : 
 But like Christ, one pure heart's birth 
 Brings redemption to an earth I
 
 34 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 FLOWERS ON MY DESK. 
 
 YE tiny queens, lift up your pensive heads, 
 
 And fear not that a magic feeling weds 
 The air about the student's chamber ; 
 
 'Tis true those books inoculate the air 
 
 With their intense divinity, 
 
 And measure in the rhythm of each mystic prayer 
 
 The hopes and blessings of infinity : 
 But ye may into all their secrets clamber, 
 
 As little stars may wander through the skies, 
 
 And find out all the bliss of Paradise. 
 
 The poet and the plant are near allied ; 
 
 Nature's best offspring, she of both the pride : 
 
 So, fear thee not, nor fail to number, 
 
 Amongst thy friends those stately quartos which 
 Some standing upright to their proudest height, 
 And some reclining in a tired plight, 
 
 Like drows-eyed sentinels who laz'ly hitch 
 
 Their sides to wakeful slumber 
 
 Gather around as if to guard the prize, 
 
 That dainty hands and brightest eyes 
 
 Had culled for me. Ye conjure up 
 
 Like the swift shadow of a welcome comer, 
 Or early buds that whisper us of summer 
 
 You fragrant rose and rustic buttercup,
 
 FLOWERS ON MY DESK. . Jf 
 
 The pleasant presence of the picturesque, 
 
 And light and artless, 
 
 But dare I say the heartless 
 Maid, who gave you to my musty desk. 
 
 Like her, you're fair, 
 And like her, too, you're tender, 
 
 Light as May ah*, 
 
 Commingled with June splendor, 
 Joyous as Morning when he freshly gives 
 
 A like rich mirth 
 To all around that in his radiance lives 
 
 In air or earth ; 
 And which we love to foster as we stray, 
 
 While yet the town 
 Winks doubtful welcome to the god of day, 
 
 In midnight's gown. 
 
 Ah I I can picture how she tripped amid ' 
 
 The little fay-ground where she tends her flowers, 
 To woo ye, as ye childishly all hid 
 
 Each others' smile, love-chained to natal bowers ; 
 Yes, I can picture how she tripped along, 
 
 Her clear laugh car'lling on the jealous air, 
 Which, though unquiet, calmed to catch her song, 
 
 And test its fragrance with her wild breath there. 
 
 And then she, heedless of the list'ning vapors, 
 Footed around to cull the richest stems, 
 
 Here eyes a plant, then onward gayly capers, 
 And here again, and there, for perfume gems ; 
 
 Now choosing one, and now discarding ten, 
 
 The while that ten grow ripe her love-light quaffing,
 
 36 FAITH AND FANCT. 
 
 And now she plucks a dainty pair, and then 
 Her young and happy heart is wildly laughing. 
 
 My dainty flowers, dwell ye on my desk, 
 
 Among my choicest friends, and dear good-fellow books, 
 Dwell there to memorize the picturesque, 
 And laughing, bright-eyed, fairy-tinted looks 
 Of her who culled you from your fragrant nooks 
 In her self-tended Eden : 
 In your glee 
 
 Dwell, tender queens, to picture forth the maiden 
 Who gave you unto me. 
 
 How rich a thing becomes the merest leaf, 
 When memories that give the mind relief 
 Of love, of hope, ay even, or of grief, 
 Are twined in fragrant bondage to it ! 
 What various rapture whirls us as we view it ? 
 Each rapture leaping up from thought's horizon, 
 Like the rich clouds that fleck the ambient skies on 
 Summer days between the noon and even 
 Golden and fantasque, sailing through bright heaven 
 As richest thoughts through god-like poet's brain ; 
 The music of whose full-toned purple strain 
 Will be cast back from every cone of thought 
 That leaps delighted with the soul thus brought 
 Into its lesser being, lighting some lesser still, 
 Until wide prairies of reflected will 
 Send up, like exhalations from the vernal 
 
 Sun-besmitten and inspired sod, 
 Their thanks which made the poet's dreams eternal. 
 
 The poet does not dream he lives with God, 
 Who is the essence of all right and beauty
 
 FLOWERS ON KY DESK. 
 
 He does not dream, bat lives a life of duty, 
 So far above " realities" of Earth, that Earth 
 
 With mind, like dagger to a point grown thin 
 In peculation, will not see his worth, 
 
 But calls his life a dream to shield its lifelong sin. 
 And as I gaze on yon sweet leafy links 
 Of thought, my too unguarded Fancy drinks 
 "Whole stonps of Hope, that frolic through my brain 
 Like summer clouds in Evening's calm domain ; 
 And they too like the poet's thoughts send back 
 Reflected glory on their founder's track. 
 
 While ye remain there I shall think it Night, 
 
 Night calmly eloquent and grand ; 
 And ye the lamps that shed then* vesper light 
 
 In the dim cloisters of the poet's land ; 
 And when ye fade, I'll feel the silence parted, 
 
 And Day, hot-headed, panting in my face, 
 With words too broken for the gloomy-hearted 
 
 To hang a hope on for his spirit's grace. 
 4
 
 38 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 A PHANTASY. 
 
 I WAS dreaming, the other night, over my desk, 
 
 All alone, 
 And my thoughts held me still in a net arabesque 
 
 Of my own ; 
 And, as Joy at its height held in silence, I sat, 
 
 When a chord 
 My soul's yearning portals there came ringing at, 
 
 And I heard 
 A peal of sweet maid-laughing tones : and I listened 
 
 And gazed ; 
 When out from the silence a pair of eyes glistened ! 
 
 I raised 
 My hands to my eyes, which felt doubtful of vision. 
 
 Forbear, 
 Ye Gods of the Fancy ! what features elysian 
 
 Were there ! 
 An eye, bright as Spring after kissing the rain, 
 
 And a voice, 
 With the richness of Psyche's and Flora's wild strain, 
 
 Did rejoice ! 
 And leaped its sweet carols my poor heart a-through, 
 
 From a mouth 
 Rich as strawberry juice, or the rose 'neath the dew 
 
 In the South ! 
 And her form bright as hope, seemed to beckon me on,
 
 A PHANTASY. 89 
 
 And the power 
 
 Of my own language came, and I spoke ... all was gone 
 Save a flower. 
 
 Why Fancy why Beauty whatever thou art, 
 
 Dost thou chain, 
 Promethean like, to the rock of my heart 
 
 My wild brain? 
 Oh, tender sonl, tell me what likeness thou'Jt rear, 
 
 In thy power, 
 'Thveen a love-laughing sprite of a maidpn so fair 
 
 And a flower ?
 
 40 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 MINA. 
 
 MINA'S eyes are dark as sorrow, 
 Mina's eyes are bright as morrow 
 Morrow symbols Hope alway ; 
 And a soul-lit radiance flashes 
 Out between their silken lashes, 
 
 As from out the sable fringes of the midnight leaps the 
 day. 
 
 Mina's hair is black as madness, 
 Mina's hair is soft as gladness 
 
 Gladness true is soft and low ; 
 And its heavy richness ponders 
 O'er her brow, as student wanders 
 By some bardic temple, wordless with the homage he'd 
 bestow. 
 
 Mina's brow is clear as amber, 
 Mina's brow is calm as chamber 
 
 Where God lives in what seems dead ; 
 And its gentleness is giving 
 E'er a mute excuse for living 
 
 On in passive grandeur, careless of the fame its thoughts 
 might spread.
 
 MINA. 41 
 
 IV. 
 
 Mina's mouth is ripe S study, 
 Mina's mouth is full and ruddy 
 
 Tempting as the August peach ; 
 And its sweet contentment routing 
 Off a melancholy pouting, 
 
 Welcomes laughter to the portals where the trivial ne'er 
 can reach. 
 
 v. 
 
 Mina's heart is pure as childhood, 
 Mina's heart is fresh as wildwood, 
 
 Where each tendril dials God ; 
 And its radiant blessings centred 
 On her face, have ever entered 
 
 Through her eyes those happy mortals who within their 
 mission trod. 
 
 Mina's hand is sure to capture 1 
 Mina's touch is weird its rapture 
 
 Is electric, seeming numb ; 
 And her spirit on the minute 
 Thrills .you with the calm joy in it, 
 And vibrating you to eloquence, compels you to be dumb. 
 4*
 
 42 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 "REMEMBER WE ARE FRIENDS." 
 
 " No matter what cornea about, our friendship must not be severed." 
 I. 
 
 REMEMBER we are friends, dear girl, though far apart and 
 
 lonely, 
 And though the sunlight of your smile is now a mem'ry 
 
 only 
 And though the love I dreamed my own is tombed 
 
 where sorrow blends 
 The hopings of the stormy past remember we are 
 
 friends I 
 
 n. 
 
 Mayhap you'll feel the ocean world too chill, your life- 
 shore beating 
 
 Mayhap your heart, like mine, may see its darling hope 
 retreating 
 
 God grant you joy ! but who may know what comes 
 when daylight ends ? 
 
 And should e'er morrow bring you gloom remember 
 we are friends. 
 
 in. 
 And though I'd prize your love beyond all womanly 
 
 affection, 
 And though a hope will linger yet to feed my heart's 
 
 dejection,
 
 BEMEMBBB WE ARE FRIENDS. 43 
 
 I'd rather have thy young heart blessed, in blessing 
 
 where it bends 
 Forget me as a lover, but remember we are friends I 
 
 IV. 
 
 I'll meet thee yet beside the hearth that hearth that is 
 
 another's, 
 And my still young gray hairs shall joy o'er faces like 
 
 their mother's ! 
 Mayhap he'll twit my loneliness, and boast what marriage 
 
 sends, 
 Unknowing how I once thought, but remember we are 
 
 friends.
 
 44 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 TO AN ARTIST. 
 
 THE old man's drifted to the soundless sea 
 Gone back to death and heaven : as a perfume, he 
 Warmed into life by light rose into sky's immensity. 
 
 Blondell, I have to thank thee, and thy art 
 For every tremor that awakes my heart 
 From gloom, when gazing on his pictured counterpart. 
 
 Your pencil's magic drew up to his face 
 His innate radiances, as the sunlight's grace 
 Makes voluble the innate seed hi flowers on earth's placid 
 space. 
 
 His fair round forehead, like a concave glass, 
 Enlarged all good it witnessed to a mass, 
 The convex lessening ill, so that none ever saw it pass. 
 
 His kind, love-typifying face is here 
 With all its fond intensity ; it would appear 
 The great old man himself had just but ceased to rear 
 
 The vocal solace of his thoughts around, 
 And dropped off into silence, while the sound 
 Of his own blessed words yet o'er his features wound :
 
 TO AN ARTIST. 45 
 
 Ay, in the lustre of their purity, 
 As noiseless mists about a fountain's glee 
 Hover on the air, and then in wavy sun-bows flee. 
 
 Like some great diver, you have made a bound 
 Into his nature, loving, vast, profound, 
 And scattered o'er the canvas the gems profuse you 
 found. 
 
 He was the sun that lit my childhood on, 
 And smiled upon me as on earth the sun ; 
 But now your canvas, like a moon, reflects the light that's 
 gone. 
 
 But on my morn no Sun shall say to Earth 
 " God bless you I" as oft he : his song, his mirth 
 Have gone with evening and the birds all here is voice- 
 less dearth. 
 
 I cannot weep, I have such stupor drank ; 
 Enough, like sunless day I am all blank ; 
 He left me drunk with Love, and guideless have I sank. 
 
 All his quaint humors, all his cheering sense, 
 Ghost through my brain, that, vague with wild intents, 
 Grasps at them all, and finds but shadowy cerements. 
 
 A thousand questions crowd upon my tongue, 
 With thousand answers springing them among ; 
 For he was of me, and his thoughts like mantles o'er me 
 hung.
 
 46 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Mankind lost more than I did when he plied 
 His soul's white wings for heaven though my pride 
 And guide left me and mine unsolaced when he died. 
 
 God's noblest work evanished when he fled, 
 This great world missed an honest man's meek tread 
 The hour it opened to receive my father's body DEAD. 
 
 Sept. 23, 1853.
 
 LILLA. 
 
 LOVELY Lilla, why keep smiling ? 
 All my path to gloom beguiling ; 
 As your mouth its bright joy flashes, 
 Every ripple o'er me dashes 
 Makes me helpless while I gaze on 
 Nature's acted diapason ; 
 But the bliss a bane instills 
 Lilla smiles while Lilla kills. 
 
 Ah ! those eyes with rapture thrill me 
 Take them off, or else they'll kill me ; 
 But not yet, for there's about them 
 That to make me die without them ! 
 Dear, remember what you're doing, 
 You are killing while I'm wooing 
 If you close those eyes of blue, 
 Don't you know you close mine too ? 
 
 Such an earthly, heavenly, human, 
 Lovely, wicked, artless woman
 
 48 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 i 
 
 As you, Lilla, lights our blindness 
 
 Rarely here, to kill with kindness ! 
 
 Every glance both wins and wounds me 
 
 Life "or Death in you surrounds me 
 
 While one word all life would give, 
 
 Had you the heart to make me live. j
 
 49 
 
 HAUNTED. 
 , . 
 
 I AM haunted by a spirit, 
 
 Everywhere I go ; 
 That I'm near it, yet not near^it, 
 
 I too sadly know. 
 
 When I'm hushed and sorrow-laden, 
 
 'Tis a solace there ; 
 When my heart would clasp its maiden 
 
 Figure it is air. 
 Now deluded, now hope-nurtured 
 
 I am cursed and blessed, 
 Till I crave for this o'er-tortured 
 
 Frame, eternal rest. 
 
 Yet the spirit looms about me, 
 
 Like a thought decreeing, 
 
 As I from it it without me 
 Cannot have a being. 
 
 I am in the city's mazes, 
 
 'Mid ten thousand men 
 
 There the spirit's sweet, sad face is 
 Smiling, just as when, 
 
 In the midnight, it from study 
 All my soul has drawn ; 
 5
 
 50 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Or when it, at morning ruddy, 
 Smiles a rival dawn. 
 
 Sometimes it is sad' and lonely 
 
 Sometimes like a psalm, 
 A sacred, solemn joy this only 
 
 When I'm very calm ; 
 Sometimes 'tis as bright as dew, that 
 
 Pushed from opening bud, 
 Steals the light it first falls through, that 
 
 Gilds it ere it kiss the sod ; 
 
 Sometimes 'tis a gloomy grandeur- 
 Sorrow unconfessed 
 
 Whose loud silence would command your 
 Life to calm its breast ; 
 
 Sometimes smiling as a dreaming 
 
 Child the thoughts, alas, 
 Of the soul on lips are beaming 
 
 That they cannot pass ; 
 Sometimes but, heart, some feature 
 
 Bless in silent prayer ! 
 All times seeming 'tis some creature 
 
 Rare, exceeding fair ! 
 
 So, two shadows' dim distraction 
 Dial every motion ; 
 
 One, which guides my body's action, 
 One, my soul's devotion.
 
 LOVE'S IMAGINATION. 
 
 LOVE'S IMAGINATION. 
 
 WHERE the mist is list'ning 
 
 To the etolic hills, 
 Where the spray 'is glist'ning 
 
 O'er the joyous rills, 
 Where the budding flowers 
 
 Nodding by the streams, 
 Look like infants waking 
 
 From their rosy dreams; 
 There may hearts grow fonder, 
 There may poet ponder, 
 There may fancy squander, 
 
 All its jewels rare, 
 But there I may not wander 
 
 If my love's not there. 
 
 Where the tall pines shiver, 
 When the winter's breath 
 
 Wraps the once glad river 
 Into icy death; 
 
 Where the caverns labor 
 With a restless pray'r,
 
 62 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 When the hunted ocean 
 Seeks a shelter there; 
 There, though desolation, 
 Mocks all contemplation, 
 Love's imagination 
 
 Mellows place and time, 
 And in its own creation 
 Makes the gloom sublime !
 
 CELIA'S TEA. 68 
 
 "MAY GOD BLESS US.' 
 
 LADY mine, say it ever, pray it ever, it hath meaning, 
 For the lowly, for the holy, and to all on virtue leaning, 
 But from thy lips to me it hath a hope all else above, 
 For God is love, and truly blesses those who truly love. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Love's the secret of existence 1 What are vineyards 
 
 spacious portals 
 To one happy tear, one honest blush, that blends two 
 
 trusting mortals ? 
 
 Oh, he's infidel, who loves not, to himself and God above, 
 For God is love, and truly blesses those who truly love. 
 
 CELIA'S TEA. 
 
 CELIA makes such brain-enlivening tea, 
 
 That when one's ta'en the draught celestial up, 
 
 He feels so happy, that it oft struck me, 
 
 She must have poured her heart into the cup. 
 5*
 
 54 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 A NEW LIFE. 
 
 Is it fancy, am I dreaming, 
 
 Do I tread the realms of faery 
 Do my hopings mock my wild heart with the echoes of 
 
 itself ; 
 Is my soul lit by the beaming 
 
 Of your radiant face, fair Lilla ? 
 
 Or, am I witched, like pilgrim, by the lagoon's midnight 
 elf? 
 
 Sweet words are singing o'er me, 
 
 And beside me and before me, 
 
 Yet I fear to think them truthful, lest I wake to find me 
 wrong; 
 
 And the bliss of the first minute, 
 
 When my heart caught them within it, 
 Would woo me to eternal sleep, to ever dream such song. 
 
 God is loving God is jealous, 
 
 And we're every mortal fashioned 
 In the likeness of the Moulder 1 and our sympathies so 
 bent,
 
 A NEW LIFE. 55 
 
 Can my words be over zealous, 
 
 Or my love be too impassioned ? 
 No, I cannot outstrip nature, though I fail to be content 
 
 I have had my dreams of glory, 
 
 And have quaffed my youthful chalice 
 What bitter dregs lay thickening underneath its starry 
 
 foam? 
 And my life broke, like the story 
 
 Of that oriental palace, 
 
 Whose magic marble fabric sank, and left no trace of 
 home. 
 
 In my thoughts' dim, lonely prison, 
 Where I dwelt, a voice has risen, 
 As the angel's unto Peter, giving comfort, hope, and 
 
 cheer ; 
 
 And so full of light's the tremor, 
 It now pulses through the dreamer, 
 He'd bless the thought that chains him to have that 
 angel near. 
 
 Was your heart so sympathetic 
 That it caught my words unspoken, 
 
 As they welled up, seeking utterance love-confused to 
 
 very fear ? 
 
 Was it you that said " I love thee" 
 Was it I that said " I love thee ;" 
 
 Or, did we each the other's heart unburden to the ear ?
 
 56 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 When you twined your arms about me 
 Saying life was dark without me 
 
 That / was the one comforter you prayed of God to 
 
 give- 
 That among the thousands fleeing 
 Past, you knew me as that being ; 
 
 My heart, beneath the revelation, paused to say " I live 1" 
 
 There's a strange new life upon me, 
 
 With a clarion-toned suffusion 
 Of joy, that cannot sound itself with words of mortal 
 
 speech ; 
 But it is no fancy won me, 
 
 No mere student-bred delusion ; 
 "Tis thy vatic words that make a dual future in my reach. 
 
 What a bounteously decreeing 
 
 Gift hath love, when it receiving 
 
 Love for love, transfigures us to things undreamed be- 
 fore? 
 Now I've two lives in my being, 
 
 You have two lives in your living, 
 And yet we have but one dearjife between us evermore.
 
 THE GOD-CHILD OF JULY. 51 
 
 THE GOD-CHILD OF JULY. 
 
 A BIBTH-DAY On*, 
 
 ON the middle day of the middle month 
 
 Of the heavenly-fashioned summer, 
 When vines were scaling the antique eaves, 
 And earth lay hi shade under motionless leaves, 
 And the sap of the sod, 
 By the blessing of God, 
 
 Ran leaping and romping through branch-woven bowers, 
 Was tittering in tendrils and laughing hi flowers : 
 Like young happy children love-linked to each other, 
 Who spring from to brighten, 
 And clinging to lighten, 
 With ever fresh pride, the rich breast of their mother. 
 
 In such a midday of the middle month 
 
 Of the golden-dowered summer, 
 My better angel was sent from above, 
 Born to the Earth with her mission of love ; 
 And Earth, with the favors of rich July, 
 
 Arrayed the gentle comer. 
 
 The mingled radiance of the illumined space 
 
 Centred on her face, 
 With the blue of the skies 
 Were tinct her eyes,
 
 68 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 And the staid and holy air 
 Filled her with prayer ; 
 The fruitage of the Earth 
 Gave her ripe mirth, 
 And the myriad floral dyes 
 Numberless shades of pleasantries ; 
 The mighty oak outstretched its arms at length, 
 Standing strong sponsor for her strength, 
 And the trustful vine 
 Taught her to entwine 
 Her soul around the strong to beautify it : 
 The conscious heat of noon lent her full power to defy it. 
 
 The freshened dawn, in night-escaped security, 
 Thrilled her fresh heart with clarion tones of purity : 
 The evening breeze 
 Brought her revivifying ease ; 
 The half-parched streams, with mutual assistance, 
 Made a flush river to teach her mind persistence ; 
 And crowds of wealthy humble bushes quaint 
 Gave her their unambitious birthright self-restraint. 
 The ash upon the mountain's rugged side 
 Told her in life and liberty to pride ; 
 And the yew, bending its melancholy head, 
 Taught her to weep the dead. 
 The wild plants of the wood 
 Showed her the weal of solitude, 
 And preached of modesty in their fresh enamels ; 
 The lightning, leaping from its ebon trammels, 
 Showed her, as it unfurled, 
 The electric lord and servant of the world. 
 The rapid thunder, that in hot July 
 Strikes earth with all the ordnance of the sky,
 
 THE GOD-CHILD OF JULY. 59 
 
 Rolled its unseen artilleries 
 Through the black gorges of those weird Cordilleras 
 
 Of cloud which mock imagination 
 Poured its mysterious majesty of sound 
 The god-child of its favored month around, 
 
 And woke the drowsy day to hearty acclamation I 
 
 Ah me, so tended was this tender creature 
 
 Within by heavenly, without by earthly nature, 
 
 She grew a being strong without alloy, 
 
 To bless in sorrow, to sustain in joy 
 
 In wealth be calm, in poverty be rich, 
 
 Until one questioned with her which was which. 
 
 Within the world, she is so much above it 
 
 She lessens not herself, nor it to love it ; 
 
 With faith surrounding, leading all things human, 
 
 At once a loving wife and trustful woman. 
 
 The anniversary of her natal day 
 
 Is rung, by the chimes, to the tunes passed away. 
 
 I pray of Heaven, which has vouchsafed to me 
 The guardianship of such condensed variety 
 As the dear Past, to let the Future be 
 Suffused with Love, sublimed by Piety. 
 
 July 15th.
 
 60 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 BREASTING THE WORLD. 
 
 MANY years have burst upon my forehead, 
 Years of gloom and heavy freighted grief ; 
 
 And I have stood them as against the horrid 
 Angry gales, the Peak of Teneriffe. 
 
 n. 
 Yet if all the world had storm and sorrow, 
 
 You had none, my better self, Lenore, 
 My toil was as the midnight seeking morrow, 
 
 You moon-like lit the way I struggled o'er. 
 
 in. 
 Though as a cataract my soul went lashing 
 
 Itself through ravines desolate and gray, 
 You made me see a beauty in the flashing, 
 
 And with your presence diamonded the spray. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Then, Lenore, though we have grown much older 
 Though our eyes were brighter when we met, 
 
 Still let us feel, shoulder unto shoulder 
 And heart to heart, above the world yet !
 
 AT NIAGARA. 
 
 61 
 
 AT NIAGARA. 
 
 THE RAPIDS. 
 I. 
 
 IN broken lines, like ghosts of buried nations, 
 Struggling beneath their white and tangled palls, 
 
 They leap and roar to Earth their exaltations, 
 And Earth e'en trembles as each spectre falls. 
 
 With strength that gives solemnity to clangour, 
 With quaint immensity that strangles mirth, 
 
 Like mortal things they roar to tune their anger, 
 Like things immortal they disdain the Earth. 
 
 They bound as dallying in their gorgeous West, 
 In forest .cradles and in parent mountains, 
 
 They heard old Ocean throb his regal breast 
 And call his vassals the cascades and fountains. 
 
 From crag to crag they leap and spread the sound, 
 Through gorge and wood their flashing banners motion, 
 
 Till here in frantic rivalry they bound, 
 These mighty white-plumed cohorts, for the ocean. 
 6
 
 62 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Surging along the pale battalions muster, 
 
 Crowding each other, till the strongest springs 
 
 A-top his fellows, with heroic lustre, 
 
 And dares the deeds, like Viking, that he sings. 
 
 Like men, the Rapids, born amid restless valor, 
 Flash o'er their foes with many a frothened spasm, 
 
 And linking all in pomp's majestic pallor, 
 
 Leap like ten thousand Romans down the chasm 1 
 
 THE FALLS. 
 
 There is an awful eloquence around 
 
 Like earthquake underneath the dreamful pillows 
 Of some great town, that deemed its strength profound. 
 
 And wakes on worse than frantic Ocean's billows. 
 
 The mists, like shadowy cathedrals rise, 
 
 And through the vapory cloisters prayers are pouring : 
 Such as ne'er sprang to the eternal skies, 
 
 From old Earth's passionate and proud adoring. 
 
 There is a voice of Scripture in the flood, 
 With solemn monotone of glory bounding,
 
 AT NIAGARA. 
 
 Making all else an awe-hushed solitude 
 To hear its everlasting faith resounding. 
 
 rv. 
 
 There is a quiet on my heart like death, 
 My eyes are gifted with a strange expansion, 
 
 As if they closed upon my life's last breath, 
 And oped to measure the eternal mansion. 
 
 I see so much I fear to trust my vision, 
 I hear so much I doubt my mortal ear, 
 
 I feel so much, my soul in strong submission 
 Bends in a silent, death-like rapture here.
 
 64 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 SHANE'S HEAD. 4 
 
 SOKNB Before Dublin Castle. Night. A vassal of Shane (TNeWa dtocovera 
 his chiefs head u<pon a pole. 
 
 GOD'S wrath upon the Saxon I may they never know the 
 
 pride, 
 
 Of dying on the battle-field, their broken spears beside ; 
 When victory gilds the gory shroud of every fallen brave, 
 Or death no tales of conquered clans can whisper to his 
 
 grave. 
 May every light from Cross of Christ that saves the heart 
 
 of man, 
 Be hid in clouds of blood before it reach the Saxon 
 
 clan ; 
 For sure, O God ! and you know all whose thought for 
 
 all sufficed, 
 To expiate these Saxon sins, they'd want another Christ. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Is it thus, Shane the haughty ! Shane the valiant ! that 
 we meet 
 
 Have my eyes been lit by Heaven but to guide me to 
 defeat ; 
 
 Have / no chief or you no clan, to give us both de- 
 fence, 
 
 Or must I, too, be statued here with thy cold eloquence ?
 
 SHANE'S HEAD. 65 
 
 Thy ghastly head grins scorn upon old Dublin's Castle- 
 tower, 
 
 Thy shaggy hair is wind-tost, aud thy brow seems rough 
 with power ; 
 
 Thy wrathful lips, like sentinels, by foulest treach'ry 
 stung, 
 
 Look rage upon the world of wrong, but chain thy fiery 
 tongue. 
 
 in. 
 
 That tongue whose "Ulster accent woke the ghost of 
 
 Columbkill, 
 Whose warrior words fenced round with spears the oaks 
 
 of Perry Hill ; 
 Whose reckless tones gave life and death to vassals and 
 
 to knaves, 
 
 And hunted hordes of Saxons into holy Irish graves. 
 The Scotch marauders whitened when his war-cry met 
 
 their ears, 
 And the death-bird, like a vengeance, poised above his 
 
 stormy cheers, 
 Ay, Shane, across the thundering sea, out-chanting it 
 
 your tongue, 
 Flung wild uu-Saxon war-whoopiugs the Saxon Court 
 
 among. 
 
 FT. 
 
 Just think, O Shane ! the same moon shines on Liffey 
 
 as on Foyle, 
 And lights the ruthless knaves on both, our kinsmen to 
 
 6*
 
 66 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 And you the hope, voice, battle-axe, the shield of us and 
 ours, 
 
 A murdered, trunkless, blinding sight above these Dub- 
 lin towers. 
 
 Thy face is paler than the moon, my heart is paler still 
 
 My heart ? I had no heart 'twas yours, 'twas yours ! 
 to keep or kill. 
 
 And you kept it safe for Ireland, Chief, your life, your 
 soul, your pride, 
 
 But they sought it in thy bosom, Shane with proud 
 O'Neill it died. 
 
 You were turbulent and haughty, proud, and keen as 
 
 Spanish steel, 
 But who had right of these, if not our Ulster's Chief 
 
 O'Neill ? 
 Who reared aloft the " Bloody Hand" until it paled the 
 
 sun, 
 
 And shed such glory on Tyrone, as chief had never done. 
 He was " turbulent" with traitors he was " haughty" 
 
 with the foe 
 He was " cruel," say ye Saxons ? Ay ! he dealt ye blow 
 
 for blow 1 
 He was " rough" and " wild," and who's not wild, to see 
 
 his hearthstone razed ? 
 He was "merciless as fire" ah, ye kindled him, he 
 
 blazed ! 
 He was " proud :" yes, proud of birthright, and because 
 
 he flung away 
 
 Your Saxon stars of princedom, as the rock does mock- 
 ing spray.
 
 SHANE'S HEAD. 67 
 
 He was wild, insane for vengeance, ay ! and preached 
 
 it till Tyrone 
 Was ruddy, ready, wild too, with " Red hands" to clutch 
 
 their own. 
 
 VI. 
 
 "The Scots are on the border, Shane" ye saints, he 
 
 makes no breath 
 I remember when that cry would wake him up almost 
 
 from death : 
 Art truly dead and cold ? O Chief 1 art thou to Ulster 
 
 lost? 
 " Dost hear, dost hear ? By Randolph led, the troops 
 
 the Foyle have crossed !" 
 He's truly deadl he must be dead! nor is his ghost 
 
 about 
 And yet no tomb could hold his spirit tame to such a 
 
 shout : 
 The pale face droopeth northward ah! his soul must 
 
 loom up there, 
 By old Armagh, or Antrim's glynns, Lough Foyle, or 
 
 Bann the Fair ! 
 I'll speed me Ulster-wards, your ghost must wander there, 
 
 proud Shane, 
 In search of some O'Neill, through whom to throb its 
 
 hate again I
 
 68 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 SAINT ANNE'S WELL.* 
 
 ADOWN the loved valley of sweet Glan-nis-mole, 
 The Dodder's wild waters in bright rapture roll ; 
 And woo the brown heath in its winding career, 
 . Like a young lover stealthily pressing his dear : 
 Or yet, like the red Indian tracing the spot, 
 Where the white man has ravished his primeval cot ; 
 And it steals and it foams, half in fear, half in joy, 
 Like a girl all beauty, all pride like a boy. 
 Looming over this valley, where Solitude reigns, 
 In all the wild stillness that Nature enchains, 
 Kippure has his throne, where defying the gale, 
 Castle-Kelly enwraps with weird shadows the vale, 
 His head in the clouds, as though bound with a crown, 
 His sceptre the rays of the sun streaming down, 
 His courtiers, Bal-mannoch, Cornaun, See-Finane, 
 From the Brakes to green Tallaght he boasts his domain : 
 And the Golden Spears, glistening like sentinels, stand 
 Near the throne of the chief of this bright valley-land. 
 With his face to the Liffey, his back to Glancree, 
 Echo sings, as bard should, of his proud chieftaincy ; 
 And the wind sweeping down like the gray wizard 
 
 powers 
 Of Homer, or Ossian, that Homer of ours
 
 SAINT ANNE'S WELL. 09 
 
 Thrills the heather, like harp-strings, that vibrating loud, 
 
 Makes invisible chorus between cliff and cloud, 
 
 And hover with many a mystical rann 
 
 O'er the fountain of goodness the Well of St. Anne. 
 
 n. 
 
 The well calmly springs on the wild brocken side, 
 
 Like a tear on the cheek of a soul sanctified 
 
 A sister of charity, given by bliss 
 
 To cure with its virtues, and cool with its kiss I 
 
 And dear is this valley ! ah, yes, ever dear 
 
 Are the scenes that are linked with a smile or a tear 
 
 That thrilled us with pleasure, or filled us with pain, 
 
 In the noonday of life, and youth's royal domain ! 
 
 What can be more dear than that one lonely place, 
 
 Where youth met its reflex in some young loved face ? 
 
 Saw the tremors, and wooings, the kissings, and then 
 
 Saw the quarrels and sobs, yea, and kissing again ; 
 
 Where the vale was our study our music the brooks 
 
 The graveyard our library tombstones our books ; 
 
 And the Ruin, a monitor graybeard profound, 
 
 Full of pride in his charge of the records around. 
 
 And our Wells h6ly Wells ! that our loved legends link 
 
 Making sinew and soul of our past glory drink 
 
 To the heroes that fought, and the lances that sprung 
 
 As the sage counselled battle, or poet war sung 1 
 
 They are dear to our hearts : and remind dreaming man 
 
 Of the Action he's heir to ! loved Well of St. Anne. 
 
 Its waters are clear, and as pure as the soul 
 
 Of the saint that endowed it. Beneath a green knoll
 
 70 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 It peacefully slumbers in hallowed repose, 
 And though always brimming, it never overflows ; 
 For a sidelong trickle leads off the blest flow, 
 When its breast is too full, to the Dodder below ; 
 And skirts by the little church Kilmosantan, 
 Where the green ivy close the old ruin doth span, 
 And clings like a lover, whose constancy wages 
 A war with old Time growing fonder through ages 1 
 On these lonely waters the saint left a spell, 
 Which faith have the people, and thence to the well 
 They fly for its draughts ; for the power Saint Anne 
 Bestowed on the spring was, that if mortal man 
 Was maimed, ill, but faith had, he'd surely get ease 
 If he creep from the church to the well on his knees. 
 Methinks few e'er try for devious the path 
 To the sickling or sage ; and the maimed one who hath 
 Strength eno' to proceed, needs less the spell, than 
 Stout patience he'd want to suit goodly Saint Anne. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Sweet Vale ! Holy Well ! shall this heart e'er forget, 
 This mind to thee die, or my sun of thought set 
 On the days I have lingered beside thy clear tide, 
 Or with those my heart clung to, clomb thy hill side ? 
 Pointing out the old raths, where the sage peasant told 
 Me, the fairies and spreethauns their wild revels hold ; 
 When I merrily laughed, and he solemnly chid, 
 Adjuring me gravely, to " mind what I did," 
 Lest the "wee folk" in vengeance should give me a stroke. 
 Then I danced on the rath, half in doubt, half in joke, 
 And he, shaking his head, strolled away, chiding still, 
 And praying, " Heaven help my irreverent will." 
 Shall those scenes pass away, when afar I am gone ?
 
 SAINT ANNE'S WELL. tl 
 
 No ! as steel to the magnet, I ever cling on I 
 No ! my heart never shall let that picture decay ; 
 Though I float the St. Lawrence, the famed thrush's lay 
 Of Glan-nis-mole's valley shall still charm mine ear, 
 And the wild Dodder's carol yet louder I'll hear 
 Than Niagara's chorus : the ivy's fresh love, 
 To my heart, as its temple, wherever I rove, 
 Will cling like a mantle to warm its veins, 
 With love for its youth's home, while feeling remains : 
 The church where I've dreamed all the summer days fair, 
 The cascades that burst like some wild Irish air 
 Which flashing and fading, its force is scarce felt, 
 The passions so quick into low murmurs melt 
 The furze-gilded uplands the brier-bound brooks, 
 The moss-mottled crags, where the sun his- last looks 
 The Brakes, where the hills, shutting Wicklow out, stand, 
 Like the bulwarks and guards of some Bard's promised 
 
 land 
 
 And each hill, whose gray brow, bound with heath pur- 
 ple-brown, 
 
 Seems a king with his iron but silken-cased crown 
 Ah 1 where'er I may roam, these in fancy I'll scan, 
 And my mouth shall be still cool with draughts froro 
 Saint Anne.
 
 FAITH AND FANCT. 
 
 WINTER THOUGHTS. 
 
 I.-THE DEAD YEAE. 
 
 YET another chief is carried 
 From life's battle on his spears, 
 
 To the great Yalhalla's cloisters 
 Of the ever-living years. 
 
 Yet another year the mummy 
 Of a warlike giant, vast 
 
 Is niched within the pyramid 
 Of the ever-growing past. 
 
 Years roll through the palm of Ages, 
 As the dropping ros'ry speeds 
 
 Through the cold and passive fingers 
 Of a hermit at his beads. 
 
 One year falls and ends its penance, 
 One arises with its needs, 
 
 And 'tis ever thus prays Nature, 
 Only telling years for beads.
 
 WINTEll THOUGHTS. 73 
 
 V. 
 
 Years, like acorns from the branches 
 
 Of the giant oak of Time, 
 Fill the earth with healthy seedlings 
 
 For a future more sublime. 
 
 U.-A FEOSTY NIGHT. 
 
 I. 
 
 As one that worketh miracles, the moon 
 Transfigures all the silence into light ; 
 And filagrecd with frost the hill-sides white, 
 And sloping uplands flecked with drifted snow, 
 Seem, through their statued chill, to whine a low 
 
 And plaintive croon. 
 
 ii. 
 
 The groves that were in summer-time all song, 
 Profuse in clear soprano tones of glee, 
 Now hoarsely dull, like voice-cracked choirs dree 
 Their shivering existences, and make 
 Night mournful, as the dirges slowly take 
 
 Their woes along. 
 
 in. 
 
 The mountain gorges, that like arteries ran 
 
 With June-breath, hot as blood, are weirdly numb, 
 And here and there the trickling streamlets come 
 And break the frost in many a wild device, 
 Strugglitig a-through thin barricades of ice 
 
 That all the gullies span.
 
 14 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The lonely trees, scant-robed in crispy snow, 
 Stretching their bare arms upward to the sky, 
 Seem like poor buried souls, who did not die, 
 That waking, burst their sepulchres, and strive, 
 With piteous plaints, to prove themselves alive 
 
 To their mad woe. 
 
 v. 
 
 As o'er the ghostly landscape peers the sight, 
 The moonlight teaming an unbroken flood 
 The stars that in their planet coteries brood 
 Over earth's solitude the distant trackless 
 Roll to Thought's shore the ebbless tide Eternity, 
 
 This vast, pale night. 
 
 III. SNOW ON THE GROUND. 
 
 LIKE a corpse the stark earth lieth, 
 Free from toiling Life's deceits ; 
 
 And the Air, grown pale from watching, 
 Swathes her round with snowy sheets. 
 
 Fold on fold wraps mutely round her, 
 Her calm breast no life-hope rears, 
 
 And she seems from heaven's weeping, 
 To be tombed in frozen tears.
 
 WINTER THOUGHTS. 75 
 
 But though rigid cold her bosom, 
 Gone her music fled her bloom ; 
 
 Still the shrouded Earth, like Juliet, 
 Is but tranced within the tomb. 
 
 IV. SUMMER ALWAYS. 
 
 WHILE the wind is fiercely howling, 
 
 Lilla dear, come anear 
 While the wolf-like wind is howling, 
 Round the cottage gables prowling, 
 And the wintry clouds are scowling 
 
 On the mere : 
 Let us, waking up the embers, 
 
 Love and youth and books revere, 
 Feel that howling bleak Decembers 
 Cannot make a winter here, 
 Lilla dear. 
 
 WTiile the outside world is shivering, 
 
 Lilla dear, come anear 
 While the beggar Earth is shivering, 
 Like a miser, old and quivering, 
 TJnto Tune his debt delivering 
 
 Of the year : 
 
 Let us, clinging close together, 
 Though perchance we drop a tear
 
 76 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 O'er the past, find summer weather 
 E'er in living, loving here, 
 Lilla dear. 
 
 V. FACES IN THE FIEE. 
 
 I. 
 I AM gazing all the night-time, 
 
 At the faces in the fire 
 Whilst the roaring rain-storm dashes 
 On the shaking window-sashes, 
 And the wakeful aerial ocean 
 Wracks the forest that it wrestles ; 
 And the sea, with wrathful motion, 
 Shakes and breaks the lab'riug vessels, 
 Till the crowded timbers, surging, 
 Send the people, wildly splurging, 
 
 In the waves, till they expire. 
 
 And I think how like the life-flame 
 
 Are those red shapes I admire : 
 First, they're merely indicated, 
 Then, like childhood, grow elated 
 With the fresh heat that imbues them, 
 Then like youth hot flames infuse them, 
 Then, like men, a steady burning 
 Glows a-through them, till the turning 
 Toint of being, makes gray gashes, 
 And they crumble into ashes 
 Like mere faces in the fire.
 
 WASHINGTON. 77 
 
 WASHINGTON.* 
 
 ART in its mighfj privilege receives 
 
 Painter and painted in its bonds forever ; 
 A girl by Raphael in his glory lives 
 A Washington nnto his limner gives 
 The Ages' love to crown his best endeavor 
 
 The German Emperor, with whose counterpart 
 The gorgeous Titian made the world acquainted, 
 
 Boasted himself immortal by the art ; 
 
 But he who on thy features cast his heart, 
 Was made immortal by the head he painted ! 
 
 m. 
 
 For thou before whose tinted shade I bow, 
 
 Wert sent to show the wise of every nation 
 How a young world might leave the axe and plough 
 To die for Truth ! So great, so loved wert thou, 
 That he who touched thee won a reputation. 
 
 The steady fire that battled in thy breast, 
 
 Lit up our gloom with radiance, good though gory ; 
 
 7*
 
 18 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Like some red sun which the dull earth caressed 
 Into a wealthy adoration blest 
 
 To be its glory's great reflected glory. 
 
 Thou when the earthly heaven of man's soul 
 
 The heaven of home, of liberty, of honor 
 Shuddered with darkness didst the clouds uproll 
 And burst such light upon the nation's dole 
 That every State still feels thy breath upon her. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Could I have seen thee in the Council bland, 
 
 Firm as a rock, but as deep stream thy manner ; 
 Or when, at trembling Liberty's command, 
 Facing grim havoc like a flag-staff stand, 
 
 And squadrons rolling round thee like a banner ! 
 
 Could I have been with thee on Princeton's morn ! 
 
 Or swelled with silence in the midnight muster ; 
 Beheld thee ever, every fate adorn 
 Or on retreat, or winged victory borne 
 
 The warrior throbbing with the sage's lustre : 
 
 Could I have shouted in the wild acclaim 
 
 That rent the sky o'er Germantown asunder ; 
 
 Or when, like cataract, 'gainst the sheeted flame 
 
 You dashed, and chill'd the victor-shout to shame, 
 
 On Monmouth's day of palsy-giving thunder :
 
 WASHINGTON. 79 
 
 IX. 
 
 Could I have followed thee through town and camp ! 
 
 Fought where you led, and heard the same drums rattle ; 
 Charged with a wild but passion-steadied tramp, 
 And witnessed, rising o'er death's ghastly damp, 
 
 The stars of empire through the clouds of battle ! 
 
 x. 
 Oh ! to have died thus 'ncath thy hero gaze, 
 
 And won a smile, my bursting youth would rather 
 Than to have lived with every other praise, 
 Saving the blessing of those epic days 
 
 When you blest all, and were the nation's father. 
 
 XI. 
 
 The autumn sun caresses Yernon's tomb, 
 Whose presence doth the country's honor leaven : 
 
 Two suns they are, that dissipate man's gloom ; 
 
 For one's the index to Earth's free-born bloom, 
 The other to our burning hope in Heaven 1 
 
 XII. 
 
 Thy dust may moulder in the hollow rock ; 
 
 But every day thy soul makes some new capture ! 
 Nations unborn will swell thy thankful flock, 
 And Fancy tremble that she cannot mock 
 
 Thy history's Truth that will enchant with rapture. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 How vain the daring to compute in words 
 
 The height of homage that the heart would render I 
 
 And yet how proud to feel no speech affords 
 
 Harmonious measure to the subtle chords 
 That fill the soul beneath thy placid splendor !
 
 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 THE PLAINT OF THE WILD-FLOWER. 
 
 I WAS not born for the town, 
 Where all that's pure and humble's trodden down 
 
 My home is in the woods 
 The over-arching, cloistered solitudes ; 
 
 Where the full-toned psalm 
 Of Nature at her matin broke the calm 
 
 Of cloudy pillowed Night, 
 With calmness made more voluble by light : 
 
 And where the Minstrel Noon, 
 Made every young stem spring, as to a tune ; 
 
 Ay, where our joys were led 
 To suit the fluted measures of the orb overhead. 
 
 I am forlorn 
 
 Here 'mid the waking jargon of the day ; 
 Noon brings no light, no song of birds at play ; 
 My plume is in the dust : I pine and pray 
 For the old woods, the grand old woods away 
 
 Where I was born. 
 
 Here I am dying : I want room 
 Room for the air of heaven, for the bloom
 
 PHE PLAINT OF THE WILD-FLOWER. 81 
 
 Of never-tiring nature ; room 
 For the verdure-freighted clouds, and thunder-boom 
 
 That sounds relief to drouthy earth ; 
 Room for the sunlight and th' exhaustless mirth 
 
 Of laughing July's breeze, 
 Untangling the meshes of the branching trees ; 
 
 Room for cool night and ruddy day, 
 For peace, for health aught naturally gay ; 
 
 Room to take vital breath 
 And look on any thing not painted death I 
 
 I am forlorn 
 
 I, who from my earliest golden age, 
 Sat by the regal Oak's foot, like a page, 
 And, mantled in moss, at the close of day 
 Slept by my prince, in the woods far away 
 
 Where I was born. 
 
 in. 
 
 Here is no room no room 
 For e'en a flower's life ; nothing but a tomb. 
 
 forest gods ! look down, 
 
 And shield your other offspring from the town. 
 
 Ah ! would that I could die 
 Where o'er my wreck the forest flowers might sigh, 
 
 And clustering shrubs a-near 
 Weave dirges low, like leaves above my bier ; 
 
 Where kindly chestnut-leaves 
 Would shade the woe of every plant that grieves, 
 
 And e'en the great Oak's head 
 Let fall the tears of dew when his poor page is dead. 
 
 1 am forlorn : 
 
 Night brings no darkness, and the day no light ;
 
 82 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Noon brings but noise, to vary my affright ; 
 
 I'm dying 'neath the city's loathsome blight, 
 
 Far, my mother Nature ! from thy sight, 
 
 Far from thy earth, thy heaven, and the woodland 
 
 bright 
 Where I was born.
 
 GAME LAWS. 83 
 
 GAME LAWS. T 
 
 L 
 
 A-THROUGH the crunching underwood the wild boar madly 
 
 came, 
 With lashing tail and gleaming tusks, stiff mane and eyes 
 
 of flame. 
 
 n. 
 Through golden crops, through tangled copse, he fiercely 
 
 plunging tore, 
 All seemed but withered fibres to the rage-expanding 
 
 boar. 
 
 in. 
 Through leafy screen and rough ravine, through lane and 
 
 plain the brute 
 Makes head, and in the cotter's field at last eludes 
 
 pursuit. 
 
 IV. 
 
 " Ho ! Hans, be quick ; take in the child bring out my 
 
 trusty gun." 
 Hans fled and came, the cotter fired the wild boar's 
 
 race was run. 
 
 v. 
 
 But woe ! alas, what came to pass, the forest-ranger saw 
 The deed, and shot the cotter down to make him *' keep 
 
 the law."
 
 84 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Herr Graff and staff, feast, laugh, and quaff that night 
 
 with beakers red : 
 The cotter's home is desolate its head, its heart lies 
 
 dead. 
 
 VII. 
 
 'Tis royal sport for king and court to hunt the grizzly 
 
 boar, 
 But woe unto the poor man who dares hunt him from 
 
 his door.
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 85 
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 8(jsirs-A Public Park in the City. 
 PKBSONS Two Students. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 LOOK at the pale Moon pacing up the skies, 
 Like a frayed maiden who had seen her sire, 
 The martial Sun, the monarch of the day, 
 Hunted before the red and spearlike clouds, 
 Whose only glory is the blood he shed : 
 See her, all pale and beautifully wan, 
 O'erlooking where her overpowered sire, 
 Ennobling the foes he crimsoned with his gore, 
 Sank ; but, in sinking, died the victor's death, 
 And dragged them with him from all earthly gaze. 
 
 She looks divine 1 
 
 She is divine 1 and now, see her yet white, 
 
 As though her native majesty was froze 
 With thinking on her sire's red sacrifice 
 Or though the horror of the mighty death 
 Frightened away her outraged blood, and sent 
 II or woman's uiilken feeling through her frame ; 
 8
 
 86 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 As on she hurries panting from the East, 
 And up th' uncertain blue with steady pace, 
 Made regular in weakness, she persists 
 To preach her sorrows to the starry host, 
 And try unto her filial, piteous cause 
 Of vengeance, them to win. 
 
 Oh ! would we could her frenzied pleading hear 
 For see, yon stars seem gaining greater light 
 From the infusion of her earnest speech ; 
 She stirs their souls ; they glimmer with her thought, 
 And nod, as to each other, their applause 1 
 Oh ! how her orphaned virginhood must rise 
 Into the woman's proud, full-statured force, 
 Making her importunities, commands ! 
 How she must picture the old hero's death, 
 And make the roused heavens think he lives again, 
 Pleading his own cause with accustomed fire ! 
 She grows with her desire expands in agony, 
 And reaches with her light the furthest star. 
 
 But they are motionless they seem so rapt 
 With her enthusiasm, they bestir them not ; 
 Her eloquence has fixed them where they stand. 
 
 Aye doth she kill the cause by the effect 
 She makes. Her bright, divine intelligence 
 Run lose upon the sky the stars are vague 
 To aught but listening : / blame them not,
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 87 
 
 For who could stir while yet her voice holds on, 
 And flings its weighty chains of eloquence around 
 them. 
 
 "Would I were Yenus, and I'd win them all, 
 As she did Paris, to my suit ; I'd make 
 Their test of vassalage and price of court 
 An unconditioned service to the Moon. 
 I would, by all the beauty of her crest ! 
 I would, or if they lacked the val'rous son^ 
 Or paced in stolid ease while yet she prayed 
 I'd change them, as the Cyprian fair she did, 8 
 To moody oxen, and confer them horns 
 Less hard than their own hearts. But look I 
 
 LEON. 
 
 Mars reddens : like a man, his face suffused 
 
 With all the gory passion of his heart 
 
 That prompts his brain to bloodier deeds 
 
 Than crimsoning his own cheeks : yet see the Moon 
 
 Untired, with luminous distention praying 
 
 Aid from the tranced orbs wasting her soul 
 
 Upon the statued crowd, who give no sign 
 
 They hearken to her speech, save that their fronts 
 
 Shiver in bliss her radiant tongue unwombs. 
 
 Would I were Mars! O Pictor! would I were, 
 
 And by the heavens I'd hold in my own right,. 
 
 I'd leap from out my hero conch of clouds, 
 
 And marshalling the Scythian hordes in air, 
 
 I'd drive these laggard constellations hence, 
 
 And pale them in the visage of the Sun 
 
 Avenged ! ( Muses for a few moments.)
 
 88 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 A hero's name can conquer worlds ; 
 The action dies not, though the body rots : 
 And I would shout " The Sun" through every space 
 Till all the echoes wrangled into one 
 Like foes towards a well-fought battle's close. 
 Then like a Joshua I'd command it stand 
 Making that day eternity in Heaven ! 
 So that these stars might have surcease of rest, 
 And grow like stagnant waters in the Sun 
 To eat themselves up with the filth they breed. 
 Ah ! yonder stars these ancient godships feel 
 Their former deeds ill-qualify the seats 
 They now usurp throughout the modern Heaven, 
 And fear to move, lest moving they're unthroned ; 
 As though the sitting on a throne made kings 
 Or gods, or transfused souls in slimy men. 
 A king is he whose regnant soul acts king I 
 Men can be gods 'mong men who act the god, 
 And every dastard is himself the mark 
 Showing how fur below his knavish heart 
 The tide of virtue flings the weeds of vice. 
 Look at the Moon, so passionately pure 
 See how she knocks unpitied at their hearts, 
 Like outcast Virtue at a city's gates 
 Where "merchant princes" star commercial skies. 
 And now expanding in her strength of woe, 
 She rises o'er the senseless myriads there 
 ' To shield her virgin pride from heartless gaze, 
 See with eyes turned for comfort to her heart, 
 As plant that closes to the vulgar touch, 
 And pale determination on her brow, 
 And sobs unuttered making her bare breast 
 In expectation rigid, as they wait
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 
 
 Upon her mouth, as prisoner upon 
 The gates, to heave his presence to the air 
 She paces queenlike to yon murky cloud, 
 And seeks a refuge in the weighty gloom : 
 As virgin martyrs her god-ripened years 
 In solemn, solitary, clQister dun, 
 Seeking within the empire of her faith 
 Amends for that cold, senseless world she fled 
 And lo ! the people who had passed her by, 
 Or gazed at her for beauty's sake alone, 
 Proclaim in gossip all the worth gone with her : 
 So, all the stars seem whispering of the Moon ; 
 They actually brighten, as inspired, 
 Now she is gone, in pity for her fate. 
 Poor Moon thou art the type of intellect, 
 And all mankind but imitate the stars. 
 
 'Tis true too true : but, Leon, let us on. 
 Like Rembrandt's shadows is the atmosphere, 
 Darkly and deeply clear, to night. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 Ay, good 1 
 
 And through it brood yon clouds, as ponderous as 
 The prophet brow of Angelo's Isaiah. 
 
 Leon, let us on the air refreshes like a bath : 
 It turns quaint fancies in my dreaming brain, 
 Like a Kaleidoscope : all the shiftless thoughts, 
 On which the humid noon lay like muffed glass, 
 8*
 
 90 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Now deftly turn, and tumble into pictures. 
 This night air, like iced wine, it cools the brain 
 And warms the fancy. Bah, these August days, 
 When the red noon like a huge blanket folds 
 The summer, hushing up the city's energy 
 Into a sluggish, dreamless sweat, are horrible 
 I can only breathe o'nights. 
 
 The day's hot jargon, with its clamors rude, 
 Clangs on my ear as doth the discord mean 
 When miser huckster rings a poor man's coin. 
 It speaks of traffic, doubts, and selfish ends ; 
 The whole sensation of the day is Cash. 
 You can't enjoy it save you quit the town ; 
 And seek sweet nature on the broad highways ; 
 In crooked lanes where vine-clad banks are fanned, 
 By lithe witch-hazel and young maple boughs ; 
 In yellow woods with nuts incrusted o'er ; 
 Or, by the margins of the elfin streams, 
 That dance in white-capped groups a-through the 
 
 rocks, 
 
 And then join hands to rush o'er level sands. 
 You leave the city to enjoy the day : 
 But in this park, within the city's heart, 
 With fabrics dim, like battlements around, 
 We can enjoy the calm and placid night. 
 Night speaks a language known to every tongue ; 
 When I unfold my heart to her, I feel 
 As though I spoke to every troubled soul. 
 Her starry syllables each land translates 
 Into the universal blessing rest. 
 In every clime the lover trusts in her ;
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 91 
 
 From her the sorrow-laden find response : 
 
 She is munificence itself to grief. 
 
 On her pale breast the wretched outlaw rests ; 
 
 The beggar views the starlight as a king, 
 
 Yea, like a monarch he in moonlight walks, 
 
 When day, like monarch, walks upon his rags. 
 
 And to the student's vague and longing breast 
 
 Is not the vast impenetrable night 
 
 A fit companion ? And to those 
 
 Thrice happy hearts, who at the Throne of thrones, 
 
 Seek upon bended knee sweet recompense, 
 
 And all-supplying dues for the defaults 
 
 Of life, what time so prayerful as night 
 
 To make their peace with Heaven ere they sink 
 
 Into that temporary death called sleep. 
 
 PICTOB. 
 
 Truly thou art enraptured with the night, 
 And break thy fantasies upon her grace, 
 As lovers do upon their first love's love. 
 Think her thy mistress, and but woo her thus, 
 She'll doubtless graft upon thy ardent brain 
 The various benefits you crown her with. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 The Moon-sonled midnight is the Poet's love, 
 Pale with reflection of the sunny world 
 Of books and thought : her placid forehead bound 
 ' With strands of lustrous stars, but brilliant less 
 Than all the teeming radiances within. 
 Her wavy locks in pale effulgence hang 
 Around them with prophetic dreaminess,
 
 92 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 As doth the Revelations of Saint John, 
 Around the light on his enthusiast brain. 
 Her eyes are blue, as blue as Huron's lake ; 
 And like it clear, in which the gazer sees, 
 Through magic vistas of refracted light, 
 Her pure soul bathing in their azure depths 
 And flinging gems out as a nymph from cave. 
 As Huron's lake her eyes ; their lashes dark 
 Like the tall fir-trees, black against the sky, 
 Which are reflected in the moon-lit lake, 
 And lets the light flood through their lashy web 
 As water teems out from a fisher's net, 
 And leaves the silver-fish within it caught, 
 Yet leaping brilliance in the silken jail. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 Bravo ! Perchance in presence of the fair 
 You have described, you would outline the bard, 
 Who hath so great a passion for her ! 
 
 LEON. 
 
 You can no more describe the Poet, than 
 You can make rules to judge of poetry. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 Yet critics have at both ! why not ? 
 
 LEON. 
 
 Because ^p 
 
 True poetry, is truthful thought made plain ; 
 Deep love of Nature, Man, and God ! that brings 
 To each heart's empire, humbly, howsoe'er,
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 93 
 
 The greatest good, and lifts its feelings up 
 To man and God with pure dependent faith ! 
 Can we make rules to measure each heart's need ? 
 Only the Poet in his prophet vein 
 Comes near that power. 
 
 MCTOB. 
 Yet we have rules 
 
 True, which but prove they're useless to true song. 
 Whence come these rules by captious critics made ? 
 From great bard's works to frighten lesser ones. 
 All poets are not Shaksperes, yet they're judged 
 By rules which Shakspere's excellence suggests: 
 One might as well o'errule the tender stars 
 Because they're not like the creating sun. 
 You would not crush th' aspiring creeping rose, 
 Because it cannot be a centuried oak 1 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 No, truly ; 'twere too bad our sweethearts wore 
 Nor rose nor violet on their breast or hair 
 Because forsooth the oak's thy king of plants. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 No. Let the blessed ones be decked with flowers ! 
 Those blooming gems were sent for woman's care. 
 They are the fragrant wealth of innocence 
 The silent courtiers that in gardens bow 
 In thankful blossoms to the gentle queens
 
 94 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 By whose sweet leave and favor they are there. 
 Oh, bless the girls ! especially bless those 
 Who honor Nature in the love of flowers. 
 So should we have a blessing for the bard 
 Who, though he grasps not the quick changing hues 
 Of life's great scenes, in all their epic shifts, 
 Cultures the flowers and harmonies of life : 
 His heart is right. 
 
 PICTOK. 
 
 We cannot give too much 
 Of honest recompense to those who live 
 Alone to tend the beautiful. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 Recompense ? 
 
 How can you recompense the Poet's heart, 
 Which hath more wealth than lurid placers yield ? 
 The Poet's heart encompasses the world, 
 And throbs great futures into fancied life. 
 He knows all past, and as a cloud o'er moon 
 Passes the present, stealing ah 1 its light, 
 And floats up farther heavens unknown to us 
 Where other moons make night to other worlds, 
 And other suns, like fiery burnished bits, 
 Rein in their charging satellites as steeds. 
 He thinks vast futures, which, if born aright, 
 Shall hold his image as the son his sire's. 
 He flies through futures as a seed through storm, 
 That falls to rise a cedar. Ay, he hews 
 Out from that mine of mist, to-morrow, 
 Deep echoing temples for his soul's repose,
 
 DREAMING BT MOONLIGHT. 95 
 
 And dwells in them to-day : as Shakspere loosed 
 
 The gusty currents of his Boreal soul 
 
 Through the tone-fashioning valleys of his brain, 
 
 Which sprang such sounds two centuries ago 
 
 As have not ended yet ; so that no ear 
 
 Can know the echo from the voice itself. 
 
 Where shall its gathering echoes end ? Oh where ! 
 
 If 'twill not live this third-rate world out, 
 
 This minor fragment of the Godhead's work, 
 
 And float it full of song and sense along 
 
 The turbulent and greedy sea of Time, 
 
 Dash it to chaos as a sacrifice, 
 
 And harmonize the crash of crumbling worlds ! 
 
 \_A pause. 
 
 The Poet's recompense is in being a Poet 1 
 The most Earth can do is not let him starve. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 I pray you, Leon, let's not talk o' that, 
 The Beautiful will drive us into earth, 
 Like moles, if she but hear us mutter " bread." 
 Come, let us feed upon the stars. 
 
 Heavenly night I 
 Night such as this is truly Poet's food. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 And Painter's also my exclusive friend. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 And are not Painters Poets with the brush ? 
 It is their Prospero-wand it is the rod
 
 96 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 By which, as Franklin drew the heavenly fire, 
 
 They draw all nature's brilliance to their will 1 
 
 The canvas is their world, o'er which supreme, 
 
 The artist looks creation like a god, 
 
 Seeing vast nature's there while yet 'tis blank. 
 
 He smiles, 'tis peopled ; mountains lap the skies, 
 
 Thick plaided woods hang robe-like round their loins ; 
 
 Rivers leap forth with glad primeval chants ; 
 
 Streamlets run babbling, laughing in his face, 
 
 Like little children who may smile at God ; 
 
 Valleys yawn open at his peaceful nod ; 
 
 Oceans are raging when he thinks in thunder ; 
 
 Ships riven sink beneath his light'ning eye ; 
 
 Flowers chant perfume to his summer thought ; 
 
 And he surrounds all, as the air his earth ! 
 
 Is not this poetry ? The very thought 
 
 Matins my own aspiring dawn for verse, 
 
 And drags up all my wild desires and love, 
 
 Like ghosts from out the sultry tomb of noon, 
 
 Where they were sepultured, not dead, but tranced 
 
 Thine is a marvellous art, my friend, 
 
 And thou, hast genius, too genius, like a sun, 
 
 To richen your ambition, send a pulse, 
 
 And life, and bright transfusion into all 
 
 It smiles upon : but you must labor, too, 
 
 Like that great orb, and heat the canvas into action 
 
 So that when you, with honor doubled, sink, 
 
 Your locks grown golden, as in infant age, 
 
 With all the sun-tinct trophies of your art, 
 
 Your every picture, like a starry world, 
 
 Shall hold a fixed, mysterious wealth to earth, 
 
 And, all combined, be galaxy of stars 
 
 An orbed and systemed heaven in which, unseen
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 97 
 
 Saving through them, as their creator, you 
 Shall look and live eternal ! 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 Fling not, Leon, the lasso of thy tongue 
 So wildly around my brain : you make me mad, 
 And only weaken me with passion, dumb. 
 The golden net you weave around my heart 
 Is blood-stained, as it swells to its capacity 
 And bursts. I plunge in your great fantasy, 
 Like a man at sea, mocked at each plunge, 
 Yet plunging still to overleap the waves, 
 These liquid gods, that, white-lipped, sneer me down. 
 As well might valley-huddled, stream leap up 
 And kiss the hill-tops, which alone kiss heaven, 
 As I attempt the laurel that you shake : 
 You place the destiny too infinite, 
 The crown too high. 
 
 [ The Students walk on in silence. . After a 
 
 long pause, and suddenly, PICTOR resumes, 
 
 musingly :] 
 
 Yet I have been no orphan to such thoughts, 
 But they were in less vivid frenzies draped. 
 [Enthusiastically. ~] Ay, I have oft before my 
 
 easel stood 
 
 Watching my soul take shapes o' the canvas 
 Flinging my color-laden palette there,' 
 As Jove cast Saturn's blood into the sea, 
 And saw it rise a goddess I I have stood 
 Facing this new heaven like a continent, 
 And felt my ambitious thoughts, like rivers, 
 Glut the deep secret ravines of my heart, 
 Cataract over obstacles, and spread 
 9
 
 98 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 On, growing stronger for an ocean bound ; 
 
 That ocean, like all seas, immortal ! [.4 pause. 
 
 Are we not equal to our dreams ? 
 
 We are. 
 
 The dreams of poets are their lives' programmes. 
 Even their acts are dreams to lesser men, 
 And they themselves alone can act their dreams. 
 Dreams to such men are beacons where to go ; 
 They rest the body, but ne'er calm the brain ; 
 And while flesh sleeps the soul allots its work. 
 When eyelids kiss eyelids, like a fondling pair, 
 And say " Good-night" before they lock in sleep, 
 ' Then to the outward world the poet rests ; 
 The while his body, like a listless cloud 
 Scarce motioning in summer noon, is free, 
 And warmed to quiet by his soul's loud songs, 
 As is the cloud by sunlight. 
 A brilliant future is before your friend, 
 As lantern looks right on the shadows down ; 
 Fling out your soul, and make your own path clear. 
 
 If I could undream all my dreams in acts, 
 Baptize in colors all my waking thoughts, 
 Drag them like culprits to the face of day, 
 And sentence them to service, I might Be, 
 As oft I vainly hoped, a people's love, 
 The worshipped of a race ! the pajnter, who 
 Shed lustrous tribute greater far than gold 
 Upon the State I dwelt in, and was reared,
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 99 
 
 As on a monument of human hearts, 
 
 Above the taxes of official seal, 
 
 As Titian was in Venice I* A wise 
 
 And most uncommon prince was Charles the Fifth, 
 
 Who boasted triple immortality. 
 
 LEON. 
 Ha 1 monarchs not seldom lie ! 
 
 But he spoke truth, 
 For Titiano painted him three times. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 By all the gods, such glory makes one shake, 
 
 As though the gray, rapt antiquaries were 
 
 Fing'ring one's skeleton, and muttering 
 
 Low in his reverence " these are Pictor's bones, 
 
 The wondrous Artist he, and these Leon's 
 
 The Poet." If we are sepultured a-close 
 
 I'll nudge thee then you laugh, but I'm for fame 
 
 For I shall link my verses with your works, 
 
 Ay, like name upon your tomb, to live there, 
 
 And become immortal ; coaxing the ages' 
 
 Praise, for that like them, I knew you famous. 
 
 As Giovannj Strozzi for all time 
 
 Stands on an epigram, he wrote on him 
 
 The Arts' Arch-angel Michael, Angelo ! 
 
 Your sarcasm is winning in its fancy 
 And only proves how prone you poets are
 
 100 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 To make mankind your debtors. Yet Leon 
 In rich Johannisberg I'd drink to you 
 And your imagination, if I could. 
 
 Bah ! rich wine makes not honest wishes richer, 
 It only floats the loose straws of the wits 
 Into a bundle on the praise-choked ear. 
 
 Well, here's may you as great a Poet be, 
 As you would fain so make an Artist me ! 
 
 LEON. 
 
 So you fling back my measure of your worth 
 
 On me as the daguerreotypist does 
 
 A likeness only without natural hues. 
 
 Ah ! Flattery thou'rt used to coloring ; 
 
 I need it not as most your sitters do, 
 
 For I have wed my heart unto my brain. 
 
 My heart, like woman, full of pure desires 
 
 Warms the wild current of her husband's will, 
 
 And by uniting with his purpose, hers, 
 
 Keeps all his forces disciplined by love : 
 
 So they are one, reliant, strong, and pure. 
 
 As two young streams that fled their parent hills, 
 
 Conscious of beauty, reckless in their strength, 
 
 Ambitioning to travel through an earth, 
 
 Are madly bounding to'ards a chasm unseen. 
 
 Haply they meet, and gallant by the way, 
 
 Soon they expand, like lovers' thought, and kiss 
 
 In. one foam-passionate, convincing love ;
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 101 
 
 And clinging closer in the shadowy gorge, 
 As wife and husband in misfortune's gloom, 
 In one great span, as rainbow in the skies 
 Aug'ring of good, or sunbeams o'er the cloud 
 Leap to the earth, they near the brink, and then, 
 In one wild throb love's sacrificial spasm, 
 They clear the rock, fling off their doubt in mist, 
 Heave in joy's agony at the danger past, 
 And, more than ever in each other twined, 
 Pace broadly onward through a wdnderiug world. 
 
 'Tis a bold metaphor, and an apt, 
 According well with your fine, frenzied, 
 Rapturous decision. 
 
 As those wed streams, 
 So of my heart and brain. Wild, riotous, 
 Unknown to each, as stars of various men 
 After rough speculation they have met, 
 Thank Heaven, not too late, and shudder o'er 
 The whispered stories of their reckless past. 
 My head and heart, like Moses' arms, are up 
 For victory ! Goliath-browed Despair, 
 That giant evil falls, my will the David I 
 Yon need not stare I am not crazed, but love, 
 Passionately love the beautiful 1 
 The wise, the great, the pure, soul-worthy great ; 
 The trees, the rocks, the rivers, and the wind ; 
 Earth, all its prized and unknown places ; ay, 
 For here I learn, what no man knew before, 
 The heavens and all its vast localities 
 
 9*
 
 102 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Of stars, I love with trembling vibrant soul, 
 In one heart-easing word love GOD. 
 
 [A silence of some time: Leon resumes 
 
 with enthusiastic calmness. 
 Pictor, what I aspire to, I will be, 
 Or swallow up myself, as the ocean 
 Swallows the rain it once sent to the skies. 
 
 With such a courage you deserve to win ; 
 'Tis honor, friend, with courage such to fail ; 
 I have the heart, but not the head to win, 
 While you seem born to fill up some great space : 
 Your brain is like a ball of silken thread, 
 Which may be woven into vast extent 
 As great in texture as in lustre rare. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 The Campanero in the southern woods, 
 With its white-bosomed, resonant appeal, 
 Makes all the silence-shrouded forest-trees 
 Start from their rest, for many miles around, 
 As convent-bell its votaries to prayer. 
 So when I sing, all distance shall be near, 
 In the wide universal echo. 
 I'll break upon men's reveries my song, 
 As Campanero on the dreaming leaves ; 
 Or, like the Tinamou, that lonely bird, 10 
 I'll utter one shrill cry and men shall drop 
 The axe, or stay their rumbling teams 
 Maids shall lean closer to the swarthy arms 
 And bend their heads to hear whence comes that 
 sound
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 103 
 
 Half melancholy, half defiant shriek, 
 
 Which they shall never hear again. 
 
 I shall sing loud at intervals, or but once, 
 
 And then no more. I quail not to go on ; 
 
 My only fear is to recede in thought. 
 
 Behind ine, like a ship, there is a billowy surge, 
 
 Before, expansive wastes to be ploughed up ; 
 
 Prophetic Heaven, as one vast choir, sings " go on," 
 
 And earthly nature in its fruits and flowers 
 
 Like chanting acolytes respond. 
 
 Why, when I lift my forehead to the Sun 
 
 Does he not make my onward pathway clear, 
 
 And that I've trod gloom with my own shadows. 
 
 [Clock strikes. 
 
 One two three four ah ! bless me, it is dawn 1 
 
 How fast the hours speed in talking. 
 
 ^Four o'clock let us for home : but where's the 
 
 Moon? 
 
 Oh 1 see how haggard and out-tired she looks, 
 As lonely now she wanders broken-souled, 
 Scarcely the shadow of her beauteous self. 
 And all the stars are well-nigh fled away, 
 To dream of her unhappiness and fate ; 
 Save here and there, some tender-hearted one, 
 Lingers who is not resolute to go 
 His way, or either follow her with cheer. 
 Mayhap the dead fire of her eloquence 
 Still spurts in embers on his soul's chilled hearth 
 Who pales in sorrow for his acts to her, 
 And riven in consternation for her fate, 
 Sinks purposeless in silence where he stands.
 
 104 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 So men who're cowards and of bloodless hearts, 
 
 Or cold and stagnant ones, but brains enough 
 
 In silent flights, to dare a future think, 
 
 Yet lack the courage to construct upon 
 
 The certain present coming ages claim. 
 
 The fools know not that those who live when dead, 
 
 Are never dead when living. 
 
 Here, Pictor, 
 
 Here is a picture for your brush, see where, 
 Just over the horizon, undulate 
 Those pale, flushed clouds, as though the yestreen's 
 
 Sun, 
 
 That sank, like dying hero, in his gore 
 Was stirring in the shroud that swathed him round, 
 And sent his luminous action through the folds, 
 As though he felt he was not dead, but slept, 
 And struggled through his cerements to prove 
 The conscious glory to the weeping earth. ' 
 See too, like her whose son the Saviour raised, 
 The mute, dun Heaven, like a widow stands 
 An awed-hope slightly ruddying her weeds, 
 Her ashen pallor daring not to flee, 
 Until she sees oh mystery ! her son 
 Unshrouded, living, breathing, panting, move 
 Up from the couch, she dreamt alone, of death. 
 
 PICTOR. 
 
 Now may the heartless planets tremble ever, 
 And wailing Moon rejoice. 
 
 LEON. 
 
 But no she flies 
 Frightened unto death's shadowy texture,
 
 DREAMING BY MOONLIGHT. 105 
 
 Stricken in the presence of the rising Sun. 
 Her woman's terror giving fright full speed, 
 She vanishes before what seems to her 
 The gory spirit of her murdered sire. 
 And on through vast eternities she runs, 
 Distracted, plaining, superstitious, frayed ; 
 Loving the night, as sorrow loves the gloom, 
 For then her heart may gush a daughter's love 
 In orphaned abnegation of all bliss ; 
 Save of her stately purity thus loving. 
 Weak with her wail, distraught with fancies wild, 
 Haunted with loving memories, she beholds 
 Her glorious sire's lurid ghost appear 
 With every dawn, and barely able, flies ; 
 While he hot-hearted, not less loving, lights 
 The heavens all day to tell her, he is there. 
 
 So the eternal chase goes ever on ; 
 The Sun, like reason, with his broadcast light 
 Rising forever to explain the doubts, 
 The fear-suggested nothings of the dark, 
 The mist-made mountains, sombre shadowed groups 
 And filmy pageants of the moon-struck hours. 
 While she, the Moon, pale superstition's queen, 
 The monarch of the realms of fay 
 And elf and goblin, witch and boneless ghost ; 
 Reflections of her wail, as she of Sun, 
 For fanatics e'er throng gaunt Reason's wake 
 Until he, goaded with their insane shouts, 
 Turns on the mob with bright, determined eyes ; 
 And disconnects them hi the face of day, 
 And wakeful men, from Truth's unhowled calm 
 Faith:
 
 106 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Ay she, the Moon, pale superstition's queen, 
 The prophetess of most devoted slaves, 
 Loud Ignorance and tongueless Fear, dreads Light, 
 For which grave Error ever says she seeks. 
 Most doubting men fear most to be convinced, 
 Yet preach most piously they thirst for fact. 
 The moon-brained on their own diseases feed : 
 And some who, sunless in a dungeon's vault, 
 Have lived like moles, die when they see the light. 
 And then for some, black error hath such bliss, 
 From long experience, that a virtuous life 
 Brings them a solitude a quiet hell, 
 A spirit-maddening calm, like calm at sea 
 To storm-tost craft, whose hold but echoes hath. 
 So of the frayed Moon, and the rising Sun. 
 Thus the eternal chase goes ever on, 
 Chill Superstition wailing through the gloom, 
 Till Nature, flattered that she pains for truth, 
 Sends up refulgent Reason on her path ; 
 But Superstition, knowing not the day, 
 Affrighted, flies off at the name of Light.
 
 EFFIE (iRAY. 107 
 
 EFFIE GRAY. 
 
 WE may watch, and we may wait 
 
 Hope, till hoping bringeth pain, 
 But she ne'er will pass the gate 
 
 Effie cannot come again. 
 
 She was like some flower of Spring, 
 
 Seeking Summer but to die, 
 When the very graves can bring 
 Beauty to the heart and eye ; 
 When each mound, like throbbing breast, 
 
 Seems to heave with less of pain 
 Than of conscious pleasure, pressed 
 By June's loving arms and brain: 
 Arms that press with soothing sway, 
 Brain enwreathed with flowers, 
 These are meet for the night that ne'er finds day 
 Meet for the rest of Effie Gray, 
 
 Though fraught with gloom for ours. 
 
 We may dream she's coming soon, 
 
 But we dupe our hopes in vain : 
 She is off the Bride of June I 
 
 Effie will not come again.
 
 108 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 She is gone with the lordly June 
 
 Of the fragrant blood and brow, 
 And the flowers croon a bridal tune, 
 
 Though to us 'tis a death-chant now. 
 Oh 1 her face was bright as morn, 
 
 And her eyes were dark as night, 
 And her lips had a sunny scorn, 
 
 Defending the weak or the right ; 
 And her locks, like the loosened tresses 
 
 On some ripe Bacchante's head, 
 Wove sibylline caresses 
 Round the eyes that thither sped ! 
 
 Fit Queen, I ween, for June the proud 
 With his leaf-woven caves and bowers 
 Though her laugh be hushed, and her robe a shroud, 
 Take pride in thy bride, June, the proud, 
 She is fairest among thy flowers. 
 
 Hope we may, if hope we must, 
 
 To allay our brooding pain ; 
 But the hinge be rust, and the gate be dust, 
 
 Ere fair Effie comes again. 
 
 She "passed through this tearful earth, 
 
 Like a sun-ray through the rain, 
 Making diamonds in the dearth, 
 
 With her woman's heart and brain. 
 For her heart was like the shower 
 
 In July with bliss replete ; 
 And her brain, the mystic power 
 
 Of the Indian Summer's heat. 
 Oh ! of rich and sparkling vintage 
 
 Was her nature bubbling up,
 
 THE PARTING OF THE SUN. 109 
 
 Till Death, the reckless drunkard, 
 
 Drank the draught, and crushed the cup. 
 No human hand may deck the grave 
 Of Effie Gray with flowers ; 
 
 For the sun through the noon, and at night the moon 
 Whispers life into many a rare festoon, 
 As never might spring from hand like ours. 
 
 THE PARTING OF THE SUN. 
 
 i. 
 
 IT was evening by the Hudson, and the Sun in conscience 
 
 blest 
 
 With all the joy he gave that day, went nobly down to rest ; 
 Like some great benefactor, gliding off with happy mien, 
 O'erjoyed with his power to bless, yet blushing because 
 
 seen. 
 
 n. 
 
 Yet he lingered for a moment, as to crown his silent mirth, 
 By witnessing in one last glance, the comfort he gave 
 
 Earth, 
 And seemed to say, " God bless you," while all nature 
 
 unto him 
 Sent back the prayer a thousand-fold from stream and 
 
 leafy limb. 
 
 in. 
 
 The humble shrub that hugged the Earth doth homage 
 humbly bring
 
 110 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Like all good loving offspring who around their mother 
 
 cling, 
 And repaying back her kindness, flower a-near the aged 
 
 sod 
 And thrill with low-born eloquence of thanks to Nature's 
 
 God. 
 
 Like other earthly children who have mental strength 
 
 and growth, 
 The Poet Oak, the Elm Sage, and thoughtful Willow, 
 
 loth 
 To cramp the rich exuberances that throb their pulses, 
 
 dare 
 Possess the mist like minstrels and make music with the 
 
 air. 
 
 And the Kaatskills, bleak as sorrow, with their gray heads 
 
 to the sky, 
 Seemed mute in contemplation, loth to bid the Sun good- 
 
 by: 
 With their broad backs turned westward, as though grief 
 
 would not allow 
 Them face their friend, and feel his smile grow weak 
 
 upon their brow. 
 
 They fain would live in memories of the noon, like sage 
 
 who cheers 
 In gossiping of long lost joys that sunned his manhood's 
 
 years
 
 THE PARTING OF THE SUN. Ill 
 
 But the anxious mist, like gathering tears, creep deftly 
 
 o'er their breast, 
 And circling thence, like blood, rush up the sorrow to 
 
 their crest. 
 
 VII. 
 
 And the Hudson, like a courier, doth with* serious fury 
 
 run, 
 
 To bear old hoary Ocean the last message of the Sun ; 
 Where the Congress of the river-gods in coral halls hold 
 
 feast, 
 And bid the waves go welcome in his dawning in the 
 
 East. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 And the tall trees weep in shadows, for happily know 
 they 
 
 The Sun can't see the gloom he casts around when forced 
 away, 
 
 And kindly show their brightest sides to soothe the part- 
 ing pain, 
 
 While Day and Night's weird offspring, Eve, speeds up the 
 eastern plain. 
 
 IX. 
 
 There's a silence, like that moment when the drear fact 
 
 feeds the blast, 
 That the golden sands of some great god of earth have 
 
 run their last, 
 And noiseless round his couch the world, the nurse, Night, 
 
 one by one, 
 Drapes the dun curtains of the clouds, and mutters pale 
 
 " He's gone."
 
 112 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 HE WRITES FOR BREAD. 
 
 TIME 'tis midnight : SCENE a Garret : 
 
 Dramatis Personce two : 
 One, with wintry locks of silver 
 
 One, with locks of dark-brown hue. 
 And the old man sits him calmly, 
 
 Speaking nothing, while his face, 
 With its quiet depth of meekness, 
 
 Sheds a radiance on the place. 
 But, God ! could we unfold his soul, 
 
 And read the epic there, 
 We would not wonder at his thought, 
 
 Nor whiteness of his hair. 
 Anon, he strangles to a sigh, 
 
 Some heart-ache upward led ; 
 Lest by a word 
 He'd break the chord 
 
 Of song that's wildly flitting 
 
 Through the brain of him, that's sitting, 
 Gushing out his very heart's blood 
 
 On the page before him spread* 
 For through the night the young mau kneads 
 
 His brain for their daily bread.
 
 HE WRITES FOR BREAD. 113 
 
 See, his pen toils slower, slower ; 
 
 Now he talks his dreams aloud ; 
 And he hastes to wrap his fancy 
 
 In the pale expectant shroud : 
 For every sheet his brain-thoughts fill, 
 
 Each line his keen wants crave, 
 But wrap and bind by piecemeal down 
 
 The youth to an early grave. 
 Those little characters he inks, 
 
 Are all grim Death's abettera ; 
 He does not nobly die at once, 
 
 But sinks to his grave by letters. 
 And now his jaded thought would lag 
 To soothe his aching head ; 
 But he cannot wait, 
 For the empty plate 
 Reflects back his stare 
 For the loaf not there : 
 But the old man is there God ! must he starve 
 
 While legions of other men's fathers are fed ? 
 The pang's inspiration ! The madhouse and love 
 Are gambling for him who is writing for bread. 
 
 in. 
 
 He writes to make the readers laugh, 
 When his heart's full with tears, 
 
 And all the Town seem happy when 
 His prose or verse appears. 
 
 They little know the loving heart 
 That beats in garret dun,
 
 114 FAITH AND FANCY. 
 
 Or while they daily go to 'Change, 
 What change would be to him ! 
 The Printer's paid the Paper's paid 
 
 The Pressman's pressing, too ; 
 And while the Author's left to starve, 
 
 The " Devil," gets his due ; 
 The Publisher in carriage rolls, 
 And sleeps on feather bed, 
 While he that gives 
 Them all life, lives 
 In a prison of thought and sorrow, 
 "Never daring to think on the morrow ; 
 For the Bookseller's note, which put off the pay, 
 
 Will not lighten a creditor's tread, 
 Nor save from the landlord the few darling books 
 Of the Bondman who writes for his bread.
 
 NOTES. 
 
 1 REMINISCENCE OP FOKT CORCORAN. Henry Watterson, 
 Esq., whose striking articles on " Thomas de Quincey," and 
 " American Song, as illustrated by George P. Morris," in the 
 National Democratic Quarterly, have attracted such deserved 
 notice, has been writing some graphic sketches of camp and 
 camp-life about Washington, for the Philadelphia Press, over 
 the nom de plume of " Asa Trenchard." In one of his lengthiest 
 sketches he gives a most earnest and picturesque description of 
 " the first flag-raising over Federal battlements in the Old Do- 
 minion" in the war, and which, as an exciting and interesting 
 historical episode in the career of the gallant Sixty-ninth, can- 
 not be omitted from the chronicle which will record the strength 
 and patriotism which constructed Fort Corcoran. Arriving just 
 in time for " the grand, imposing spectacle," he says : 
 
 " As I stood and surveyed the hastily summoned regiment 
 thirteen hundred of them some in red flannel shirts, with 
 sleeves rolled up, exposing the grand sinews of brawny arms ; 
 some in blue jackets, soiled with the toil of the trenches ; some 
 in white flowing havelocks ; some in cocked hats, and some 
 bareheaded, it was impossible to repress an audible expression 
 of admiration at the splendid material represented for the work 
 or the glory of war. There the dark brows, lowering from 
 massive foreheads over flashing eyes ; there, pale but bleachless 
 cheeks to fear, knit closely to impregnable lips, the craters of 
 flaming and invincible breath, the pride and prowess of repre- 
 sentative Ireland, the issue of that spreading Celtic seed which 
 has sown the world with power, stood before me. 
 
 " The troops were drawn up in a semicircle, gradually rising 
 within the amphitheatre formed by the mounds of earth-erected 
 batteries, the front files sitting, the next grade stooping, and 
 the rear ranks standing upon the declivity, as it sloped upward 
 toward the 'outer walls,' the whole presenting the spectacle 
 of a circus audience, seen from the centre-poet in the ring ; this 
 centrerpost being a noble shaft from which the banner now 
 waves.
 
 116 
 
 " The group around this ' pillar of light' were Colonel Corcoran 
 (now general), Colonel Hunter (now major-general), of the regu- 
 lar army, Captain Meagher (now brigadier-general), John Sav- 
 age, volunteer aid to Corcoran, and, of course, ' Asa Trenchard.' 
 
 " Now for the ceremony. 
 
 "First, Colonel Corcoran introduced Colonel Hunter, who 
 had just been assigned the command of the brigade of the 
 Aqueduct, consisting of the Fifth, Twenty-eighth, and Sixty- 
 ninth New York regiments, making some patriotic allusion to 
 the flag. Colonel Hunter was, of course, received with loud 
 acclaim, when Meagher was called out by the throng. He 
 stepped forward, and made a brief but high-toned and patriotic 
 address, showing the devotion Irishmen should bear to that 
 flag which brought succor to them in Ireland, and to which, 
 iipon landing in this country, they swore undivided allegiance. 
 He was; heartily applauded throughout. 
 
 " John Savage, at the desire of Colonel Corcoran, sung the 
 following song to the air of ' Dixie's Land.' It was written by 
 himself, and is entitled ' The Starry Flag,' which is now iden- 
 tified with the Sixty-ninth. 
 
 " The enthusiasm which this peculiarly stirring song, with 
 its splendid refrain chorused by thirteen hundred brave voices, 
 aroused, while the Stars and Stripes floated proudly forth from 
 the mast-head in the melting sunset on the sweet breeze from 
 the river, cannot be described. It was electrical. There stood 
 the author himself by the side of Meagher, both symbols of 
 Irish patriotism ; there stood those dauntless men, their broth- 
 ers in arms and exile ; and there, above all the stripes vying 
 with the red streaks of the west, and its stars with the silver 
 globes that already began to break through the sky waved 
 the banner which had come to them when starving, which had 
 protected them when flying, and for whose preservation and 
 perpetuation they now marched to the roll of the national re- 
 veille ! Well might it awaken those grateful hearts ; and no 
 wonder that when the last thunders of the final verse, roaring 
 like distant artillery, were rising up like vigils around the flag, 
 they broke from their places and surrounded their chief, their 
 orator, their priest, and their poet in a general Irish ' hullabaloo,' 
 as inspiring as a camp-meeting. I must say that it was very hard, 
 between the comic, grolesque scene now presented to the eye, 
 and the earnest, heartfelt associations imaged to the heart, it 
 was difficult to refrain from mingled convulsions of laughter 
 and crying. 
 
 " A word or two apropos of this song, which I cannot but be- 
 lieve has a future in it. Its origin is not less dramatic than its 
 poetry, and its brief story as interesting as the history of the
 
 117 
 
 ' Marseillaise' or the ' Star-Spangled Banner.' It was first writ- 
 ten and sung on the war transport ' Marion,' on her perilous 
 route up the Potomac through the masked batteries of the 
 
 enemy's country. " From 
 
 Morris & Willies Home Journal. 
 
 1 " Ich sterbe gern fiir Freiheit tmd fur Licht, 
 Qetreu der Fahne der ich zugeschworen." 
 
 * " A hundred thousand welcomes." 
 
 4 Shane O'Neill, the most powerful Ulster chief of his day, 
 had so harassed the English, and scoffed at all their arts of 
 diplomacy, their offers of nobility and reformatory patronage, 
 that the " government seems to have determined, either by 
 force or otherwise, the northern prince must be destroyed." 
 After living for some years the proud, ferocious, and feared 
 ruler of Ulster, he was at last murdered at a feast given to him 
 by the Scotch Macdonnells, of Antrim, whose sept he had for- 
 merly ravaged. The instigator of this foul treachery and 
 slaughter was one Piers, an English officer and agent of the 
 Lord Deputy. He appropriated O'Neill's head, and received for 
 it one thousand marks from Ids master. " This ghastly head 
 was gibbeted high upon a pole, and long grinned upon the 
 towers of Dublin Castle." For an account of Shane, vide Mitch- 
 el's Life of Hugh O'NeUL 
 
 * Kippure, Castle-Kelly, Bal-mannoch, Cornaun (better known 
 ns the old hill of Rollinstown, and at present called Montpelier), 
 See-Finane, &c., are the names of hills which form part of the 
 range of Dublin mountains, and look down into Gian-nis-mole, 
 or " the Vale of Trushes." Kippure is at the remote end of the 
 valley. The Dodder rises in this hill from three springs, which 
 join a short way down, and thence united, spring into the vale. 
 Kilmosantan is the ruin of a primitive Christian church, situate 
 between the river and the yell, and about two hundred yards 
 from the latter. The "Golden Spears" are the two conical 
 mountains of Wicklow, known as the " Sugar Loaves." 
 
 The above was originally published in 1848 ; and afterwards 
 collected into the " Lays of the Fatherland," by the author, 
 in is.-,o. The kind mention of it by several American critics 
 writing on Irish poetry since, has induced the author to free 
 it as much as possible from the inaccuracies consequent upon a 
 hasty publication originally, and without a glance even at the 
 proof-sheets. It has been altered, and somewhat rewritten it 
 is to be hoped for the better.
 
 118 NOTES. 
 
 9 Written upon contemplating Stuart's portrait in the Boston 
 Athenaeum. 
 
 lirmer's picture " The Death of the Poach- 
 " Gems from the Diisseldorf Gallery," edited by 
 B. Frodshain, and published by the Appletons. 
 
 8 " I'll change them as the Cyprian fair, she did 
 
 To moody oxen," &c. 
 
 Amongst the instances recorded by the mythologists of the 
 severity of Venus against such as came under her dislike is, 
 that she transformed the women of Amathus, in -Cyprus, into 
 oxen, for their cruelty. 
 
 9 " Above the taxes of official seal, 
 As Titian was in Venice," &c. 
 
 On an occasion of general impost upon the inhabitants of 
 Venice, the Senate, in estimation of the genius of Titian, de- 
 clared him, and one other alone, exempt from the tax. The 
 other was Sansovino, the statuary and architect. 
 
 Apropos of the allusion in the text to Titian's portraits of 
 Charles V., I may quote C. P. Carpani (Notes to Benvenuto Cellini's 
 Memoirs) : " Charles V. particularly declared himself indebted 
 to him three times for immortality, since he had as often drawn 
 his portrait ;" and seeing that his courtiers envied the public 
 favors bestowed on one whose only title was painter, he ob- 
 served to them that " he himself could create dukes, counts, 
 and nobles by hundreds, but that God alone could form a Tiziano." 
 Great homage this of monarchy to mind, and not without a 
 reason it would seem, from the attention drawn to these famous 
 portraits. " It is pretended," says Quatremere de Quincy, allud- 
 ing, in his ' Life of Raffaello," to the statement in the Lettere 
 Pittoriche, " that the illusion of the likeness was such that the 
 picture, having been placed noar a table, the son of the emperor 
 approached it, in order, as he supposed, to talk with his father 
 on business." k 
 
 10 << rpj je Campanero in the southern woods," Sic. 
 
 " Or like the Tinamou, that lonely bird," &c. 
 " The Campanero never fails to attract the attention of the 
 passenger ; at a distance of nearly three miles you may hear 
 the snow-white bird tolling every four or five minutes, like the 
 distant convent- bell." 
 
 " Every now and then, the Maam or Tinamou sends forth 
 one long and plaintive whistle from the depths of the forest, 
 and then stops." WATERTON'S Wa/idariitffs in. South America.
 
 In Press, Library Edition, 
 
 SYBIL, 
 
 A TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS, 
 
 AS REPBE8KNTED AT 
 
 THE PRINCIPAL THEATRES OF THE UNITED STATES, BT AVONIA JONES, 
 MATILDA HERON, AND MRS. EMMA WALLER. 
 
 CRITICAL OPINIONS. 
 
 "This piece was originally produced at St Louis, with Miss Avonla Jones as 
 the heroine, and successfully played by her for over sixty nights during that 
 season, In Louisville. Chii-ago; Cincinnati", Richmond. New Orleans and the other 
 principal cities in the South and West. She afterwards appeared in California 
 and Australia, and was everywhere received in this character wiih enthusiasm. 
 She w is almost invariably called before the curtain after the third, fourth, and 
 fifth acts of the play, and on one occasion the excited audience followed her to 
 her hotel, and would not disperse until she made her appearance on the bal- 
 cony." H,me Journal. 
 
 "The play is well written the language good, the dialogue easy, and the 
 
 situations effective, It is of that domestic kim'i which is 
 
 always popular, and is one of the best American productions we have seen." 
 QKOKGE D. PRKNTICB, LouixvilU Journal. 
 
 "The play of Sybil is one of no ordinary merit With the exception of the 
 introductory act. which seems to us to be tedious, and not suitably preparatory 
 for the thrilling drama which follows. It is a trazedy which ranks with the im- 
 mortal works of the be*t writers for the stage. There is nothing in the plays of 
 Shakspere more beautiful anil affecting than the scene in which Sybil asks an 
 oath for the destruction of her seducer, and her lover kneels by her side, and 
 looks to heaven and takes the terrible oath." Louisville Courier. 
 
 'The story is of well-sustained Interest thronehont, and the plot well han- 
 dled by the dramatist. The three last acts will well compare with any dramatic 
 product on the modern stage. ...... ." Richmond Enquirer. 
 
 " Mr. John Savage's play. ' Sybil,' was produced at the St Charles last night 
 before a large auditory, from whom It received a triumphant reception. As" an 
 acting drama it has polnte of effect which will keep it upon the staze when the 
 actress for whom it was written shall walk the boards no more. Though often 
 trembling on the very brink of the blood and thunder abyss of the melodrama, 
 it is constantly rescued anil assured to respectability by the purity "nil loftiness 
 of expression, and by the unexpected denouement* of ihe minor complications. 
 The staple of the plot is of a nature so delicate as to require the most gingerly 
 handling, and we confess that we were surprised and pleased by the skilful 
 manner in which the dramatist has managed it The minor scenes are dis- 
 creetly made only so long as Is necessary to the continuity of the plot The 
 part of .SyfciY i- a "study, for it Is the mont natural unnatural character that we 
 can recall In the range of the drama. As to its performance, we never saw 
 Miss Jones in any other part approach to the tragic power she displayed in 
 this." New Orleans Daily Crescent.
 
 CRITICAL OPINIONS. 
 
 "This production, having created quite a sensation in the several cities in 
 which it has been put upon the stage, excited more curious interest among 
 our playgoers than any other dramatic piece that has yet appeared upon the 
 bills. ...... As a production of high literary merit there is no ques- 
 
 tion of Its claims. It is, perhaps, unequalled among the more modern pro- 
 ductions." Memphis Avalanche. 
 
 " The genius of the author rises in grandeur with the stirring incidents of the 
 scenes that rapidly succeed each other, from the commencement of the third 
 Bet to the close of this thrilling drama of domestic life.'' San Francisco 
 National. 
 
 " The Play of ' Sybil' is beautifully written. Many of its passages are poetic 
 gems. It is replete with elegant diction, exquisite pathos, and soul-ennobling 
 thoughts and expressions. It is almost too brilliant.'' Sacramento Dem. 
 Standard. 
 
 " Mr. John Savage's drama of ' Sybil.' which has acquired an historic interest, 
 unded, but 
 
 not only from the tragic episode on which it is founded, but from the circum- 
 stances attending its first production at the Louisville theatre, was brought out 
 at this establishment (Winter Gardt-n) last night. With such materials as 
 
 stances attending its first production at the Louisville theatre, was brought out 
 at this establishment (Winter Gardt-n) last night. With such materials as 
 Mr. Savage had to deal with, he could not well write a piece that would fail 
 
 in interest; but there was for this very reason a fear that he would fall 
 
 the error to which all young playwrights are exposed in dealing with such a 
 
 subject that of investing it with a melodramatic character. 
 
 "That danger he has" happily avoided. From the commencement to the 
 close the effects are legitimate and owe but little to dramatic artifices. The 
 language, though what might be expected from an accomplished writer, is 
 never stilted or high flown, as first efforts of this sort are liable to be. The in- 
 tensely absorbing interest of the main incidents might, it is true, have been 
 relieved by a few broader dashes of humor in the characters of the inferior per- 
 sonages of the piece, and a little more local color might have been given to 
 it; but, perhaps, on the whole. Mr. Savage exercised a Vise discretion in con- 
 fining himself to effects of which he was sure, and which, as the result proved, 
 were amply sufficient for success. 
 
 "There is much to criticise, much to find fault with, in Miss Heron's im- 
 personation of the character; but, with all this, it must be admitted that it 
 
 was a remarkable performance In the interview with 
 
 Sharp she was really fine, reminding one at times, in the concentration of 
 hatred and loathing which she exhibited towards him. of Kaehel.'' NeiioYork 
 ffera'd. 
 
 "Last evening, she Matilda Heron as Sybil was in her highest form, and 
 in the surge of sentiment and pomp of passion which swells around the char- 
 acter, she surpassed herself. n New York Daily Time*. 
 
 "Grand as she undoubtedly is In Cami'lf, in the S>/M! she quite eclipsed 
 that character. The author has surrounded her with every variety of tender 
 passion, revenge, and remorse, and each aspect of these varied feelings was 
 rendered by Miss Heron in a manner not artistic, but life-like ...... 
 
 The play may be set down as a great success." New York Express. 
 
 "Upon these incidents, fresh and terrible as they are. Mr. John Savage 
 has constructed a tragic drama. The author, albeit unused to the boards, has 
 not fallen into turgidity. He has maintained a rare moderation of tone, look- 
 ing to the fierce facts to sustain him. All that he portrays, and more, nct- 
 ually happened. When the villain meets the heroine in the play, she re- 
 lents from her determination, and. while spurning his audacious advances 
 begs him to fly, to escape her husband's wrath were he to find oui, his real 
 name and character. This, as we have shown, is not in the real story. But it 
 improves and varies the characteristics of the central figure: portrays fcmfnine 
 tenderness, which is the allurement of all women, on or off the stage." New 
 York Tribune. 
 
 She Mrs. Waller as Sybil was honored by being called before the cur- 
 tain four times." Philadelphia Evening Bulletin.
 
 en 
 -3- 
 
 CD 
 
 O 
 
 ithilVKKSlTY OF CAIJFOHNU,
 
 I I 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 ^ 
 
 Rfe, ^OF-CAlJFOftfc, ^ 
 x. ^. s~*^ 1? sy 
 
 
 fjuonvsov 
 
 
 | 
 
 I i 
 
 3 S 
 
 I 
 
 S 5 
 
 s g 
 
 1 i 
 
 vvlOS-ANCflfj> 
 
 i r=si)| I 
 
 ^EUNIVERSyA vvlOSANCEL/j> 
 
 Ov ^_. ^*. ^& ** 
 
 i^<g s/Ttl
 
 1 I 
 
 3 1158 00663 9925 
 
 ^ 
 
 I I 
 
 
 > s