/ GIFT OF H, L. Leupp ALONG THE TRAIL BY RICHARD HOVEY LAUNCELOT AND GUENEVERE A Poem in Dramas I. THE QUEST OF MERLIN . . $1.25 A Masque II. THE MARRIAGE OF GUENEVERE 1.50 A Tragedy III. THE BIRTH OF GALAHAD . . 1.50 A Romantic Drama IV. TALIESIN i.oo A Masque SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY, BOSTON ALONG THE TRAIL A BOOK OF LYRICS BY RICHARD BOSTON SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 1899 Copyright, 1898 BY SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY All rights reserved " FJ^t Edition, December, 1898 Second- Edition, March, 1899 \\. Y ... THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. TO MY MOTHER 834721 The thanks of the author and the publishers are due to Messrs. Copeland and Day for their kind permission to use such extracts from Songs from Vagabondia and More Songs from Vagabondia as were necessary in order to print " Comrades? " Spring? and "The Faun " /;/ this volume with their complete text. CONTENTS THE WORD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA ... 3 THE CALL OF THE BUGLES 5 UNMAXIFEST DESTINY 16 AMERICA 17 II DEAD 21 FORGIVEN 23 LOVE AND CHANGE 24 LAUNCELOT AND GAWAINE 26 MY LADY S SOUL 26 AFTER BUSINESS HOURS 27 THE THOUGHT OF HER 28 LOVE IN THE WINDS 28 Two AND FATE 29 FAITH AND FATE 29 CHANSONS DE ROSEMONDE 30 A WANDERER 32 THE LOVE OF A BOY YESTERDAY 33 THE LOVE OF A BOY TO-DAY 34 AN OFF-SHORE VILLANELLE 35 To LESBIA 36 NOCTURNE -37 THE Two LOVERS . * 37 APPARITION 38 SUMMER SADNESS 39 "SPRUNG FROM THE VASE S BULGE AND LEAP" . 40 " BALMY WITH YEARS, WHAT SILKEN PLY " . . 41 HERODIAS 41 III COMRADES 47 ONE LEAF MORE 55 SPRING 56 MEN OF DARTMOUTH 66 THE OLD PINE 68 IN MEMORIAM. (A. H. Q.) 68 ix DARTMOUTH ODE 69 A WINTER THOUGHT OF DARTMOUTH IN MAN HATTAN 75 OUR LIEGE LADY, DARTMOUTH 78 HANOVER WINTER-SONG 79 IV THE FAUN 83 SWALLOW SONG 90 A HEALTH. To E. C. S 91 THE DRAMATIST. To M. K 92 DELSARTE 92 WORLD AND POET 92 THE SOUTH 93 A CAPRICE OF OGAROW. To M. P 93 THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS 94 BEETHOVEN S THIRD SYMPHONY 94 AUGUST 95 A BALLADE OF MYSTERIES 96 THE SHADOWS 97 ANGRO-MAINYUS 98 IMMANENCE 100 TRANSCENDENCE 100 VISITATION 100 IN EXCELSIS IOT THE VEILED LADY 102 THE MESSENGER 102 HENRY GEORGE 103 BENZAQUEN: A FRAGMENT 107 ALONG THE TRAIL 1883-1898 THE WO.RD OF THE LORD FROM HAVANA THUS spake the Lord : Because ye have not heard, ; ! J J ! Because ye have given no heed To my people in their need, Because the oppressed cried From the dust where he died, And ye turned your face away From his cry in that day, Because ye have bought and sold That which is above gold, Because your brother is slain While ye get you drunk with gain, (Behold, these are my people, I have brought them to birth, On whom the mighty have trod, The kings of the earth, Saith the Lord God !) Because ye have fawned and bowed down Lest the spoiler frown, And the wrongs that the spoiled have borne Ye have held in scorn, Therefore with rending and flame I have marred and smitten you, 3 Therefore I have given you to shame, That the nations shall spit on you. . Therefor my Angel of Death k Hath stretched oat his hand on you, Therefore I speak in my wrath, Laying command on you ; (Once have I bared my sword, And the kings of the earth gave a cry ; Twice have I bared my sword, That the kings of the earth should die ; Thrice shall I bare my sword, And ye shall know my name, that it is I !) Ye who held peace less than right When a king laid a pitiful tax on you, Hold not your hand from the fight When freedom cries under the axe on you ! (I who called France to you, call you to Cuba in turn ! Repay lest I cast you adrift and you perish astern!) Ye who made war that your ships Should lay to at the beck of no nation, Make war now on Murder, that slips The leash of her hounds of damnation ! Ye who remembered the Alamo, Remember the Maine ! 4 Ye who unfettered the slave, Break a free people s chain ! ( Written after the destruction of the battleship "Maine," 17 February, 1898) THE CALL OF THE BUGLES BUGLES ! And the Great Nation thrills and leaps to arms ! Prompt, unconstrained, immediate, Without misgiving and without debate, Too calm, too strong for fury or alarms, The people blossoms armies and puts forth The splendid summer of its noiseless might; For the old sap of fight Mounts up in South and North, The thrill That tingled in our veins at Bunker Hill And brought to bloom July of Seventy-Six ! Pine and palmetto mix With the sequoia of the giant West Their ready banners, and the hosts of war, Near and far, Sudden as dawn, Innumerable as forests, hear the call Of the bugles, The battle-birds ! For not alone the brave, the fortunate, Who first of all Have put their knapsacks on They are the valiant vanguard of the rest ! Not they alone, but all our millions wait, Hand on sword, For the word That bids them bid the nations know us sons of Fate. Bugles ! And in my heart a cry, Like a dim echo far and mournfully Blown back to answer them from yesterday I A soldier s burial ! November hillsides and the falling leaves Where the Potomac broadens to the tide The crisp autumnal silence and the gray (As of a solemn ritual Whose congregation glories as it grieves, Widowed but still a bride) The long hills sloping to the wave, And the lone bugler standing by the grave ! Taps! The lonely call over the lonely woodlands Rising like the soaring of wings, Like the flight of an eagle Taps! They sound forever in my heart. 6 From farther still, The echoes still the echoes ! The bugles of the dead Blowing from spectral ranks an answering cry ! The ghostly roll of immaterial drums, Beating reveille in the camps of dream, As from far meadows comes, Over the pathless hill, The irremeable stream. I hear the tread Of the great armies of the Past go by ; I hear, Across the wide sea wash of years between, Concord and Valley Forge shout back from the unseen s And Vicksburg give a cheer. Our cheer goes back to them, the valiant dead ! Laurels and roses on their graves to-day, Lilies and laurels over them we lay, And violets o er each unforgotten head. Their honor still with the returning May Puts on its springtime in our memories, Nor till the last American with them lies Shall the young year forget to strew their bed. Peace to their ashes, sleep and honored rest ! But we awake ! Ours to remember them with deeds like theirs ! 7 From sea to sea the insistent bugle blares, The drums will not be still for any sake ; And as an eagle rears his crest, Defiant, from some tall pine of the north, And spreads his wings to fly, The banners of America go forth Against the clarion sky. Veteran and volunteer, They who were comrades of that shadow host, And the young brood whose veins renew the fires That burned in their great sires, Alike we hear The summons sounding clear From coast to coast, The cry of the bugles, The battle-birds ! As some great hero men have dreamed might be, Sigurd or Herakles or Launcelot, Too strong to reckon up the gain or pain, With equal and indifferent disdain Keeping or keeping not What he may win, Gives to the world his victory And to the weak the labors he might spare, My knightly country, the world s paladin, Throw out its pennon to the air To make a people free ! 8 Rejoice, O Cuba ! thy worst foe Is overthrown. The money dragon, The Old Serpent, Thy jailer s strong defence, laid low, Cast down, Pierced to the bone, Makes off to nurse his wound, Dragging his scaly length along the ground. Ha, ha ! he is sick, He hath no stomach for the battle. With dull reptilian malice in his eyes, Spoiled of his prey, he lies, Blinking his glutton hatred from his lair. Plotting new outrage in his den, He waits to be strong again. Let him beware ! For we, who have smitten him once, Shall smite him again ! A passing wound for the nonce, But a death blow then ! Now with a warning stroke, That he coil not across our way When the wronged cry under the yoke And we may not stay; But then in the hour of Doom To his irrevocable tomb Forever hurled, 9 That the world may again have room For the sons of the world. Rejoice again, O Cuba ! Rejoice, Gomez ! Rejoice, spirit of Maceo ! The voice of the Lord in the drums, The cry of Jehovah in the bugles ; Let my people go free ! Behold, I will burst their chain ! For my Deliverer comes, He whom I have chosen to be My Messenger on the Sea, My Rod for the scourge of Spain ! I have endured her too long; I have smitten and she has not ceased from wrong, I have forborne And she has held me in scorn. Now therefore for her misdeeds Wherewith Time bleeds, I who smote her by the hand of Drake And wrenched from her the Sea, I who raised up Bolivar to shake Her captive continent free, I will smite her for the third time in my wrath And naught shall remain, But a black char of memory in man s path, Of the power of Spain. We have heard the voice of the Lord ; Manila knows our answer, and Madrid Shall hear it in our cannon at her gate, Unless to save some remnant of her fate, Ere that assault be bid, She yield her conquered sword. Let her not put her trust In the nations that cry out Against us, in them that flout The battle of the just. They have made themselves drunk with wind ; They have uttered a foolish cry In the ears of the Lord on high ; But they shall not save her with words Nay, nor with swords From the doom of the sin she has sinned. For the writ of the Powers does not run Where the flag of the Union floats. Fair and equal every one We greet with loyal throats ; But we own no suzerain. Thewed with freedom, Mailed in destiny We shall maintain Against the world our right, Their peer in majesty, their peer in might. ii Who now are they whose God is gain? Let Rothschild-ridden Europe hold her peace ! Her jest is proved a lie. They and not we refrain From all things high At the money-changers cry ; They and not we have sold Their flags for gold ; They and not we yield honor to increase. Honor to England, that she does us right At last, and, after many a valiant fight, Forgets her ancient grudge ! But ye, O nations, be the Lord our judge And yours the shame forever ! How shall ye In the unforgetting face of History Look without blush hereafter ? Ye who gave To the Great Robber all your words of cheer, And to the Champion of the Right a sneer What answer will ye have When affronted Time demands The shame and fame of nations at your hands ? Thou too, O France ! Thou, the beloved ! Paul Jones and Lafayette in Paradise Lift not their sad, ashamed, bewildered eyes, But pass in silence with averted glance. Twinned with us in the hearts of all the free, O fair and dear, what have we done to thee ? What have we done to thee, beloved and fair, That thou shouldst greet us with an alien stare, And take to thy embrace Her whose flag never flew but where it left the trace Of murder and of rapine on the air ? Not only to lay low The decrepit foe Proud, cruel, treacherous, but still brave, With one foot in the grave But once for all To warn the world that, though we do not brawl, Our sword is ready to protect The weak against the brutal strong, Our guns are ready to exact Justice of them that do us wrong. Ay, we "remember the Maine," The mighty ship And the men thereon ! There is no court for nations that can mete The just reward for murder upon Spain J No Arbiter can put the black cap on ; No sovereign nation, shorn of sovereignship, Be brought, a felon, to the judgment seat Except by war ! 13 Cease then this silly prate, That to do justice on the evil-doer Is vengeful and unworthy of the State. Remember the Maine That all the world as well as Spain May know that God has given us the sword To punish crime and vindicate his word. Ye pompous prattlers, cease Your idle platitudes of peace When there is no peace ! Back to your world of books, and leave the world of men To them that have the habit of the real, Nor longer with a mask of fair ideal Hide your indifference to the facts of pain ! Not against war, But against wrong, League we in mighty bonds from sea to sea! Peace, when the world is free ! Peace, when there is no thong, Fetter nor bar ! No scourges for men s backs, No thumbscrews and no racks For body or soul ! No unjust law ! No tyrannous control Of brawn or maw ! 14 But, though the day be far, Till then, war ! Blow, bugles ! Over the rumbling drum and marching feet Sound your high, sweet defiance to the air ! Great is war great and fair ! The terrors of his face are grand and sweet, And to the wise the calm of God is there. God clothes himself in darkness as in light, The God of love, but still the God of might. Nor love they least Who strike with right good will To vanquish ill And fight God s battle upward from the beast. By strife as well as loving strife, The Law of Life, In brute and man the climbing has been done And shall be done hereafter. Since man was, No upward-climbing cause Without the sword has ever yet been won. Bugles ! The imperious bugles ! Still their call Soars like an exaltation to the sky. They call on men to fall, To die, Remembered or forgotten, but a part Of the great beating of the Nation s heart ! A call to sacrifice ! A call to victory ! Hark, in the Empyrean The battle-birds ! The bugles ! ( Waldron Post, G. A. /?., Nyack, N. Y., Memorial Day 1898) UNMANIFEST DESTINY To what new fates, my country, far And unforeseen of foe or friend, Beneath what unexpected star, Compelled to what unchosen end, Across the sea that knows no beach The Admiral of Nations guides Thy blind obedient keels to reach The harbor where thy future rides ! The guns that spoke at Lexington Knew not that God was planning then The trumpet word of Jefferson To bugle forth the rights of men. To them that wept and cursed Bull Run, What was it but despair and shame ? 16 Who saw behind the cloud the sun ? Who knew that God was in the flame ? Had not defeat upon defeat, Disaster on disaster come, The slave s emancipated feet Had never marched behind the drum. There is a Hand that bends our deeds To mightier issues than we planned, Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds, My country, serves Its dark command. I do not know beneath what sky Nor on what seas shall be thy fate ; I only know it shall be high, I only know it shall be great. July, 1898 AMERICA WE came to birth in battle ; when we pass, It shall be to the thunder of the drums. We are not one that weeps and saith Alas, Nor one that dreams of dim millenniums. Our hand is set to this world s business, And it must be accomplished workmanly ; Be we not stout enough to keep our place, What profits it the world that we be free ? 2 17 Not with despite for others, but to hold Our station in the world inviolate, We keep the stomach of the men of old Who built in blood the bastions of our fate. We know not to what goal God s purpose tends ; We know He works through battle to His ends. October, 1898 18 II DEAD AH God ! how strange the rattling in the street Comes to me where I lie and the hours pass. I watch a beetle crawling up the sheet That covers me, and curiously note The green and yellow back like mouldy brass, And cannot even shudder at the thought How soon the loathsome thing will reach my face. And by such things alone I measure out The slow drip of the minutes from Time s eaves. For if I think of when I lived, I doubt It was but yesterday I brushed the flowers ; But when I think of what I am, thought leaves The weak mind dirzy in a waste of hours. O God, how happy is the man that grieves ! Life ? It was life to look upon her face, And it was life to rage when she was gone ; But this new horror ! In the market-place A form, in all things like me as I moved Of old, is marked or hailed of many an one That takes it for his friend that lived and loved, And I laugh voicelessly, a laugh of stone. For here I lie and neither move nor feel. And watch that Other pacing up and down The room, or pausing at his potter s wheel 21 To turn out cunning vessels from the clay, Vessels that he will hawk about the town, And then return to work another day Frowning; but I, I neither smile nor frown. I see him take his coat down from the peg And put it on, and open the white door, And brush some bit of cobweb from his leg, And look about the room before he goes ; And then the clock goes ticking as before, And I am with him and know all he does, And I am here and tell each clock-tick o er. And men are praising him for subtle skill ; And women love him God alone knows why ! He can have all the world holds at his will But this, to be a living soul, and this No man but I can give him ; and I lie And make no sign, and care not what he is, And hardly know if this indeed be I. Ah, if she came and bent above me here, Who lie with straight bands bound about my chin! Ah, if she came and stood beside this bier With aureoles as of old upon her hair To light the darkness of this burial bin ! Should I not rise again and breathe the air And feel the veins warm that the blood beats in ? Or should I lie with sinews fixed and shriek As dead men shriek and make no sound ? Should I See her gray eyes look love and hear her speak, And be all impotent to burst my shroud ? Will the dead never rise from where they lie? Or will they never cease to think so loud ? Or is to know and not to be, to die? 1890 FORGIVEN " DESPISE me if you will. I have done you wrong, Most grievous wrong, but not the wrong you think. You deemed me strongest where I was not strong, And martyr where a scratch would make me shrink, Nor, false for truth s sake though I wrest my role, Am I one half so false as I am true ; And mine own truth has throttled my proud soul And cast it prostrate at the feet of you. I am most humble ; but my heart cries out For one last grace from you before we part ; Though it give pain, to hear my tale throughout And not forgive but understand my heart. Therefore I bare my soul to you and tell The utter truth, though speaking so I seem But a reiterate anguish to compel, That in condemning you may not condemn You know not what, but me, me, me ! " The whole I told then, act and impulse ; I kept not Aught back that might reveal me to her soul: And she forgave, but understood no jot. 1893 LOVE AND CHANGE One Lover FOREVER ? Ah, too vain to hope, my sweet, That love should linger when all else must die ! No prayer can stay his wings, if he will fly, Nor longing lure him back to find our feet, Weeping for old disloyalties. The heat That glows in the uplifting of thine eye, Dims and grows cold ere yet the day pass by ; Nor ever will the dusk of love repeat The dawn s pearl-rapture. Ay, it is the doom Of love that it must watch its own decay. Petal by petal from the voluptuous bloom Drops withering, till the last is blown away. The night mists rise and shroud the bier of day, And we are left lamenting in the gloom. Another Lover " Love is eternal," sang I long ago Of some light love that lasted for a day; But when that whim of hearts was puffed away, And other loves that following made as though 24 They were the very deathless, lost the glow Youth mimics the divine with, and grew gray, I said, " It is a dream, no love will stay." Angels have taught me wisdom ; now I know, Though lesser loves, and greater loves, may cease, Love still endures, knocking at myriad gates Of beauty, dawns and call of woodland birds, Stars, winds, and waters, lilt of luted words And worshipped women, till it finds its peace In the abyss where Godhead loves and waits. A Third Lover My love for you dies many times a year, And a new love is monarch in his place. Love must grow weary of the fairest face ; The fondest heart must fail to hold him near. For love is born of wonder, kin to fear Things grown familiar lose the sweet amaze ; Grown to their measure, love must turn his gaze To some new splendor, some diviner sphere. But in the blue night of your endless soul New stars globe ever as the old are scanned ; Goal where love will, you reach a farther goal, And the new love is ever love of you. Love needs a thousand loves, forever new, And finds them in the hollow of your hand. 1897 25 LAUNCELOT AND GAWAINE Two women loved a poet. One was dark, Luxuriant with the beauty of the south, A heart of fire and this one he forsook. The other slender, tall, with wide gray eyes, Who loved him with a still intensity That made her heart a shrine to her he clave, And he was faithful to her to the end. And when the poet died, a song was found Which he had writ, of Launcelot and Gawaine ; And when the women read it, one cried out : " Where got he Launcelot? Gawaine I know He drew that picture from a looking-glass Sleek, lying, treacherous, golden-tongued Gawaine ! " The other, smiling, murmured " Launcelot ! " 1888 MY LADY S SOUL LIKE some enchanted dweller in the deep, I swim among the grottoes of your soul. Far, far away the cliffs rise rough and steep ; Far, far above the ruffling billows roll. Here a new world, unseen of any eye But mine, unfolds its unfamiliar blooms In opal calms unuttered to the sky And tremulous light of phosphorescent glooms. 26 And if my soul revisit the raw day, For joy of all that secret beauty blind, I, merman-like, have little care to stay In the thin air, but plunge again to find Those deeps unvisited from which I came, Whose simplest wonders have not yet a name. 1895 AFTER BUSINESS HOURS WHEX I sit down with thee at last alone, Shut out the wrangle of the clashing day, The scrape of petty jars that fret and fray, The snarl and yelp of brute beasts for a bone ; When thou and I sit down at last alone, And through the dusk of rooms divinely gray Spirit to spirit finds its voiceless way, As tone melts meeting in accordant tone, Oh, then our souls, far in the vast of sky, Look from a tower, too high for sound of strife Or any violation of the town, Where the great vacant winds of God go by, And over the huge misshapen city of life Love pours his silence and his moonlight down. 27 THE THOUGHT OF HER MY love for thee doth take me unaware, When most with lesser things my brain is wrought, As in some nimble interchange of thought The silence enters, and the talkers stare. Suddenly I am still and thou art there, A viewless visitant and unbesought, And all my thinking trembles into nought And all my being opens like a prayer. Thou art the lifted Chalice in my soul, And I a dim church at the thought of thee ; Brief be the moment, but the mass is said, The benediction like an aureole Is on my spirit, and shuddering through me A rapture like the rapture of the dead. LOVE IN THE WINDS WHEN I am standing on a mountain crest, Or hold the tiller in the dashing spray, My love of you leaps foaming in my breast, Shouts with the winds and sweeps to their foray ; My heart bounds with the horses of the sea, And plunges in the wild ride of the night, Flaunts in the teeth of tempest the large glee That rides out Fate and welcomes gods to fight. Ho, love, I laugh aloud for love of you, 28 Glad that our love is fellow to rough weather, No fretful orchid hothoused from the dew, But hale and hardy as the highland heather, Rejoicing in the wind that stings and thrills, Comrade of ocean, playmate of the hills. 1898 TWO AND FATE THE ship we ride the world in sniffs the storm, And throws its head up to the hurricane, Quivering like a war-horse when ranks form With scream of bugles and the shout of men, Neighs to the challenge of the thunderbolt, And charges in the squadrons of the surge, Sabring its way with fury of revolt And lashed with exaltation as a scourge ! Who would not rather founder in the fight Than not have known the glory of the fray ? Ay, to go down in armor and in might, With our last breath to dominate dismay, To sink amid the mad sea s clashing spears And with the cry of bugles in our ears ! 1898 FAITH AND FATE To horse, my dear, and out into the night! Stirrup and saddle and away, away ! Into the darkness, into the affright, 29 Into the unknown on our trackless way ! Past bridge and town missiled with flying feet, Into the wilderness our riding thrills ; The gallop echoes through the startled street, And shrieks like laughter in the demoned hills; Things come to meet us with fantastic frown, And hurry past with maniac despair; Death from the stars looks ominously down Ho, ho, the dauntless riding that we dare ! East, to the dawn, or west or south or north ! Loose rein upon the neck of Fate and forth ! CHANSONS DE ROSEMONDE THE dawn is lonely for the sun, And chill and drear ; The one lone star is pale and wan As one in fear. But when day strides across the hills, The warm blood rushes through The bared soft bosom of the blue And all the glad east thrills. Oh, come, my King ! The hounds of joy Are waiting for thy horn 30 To chase the doe of heart s desire Across the heights of morn. Oh, come, my Sun, and let me know The rapture of the day ! Oh, come, my love ! Oh, come, my love ! Thou art so long away ! II Love, hold me close to thee And kiss me so Dear ! . . . The green leaves above Blur in the blue ; The ground reels like a sea ! . . . I know, I know There is but now for love Between us two. Death like a wizard holds Me with his eye ; I cannot strive nor start, To break the spell! . . Night smothers in her folds My passing cry ! . . . But hold me to thy heart And all is well. Ah, what if heaven should be A dream like this, Too glad to move, Too still to laugh or weep, So thou stand over me, Bend down and kiss My lips once love And let me fall asleep ! 1894 A WANDERER (Reminiscence of an old Scotch song) EAST and west and north and south I range o er land and sea ; And I bear dead kisses on my mouth, And dead love wearies me. I am caught up as a feather That the winds toss to and fro. Since we dwell not together, What care I where I go ? North and south and east and west I drift on alien tides ; The one place where I may not rest Is that where she abides. 32 So on through wind and weather ! Afar o er land and sea ! If we be not together What matter where we be ? 1890 THE LOVE OF A BOY YESTERDAY No lips nor lutes can let thee know The joy that lightens through my woe, But look in thine own heart, and so I shall not need to tell thee, love. Lady of the winsome smile ! Lovesome lady ! Gentle lady ! If my heart had any guile, Thou wouldst make me truthful, love. Though bitter be our luckless lot, It were more sad if love were not And all the rest may be forgot, But thou wilt not forget me, love Lady of the faithful heart ! Loving lady ! Loyal lady ! Were I noble as thou art, No king s sword need knight me, love. Were I myself a mighty king With thousands at my beckoning, 3 33 My power were but a little thing To do thee worthy honor, love. Lady in whose life I live ! Fearless lady ! Peerless lady ! If the stars were mine to give They should be thy necklace, love. 1889 THE LOVE OF A BOY TO-DAY HEIGH-HO ! my thoughts are far away ; For wine or books I have no care ; I like to think upon the way She has of looking very fair. Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, And all the livelong day is nought ; There s nothing much I care to learn But what her lovely lips have taught. The campus cannot tempt me out, The classics cannot keep me in ; The only place I care about Is where perchance she may have been. Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, And all the livelong day is nought ; There s nothing much I care to find Except the way she would be sought. 34 The train across the valley screams, And like a hawk sweeps out of sight; It bears me to her in my dreams By day and night, by day and night. Oh, work is nought, and play is nought, And all the livelong day is nought ; There s nothing much I care to be, If I be only in her thought. 1897 AN OFF-SHORE VILLANELLE OVER the dun depths where the white shark swims, Waiting his fated prey with hungry eyes, Swiftly the light skiff skims. The laughing skipper trims Seaward his course. What recks he that it lies Over the dun depths where the white shark swims ? He shouts for glee in the mad wind s teeth. Fast dims The land to a low long cloud-line in the skies. Swiftly the light skiff skims, Brushing the foaming brims Of the wave-beakers as in mirth it flies Over the dun depths where the. white shark swims. What brings the white girl there, about whose limbs The wet skirts cling, as stormward, petrel-wise, Swiftly the light skiff skims? 35 The strong sea-devils wreak their cruel whims In vain. Who heeds the hatred of their cries ? Swiftly the light skiff skims Over the dun depths where the white shark swims. 1888 TO LESBIA (From the Latin of Catullus) LIVE we, Lesbia, and love ! What though the greybeards disapprove ! Let them wag their toothless jaws ! Who cares a copper for their saws ? Suns may set and suns may rise, But when the light of life once dies, Night that knows not any dawn Brings eternal slumber on. Kisses, kisses, I implore A hundred more ! a thousand more ! Another thousand ah, too fleet ! A hundred ! thousand ! hundred, sweet ! Let the thousands throng and cumber ! Crush them, crowd them past all number, Lest some enchanter blight our blisses, Knowing the number of our kisses. 1888 36 NOCTURNE WHITE, white I remember her White from her forehead to her feet. The moonlight falling through the pane Was not so white, was not so sweet. She was a pool of moonlight there Between the window and the wall, And the slow minutes bathed in her And went away beyond recall. 1898 THE TWO LOVERS THE lover of her body said : " She is more beautiful than night, But like the kisses of the dead Is my despair, and my delight." The lover of her soul replied : " She is more wonderful than death, But bitter as the aching tide Is all the speech of love she saith." The lover of her body said : " To know one secret of her heart, For all the joy that I have had, Is past the reach of all my art." 37 The lover of her soul replied: " The secrets of her heart are mine, Save how she lives, a riven bride, Between the dust and the divine." The lover of her body sware : " Though she should hate me, wit you well, Rather than yield one kiss of her I give my soul to burn in hell. * The lover of her soul cried out : " Rather than leave her to your greed, I would that I were walled about With death, and death were death indeed ! " The lover of her body wept, And got no good of all his gain, Knowing that in her heart she kept The penance of the other s pain. The lover of her soul went mad, But when he did himself to death, Despite of all the woe he had, He smiled as one who vanquisheth. 1898 APPARITION (From the French of Mallarme} THE moon grew sad in heaven. In tears the seraphim, A-dream with bow in fingers, in the calm of dim 38 Mists of unbodied flowers, from dying viols drew The glide of white sobs over the corollas blue It was the day thy first kiss hallowed and made dumb. My musing that delights to bring me martyrdom, Grew wisely drunken with that sad scent of things reft That, though without regret or aftertaste, is left, Culling a dream, in him whose heart has culled the dream. So strayed I on, with eyes on the worn walk a-gleam, Where in the street and in the evening, out o the air Thou cam st to me, all laughters, sunlight in thy hair. And I believed I saw the fay with hat of gold Who o er spoiled childhood s slumber beautiful, of old Passed, letting ever from her loosely closing hands White clusters snow of stars, with odors of far lands. 1895 SUMMER SADNESS (From the French of Mall ar me") THE sunlight on the sands, fair struggler fallen asleep, Makes warm a bath of languors in your golden hair, And, burning away the angry incense that you weep, Mingles a wanton drink of longings in the air. Immutable in calm, the white flamboyant day Has made you sigh (alas, my kisses full of qualms !) " No, we shall never be one mummy, swathed for aye Under the ancient desert and the happy palms." 39 This incubus of soul we suffer, in the river Of your warm hair might plunge and drown without a shiver, And find that Nothingness that you know nothing of. And I would taste those tears of rouge beneath your eyes, To see if they can give the heart you smote with love The insensibility of stones and summer skies. 1895 SONNET (From the French of Mallarm e) SPRUNG from the vase s bulge and leap Of fragile glass, the neck in gloom Fades out nor decks with any bloom The bitter vigil that I keep. Oh, I am sure that no lips e er (Nay not her lover s nor my mother s) Have drunk the same dream as another s, I, sylph of the cold ceiling there ! The virgin chalice of no wine But an exhaustless widowhood, It suffers, but is not subdued (Oh, kiss naive and saturnine !) To breathe forth aught that might disclose Within the shadows any rose. 1895 40 SONNET (Prom the French of Mallarme) BALMY with years, what silken ply, Whereo er the fancy pines and pales, Is worth the tangled native veils That in your mirror I descry ? Uplifted in the avenue, The tattered banners droop and dream ; For me your naked tresses stream, To drown my eyes in, glad of you. No, never will the lips be sure Of any taste in aught they take Unless your princely lover make, Amid that clustered cynosure, Die, as a diamond might die, The Glories and their smothered cry. 1895 HERODIAS (Prom the French of Mallarme} HERODIAS AY, for myself, myself I flower forlorn ! You amethystine gardens buried deep In wise abysses dim and bottomless, You understand ; and you, neglected gold, 41 Keeping your ancient glory unprofaned Under the dark sleep of primeval earth; You, stones wherefrom mine eyes, like limpid gems, Borrow their blaze melodious ; and you, Metals that give the tresses of my youth A deadly splendor in their massive fall ! As for thee, woman born in centuries Malign for the iniquities that lurk In caverns Sibylline, thou who darest to speak Of one for whom, a mortal, shall from the cup Of my slipped robes, aroma savage-sweet, Rise the white shudder of my nakedness, Foretell that if the warm blue summer sky That woman natively unveils before, See me in my star-shivering shamefastness, Idle! The horror of virginity Delights me ; I would live, amid the fright The touch of mine own hair can make me know, To feel, at eve, within my couch withdrawn, Inviolate reptile, in the useless flesh Cold scintillation of thy pallid light, Thou dying, thou consumed with chastity, White night of icicles and cruel snow ! And thy lone sister, O my sister aye, My dream shall rise to thee ; even now so clear, 42 So wondrous clear the heart that dreamed it so, I seem alone in my lone native land, With all about me in idolatry, Before a glass whose sleeping calm reflects Herodias, with clear look of diamond . . . Oh, last charm . . . yes ... I feel it, I am alone. NURSE You will die, lady ? HERODIAS No, good grandam, no. Be calm and leave me ; pardon this hard heart. First close the shutters, if you will. The sky Smiles like a seraph in the pane s profound, And I detest the beautiful sky. The waves Cradle themselves, and, yonder, know you not A country where the inauspicious heaven Shows Venus hated aspects, who to-night Burns in the leafage ? Thither will I go. Light again call it child s play if you will Those tapers where the wax at the light flame Weeps in the idle gold an alien tear, , And. . . . NURSE Now? HERODIAS Farewell. {Exit Nurse. 43 You lie, O naked flower Of my lips ! I await a thing unknown ! Heedless, perhaps, of the mystery and your cries, Though you fling out the supreme murdered sobs Of maidenhood that feels amid its dreams Its chill gems part at last. 1894 Ill 45 COMRADES (Read at the Sixtieth Annual Convention of the Psi Ufsilon Fraternity at Dartmouth College, Hanover, N. H., May 18, 1893) AGAIN among the hills ! The shaggy hills ! The clear arousing air comes like a call Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills My heart as if a hero had just spoken. Again among the hills ! The jubilant unbroken Long dreaming of the hills ! Far off, Ascutney smiles as one at peace; And over all The golden sunlight pours and fills The hollow of the earth, like a God s joy. Again among the hills ! The tranquil hills That took me as a boy And filled my spirit with the silences ! O indolent, far-reaching hills, that lie Secure in your own strength, and take your ease Like careless giants "neath the summer sky What is it to you, O hills, That anxious men should take thought for the morrow ? What has your might to do with thought or sorrow Or cark and cumber of conflicting wills ? 47 Lone Pine, that thron st thyself upon the height, Aloof and kingly, overlooking all, Yet uncompanioned, with the Day and Night For pageant and the winds for festival! I was thy minion once, and now renew Mine ancient fealty To that which shaped me still remaining true, And through allegiance only growing free. So with no foreign nor oblivious heart, Dartmouth, I seek once more thy granite seat ; Nor only of thy hills I feel me part, But each encounter of the village street, The ball-players on the campus, and their shouting, The runners lithe and fleet, The noisy groups of idlers, and the songs, The laughter and the flouting Spectacled comic unrelated beings With book in hand, Who mid all stir of life, all whirl of rhythms, All strivings, lovings, kissings, dreamings, seeings, Still live apart in some strange land Of aorists and ohms and logarithms All these are mine ; I greet them with a shout. Whether they will or no, they greet me too. Grave teachers and the students jocund rout, Class-room and tennis court, alike they knew My step once, and they cannot shut me out. 48 But dearer than the silence of the hills, And greater than the wisdom of the years, Is man to man, indifferent of ills, Triumphant over fears, To meet the world with loyal hearts that need No witness of their friendship but the deed. Such comrades they, the gallant Musketeers, Wrought by the master- workman of Romance, Who foiled the crafty Cardinal and saved A Queen, for episode, who braved The utmost malice of mischance, The utmost enmity of human foes, But still rode on across the fields of France, Reckless of knocks and blows, Careless of sins or woes, Incurious of each other s hearts, but sure That each for each would vanquish or endure. Praise be to you, O hills, that you can breathe Into our souls the secret of your power ! He is no child of yours, he never knew Your spirit were he born beneath Your highest crags who bears not every hour The might, the calm of you About him, that sublime Unconsciousness of all things great, Built on himself to stand the shocks of Time And scarred not shaken by the bolts of Fate. 4 49 And praise to thee, my college, that the lore Of ages may be pondered at thy feet ! That for thy sons each sage and seer of yore His runes may still repeat ! Praise that thou givest to us understanding To wring from the world s heart New answers to new doubts to make the landing On shores that have no chart ! Praise for the glory of knowing, And greater glory of the power to know ! Praise for the faith that doubts would overthrow, And which through doubts to larger faith is growing ! The sons of science are a wrangling throng, Yet through their labor what the sons of song Have wrought in clay, at last In the bronze is cast, And wind and rain no more can work it wrong. But more than strength and more than truth Oh praise the love of man and man ! Praise it for pledge of our eternal youth ! Praise it for pulse of that great gush that ran Through all the worlds, when He Who made them clapped his hands for glee, And laughed Love down the cycles of the stars. Praise all that plants it in the hearts of men, All that protects it from the hoof that mars, 5 The weed that stifles ; praise the rain That rains upon it and the sun that shines, Till it stretch skyward with its laden vines ! Praise, then, for thee, Psi Upsilon ! And never shame if it be said Thou carest little for the head, All for the heart ; for this is thy desire. Not for the social grace thou mayst impart, Not for the love of letters or of art, Albeit thou lovest them, burns thy sacred fire. Not to add one more whip to those that drive Men onward in the struggle to survive, Not to spur weary brain and tired eyes on To toil for prizes, not, Psi Upsilon, To be an annex to collegiate chairs Or make their lapses good ! Make thou no claim of use For poor excuse Why thou shouldst climb thy holier stairs Toward ends by plodders dimly understood. No, for the love of comrades only, thou ! The college is the head and thou the heart. Keep thou thy nobler part, And wear the Bacchic ivy on thy brow. Comrades, pour the wine to-night, For the parting is with dawn. Oh, the clink of cups together ; With the daylight coming on I Greet the morn With a double horn, When strong men drink together ! Comrades, gird your swords to-night, For the battle is with dawn. Oh, the clash of shields together, With the triumph coming on / Greet the foe And lay him low, When strong men fight together. Comrades, watch the tides to-night. For the sailing is with dawn. Oh, to face the spray together, With the tempest coming on / Greet the Sea With a shout of glee, When strong men roam together. Comrades, give a cheer to-night, For the dying is with dawn. Oh, to meet the stars together, With the silence coming on / Greet the end As a friend a friend, When strong men die together. 52 Hark, afar The rising of the wind among the pines, The runic wind, full of old legendries ! It talks to the ancient trees Of sights and signs And strange earth-creatures strong to make or mar, Such tales as when the firelight flickered out In the old days men heard and had no doubt. wind, what is your spell ? Borne on your cry, the ages slip away, And lo, I too am of that elder day; 1 crouch by the logs and hear With credent ear And simple marvel the far tales men tell. There came three women to a youth, and one Was brown and old, and like the bark of trees Her wrinkled skin was rough to look upon ; And one was tall and stately, and her brow Broad with large thought and many masteries, Yet bent a little as who saith " I trow ; " The third was like a breath of morning blown Across the hills in May, so blithe, so fair, With brave blue eyes, and on her yellow hair A glory by the yellow sunlight thrown. And the youth s heart flamed as a crackling fire, For his eyes were full of his heart s desire. 53 And the old crone said. to him, " Come, For I will give thee Power." And the tall dame said to him, " Come, I will give thee Wisdom and Craft." And the maid of the morning said to him, " Come, And I will give thee Love." And the youth was still as a burnt-out fire, For he knew not which was his hearts desire. Then spake the maid again ; " Oh, folly of men ! What thing is this whereat he starts and muses? Not twice the Dames of Birth Bring gifts for mirth. Choose, if thou wilt ; but he that chooses, loses." . . . Night on the hills ! And the ancient stars emerge. The silence of their mighty distances Compels the world to peace. Now sinks the surge Of life to a soft stir of mountain rills, And over the swarm and urge Of eager men sleep falls and darkling ease. Night on the hills ! Dark mother-Night, draw near* Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer So softly, oh, so softly ! Now may we 54 Be each as one that leaves his midnight task And throws his casement open ; and the air Comes up across the lowlands from the Sea And cools his temples, as a maid might ask With shy caress what speech would never dare ; And he leans back to her demure desires, And as a dream sees far below The city with its lights aglow And blesses in his heart his brothers there; Then toward the eternal stars again aspires. 1893 ONE LEAF MORE (Read at the Dinner given by the Psi Upsilon Association of Washington, February 7, 1893, to Joseph R. Hawley, on the occasion of his re-election to the United States Senate) SIR, I would do you honor in some way If my poor hand could lay a laurel more On brows already thick with martial bay And ivy evergreen, the scholar s store, And civic oak new-garlanded to-day To bind afresh where oft were bound before Its fronds forensic and are bound for aye. But you need not a poet s voice to tell The people who have honored you so long 55 Why they should love you whom they know so well. Still less does any here require my song That he should praise you whom our hearts impel To hail with homage, heartfelt, deep, and strong, To which my speech is but a tinkling bell. Still let me praise you, though more fame accrue To me than you by praising. Praise is more For him that gives than him to whom t is due. He that receives it has a bounteous store And needs it not. Who gives, grows just and true By speaking justly. You are as before, But we are better that we honor you. 1893 SPRING (Read at the Sixty-third Annual Convention of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich., May 7, 1896) I SAID in my heart, " I am sick of four walls and a ceiling. I have need of the sky. I have business with the grass. I will up and get me away where the hawk is wheeling, Lone and high, And the slow clouds go by. I will get me away to the waters that glass The clouds as they pass. 56 To the waters that lie Like the heart of a maiden aware of a doom drawing nigh And dumb for sorcery of impending joy. I will get me away to the woods. Spring, like a huntsman s boy, Halloos along the hillsides and unhoods The falcon in my will. The dogwood calls me, and the sudden thrill That breaks in apple blooms down country roads Plucks me by the sleeve and nudges me away. The sap is in the boles to-day, And in my veins a pulse that yearns and goads." When I got to the woods, I found out What the Spring was about, With her gypsy ways And her heart ablaze, Coming up from the south With the wander-lure of witch songs in her mouth. For the sky Stirred and grew soft and swimming as a lover s eye As she went by ; The air Made love to all it touched, as if its care Were all to spare ; The earth Prickled with lust of birth ; 57 The woodland streams Babbled the incoherence of the thousand dreams Wherewith the warm sun teems. And out of the frieze Of the chestnut trees I heard The sky and the fields and the thicket find voice in a bird. The goldenwing hark ! How he drives his song Like a golden nail Through the hush of the air ! I thrill to his cry in the leafage there ; I respond to the new life mounting under the bark. I shall not be long To follow With eft and bulrush, bee and bud and swallow, On the old trail. Spring in the world ! And all things are made new ! There was never a mote that whirled In the nebular morn, There was never a brook that purled When the hills were born, There was never a leaf uncurled Not the first that grew Nor a bee-flight hurled, Nor a bird-note skirled, Nor a cloud-wisp swirled In the depth of the blue, More alive and afresh and impromptu, more thought less and certain and free, More a-shout with the glee Of the Unknown new-burst on the wonder, than here, than here, In the re- wrought sphere Of the new-born year Now, now, When the greenlet sings on the red-bud bough Where the blossoms are whispering " I and thou," " I and thou," And a lass at the turn looks after her lad with a dawn on her brow, And the world is just made now ! Spring in the heart ! With her pinks and pearls and yellows ! Spring, fellows, And we too feel the little green leaves a-start Across the bare-twigged winter of the mart. The campus is reborn in us to-day ; The old grip stirs our hearts with new-old joy ; Again bursts bonds for madcap holiday The eternal boy. 59 For we have not come here for long debate Nor taking counsel for our household order, Howe er we make a feint of serious things, For all the world as in affairs of state A word goes out for war along the border To further or defeat the loves of kings. We put our house to rights from year to year, But that is not the call that brings us here ; We have come here to be glad. Give a rouse, then, in the May time For a life that knows no fear ! Turn night-time into daytime With the sunlight of good cheer / For it s always fair weather When good fellows get together With a stein on the table and a good song ringing clear. When the wind comes up from Cuba And the birds are on the wing, And our hearts are patting jub a To the banjo of the spring, Then there s no wonder whether The boys will get together, With a stein on the table and a cheer for everything. For we ">re all frank- and-twenty When the spring is in the air, 60 And we ^ve faith and hope a-plenty , And iv e ve life and love to spare j And it j birds of a feather When we all get together^ With a stein on the table and a heart without a care. For we know the world is glorious And the goal a golden thing, And that God is not censorious When his children have their fling; And life slips its tether When the boys get together. With a stein on the table in the fellowship of spring. A road runs east and a road runs west From the table where we sing ; And the lure of the one is a roving quest, And the lure of the other a lotus dream. And the eastward road leads into the West Of the lifelong chase of the vanishing gleam; And the westward road leads into the East, Where the spirit from striving is released, Where the soul like a child in God s arms lies And forgets the lure of the butterflies. And west is east, if you follow the trail to the end; And east is west, if you follow the trail to the end ; And the East and the West in the spring of the world shall blend As a man and a woman that plight 61 Their troth in the warm spring night. And the spring for the East is the sap in the heart of a tree ; And the spring for the West is the will in the wings of a bird ; But the spring for the East and the West alike shall be An urge in their bones and an ache in their spirit, a word That shall knit them in one for Time s foison, once they have heard. And do I not hear The first low stirring of that greater spring Thrill in the underworld of the cosmic year? The wafture of scant violets presaging The roses and the tasselled corn to be ; A yearning in the roots of grass and tree ; A swallow in the eaves ; The hint of coming leaves ; The signals of the summer coming up from Arcadie ! For surely in the blind deep-buried roots Of all men s souls to-day A secret quiver shoots. An underground compulsion of new birth Lays hold upon the dark core of our being, And unborn blossoms urge their uncomprehended wa) Toward the outer day. Unconscious, dumb, unseeing, 62 The darkness in us is aware Of something potent burning through the earth. Of something vital in the procreant air. Is it a spring, indeed ? Or do we stir and mutter in our dreams, Only to sleep again ? What warrant have we that we give not heed To the caprices of an idle brain That in its slumber deems The world of slumber real as it seems ? No, Spring s not to be mistaken. When her first far flute notes blow Across the snow, Bird, beast, and blossom know That she is there. The very bats awaken That hang in clusters in Kentucky caves All winter, breathless, motionless, asleep, And feel no alteration of the air, For all year long those vasty caverns keep, Winter and summer, even temperature ; And yet when April whistles on the hill, Somehow , far in those subterranean naves, They know, they hear her, they obey her will, And wake and circle through the vaulted aisles To find her in the open where she smiles. 63 So we are somehow sure, By this dumb turmoil in the soul of man, Of an impending something. When the stress Climbs to fruition, we can only guess What many-seeded harvest we shall scan; But from one impulse, like a northering sun, The innumerable outburst is begun, And in that common sunlight all men know A common ecstasy And feel themselves at one. The comradeship of joy and mystery Thrills us more vitally as we arouse, And we shall find our new day intimate Beyond the guess of any long ago. Doubting or elate, With agony or triumph on our brows, We shall not fail to be Better comrades than before ; For no new sense puts forth in us but we Enter our fellows lives thereby the more. And three great spirits with the spirit of man Go forth to do his bidding. One is free, And one is shackled, and the third, unbound, Halts yet a little with a broken chain Of antique workmanship, not wholly loosed, That dangles and impedes his forthright way. Unfettered, swift, hawk-eyed, implacable, 64 The wonder-worker, Science, with his wand, Subdues an alien world to man s desires. And Art with wide imaginative wings Stands by, alert for flight, to bear his lord Into the strange heart of that alien world Till he shall live in it as in himself And know its longing as he knows his own. Behind a little, where the shadows fall, Lingers Religion with deep-brooding eyes, Serene, impenetrable, transpicuous As the all-clear and all-mysterious sky, Biding her time to fuse into one act Those other twain, man s right hand and his left. For all the bonds shall be broken and rent in sunder, And the soul of man go free Forth with those three Into the lands of wonder ; Like some undaunted youth, Afield in quest of truth, Rejoicing in the road he journeys on As much as in the hope of journey done. And the road runs east, and the road runs west, That his vagrant feet explore ; And he knows no haste and he knows no rest, And every mile has a stranger zest Than the miles he trod before ; And his heart leaps high in the nascent year 5 65 When he sees the purple buds appear ; For he knows, though the great black frost may blight The hope of May in a single night, That the spring, though it shrink back under the bark, But bides its time somewhere in the dark Though it come not now to its blossoming, By the thrill in his heart he knows the spring ; And the promise it makes perchance too soon, It shall keep with its roses yet in June ; For the ages fret not over a day, And the greater to-morrow is on its way. 1896 MEN OF DARTMOUTH MEN of Dartmouth, give a rouse For the college on the hill ! For the Lone Pine above her And the loyal men who love her, Give a rouse, give a rouse, with a will ! For the sons of old Dartmouth, The sturdy sons of Dartmouth Though round the girdled earth they roam, Her spell on them remains; They have the still North in their hearts, The hill-winds in their veins, And the granite of New Hampshire In their muscles and their brains. 66 They were mighty men of old That she nurtured at her side, Till like Vikings they went forth From the lone and silent North, And they strove, and they wrought, and they died. But the sons of old Dartmouth, The laurelled sons of Dartmouth The mother keeps them in her heart And guards their altar-flame ; The still North remembers them, The hill-winds know their name, And the granite of New Hampshire Keeps the record of their fame. Men of Dartmouth, set a watch Lest the old traditions fail ! Stand as brother stands by brother! Dare a deed for the old Mother ! Greet the world, from the hills, with a hail ! For the sons of old Dartmouth, The loyal sons of Dartmouth Around the world they keep for her Their old chivalric faith; They have the still North in their souls, The hill-winds in their breath ; And the granite of New Hampshire Is made part of them till death. 1894 67 THE OLD PINE (Dartmouth College.) IT stood upon the hill like some old chief, And held communion with the cryptic wind, Keeping like some dim, unforgotten grief, The memory of tribesmen autumn-skinned, Silent and slow as clouds, whose footing passed Down the remote trails of oblivion Long since into the shadows of the Past. Alone, aloof, strong fellow of the sun, We chose it for our standard in its prime ; Nor, though no longer grimly from its hill It fronts the world like Webster, wind nor time Have felled its austere ghost. We see it still, In alien lands, resurgent and undying, Flag of our hearts, from sudden ramparts flying. IN MEMORIAM (A. H. Quint) MOURN we who honored him but knew him not ; Grieve ye who loved him, looking on his face ; Be mindful, Dartmouth, of each strenuous trace That keeps his loyal record unforgot. 68 There is no faithlessness in grief, God wot; However high the hope or clear the gaze, There must be tears at every burial-place, Though through the tears the very sky be shot. For death is like the passing of a star That melts into the splendor of the dawn. Were we beyond this air that blurs our sight In the clear ether where the angels are, We should behold it still ; but now, withdrawn In sunrise, lose it, looking on the light. 1896 DARTMOUTH ODE I Out of the hills came a voice to nte, Out of the pine woods a cry: " THOU hast numbered and named us, O man. Hast thou known us at all ? Thou hast riven our rocks for their secrets, and measured our heights As a hillock is measured. But are we revealed ? Canst thou call Ascutney thy fellow? Or is it thou Kearsarge invites ? 69 What speech have we given thee, measurer cleaver of stones ? For we talk to the day-star at dawning, the night- winds o nights, And our days are a tongue that thou hearest not, digger of bones ! " O you who would know us, come out from the roofs you have made, And plunge in our waters and breathe the sharp joy of the air ! Let the hot sun beat down on your foreheads, lie prone in the shade, With your hearts to the roots and the mosses, climb till you stare From the summit that juts like an island up into the sky! Watch the clouds pass by day, and by night let the power of Altair And Arcturus and Vega be on you to lift you on high ! " For our heart is not down on the maps, nor our magic in books ; But the lover that seeks us shall find us, and keep in his heart Every rune of our slow-heaving hillsides, the spaces and nooks Of our woodlands, the sleep of our waters. His thoughts shall be part 70 Of our thoughts, and his ways shall be with us. His spirit shall flee From the gluttons of fact. He shall dwell, as the hills dwell, apart. He only that loves us and lives with us, knows what we be." I hear you, O woods and hills I I hearken, O wind of the North ! II Daughter of the woods and hills, Dartmouth, my stern Rock-boned and wind-brown sibyl of the snows! First in thy praise whom we can never praise Enough, I lay my laurel in my turn Before thee in thy uplands. No one goes Forth from thy granite through the summer days. And many a land of apple and of rose, Keeping in his heart more faithfully than I The love of thy grim hills and northern sky. Mother of Webster ! Mother of men ! Being great, Be greater ; let the honor of thy past, For which we sit in festival, elate, Be but the portent of thy larger fate, The adumbration of a deed more vast With eyes upon the future, thou and we Shall better celebrate the past we praise, And in the pledge of unaccomplished days Find a new joy thrill through our pride in thee. Ill O Dartmouth, nurse of men, I see your games To make men strong, your books to make them wise; But there is other sight than that of eyes, And other strength than that which strikes and maims. What hast thou done to purge the passions pure, To wake the myriad instincts that lie sleeping Within us unaroused and undivined, As forests in a hazel-nut endure ; To fashion fmelier our joy and weeping, Inspire us intuitions swift and sure, And give us soul as manifold as mind; To make us scholars in the lore of feeling, And turn the world to beauty and revealing? O justly proud of thy first strenuous years ! Be not content that thou hast nurtured well The hardy prowess of thy pioneers. Among thy fellows bold, be thou the first, Still guarding sacredly the antique well, To seek new springs to quench the ages thirst. Take up the axe, O woodman of the soul, And break new paths through tangled ignorance ; Dare the unknown, till on thy jubilant glance 72 The prairies of the spirit shall unroll. For thou mayest teach us all that thou hast taught, Nor slay the earlier instinct of the Faun, Whose intimacy with earth and air withdrawn, There rests but hearsay knowledge in our thought. And thou mayest make us the familiars of The woodlands of desire, the crags of fate, The lakes of worship and the dells of love, Even as the Faun is Nature s intimate. For God lacks not his seers, and Art is strong, And spirit unto spirit utters speech, Nor is there any heaven beyond the reach Of them that know the masteries of Song. IV Oh, the mind and its kingdoms are goodly, and well for the brain That has craft to discover and cunning to bind to its will And wisdom to weigh at its worth all the wealth they contain. But the heart has its empire as well, and he shall fare ill Who has learned not the way to its meadows. His knowledge shall be A bitter taste in his heart; he shall spit at his skill ; And the days of his life shall be sterile and salt as the sea. 73 Ay, save the man s love be made greater, even know ledge shall wane, And burn to the mere dry shrivelled mummy of thought, As the sweet grass withers and dies if it get not the rain. But we oh, what have we done that the heart should be taught ? We have given men brawn without love t is the Brute come again ; We have given men brain without love t is the Fiend. Is there aught We have given to greaten the soul, we who dare to shape men ? Oh, train we the body for beauty, and train we the soul Not only as mind but as man, not to know but to be ! Give us masters to fashion our hearts ! Let the fool be a mole And burrow his life out ; the wise man shall be as a tree That sends down his roots to the mole-world, but laughs in the air With his flowers, and his branches shall stretch to the sun to get free ; And the shepherds and husbandmen feed of the fruit he shall bear, I2$th anniversary of the college, 1894 74 A WINTER THOUGHT OF DARTMOUTH IN MANHATTAN OLD Mother! Mother off in the hills, by the banks of the beautiful river ! River lacquered with pale green luminous ice Now, and the shouldered ridges ermined with flushed white snow Our thoughts go back to thee, Mother, Straggle up the Connecticut, and by Bellows Falls and the Junction, Find thee at last on thy hills, and embrace thy knees, old Mother. We do not follow our thoughts upon that journey; We have left thee, as men leave mothers, Choosing and wedding their wives and cleaving thenceforth to them only. Ah, she is stronger than thou, she who now holds us ; She that sits by the sea, new-crowned with a five-fold tiara ; She of the great twin harbors, our lady of rivers and islands ; Tower-topped Manhattan, With feet reeded round with the masts of the five great oceans 75 Flowering the flags of all nations, flaunting and furling, City of ironways, city of ferries, Sea-Queen and Earth-Queen ! Look, how the line of her roofs coming down from the north Breaks into surf-leap of granite jagged sierras Upheaval volcanic, lined sharp on the violet sky Where the red moon, lop-sided, past the full, Over their ridge swims in the tide of space, And the harbor waves laugh softly, silently. Look, how the overhead train at the Morningside curve Loops like a sea-born dragon its sinuous flight, Loops in the night in and out, high up in the air, Like a serpent of stars with the coil and undulant reach of waves. From under the Bridge at noon See from the yonder shore how the great curves rise and converge, Like the beams of the universe, like the masonry of the sky, Like the arches set for the corners of the world, The foundation-stone of the orbic spheres and spaces. 76 Is she not fair and terrible, O Mother City of Titan thews, deep-breasted, colossal-limbed, Splendid with the spoil of nations, myriad-mooded Manhattan ? Behold, we are hers she has claimed us ; and who has power to withstand her ? Nevertheless, old Mother, we do not forget thee. Thine is the past ! Thine are the old recollections, the love of the boy hood still in us, As the sprout still lives in the bough and remembers March in the summer. Sword and ploughshare and engine forget not the days When the crude ore went to the smelting and the hammers rang on thy anvils. This is a letter we send from ocean-dominioned Manhattan, Bearing the love of a boy from the heart of a man, Bearing the never-evading remembrance of thee and the hills and the river, Thornton and Wentworth and Reed and the century- hollowed stairways of Dartmouth, The old rooms where we laughed and strove and sang, Where others now hark, do I hear them ? Sing in the winter night, while Orion rises and glistens. For the Dartmouth Dinner, New York, 1898. 77 OUR LIEGE LADY, DARTMOUTH UP with the green ! Comrades, our Queen Over the hill-tops comes to convene Liege men all to her muster. Easy her chain ! Blithe be her reign, Queened in our heart s love, never a stain Dimming her scutcheon s lustre ! Up with the green ! God save our Queen ! Throned on the hills of her highland demense, Royal and beautiful, wise and serene, Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! Gallant and leal ! Truer than steel ! Loyally gather about her and kneel Here at her flag s unfurling. Welcome her near cheer upon cheer, Shout till the hawk far above us may hear, Where the clouds in the sky are curling. Starry her fame, Heaven-born dame ! Cannon and trumpet salute her high name ! Hear the ranks ring with the royal acclaim : Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! Laurel and vine, what shall we twine Meet for her brow who sits under the pine Far from the mad town s jarring ? Gracious and fair, see in her hair 78 Jewels her noblest have brought her to wear, Won in the world s stern warring ! Stainless her throne ! Royal and lone ! Born in the purple the sunsets have thrown Over the mountains by God s grace her own, Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! Hail to the Queen ! Look, where the green Folds of her banners about her are seen, Flash of her knight s cuirasses ! True-hearted throng, break into song ! Rally her cavaliers, faithful and strong ! Shout as her ensign passes : Up with the green ! God save our Queen ! Throned on the hills of her highland demesne, Royal and beautiful, wise and serene, Our Liege Lady, Dartmouth ! 1891 HANOVER WINTER-SONG Ho, a song by the fire ! (Pass the pipes, fill the bowl !) Ho, a song by the fire ! With a skoal ! . . . For the wolf wind is whining in the doorways, And the snow drifts deep along the road, And the ice-gnomes are marching from their Norways, 79 And the great white cold walks abroad. (Boo-oo-o ! pass the bowl !) For here by the fire We defy frost and storm. Ha, ha ! we are warm And we have our hearts desire; For here s four good fellows And the beechwood and the bellows, And the cup is at the lip In the pledge of fellowship. Skoal ! For "Dartmouth Songs" 1898. 80 IV 8i THE FAUN (A Fantasy of the Washington Woodlands.) I WILL go out to grass with that old King, For I am weary of clothes and cooks. I long to paddle with the throats of brooks, To lie down with the clover Tickling me all over, And watch the boughs above me sway and swing. Come, I will pluck off custom s livery, Nor longer be a lackey to old Time. Time shall serve me, and at my feet shall fling The spoil of listless minutes. I shall climb The wild trees for my food, and run Through dale and upland as a fox runs free, Laugh for cool joy and sleep i the warm sun, And men will call me mad, like that old King. For I am woodland-natur d, and have made Dryads my bedfellows, And I have played With the sleek Naiads in the splash of pools And made a mock of gowned and trousered fools. And I am half Faun now, and my heart goes Out to the forest and the crack of twigs, The drip of wet leaves, and the low soft laughter Of brooks that chuckle o er old mossy jests And say them over to themselves, the nests 83 Of squirrels, and the holes the chipmunk digs, Where through the branches the slant rays Dapple with sunlight the leaf-matted ground, And th wind comes with blown vesture rustling after, And through the woven lattice of crisp sound A bird s song lightens like a maiden s face. O wildwood Helen, let them strive and fret, Those goggled men with their dissecting knives ! Let them in charnel-houses pass their lives And seek in death life s secret ! And let Those hard-faced worldlings, prematurely old, Gnaw their thin lips with vain desire to get Portia s fair fame or Lesbia s carcanet, Or crown of Caesar or Catullus, Apicius lampreys or Crassus gold ! For these consider many things but yet By land nor sea They shall not find the way to Arcadie, The old home of the awful heart-dear Mother, Whereto child-dreams and long rememberings lull us, Far from the cares that overlay and smother The memories of old woodland outdoor mirth In the dim first life-burst centuries ago, The sense of the freedom and nearness of Earth Nay, this they shall not know ; For who goes thither Leaves all the cark and clutch of his soul behind, 84 The doves defiled and the serpents shrined, The hates that wax and the hopes that wither; Nor does he journey, seeking where it be, But wakes and finds himself in Arcadie. Hist! there s a stir in the brush. Was it a face through the leaves ? Back of the laurels a scurry and rush Hillward, then silence, except for the thrush That throws one song from the dark of the bush And is gone ; and I plunge in the wood, and the swift soul cleaves Through the swirl and the flow of the leaves, As a swimmer stands with his white limbs bare to the sun For the space that a breath is held, and drops in the sea; And the undulant woodland folds round me, intimate, fluctuant, free, Like the clasp and the cling of waters, and the reach and the effort is done ; There is only the glory of living, exultant to be. Oh, goodly damp smell of the ground ! Oh, rough sweet bark of the trees ! Oh, clear sharp cracklings of sound ! Oh, life that s a-thrill and a-bound With the vigor of boyhood and morning and the noontide s rapture of ease ! 85 Was there ever a weary heart in the world ? A lag in the body s urge, or a flag of the spirit s wings ? Did a man s heart ever break For a lost hope s sake ? For here there is lilt in the quiet and calm in the quiver of things. Ay, this old oak, grey-grown and knurled, Solemn and sturdy and big, Is as young of heart, as alert and elate in his rest, As the oriole there that clings to the tip of the twig And scolds at the wind that it buffets too rudely his nest. Hear! hear! hear! Listen ! the word Of the mocking-bird ! Hear! hear! hear / I will make all clear; I will let yoit know Where the footfalls go That through the thicket and over the hill Allure, allure. How the bird-voice cleaves Through the weft of leaves With a leap and a thrill Like the flash of the weaver s shuttle, swift and sudden and sure 1 86 And lo, he is gone even while I turn The wisdom of his runes to learn. He knows the mystery of the wood, The secret of the solitude ; But he will not tell, he will not tell For all he promises so well. Oh, what is it breathes in the air ? Oh, what is it touches my cheek ? There s a sense of a presence that lurks in the branches. But where ? Is it far, is it far to seek ? Brother, lost brother ! Thou of mine ancient kin ! Thou of the swift will that no ponderings smother ! The dumb life in me fumbles out to the shade Thou lurkest in. In vain evasive ever through the glade Departing footsteps fail ; And only where the grasses have been pressed Or by snapt twigs I follow a fruitless trail. So give o er the quest ! Sprawl on the roots and moss ! Let the lithe garter squirm across my throat ! Let the slow clouds and leaves above me float Into mine eyeballs and across, Nor think them further ! Lo, the marvel ! now, Thou whom my soul desireth, even thou 87 Sprawl st by my side, who fled st at my pursuit. I hear thy fluting ; at my shoulder there I see the sharp ears through the tangled hair, And birds and bunnies at thy music mute. Cool ! cool ! cool! Cool and sweet The feel of the moss at my feet! And sweet and cool The touch of the wind, of the wind! Cool wind out of the blue. At the touch of you A little wave crinkles andjlows All over me down to my toes. "Coo-loo f Coo-loo J" Hear the doves in the tree tops croon / " Coo-loo ! Coo-loo ! " Love comes soon. "June! June!" The veery sings, Sings and sings, "June I June!" A pretty tune ! Wind with your weight of perfume ^ Bring me the bluebells bloom / 88 Ah, too much charmed I seek thee, and again Thou meltest in the shadows. Now the breath Of evening comes, and at the word she saith I rise and turn back toward the streets of men. First up the hill to where the trees are few, To pause halfway between the wood and town And, strengthened with the Faun s delight, look down Upon the roofs I am returning to. The fervid breath of our flushed Southern May Is sweet upon the city s throat and lips, As a lover s whose tired arm slips Listlessly over the shoulder of a queen. Far away The river melts in the unseen. Oh, beautiful Girl-City, how she dips Her feet in the stream With a touch that is half a kiss and half a dream ! Her face is very fair, With flowers for smiles and sunlight in her hair. My westland flower-town, how serene she is ! Here on this hill from which I look at her, All is still as if a worshipper Left at some shrine his offering. Soft winds kiss My cheek with a slow lingering. A luring whisper where the laurels stir Wiles my heart back to woodland-ward again. But lo, Across the sky the sunset couriers run, And I remain To watch the imperial pageant of the sun Mock me, an impotent Cortez here below, With splendors of its vaster Mexico. O Eldorado of the templed clouds ! O golden city of the western sky ! Not like the Spaniard would I storm thy gates; Not like the babe stretch chubby hands and cry To have thee for a toy ; but, far from crowds, Like my Faun-brother in the ferny glen, Peer from the wood s edge while thy glory waits, And in the darkening thickets plunge again. 1894 SWALLOW SONG (From the Greek) HURRAH, the swallow, the swallow is come, Bringing the spring from his southern home, The beautiful hours, the beautiful year ! Hurrah, the swallow is back from his flight, With his back of jet and his breast of white, The Summer s earliest harbinger ! 90 Come, roll out some figs from your cellar, old fellow ! Bring a beaker of wine that is ruddy and mellow, And a wicker crate heaped up with cheeses ! Be it bread of pulse or bread of wheat, The swallow will not disdain to eat. Oh, the swallow and spring and the buds and the breezes ! Will you send us away, or shall we receive The best that your larder is able to give? We warn you be generous, for if you say nay, Your gate shall be torn from its hinge and destroyed, Or your wife, who is sitting within, be decoyed, She is small, we can easily bear her away. Bring your gifts to the swallow, but if you bring aught, Bring all that you can, bring more than is sought ; Open your doors for his welcoming ; For we are not grey old men, not we, But children who laugh in juvenile glee, And sing in life s springtide this song of the spring. 1883 A HEALTH. TO E. C. S. HERE s your health in Burgundy And here s your health in rye, Until our betters drink your health In nectar by and bye. 1897 THE DRAMATIST. TO M. K. NOT to reveal one mystery That lurks beneath life s garment-hem Alas, I write of human hearts Because I cannot fathom them. DELSARTE As at the altar of the unknown God Even so we stood before the shrine of Art. Ignorant, we worshipped till the hill was trod By the Apostle. Whom but thee, Delsarte ? 1893 WORLD AND POET " SING to us, Poet, for our hearts are broken ; Sing us a song of happy, happy love, Sing of the joy that words leave all unspoken, The lilt and laughter of life, oh sing thereof ! Oh, sing of life, for we are sick and dying; Oh, sing of joy, for all our joy is dead ; Oh, sing of laughter, for we know but sighing ; Oh, sing of kissing, for we kill instead ! " How should he sing of happy love, I pray, Who drank love s cup of anguish long ago ? How should he sing of life and joy and day, 92 Who whispers Death to end his night of woe ? And yet the Poet took his lyre and sang, Till all the dales with happy echoes rang. 1891 THE SOUTH AH, where the hot wind with sweet odors laden Across the roses faintly beats his wings, Lifting a lure of subtle murmurings Over the still pools that the herons wade in, Telling of some far s unset-bo wered Aidenn, And in an orange-tree an oriole sings, Whereunder lies, dreaming of unknown things, With orange-blossoms wreathed, a radiant maiden, There is the poet s land, there would I lie Under magnolia blooms and take no care, And let my eyes grow languid and my mouth Glow with the kisses of the amorous air, And breathe with every breath the luxury Of the hot-cheeked, sweet, heavy-lidded South. 1883 A CAPRICE OF OGAROW. TO M. P. IT is a sweet coquetting. I can see Above the fan the rogue eyes merry leer, The fitful feigned retreatings that appear To court pursuit, the cheeks that dimple with glee 93 Like a lake struck by a light wind, feet that flee A little way and wait as if for fear Light love should yield the chase, so sweet and clear The violin speech tells its tale to me. O art s rose lady, such themes have their part In beryl-wrought rare delicate interludes ; But give not unto these thy queenlier art. Rather shouldst thou unsphinx the rarer moods Of Chopin passioning in a star s red heart, Or Schubert sighing in the solitudes. 1887 THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS THE maiden knew the hero was divine, For when she saw him, was she not content ? So in the satisfaction of the heart We find his praise, nor with too noisy art Proclaim the beauty past all ornament Of his precise and unsuperfluous line. 1892 BEETHOVEN S THIRD SYMPHONY. PASSION and pain, the outcry of despair, The pang of unattainable desire, And youth s delight in pleasures that expire, And sweet high dreamings of the good and fair 94 Clashing in swift soul-storm, through which no prayer Uplifted stays the destined death-stroke dire ! Then through a mighty sorrowing as through fire The soul burnt pure yearns forth into the air Of the dear earth and, with the scent of flowers And song of birds refreshed, takes heart again, Made cheerier with this drinking of God s wine, And turns with healing to the world of men : And high above a sweet strong angel towers And Love makes life triumphant and divine. 1888 AUGUST THE white sky and the white sea run Their twin pearl-splendors into one, Nor can the eye distinguish these, Enchanted by the diableries The mist-witch conjures in the sun. Landward a white birch, like a nun, Whispers her leafy rosaries. Beyond, where the still woodland is, The blue west leadens into dun, Close to the dark tops of the trees. 1886 95 A BALLADE OF MYSTERIES DOCTOR, I pray you, do no more wrong To the drugged dog there in the horrid room. Come, unmuzzle ; disclose how the stars prolong Thin lines of light through the infinite gloom, And how life sprang in the primal spume. Then I 11 tell you how the bells ding-dong Holds sweet talk with the birds i the broom, And the poet s heart is astir with song. Sage, who discernest in winter s thong The thought at the heart of June s perfume, Say, how grows the weak babe wise and strong, And how is Thought born, and by whom May the Fates be lured from the pitiless loom, And what is Right and what is Wrong ? Then I 11 tell you why the breakers boom, And the poet s heart is astir with song. Priest, tell me now, ere the even-song, How God lay hid in the Virgin s womb, Who filleth the depth and the height of the long Sky-reaches, and how men s mouths consume His flesh that rose from the sacred tomb. Then I 11 tell you how the clouds give tongue To a message from God of a grand sweet doom, And the poet s heart is astir with song. 96 Princess, say how the heart makes room For love, where the cares of a kingdom throng. Then I 11 tell you why the roses bloom And the poet s heart is astir with song. 1887 THE SHADOWS DUMB as the dead, with furtive tread, Unseen, unheard, unknown, And never a Gloom that turns his head As they stride where I crouch alone ! For this is the grisliest horror there As the brutal bulks go by ; Right on they fare, with a stony stare, Nor heed me where I lie. Though I strain my eyes as I freeze and cringe Till the sockets sizzle dry, And the eyeball shrieks like a rusty hinge, They will never impinge mine eye. I shall see nought but the silver darks Of the sky and the dim sea, Where horrid silver loops and arcs Foam phosphorent at me. 7 97 But the cliff, the cliff ! Lo, where thereon Their silent shadows file, One after one, one after one, Mile on remorseless mile. Dull red, like embers in a grate, Against the sulphur crag, They play about the feet of Fate Their awful game of tag. 1893 ANGRO-MAINYUS I AM the Most High God ; Worship thou me ! Put not up vain prayers to avert my wrath, For my wrath shall fall like the thunderbolt And thou shalt be cleft asunder as an oak. I am Angro-mainyus, the Most High God. Cry not unto me for mercy, for I am merciless. Sin and Death are my ministers, And my ways are ways of torture and the shedding of blood. I am the Lord thy God. I am the Destroyer. My sword is as fire in the forest ; 98 My feet are inexorable. Ask me not to deliver thee from evil. I am Evil. Ahura-mazda is God too, The beneficent one, the savior ! He dwelleth in the Sun, But I in the terror of tempests. There are two thrones, but one God. The waves of the sea war mightily, But in the deeps there is calm. Ahura-mazda and I are one God ; There is war between our legions, But in us peace. Behold, he knoweth my thoughts and I his, And there is no discord in us. He worketh in light And I in darkness ; His ways and my ways are asunder. But blaspheme not, calling me " Devil," Neither saying, " There are two Gods ; " I am the Most High God, And I and Ahura-mazda are one. 1888 99 IMMANENCE Enthroned above the world although he sit, Still is the world in him and he in it ; The selfsame power in yonder sunset glows That kindled in the lords of Holy Writ. 1893 TRANSCENDENCE THOUGH one with all that sense or soul can see, Not prisoned in his own creations he, His life is more than stars or winds or angels The sun doth not contain him nor the sea. 1893 VISITATION WAS it a dream, or did I see him there, That quiet presence in my easy-chair ? Surely a sacred hush was in the room, And a dim sense of legends made the gloom Of unlit tapers and a dying fire Rich with the grace of wonderland drawn nigher And there across the table, who but he? I cannot think but that he thought of me, Far off, in some diviner atmosphere, And, thinking so, if he did not appear 100 Indeed, as I half fancied then, and now Still sometimes dream, so clear the wide calm brow, Shadowed with a sweet seriousness, I see Across the table in my reverie Yet, thinking so, his loving thought had power To make me feel his presence like a flower That sends a heavy odor through the air, To make me see him, though he was not there. gentle ghost ! I would that I could deem That I were worthy of that passing dream. 1 would that I could think that my poor song Had reached thee where thou walkest with the throng Of gracious poets in their glory crowned, Shakespeare and Burns and Shelley laurel-bound, And pleased thee but so much as thou shouldst turn And yield one sigh for those who still must mourn On this harsh earth, one sigh for him whose line Were too much graced in that one thought of thine. 1891 IN EXCEISIS ,1,, ; I SAW a man alone upon a height, With face toward heaven. I asked what did he there. " For thirty years I have known the stars ; to-night," He said, " I see the angels and despair." 1896 101 THE VEILED LADY WHOSO hath seen her brow displayed, Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. She passeth through our streets arrayed In weeds that screen her from men s sight None knoweth if in that veil bedight Lurk loathsome hag or lovesome maid. Whoso hath seen her brow displayed Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. Men pass her daily undismayed, Yet often in the sleepless night Cry " Grace or Gorgon ? " sore afraid ; But no word comes from any wight. Whoso hath seen her brow displayed, Keeps silence of its bloom or blight. 1888 THE MESSENGER (For the Picture by G. P. Watts) STRONG angel of the peace of God, Not wholly undivined thy mien; Along the weary path I trod Thou hast been with me though unseen. 102 My hopes have been a mad turmoil, A clutch and conflict all my life, The very craft I loved a toil, And love itself a seed of strife. But sometimes in a sudden hour I have been great with Godlike calm, As if thy tranquil world of power Flowed in about me like a psalm. And peace has fallen on my face, And stillness on my struggling breath ; And, living, I have known a space The hush and mastery of Death. Stretch out thy hand upon me, thou Who comest as the still night comes! I have not flinched at buffets ; now Let Strife go by, with all his drums. 1894 HENRY GEORGE (Died October 29, 1897) OH, be his death a clarion To hearten, not dismay ! Fight on ! We have not lost the day. . . . 103 Ay, if the day be lost, what then? The cause, the cause endures. Be men The triumph yet is yours, The triumph every cause has won That called men to be free ! Fight on, Indomitable as he As he, our captain without stain, The Bayard of the poor. Be men ! Flinch no man in this hour. Remember him that knew no fear, And craved no diadem. A cheer! Be that his requiem. 1897 104 ios BENZAQUEN : A FRAGMENT BOOK I SOUL of the East! Thou strong still angel whose great wings, Stretched moveless in the air, outspread from Himalay To Sinai and the dreaming Nile ! Whose ponderings Fill the rich womb of Asia with the sons of day ! Under the shadow of whose brooding thought the earth Breeds mysteries and devotions ! Shalt thou not alway, As in the beginning, bring the lords of life to birth ? For we, whom Michael, the fierce spirit of the West, Leads to the storm of Heaven with call of drum and fife, We are the lords of earth, lords of the endless quest, Lords of the violent and immitigable strife, Lords of the lightnings, lords of iron, lords of the Deed; But thine, O East, the lords of life and the springs of life, Lords of the void spaces of the soul s extreme need. Therefore to thee, as when at nightfall o er the hills The shadows creep and overhead the silent stars 107 Kindle their furtive fires, and all the deep heaven fills With soundless splendors ; then the warder Sleep unbars The gates of dream even so to thee we come and seek Peace and the mirrored vision that no tumult mars, The wisdom only Death and Night and Silence speak. Under the cloudlike sweep of those unmoving pinions Wherewith the soul of Asia floats and dreams unstirred, High on the slope of that sheer mount whose peak dominions The valley of Lake Van, roamed over by the Kurd, Ali the poet lay, and fever crunched his bones; And by him moved with gentle step and soothing word The teacher, Benzaquen, and groaned but stilled his groans. At last the sick man slept ; and Benzaquen arose And walked along the soaring pathway, where beneath The valley lay o erpurpled ; and across his brows The wind laid its long fingers gently till his teeth 108 Relaxed their clenching and his heart grew calm. He sighed, As one that wakes from a deep trance and with his breath Drinks life in eagerly, and, " Gentle God," he cried, tl How comely in the morning is thy face; how fair Among the valleys is the coming of thy feet ! The air is glad of thee ; yea, as a maid the air Trembles and blushes for her lover. Behold, the wheat Bows down before thee in the sun ; the sesame Bends low beneath thy kisses, for thy lips are sweet; The peaches and pomegranates stir and worship thee. " How loving is the Lord God and how strong withal ! The fig-tree putteth forth her fruit in the fair weather ; The clusters of the vine hang purple on the wall : But the north wind awakes and the black frost strides hither, And the bare boughs stretch gaunt in prayer against their doom. The hand of the Lord God is upon them and they wither ; The hand of the Lord God is upon them and they bloom. 109 " Praise him, ye hills ; praise him, ye beech-trees of Sapan ! Praise him, sun and air and divine reach of blue ! Praise him, ye rivers ; praise him, violet waves of Van ! Praise him, clouds and vapors and dear drench of the dew ! Praise him, ye caverns of Mount Ala, ye fountains welling In the groves of Baghlar ; for his tarrying is with you, Here is the garden of the Lord, and this is his dwelling." He ceased ; his chin fell on his bosom and he wept, For sudden longing smote him for the boy that lay Sick in the cavern, his disciple ; and he kept Weeping, and willingly he could have turned to pray The Divine Father of all to hear and save the youth, But would not ; so his heart grew heavier alway. But him Sandalphon heard, the angel, and had ruth And came to him ; and like a wind he came whose touch Rustles the leaves in Baghlar. Thereon Benzaquen Lifted his eyes and saw him, in apparel such As at Baghdad in the schools among the elder men The young aspirant wears. " Master," the angel said, " Why weepest thou ? " But he, not knowing him, again Let fall his eyes and spake not, sad, uncomforted. no The angel spake on : "In the streets of Van men say, And in Kharput, that Ali, he who did not fail In the hour when all rejected thee, and in the day Of exile left thee not, thy comfort, waxeth frail With fever and, without God, in three days is dead, For even thy knowledge, wise hakim, doth not avail." And Benzaquen made answer unto him and said : " Is my name heard in Van ? Or in Kharput doth any Remember me ? How know they if I come or go ? " He paused with nostrils wide for scorn of many and many; Then sighed again with " Son, all this thou sayest is so. Why troublest thou me ? " And Sandalphon answered sweet : " Though I be young, I may speak wisdom ; yea, although I be not old, my conversation may be meet. " Righteous hast thou been from thy youth ; thy voice is heard, Morning and evening, praising God. Thou hast put down The atheist in the market-place, and with a word Confuted them that doubt ; the young men of the town in Heard thee and scorned the scoffers. Shall God, then, despise Thy pleading, or if thou implore him, shall he frown ? Open thy heart to him, beseech him and be wise ! " Then Benzaquen rose up and answered, and his speech Was wrathful : " Knowest thou so much, and know- est not this, That therefore was I cast out from among them that teach ; And therefore was my name writ down with words that hiss And sear into my soul, Accurst; therefore, re belling, I bide alone and know no more my father s kiss ; Therefore the caverns of Mount Ala are my dwelling ! " Because I would not speak vain words to the All Wise, Nor blur discretion, babbling. Shall a man aspire Before Him who controls the inexorable skies To say This thing is good or That thing I desire ? Who then is he takes counsel with the Almighty? Who 112 Enlargeth knowledge and judgment for the Eternal Sire? Who thinks to change his will, or mould his works anew ? " Shall the iron argue with the smith what it would be? Or shall the wrought iron reason with the iron monger To whom it would be sold ? Though all men cry, shall He Who shifts not, alter ? The old seek safety and the younger Folly ; but his remorseless laws are not reversed. Shall the fruits ripen ere their season if I hunger? Or shall the desert give forth water if I thirst? " Consider the stars, how they obey their times and seasons ; Their rising and their setting has been fixed for aye. When the recurring heavens shall fail, there may be reasons To hope that God shall hearken unto them that pray. . . . But thou, if thou hast sought me not for disputation Or pride of speech but kindly-hearted, make no stay, But get thee to the city to the habitation 8 113 "Of Hafiz the physician; beg of him three grains Of that elixir that the great Al-Mamun gave When we two knew him at Baghdad. There yet remains This one chance to redeem the sick man from the grave ; But save this I know not what hope there be in art." Sandalphon answered not ; angelic natures crave The soul s guest-welcome, in the inhospitable heart They have no power to enter, and they hold their peace. Even so Sandalphon; and he bowed his comely head With courtesy celestial, then between the trees Departed. Benzaquen looked after as he sped Down the steep pathway with so light a step it seemed More like the swallow s flight along the ground than tread Of a man walking. But even as he looked he dreamed Self-elsewhered and lost sight, and when he looked once more Nought moving saw he save the cony in the rocks And on the air the silent vulture far a-soar. And as the shepherd turns at evening with his flocks "4 Foldward, and with the calm of nightfall in his thought Feels, as he passes in the fields the restful ox, Sweet kinship; so the teacher, strangely peaceful, sought Again his cave, and lo ! upon a rock-shelf there Lay the elixir. All the place was fraught about With odor, and upon the sleeping Ali s hair The sun fell like a mystic wine of light poured out In cupfuls. Benzaquen stood motionless and gazed Upon the vial with a wild and wondering doubt, Silent, uncomprehending, ominous, amazed. 1893 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $I.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. SEP 22 1933 JUL 3 1 1954 ftp R 24 1 AUG 193S , " EC 6 1Ttt CCD V hi 1UOft V 1 J>v> MAY 21 1942K Xr ^ D yyo FEE? 13 1Q4S *- i fi nf-cMp"^ o~>>-~*O Hi4? /.^ja" u*^D w 834721 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY