^^flB fc^ ^mL ■*''ie«A/= Z^^ B^ — ^^K^ ^^9 ■i" ^'^J Poems ^ Nev7 England (§tvdb Old Spain UC-NRLF B 3 3HD 040 POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND AND OLD SPAIN POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND AND OLD SPAIN By FREDERICK E. PIERCE BOSTON The Four Seas Company 1918 Copyright, 19 18, by THE FOUR SEAS COMPANY The Four Seas Press Boston, Mass., U. S. A. PREFATORY NOTE The author of the following poems was raised on a small New England farm, which he worked and managed from his fifteenth to his twenty-first year. Then he went to college and ultimately became a member of a university faculty. If the academic and rural points of view occur here in unusual juxtaposition, the writer can only say that he has given life as he has found it. The last poem draws its framework and thought from historical reading, but its emotional coloring from the psychology of Puritanism in rural New England. The author has not tried to follow the rustic vernacular as closely as Mr. Frost because in all the present writer's New England poetry the speakers are persons widely read, usually of university training, who are recalling long past experiences on farms. In real life such people would not speak in all respects like typical farmers. Also we believe that the following of the vernacular, good and wholesome as it is, can be carried too far. 4022C6 Prefatory Note The aim of a poem is to reproduce, not a phrase, but a mood, the reproduction of the phraseology being merely a means to an end. The mood created by a living speaker results only in part from his language. In part it is also due to his facial expression, tone of voice, and other factors ; and when these other factors are not reproduced something may be required in the language to suggest the general atmosphere. F. E. P. CONTENTS The Story of a Self-Made Man Father and Son The First Hay- Stack The Farm-Boy .... The Night Before The Auto-da-fe Page II 37 41 45 POEMS OF NEW ENGLAND AND OLD SPAIN THE STORY OF A SELF-MADE MAN I stood in twilight near the Self-made Man Beside De Musset's grave, blueblooded heir Of all he voiced, and was, and threw away. The willow tree his wish had planted there Gave half inaudible sighing; and below, That face, the guttered candle passion burned. Spoke marred and haggard. Aliens, yet a-kin, The Self-made Man and marble image met, One family's rising, one's descending day, In glory of twilight both, but round their brows Ghosts of dead hope for night and ashen cloud. Atlantic winds from far horizons turned Soft keys in doors of thought; new ties grew ours, Of common country, hopes and griefs; and there, While shadows deepened round those foreign graves, My worn companion told me all his past. Where the green ranges of the Berkshire Hills Roll dwindling through the southern lowlands, wild Poem? pi; New", England and Old Spain In still and lonely loveliness, he grew, In old New England's poverty and pride. There childhood first baptized him dreamer from Wells deep in woods and mossy, where his valley, Hushed, beautiful, retired, with hinting voices Of brooks, and woods intoning through the winds. Bred visions natural as her herbs and flowers. Four fir-trees lined the path before his door. And two great Norway spruces, gloomy and high. That shed like needles from their myriad limbs The stern, sad, mystic musings of the North Round that child head. Dark on the western hill Against the azure one great pine-tree loomed. Almost across the sunset, having power. One might believe, to see and know what lands That sun arose on through New England's night. Those trees were teachers, filling infant hours With moods deep, solemn, incommunicable, That men remember sadly. Then the spell Of books wrapped heaven and earth with witchery. Alone among high, thinly peopled hills. Through leafy orchards framed with billowing meadow fi2l The Story of a Self-Made Man Their broad, white-gabled farmhouse peeped. There children Would hail like sails on ocean's rim the page Bringing them tales of far off towns and times, And moods and music. Though his boyish mind Missed half their thought, truths dimly comprehended, Beauties that lingered half unveiled, and glimpses Of wider life, the arena and the vision, Shook all his heart ; as when, one drizzling night, A night that Coleridge might have loved, or Poe, Each nerve enthralled, he read their writings first. Raven and Rime, dread chamber, haunted sea. The room lay still, the household locked in sleep; The great, dark spruces moaned in night and rain; The air was vital round with mystic life. Wild melody and crowding form ; and thoughts More strange than albatross or raven nested On picture-frame and mirror. — Pure first love, The treasured volume, virgin bride of youth, Unspoiled delight, that time renews for none. So fourteen years went by, humble but happy. His father's death came then, want, brooding fear. The light was dark which their small, lonely world [13] Poems of New England and Old Spain Had walked beneath, their house's pillar fallen. Heavily the care of that sad home Crushed those young shoulders. Thrust from dream- land's grotto Suddenly, roughly into day, he stood, Blinking in that un comprehended glare Of sordid pains and plodding scrutiny; Drudging alone at labor never learned; None to rely on, none to give advice ; And fear and poverty behind his heel. Their shadow falling still before his feet. Stern, lonely, sad, the years that followed now. Not lonelier Selkirk's island proved than often That farm he tilled, where times in very truth God seemed not there to be. Day after day. While growing skill and hardening body woke The somber pride New England hardships breed. He hewed and delved. Hour after hour the wind Bent the same weed in the same curve; the crow Hour after hour in jangling monotone Called from the wood. Or if some neighbor came, His only neighbor, only one who came, A white-haired pastor, on whose virtues fate [14] The Story of a Self-Made Man In irony laid the woes of broken powers, The boy grew lonelier. Love had braced, he knew, Those feeble limbs ; and yet that darkened mind, Forcing his growing thoughts to look on life Through its own misery and distorted glass, Made solitude relief, when once again The fallow brain in dead negation sank, To tune of creaking yoke and ring, or spell Of plodding hoof and endlessly turning sod. Yet glad vacations met him also, days Of lightening labor, lessening care and fear. Then through the beauty of that lovely valley, A Clive through India's treasure-house, he trod. Where golden- rods like scepters of old kings Waved thick around, or woods in autumn wore More wealth than crowned Mogul. Much else was there : Pink cones of hard-hack nodding in the breeze On lonely acres, red, autumnal ivies Dabbling like blood the cedar's dusky bosom ; Old dooryard trees, portly and neighborly. And softly garrulous in summer's wind; Or shaggy knolls of pasture, warm with sun, [15] Poems of New England and Old Spain Where the shy strawberries blushing wait their lovers. All these became his friends ; and often in them, Like thoughts round reptile foot-prints found in stone,* He wove the intangible, heard spirit voices Inaudible yet clear as fairy horns. Grave elders of the night expounded God From star-illumined, lettered rolls of heaven; And veiled, unshapen, golden-tressed hopes, That lay on far horizons, chin on hand. Looking through distance, framed his valley. And often The friend of other days, no longer changed. Came like Alcestis back through reason's world, Kindly and learned. Then round their talk for hours Ghosts of old saurian monsters walked the hill Now heaped above their bones, or tragic verse Kept time a-field to hoes on clinking stones ; Philosophy's long hunt went questing by, And history called from many a kindred past. So, wrapped in cloud but golden-tinged, went by The molding years whose labors none undo *The foot-prints of prehistoric birds or reptiles in the red sandstone of Connecticut. i6] The Story of a Self-Made Man For good or ill, the hardening, deadening years, That yet had taught delight in labor, joy In planning and doing and helping God create. And though his life was always lonely, lonely, Though charm and knowledge of the changing world, The sweet free-masonry of our healthy youth, Dried up within him, while he felt it die, Yet often on the silent hills he met What David, Paul, and white-haired Oisin found In deserts only ; drew more near to Him Who is "alone from all eternity"; Heard seldom the sweet rhythm of speech, but heard The rhythm of rivers, winds, and soughing trees. Till thought and word grew timed to rhythm of theirs; And dreamed high dreams, and vowed with lifted hand. This clumsy plowboy, clumsy even in plowing, To make his life a proof that drudging poor Can walk with Milton's mood and Raphael's vision ; And so lived on, and grew from boy to man. Then patient plans brought liberty at last. Wide earth before him, vistas, calling voices, [17] Poems of New England and Old Spain Thronged avenue, foamy sea, and moon-lit trail; And eager though poor, a glad free-lance, — he came. Through changing homes and changing work he wan- dered ; In wintry shacks with mountain hunters heard Weird elves in winds and gnomes that mine the snow. Where huge sky-scrapers heave a hill of stone Above some harbor dark with mast and funnel He drudged, competed, dreamed. Or westward where, A crashing tower, the great sequoia fell, Dashing to ground the limbs that stars had taught In days of Charlemagne, the traveler turned; Or dared Canadian snows; or heard by night The Texan cowboy lull his drove with song. Before him, unattained, a dim mirage, Through hopes deferred and years of drudgery, moved The cloud-Jerusalem of poetic thought; And somewhere between that and life's rough clay He heard a voice forever praising, chanting The firm reality, to build and plan, [i8] The Story of a Self-Made Man And feed ourselves, and justify our being, Man's dream in harmony vvitli the dream divine. Then faUing on his Hfe a gentle hand Tuned jangling keys to music. Woman's love, And all around that name as aureole thrown, For him had haloed too some sweet girl face In far off boyhood once. But poverty, With iron grip that seemed unending, drove — As part of nursery hope and elfin tale — The dream from youth and manhood; taught too well What lonely labor, death of love and charm, A\'ait wedded lives where want is bridal guest. And the grave, nunlike fields and hermit hills Had grown his only mates and formed his moods. So died for years the lyric hours of youth, The lilting loves, the hope on wing to fly. Yet woke reviving now when blond-haired dawn Called life to sunnier hopes in laughing May, Or April hours, when bud and leaf unfolding Hung delicate as the silken dress of brides. Now love itself rose out of dreams of love, As rose its mother from her kindred sea, [19] Poems of New England and Old Spain The love of life's late manhood, gravely sweet As autumn asters bred when winds are chill. As through a sultry valley from the sea Cool winds may breathe, and blowing steadily, Change nothing yet change all, while hot-browed plowmen Feel peace in hearts that ached with longing, so That gentle presence when unheeded most Had influence ; and when labor's hours were done, He felt it bringing with caressing touch Meaning and magic into barren days. And now he thought the golden time began. A while to breathe and grow, shake from his brain The numbing weight and burrowing hand of care. Learn, think, and have his chance in life, — and then — "Then" — Others' folly came, and failure came. The cry of families whom his ruin ruined. He rose to meet that long expected day Bowed, penniless, deep in moral debt, once more. As when a boy, his duty's plodding slave. Alone at night he fought the question out. Smelt the damp vine and eyed the burning stars, [20] The Story of a Self-Made Man And cried to God: "All others live their life; And I, who all through golden boyhood made My life a living lie for others' needs, Have I no rights, whose humble prayer is only One fair day's work a day, a little leisure To give to beauty what others will to sin?'* Against the dark the answering vision rose, That reason framed and conscience colored, showing The widow's home, the boy so like himself. Hoping great hopes that withered like his own Because of him. To feed the sense of beauty. Art, poetry, learning, social charm, and friends, By filching every one of these for life From that pale boy, — was that to dream his dream? A sleek, carnivorous tiger soul? Night waned; The morning kindled like a great resolve On hills that fronted God; and twelve long, hard. Soul-withering years went by, — and all was paid. Once more the summer warmed the drowsing fields Around his childhood's home, where, worn and jaded. He found a haven of calm. The grass was green On paths that suffering feet had trampled bare; But room and heirloom still were eloquent [21] Poems of New England and Old Spain Of bygone hours and friends; yet beautiful The boy's loved valley smiled to greet the man. Here all that once breathed want and labor now Was redolent of rest, of cares laid by : Green slopes that drowsed beneath an apple-tree, Their laps piled deep with ripe, forgotten fruit; Old fallen trunks like Barbarossa, dreaming Through time and mantled with their beard of briers And meadows, pillowed in whose downy depths The genius of the valley seemed asleep. Here many a mood relived that childhood's hour Saw bud and die. One castellated height, Its rocky ramparts fringed with evergreen, Rose near, from which in beauty's perfect curve The far horizon fell. A myriad hues. Faint, vague, but wondrous as the stormy bow. Played shifting round it; rosy- tinted clouds Laughed from beyond it; call of echoes came, And voices of old thoughts, that all day long Mused in some haunted gorge among the hills. Once, lounging all alone in Sabbath calm In a brown stubble-field where memory raised A ghost of bygone boyhood plowing, plowing, [22] The Story of a Self-Made Man He thought of that untried enthusiast's vow To make his Hfe a proof that drudging poor Can walk with Milton's mood and Raphael's vision; And felt the wings of utterance clipped, but still The mood, the hope, the glory and vision there. And now the man those molding forces formed, To make or mar, in darkening Pere Lachaise Gazed on De Musset, he whom others fed, Wliose days were waste, whose verse the rainbow gleam On passion's cataract foaming down to ruin. Cold starlight bathed the glimmering image. Hard, Touched with grim humor, curled the lip that weighed How much in tears the dead had cost the dead ; And grimly sad, in pride of art and race. The bearded marble mouth returned the scorn. But moon and mist, in dim, millennial haze Enwrapping both, made either seem to smile; And I, who reverenced both and fathomed both. Behind the contrast found the kinship too. The bearded marble mouth seemed saying still, "Great man, perhaps; but poet, no"*; and yet * Grand homme, si Ton veut; mais poSte, non pas. — De Musset's "Apr^s une lecture. [23] Poems of New England and Old Spain From wiser worlds De Musset's ghost went on: "Life, that made me great author, blasted man. Made you more man than genius. Welcome, brother, 'One writ with me in sour misfortune's book/ Both warring better than men knew have found The foe too mighty, saved but what we could. Yet over us time's upward march goes on." Atlantic winds from far horizons turned Soft keys in doors of thought ; and Bethlehem stars, That westward lured the wayworn world so long, Above our own loved, darkened continent Bent, lamp in hand, to see what face was hers. If that to come or should they look for another. Old ghosts of art around the marble moved. Around the Self-made Man dim phantoms filed. Resembling yet transcending him, dream forms Of genius now unborn that yet might be. Should the dumb, vast, misled but kindly force Of our untutored race find voice at last. And Night, who holds the future's mystery, drew Her curtain close round famous dead in France. [24] FATHER AND SON Hark, the great eight-day clock begins on twelve, The hour when ghost and memory wake, the hour When all our modern realism fails To tear the magic robe from life we know As twenty years I knew these hills and fields. For me this old, dark, tumbling farmhouse, friends, Has phantom tenants raised by midnight's call, That smile a welcome. First one unfamiliar, Whose past I learned when all was past for him, Who year on year, denied the life he loved, Sowed, plowed, and harrowed, broke against his fate With brooding wrath, and died in middle age, Goes by and fades, fading before I learn If that dim other world has given him more Than bare New England. Then his buried son, The man I loved for years, comes pipe in hand, The genial crow's-feet round his eyes, and on him Dust of the furrow not the grave, and smiles. 25] Poems of New England and Old Spain He was a calmer soul; his father's mood Smoldered perhaps, but never blazed in him. He fought through all our Civil War, and lay Wounded two days among Antietam's dead; But came back home to manger, scythe, and plow. Worked peacefully and married and grew old. That lilac-scented lane was where he wooed His wife in girlhood; there through moonlit elms The church that made them one spires like a prayer. They asked no trip in foreign lands to crown Their bridal ; through the hills they drove together ; And two glad weeks beneath a roof that's gone Lived on the crest of that far range, whose dome Glows ghostly now beneath the climbing moon. The time was June; and all the fields that year Were daisies, daisies, blanched like wedding veils. On their white carpet trod his bride. Around them For miles on miles the laughing meadows crowding Waved snowy kerchiefs as they passed. And then They looked abroad from their high chamber, knowing The wonder of earth, the joy their bosoms found. They built these walls for married years together. Some part of her that grew undying, clinging [26] Father and Son Around the home she made, with thoughts of her Haunts twig and withered leaf of all her vines When winter snows blow through them. She relives In every tree whose growth they watched together, Or flowering almonds round their porch, that nodded His welcome home at night so many a May. Here Fall by Fall they saw the maple flame And heap their turf with gold ; here Spring by Spring The myriad-branched magnolia bloomed for her God's candelabra tipped with spirit fire. Ten hours a day for years he worked a-field. But still life's wealth and mystic glory, hunted Through polar floe or sw^eltering India vainly. Walked here uncalled along his furrow. Voices Went down the branches of the windy woods; Life's rich aroma poured from breeze-blown buds. He mowed his meadows, where, like beauty's volume. Turned leaf on pictured leaf for kindling eyes. Pink plume and green, lily and queen-o'-the-meadow, A million grasses of a hundred kinds. And each a world, above the chattering knives Kept bowing, bowing. Tired in sweaty heat He ate beneath some ancient elm whose limbs [27] Poems of New England and Old Spain Had shielded sachems in the Indian wars, And murmured out of immemorial years Dead rapture, hope, and sorrow. Turf untorn Since man was born his couUer tore, and heaved From the dark rest of centuries into day Life-giving mold, at times quaint fossil shells More old than man; or down the furrow slipped Flint arrowheads of buried Indian braves. And, always changing, through the boundless heaven The great sun climbed, the muttering tempest rolled. The swallow skimmed the grass, and fragrant winds Brought airy syllables from beyond the hills. Then sorrow came; above the face he loved. Locking him out, the doors of death clanged to. Haggard that day he walked familiar fields; And where all once gave warm companionship Of calling bird and breathing vine, all now Was lonely, lonely past the speech of man. Lonely above him curved the vacant sky Where God had seemed enthroned ; earthy and dead Lay the dull landscape, where the hollow wind, A dying emanation from dead worlds. Went wandering vaguely into nothingness. [28] Father and Son Yet that dread, lonely farmer's life, where hearts, More tired than words can tell, keep vainly heaving The thought that still rolls back through empty days. Has its own healing. Stars from wide mid-heaven Beyond the reach of mortal loss and law Looked down and signaled comfort. Grave and meadow Were clothed with life, green blade and running vine, A breathing universe of life, where death Seemed dead, forgotten, buried under flowers. And so that man became the one I knew. One commonplace yet noble. He had built. Like Dido, and beheld his walls. Alone, In that calm life where none compete or cringe. He dreamed his dream till it took flesh and form And dwelt with men ; his dream, those fertile fields Reared up by him from swamp and underbrush, Feeding the world and beautiful to see. Part of himself he sowed there; part of him Relives when every year his orchards bloom. An only son remained from married days, A helpless comfort first and helper soon; Then full of promise, yet a growing care. [29] Poems of New England and Old Spain For hours at times the older man would sit. And shake his head, and think in that young face He found a look he knew but never wore. And more and more as manhood neared, the boy, Grown sad and restless, leaned on bar or plow. With idle hand and heart too tense for toil. Stood gazing past the landscape's burning rim. Captive, while fleets of flaming clouds went bearing Columbus visions through the untraveled night. At last the great deciding moment came. On yonder hill by that great oak, whose roots Grip like the talons of the fabled roc The turf deep, green, and centuries old, they sat, Father and son. Above the old man leaned The patriarch tree, mossed thick with memories Of that one spot; cool through the young man's hair An ocean wind blew on, that restlessly Sought for new lands. Before them yawned the valley. With field of shimmering grain and plunging stream, Slow moving plow and foliage-curtained home. Their words to me down hushed and airy heights Blew with the billowing wind, which mixed and mingled [30] Father and Son Old bygone longings, moods of high and low, That gave, perhaps, my language statelier ring Than theirs; but well my spirit heard their souls. And through them many an ancient anchorite Or knight that buckled spur, myself as well. For I, like one, long since had loved my fields, Yet like the other beaten against the pane For landscape vast and ruddier life beyond. The boy kept urging: ''Father, let me go. For years Fve helped you; now Fm man at last. My future calls me; earth and ocean call me, Vast mines in mountains half a world away. Great ships with foreign funnels dropping down In the still twilight, bound for twilight lands." Over and over the father answered sadly That choice was free but happiness was here ; Then spoke of all that life had meant for him In that one valley, peace past understanding, Calm days, and love of one now buried there. A silence followed. Both their eyes together Sought the low ridge where, dark with hemlock fringes, [31] Poems of New England and Old Spain And flecked with marbles white against the green, The churchyard lay. Far off a farmer's call Rose dreamily, then a heifer's lazy low. But clear and mellow through the miles of air Whistled a distant train ; and yet again, Farther and farther through the echoing hills, And always hurrying into lands unknown, The sound rose dwindling. Answering that dying summons The boy's deep longing surged in words again. "It makes my brain whirl round like fever, father. Like urging friends the blue hills bend and beckon ; And farther, vaster, through a waiting world Loom lives, achievements, thoughts I never shared. By night and day I hear their voices calling, Calling across the misty morning pastures Through gaps in ranges looking seaward, calling When birds fly by to Alabama, calling When stars from Asia glance at us and go. There men find rapture, find what lives allow; There new inventions rock the world; and there Great armies march to wreck old tyrannies. While here I watch and stagnate. Let me go!" [32] Father and Son "Ah," said the old man, "just as echoes leap From cliff to cliff and skip the chasm between. So from dead ancestors old traits return, And leap the generations. Now I know you. You are my father's child, not mine; he burned His very life out here with smoldering longing. Yes, you shall have your will. And now your arm. Come, we'll go down and light our evening fire. But if a son should look into your face With eyes like mine when nothing lives of me But memories of an odd, obscure old man Who wasted years among our lonely farms. Think what in life I found, what he may find Who shares through you my nature; — and be wise." They went their way; and left alone I gazed From that high summit, ringed with range on range Of fading peaks, now down the lovely valley. Then out in distance, where on sea and land Great nations whispered through the gathering night. The western glimmer lit when day had died Like Michael's falchion waved between that world And our calm stillness. Ghosts of other years Began to walk like winds the dewy grass, [33] Poems of New England and Old Spain And light their hearth-fires in the twinkling stars. Now birds of night awoke with ancient trills Of Asian Eden, singing, "Home is heaven" ; Then sang a bird of Southland, "Earth is wide" ; And each alternate raised its own refrain; And each in turn heard echo answer "Ay." The boy turned soldier, fought in wild campaigns On eastern islands, clove with fleets of steel The broad, blue, glittering waters of the West. Daily, like tread of hunted game in woods. Before him moved adventure's rustling feet; The unchanging constellations night by night Lit changing lands and darkly shifting seas. The father went his old familiar ways. He heard the swallow twittering in the barn That housed his boyhood. Trim in ordered rows His orchards blossomed, beautiful as clouds. The cataract sang at night; in marshy runs The long green flags flapped lazily, dreamily still, As if man's hurrying hours were canceled there. On summer nights through meadows damp and dim The twinkling fireflies moved like fallen stars; [34] Father and Son The whip-poor-will shrilled upon some mossy rail; And nighthawks hunted through the whispering heaven. Perhaps the man was lonely; often now On worn church step or dusty road or lane He held his neighbors talking of old days, Or news about his boy; but tranquilly His life flowed rippling through its calm green world. Once when the lad wrote home of wounds and praise He bared his aged breast, and curiously Eyed bayonet scars from half forgotten fields, Then pinned the letter next his heart, and went Among his calves through budding apple-trees. So years with silent heart and seeing eye He walked with beauty old but ever new ; Then died, and dying called a friend and said : "Now sell the farm; 'twas happy ground for me. But never will be for him who's flown the nest. Send him the money, send my blessing too; Say I died proud of such a son." He kissed The letter from his boy and fell asleep. [35] Poems of New England and Old Spain That blessing never reached the son. He fell In savage wars on alien islands, lay Dying of fever, want, and wounds for days. One burning midnight suddenly he rose. The reeling phantom of his manhood, stood Before his father's portrait, blade in hand; And then, saluting like a soldier, said: "I've come to say I've done my duty, sir, The way you told me." Sword in hand he died. Three pictures hang along the parlor wall. Come here and see them. First, beyond the door, The dour old grandsire prisoned all his days. Who burnt his heart out like a smoldering fire. From that third frame the bold young victor leans Whom once a nation praised. And right between- There, lift the lamp and see the man I knew. In eye and forehead, face, and soul behind So like yet so unlike his father and son. [36] THE FIRST HAY-STACK He laid its round foundation first in fear, A nervous, trembling, inexperienced boy. Responsibilities that men would slight Weighed heavy on him. Two days he trod it down. And laid the sweet, ripe hill-grass tier on tier. Two nights it settled under moon and star. Returning twice through twinkling, dewy fields He found it round and firm, a grassy tower. The third day came, the hired man shook his head : "You'll never top it like your father did; You'll leave a shoulder, rot a ton of hay." "A ton!" — It loomed so big the boy turned white. And gripped his fork and climbed and took his place. Then, always narrowing round him while he laid. And rising higher and higher in fragrant wind. Seeming to rock but proving firm, and level With swallow flying low and neighboring tree, [37] Poems of New England and Old Spain He felt his handiwork beneath him grow. The hired man breathed ; and slow the forkfuls came, Ruffled with wind. He trod them down, and high On his completed work he stood in air. "Round as an egg," he heard his pitcher call; "You beat the old man ; here's your ladder, slide." He paused, and cast, before he shd, one glance From that high post on that high-throned hill- meadow. Valleys he saw, and rivers flashing light. And other hills against the westering sun, Green, waving corn-field, yellowing oat-field, men Busy as he, whose lives seemed calling out In fellowship to him. Four miles around The town could see his work and know it good. His, the book-worm, the clumsy, dreamy boy. Who yet could work, had too his skill and power. With loving hand he raked and combed it down. Still redolent from the meadow's green romance. His treasure-heap of grass and flower and fern, Wild, fragrant herb and beauty-haunted blade [38] The First Hay-Stack From nine broad acres. Then he rode away, Eying it tenderly from the rattling cart. Through milking time his eyes were on it still, Where high, far off, clean cut against the sky. It loomed among the smoldering clouds, till night Made Venus golden right above its peak. The winter came ; and many a day he drove His creaking ox-sled through the crunching snow, Loaded with logs, along that wind-swept hill. There in the meadow, where round cold drifts clung The memories of the far off, warm July, Amid the bleak and lonely landscape rose The form he made, clean cut and pointed still. Hooded and cloaked with snow and blown by wind. Meeting the test of time. A human form, A friend amid the desolate waste, it seemed. In March he drove his cattle there, unearthing With every wisp glad memories of the summer. The sweet, ripe June grass, clover bud and vine. And tall dried flower that half the long forenoon Had nodded friendly while the mower's knives [39] Poems of New England and Old Spain Kept circling nearer. So his boyhood's triumph Melted and faded into boyhood's past. Yet often now against the afterglow On some high hill he sees a haystack loom, With peak across the unearthly twilight, seen Against the afterglow of boyhood dreams. Of moods that set, but glimmer and dawn again. [40] THE FARM-BOY A young Yale senior, tramping hills that summer, First met him mowing, where a hillside meadow Looked up on clouds and down on brooks and valleys. The boy had stopped to let his horses pant. And oil the "buck-eye"* under a cool, broad oak ; And there they talked. Yes, both were fond of Burns. The farm-boy too had plowed his daisies under. 'And Burns has helped me see it all," he said, "The beauty of meadows, when I'm sick of men." The senior smiled, kindly, as one who lifts A lower to his level, "That's not Burns. The Jolly Beggars, there's your Ayrshire farmer; For all that's best in literature, we've learned, Must draw from men, not fields." The farm-boy thought ; Hard life had made him test such glowing terms. "Then, saying I were all I'm not, a Burns, You'd have me write of folks in Horton Hollow. ♦The Adriance Buck-eye mowing-machine. [41] Poems of New England and Old Spain And not their brooks and hills ?" "I would, like Burns." "What holds at Yale might not in Horton Hollow. Take old Jim Andrews there, whose hay I'm cutting, He's kind and honest, but he has hypochondria. He'll make the talk at work or dinner take Such dismal ruts we thank the Lord for silence. He'd cause no love-songs. Hortons all have brains. But now they've mostly left. 'Lije Horton drinks, Not like your jolly beggars, but all alone Among his cider casks on winter nights. And Jane and Helen Horton live alone, Each one old woman in a big rambhng house, Good women, so my mother said, but where Would Burns find Highland Mary? Andrew Weld Was crushed in falling from an apple-tree At twenty, when he planned to go to college. That left him sick nine years and wrecked for life. Poor, working when he wasn't fit, and brooding. A fine man once, but now he's like a funeral. And further north it all is Poles and Jews, Who're just machines to work and eat and save. That's life in Horton Hollow, human life. [42] The Farm-Boy "But landscape ! look and see. I drive out here When worrying folks have put my nerves on edge, To placid cows and steers and great calm trees, And calm winds blowing over tranquil hills, And it's like heaven. I lift my head from work, And see that glorious wealth of color there In leaves and grasses, brooks and flowers and light. My father's dead; but often in haying time Under this oak I think it seems like him, A something manly, comforting, and strong, Better than folks I meet with. Then at night We smell these fields of clover damp and breezy; The moonlight makes the far off hills seem farther. And climbing stair on stair among the stars. Then, though I know what old Will Warren is, I see his house up there on Warren Hill, With moonlit orchards round it, turn to something Splendid, divine, not just Bill Warren's farm. I used to think when little once, the stars Dropped down at night among his apple-trees ; And saw him mowing, grass one side his bar. White cloud the other. Poetry may be life ; But life has corners college boys don't know. [43] Poems of New England and Old Spain Nor college teachers." Here he whipped his team; And the bright knives went clicking through the grass, That flashed and twinkled, daisy, black-eyed Susan, And fox-tail tall and green, while fresh around him Cool winds like Homer's wafted hope and health. (44j THE NIGHT BEFORE THE AUTO-DA-FE Beneath the never changing night, whose reign On altering earth brings ancient midnights near, On shadowy boards where lamps but light the brain, We stage the play that history wrote in fear. In ghostly orchestra the winds awake Wild notes that fraught with world-old wailing come; On heart and ear soul-haunting echoes break, Washed up by time from lips for ages dumb. Here darkened minds debate in terror and pain What way through gloom the blessed Pharos Ues, Their sum of hope, — eternal loss or gain. And still as greatness, grief, and folly rise. With wasted love, love's wisdom voiced in vain, World-old experience down the wind repHes. [45] Poems of New England and Old Spain Here shall it seem as if two lovers meet under the stars in the place of the next day's execution. The woman speaketh. Oh love, we chose an evil tryst, I feel From sight and sound and hush of awe in air Day's horror haunt the waiting night. Who knows, — Remembering ghostly tales of nurse and nun, — But fiends, allowed by God, wait here, to seize The wicked souls of those who burn to-morrow? A cloud drove past the moon and holy stars ; And the night wind, that blew from none knows where, Like spirit fingers plucked my veil behind. Then bells among the great cathedral towers Rang heavy and hollow, as denouncing me, Who fled a father's house and will, they clanged. For love that may be sin. Through other scenes On this dear arm I thought to pass as bride. My merry maids are stakes in ominous file; My wedding favors fagots. [46] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe The man speaketh. Hush ! those bells But rang in love's delightful year, or sounded Old Pedro's doom, who, foiled in all his hate, Burns here at dawn; whose forfeit wealth turns ours, Making love possible. Not fiends but lovers Grip timid wives who wake to joy to-morrow. When on our marriage pillows morning laughs. Look, sweet. The moon but dons her filmy cloud As brides their veil, and through it smiles at you. And the night wind, made damp from stream and pool, Is blowing kisses, kisses everywhere. The priest is waiting; love is calling. Come. Here speaketh the night wind. I am the wind of night, blown hither from far Cathay, Where I cooled two leopard cubs as they rolled in the grass at play. They were warm from their banquet done, and they frisked in the moonlight clear, And found love in their mother's purr, that the buffalo quake to hear. [47] Poems of New England and Old Spain And no thought had they of the life that had perished to make them glad. I blew by the leopard cub, and I blow by the human lad. II Here shall the voice of a woman he heard praying before a shrine. Pure mother Mary, gentle, good Saint Anne, Ye two who saved a world by motherhood, Hear me, a mother. Kin, confessor, friend. All cry I sin in asking aid of you, When death is near and other aid is none. For foe of yours. As if my only boy. Whom like the Saviour once my bosom bore. Who loved the poor and kept my age from want, Were foe to you ! Some frightful error here Needs you to light it, star of Bethlehem. Oh, if I sin the mother love that sins And shepherd-like pursues the wandering lamb Might be forgiven. Still he is my son, However those wicked books, that demon pens, I know, had traced, deluded him with lies. [48] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe I found a child once wandering in a wood, Misled by owlet's hoot and will-o'-the-wisp, And pitying led it home. My boy is lost Where none on earth can lead him back; but you, Sweet Mother Mary, good Saint Anne, oh you Can save him yet and make him know the truth. The hours of night rush by; and dawn will bring The flaming stake, the jeering crowd, and frown Of stony monks, who say that hour of pain Is only porch to hell's unending fire. All power is yours with God and Christ ; all love. Men say, is yours, the undying mother love. My heart is breaking ; hear me ; save my son ! The night mind maketh her answer. I am the night, my daughter ; round a million homes I blow. My every breath in the gloom is the groan of a mother's throe. Travail that earth may endure, may live to be nobler than now. And the life that you suffered to give us is burned like the oak's dead bough. [49] Poems of New England and Old Spain Oh creed that enthroned the mother where the tears of the ages ran, Is this all that you learned from Mary and the bones of good Saint Anne? Ill Here shall a sick man he heard as if at an open window. More air, more air ! Can night's unplumbed abyss. That cools wide land and wild, untraveled sea. Not cool one fevered head? not even now. When hours decide the hope of all these years? A bishop's mitre gleams amid the gloom Beyond me and beyond me and beyond, Sliding along the moonlight, tempting me, Eluding still the feeble hand that fails When health might grasp it. Oh remain, remain ! Am I not learned, encouraged, well approved In wisdom, toil, and fervor for the faith? Have I not given the church the lamb I loved, And watched in Heaven's fold, who stayed not there, And burns to-morrow, damp with tears of blood From me, like Isaac offered up of old? [so] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe What broke my heart should earn a mitre, yea! Yet on the ascending stair I feel it fail. Reeling and fainting at the goal, I hear The racing feet of rivals pass me by. Nay, courage, heart! this weakness cannot last. New life will stir with dawn, and all be well When I am strong, when I again am strong! Yet how this fever, beating reason down. And calm-eyed conscience, fills my brain with mad, Abhorred illusions guilt alone should view. That seems Hernando, yet his cell's far off, And he alive, and not till one night more That ghost can come. But stood its image here, Bowed on the cross whose faith those lips denied. Could I not face it, laughing terrors down? Thou canst not call me traitor, thou who didst With blasphemy betray the faith of ages. Had I concealed the pestilent breath in thee, And made thy friendship more than Christ to me, Lied not to thee, and made a living lie Of every vow I took as priest, — oh then Well might I fear. God's flaming ministers Might walk my chamber then at night, and call [SI] Poems of New England and Old Spain My harrowed soul to answer. Get thee gone, Charred phantom form, reproachful, lingering still. Thou'rt but delirium. All will yet be well When I am strong, when I again am strong! Few days I lose, oh surely only few. And youth is mine, and many a friend in power. The climb begun, these feet may clamber far. The cardinal's hat might crown the mitre soon. And then, — who knows? for men as low as I Have found their seat in Peter's chair, and posed As God's high regent over lands and kings. This hand that now an ague shakes might live To shake an emperor from his throne ; might live — And might not live — . Oh God All Merciful, Forgive my sins and call me not away. Let me be strong! let me again be strong! The night wind answereth him. By your window flutters the robe of the oldest of priests alive; I call my sons to confession, and cold are the hands that shrive. [52] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe Each air that I wake is an echo of a bell that some- where tolls; My cowl, like the Chase of Odin, is a cloud that is thronged with souls. Out of the night I come, from the dying on land and sea; And into the night I go, and the priest goes forth with me. IV Here shall come a voice as of a great prelate musing alone in a cathedral. Through the wide minster, faint and far between. The lamps gleam out like truth in error's gloom. At column's flank or foot of saint. All else Is darkness, with the hollow dome above Reechoing silence to the silent nave. Now in that hush and dark as hallowed priest And kingly minister, reflect, my heart. Before the living die, before we make The hour's expedient lasting law in Spain. Four hundred years, propped on the corner-stone [53] Poems of New England and Old Spain That bears this massy pile, has God made here A home for men, asylum from their sin. Above my head, awful and grand and pale. Scarce half revealed in the dim shadow, leans The wounded majesty of Christ. To Him Must I give answer how I guard the Faith By which His agony redeems a world. Out there through wide, immeasurable night, By town and soaring peak and seas that wash Their human freight far off on unknown shores. The hearts breathe placidly that soon must know Infinite bliss or infinite despair. Ye darkened millions, pillowed soft in sleep. Whose dread salvation weighs to-night on me. You must I answer how I shepherd you. A mother's holy love with fearful power In pleading anguish fills a judge's ear; My own yet rings with it. But what of her. That other wife, whose child in coming years Through error's taint may die eternally If error's priest go free? And what of them. The unborn millions, who in endless pain May mourn too late forsaken faith, and cry : [54] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe "Most happy might we be in heaven now, Hadst thou, Ximenes, done thy duty then." Lo, God, in night, the night of human mind, I stand ; and round my feet the nations throng. No sun of perfect knowledge ever — no. Not while the world grew gray inquiring-^lit. Or ever could, that darkened void, wherein On groping souls deluding planets gleam Age after age ; no hope, no light, no truth. I hold in gloom the hand of one before. Who holds in gloom an older hand than his ; And so in living chain we reach to One Who leads through night to certain day. Though near Unseen the lion howl, in token dread The dim gier-eagle drop the straggler's bone. To quicksands near that gulp and give not back Low siren voices call the fool, yet safe Behind that far off Guide our column goes. Where none may hope but that unbroken file. That, parted once, would doom the race. Live on Through Peter, Linus, pope and me, thou chain! Yet quoth an upstart mob : "Oh world astray, [55] Poems of New England and Old Spain Let go of hands, and hurrying on alone Find what the fathers found" ; or ''Christ was man" ; Or "Walk with me by reason's polar star"; And wandering on the wild, their guiding gleam Enswathed in cloud, they perish each and all, Whole lands in endless doom. No more of that! Here in the midst of this great woeful world, Under the image of that awful hour On Calvary, the flames beneath my feet. And Heaven above me, and eternity Peering disdainful on our nook of time. In loving hands I lift the crook of fear To guide my sheep to safety. Forth I go With will of adamant and heart at peace. The night wind sobbeth by the cathedral doors as the sound of footsteps passeth through them. I am the wind of night through eternity walking the sphere, Forever telling a truth too simple for man to hear. Wailing for needless battles and sobbing for needless crime, Damp with the tears of ages and sad with the wrongs of time, [56] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe Still breathing the same mild lesson that lived in the Nazarene, Haunted and broken-hearted by the thousand years between. In my bosom I bear traditions that are old as the earth and sky; I have seen how truth grew error in the lapse of the years gone by, Round many a Calvary mountain where the good were crowned with thorn, Where the brave on the cross were lifted and the veils of the temple torn. Would ye listen and hear my message, your hatred would soon grow love; But my voice is the voice of the wind, and ye hear but the sound thereof. V Now Cometh a voice reechoing as from the walls of a dungeon. Be bold, my will; one mighty wrench, and then, Lo, heaven before thee and all pain behind. Would man not gladly hold his hand in fire, [57] Poems of New England and Old Spain While counting one, for life's brief glory and joy? Yet for each moment this poor flesh can feel, What never entered heart of man is mine. Oh trembling soul, nail there thy gaze, hold well That gleaming hope, and it shall make thee firm. Think when the square grows black before thine eyes. And thy racked nerves divide from pain forever, What light shall cleave the darkness, when thy hands Are gripped by angels, and thy ears are full Of welcoming words from martyrs of old days, Peter and Linus, and all those whose heirs Polluted that I died to purify. How will thy senses reel with that great joy! Then through the echoing heaven by choir on choir Shall we be borne, and from the Almighty's throne Look down past filmy cloud and golden star On life and death, and God's love leavening all. There at our feet, now beautiful in sun, 'Twixt flaming pillars of the dusk and dawn. Our world shall lie, and muflled now in shade And moonlight. From the groves of Araby Our eyes shall range to the wild Northern Sea, Past mountains cowled with everlasting snow, [58] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe Vineyards, cathedrals, lakes wherein the sun Flames, a fire-opal. Voices we shall hear Where the old note of anguish dies away, And men are glad and faith is pure. Then we Shall look into each other's deathless eyes, And whisper, "From our death their blessings grew." In churches' twilight choirs we'll walk with men. Breathing pure fancies through a mind at prayer. That wonders why they came. Down minster aisles May we like cooling winds with airy hand Usher the living into truths of love. Then children, knowing not what dead are near. May read our names on page or pane, and ask, "Who then were these?" while reverend priests reply, "Martyrs for you and this pure faith of ours." The sands run on ; the faster that they run The nearer heaven am I. Yea, in the dusk Methinks I hear the beat of angel plumes. And voices crying, "Courage, what is time Beneath eternity?" Above me sound The keys of heaven; the sweet, glad notes blow down; And through the dark that voice that from the dark [59] Poems of New England and Old Spain Called up creation, cries, "Let there be light." Now wavering dreamer with the fire before thee, Be brave ; thou diest beneath the Almighty's eye. The night wind museth with itself. Out of the night I come, and into the night I go. I have seen so many a heart put forth through the midnight so. They were brave in the strength of a dream; have they found it or waked to rue ? Or can dream so bravely dreamed through courage grow something true? I hope; but I blow round earth, God's footstool and mortal's grave, And no voice from the throne tells me of the millions that dreams made brave. VI Now reechoeth a voice as from another dungeon. Midnight is past ; day comes, and earth has end. I thought I faintly heard your songs and prayers, Doomed fellow souls, whom faith assures of God [60] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe And heaven at sunset. No such hopes are mine. Hollow, unchanged, my oracles reply In terror's hour as leisure's, No man knows. Cling on in hope, poor hearts ; but mine must wear Less visionary arms, in sterner mail Front certain pang and all uncertain doom. Yet even in flame almost a man might smile To think my foes, who laughed me down, send me To win from death the proofs confuting theirs. Shall I not laugh in his dim realm when they. With long, chop fallen face and rueful, hear That grim logician answer even as I? And something of the bold discoverer's thrill I feel, and curious even in dread enquire : What shores draw nigh? in what strange hostelrie. My soul, sojourn'st thou one brief night from now? But fearful is the price I pay, who lose This living, warm, unquestionable life. To learn what random prize the blind abyss May give the brave. The irrevocable gate Being passed, I might lapse in eternal naught ; And the glad hours that were to fill with friends, Faces of children, laugh of love, and glow [6i] Poems of New England and Old Spain Of sun and wine and leisure in the veins, And hounds of thought glad-eyed in trailing truth, And ever new delight to see the sun Paint cliff and castle tower with morning fire, — All these might prove but dead oblivion's price. Or life continuing void of thought, as herb And plant endure, in nature reabsorbed. This whilom eager brain might branch and bud Amid the woodland, where no joy or grief Could stir me more, and from some gray old oak Rustle above my children's children's head. Unknown to them or me. And conscious life Instead of love might bare the fangs of fear. For down some chaos of a shattered brain With ghosts in endless ages might I walk. Once loosed from all the laws that guard us here. Why spread my sails then through that timeless night When safe and soft my days might laugh on shore? Why not recant? Because within my soul Is God, if none be in the gloom without. Within my bosom burns that lamp of thought By spirit fathers lit and left to me. Cleaving our night to truths afar, with pure [62] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe And calm aroma lulling minds of men To moods of nobler life. Burn still, thou lamp. Be it pride or duty, love or stubborn will, I quench thee not with lies but hand thee on. That worlds made free may think and learn and grow. Then courage, heart, thou playest a noble role. And after all that dear, consoling dream Of heaven, unproved, is undisproved as well. But pin not there thy hopes ; and sure thou art Never in flesh to see the coming men For whom thou diest, nor will they know thee. Nor ever hear thy name, nor mark thy grave. So much for earth. Beyond I only know Through darkling seas of doubt, from horror's pier, Unpiloted, uncheered, with chance I go; But never, come what will, can be condemned To loathe myself and smirk in cringing fear. 'Tis well. At sunset I shall be with God, Or else the one true godlike thing that was. The night wind whispereth to him. I am the night wind blowing from a western ocean now, [63] Poems of New England and Old Spain Where a thousand leagues the waves are uncloven by human prow. By the ocean currents borne where the whale from the kraken flies, Old wrecks float half way down that no longer can sink nor rise. Through the vast, dim gulfs below look the white- ribbed crew a-stare. Where the living have never been I have blown, and the dead are there. But the stars look down above and they quiver as if alive ; And the ocean winds are a voice, and the ocean cur- rents drive; And the coral temples grow on the rock that no storm overthrew; And the cliffs of the deep give rest to the wing of the wild seamew. Where the living have never been and the lips of the dead are sealed, Dimly I glimpsed the truth of a God and His love revealed. [64] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe VII From one side of a moonlit street the children of a happy family are heard singing. Under Heaven's starry towers Gently slumber lamb and kine. Gently close these eyes of ours, Lulled beneath the love divine. Draw the curtain, quench the flame ; Angels watch till morning light. Breathe one prayer in Mary's name. Then we sleep. To all good night. Here the wind shall blow pleasant old memories down the street, but shall wail in passing the square. VIII It seemeth that one miiseth alone among rustling shrubbery. And here it is, that lay so long in ground, Thy marble bust, thou great Athenian soul. Thy words are on my vellum page; and thou — [6s] Poems of New England and Old Spain Art thou not near, whatever lives of thee, Where newly found thy lineaments and lore Survive the years, grand polar star. Oh yet, Plato, thou'rt nigh. Come, trim the lamp with me. And talk of wisdom hidden long from fools. What thought moved once the brow men modeled here? Ah, pour it forth till charmed by thee I feel Oblivion wrap my fallen age, and them, The priestly crowd, to whom I vowed but now Implicit faith in what I know a lie. Blaspheming nature. Let me lave my soul Free from the canting slime I wallowed in. With thee in pitying, calm disdain behold Man's world, this great kaleidoscope of creeds, Changing and childlike, laughable, terrible. Should I have lied ? One long revered by me, One filled with learning, warm with love of men. Lied not — and burns to-morrow. Mourned of none, Among the madmen, doomed and those who doom, A lonely martyr he for truth unchained And godlike doubt. Had I believed as he My death would raise the race, I might have died. [66] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe But age on age the wise and good from cross And flame and gallows-tree have cried; and still The hoary fiend whom they an hour dethroned But donned the new deliverer's robes and reigned. And so I lied and live, and talk with you. How beautiful is the night that welcomes you From that long sojourn in time's wreckage. Fair Gleam down the stars as on Pentelicus, When you by their soft torches did derive The mighty lesson years have kept so ill. You seem in age ; those cheeks are guttered out By burning thought as tapers by their flame; Yet calm serenity is on that brow, As if your musings while you still were man Had clasped eternity in single hours. Your race did build the Parthenon, and there Held dual worship, where the crowd revered Athena, and your peers the beautiful. So I in dim cathedrals built by me, Behind mock saints to whom my mockery prays, Enthrone your ancient vision and revere. Dread, dark Hereafter, word whose witching sound On siren isles has drawn deluded lands, [67] Poems of New England and Old Spain Wait unexpounded through our human night And nation's nonage; vex the world no more. Enough for me that thus, transcending time, I Uve at will in Plato's day, and view From peaks of thought far off millennial suns. He who imagines half has conquered death. Thou didst converse with me in Academe, Thou graven face; and thou and I this hour Feel dimly thoughts that kindred minds unborn May shape around our chiseled brows. All hail. Undying vision, more than mortal mood. That sound among the rustling leaves may be The step of Death; but let it. Thou and I — Have we not fathomed eternity to-night? The night wind moaneth in the shrubbery. I have blown by the groves of Ganges, I have blown by the mouths of Nile, By Balbec and great Palmyra where the gods were throned erewhile; But their names were unknown and their works over- thrown, and their priesthood dead ; And the grape that grew wild on their ruin fed those whom they never fed. [68] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe And the same old joy of loving, and the same old hunger cry, And the waste of life's rich meaning lived on though the gods might die. By the shores of eternity flying I have asked for what none would tell. From the bounds of the infinite blown I but whisper a finite spell, The spell of a world made happy, of a heart and a mind made free, I have sung in men's ears for ages as I danced with the surging sea. But the heroes who heard it are dead, and the sages w^ho heard it are dumb; And dark are the years behind me, and dim are the years to come. IX Here speaketh a voice as of a great queen at her chamber window. All day my woman's limbs wore armor, love. All day my woman's tender soul has worn The monarch's iron mood, and longed for night, [69] Poems of New England and Old Spain Whose dewy hands unarm the weary will. Only a clinging wife is she whose frown Defended realms at noon; and thou, my prince, Be lover, man, and husband now for me. The stars that chronicle the reigns of kings Are gazing down, and grave with burning pens Our deeds among their keen, enduring orbs. They write and tell us nothing ; praise or blame Is there forevermore in angel eyes; Yet we cannot decipher it, nor know If praise or blame be there, that coming time May read on earth, and God in heaven now. Whence fell this dark and dreadful melancholy On me, who rode with men against the Moor? Have I done evil? All our realms rejoice. Our great united empire, one in faith. "Who owns the region owns religion there"; Or schism and civil war would rend it. You, Glad Spain, win peace on earth, in heaven salvation. Perfumes of blossom rich on vine and tree. Or flower in cloister garden, bear the breath Of grateful people down the fragrant night. Only among the trill of happy tones, [70] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe And gliding wave and lover's glad guitar, The nightingale keeps singing mournfully. Would he vi^ere still ; our dread imperial power, Launching the force whose workings none may weigh, Can silence not that low, insistent tone. The blessed night is calm and full of faith. The stars are altar-lamps; the trees bow down, And tell their rosaries in drops of dew. As mothers eye their sleeping babes, to-night I watch the land I love, and fold its arms Around the cross whereon the Saviour died; Even I, who made my land's religion pure. And thinking thus I was most glad, until. Like memories of a friend's forgotten prayer. That says it was but tells not what it was, I heard the nightingale as now it mourns. To-morrow law must lay its iron hand Where love has failed. Oh Christ who cleansed the temple. Bring comfort to thy child, that loved too well Thy enemies, and saddening signed their doom. Throw guardian arms around me, husband, king, [71] Poems of New England and Old Spain Drive off the dreary mood that music woke. But now I thought a foot was on the grave Of that sweet fame and love from coming years That should be mine. I know 'twas but a dream. Embrace me, praise me, charm that mood away. Among the stellar fires Orion treads As he shall tread for seons yet, and hear The ages judge the irrevocable past. Why should I shudder? why be haunted now With prayer for ill-timed clemency refused? I should be glad as mother, wife, and queen. And Christian lady. Only sad, so sad. With grief so old yet never understood. Below my window sang the nightingale. The wind blows to the listener the song of the nightingale. I sang to the beautiful rose, and its petals grew wide to hear; But it learned not the song that I sang, though it thrilled that my music was near. I sang to the heart of a queen, and it opened to let me in. [72] The Night Before the Auto-da-fe I sang at the door of her thought, and it barred me out as a sin. So I sing in the night of the ages alone till the dawn return ; And the beautiful women weep, but my meaning they never will learn. Here shall come a sound as of guards before prison gates, and words as of monks conversing- That was a fearful scene, wild Indian form And foreign tree and quivering wind-blown fires. Our brother died there burned by heathen, yea, By those to whom in love he bore the truth. As always that great errand ends on earth, A holy martyr. Through the flames he saw Angels descending, and the white-robed saints, Who bore an aureole for a kindred brow. So pass to joy the blessed of the Lord. Hark, peace. From those condemned unhallowed hymns I hear, and prayer that never Mary willed. [73] Poems of New England and Old Spain For them already yonder angry dawn Brings wrath divine and Holy Church's doom. Long may they suffer for their heresy. The night wind speaketh wearily. Out of the night I come, and into the night I go, For the dusky caravans move, and the mountains begin to glow. And the sun is so far from man he will laugh as he climbs the sky; And man is so far from man he will laugh while his brethren die. And the love-driven hates foam on to the goal that none yet discerns. Into the bosom of night the child of the night returns. [74] 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 $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. m m 29 m^ 1 1933 I' m i LD 21-50m-l,'33 /