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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/etchingsinverseOOthomrich 
 
ETCHINGS IN VERSE 
 
Etchings in Verse 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES LEMUEL THOMPSON 
 
 f 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & CO. 
 
 1890 
 
 * .',-»■)« 
 
Copyright, 1890, 
 By Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 
 
 John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
 >t 
 
TO 
 
 WILLIAM C. GRAY 
 
 Face to face within the glow 
 
 Of life's forge-fires^ 
 And in the ca?np-fiames^ overflow 
 
 Among the pine-tree spires ; 
 Face to face till toil and rest 
 
 By years are rounded^ so 
 That friendship has its last and best 
 
 In our life'^s afterglow. 
 
 ivil91^8 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Songs of Jaitjj^ 
 
 Crypt and Cathedral 13 
 
 Sibyl and Saint 15 
 
 The Raven and the Dove 16 
 
 Guidance 20 
 
 A Laurel Spray 22 
 
 Wherefore? 23 
 
 A Summer Revery 25 
 
 My Robin 27 
 
 Veiled 28 
 
 After the Rain 30 
 
 An Autumn Day 31 
 
 The Temple by the Sea 33 
 
 Sunrise on the Bay 37 
 
 Reminiscence 39 
 
 A Dream of the Christ 41 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 Sonflg of Sentiment. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 My Centripetal 61 
 
 The House-Top Walk 64 
 
 Paganini 66 
 
 The Cantatrice 68 
 
 Love 69 
 
 Adrift 71 
 
 Aspiration 72 
 
 Immortality 74 
 
 Half Way On 76 
 
 Presentiment 78 
 
 Unspoken 80 
 
 Blending Chords 82 
 
 A Dream ... 84 
 
 Nearing Home 85 
 
 At Last 87 
 
 Onono-Komatch 89 
 
 Ship Ahoy I 92 
 
 Songs of 2ErafaeI. 
 
 Mont Blanc 97 
 
 The Jungfrau 99 
 
 The Staubbach Fall loi 
 
 Paulus Contra Mundum 103 
 
CONTENTS. g 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Silent House io6 
 
 "The Sea IS His" io8 
 
 Lying at the Bar 109 
 
 Songs of Camp. 
 
 A Camp Revery 113 
 
 Into the Forest 118 
 
 Legend of Devil's Lake 120 
 
 The Last Camp-Fire 125 
 
 iWiscellaneous. 
 
 A Tale of the Road 129 
 
 The Crystal Prison 134 
 
 Dividing the World (from the German) 140 
 
 At the Doors (from the German) 142 
 
 Tongues of Flame 143 
 
^ongjs of f at'ti^. 
 
SONGS OF FAITH. 
 
 CRYPT AND CATHEDRAL. 
 
 'T'HE pile of a great cathedral stood, 
 
 In the ages long ago, 
 On the marge where the great Rhine river flowed 
 
 To the breadth of the sea below; 
 And under the deep, dim arch and nave, 
 
 Where the river washed the walls. 
 Was the gloomy crypt, a waiting grave, 
 
 With its silent, shadowy halls. 
 
 When the morning struggled through windows low, 
 
 When the sunset fell aslant, 
 A hooded friar, with utterance slow, 
 
 Rehearsed the Litany Chant 
 With a choir of boys from streets and lanes. 
 
 Who stood where the death-damp dripped. 
 And sang together the friar's strains, 
 
 In the great cathedral's crypt. 
 13 
 
14 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 And the friar said, "As each one learns 
 
 The chant in this prison-gloom, 
 He shall pass, by a stair that winds and turns, 
 
 To the great cathedral room; 
 He shall stand in a surplice white as snow, 
 
 Where the lights of the altar fall, 
 And the voice of his song shall rise and flow 
 
 Like a glory along the wall/' 
 
 Oh ! world-wide prison, girt with graves, 
 
 The songs you echo now. 
 When the singers learn, shall lift their waves 
 
 Where the veiled angels bow; 
 The sound of the harps reverberates. 
 
 The altar-lights are aglow. 
 But the full cathedral-service waits 
 
 For the singers from below. 
 
SIBYL AND SAINT. 
 
 CROM the Cumaean rock a wailing voice, 
 * That was not the cry of the sea, 
 Sent up to the Tarquin's gloomy throne 
 A message of destiny. 
 
 He could not read, so he buried the book, 
 And strengthened bars and walls : 
 
 In vain; the SibyPs voice yet haunts 
 The Tarquin's empty halls. 
 
 From the Patmos rock a singing voice 
 
 Floats to the western sea, 
 And the crumbling arches hear the tones 
 
 Of an open prophecy. 
 
 "Seal not the book," so said the Saint 
 To the world by the sunset sea ; 
 
 Who will, may read on the Roman hills 
 The Sibyl's mystery. 
 
 15 
 
THE RAVEN AND THE DOVE. 
 
 He sent forth a raven, which went to and fro. — Gen. viii. 7. 
 And the dove came in to him in the evening. — Gen. viii. 11, 
 
 T^HE arms of a great unrest had flung, 
 * Like the arms of a shoreless sea, 
 With hatches down, my Life along, 
 Sealed dark in its mystery. 
 
 Helpless I rocked in the foamy grave, 
 
 Or shivered upon the crest. 
 While every sob of every wave 
 
 Found an echo in my breast. 
 
 There was no hand upon the wheel. 
 
 On the yards no shred of sail ; 
 
 Drifted my barque's unsteady keel 
 
 Down the gray path of the gale. 
 16 
 
THE T{AVEN AND THE T>OVE. 17 
 
 Within my heart a Thought was caged, 
 
 Fierce- eyed and strong of wing, 
 That bolder grew as tempests raged, — 
 
 A wild undaunted thing. 
 
 Perhaps its eye could pierce the rage \ 
 
 Of passion's stormy roll, I 
 
 And bring me news of anchorage, i 
 
 And haven for my soul. ■ 
 
 Perhaps its wing, that sports with Death, 
 
 Beyond the storm could fly, 1 
 
 And find in lands of summer breath j 
 
 The end of mystery. ^ 
 
 I drew the window back and sent 1 
 
 This fierce-eyed Thought abroad, } 
 And I saw it plunge, with wings down-bent, 
 
 In quest for Life and God. ^ 
 
 1 
 
 What storm could break its flashing wing? :; 
 
 Or stay it from the shore? \ 
 
 I waited, but my brave storm-king \ 
 
 Came back to me no more. \ 
 
1 8 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 Ah ! the restless Thought flew east and west : 
 
 What cared it for my woe, 
 Since it found its aim and only rest 
 
 In its wanderings to and fro? 
 
 II. 
 A meek-eyed Thought was in my breast, 
 
 Timid in voice and form. 
 How it loved the shelter of the nest ! 
 
 I flung it against the storm. 
 
 A far-off" note across the bars 
 Of the gray clouds c^me to me, 
 
 As if from the veiled and silent stars, — 
 A song in a minor key. 
 
 As my bird rose up o'er the sea so wide, 
 
 I knew it had found the art 
 Of climbing the storm on the rising tide 
 
 Of a song from a trembling heart. 
 
 Ah ! weary day ; but at eve I heard, 
 
 Across the sobbing sea, 
 The plaintive song of a tired bird 
 
 Come floating back to me. 
 
THE T^AVEN AND THE T>OVE. 19 
 
 Oh ! fading light of a day how brief, 
 
 Fading on sea and land, 
 And my timid Dove with an olive-leaf 
 
 Falls to my outstretched hand. 
 
 And the leaf is green. Still rocks my barque 
 In the waves and the deepening night, 
 
 But my heart is still; for past the dark 
 Is the world of Life and Light. 
 
GUIDANCE. 
 
 A LONG the keys a child's hand strayed, 
 And discords filled the air; 
 Even so my blundering heart, I said, 
 That seeks to voice its prayer. 
 
 I have no art to shape my speech, 
 
 My thoughts, unsteady, stray 
 Amid the countless cares that reach 
 
 From dawn to darkening day. 
 
 The melody I fain would Hft 
 
 Breaks up in jangled chords. 
 Through which the voiceless longings drift 
 
 That cannot rise to words. 
 
 n. 
 The mother's hands the child's surround. 
 
 Knowledge and love combine. 
 That unskilled fingers may give sound 
 
 To thoughts or hopes divine. 
 
GUIDANCE, 21 
 
 And those who hear the notes expand 
 
 Along the evening's calm, 
 Cannot divide the baby's hand 
 
 From mother's circling palm. 
 
 O Love Divine ! that reachest down 
 
 To choose the keys for me, 
 Amid each wild, discordant tone 
 
 Discerning melody, 
 
 Lay Thou the hand of grace along 
 
 My heart, and softly wreathe 
 Amid my failures the sweet song 
 
 Of hope I cannot breathe. 
 
 When round me evening's shadows flow 
 
 And the lesson is all done, 
 Only my heart and God will know 
 
 His hand and mine were one. 
 
A LAUREL SPRAY. j 
 
 1 
 
 Xl/HERE the rock goes sheer to the lake below, j 
 
 Far up on the lichened wall } 
 
 The starry spray of a laurel bough \ 
 
 Looks up to the bastions tall, — 
 
 Looks up to the deep blue silent sea, ! 
 
 Clinging close to the rock the while, ■ 
 And starry and white — all timidly — 
 
 Looks down on me with a smile. ^ 
 
 1 
 
 Could I cling so, I wonder, holding fast I 
 
 On the perilous front of things, ; 
 
 With an eye of longing upward cast, ; 
 
 And a rooting of faith that clings? * 
 With only a stone for a resting-place. 
 
 In some lone and far defile, : 
 Could I touch my rock with a lowly grace, 
 
 And toss to the world a smile? 
 
WHEREFORE. 
 
 T DROP my question down the far 
 ''• Clear depths of Heaven's mystery, 
 
 As reverently as to the sea 
 Descends sometimes a falling star, 
 
 And all is still. The waves, indeed. 
 In murmurs deep upon the shore 
 Whisper of gain, of comforts more 
 
 Abounding where is sorest need. 
 
 Of service given by those who wait. 
 Of sweetness from the flower pressed. 
 Of crowns with lustre all unguessed, 
 
 Beyond the veil, within the gate. 
 
 But the deep sea glides on so still. 
 My star is quenched within its waves; 
 All questions find their voiceless graves 
 
 In the great flood of God's great will. 
 
24 ETCHINGS IN l/ERSE, 
 
 Philosophy, in stately flow, 
 
 Rhymes its proud reasons far and wide ; 
 
 But Faith looks down the silent tide, 
 And meekly whispers, " Even so." 
 
A SUMMER REVERY. ; 
 
 'X'HE breath that whirls yon leaflet round, | 
 
 ^ Or bends the grain in measured waves, J 
 
 Hath its helm set in that profound '\ 
 
 Where God is. All the far-off caves \ 
 
 Of ^olus are shaped by Him. Even so i 
 
 My wandering breath of faint desire, } 
 
 Is it not His? Doth He not know ] 
 
 Its path, and all its flight inspire? 
 
 Across the sunset's throbbing glow 
 
 Yon fleecy cloud, how aimlessly ■ 
 
 Drifts on and on, and yet I know "i 
 
 God's will is all its liberty. | 
 
 Oh ! that to my fancy, aimless too, \ 
 
 The current of the skies were given, i 
 
 My lightest thought, with drawing true, ] 
 
 Setting toward the port of heaven. \ 
 
26 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 And when I in my pride rebel, 
 
 Or in my darkness feel despair, 
 Let me but think, this world — as well 
 
 Its sullen storm and its calm air — 
 Is not more surely, softly wound 
 
 By yon blue arms of bending sky. 
 Than all my life is folded round 
 
 By God's love — oh! how boundlessly. 
 
A 
 
 MY ROBIN. 
 
 LITTLE robin came to me 
 A-tiptoe on the winter's edge; 
 Behind him, storms hung gloomily. 
 He poised upon their yielding ledge. 
 
 His velvet breast was full and red, 
 A warm light lit his liquid eye, 
 
 And then — although mid grasses dead 
 He walked — I knew the prophecy. 
 
 Not anywhere a flower bloomed, 
 Not any flush on grass or tree, 
 
 But well I knew the winter doomed. 
 Because that robin came to me. 
 
 Await me other storms, I know, 
 But on their cold, dissolving slope 
 
 Will walk with plumage all aglow 
 
 My fair-eyed red-breast robin, — Hope. 
 27 
 
VEILED. 
 
 TN the half-finished tower of granite the great refrac- 
 tor stood, 
 
 Around it resounded the tools of workers in stone and 
 wood. 
 
 A veil was over the eye that longed for the gates of 1 
 
 light, j 
 
 And the glance that could rive the Pleiads was under ; 
 
 the lids of night. i 
 
 Voiceless and hooded, yet holding the mysteries deep j 
 
 of the sky, j 
 
 The kingly face bendeth, and droopeth the burning j 
 and marvellous eye, — 
 
 i 
 
 The eye that could meet, on the far-away shores of J 
 
 Creation, the gleams i 
 
 That come o*er the sunless gulfs, with footfalls silent ! 
 
 as dreams. \ 
 
 28 i^ 
 
 i. 
 
yEILED. 29 
 
 Bowing his head hke a discrowned king imprisoned | 
 
 in stone, \ 
 
 The shadow-girt telescope stands till the task of the \ 
 
 workers is done. \ 
 
 ) 
 
 O Soul ! with a vision to open the outermost gates j 
 
 of life, 1 
 
 Silent and veiled bending down, mid the workmen's ■ 
 
 clamor and strife. \ 
 
 \ 
 
 The Hope that would fly with its beacon of flame to .: 
 
 kindle it far 
 
 On the hills that rise dimly and lone past the light \ 
 
 of the dimmest star, i 
 
 \ 
 
 Is hooded and roofed ; and the Thought which erst ■ 
 
 wandered with God is stilled, I 
 
 Till the heavens pour light, and the unveiled soul with ' 
 
 God is filled. « 
 
AFTER THE RAIN. 
 
 /^UT of the sobs of the winter's storm 
 ^^ The leaves of spring-time grow, 
 And behind the drifts of the apple bloom 
 Are the drifts of whirling snow. 
 
 The velvet robe of the prairies wide 
 Is wrought by the shuttles of rain, 
 
 And the robin sings in the tree that moaned 
 With the March day's dull refrain. 
 
 Perhaps, O Soul, it will yet appear 
 There is life in the beating rain, 
 
 And not for nought the shuttles fly 
 O'er the quivering threads of pain. 
 
 Perhaps a bird will sing some day 
 In the barren boughs that thrill. 
 
 Like stricken harps, with memory 
 Of storms that haunt them still. 
 30 
 
AN AUTUMN DAY. 
 
 T CLIMB the stairs of a sinking world, 
 
 To my every step they sway; 
 The ashen skies are touched with death, 
 But my soul is glad to-day. 
 
 The low south wind creeps o'er the leaves 
 With step both sad and sweet; 
 
 How wondrous fair this flashing world, 
 Thus dying at my feet. 
 
 I seem to feel it drift from me, 
 
 Across the dreamy haze, 
 And like some island far at sea 
 
 It fades along the days. 
 
 And while it wavers and grows dim. 
 
 Somehow my steps are set 
 Upon a pavement which, unseen, 
 
 Grows firm and firmer yet. 
 31 
 
32 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 And like the marble rise that once 
 Sloped to the temple high, 
 
 Where great Minerva looked across 
 The ^gean Sea and sky, 
 
 So climbs my soul the altar stairs, 
 Whose landing-place commands 
 
 At once the fading world below, 
 And Heaven's rising lands. 
 
THE TEMPLE BY THE SEA. 
 
 \1 7HERE a mountain sloping shoreward dips lush 
 
 grasses in the sea, 
 Ribbed in granite veins, and robed in ivy banners 
 
 hanging free. 
 Stands an ancient temple, built for Christ the Lord by 
 
 sinful men. 
 Who within its lifted arches chant His praise in noblest 
 
 strain. 
 
 Float the voices of the blessings outward with pro- 
 phetic tone. 
 
 Vex the ocean-queens of Passion on their vast and 
 wandering throne ; 
 
 And the Spirit of all Evil in that sea that cannot 
 rest. 
 
 Troubled, beats white arms of anguish on its dark and 
 throbbing breast. 
 3 33 
 
34 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 Rise the vengeful Naiads, clutching at the fair and 
 
 blooming strand, 
 Day and night to silent caverns drawing down the 
 
 yielding sand ; 
 But the worshippers, unshaken, lift their paeans to the 
 
 skies. 
 And, as once on sacred Galilee, the sounds of peace 
 
 arise. 
 
 Near and nearer crowd the billows, treading back the 
 
 crumbling shore. 
 Fiercely drowning all the praises in their deep and 
 
 hollow roar, 
 Or with deft and devilish fingers slipping white along 
 
 the beach. 
 And with murmurs smooth and siren up the glittering 
 
 sands they reach. 
 
 Fierce or gentle, working ever in the darkness and 
 the day, 
 
 They have washed the earth and flowers from the tem- 
 ple walls away; 
 
 Blandly now, in mock obeisance and in triumph pre- 
 mature. 
 
 Crouch the waves, and lay their pallid lips upon the 
 jasper pure. 
 
THE TEMPLE BY THE SEA. 35 
 
 But the worshippers untremulous chant on the melody, 
 
 And the blended chords of peace, good-will, float out 
 upon the sea. 
 
 Back recoil the billows, like a baffled soul that, un- 
 aware. 
 
 Seeks itself to gather passion from the depths of its 
 despair. 
 
 Then the ocean shakes with thunder, and the bugles 
 sound as when 
 
 Old Euroclydon's great trumpet smites along the riven 
 main. 
 
 High the waves uprear their crests, and, flinging shat- 
 tered flags of spray, 
 
 Charge along the darkness where the sword of light- 
 ning points the way. 
 
 Poised and curled an instant, gathering fury for the 
 
 final shock, 
 One by one the trembling billows break themselves on 
 
 wall and rock, — 
 Wall and deep-ribbed rock, that from the passion of 
 
 the sinking flood 
 Seem to rise and gleam resplendent, Hke the shining 
 
 gates of God. 
 
36 ETCHINGS IN I/ERSE. 
 
 All along the sacred arches, where the light of even- 
 ing pla>'s, 
 
 Earth's divinest music falls in vesper notes of lowly 
 praise ; 
 
 And the waves, their white heads bowing, conquered 
 by that wondrous song, 
 
 Backward swinging, bear its echoes all the broad sea- 
 way along. 
 
 Star-sprent curtains of Time's evening trail on spell- 
 bound land and sea. 
 
 While along the bars of heaven climbs the temple 
 melody ; 
 
 And the white-Hpped waves have joined the anthem 
 of the sons of men. 
 
 And around the Rock of Ages fall and sob, "Amen 
 — Amen / " 
 
SUNRISE ON THE BAY. ] 
 
 i 
 1 
 
 'T'HE last white star had sHpped its ray \ 
 
 Within its tent of blue ; ^ 
 
 The great sun sends the level day I 
 
 Along the world anew; i 
 
 So, Lord, within Thy larger will I 
 
 My trembling will would hide, *• 
 
 And in Thy glory, deep and still, i 
 
 Invisible abide. ] 
 
 See Sunrise lay her freshened face 
 
 Across the ropes and spars, . ] 
 
 As Hope, each day with fairer grace, | 
 
 Lights up her prison bars. j 
 
 Creep the white sands to bending waves, ] 
 
 That shake their plumes of spray ; I 
 
 So, Lord, my life before Thee craves i 
 
 For baptisms day by day. ■ 
 
 37 ; 
 
38 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 Laughs the great ocean round the keel, 
 
 Busy the yards and deck; 
 The land-locked crafts the tide-wave feel, 
 
 White wings the blue fields fleck; 
 So, Lord, my spirit waits for Thee, 
 
 Oh, wave of glory come ! 
 One throb of love shall set me free, 
 
 One breath shall waft me home. 
 
REMINISCENCE. 
 
 JVA Y brain is backward turned to-night, 
 ^ ^ * And to my senses come 
 Strangely familiar sights and thoughts, 
 As from some far-off home. 
 
 All Memory's doors are broken through. 
 The Then and Now are one; 
 
 Whatever I see or feel or do 
 Before IVe felt and done. 
 
 By strange reversal, all the tide 
 
 Of being sets not in 
 From future years, but from the past; 
 
 I live that which hath been. 
 
 The faces on the street are old : 
 I Ve seen them otherwheres ; 
 
 The very songs of friends come back. 
 Echoes of well-known airs. 
 39 
 
40 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 My griefs cannot oppress me now, 
 
 My hopes cannot elate; 
 Ix)ng have those shadows swept my path, 
 
 Those hopes stood at my gate. 
 
 The stream runs backward, and I know 
 The freightage of each wave ; 
 
 It only brings me in its flow 
 That which to it I gave. 
 
 I wonder have I lived before 
 
 In some premundane way, 
 And are the sights and sounds that tire 
 
 Doubled from some far day? 
 
 Is this the cost of looking back? 
 
 O Memory, close the door ! 
 For I cannot bide the weariness 
 
 Of the same life o'er and o'er. 
 
 I turn from the old farewells and tears, 
 Wines of old joys are stale ; 
 
 I bend my ears to To-morrow's lip, 
 To listen — or flushed, or pale. 
 
A DREAM OF THE CHRIST. 
 A CHRISTMAS VISION. 
 
 'X'HE evening light fell on the wall, 
 
 Where, in the shadow mist, 
 I looked upon the figures tall 
 Of '' Le Triomphe du Christ : '* 
 
 Procession vast from every land 
 
 By our first parents led, 
 With prophets, saints, — a mighty band, — 
 
 Round Christ, the living head. 
 
 Apostles' hands His chariot roll. 
 With blended strength and grace. 
 
 While saints press toward the aureole 
 That lights the holy face. 
 
 I looked upon that triumph scene, 
 
 Marking its movement well, 
 Until the evening dropped her screen, 
 
 And tired eyelids fell. 
 41 
 
42 ETCHINGS IN l^ERSE, 
 
 I saw the canvas rise, expand; 
 
 From out its shadows dim 
 An angel, stooping, touched my hand, 
 
 And bade me follow him. 
 
 I knew not how, but space and time 
 Seemed no more to be, — 
 
 As if that angel who, sublime. 
 Shall stand on land and sea 
 
 Had spoken; and the walls that bind 
 
 Us in to space and day. 
 Like mists before a rising wind. 
 
 Had all been blown away. 
 
 I saw the battles of the world 
 
 For God and liberty 
 As sometimes, by the clouds unfurled. 
 
 Visions rise from the sea. 
 
 I saw a Bedouin chief alone 
 Receive one word from God, 
 
 Follow that star that westward shone 
 Across Euphrates' flood. 
 
^ DREAM OF THE CHRIST, 43 
 
 Around him desert sands are whirled, 
 
 His moving tents gleam white, 
 As once to find a newer world 
 
 The dove's wings flashed the light. 
 
 Open the Shechem gateway falls, 
 
 Dark Ebal waits for him, 
 And glad in answering blessings calls 
 
 To stately Gerizim. 
 
 The curling altar-smoke ascends. 
 
 And in its radiant cloud 
 The Bedouin, now transfigured, stands 
 
 Abram, the friend of God. 
 
 I see that altar cloud uplift 
 
 Its rainbow hues, and span 
 From Hermon snows to desert drift. 
 
 From Beersheba to Dan. 
 
 Who runs may read its hopeful word, 
 
 Needing no prophet's ken; 
 The Tabernacle of the Lord 
 
 At length has come to men. 
 
44 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 And as its curtains flowed abroad 
 From rivers to the sea, 
 
 Within it came the hosts of God, 
 A goodly company. 
 
 Isaac I saw as when he stood 
 
 In field at eventide, 
 Waiting from lands beyond the flood 
 
 The coming of his bride ; 
 
 Jacob in life's hope and review 
 On BethePs lighted ridge, 
 
 Finding betwixt the old and new 
 An angel-guarded bridge. 
 
 And even as I looked, the land 
 Was full of struggling life, — 
 Prophets in many a peaceful band, 
 ^ And warriors clad for strife. 
 
 I heard a shout from Jordan's vale 
 Swell up to Carmel's crown, 
 
 And, lo ! the walls of Ai reel, 
 And Jericho falls down. 
 
^ TfREAM OF THE CHRIST. 45 
 
 Along a hill where tents like flocks 
 
 Were pitched in proud array, 
 With crash and flash among the rocks, 
 
 Stern Gideon won the day. 
 
 I heard the song of Deborah, 
 
 In passion's sweeping flood, 
 Wheel into line 'gainst Sisera 
 
 The olden stars of God. 
 
 And 'mid these scenes, as in a storm 
 
 Warbles a bird's low strain, 
 Ruth walked, fair face and stately form, 
 
 And gleaned the yellow grain. 
 
 I saw amid the wild acclaim 
 
 A youth, his forehead bare. 
 Taking a crown and royal name. 
 
 Was he not passing fair? 
 
 And then another, to him first sang, 
 
 Bending above his harp : 
 Then seized his crown, while the land rang 
 
 With war-cries wild and sharp. 
 
46 ETCHINGS IN l^ERSE. 
 
 The harp played on — wrought were its strains 
 With every speech and tongue — 
 
 Till weary earth from all her pains 
 Found solace in the song; 
 
 And then the prophets, as of yore, 
 Great hearts and foreheads bent. 
 
 Stood up, and all their faces o*er 
 Shone sovereign content. 
 
 Elijah, calm on Carmel's crest, 
 
 God's fire in his eye; 
 And with his face turned to the East, 
 
 Expectant Malachi; 
 
 And in between, that goodly throng 
 
 With life and daring word. 
 Singing in sweet preluding song 
 
 The coming of the Lord, — 
 
 Singing 'mid fires and wars' alarms 
 
 And Israel's breaking hopes, 
 As sings the lark 'mid breaking storms, 
 
 Along the sunrise slopes. 
 
c^ T>REAM OF THE CHRIST. 47 
 
 And then the angel touched my hand, 
 
 Lo ! down the brightening sky, 
 Along the far-off desert strand, 
 
 A new Star stood on high. 
 
 Its orb, increasing, fairer glowed. 
 
 In larger circles shone. 
 Till over Zion's hill it stood, 
 
 A white and stately Sun. 
 
 And then a shadow, dark and vast 
 
 (Whether from earth or sky 
 I could not tell) , its darkness cast 
 
 Over that burning eye. 
 
 That orb sank back within its veil. 
 
 As in a crimson sea 
 Sinks the spent day, when great storms trail 
 
 Around it sullenly. 
 
 As one in sleep cannot divide 
 
 The moment from the hour. 
 So unto me, who in that tide 
 
 Of light by some strange power 
 
48 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 Was held suspense above the shade 
 Of the still world below ; 
 
 No mark of any time was made, 
 I knew not any flow 
 
 Of years or ages, — all were one, — 
 As down a stream of light 
 
 That came from some unrisen sun, 
 We sailed above the night. 
 
 Above a rock, storm-washed and lone. 
 We paused. An old man there 
 
 Stood where the sea-mists round him blown 
 Were blent with his white hair. 
 
 We heard the passion of his soul 
 
 Rise with the thundering sea, 
 As sometimes the great organ's roll 
 
 The singer's voice sets free. 
 
 He spoke of a far city fair 
 
 As speaks a child of home ; 
 And then, as in heart-breaking prayer, 
 
 "Even so, Lord Jesus, come." 
 
^ DREAM OF THE CHRIST. 49 
 
 That city fair we could not see, 
 
 But flushing through the mist 
 A hint of pearl, chalcedony, 
 
 Jasper, and amethyst. 
 
 Still onward borne, a fair land bounds 
 
 Like Triton from the sea; 
 Like Triton, blowing deathless sounds 
 
 Of songful poetry. 
 
 Mother of Arts, loved Attica, 
 Crown of a world's delights, 
 
 Where classic waters to the sea 
 Dash down from Parnes* heights. 
 
 The Parthenon the morning greets; 
 
 Flashes Minerva's shield. 
 Beacon of light to tossing fleets 
 
 On -^gea's blue field. 
 
 My eye roams over mart and shrine. 
 
 Proud temples every way. 
 And marble gods, that, half-divine. 
 
 Their Phidias-touch betray; 
 4 
 
50 ETCHINGS IN t/ERSE, 
 
 But 'mid them all a form and face 
 
 Human, yet godlike more 
 Than sculptured gods, with kingly grace 
 
 Writ all his features o'er. 
 
 'Mid Cynic sneer and Stoic glance 
 
 He stands all dauntlessly; 
 Olympian Jove in marble trance 
 
 Looks not more calm than he. 
 
 Bent is his form, but underneath 
 
 His shaggy brows, eyes gleam 
 Like flaming sword from out the sheath. 
 
 His words are like a stream 
 
 That from some mountain downward hurled 
 
 Shoots out against the sea, 
 Piercing dark waves that crested, curled. 
 
 Resist it scornfully. 
 
 And as we gazed, the *Mong walls'' reeled. 
 
 The gods more pallid grew, 
 A tremor shook Minerva's shield. 
 
 And Schiller's dream was true. 
 
tA TfREAM OF THE CHRIST. 51 
 
 The gods of Hellas bend their brows, 
 
 The oracle is dumb, 
 A shadow veils Olympus' snows, 
 
 The unknown God has come ! 
 
 As fleecy clouds, by light winds driven, 
 Float through an August day. 
 
 So we down azure streams of heaven 
 Southward were borne away. 
 
 Till Afric's sand in yellow waves 
 To meet the sea-waves crept, 
 
 And broke around the royal graves 
 Where the great Ptolemies slept. 
 
 Toward Hypatia's lecture hall. 
 Far as our sight could reach. 
 
 Crowds surged to hear the god's last call 
 In woman's silver speech. 
 
 But as she spake in pleading tone, 
 
 Her tuneful words between. 
 We heard, across the desert blown, 
 
 The breath of Augustine. 
 
52 ETCHINGS IN l^ERSE. 
 
 It rang like steel in battle shock ; 
 
 It was the new world's cry, — 
 An echo from lone Patmos* rock, 
 
 " De Civitat Dei:' 
 
 I looked across the ages wide. 
 
 Lo ! through Sahara flows 
 A crystal flood, and on its side 
 
 The lily and the rose. 
 
 \ 
 
 And over all the Ethiop lands — \ 
 
 From east to western flood — ■] 
 
 A thousand shafts of flame, like hands, j 
 
 Were upward stretched to God. \ 
 
 '} 
 I to my guide, "The torch, whence sent, 
 
 From what Promethean fount, \ 
 
 That thus enswathes a continent, ' 
 
 As burned the Sinai mount?" j 
 
 I 
 \ 
 
 He smote his hand upon my eyes. 
 
 And then behold, all space \ 
 
 Spread out against the farthest skies; < 
 
 We seemed in every place. 
 
^ DREAM OF THE CHRIST. S3 \ 
 
 I saw great Luther theses nail 
 
 Upon the old church door, I 
 
 And every blow like doom-notes fell i 
 
 The seven-hilled City o'er. I 
 
 Huss in his flaming winding-sheet, '. 
 
 Pillar of guidance grand, l 
 
 To lead God's host, through desert heat, ' 
 
 To a fair and holy land. ] 
 
 Calvin, iconoclast of God, 
 
 Granite in face and form ; 
 A Moses, ruling with his rod 
 
 The spirit of the storm. 
 
 Across the sunny fields of France 
 
 The fiery terror strode ; 
 For Huguenots the flame and lance 
 
 Burst back the gates of God. 
 
 Round Britain's isles its white waves thrilled, 
 
 Rolled round a vessel's keel ; 
 The flapping sail its hot breath filled. 
 
 But Heaven manned the wheel. 
 
54 ETCHINGS IN l/ERSE. 
 
 I saw it shoot within the shade 
 Of a new world's greeting pines, 
 
 Where guarding rocks, with pearl overlaid, 
 Offered their sacred shrines. 
 
 I saw the Pentecostal tongues [ 
 
 Fall like the falling stars, i 
 
 The wildernesses rang with songs. 
 
 The darkness broke with spars ; 
 
 Of dawn, like golden volleys sent 
 
 Athwart the dying night, 
 When Phoebus, with his bow down-bent, 
 
 Shoots javelins of light. 
 
 And then, as when in Israel, 
 
 The patriots lit their fires. 
 Signalling over plain and dell. 
 
 Battle for home and sires. 
 
 So the great mountain altars were 
 Whichever way I turned, 
 
 Alps, Andes, lit the quivering air. 
 The Himalayas burned. 
 
^ T>REAM OF THE CHRIST. 55 
 
 As often when the sun has set 
 
 And paints no more the fields, 
 Above the world it lingers yet, 
 
 And with deft fingers builds, 
 
 Uprears a palace, radiant, rare, 
 
 In magic symmetry, 
 Blazoned with every color fair 
 
 For the young stars to see; 
 
 So while an evening hush stole o^er 
 
 The world we looked upon, 
 Those mountain flames to heaven's shore 
 
 Uprose and blent as one, — 
 
 Blent and rolled inward, fold on fold, 
 
 Of plastic fire inwrought, 
 Until the farthest heavens a mould 
 
 Apocalyptic caught. 
 
 Appeared the jasper walls, four-square, 
 
 Ten thousand furlongs high. 
 With crystal dome that everywhere 
 
 Rose through the starry sky. 
 
56 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 But whether flames from earth upbent 
 Had wrought the vision there, 
 
 Or whether down from heaven sent 
 That city of the air, 
 
 I could not tell; I only knew, 
 As flashed each jasper wall, 
 
 The saints* and poets* dream was true : 
 The Mother of us all 
 
 Her wandering children would enfold, 
 
 Earth's sorrows all above. 
 Within her arms of pearl and gold, 
 
 Within her heart of love. 
 
 Lowered on wings of rosy flame 
 
 I saw the glassy floors. 
 And peoples everywhither came 
 
 Around^ its pearl- set doors. 
 
 Prophets, long prisoners of their dream. 
 Basked in the opening rays; 
 
 Paul looked as when he met the gleam 
 Of the Nubian lion*s gaze ; 
 
^ T>REAM OF THE CHRIST. 57 
 
 John on its threshold stood again 
 
 With that seraphic awe 
 That Ut his face on Patmos, when 
 
 Its prototype he saw. 
 
 And in the shadow rim that lay 
 
 Beyond earth's belt of light, 
 Dark faces pressing toward the day 
 
 Greeted the vision bright. 
 
 From Plato's brow the shadow fell, — 
 
 Was that his city, too, 
 For which his faith had builded well, 
 
 And better than he knew? 
 
 And near him his great teacher bent 
 
 Toward the central blaze. 
 Not with the thinker's thought intent, 
 
 But with the prophet's praise ; 
 
 The Bard of Chios, no more blind. 
 
 Rising from his long night. 
 Saw all the visions of his mind 
 
 Solved in that ray of white. 
 
58 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 I watched the sunless light enfold 
 All lands in centric rings, 
 
 Till, lo ! above the streets of gold 
 I heard the sound of wings. 
 
 I woke. The light fell on the wall, 
 
 Full on the canvas shone ; 
 But prophets and saints had faded all. 
 
 And I saw Christ alone. 
 
^ongjej of Sentiment. 
 
SONGS OF SENTIMENT. 
 
 MY CENTRIPETAL. 
 
 A S looking to-night to the concave dark, 
 ^^^ And listening, bowed with awe. 
 
 To the music that climbs on infinite bars. 
 To the rhythm of heavenly law, 
 I fancied the thought of a sensitive star. 
 When it hung in that exquisite pause. 
 Where the slackening force of its outward flight 
 Was yielding to central laws. 
 
 One moment it trembled between the glow ^ 
 
 Of the sun, with its bands of light, j 
 
 And the wave-like shadow-drift that fell | 
 
 Somewhere on the shores of night. \ 
 
 One moment between the impulse wild j 
 
 That shot it along the sky, - 
 
 And the force, that in curves of graceful sweep, ■ 
 
 Would give it an orbit for aye. ; 
 6i 
 
62 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 Was it foolish to think these thoughts to-night, 
 
 When the stars came one by one, 
 And the Milky Way, like a vessel's wake, 
 
 Bloomed white in the track of the sun? 
 Was it only a fancy that cheered my walk 
 
 From the dusty ways of the town, 
 To the little gate that bars me in, 
 
 While the world goes up and down? 
 
 Nay ! rather my life has the mood of the star, - 
 
 Having passed the dread suspense 
 'Twixt the central drawings of love and light. 
 
 And the world's tract, dark and dense. 
 It has stood in a vibrant equipoise 
 
 On the line that sharply bars 
 The glow of one centre from the gleams 
 
 Of a thousand wandering stars. 
 
 I yield to the fireside light that draws 
 
 My life to its orbit curve, 
 And over it throws the golden cords 
 
 That never will slacken or swerve. 
 What care I now for the strife of tongues, 
 
 And the highway's restless roar? 
 For the outer world is less and less, 
 
 And the inner more and more. 
 
IMY CENTRIPETAL 63 
 
 The cedar and palm have bent to the blast, 
 
 And fallen on Lebanon's brow, 
 And the apples of Youth's Hesperides 
 
 Are ashes and bitterness now. 
 But higher above my door-way climbs 
 
 My vine with its evening shade. 
 And the fig-tree puts forth tender leaves, 
 
 That never will fall or fade. 
 
 So I muse as I turn from the haunts of men ; 
 
 Though their shadows are on my track. 
 Yet the evening lamp of home, I know, 
 
 Has power to beat them back. 
 No more a man-worried man, but a king. 
 
 Stoops under my cottage door; 
 For the outer world is less and less. 
 
 And the inner more and more. 
 
THE HOUSE-TOP WALK.^ 
 
 VI/EATHER-STAINED and beaten and empty 
 now, 
 
 The long, long vigil is o'er; 
 No longer the ships go out to sea, 
 
 And the watchers wait no more. 
 Sailors and watchers are resting now, 
 
 Some on this sandy lea, 
 And some, with the sea-grass round them twined. 
 
 Are asleep in the wandering sea. 
 
 But it comes to me, as I walk the street 
 
 Of the quaint historic town, 
 A vision these scenes have looked upon 
 
 In the years so long agone, — 
 
 1 Along the ridge of the roof of many houses in Nantucket 
 there is a platform railed in, called " tbe walk/' from which the 
 families of the sailors were wont to watch the outgoing and incom- 
 ing ships. 
 
 64 
 
THE HOUSE-TOP WALK. 65 
 
 A vision of struggle with storm and tide 
 
 By the brave ones, called to roam 
 On the wrathful way of the ocean wide, 
 
 And a vision of love at home. 
 
 On the house-top walk in the morning gray. 
 
 And yet in the deepening night, 
 They watch for the flash of a homeward sail, 
 
 Or the swing of a masthead light. 
 It is morn again, and again *tis eve. 
 
 So the days drag one by one ; 
 And the steadfast thing in the changeful scene 
 
 Is the love that will have its own. 
 
 So the hair grows gray and the faces thin. 
 
 For the sea is empty still; 
 And the lonely years will have their way, 
 
 And God will have His will. 
 But the watch is o'er. What matters now 
 
 Though the ships drift endlessly. 
 Though some are asleep in the graveyard there. 
 
 And some in the wandering sea? 
 
PAGANINI. 
 
 TJE shambled awkward on the stage, the while 
 Across the waiting audience swept a smile. 
 
 With clumsy touch, when first he drew the bow. 
 He snapped a string. The audience tittered low. 
 
 Another stroke ! Off flies another string ! 
 With laughter now the circling galleries ring. 
 
 Once more ! The third string breaks its quivering 
 
 strands, 
 And hisses greet the player as he stands. 
 
 He stands, — the while his genius, unbereft. 
 Is calm ; one string and Paganini left ! 
 
 He plays. The one string's daring notes uprise 
 Against the storm, as if they sought the skies. 
 
 66 
 
TAGANINI. 67 
 
 A silence falls — then awe; the people bow, 
 And they who erst had hissed, are weeping now. 
 
 And when the last note trembling died away, 
 Some shouted "Bravo!" some had learned to pray. 
 
THE CANTATRICE. 
 
 A DAUGHTER of the gods, she sang 
 
 Of glory, love, and art 
 In godlike notes, o'er marble lips, 
 And from a marble heart. 
 
 Oh, songful Undine ! Could I woo 
 And wed, and make her mine, 
 
 I 'd break her queenly heart, — and then 
 Her song would be divine. 
 68 
 
LOVE. 
 
 DENELOPE weaveth o'er and o'er, 
 
 As faithful waiteth she 
 Her lord from far Calypso's shore. 
 Oh, rare Penelope ! 
 
 Old love hath triumph over new 
 Old love hath mighty arms, 
 
 Reaching adown the far sea's blue 
 To unbind Calypso's charms. 
 
 Proud sails again Ulysses spreads, 
 
 Flieth his heart before ; 
 Penelope weaveth endless threads, 
 
 And waiteth on the shore. 
 
 The siren's isle must passed be, — 
 Ah, Love, port hard the nelm, 
 
 Lest the hope of true Penelope 
 The song-waves overwhelm. 
 69 
 
70 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 Floats the mad music on the wind, 
 But the sailor's ears so fast 
 
 Great Love did close, and sweetly bind 
 Ulysses to the mast. 
 
 The fair ship flieth on and on, 
 Love sets her needle straight; 
 
 Penelope, thy faith hath won, — 
 Ulysses's at the gate. 
 
ADRIFT. 
 
 A CHILD with daring hand 
 
 Stooped down and pushed her tiny boat 
 From the shelving shore ; she watched it float 
 Seaward, far out from land. 
 
 At eve, when day was done. 
 She wept because the boat no more 
 Came back, — stranded on some far shore 
 
 Around the setting sun. 
 
 Sweet child ! how like us all. 
 We push our boats and wait in vain. 
 No sail is on the restless main. 
 
 And the far shadows fall. 
 71 
 
ASPIRATION. 
 
 When for earth too fancy-loose 
 And too low for heaven. 
 
 Mrs. Browning. 
 
 T ARK from English meadows springing, 
 
 Level bars of sunrise climbing, 
 At the azure gateway ringing 
 All thy liquid soul in rhyming 
 Music for the nest below; 
 Impulse of thy flight supernal 
 
 Checked by love that downward calleth, — 
 Love that from the blue eternal 
 To the nest of birdlings falleth 
 
 In a wavering flight and slow. 
 
 Ever thus, my soul, thy song. 
 Though it break against the sky, 
 
 Feels the earthward drawing strong, 
 And relapses to a sigh. 
 72 
 
ASPIRATION. 73 
 
 And the wing that cleft the air 
 
 With an impulse brave and true, 
 Heaven yielding, bendeth where 
 
 Gleams the world in transient dew. 
 
 Eagle of the mountain, springing 
 
 Out upon the airy ocean, 
 Beating back its storm-waves, swinging 
 
 Cloudward with a daring motion 
 
 Till the heights of space are won ; 
 Bruised and buffeted by racking 
 
 Of the storms, he sinketh weary. 
 Slow, unconquered, backward tracking. 
 
 Like a victor, to his eyrie. 
 
 With his eye upon the sun. 
 
 Ever thus, my soul, thy flight 
 
 Overreaches not the cloud, 
 And, though brave thou spurn the night. 
 
 It will bind thee in its shroud. 
 Though thy wings be downward bent, 
 
 Yet to thee be triumph won. 
 If, with plumage torn and rent. 
 
 Thou canst look upon the sun. 
 
IMMORTALITY. 
 
 T BENT o'er a plant that rose to throw 
 
 To my hand one waxen bloom, 
 And a viewless censer to and fro 
 
 Wafted clouds of rare perfume. 
 From a desert plain a wild wind swept 
 
 With fierce and fiery breath ; 
 It fell where my heart its vigil kept, 
 
 And smote my flower to death. 
 
 I stood where a silver-bladed stream 
 
 Cleft the old gray hills in twain, 
 And its song was the music of the dream 
 
 That made me a boy again; 
 But the stream ran on with shining feet, — 
 
 Ran toward the dying day, — 
 And its white lips wildly seemed to greet 
 
 Waters so far away. 
 74 
 
IMMORTALITY. 75 
 
 I stood where a million stars shone fair 
 
 Through the flush of a summer night, 
 But only one, down the bending air, 
 
 Touched me with its shaft of light. 
 One moment above me it stately stood. 
 
 Like the Bethlehem Star of old, 
 And then, in its own white glory-flood 
 
 Wheeled under the sea-waves cold. 
 
 But my cloud of perfume somewhere dips 
 
 Its viewless wings to me. 
 And the little streamlet's hungry lips 
 
 Have kissed some soundless sea. 
 My fallen star, through other skies. 
 
 Some fadeless landscape laves. 
 And yet for me, with a sweet surprise, 
 
 T will touch the jasper waves. 
 
HALF WAY ON. 
 
 /^^RASSES entangled with shadows, 
 ^^ Branches that sway overhead, 
 Vistas down spangled meadows, 
 
 And a brook with a noiseless tread : 
 
 Out of the hills of the morning 
 It winds a widening stream, 
 
 And shows, to the evening turning, 
 A network of shadow and gleam. 
 
 A thread from the purple mountains 
 
 Of the dewy early day. 
 Nurtured by all the fountains 
 
 That spring in the grassy way. 
 
 A deep, wide river throbbing 
 On a dim and sounding shore. 
 
 With white lips tremulous sobbing 
 At the twilight^s dusky door. 
 76 
 
HALF WAY ON. 77 
 
 Which to the heart is dearer, 
 
 The brook of the morning bright, 
 Or the wave that, white and weary, 
 
 Kisses the shores of night? 
 
 Fair is the gate of the Even, 
 
 And fair the Morning dews; 
 Like Paul 'twixt the earth and the heaven, 
 
 I know not which to choose. 
 
PRESENTIMENT. 
 
 PROM the silent gates of long ago 
 
 Came, with presentient beat, 
 A shadow of voiceless mystery, 
 
 And now it hath touched my feet. 
 
 Shall I question the sad-eyed prophet? 
 
 Shall I bid the dark veil say 
 What sibyl face it keepeth 
 
 Hidden from sight away? 
 
 What is that heavy portent? 
 
 Is it the brow of Jove? 
 Or, under the stormy vestment. 
 
 The face and heart of Love? 
 
 I cannot tell; but the shadow 
 
 That so overflows my feet 
 Has sent to my heart a feeling 
 
 Of peace that is strange and sweet. 
 78 
 
TRESENTIMENT, 79 
 
 No more will I seek thy visage, 
 
 Sphinx of my desert way; 
 Through the night let Silence keep thy lips, 
 
 They will speak at the dawn of day. 
 
UNSPOKEN. 
 
 TJOVV smooth the speech of summer waves, 
 
 Telling their moods to me ! 
 But in vain I listen for the voice 
 Of the dim and olden sea. 
 
 From the grave of the fair Atlantis 
 Comes neither breath nor sound, 
 
 And the stillness of the upper Pole 
 Guards the lost Eden round. 
 
 Then speak, O Soul ! thy word to me 
 
 With lightest summer breath : 
 But my heart goes out to the spell- bound sea 
 
 That silent lies beneath. 
 
 I bend my ear to the silver speech, 
 
 But the deeper soul I keep 
 For the waveless, breathless silence where 
 
 The dearest mysteries sleep, 
 80 
 
UNSPOKEN. 
 
 And I wait; for I know the heavy depths 
 
 Will yet bring gifts to me, 
 And the lost Atlantis bloom again 
 
 In the midst of the crystal sea. 
 
BLENDING CHORDS. 
 
 Space is ample, east and west, 
 But two cannot go abreast. 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 'T'HE heavens are full of stars whose mood 
 
 Draws each to all, yet every one 
 Moves on in stately solitude, 
 A sad, self-centred, lonely sun. 
 
 So draws my soul to thee, O Man ! 
 
 Though stellar spaces intervene ; 
 And yet across my orbit's plan 
 
 To walk with thee in vain I lean. 
 
 A cosmic ruin waits the star 
 
 That breaks its bands its twin to greet ; 
 But heaven's vastest spaces are 
 
 The bonds for fellowship — how sweet ! 
 82 
 
"BLENDING CHORDS. 2>z 
 
 Along the rising octave bars 
 
 Of distance, infinite and lone, 
 The well-sphered music of the stars 
 
 Breaks round the white and central throne. 
 
 Somewhere, afar, my minor strain. 
 
 Trembling, with other songs will blend; 
 
 And I shall know, in its refrain, 
 The fellowship that hath no end. 
 
A DREAM. 
 
 I DREAMED a dream where setting suns 
 
 Purpled the ocean's rim, 
 While long slant waves across the beach 
 Chanted an evening hymn, — 
 
 A dream I could not tell to men; 
 
 Earth never learned its speech, — 
 A longing in the voiceless soul 
 
 For something out of reach. 
 
 And now I walk again with men, 
 
 In life's keen fever-fret. 
 And through the glare of common things 
 
 My vision haunts me yet ; 
 
 It plays across my moods, my cares, 
 
 Like shadows on a stream. 
 And calls me — holds me — unawares. 
 
 Oh, might I live my dream ! 
 84 
 
NEARING HOME. 
 
 *' TTE is rapidly failing," — so smooth came the 
 
 -'• ^ stroke 
 
 Down the telegraph line. Through the silence it 
 
 broke 
 On a heart well-inured to such crashes ere now. 
 And yet, it was strange ! That father whose brow 
 Was held clear toward Heaven and level to men 
 Through the storms that blew out of the threescore 
 
 and ten. 
 Whose strength seemed perennial like that of the 
 
 pine, — 
 "He is failing," — strange words down the telegraph 
 
 line. 
 
 Groans the train through the night, through city and 
 
 land; 
 The race is with Death for the grasp of that hand. 
 
 85 
 
86 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 " Nearing home — nearing home/* sing the wheels 
 
 as they fly; 
 Nearing home in the light of the fading sky. 
 I, swift to the home that has drawn me these 
 
 years, 
 And he unto his, in the sphere beyond spheres : 
 To the father on earth, through the gloom-gates of 
 
 even; 
 To the Father above, through the pearl-gates of 
 
 heaven. 
 Ah ! which shall be first in this race for the home, 
 House below — house on high — which the sooner 
 
 shall come? 
 
 It is done; thou art first. Take the crown, oh, 
 
 thou best 
 Of all fathers ! I meekly salute thee at rest. 
 
AT LAST. 
 
 A S birds by counter currents flung 
 ^~^ Along the yielding air, 
 So fly my agitated thoughts 
 Across the Everywhere. 
 
 One instant on some Pisgah height 
 
 I catch the roll of seas, 
 When straight, 'mid beasts of prey, I fall 
 
 At bay upon my knees. 
 
 The mists one moment bury me 
 Beneath their darkening pall. 
 
 Again their gates of amethyst 
 Roll back, and show me all, — 
 
 The all of time, its recompense 
 That comes to balance pain; 
 
 The all of God, whose fulness leaves 
 No space to want again. 
 ^7 
 
88 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 What matters it? An atom blown 
 
 Across the sea or land, 
 Whose origin is Heaven's throne, 
 
 Whose destiny, God's hand : 
 
 It shall survive the sport of chance. 
 
 Survive its own unrest; 
 The final wind that picks it up 
 
 Shall dash it to God's breast. 
 
 I have no science to forecast 
 The way that wind shall blow, 
 
 Save only this, the will of God, 
 It never shall o'erfiow. 
 
 Within this faith, behind its veil, 
 
 I keep my anchor grip, 
 And hold my forehead to the storm. 
 
 My finger to my lip. 
 
 Some suns there are whose light not yet 
 Has found these lower skies. 
 
 Some thoughts of God are on their way; 
 I wait their keen surprise. 
 
ONONO-KOMATCH. 
 
 TN the Pantheon group of the Land of the Sun, 
 The first 'mid the great and revered of Nipon, 
 Is the portrait of her who gave fortune, rank, love. 
 For faith in her art. How she patiently strove 
 To put into voice what the poet-soul feels 
 Is shown by the canvas, where meekly she kneels 
 By the basin of water, and washes away 
 The lines all unworthy the light of the day. 
 
 When Charlemagne opened the new day for France, 
 
 And Haroun-al-Rachid with a pen for a lance 
 
 Burst open the Bosphorus gate to the west, 
 
 That its letters might enter Arabia the blest. 
 
 Did the world know that far in the unspoken seas, 
 
 On a shut, dreaming isle, was a greater than these, — 
 
 A woman, who, while they were vaunting great 
 
 themes. 
 Blotted out her best word, because false to her 
 
 dreams ? 
 
90 ETCHINGS IN I^ERSE, 
 
 As she stands at the Temple of Fame with her hands 
 All empty and piteous, while full-jewelled bands 
 Bind the foreheads of artists and poets and kings, 
 Is this not her plea, "This withered life brings 
 But itself; no work that remains hath it done. 
 It poured out its desolate days one by one 
 In devotion to thoughts unattainably high. 
 While others bring sheaves, I have only a sigh." 
 
 So her poems are not in the Manyoshiu, 
 They are not in the treasures of Sandeishiu, 
 (The many-tomed records of Japanese lore, 
 Which the diligent sages have writ o'er and o'er). 
 The burning thoughts of her fiery brain 
 You will seek in the Manyoko in vain; 
 For when were there words that prisons could be 
 For a spirit so broken, so boundless and free? 
 
 Who lives for the words that have no song, 
 
 For the Truth, 'gainst the world's empurpled Wrong, 
 
 For the Art that never a temple adorns. 
 
 And the Life that bends for a crown of thorns. 
 
 For the sunlit cloud of a dream sublime 
 
 That holds no rain for the fields of Time, 
 
 Shall find in the spirit that breaks with a sigh 
 
 The guerdon of best immortality. 
 
 o> 
 
ONONO-KOMATCH, 91 
 
 On the Pantheon walls of the fair Nipon 
 Are graven the songs of the Land of the Sun ; 
 And there, 'mid the sculptured gods of the brain, 
 A meek maiden kneeleth, her face full of pain. 
 She is nearest the altar; her fingers entwine 
 Round a manuscript, written with only one line. 
 'Tis Onono-Komatch, and on the crushed scroll, 
 '^ My harp-strings are snapped by the storm in my 
 souU^ 
 
 Prophetic the sign in the maiden's hand; 
 As a wave white-footed creeps up the strand, 
 So the rising tide of her Art's despair 
 Swept off the poems that looked so fair. 
 She holds in her heart what the heart can feel, 
 And her far-away eyes, in wrapt appeal. 
 Are set to the Sunrise, swift and strong. 
 That can open the Memnon-lips of song. 
 
SHIP AHOY! 
 
 'T'HE ships of the year have touched the shore, 
 
 Their lading has been good ; 
 And as we count their treasures o'er, — 
 Their fine wheat for our food, 
 
 Their wine of love our hearts to cheer. 
 
 Spices from Long Ago, 
 Rare gifts of friendship far and near. 
 
 The love that loved us so, — 
 
 Our hearts beat quick to Him who kept 
 
 Our ships within His hand. 
 Whose breath, while we have toiled or slept, 
 
 Has wafted them to land. 
 
 But from the treasures at our feet. 
 
 We lift expectant eyes; 
 The pennons of a distant fleet 
 
 Are flecked against the skies. 
 92 
 
SHIP AHOY! 93 
 
 Afar, like phantom ships, they ride; 
 
 But every sunrise casts 
 Deeper reflections in the tide, 
 
 And statelier rise the masts. 
 
 The sails, like pinions of the gull, 
 Cur\^e forward, sharp and thin ; 
 
 The dancing houris clasp the hull, — 
 Our ships are coming in. 
 
 What faces o'er the gunwale lean, 
 
 To meet us on the strand? 
 What eyes, alight with loving sheen, 
 
 What stroke of hand to hand? 
 
 What hearts against our hearts to fall — 
 
 What loyal steps to beat 
 Their march with ours till comes the call 
 
 That halts the weary feet? 
 
 Ah, who can tell? But fair Hope keeps 
 Her watch by unknown seas; 
 
 And Faith, like Peter, seaward leaps, 
 And God be thanked for these. 
 
^ongjs of CratjeU 
 
SONGS OF TRAVEL. 
 
 MONT BLANC. 
 
 IVjOT from the Vale of Chamouni, 
 
 Where the flow of pleasant streams 
 Is veiled by the lingering morning mist, 
 As a thought may be clothed in dreams ; 
 
 Where the gleaming gates of the glaciers old 
 
 The stately entrance bar 
 To the pinnacles and bastions high 
 
 Of the mountains vast and far; 
 
 Not there, where the grasses whisper low. 
 And the sweet-voiced birdlings sing, 
 
 Can I take the measure of thy form. 
 Thou storm-wrapped, stately king ! 
 
 But from some weary Col de Balme, 
 
 Lonely and far and bleak 
 Where the voice of the little birds is hushed, 
 
 And eternal voices speak; 
 7 97 
 
98 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 Where the world in dimness sinks away, 
 And the purple distance shows 
 
 Thine upward rise of solitude, 
 And everlasting snows. 
 
 Even so I leave the paths of men. 
 And the voices that I love, 
 
 In a daring climb, somewhere to find 
 A throne that is built above 
 
 The last dim peak of the Alpine way, 
 And beyond a sinking world. 
 
 Beyond the star-decked robe of eve 
 In its purple distance furled. 
 
 Where lone, and vast, and full of rest — 
 
 Worthy the spirit's land. 
 Worthy the weight of a weary faith — 
 
 Rises the throne of God. 
 
THE JUNGFRAU. 
 
 AITEARY the rugged heights I climb 
 
 To gaze upon thy form, 
 Only to find, in stem reserve, 
 
 Thou hast veiled thyself in storm. 
 
 I cannot see thine icy slope, 
 But o'er thy bastions strong 
 
 I hear thine avalanchine voice 
 Pass thundering along. 
 
 I cannot catch its syllables; 
 
 Its inarticulate roll 
 Is like to that with which God sends 
 
 His will across my soul. 
 
 I wait: the evening light reveals. 
 
 Amid the breaking clouds 
 One peaceful gleam of radiant snow 
 
 Beyond the shattered shrouds. 
 99 
 
lOO ETCHINGS IN I^ERSE. 
 
 I wait, indeed. At evening time, 
 
 When lifts life's mystery, 
 One great white thought of God shall speak 
 
 His righteousness to me. 
 
THE STAUBBACH FALL. 
 
 \ 17 HAT Titan from yon beetling crag, 
 
 Down flung thee, so 
 To break thee on these jagged rocks 
 And stop thy flow? 
 
 In vain ! for in thy fall I saw 
 
 Thee change to mist, 
 And waver to and fro in gold 
 
 And amethyst. 
 
 And thus glide to the depths below. 
 
 As soft and still 
 As falls the dew when sinks the sun 
 
 Behind the hill. 
 
 I saw thee body forth thyself 
 
 Once more a stream. 
 And hasten on with joyous feet 
 
 Of silver gleam. 
 
 lOI 
 
I02 ' ETCHINGS IN l/ERSE. 
 
 I saw thee touch the roots of flowers, 
 
 And the green grass 
 Did lift and start to greener life 
 
 As thou didst pass. 
 
 Oh, Staubbach brook, my spirit touch ! 
 
 Teach me the art, 
 When rudely flung by Titan force, 
 
 And torn apart, 
 
 To hide awhile within the veil, 
 
 And gather then, 
 Even on the rocks, new speed to go 
 
 And serve again; 
 
 New faith in Him, who, though I fall, 
 
 Confirms my feet, 
 And sends me on 'mid flowers fair 
 
 And meadows sweet. 
 
PAULUS CONTRA MUNDUM. 
 
 At my first answer no man stood with me ; ... notwithstanding! 
 the Lord stood with me. — 2 Tim. iv. 16, 17. 
 
 nPHE present fades. These ruins vast 
 Glide backward to the stately past, 
 Where they emerge, ruins no more, 
 But piles of marble as of yore. 
 Complete from tessellated floor 
 To carved dome that vaulted o'er 
 The statues and the marble frieze 
 Of Phidias and Praxiteles. 
 The Coliseum shades the sky; 
 A hollow mountain thrust on high, 
 From underneath whose sounding floor 
 Rises the Nubian lion's roar. 
 The Saturn temple, strong and fair, 
 Leans out upon the purple air. 
 While just above — dark tier on tier — 
 The prison's frowning walls appear. 
 103 
 
104 ETCHINGS IN l^ERSE, 
 
 Along the Via Sacra there, 
 With bare head bent in peaceful prayer, 
 Passes the feeble form of Paul, 
 To stand in Caesar's judgment hall. 
 Alone ! save Luke — one heart is left 
 Lest life be all too much bereft — 
 And God ; He never fails to stand 
 WTiere great souls for Him take the brand 
 Of shame and scorn. And so they meet — 
 Caesar and Paul. Ah, judgment seat ! 
 The approaching feet are judgment shod, 
 Thy prisoner looks the looks of God. 
 
 The hungry lions wait their prey; 
 And, Caesar, thou — the judgment day. 
 Cast out beyond thy city wall, 
 Imperial Rome, the corse of Paul ! 
 But, see thy Coliseum fall — 
 And with it, thou : while at the call 
 Of Christian ages, round thy shrines 
 Full many a Christian temple shines. 
 Silent the Via Sacra now, 
 Scarred marble faces round it bow. 
 Worn columns mark the way of doom, — 
 The monuments on Glory's tomb; 
 
TAULUS CONTRA (MUNDUM. 105 
 
 But o'er these stately stepping-stones 
 Across a dark world's brightening zones, 
 I see a regal form move on, 
 With steps that lighten like the sun, — 
 Move on, from sea to western sea, 
 With only God for company. 
 
THE SILENT HOUSE. 
 
 /^ RASS-PAVED, the silent road rolls on 
 ^^ Over the mountain side ; 
 Maple and birch and sumach plumes 
 
 Lie rich in the sunset's tide. 
 And past their gates of red and gold 
 A lone house stands, full worn and old. 
 
 Storm -scarred are blackened sides and roof. 
 
 Rafters sink one by one; 
 Across the dust-strewn, yielding floor 
 
 Slants the red evening sun. 
 And empty windows — sightless eyes — 
 Stare out against the deepening skies. 
 
 How once those chambers rang with mirth, 
 What merry lights were flung abroad. 
 
 What royal cheer was for the guest 
 Who came along that lonely road ! 
 
 Deserted now ; and vacant eyes 
 
 Look down the path that silent lies. 
 io6 
 
THE SILENT HOUSE. ' 107 
 
 On other roads, on paths of steel, 
 
 The merry groups whirl on; 
 They have left the waiting house alone, 
 
 In the sad September sun. 
 Sumach and maple flames roll round 
 The old house sinking to the ground. 
 
'•THE SEA IS HIS." 
 
 ly/IAN claims the land, but his domain 
 ^ ' * Stops at the shore. 
 God's wandering acres of the main 
 Roll on before. 
 
 I look this vast expanse abroad, 
 
 My rest is this : 
 This is the blue- veined palm of God, 
 
 "The sea is His." 
 
 Far from the world men walk upon. 
 
 Why should I fear? 
 Across this Galilee the Son 
 
 Of God draws near. 
 
 I lie within his hand. Above 
 
 Benignant bends 
 The blue eye of his boundless love, 
 
 And that defends. 
 io8 
 
LYING AT THE BAR. 
 
 T^HE exile has been long, 
 
 And broad, too broad the sea, 
 Across the which my longing heart 
 Has beaten heavily. 
 
 And now the sunset falls 
 
 On western hills afar; 
 But the sails are down, the tide is out, 
 
 We are lying at the bar. 
 
 And on beyond the sunset gates 
 
 Another land I ween; 
 And for its friends my exiled heart 
 
 Hath longings deep and keen. 
 
 Oh 1 silent tide, when comest thou 
 
 Beyond yon evening star? 
 My thoughts, my hopes are flying on, — 
 
 I am lying at the bar. 
 109 
 
^ongjsi of Camp, 
 
SONGS OF CAMP. 
 
 A CAMP REVERY. 
 
 A S a lance of sunrise over the hill 
 ^^ Pierces the mists that lie 
 Dun and heavy on field and rill, 
 From the woods to the western sky, 
 
 So the lance of firelight bursts to-night 
 
 The shadow-gates of the past. 
 And shows in the glow' of its dancing light 
 
 The years with their treasures vast. 
 
 I am rich, I think, in this sombre wood. 
 
 With a richness past compare ; 
 For time is not, and in memory's flood 
 
 I am yester's happy heir. 
 
 What is it I hear? Through the silence round 
 
 Comes, borne on a current fleet, 
 A laughing ripple of baby sound. 
 
 And the patter of baby feet. 
 8 113 
 
114 ETCHINGS IN VERSE, 
 
 I am strangled again in the old arm-chair, 
 I am fast in the meshes light 
 
 Of the curls that net me everywhere, 
 And moisten my eyes to-night. 
 
 For the loneliest hour, on seas or lands 
 
 (Match it no solitude can), 
 Is the day when the strangling baby hands 
 
 Unclasp from the neck of the man; 
 
 When the game of bo-peep goes out of the hall, 
 As the game of the years comes in. 
 
 And we play more alone, and care not at all 
 Whether we lose or we win. 
 
 I am counting over my pearls. Ah, here 
 
 Is one which a mighty wave 
 From a mighty depth has brought, — a tear 
 
 Made crystal in its deep sea grave. 
 
 I wrung it out on a baby's face, 
 
 I dashed it away from me ; 
 Now it comes back, by its transformed grace 
 
 To light my eternity. 
 
J! CAMP T{EyERY. 115 
 
 Another wave to my idle feet 
 
 Has flung a tinted shell, 
 Burdened with music sad and sweet, 
 
 From a depth no line can tell. 
 
 It has no sound for other ears; 
 
 But to my heart alone, 
 It sobs and sings of far-off years 
 
 In a haunting undertone. 
 
 So I listen and dream; and beneath the free 
 
 Groined arches of the pines. 
 The church of the village comes to me 
 
 With its square and modest lines. 
 
 From its silent doors the ghost of a hymn 
 
 Comes quavering along. 
 As if the dead, from their silence dim, 
 
 Were keeping up the song. 
 
 Though the parson sleeps in his grassy tent, 
 The voice of his trembling prayer. 
 
 Sweeter than sound of an instrument. 
 Lingers upon the air. 
 
Ii6 ETCHINGS IN l^ERSE, 
 
 I am walking again in the grasses deep 
 Of the churchyard's empty way, 
 
 I am reading the names of those who sleep 
 'Neath the marbles worn and gray; 
 
 And they who have gone, come back to me 
 As I read each moss-grown stone, — 
 
 Heaven's goodly and shining company, — 
 And I am no more alone. 
 
 Is it the wind that sighs in the pines. 
 Or the strange, sweet noise of wings? 
 
 A path of fire through the wood that shines. 
 Or a vision of heavenly things? 
 
 Is this woodland temple a Gothic shrine, 
 With its swaying lines and bands? 
 
 Or is it, in shadow, the rise divine 
 Of the house not made with hands? 
 
 I cannot tell; but the dream I dream 
 
 Of the fading days of yore 
 Has a dash that, like a mountain stream. 
 
 Cuts open the hills before. 
 
^ CAMP T{EyERY. 117 
 
 My heart leaps out of the past with a bound 
 
 That requires somewhere should be, 
 Beyond the shadows that bind me round, 
 
 A landing-place for me. 
 
 So I rest awhile in the shadow here, 
 
 This tent of God's own love, 
 While Memory guards the darkening rear. 
 
 And Hope flies on above. 
 
 So, heart of mine, fly on before. 
 The path through the woods is free, 
 
 While I wait for the house where evermore 
 My dwelling-place shall be. 
 
INTO THE FOREST. 
 
 'T'HE storm had passed; its winding sheet was 
 
 wrapped 
 Around the pines that stood Hke spectres grim 
 Adown the ghttering spaces of the wood, 
 Around the uptom roots and far-off cliffs 
 That gleamed as if the sun his light had wrecked 
 Upon their jagged front. Our muffled train 
 Tossed back the drifts as vessels lift the spray ; 
 The smoke-wreaths darkly closed around the trees 
 And trailed along the whiteness, as a doubt 
 Sometimes falls shapeless on fair fields of Truth. 
 
 Afar along the track, with shambling gait, 
 A lone, wild child of this lone forest pressed 
 His weary way like one who has no aim ; 
 His tattered blanket held across a breast 
 From which all love of life had died away ; 
 His head bent low as in a thought of pride 
 That had been blasted like a shivered pine. 
 Which, lightning- struck, stands dead, but cannot fall. 
 
 1 18 
 
INTO THE FOREST. 119 
 
 The whistle blows; the sad face hardly turns. 
 
 There is no protest in the quiet eyes, 
 
 Or in the ambling muffled step that slides 
 
 Across the conqueror's iron path and seeks 
 
 The stillness of the woods that once were his, — 
 
 By sufferance now his refuge for a day. 
 
 Till some new force shall cross his doubtful path 
 
 And turn him back and round, till death shall come 
 
 And give him place within its ample gloom. 
 
 Oh, iron track of a great nation's life ! 
 
 Oh, force too pitiless, that drives along 
 
 Trade, knowledge, art, religion, on a slope 
 
 That glitters fair and white like Heaven's road, 
 
 But, like a fiery Fate, thrusts off the life 
 
 Which God had throned along these temple aisles ! 
 
 The weaker ever falls before the strong. 
 And flesh and blood must yield to nerves of steel. 
 Art holds her lever straight through blasted hopes; 
 But down the depths of history there gleams 
 A troubled look, a Nemesis, that haunts 
 The way our brother went with sullen face. 
 And in the far-off gloom there stands a fact 
 Of judgment, still and white, like yonder pine 
 That, palHd, shows the way God's lightning went. 
 
LEGEND OF DEVIL^S LAKE. 
 
 T low deep and still the summer noon that rests 
 
 Upon this lake. Within these jagged cliffs 
 Nor breath nor sound finds way. The shadows fall 
 From tree or cloud, as motionless and still 
 As dreams fall down upon the souls that are 
 At peace with God and mam The scarped rocks, 
 Like castle walls that guard enchanted ground, 
 Hold changeless ward around the waters deep, 
 Whose sharp and broken curving shores appear 
 As if a piece of sky, once wrecked along 
 Yon crags, had fallen down, and haply found 
 A resting-place as still as its own heaven. 
 
 *Twas here, in times long gone, a chieftain dwelt 
 Whose treasure-trove was not in arms or lands 
 (Since these by stronger tribes had wrested been), 
 But in a daughter, in whose eyes the stars 
 Might look for clearness, in whose well-poised form 
 And grace of manner passing clouds might look 
 
LEGEND OF T)EyiLS LAKE, I2i 
 
 For rest and motion, in whose heart as in 
 
 A mirror all the beauty of the world 
 
 Was glassed. Her step was light upon the grass 
 
 As footfall of the shadow from the cloud, 
 
 Her voice was as the note of early bird, 
 
 Her laughter like the fall of waters cool 
 
 Amid the ferny glens; and far and near 
 
 Her presence was a benediction pure, — 
 
 A nameless fragrance on the very air. 
 
 As comes along the garden when the night 
 
 Is still, and silent dews from heaven fall. 
 
 Two lovers sought the maiden's heart and hand; 
 The one a prince from lands beyond the flood. 
 High-born and wearing on his girdle signs 
 Of valor fierce, of wars and victories. 
 The other was her girlhood friend, — a youth 
 Of carriage noble, frank of face and mien, 
 Her playmate on the smooth and pebbly shore 
 Of the strange lake ; her helper in the arts 
 That soothed her father's heart and cheered his days. 
 As interlaced the sunbeams 'mid the shade 
 Of bending trees above the hut, so these 
 Blent thought with thought, and brightened toil with 
 toil. 
 
122 ETCHINGS IN yERSE, ^ 
 
 One evening, when the level sun his spears j 
 
 Of light sent quivering on the distant hill, \ 
 These lovers waited for the old chiefs word; 
 
 While dutiful the daughter stood with eyes \ 
 
 Downcast, and meek hands folded on her breast. 
 
 i 
 
 Burned in the old chiefs heart the pent up fire 
 
 Of valor yet. Gone were his lands, his bands ; ! 
 
 But quenchless was the light that kindled now, ; 
 
 And only daring should his daughter win. j 
 
 He pointed to a far-off crag that hung | 
 
 Above the silent depths, and thus he spake : 1 
 
 ,i 
 i 
 
 \ 
 " On yonder height an eagle hath her nest. 
 
 Who first from out that nest shall to me bring 1 
 
 An eaglet, shall my daughter's hand receive.*' ] 
 
 Scarce spoken were the words when prince and \ 
 
 youth 
 
 With equal bound sprang forth. Love lent her wings. j 
 
 As leaps the chamois on the sides of Alps, ; 
 So on from crag to crag, from ledge to ledge, 
 
 Urged by hot hearts, and side by side, the twain | 
 
 Rushed on. The last sharp arrow from the sun \ 
 Just touched the splintered height when sprang the 
 
 youth 
 
 With one exultant bound, and reached the nest, ; 
 
LEGEND OF DEVILS LAKE. 123 
 
 Bent down to seize the prize, when, lo ! the prince, 
 With hands by mad and ruthless passion nerved, 
 Hurled the fair youth adown the awful height, — 
 A hundred fathoms down. The silent lake 
 Received his form, to yield it not again 
 Until the sea gives up its buried dead. 
 
 The maiden with a heart of prayer had watched 
 
 Each step, had seen her lover grasp the prize, 
 
 Had seen him fall, had seen the waters close. 
 
 With flying feet she reached the pebbly shore. 
 
 One thrust, — her light canoe glides swiftly out ; 
 
 Her lithe form scarcely bends while with deft hands 
 
 She guides the arrowy bark to that dread spot 
 
 Where still the waters restless sway, as if 
 
 They mourned the dead. One moment that fair form 
 
 Erect, as marble rigid, stood above that grave ; 
 
 Two pleading hands rise up against the gathering 
 
 night. 
 And then a plunge as swift as sunlight ends 
 The tragedy of love. The youth hath won 
 His bride. The waves close over ; the canoe 
 Floats idly to the shore ; the stars come out 
 And wheel in groups above the double grave. 
 As if to look upon the mystery of love. 
 
124 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. 
 
 Ages have come and gone ; but still, when stars 
 Take up their stations on the heights of space 
 (So runs the legend of this Spirit Lake), 
 A maiden, fair and stately calm, is seen 
 With steady stroke to send her spirit-boat 
 Around the waters still, as seeking that 
 Which lost, on earth can nevermore be found. 
 
THE LAST CAMP-FIRE. 
 
 piLE on the pine and hemlock boughs, 
 
 Send up the starry shower; 
 Ten days of wildwood friendship be 
 Concentred in this hour. 
 
 To-morrow comes the world again, 
 
 Its paths of dark or light; 
 To-night we draw the circle close, 
 
 And every face is bright. 
 
 Kind memories more than hemlock flames 
 
 Across our foreheads creep, 
 And underneath these placid days 
 
 Are friendships true and deep. 
 
 The camp-fire is a vulcan forge, 
 
 Within whose throbbing glow 
 Are welded bands that will not break 
 
 Till Life's tent is laid low. 
 125 
 
126 ETCHINGS IN ^ERSE. 
 
 How hard soever old Time may strike, 
 Or sudden storms may brew, 
 
 The rivet-pins of kindly thoughts 
 Will keep this circle true. 
 
 Around Life's camp the shadows lie, 
 And dark aisles of the wood, 
 
 And ope their silent mystery, 
 We would not if we could ; 
 
 But rather face to face we turn, 
 And when our hope declines. 
 
 We '11 trace the way the sparks reveal 
 Above the silent pines. 
 
 Then pile the pine and hemlock boughs, 
 Send up the starry shower; 
 
 Before to-morrow's battle call 
 Let freedom have one hour. 
 
 Perchance, when the last battle 's fought. 
 In the last evening's damp, 
 
 Our earthly thought of heaven's rest 
 Will be this Bruld camp. 
 
^ptsJceUaneoujs, 
 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
 
 A TALE OF THE ROAD. 
 
 BY AN OLD ENGINEER. 
 
 1\T0, my running days are over, 
 ^ ^ The engineer needs rest; 
 My hand is shaky, children, 
 
 There's a tugging pain in my breast. 
 But here in the twiUght gather, 
 
 I '11 tell you a tale of the road 
 That will ring in my head forever. 
 
 Till it rests beneath the sod. 
 
 We were lumbering on in the twilight. 
 
 The night was dropping her shade, 
 And the "Gladiator'' labored, 
 
 Climbing the top of the grade. 
 The train was heavily laden. 
 
 So I let my engine rest. 
 Climbing the grading slowly, 
 
 Till we reached the upland's crest. 
 9 129 
 
I30 ETCHINGS IN yERSE. ' 
 
 I held my watch to the lamp-Hght, : 
 
 Ten minutes behind the time, ! 
 
 Lost in the slackened motion ' 
 
 Of the upgrade's heavy climb ; ^ 
 
 But I knew the miles of the prairie i 
 
 That stretched a level track, j 
 
 So I touched the gauge of the boiler, \ 
 
 And pulled the lever back. 
 
 Over the rails a-gleaming, | 
 
 Forty an hour or so, i 
 The engine leaped like a demon 
 
 Breathing a fiery glow; 
 
 But to me, ahold of the lever, | 
 
 She seeme^ a child alway, j 
 
 Ready to mind me ever, \ 
 
 And my lightest touch obey. i 
 
 I was proud, you know, of my engine, i 
 
 Holding her steady that night, i 
 
 With my eye on the track before us i 
 
 Ablaze with the drummond light. I 
 
 We neared a well-known cabin, j 
 
 Where a child of three or four 
 
 1 
 
 Oft waved to me a signal, { 
 
 A- playing round the door. ; 
 
 i 
 
^ TALE OF THE T{OAD. 131 
 
 My hand was firm on the throttle 
 
 As we swept around the curve, 
 When something afar in the shadow 
 
 Struck fire through every nerve. 
 I sounded the brakes, and crashing 
 
 The reverse lever down in dismay, 
 Near and nearer, — oh, God ! eighty paces 
 
 Ahead was the child at its play. 
 
 One instant, one awful and only. 
 
 The world flew around in my brain; 
 I smote my hand hard on my forehead 
 
 To keep back the terrible pain. 
 The train I thought flying forever, 
 
 With mad irresistible roll, 
 While the cries of the dying, the night wind, 
 
 Swept in to my shuddering soul. 
 
 Then I stood on the front of the engine, 
 
 How I got there I never could tell. 
 My feet planted firm on the cross-bar 
 
 Where the cow-catcher slopes to the rail; 
 One hand firmly locked on the coupler. 
 
 And one stretched out in the night, 
 While my eye gauged the distance, and measured 
 
 The speed of our slackening flight. 
 
132 ETCHINGS IN yERSE, \ 
 
 1 
 My mind, thank God ! it was steady ; \ 
 
 I saw the curls of her hair, 
 And the face that, turning in wonder, \ 
 
 Was lit by the deadly glare. 
 I know little more ; but I heard it, i 
 
 The groan of the anguished wheels, ; 
 
 And remember thinking, "The engine 
 
 In agony trembles and reels." ] 
 
 One rod — to the day of my dying | 
 
 I shall think that old engine reared back, j 
 
 And as she recoiled with a shudder, j 
 
 I swept my hand over the track. 
 Then darkness fell on my eyelids; 
 
 But I heard the surge of the train, 
 And the poor old engine creaking, \ 
 
 As racked by a deadly pain. 
 
 They found us, they said, on the gravel. 
 
 My fingers enmeshed in her hair, \ 
 
 And she on my bosom a-climbing, i 
 
 To nestle securely there. 
 
 We are not much given to crying, ; 
 
 We men that run on the road, . 
 
 But that night, they said, there were faces ! 
 
 With tears on them lifted to God. \ 
 
Jl TALE OF THE T{OAD. 133 
 
 For years in the eve and the morning 
 
 As I neared the cabin again, 
 My hand on the lever unconsciously pressed, 
 
 And lowered the speed of the train. 
 When my engine blew her greeting. 
 
 She always came to the door ; 
 And her look, so full of heaven. 
 
 Blesses me evermore. 
 
THE CRYSTAL PRISON. 
 
 I N the library's shadiest corner, 
 
 One sultry morn of July, 
 As I glanced from my reading of Domer 
 
 A spider I chanced to espy; 
 A gray and a long-legged spider, 
 
 Well poised on eight pedals he stood, 
 
 In a somewhat contemplative mood. 
 On the sunshine he rested one eye, 
 And the other was opened much wider 
 
 On the vellum of "Synopsis Poli." 
 
 To clap down a goblet upon him, 
 
 An invisible jail. 
 Was the thought not of mischief or play, 
 But an entomological way 
 
 Of scientific and painful duty, — 
 134 
 
THE CRYSTAL TRISON. 13S 
 
 A duty whose rule is 
 (Although it so cruel is), 
 First catch, then empale. 
 Then sprinkle with snuff, 
 Or other odorous stuff. 
 This thin, gray Arachnidal beauty. 
 
 Then, recaUing wise Solomon's message, 
 
 *' To the ant, thou sluggard, and learn ! '* 
 "A spider," I said, "sure may presage 
 A moral, as well as an ant ; 
 It is solemn and stilted, and can't 
 
 Be bad for giving a turn 
 
 Of an ethical sort to one's thinking." 
 
 So, shutting my book, I sat winking 
 At my prisoner, who, with one eye 
 
 Stood stupidly, silently blinking 
 At the light of that day in July; 
 
 The other, opened much wider. 
 Was lifted to '^Synopsis Poli," — 
 
 My ambitious Arachnidal Spider ! 
 
 When he roused from his strange meditation. 
 
 It occurred to that venturesome spider 
 He would stroll through a part of creation ; 
 
136 ETCHINGS IN VERSE. 
 
 And in the green fields of the room, — 
 
 On the carpet, with flowers abloom, — 
 
 He would achieve of the world a much wider 
 
 Idea than ever before. 
 He would climb up the window or door. 
 The comers he e'en would explore. 
 And stand on the far away shore 
 
 Of the hearth, and look up to the dark. 
 Deep dome of the chimney-flue. 
 Be dazed by the ray struggling through 
 
 From the land of the cloud and the lark ; 
 
 Or else he would climb on the book-case shelf. 
 
 And, like other philosophers, see for himself 
 How deep and how high. 
 How near to the sky 
 
 Is that time-scented vellum of "Synopsis Poli." 
 
 But alas for the spider who never had learned 
 There are walls that are crystal, and one may be 
 
 turned 
 From his stroll through the universe, deftly and 
 
 quick. 
 By boundaries viewless, but firm, high, and thick ! 
 
 So he battered his head in a reckless endeavor 
 To go through the prison of glass, — 
 
THE CRYSTAL TRISON, 137 
 
 First one side, then t 'other ; but, of course, he 
 could never 
 That invisible barrier pass. 
 Then he took to his legs, with the thought, no 
 
 doubt : 
 
 "My head, indeed, is broken; 
 But he who can climb may always get out 
 Of prison or trouble or torment or doubt, 
 
 For the top of things is open/* 
 Alas ! little prisoner, yield to your fate. 
 Your courage is ample,- your legs are eight, 
 
 But glass is a slippery wall; 
 Your philosophy also is all askew, 
 For the top of your prison has no hole through, — • 
 
 A crystal dome over all ! 
 So avail you nor legs, so graceful and fair, 
 Nor the wisdom that looks with a Solonic air 
 And a quizzical eye 
 At "Synopsis Poli," 
 With a stare which despair 
 Makes hopeless and hopelessly wider, 
 My discouraged Arachnidal Spider. 
 
 Ah ! could we but measure the distance between 
 
 Aspiring and doing, 'twere well. 
 The horizon is crystal, — may never be seen, — 
 
138 ETCHINGS IN VERSE, \ 
 
 All the same it determines, decisive and keen, 
 Our crystalline prison or cell. 
 
 Ah ! small past believing j 
 
 The world of achieving. 
 Though vast be the realm of our dream ; \ 
 
 And ever, as outward : 
 
 Our faces are set, 1 
 
 Our steps are thrown backward, 
 The barriers are met 
 In the walls without visible gleam. 
 In prison-bound vision, 
 The far-off Elysian 
 Blue fields of our fame may appear. . 
 
 But there 's practical pith \ 
 
 In the Persian myth : \ 
 
 Round the world is a crystalline sphere. 
 
 So no more will I jeer /^ 
 
 At the spider, for here j 
 
 Is a prison we all must share ; 1 
 
 Nor laugh at the eye j 
 
 So ambitiously high j 
 
 At "Poli Synopsis'* there. \ 
 
 Though my freedom be wider 
 
 There are books beyond call j 
 
 Of insect or man, \ 
 
 And sun-rays fall H 
 
THE CRYSTAL TRISON, 139 
 
 Past our vision to scan. 
 'Twixt the Can't and the Can 
 
 SoHd buttressed the wall, 
 
 And the dome 's over all, 
 Both for insect and man, 
 Fellow-prisoner, Arachnidal Spider, 
 
DIVIDING THE WORLD. 
 
 [from the GERMAN OF SCHILLER.] 
 
 " DEHOLD the world ! Oh, men hear my decision," 
 
 Cried Jupiter from his great throne ; 
 " I give it you for brotherly division, 
 For feoff and endless loan." 
 
 Then hands in choosing were outstretched. 
 
 Bestirred him sharply, old and young. 
 The richly fruited fields the farmer reached ; 
 
 The lord to forests clung; 
 
 The merchant took the well-stored riches ; 
 
 The abbot chose the noblest wine ; 
 The king shut down on roads and bridges, 
 
 And cried, " The tenth is mine 1 " 
 
 Too late, when ended the division. 
 
 The poet came from lands unnamed, 
 Only to hear, in tones of sharp derision. 
 
 That everything was claimed. 
 140 
 
DIVIDING THE 1VORLD. 141 
 
 " Alas ! shall I be dispossessed, — 
 
 I, thy most true and loyal son?" 
 To Jupiter he cried, in tones depressed, 
 
 And fell before the throne. 
 
 "In dreamland hast thou been abiding?" 
 
 RepHed the god. "Why call to me? 
 Where wert thou then when men were earth dividing? " 
 
 The poet said, "With thee. 
 
 " My eyes upon thy face were feasting, 
 
 My ear, on heaven's harmony; 
 Forgive the soul that to thy presence hasting, 
 
 Has given the world for thee." 
 
 "What shall be done!" cried Jove, "the world is 
 given ; 
 
 The chase, the mart are not my own. 
 But come to me ; find access free to heaven. 
 
 And welcome to my throne." 
 
AT THE DOORS. 
 
 [from the GERMAN.] 
 
 I KNOCKED at the gilded door of Wealth ; 
 
 * Through the window was given a farthing by stealth. 
 
 I sought Love's beautiful close-shut door ; 
 But many as eager had reached it before. 
 
 The gate of Honor I tried in vain ; 
 " Only the knighted can entrance gain." 
 
 I sought the lowly roof of Toil, 
 Only from pains and groans to recoil. 
 
 The house of Friendship then I tried. 
 There were none to show it, far and wide. 
 
 A little house I remembered then. 
 At last thereto I shall entrance gain. 
 
 It has already full many a guest; 
 But for many more in the Grave is rest. 
 
 142 
 
TONGUES OF FLAME. 
 
 \1 T'EARY with the empty Hfe, that frothing surges 
 ^ ^ on the street ; 
 Weary with a restless, fevered brain, and aimless, tramp- 
 ing feet; 
 
 Close pursued by shadows, reaching arms across the 
 
 busy town, 
 Drawing veils along the world, and setting in the sky 
 
 a crown : 
 
 Shutting out the little JVow, to chafe along the dark- 
 ened sea. 
 
 Merest pebble tossed by waves that murmur through 
 eternity, — 
 
 I, alone, with dreams that arch-like span the cold ex- 
 panse of years. 
 
 Springing lightly from the present, like a bridge that 
 has no piers ; 
 
 143 
 
1 
 
 ■* 
 
 144 ETCHINGS IN yERSE, \ 
 
 I, alone, am musing while the shadows of the dark- I 
 
 ening room, 
 
 Touched by firelight, range around me like gilt vol- I 
 
 umes of the gloom. ] 
 
 Moody is my fancy, sweeping backward through the j 
 world's long age ; ' 
 
 Fame is but a book of shadows, with a gilding to the 
 page. 
 
 Ah, my lady, when your poet's tinted leaf you deftly \ 
 
 turn, I 
 
 Think, God only sees the shadow underneath the | 
 
 thoughts that burn ! ' 
 
 \ 
 
 Then I touched the dying embers, and the flashes j 
 mounting higher ] 
 
 For an instant lit the bust of Tasso with a tongue of ''■ 
 fire; ! 
 
 Fell on him who stood beside him, — in his marble 
 
 trance between ■ 
 
 Heaven and hell, — the broken-hearted, stately, dream- ] 
 eyed Florentine ! i 
 
TONGUES OF FLAME. 14S t 
 
 Oh, my Tasso ! pouring us the wine of Zion's royal i 
 
 dream, 1 
 
 And thy cold lips vainly begging for a draught from \ 
 
 Lethe's stream ! 1 
 
 Oh, my exiled Dante ! reaping where no Beatrice may 
 
 glean ; 
 Treading marl of lonely death, and holding sheaves of 
 
 golden sheen ! 
 
 Gathering bravely for the garners of the world's re- 
 motest age ; 
 Dying hungry, trampled by thy Italy's insensate rage ! 
 
 Slant the shadows back, and forward falls a flicker- 
 ing wave of light 
 
 On the lettered books, where names shine out like 
 stars along the night; 
 
 And as billows crowned with sunrise fall on rock and 
 
 yielding strand, 
 Giving brightness to the granite, spurning back the 
 
 drifted sand. 
 
146 ETCHINGS IN I/ERSE. 
 
 So those royal names look down upon me with their 
 
 deep-drawn lines, 
 Cut by waves of Ages, on whose crests a dawn eternal 
 
 shines ! 
 
 Mighty artists ! pausing tremulous with prophecies sub- 
 lime, 
 
 And with hand unerring, carving pedestals as broad as 
 Time. 
 
 And my heavy thoughts that drifting hid my Plato from 
 
 my ken, 
 Beaten back, have left me in the kingly fellowship again. 
 
 Smooth and firm the shore of life, along which treading 
 
 years have paved 
 Pathways to the silent shrines in everlasting sunlight 
 
 laved. 
 
 Jostled by the narrow foreheads in the iron ways of 
 
 men, 
 Crowded from the line of march whose shining goal is 
 
 empty gain, 
 
 Glad for refuge from the glitter which is only splendid 
 
 gloom, 
 Through the doors of lifted Ages slides my soul, — and 
 
 here is room. 
 
TONGUES OF FLAME. 147 ^ 
 
 \ 
 
 Faintly to my reverent spirit comes the ringing pavement ] 
 
 tread J 
 
 Of the throng who in the market barter brains and heart \ 
 
 for bread ! j 
 
 But I stand among the Centuries that, with priestly i 
 
 gems impearled, ; 
 
 Noiseless light the altar candles for the homage of the \ 
 
 world. \ 
 
 And from out the dome above me — like the setting of i 
 
 a crown — | 
 
 Thought's Apostles, mute, immortal, look with radiant J 
 
 faces down ! \ 
 
 University Press : John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 
 
M191908 
 
 e 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY