Southern Branch of the University of California Los Angeles Form L-l FI9 w This book is DUE on last date stamped below ocr .' WORDS WITH WINGS WORDS WITH WINGS BY CHARLES G. FALL 46995 LONDON: ELLIOT STOCK 7, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.G. '9*3 p CONTENTS V PAGE v THE "TITANIC" ....... i THE PEOPLE'S LEADER - - . -3 FAITHFUL TILL DEATH -.-.- 4 . OLD AGE - ...... 5 SAINTED -.- - . - - - 8 - THE BRAND OF CAIN .... - IO C ETERNAL YOUTH ...... 12 CHARON'S GHOSTS - - - 19 THE NIGHT THAT HAS NO MORN - - 2O THEODORE ROOSEVELT - - - - 21 LOVE IN DEATH ..-- 24 PRAYER TO THE JUNGFRAU - - -25 v GHOSTS ....-.--26 SEA-KING'S TYRANNY - - 30 INGRATITUDE ....... 31 PICTURES BY OLD MASTERS ... "32 SL THE SIBYL'S DREAM ..... 36 THE SACKING OF SALONE - - * 37 MONTENEGRO ..... - 39 SAN MARINO ....-.- 4! RETRIBUTION ....-.-42 APOLLO ....--.- 43 THE FALLS OF KERKA - - - - - 46 FERDITA -- - - -4$ THE MOUNTAIN GRAVE - - - 49 vi Contents TAGS THE CRICKET'S SONG .... 51 FREEDOM'S SHRINE .... - 54 CROSSING THE RUBICON - 58 THE SWORD OF THE SLEEPERS - - - - "59 VICTOR EMMANUEL - - - "63 THE -TRIPLE TRAGEDY - 64 PKACE LYRICS - .... 66 CELESTIAL MUSK -.-... 69 TWO QUEENS ..... 70 FABIAN -......- 77 VAL DE BRUNO - - - - - 8l THE GRISLY'S GRAVE - . 84 THE CRUSADER'S CRIME - 85 OUR CLASS DAY .... - 88 THE SACRIFICE .... 93 SUN PAINTED (ON LAKE LEMAN) - - 94 LOVE'S LAMENT ..... "95 THE SEA-WOLVES' LAIR ... -97 ISLES OF THE BLEST ... - IOO FELLSMERE ... - IO2 A DALMATIAN GEM .... 103 KORTUNATUS .... - IO7 ADRIATIC ISLES - - - - - - IO8 A REQUIEM - . - - - -112 NIOKE - ......114 MY FOREBEAR'S FAREWELL - - - 116 THE UNFORGOTTEN - - - - 117 RADETSKY - - - - - Il8 THE CARDINAL - - - - - -119 LINGUA MUSICA -.-..- I2O BRUTUS - .... . 121 CALUMNY - - - - - 122 GOOD-NIGHT ....... 123 VENI ! VIDI ! VICI | ...... 124 Contents vii PAGE FAIR TREBIZOND - .... - 125 THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS - - - - 126 THE DYNAST'S TYRANNY - - - - 129 THE MOTHER TO HER SONS - - - - Ijl OLYMPIC GAMES - - - - - - -133 WORDS WITH WINGS - - - - - -137 THE UNCROWNED KING - ... - 138 THAT MARBLE HEART ...... 139 DETHRONED ... ... 140 HUNGARY'S MILLENNIUM ... . 142 AT THE GRAVE OF KOSSUTH ..... 143 THE KOENIG SEA- ... - 144 THE DANUBE'S GATES ...... 145 THE HYENA OF BRESCIA ..... 147 THE CRADLE OF THE RACE - . - 148 UNTRODDEN WAYS - - - - - -154 MOTHER ..... . 156 EVEREST'S SOLILOQUY - - - - - - 157 THE FLIGHT FROM MOSCOW - - - - 158 EUROPE'S AMAZON ... - 160 SKOBELEF ... - 162 THE TSAR'S SOLILOQUY --.-- 164 11, THE "TITANIC" SEE, see her storm the surge ! Leviathan, And has no peer ! What knight with lighter heart Breasted the battle's fray ? What lover ran With fleeter feet to take a sweetheart's part ? Peace, Gorgon Sea ! A champion now appears Throws down the gauntlet to your tyrannies, Hurls in your teeth your threatenings and our fears ; Man's horror of your thunders was, not is ! This is a peri's palace, and the city Within her walls gay as a bridal morn ; The voyager now can shut his ears to Pity, The Titan scorns the Furies of the storm. The wrecks, whose graveyard is the ocean's floor, Look up with wonder when they hear her roar. This was. Her grave is now the ocean's floor ; It was the Ice- King was her conqueror. She lies beside her sisters, scorned before ; The surges off Cape Race are mourning her. The "Titanic" Nor they alone ! Hear ye that cry of woe That shakes the prostrate form beside yon grave ? See ye those orphan tears like fountains flow ? Their cruel forbear was that murdering wave ! And hear ye, too, that wail tumultuous rise, And roll along like some great undertow Mid cliffs and crags, and heave with moans and sighs ? These diapasons from the nations flow ! The dead who sleep within the Titan's arms Awoke a sleeping world to chant their charms. But tears for women ! Courage is man's part ! Come, stand upon the deck it is the brink of death : Hear these good-byes is there a fainting heart ? When, when have braver men, without one faltering breath, Though manly tear, stood face to face with God ? We, doomed to die, salute thee, Conqueror, But let our dear ones kiss their native sod ; Breathe softly, winds ! Be not their murderer ! Brave men have died died at Thermopylae But for their country and the Ages praises, For, false, the Centuries would see them flee ; These died at night, mid no inspiring phases, No flag to cheer their eyes, nor child, nor wife, That chivalry might be the crown of life. THE PEOPLE'S LEADER MINE is a tongue of flame, a brain of ice ! The fire burneth when the ice commands ; I am not Passion's slave ! 'Tis Reason stands Supreme and never buys at Passion's price. When Angelo was calling from the stone His David or his Christ, the chips would fly Like meteorites, but every line and bone Was fashioned by the artist's icy eye. When Caesar in the forum lit the light, Illumed the sky as constellations glow, The hand that held the torch was Wisdom's might, As frigid as the silent Tiber's flow. That man who loves his country with a statesman's sight Should have a mind that dares to do the right. FAITHFUL TILL DEATH LOWER and lower the great Liner settles ! Nearer and nearer the typhon of death, So near they can hear the hiss of his rattles, And feel on their faces the fumes of his breath. But their melodies soften the ice in the air, Give life to the hearts that are icier still, Stay the pallor of fear on the forehead of care, And strengthen the soul of the staggering will. And the boats have been lowered no places for them, No places for hundreds as fearless as they ! The toga of death has their blood on its hem, But the heart of their music is gallant and gay. The great ship heaves a sigh, and then buries her head. All over ! No use for their frolicsome notes ! So their melody changed to a dirge for the dead ; 'Twas the prayer of the dying, and died in their throats. OLD AGE COME, take my trembling hand, Old Time, and lead My stumbling steps to some secluded nook, Whose eyes look out upon yon cloistered mead, Whose ears drink in the vespers of its brook, My face set towards yon pageant of the sun ; For I would read its slowly dying ray, Would see the shadows down the hillsides run, Would view the spectres on the hilltops play. Behold the God of Day return to bed. Draw down the window-shades, put out the light, For now my heart is with the past, the dead, The friends who sleep within the arms of night. Ah ! this, alas ! this is the lot of Age, To say good-byes to those fair gods of youth Have closed the Book of Life whose purple page They longed to lighten with the stars of Truth ! The dead! The dead! those heaven-lent girls and boys, With cheeks so red and eyes with sunrise bright ; Those college mates who plumed their wings for joys Are born of turning darkness into light ; 5 Old Age Those boys with sadder eyes who lived to reap Some of the starry flax hard hands had sown ; Those fathers, mothers, ere they sank to sleep, Saw eager generations round their throne, Gone ! gone ! Yes, gone across that waste of cloud As trackless as Sahara's shifting sand Alone, alone, no star to light the shroud Which hides from sight, perhaps, the promised land; Yes, gone to that eternal realm of dream, And left us here to grope through deserts lone, Trying to make life seem no flitting gleam ; But can the heart sing psalms when it should moan ? But sadder than this loss of loves the death Of one Age hoped would close his leaden eyes, Would shield his head from Tramontane's breath, And still its voice when tired Nature cries ; Would graft his scions till a manor grew Of oaks and elms would lift aloft his name And say their seigneur was kind, just, and true ; The children's incense is the fathers' fame ! Alaska now ! Ah, now a snow-swept waste The dazzled eyesight sees, fruitless, forlorn ; When tolls the muffled knell no child shall haste ; When dusk shall call the toilers home, no morn ! Old Age 7 And yet, perhaps, there is within the vale, So black with clouds they melt the Ice-King's tears, Some glade that Elusinian airs regale With violets outstay the winter's fears. SAINTED THE Muse of Tragedy was calling o'er the Roll Of Honour upon Fame's Elysian fields, Those died for others and whose death the Ages toll, To grave the names of heroes on their shields. And came to those had died upon tempestuous seas, When ships that bore great argosies went down Beneath the Ice- King's rage, frail forms were left to freeze Within the caverns of the iceberg's frown. The Titan's roll was called and clarion trumpets blew To the four winds the names of noblemen Were knights to womanhood and Fortune slew ; The goddess now took up her golden pen, But heard a woman's name proclaimed. " How so ?" she asked ; A voice so spirit-like she scarce could hear Replied : Our boat was full ; a woman left, was tasked With duties, wife and mother, fond and dear. 8 Sainted 9 My place I gave to her it was the only one ; I was a maid and of a gentle mould. An awful silence spread; a great voice said, Well done ! The goddess wrote the maiden's name in gold. THE BRAND OF CAIN MINE is the brand of Cain ! A thousand spectres stare me in the face ! Frail wives and mothers laid their hands in mine, Sweet babbling Innocence, And men of lion-heart, The bride whose eyes were pearls of love And young Antinous who thought those eyes were suns, Fair knights of chivalry, Apollo's son, Midas and some with shoulders outdid Hercules, And one who bore a province on his back, Captains of enterprise Nor least, the hearts were covered by a blouse, A regiment of lovers And legions loved them as their lives ! How did I keep my vow of hospitality ? Macbeth of Tartarus could answer : Hell rings with answers That Earth would blush to name And Heaven would shudder at the thought of! 10 The Brand of Cain 1 1 'Twas Lucre and mad Sport that dug their graves Nay, left them graveless And sheeted by a sea a thousand fathoms deep Could never wash these bloodstains from my hands ; Their blood an ocean would incarnadine 1 Where was my conscience ? Frozen like the iceberg 'Gainst which I drove the Sea-Queen's beak ? Why am I here ? Ask Sisyphus, my forbear, Who for causes like is tugging at his boulder ; And if he answer not, Go ask the eagle of the Caucasus Whose liver 'tis he gnaws perpetually ! How warm this April sun ! How sweet this scent of violets ! The song of birds, the hum of bees, The voice of man and beast, The voice of Nature is a daily feast ; But not to those whose graveyard is the sea. ETERNAL YOUTH THE Seasons come and go, The long, long aeons grow, Eternal change is Nature's law, First bud, then blossom, and then fruit ! The oak, 'neath which the kine lie down When daylight sleeps, was once an embryo seed Conceived in Nature's maw. The laws of growth conditions suit, But all things animate obey the frown Of changing life and live by greed ; The Andean condor will outstare the sun, But crawl, when wrecked by age, along Time's beach To find some cave for his last shelter ; Those crimson tides that through our pulses run, They in life's ebbing seas must reach That goal where stale corruptions welter. Man doth his kindred mourn When they have crossed that bourne Where Youth must lay his armour down And bow to the Eternal's frown ; But never mourns a sadder fate Than Youth when Death has shut the gate. 12 Eternal Youth 13 Behold the child now nestling by his mother's cheek, That baby sphinx so frail and weak, Sweet sojourner from Silence's realm, How doth his growth our senses overwhelm ! A twelvemonth hence he walks, A twelvemonth thence he talks, Not many moons man's universal state Becomes an open book He scans with eager look. And see him spring the boyhood ! Now he learns The human heart, his mother's, childhood's heart ; 'Tis now Ambition whispers in his ear Those shibboleths can make him saint or devil ; For Comradeship he yearns, For Sport he hungers, for the knightly revel, For petty battle, The drum and tocsin's rattle ; The plaudits of the Campus he can hear Chanting its struggle-song ; Life's fever, how it fires his veins ! He spurns the bit, the reins, And sighs to burn a blister upon wrong ; Ah ! he and Conflict seldom are apart. But Youth soon takes the stage, Wears Boyhood's buskin of a larger size ; 14 Eternal Youth 'Tis now the Mind takes wing, Hark ! hear him sing, As he, with Courage born to Age, His new-fledged pinions tries ! He sees his forbears fly, And seeks on trembling wings the sky, Lisping in native measures The thoughts he culls from alien treasures. Now Learning dons the cloister's stole, And shows her sons her golden goal ; She leads their feet in Wisdom's ways, Their hands to bend Endeavour's bow, Their eyes to espy true Honour's rays, The semaphores of Passion know ; Their hearts, oh, how they swell when Duty calls And shows that niche within Valhalla's halls, Searching thro' fog and fen, by day, by night for Truth ; This is the guerdon of a golden Youth. See, see him toil with secrets since Man's dawn Have staggered all of woman born ! " What ! was this sphere from chaos shorn ?" " Am I the grandson of a prawn ?" " My sires, have they the Master's words mistook Believing sins, if gilt with faith, He'd overlook ?" " Could we but tear the veil from Death, And learn if smiles or thunders wreathed his face, Eternal Youth 15 Would men hunt Fortune to her cave, Glory pursue with panting breath, The stings of Scorn, the lash of Envy brave, Meet Arrogance with bending eyes, When buzzards tear the heart, bear it with grace, If Death would ope the gates of Paradise ?" " This coin of Silence whence I came, Shall I thereto return ? The grave a hollow name ? ~What ! Am I of Divinity a part, For now endowed with sinews, brain, and heart ?'' Enigmas, these and others, chase him like a prairie flame. And what if Manhood came to glean these years, What would he claim ? Not buds ! not flowers ! But fruits ! Without these Man would reap in tears The field the Boy had sown 'mid sun and showers ; Yea, if he had been earnest, Still, what would be the harvest ? Too often dust and cinders, faded dreams ! Weep ! weep ! weep blinding tears, Thou "sad old man, thy sentence hears : The mirror held to Life has told you true This world is not the pageantry on Boyhood beams, E'en fruit, when in the hand, has oft a sicklier hue. 1 6 Eternal Youth Who has not seen the Apennines Shaking their grisly scalps And thought he saw the Alps ? How oft will Fancy when the eyesight fails Pile mount on mount till Cenis seems Mont Blanc ! We see the cloud, Not domes the cloud can shroud ; What eye can pierce the cloud-line ? And so Imagination spreads her sails ; Her eyes sees unknown peaks, But not the peaks she seeks Behind the veil where Truth in cloudland sank ; Oh ! Fancy sings with sweeter voice than Fortune speaks ; She paints a redder iris on the rose, Sees gardens of the gods where sage-brush grows ! 'Tis thus Illusion points a strangled Youth With beauties seem eternal ; Care draws no grimy fingers o'er its brow ; What Boyhood promised that 'tis now, A phantasy supernal ; Whate'er the mind imagined that it sees, Sees Helicon behind the shade, And Youth ascending it with bounding heart To pluck amid the snows the edelweiss of Truth Sees Fame expand her sounding cheeks, Eternal Youth 17 And waft to every wind the eclat the dreamer seeks ; Sees Honour, Valour, act their part, And thousands shout with loud acclaim a thank ful heart ; Atlantis still exhales the perfumed breeze, The voice still wakes Parnassus' glen And hangs a silver tongue in Cupid's bell ; Sweet Innocence still seeks his aid Where in the forum and the marts of men He lifts his gleaming blade. Let Wrong run rampant and that pen, Clipt from an eagle's wing, dipt in its blood, Crimsons the eternal page ; Still, still his hot and holy rage Consumes Injustice to a crisp, And Charity his faith in man will tell ; Amazement seizes us at this young sage, Whose clarion has no trembling lisp, For dead he lives, his hand not stayed, His sinews stemming still life's flood. O Youth, dear Youth, that Death has made immortal ! joys Are yours that dim the joys of Age, Are sweeter than Achievement, With its long agonies and sickening moil. 1 8 Eternal Youth To Manhood you throw down the gage ; You have no sighs, defeats, no blistering toil, No dross, no frost, no base alloys. So Dawn surpasses Day ! So Sunrise, Noon ! For us who limp towards the grave Youth is a pennon that we wave, Its joys are life's best boon ; They were the iris gilded each bereavement, They drew the sting from Disappointments' throes- Aye, robed her very sepulchre in rainbow hues, And spanned the current of our woes, So hope could cross on silver shoes. CHARON'S GHOSTS CHARON was ferrying o'er the Styx the souls Were damned on God's last Judgment Day Bandits, seducers, murderers ; their tolls Were in their mouths their fares would pay. And in the load to land upon hell's shore Were those who sent the Titan to her tomb Amid those marble bergs ; no mercy bore To those went, frozen, to their doom. His vulture eye discerned one cringing ghost Beneath the seats the others held in hate ; " You there, soon in the sulphur's fumes to roast ! For what have you deserved this fate ?" The ship was sending rockets of distress ; I might have saved, but slept while hundreds died ! See, see those staring eyes that round me press ! Some sneered, and even Charon sighed. THE NIGHT THAT HAS NO MORN MY Love ! My Life ! The night draws near The night that has no morning, Yes, soon, full soon, the day is here That has for us no dawning ! 'Tis hand in hand these many years We've toiled on Pisgahfs height, And sometimes trod the trail of tears, No torch to light the night ; But when we bore the stress of woe We strove to face it cheerily ; Our wines of life were blended so So dearly, oh, so dearly ! It may be me, it may be you Must stay and breast cold weather ; Why cannot, when old hearts beat true, Their heart-beats cease together ? 20 THEODORE ROOSEVELT I'VE heard the re'veille', 'Tis music to my ears ! Stripped to the buff again, My hat is in the ring ! My country is my fetish, And her lovers cherish me, For I have never sold my love nor theirs, But paid for theirs by loving them ; I always wore my sword, my shield I threw away ; they were my amulet, They staunched my wounds with plaudits And fed my haters with their hate ; My sword is badly hacked but always bright, 'Twas hacked upon the people's enemies, No stroke was aimed against their hearts ; I never sucked their blood, But took the assassin's blows upon my breast Counted with pride my wounds ; The people's cheers were raptures to my ears As sweet as were Athenian shouts to Pericles ; They soothed my nights and braced my days ; I hope to hear their echoes in Valhalla's halls. 21 22 Theodore Roosevelt I call the tiger brother, And love to comb the lion's mane, But never herd with gutter snipes ; The face of man or devil wakes no fear, Hyenas or their bearded whelps ; I blanch before my God alone ; I knelt in Childhood at Mount Yemen's shrine, I heard the groanings of the dusky slave, In manhood worshipped at the horny-handed martyr's grave ; My ears were never deaf to Pity's cries, The cowboy's hunger or the toiler's sighs, And I could hear the demon-plutocrat Crunching the bones of Poverty To feed its flesh for ordure to the soil, And vowed if e'er I wore the glove of steel To plant my fist upon his brazen jaw ; And have I kept my vow ? God knows I've tried ; my courage still endures, For I am in the gristle of young manhood, And there are boulders still to mount the hill, Augean stables still to cleanse, Strongholds of oppression still to undermine. My grip was ever at the throat of Tyranny, The robber knows my bludgeon's blow, The patriot has loved my voice ; My hand, while there is work to do, Theodore Roosevelt 23 Must hold the plow, I cannot play at Jackstraws ! That when I sleep the marble sleep My countrymen shall say : Here was a man FAITHFUL, FEARLESS, HONEST, TRUE. LOVE IN DEATH SETTLING ! Swiftly settling ! Boys, man the life-boats And save the women first ! Ah ! now she scarcely floats. A man and woman stand there Hand in hand, hair streaked with grey ; Come, come, the ship is sinking ! We cannot, must not stay ! He begs her take the sailor's hand, And hear the surges' cry. We've loved each other forty years ; No ! In Love's arms we'll die. 24 PRAYER TO THE JUNGFRAU SPEAK ! Speak ! Great Sheeted Ghost, whose awful head Now lifts above yon muffler of white gauze ! What aeons have on lightning pinions fled Since, nebulous, your giant form could pause In its mad whirl thro' chaos here and rest ? What avalanches rent, what torrents wore Your flanks ? Oh, tell us what volcanoes tore Those sepulchres in which your glaciers sleep ? What nameless centuries have you gazed down On these fair dales that hug your snow- wrapt breast ? We kneel down here, so ignorant, and weep To think how frail we are, how short the span This smiling vale has been the home of man. GHOSTS IN the Velebit mountains the gusela moans Is some spirit bewailing the dead ? You would think if you heard it some flageolet Was dreaming or out of its head ; For its sighings are kin to a paganish chant, Beloved by the Huns and Croats ! And the ears of the shepherd still drink up its strains, Its gruesome and quixotic notes. And the Velebit mountains ! They are gruesomish too, Like goblins and spectres their crags ! Did an earthquake, I wonder, these mountain-tops woo, As the Furies wooed witches and hags ? They are pinnacles, minarets, giant-toothed saws, And are ghoulish and ghastly with gloom ; They are caverned and canyoned, sepulchr'd maws, With mouths to Avernus' womb. 26 Ghosts 27 Oh, what an inferno for Cyclops to haunt And the cannibal gnomes of his crews, And gorge upon gophers, constrictors and snails, Upon devil-fish, satyrs and shrews ! With one cheek these mammoths have married the sea, With the other the crofts of the Croats. And the sea ! 'Tis a treasure-house spawning with gold ; But the land a Sahara for goats. In the heyday of youth they made love to the cliff Where Novegrad sits in her tears, And set on her forehead that turreted crown, So battered by blows of the years. And 'twas here that young Colman, old Hungary's king, When the lily he plucked 'gan to mould, Trod it under his foot ; and 'twas down that tough steep, When the ashes of love had grown cold, The Psyche whose lips had been honey of yore Was tossed like a fawn to a hound By Phcebes, who scorn whom the lover can scorn. Hear the breakers her requiem sound ! Three men at the wheel and the mate at the helm ! 'Tis the portal of Tartarus' gorge ! 2 8 Ghosts Are those murderers' souls that are broiled on live coals ? Is that dragon the foe of St. George ? Those imps with the tongs where the precipice growls, Are those traitors they toast on those stools ? That headland ? Trolltindern from Norway trans ported ? Or Dinara that Obrivac rules ? See that gorgon ? What, our Lion's Head ? These queries all torture our tongues in a trice ; But the grinning old salt nothing said. How it twists! how it twirls ! see it shift! see it swirl ! 'Tis the devil with burrs for his bed. On the tail of the gorge sits a sentinel-box, And its moat is the sea's serpent arm ; Its armour, long centuries mildew with grey, Glares defiance at Argus' alarm. Grim warder ! The Cross does not shudder with fear, For Dalmatia's no fief of the Turk, The Crescent no longer sows seed with the sword ; To Inferno and do Satan's work ! A forest of crags ! a croft seeded with stones ! Rocks ! rocks ! not the ghost of a tree ! The camel, that ship of the waterless waste, This waterless desert would flee. Ghosts 29 Their faces they hide from the smiles of the sea With the grisly backs of these mountains, Whose sepulchred flanks, carbuncled with bones, Apollyon has rained down in fountains. But come when the spell of the desert enthralls you ; There is awe in these Velebit mountains. THE SEA-KING'S TYRANNY 'Tis greatness makes a people, Not size, but virtues ; Quality, not multitude ; Diamonds, not mica! 'Twas this made Grascia great. The Sea-King's tyranny That saves the weakest And lets the lion-hearted perish Is chivalry demented ; The helpless, weighed by cargo, Could scarce outscale in Nature's balances A single score The Titan slew to make the Sea- King's holiday. The land is Freedom's castle, The sea man's slaughter-house ; No headsman here Exchanging Caesar for Calabria's cub, An Atlas for a wart, Stretching the world upon Procrustes' bed And chopping giants to a pigmy's stature. INGRATITUDE To be false to your friend is a nail in your coffin ! You sat in his counsels with a key to his heart, You fed on his bounty, divided his muffin, And when in distress it was he took your part. Why, even the sea-mew will fight for her young, Will tear out her plumage to feather their nest ; When bearding a lioness, whoever flung A shaft at her cub without hitting her breast ? But what if your friend has been kind as a mother, Has plucked you the laurel you wear on your head, Has burnished the lance that he gave to a brother, Has brought you the tapestries cover your bed ? PICTURES BY OLD MASTERS GREAT Nature has her wonders, Gornergrat, Where Amazons stand still in frozen sleep, Niagara, where inland oceans sat And hurled their thunders from her trembling steep ; Yosemite, where ere the Earth's crust froze^ A mile-deep canyon sank, Olympus rose ; Mount Blanc, grim sister of great Everest, But guillotined by ages upon aeons ; A child when hoary Snowdon was the nest, A Titan then, for megatheriums ; Twas Rain and Frost tore off the coat she wore For Rhineland's vestments and for Britain's shore ; Weird Adelsberg ; here Tartarus appears ; Here, too, are minarets and calvaries, Cathedrals, campaniles, peacock -spheres Of splendour, banquet-halls in galleries, Cyclopean domes of gold ; with Titan care Earth's alchemist has fashioned Silence's lair. 32 Pictures by Old Masters 33 Ten thousand centuries we stand aghast ! Have Fire and Frost and Flood, Vesuvian rage, The clash of worlds so Nestors read the past Upheavals, foldings, shrinkings, wrecks of age, And wars of elements, and Birth and Death Paid court to Change since Chaos first took breath. * * * * * The Middle Ages limp along the streets Of Arbe, Dante's voice allures our ears ; If not some knight it is his grandson greets Our eyes ; while Angelo Heaven's portal rears, Invokes hell's imps and saints from paradise, Behold your campaniles from the ocean rise And sky-supporting pillars lift their heads ! These princely peasants have a classic look The rime of age has such a glamour shed; Can it be Bayard has his age mistook ? And have these chimes their silvery cadence got By dropping jewels in the melting-pot ? ***** Come, Nona, let me kiss your hand ! The blood Of kings has warmed it ; 'twas no princeling Nor Hapsburg ; Croatia's kings have stood Within this dome to don their crowns ; no fledgling Fathered these walls, 'twas Rome ; and these strange dances Not Art but Nature weaves with fitful fancies. 3 34 Pictures by Old Masters These costumes shame the pageantry of Iris ; Sirocco's blood, red blood, 'tis wines your kisses ; While Nilus worshipped gods of stone, Osiris, It was your heart's hot blood inspired your blisses ; This fete-day brings the garlands of a year, And all the year's fond hopes you lavish here. ***** A colosseum, but not Rome's, still stands Where's Pola's forehead faces Adria's sea And tells us how that awful goddess's hands Held provinces in sweet captivity ; She must amuse her satrapys and legions ! For this her lynx-eyes scoured remotest regions ; She caged the Sudan lion, Bengal's tiger, To crunch the bones and drink the blood of slaves Embattled in the ring ; 'twas thus her rigor She sought to mystify ; the pennon waves Less scornfully o'er hearts are steeped in mirth, And states amused forget their chains and birth ! ***** The Adriatic has its Riviera And golden pheasants ; here the wanderer And worshippers of Nature come, though rarer, And those with naiad arms the breakers stir ; The maid and lover, too, come here awhile To beg the sea-nymphs on their loves to smile. Pictures by Old Masters 35 Come see these swans and birds of paradise Their dainty plumage preen ! Their purple veins Have channeled Attic blood for centuries ! Here Fashion is the courtier, Music reigns ; Here gallants kiss their hands to Gentleness And burn frankincense unto Loveliness. Do you, Fiume, know your sires ? Lend me Yours ears and bate your breath while I relate The tale ! No taller, monumental tree Now grows; the Californian cedar, great In hoary rime, counts twenty centuries ; So you, but men, not seeds, your argosies ! Phoenicians first, Pelasgians next, and then Came Greeks, Etruscans and Ligurians, Then awful Rome, stern mother of stern men, With phoenix wings your dying embers fans ; 'Twas Charlemagne would quench again your fame, The Double-headed Eagle saved your name. THE SIBYL'S DREAM BEHOLD, my child, your destiny ! Visions rise Like Caucusus of your world-conquering sway ! This hamlet on the Palatine, its ray Shall light a continent, light Asian skies, Turn Libya's desert caverns into day ; The sunset's pillars hear her eagles 1 cries ; The heart of Dacia quiver 'neath their beak, And Rhine run, shivering, to the Northern Sea ; Propraetors with the thunder's shout shall speak The mandate of this forum of the free, This council of Olympians whose voice Is tuned to match some leader's silver tongue, Consuls be kings though but a city's choice ! Mad seemed that sibyl's dream when Rome was young. THE SACKING OF SALONE THE basilica's in rapture with Salone's happy sons ! And the mothers and the maidens and the harper, too, are there ; Lo, the music and the laughter! So the laughing Yader runs Runs along, a merry torrent, free from toil and free from care ; Rarest wines from rarest vineyards flow as Yader's waters flow, Dancers swing in swirling circles, footpats fall like pattering rain ; All the hills are gleams of purple, for the vine begins to grow ; 'Tis the day that follows Easter, when she lifts her Lenten strain ! Up at Clissa there's a watchman, and he cries out, "All is well"; True, the Croats sacked Epidaures, but they've gone and left no trace 37 46995 38 The Sacking of Salone Of shade or shadow on Dalmatia. That is no alarum bell! Speed the orioles and cygnets ! Let them match the miller's race ! But now a shriek of terror tears the air ; The dancers stop ; they see a woman come ; And see her panting breath and streaming hair ; " The Croats ! The Croats have come to Clissa ! Home !" A cry of horror from a hundred throats ! Brave men turn pale, and women faint with fright; " Run ! Run ! Run, shut the gates and flood the moats!" Too late ! a thousand wolves affright the night. Now Riot, Murder storm the western gate ; The bloodhounds sack the city, sack the homes, The men for slaves, the maids, alas, their fate ! Then Fire like a howling harpy comes ; And soon Salone is a charnel-house Reeking with dead men's blood and bones ; And, now, a raven or a frightened grouse Startles the furze or caws among the stones. MONTENEGRO A NORSEMAN fiord in a zone of roses ! Summer to winter wed ! Psyche to Vulcan ! A mountain that in Ocean's lap reposes, Headlands, rock-glaciers scorning the embrace of man, Bald pates whose cheeks with whiskered verdure grow; This is Old Earthquake's child, Gulf Cataro ! The village with its bronzed and clinging arms Still scrambles up the mountain's scrawny face To shield its shuddering children from the harms That surged as surge the choleras ; a race Of madmen, brandishing the bludgeon word, To slay all would not kiss the Prophet's sword. Upon its hands and knees by terraced banks, A crawling roadway lifts to Montenegro ; Black mammoths shake their tawny manes in ranks ; Rocks ! Rocks ! More rocks, then ledges ! Dearth can grow 39 40 Montenegro A pigmy monarch of a pigmy state, This Czar of Lilliput grins at old Fate. His girls are this Sierra's fairest crop ; 'Tis women light the hearth and hoe the field, The men are Caryatides, and prop For pelf a Russian satrapy, or shield The pate of some pasha in old Stamboul ; Pistols and coffee ! Tis the bandits' rule. There was a time, oh, could it come again ! They were the sentinels of Christendom, Her minute men 'gainst Mecca ; then a stain Upon the shield was death, aye, worse. Come Come Again, brave Holland ! Stop this war-parade ! Is peddling human blood a noble trade ? SAN MARINO PIGMY Republic, cradled on a mount ! Young China's millions doff their caps to you ; America, all people-ruled, would count Her beads if Tyranny this wood-nymph slew ; What centuries have kissed your baby feet ! When Rome held fainting Christians by their throats, The morning stars first heard your christening bell ; While Constantine was storming pagan moats, Your first, faint prayers, their risen Saviour greet, A pious palmer from Dalmatia flew, And found this refuge from those swamps of hell. Flag of an Eagle's nest ! How proud she floats ! Sing peans ! Sisters yearly join your choir ! No music thrills the heart like Freedom's lyre. RETRIBUTION No lake of flame ! No hell ! Then where Shall wolves who lure within their lair Unwary lambs ; shall hearts of steel, Who grin at griefs fond mothers feel, Or gape at gulfs their daggers made, When in red hands white hearts were laid ; Where shall those effigies of men, Who make some bower of love a fen, Or breed such wounds with smiling face, As burn a blister on our race ; Where, where shall Alva, Bonaparte, Who made a hell of earth, of home, Find demons of their souls a part, A hell where kindred fiends can come ? APOLLO SINCE Adam ate the grapes of idleness, One man alone of all his heirs Has scaled with Pegasus ethereal skies, As lightnings play round Chimborazo, And brooks unbridled seek the sea, The Cordor bard of Avon, His quill paints scenes as scribes write words ! All others hammered into shape their songs, As armorers have polished blades, And let them ripen in the shade, As peaches will in sunless nooks ; Soracte's bard deemed one decade A sweeter bouquet gave his wines ; That Goth so laurelled by the Rhine Kept Marguerite within her convent cage A score of nun-taught years before Her wings were fully fledged for flight ; And he who made a churchyard's gloom As dear as ever banquet hall, Kept its sweet organ tones immured 43 44 Apollo Within the cloisters of his mind Full many a tongue-tied year, Awaiting that Promethean fire Should make the dull clay speak. Our Milton was a pious lapidary, Who polished gems with diamond- dust, Though loving well the heights that cradle ghosts ; And Dante died before his overture, Bemoaning, as the broken cypress moans, The unfledged hopes so long entombed ; That singer of our tideless seas Sweated as soldiers sweat in trenches ; But Fancy's darling spouted similies. In all Time's purblind horoscope, Since from that lonely Chian isle A poor, blind palmer limped To tell in trumpet tones the tragedy of Troy, No singer ever earned the salt of life Except he ate the crumbs and crusts He swept from Dives' table Nor decked his back with purple and fine flax, Called home his toilers with a silver horn, Save one the bard of laughing waters. All others who essayed the airship's flight, Or drove with Phaeton the courses of the sun, Or listened in some moon-lit shade Apollo 45 Where eagles shun the eye of man ; To tales the brawling brook can tell What other words are winged by butterflies To lift them to immortal skies ? Have pieced the shirt of Nessus out With sheep's wool or with camels" hair, Gathered while shepherding their flocks, Or burning with the bedouin 'neath desert suns. Apollo and his choir of saints All wear the robe of nakedness, And ne'er the crimson toga or the ermine cloak, Save Fortune kissed their babyhood"; At times that God of Song, Has rode the ass of Poverty For some short shift across the realm of dreams, But 'twas o'er rocky roads with bleeding feet, While thorns have torn the flesh. The Muses love to chase their golden beakers And weave those gorgeous garments of the sun In halls where luxury is wont to dwell, Those threads that Fancy twists with spirit fingers, Tis Time and care have spun. THE FALLS OF KERKA THE Cascades of Kerka ! Hear them rumble and roar, And grumble and tumble and rage at the shore ! See them simmer and shimmer and shiver and run ! Hear Nereus laugh at the Nereid's fun ! They are under the waters and on to the falls, And into the grottos and up on their walls ; And they dance and they laugh, and they sing and they shout, Pull papa by his whiskers and swirl him about ; And they dip and they dive and they swim to the brim, And back again swim at the beck of each whim ; And they roll in the surges as dolphins at play, And spatter each other with feathery spray. And some of the naiads, too, sit on the banks, Some ride on the bubbles, or spring from their flanks ; The wind and the mist ! They sit on the steeps, And whistle and whirl as the spray takes its leaps ; 46 The Fall of Kerka 47 How it flashes and splashes and crackles with foam ! You would think by the cardings the sheep had come home, And the shepherd forgotten his fleeces to keep, And left them to flutter while he went to sleep. But where was it born ? and where does it rise ? It comes through the mountain with cries of surprise ! But where is its cradle ? the font whence it flows ? No mortal can tell us ! Tis God only knows ! PERDITA DOWN ! down ! The great ship settles down, Till surges flood the lower decks. Naught, naught can live except Death's frown, And he of frailty little recks. The boats have all been lowered save Those left for woman's fainting heart. The men must feed the greedy wave, And face the dyings' trackless chart. Save Robinhood. Oh no, not he ! He knew an art for many a life, Could buy his own, save Charon's fee, A boatman's bribe for Rob and wife. A woman stood there frenzied, faint ; Held all she loved within her arms. She was no sinner and no saint, But loved the most her spaniel's charms. No time for parley, none for prayer; 'Tis now or never, life or death ! She was, 'tis sad ! not wise though fair, But loves her lapdog more than breath. 48 THE MOUNTAIN GRAVE I STRODE along a mountain trail Far from the haunts of men, And naught except a startled quail Awoke the gruesome glen. And footfalls of a limping brook That smote its stone-shod way Whene'er its feet the ferns forsook That down the torrent stray, And came to where a glint of green Glowed in the setting sun, And where a straw-thatched hut was seen In a forsaken run. And nestling by that highland home, Deserted 'twas and wild ! I saw a grave, 'twas small-and lone, And must have shrined some child ; And when, sometimes, the God of sleep Coquets with my wan eyes, That grave will through my eyelids creep That on the mountain lies, 49 4 50 The Mountain Grave And ask me why, when that lone home Had naught but this to love, A hawk should like a robber come And snatch its only dove. THE CRICKET'S SONG ASCENSION DAY, A festal day in Florence ! And all the maids and all the swains Are passing in a tidal wave Until the city floods its park ; The bells ring out the marriage song Of Christ unto His Church As Day is wed to Night ; The people don their plumages To greet the rosy-footed Dawn And fire-fingered Morn ; As have the fields and forests ; The swallow spreads an airier sail ; All Nature with a bridal face Is jubilant with song ! And Jessica and Leola wake The morn with merriment ; And sparking eyes and smiling swains The hamper bear along, 5* 52 The Cricket's Song And festoon flowers in the boughs They spread upon the ground To table their ambrosial feast And cups of nectarine ; And scramble through the grass to find A cricket, wondering will he sing, For every maiden knows the legend well That if the cricket sings to-day A lover surely comes. Grave Leola is so debonnair, Like Martha of those Bible days Is wed to household cares ; But Jessie has a merrier heart, Save when the hectic flush Shall catch her in that grip of Cerberus A happy day ! a merry route ! And many merry lads With gentle ways and gentle eyes Speak winged words to both ; And Leola toiled the livelong day With ready feet and ready hands, As Martha toiled of yore ; And Jessie languished in the shade While ready feet and ready hands Were winged slaves to every wish. The Cricket's Song 53 And when the day drew down her veil, And hid her glances from our eyes, The swains and swans returned again With heavy feet and one with heavy heart ; For while the cricket to one sister sung, The other's was a voiceless void. FREEDOM'S SHRINE THERE is a village on the Adrian mere Whose arms are adamant, their sinews part Of the corporeal hills ; they frighten fear And live enshrined in Nature's loving heart ; Such big-lunged battlements ! The giant hands Baptized them, priests in far Elysian lands ! They fringe the borderland of Christendom, For ages held at bay the surging Turk ; What ! Will that sea resurge and backward come ? Stupendous they have done stupendous work ! All ye who love the glories of our Lord Should love these bulwarks glorified His Word. This fame not all ; they held the flag of freedom Aloft before a tyrant-ridden world ; That nymph, sweet Liberty, had here a kingdom From this tarpean rock her traitors hurled ; To save that love of man cradled in Greece She swam in blood, for love was more than peace. 54 Freedom's Shrine 55 From Epidaurus their penates came ; With swords of flame the Avars sacked one home ; They seized their gods, they seized their nursling fame And bastioned these cyclopeans like Rome ; Step proudly, stranger, through this palace-tomb ! The ghosts of heroes haunt its cloistered gloom ! Five aeons, here, with freedom's stars for laws The people's ballot held its sceptred sway ; Before this hooded shrine, Republics, pause ! Here Might, by Mercy tempered, blazed your way ; Behold yon fane ! This Coeur de Lion gave A cenotaph to ocean's baffled wave. But listen to the tale of young Marcellus ; No rising sun, like that lost son of Rome, But star-dust, typical, old legends tell us, Of those grey cavaliers had here their home ; No nightingale has yet his praises sung But golden censers on the rainbow hung. A child of fame, fair-faced, whose sweet good-morning A benedictus seemed to all he met ; And when that light illumes the mind was dawning A star seemed rising would be slow to set ; The Virtues fought in friendly rivalry To bear away this knight of chivalry. 56 Freedom's Shrine The stones he trod were shrines his sires adored ; His coming fanned life's embers into flame ; His barque was to the rock of wisdom moored, And here the Graces and the Fairies came To lead Ambition to that purple height Whence seas with silver fringes lure the sight. Like other lads he must a soldier be, And learn to rule the broadsword and the lance, And listed in a knightly company To face the tourney's battling game of chance ; A blow the sun dealt from a melting sky Bewitched his brain ; young paladin must die ! His threads of life he knew not were distraught And fevered Fancy said his lack of skill Was fainting valour, not miasma fraught, And duty ought to stay the ravelled will And climb the golden stairs brave men have trod And show a soldier how to meet his God. By hunger murdered, sunstroke, moil, neglect, Those basilisks the demon-spawn of war ! A spirit of the blue-eyed goddess sect Was dragged beneath the wheels of that red car War's frantic god had forged in ^Etna's maw ; A seraph smitten by a lion's paw ! Freedom's Shrine 57 So young Marcellus died ; a hectic thrill Shot through the town and melted many a tear ; But life was not a waste ; his name was still An heirloom ; villages stood round his bier ; And still the foot of pity finds that grave Upon the hill beside the murmuring wave. All ye who love war's pageantry, its blare And brass, and thirst to see the banners come, Shoulder your guns and find the lion's lair, And save your pity for the sighs at home ! Come, Wars' apostles, take the firing line And on the surge's crest be first to shine ! CROSSING THE RUBICON TO-DAY " we crossed the Rubicon ! It woke Such visions !" Caesar crossed with us, Augustus, And scores of Emperors ; an empire spoke In clarion tones of four long aeons lustrous ; I saw Medusa's head, the frown of strife, Pharsalia and Philippi ; Julius' wife Upon her knees to keep her lord at home ; Those three and thirty daggers made old Rome A slaughter-house and swamp of anarchy ; Saw Amazons of blood ; saw Egypt come To beg the Nile might be Rome's satrapy; Saw Europe Asia kiss with conquest's lips Where Stamboul stands ; and, last, a gleam Of night ; and all had been a fever's dream ! THE SWORD OF THE SLEEPERS STOP, stranger ! Look ! 'Tis Diocletian's palace ! Huge as a coliseum, it roofs a village ; Old Age must have some playthings for its solace, And so he garnished it with his eagles' pillage ; His father wore the collar, his vast mind Fed upon empires, held in leash mankind. A Roman vallum looms four-square, The Queen of Waters laves its shore ; A bastioned court for arms and air ; A scarlet crypt yawned here of yore That held embalmed a painted King Who dubbed this world a ribald thing Of rags when Age had glazed those eyes, Whose young aurora was the skies. It crowned an epoch ! Now 'twas Paganism Put sackcloth on ; a Christian Emperor, 'Twas Constantine ! bestrode the stormy seism ; Forgiveness plants the Cross upon that shore Those gods of stone had swept with crimson tides ; Like Eddystone the Cross the tempest rides ! 59 60 The Sword of the Sleepers The Alpine chamois hunter sometimes sees The mountain's forehead pelted with red hail ; Below sees summer showers gild the trees, And sunshine clasp in loving arms the vale ; So Calumny the giant's head assaults, While pigmies hide their faces in their faults. It wakes a sigh when coursing some strange shore To see first-littered sons enthroned as Kings, Their names bedaubed on domes some giant bore From dreamland's chaos upon fancy's wings, Themselves the spawn of wet-nursed, pap-fed praises ; Ye gods ! What men of mud mad Fortune raises ! Night's Queen has grown to womanhood to-night, And rains her glances on the shore and bay, And boys and girls, like opals of strange light, A necklace wind around it as they stray. Hark ! Hear that chorus from the silence ring ! Italian boys and nightingales must sing. I climbed the campanile on the morn ; The sea was raging like a baited boar, Old Boreas was sounding his hoarse horn, The mountains answered back the surges' roar. My fancy heard a legion's Titan tramp, 'Twas Caesar's tenth ! 'Tis Victory's sons home- camp ! The Sword of the Sleepers 61 Rome ! world conquering, Olympian Rome ! How oft in childhood, curled within some nook, 1 made your forums, temples, senate - house my home. I toiled with Sallust through his well-thumbed book, With Caesar's legions trod that Rhinish wild, Heard Tully thunder to a half-stunned child ; Saw your sweet singer ope the gates of Troy, And lead ^Eneas o'er the tideless main To share with Dido her tempestuous joy, And flounder through Charybdis, and still gain The tawny Tiber's banks, and stake a town, Shall fill all times, all climes with her renown. Who has not seen Leviathan arise From out the sea ? A rift of smoke, a cloud, Then funnel, pennant, topmast scrape the sky ; Then the Cimmerian hull, the stay, the shroud, And last those eyes of hell, and imps of hell Who teach their lightning's tales their thunders tell. So Rome from shadows grew ; so, too, man grows, At first a baby bawling in his mother's arms, At last an Atlas ; so a river flows, At first a brook that sings of Sylvia's charms, At last an Amazon within whose hand The navies of the world would never strand. 62 The Sword of the Sleepers Her trail was ever tracked with gouts of gore ! Life was a bubble floating on the wind To break in froth against death's dreamless shore ; Great Man, God's image, was a nameless hind, Was fed for ordure to the soil in Gaul, Or piled for logs to build some trenching wall. And in Dalmatia now where'er we go The screaming bugle scares the sleeping morn ; Awakes those still-mouthed Titans forged to mow Down lads by trench-fulls who were born In cotes where mothers fed upon their breath, And hugged them to their hearts in fear of death ; Yes, see in weekly Argosies sweet boys, Before their foster-mother lays her paw Upon their heads, sail off to find the joys And aches of exiles in strange lands, where Law, Not guns, and not the bludgeon blade of Might Is King, and robbing birds' nests never right. What State has reached a hoary age without An army ? None ! Has not the harpy hand Ere long made rich estates its prey ? No doubt ! But 'tis on hearts, not bayonets, States stand ; Naught conquers Spartan love and Spartan will ; The Mississippi, damned, will thunder still. VICTOR EMMANUEL You know my name, and Italy knows well My cow-boy face. I wear my heart there, plain As if Apollo knew the Savoy strain And painted it as true as sun could tell. I fed for ages on our mountain air, And chased the chamoison oursnow-kissed heights, And knelt to Freedom in her delphic dell That mountain nymph, so bronzed and debonnair ! I watched the soaring eagle's glacial flights, And hungered to extend our Alpine lair Till Italy should revel in its sights. 'Twas no earth-hunger madness that would gain More roods to rule ! No ! 'twas a knightly hope That Liberty might have imperial scope ! 63 A TRIPLE TRAGEDY LACROMA ! Gouts of blood besmear your walls ! 'Twas here Ambition sighed to be a king And flaunt a crown in Montezuma's halls, Became a rag of sovereignty, a thing Of clay among young Aztecs fierce to school Themselves, and read their stars by Freedom's rule. Lo, that red dragon spouting slaughter worse Than Alaric ! Twas whelped in Corsica ; It dragged from Lisbon to the Kremlin hearse On hearse till Europe was a sepulchre, And Liberty's affrights and Monarch's tears Shook the great firmament with giant fears ! O God ! Would not one son of Baal do ? No ! On the heels of genius crawled its ghost, A pigmy's foot that craved a giant's shoe. And why that holocaust ? Go ask the host Who bit the scythe of Leipsic and Sedan ! Both they would answer were the scourge of man. 64 A Triple Tragedy 65 At length this pestilence invades the West ; America in arms, a million men Protest this is no robber baron's nest Whose bloody pennant soils the sky, no pen, No stye foetid with freemen's flesh and blood ! Here pen and spade are king ! This stays the flood. ***** Poor Rudolph ! Life to you was always spring, Sowing wild oats instead of golden wheat ; For hope past cure some bitter rue I bring, And wish life's honeymoon had been more sweet. That pity Age pays Youth, storm- smitten, take, And seraph choirs greet you when you wake. ***** Elizabeth ! 'Twas always morn, those days Within these cloisters with your princely boy Among these ilexes and myrtle bays. Oh ! God may have Himself some holier joy Than hers who spins the thread Cornelia spun, But no such rapture ever saw this sun. Diana pants for breath in this pent home, And on Corcyra finds a heavenlier eyrie, Where eagle eyes o'er purple peaks can roam, And builds a nest is fit to cage a peri ; But Fate, black Fate 'twas like the hand of Time Revolving ! seized her ere her silver rime. 5 f PEACE LYRICS 'TWAS sunset on Corcyra's beetling steep That holds at bay the fierce Ionian's rage ! I scanned, afar, Dalmatia's glittering sweep, Where nations chased their ghosts for many an age ; And, near, the Bride of Adrians fortresses, Twin sentinels upon twin buttresses. Below and curled about the headland's feet The wolves of war of three great nations slept With muzzles on their hungry mouths of sleet. As sunset's fingers 'cross the waters crept, A milk-white gull was this the soul of peace ? Sailed o'er those ships and that fair isle of Greece; And when the signal-gun awoke the bay, The pennants of the thunder's sons and queen Made sweet obeisance to the dying day, And paled their glories in its golden sheen. When Night and Day announce their wedding-tryst Peace sits with folded wings on war's mailed fist. 66 Peace Lyrics 67 These States are cauldrons, hot with jealousies, They brandish bludgeons at each other's breast ; These smiles are nought but syren courtesies, The fires, now banked, are the volcano's rest That rages 'neath the crust and eats its smoke, But dams its lavas for an Etna stroke. Since Sin was born 'twas thus, 'twill ever be ! Europe the Asian smote ; the short-sword, Greeks ; The club of Thor taught those to bend the knee ; The scimitar smote them upon both cheeks. The life of nations, like the life of man, Has birth and death, but strides a longer span. What ! shall Bellona like a cannibal Grind children of God's image in his jaws And make of freedom's feast a funeral ? Tear out our hearts and in his harpy claws Hold them before our wives' and children's eyes, And be as deaf as Death to Pity's cries ? What ! shall a nation be a duellist, A bandit's hand upon a brother's throat, A beast, and of all beasts the cruellest ? Why dig a graveyard like a castle moat For some chimera that can blind the eyes As rank miasmas hide the weeping skies ? 68 Peace Lyrics The battle's gauntlet is the gambler's throw ! While childhood sleeps within his downy nest Behold the buzzard swoop upon the foe And drive his steel-shod talons in his breast ! A rain-storm may a giant's legions stay, Some mist that hides the sun may lose the day And then a triple crown shall bite the dust, A splendour shamed Aurora's glory fail, Some shield, a mimic sun ! turn red with rust, A valour, faced as icebergs face a gale, Shall melt before the rage of Syracuse To die as rats within a stinking sluice. Ye children of Gethsemane, obey The holy hest of Olivet you teach ! Build no high pyres on which your sons you flay ; No, strew no smoking wrecks along your beach. Build ye a Court of Nations ! Here shall Law Dam up that torrent thunders through War's maw. CELESTIAL MUSE STAY ! Stay ! dread Angel ! Oh, forgive our pride, And strand us not upon the tideless shore To feed upon a dreamless sea's cast store. No argosies returning with the tide ! Come ! Come ! sweet nymph ! 'Tis when the stifled heart Can find no balm to staunch its gaping wound, No lure to hold at bay gaunt sorrow's hound, No sweet nepenthe and no syren art, That you, celestial Muse, undo the bolt And set ajar the bloodied, hyssoped door, And enter in and hush the heart's revolt, And chain the storm and still its maddening roar ; 'Tis you, dear friend, who grasp the groping hands And lead the fainting feet to fairy lands. 69 TWO QUEENS PRAY why, fair Italy, did God crown you The diadem of this queen continent ? The Praries' sons, thorn-crowned, must e'er pursue The sweating furrow our kind Mother lent To Fortune but ne'er starred with verdure's beauty ; But bands of love are steel and banns of duty ! The lark here leads the chorus of the morn, The waking sun sings psalms to your glad heart, Your liquid tongue of rippling rills was born, Your lays of toil the twilight echoes start ; Those ribs of rock that rim your storm-tost field The Potter baked of clay volcanoes yield. Venice at last ! Her fens our sea-flight end ; This peri has no peer save Crescent's queen, Whose purple minarets with mountains blend ; Both revel in the water's dancing sheen. 'Twas Man made Venice, God conceived Stamboul; Their art sprang Venus-like from Nature's school. 70 Two Queens 71 A ribbon chains MgesCs queen ; and where Have giant mountains stepped aside to frame A phantasy of Nature such as there ? Aqueous paths and peacock domes of fame Have haloed Adria's queen with such a glory As shames in love and war a poet's story. The fulcrum that could lift the world the Turks Have held for fifty decades, drenched in tears ; And still he loves the battle smoke, nor shirks The firing line, and scorns Bellona's fears ; Lend him a Caesar and the tideless seas Will hear Muezzin's music fright the breeze ! Come stand within the turbaned parliament ! They wear Minerva's robe with dignity, You'd think that Reason had her sceptre lent And party madness was a phantasy ; Mother of Parliaments ! and you her Sons ! Show to this stormy petrel hearts, not guns ! But shall the Koran be their purblind rule Of life ? Shall Mecca's madness cheat their eyes, Forbid their feet to enter wisdom's school And learn how she is Christian, serpent wise ? Then come again, thou sword of Charles Martel ! Teach Europe's chimes to toll the Turk's farewell ! 72 Two Queens Her sister has no resurrection day ; When on the highway 'twixt the East and West, A carrier-pigeon, lateen-winged, her May Waxed into summer ; but her greed of conquest This Cassandra of Republics curst, She fell as Satan fell, from worse to worst. 'Twas Gama closed and clasped her book of fate When loomed upon his straining sight Cape Hope, And threw ajar that watery, double gate Round Afric's awful bulk a puny rope Of shifting sand had bound to Asia when Frail Suez was a camel track and fen. Old Dandalo was blind ; but what a vision Had he descried Stamboul from St. Mark's Square! From out his head, full armed, sprang youth's decision ; He made the world's round hub his lion's lair ; We count our age by manly deeds, not years, Else mumbling jackdaws would be Delphi's peers. He shot an arrow to the bending sky, And Christian corsairs kissed his white-plumed lance ; Another, transports hurried far and nigh ; Again ; the desert's children shook their trance : All swooping there where Asia bends her bow Propentis' haughty paladin brought low. Two Queens 73 Swords of the Cross ! You stayed that pilgrimage Would wrest the sepulchre from paynim hands To sack a brother's hearth with hell's worst rage, And hushed the dusty tramp of Christian bands To sow with swords and spears a friendly shore And drown an empire in a sea of gore. Red Rhines of steaming lava coursed the sky And crimson islets in their currents flee, Volcanoes spout their hissing tongues on high, Thunders of hail beat down a saffron sea, Cohorts of horse charge o'er the ensanguined clouds, Headlands of flame are swept with writhing shrouds; The souls of saints swim in your cruelties, Pale Charity turns scarlet at your rapes, The world stands still at your monstrosities, Angels ay, devils, shudder at the shapes Of Riot, Rapine, conjured from the wreck Of cities hung about the Harlot's neck. The splendours of Byzantine's Queen became Beneath the flames you lit a sobbing waste, Her golden temples but a shadeless name ; Their embers sighed for rest from your mad haste For plunder, rending St. Sophia's veil To filch its gilded tassels ; and the wail 74 Two Queens Of fugitives outvoiced the Greek-tube's shout ; Myriads knelt begging of the weeping winds To hide their famine from this corsair route, Or sought a shelter of the rooks and hinds ; You melted fanes and palaces to glass, Fused Phidian gods of art to brass. But Adria's history ! It shames Romance ! When commerce called with her stentorian voice 'Twas Jacob's voice, Trade does not trail the lance Her madness in her quest beshrew all choice Of scruples, virtues vanished into night, 'Twas Might made Right ; but Might has sometimes right ; She stretched her buzzard claws to Egypt and Levant, To Ophir's goldfields, banks where lotus roves ; She heard Teheran carpet-looms' harsh chant, The hanging gardens found Euphrates loves, The Crimson Sea girdled with camel tracks, Her wares the Indies trundled on their backs ; She combed her lion's mane within Stamboul, Corcyra and Ionia's weeping isles Taught Europe traffic's magic in her school ; Nursed Commerce youngest queen upon her wiles ; No nest of sea-birds on the tideless sea Was not her buzzing hive of industry. Two Queens 75 Oh ! But her palaces ! By Persian peris Aladdin some and some by Saladin, And poised on trees and so are eagles' eyries Whene'er some knight or giaour sought to win Some Cyprian queen he reared a gilded cage Where birds of paradise could laugh at age. Her streets ! Like swans' necks circling in and out, Or country lanes that wander where the whim Of some bell-wether led ; these wanderers scout Along the shores of isles the ocean's brim Has cut and hide their nests from enemies Have longed to suck their eggs for centuries. 'Twas steel-winged guns that bridged that space From lodge to quarry and Europe's scourge, That torch of freedom to a sand-blind race Which burnt to cinders tyrannies, that purge And physic first, at last that pestilence Who hugged the brand of war and scorned offence ; He staked a state to buy a single heir, But gnawed the bones of millions in his lair. A noble forum is the Doge's square, A relict of the Roman agora ; Its roof and rafters are the sun-shot air ; A town can shelter in this pergola, Whose walls are fanes of Saracenic art Promethean sprung from St. Sophia's heart. 7 6 Two Queens This agora it was one eve in June Was rhapsodal with gaiety and people ; It smiled beneath the sunshine of the moon That in a sea of splendour bathed its steeple And chased shy maids within her dusky cloister To coquet with the ghosts love there to royster ; Three score or more gold-throated orioles Threw their enchantments o'er the multitude ; The music breathes and sighs and caricoles ! It halts and hark ! a flute's sweet solitude With plaintive magic soothes the wilderness As Cynthia when she Night's lips would press. That night I took a gondola, my Love And I ; the moon was showering gems and pearls In diadems and necklaces ; we'll roam, We said, where fickle Fancy leads ; what whirls The paddle makes ! We glide, we swim In silver through the Bridge of Sighs, now dim With agonies ; we skirt the jail, that hell Of Saints who loved their country more than life ; Beneath the great dome's shade our beads we tell, Find Collione, still half mad with strife ; But night would wane, day dawn ere I had told The glories of that night that glow like gold. FABIAN HE was a lovely child ! His birthday cry was like a palan wild That some ancestral sire, With tongue attuned to Wisdom's lyre, Had taught him on that sounding shore From where the eternal echoes run, Those voices of the Evermore, More glorious than the sun. At dawn, at eve you kissed his feet ; You fed upon his smile ; He was your demi-god ; How when the Fever paints his cheek You run his wistful beckonings to greet, His panting breathings with what grace beguile ; Oh ! How you bent your back beneath the rod, You were so meek, so weak ! He was a wondrous boy, He loved the dripping blade, the rolling ball ; He loved Hymettus and the everglade ; What toil could e'er his spirit pall ? 77 78 Fabian Sooner the eagle's plumes were laid ! Song kissed his lips, Joy was his queen, Knowledge his playmate, Language his toy He bounds thro' books as does a fawn across a green ; The packs that stagger others he shoulders with joy. And he was Wisdom's lad ! 'Twas Conquest made his stout heart glad ! Ere Manhood woke the genii of this world Had handed him the seven great Keys Unlock her treasure-learnings ; While other lads their baubles twirled His were the Isis' turnings, Her goals and meadows, halls and classic trees ; And young Marcellus left her banks To win new goals in Harvard's surging ranks ! A soldier now in war's mad game, His soul aglow with Glory's flame ! 'Tis honour is the soldier's shibboleth And death his immolation ; To go to God with an exultant breath His canon of salvation. But now the great Creator said This child must sleep, These eager eyes shall never weep At Man's ingratitude, Fabian 79 Man's vulture-heart, Man's hates, Man's wrong, His cankers, leprosies and passions rude ; Nor shall the golden Goal, Defeat, Despair Stamp on his smiling face the brand of Care ; No ! No ! This son shall not devour The husks with which My myrmidons are fed, Nor to the whirlwinds bare his head, Nor shudder when the storm-clouds lower, Nor cringe at Envy's tooth, Injustice's thong That gnaw the heart and tear the flesh ; Parnassian suns and meadows fresh, Faith's star that leads the sons of light And floods with silver Disappointment's night ; A name as stainless as the shining shield With which My knights of old have swept the field, These ! These ! But naught of anguish ! Naught of blight ! Yes ! Yes ! Tis best This child should rest ! His purpose, so beneficent, His horoscope, magnificent, Must lose its quest ; My son must rest ; My King of Day shall sour his milk of gladness, Bewitch his brain and turn his sword, Tempered by sadness, 80 Fabian Against himself; 'tis thus My Word, So far, no farther shalt thou go, shall grow, For My behests shall through all ages flow, My laws must Man and Earth and Heaven know. VAL DE BRUNO I HEARD the reveill^ one springtide morn, And rose and bound my wings upon my feet, And sallied forth to smell the scented thorn And greet the lark, and on the mountain meet With loving arms the loving Lord of Day, And drink a goblet of his golden ray ; And soon the nymphs asleep within the bay, The kine upon the hill, the echoes in the dell, Awoke with chanticleer upon this morn in May ; The cottar felt the magic of the spell, Threw wide his door, threw wide his thirsting chest, And drank to God a beaker for his rest. I tramped full many a mile the stone-shod trail That hangs upon the cliff o'erhangs the sea, To find that lovely Adriatic vale Where summer always gambols on the lea, And maids, are costumed by the rosy dawn, Bound up the mountain-side as bounds the fawn. 81 6 82 Val de Bruno The Hours may ache, here, in their mill of toil, But hearts ne'er ache ! they sip the crystal air ; They sing at work, these children of the soil, This sun-brown peasantry who do and dare ! The wine of Greece runs riot in their veins, Athena's blood with few barbaric stains. The Ages' scions built these terraces, These hanging vineyards, groves and climbing ways, These cubicles Content calls palaces, This necklace round the mountain's bosom strays ; The sun that hides its visage in the vine, When on these vineyards has it failed to shine ? My way I asked some toiler on the steep ; His answer came as from some echoing horn That rang from crag to cliff across the deep Ravine an earthquake through the hills had torn To frame a lake of indigo, whose charms A headland holds within its scarlet arms. Behold the kine ! like flies upon the hills ! Hear, hear the merry chorus of their bells ! Here Peace and Plenty ripple with the rills ; 'Tis only man whose heart with sorrow wells ; 'Tis he whose fate has been the sterner part, To famish on those cares that eat the heart. Val de Bruno 83 Far up the vale, there, where the sea is stayed, The village sleeps 'mid alabaster walls And crimson pergolas of roses made ; And now a voice across the valleys calls ; Those sentinels we see are cypress trees ; The breath of orange groves 'tis freights the breeze ; Those caryatides now winding down Are maids with burdens on their turbaned heads, Returning homewards from the market town ; Is it on air the mountain maiden treads ? Then why such gaiety and stalwart grace, Such smiles of sunshine ravishing the face ? The sower scattering his winged grain, The shepherd loitering within yon shade For one lone lamb that from the fold has strayed, The blue-eyed flax now fluttering from the blade, The virgin's shrine that keeps the virgins pure. The loving hearth that makes old age secure These are the symbols of a peasantry That make a nation, make it strong and brave ! 'Tis freemen are the safest dynasty ! When thunders shake the state 'tis they can save ; 'Tis on their sunburnt backs her aegis stands ; 'Tis they, not Privilege, are Gordian bands. THE GRISLY'S GRAVE DEAD ? Dead ? Yes, dead ! This Titan of wild beasts, This hero of a hundred fights, This glutton of a hundred feasts ! Here on the Selkirks' frowning heights He lays his heavy head. Dead ? Dead ? Yes, dead ! His graveyard is no glen, No, nor a flitch of emerald dale ; It is a glacier's den, His requiem the torrent's wail, His shrine a rock-shod bed. Dead! Dead! Yes, dead! This overlord of beasts ! The hail, the hurricane's mad roar, These are his chanting priests, His bier a granite floor, His pall the water-shed. THE CRUSADER'S CRIME. IF you, Illyria, were a country maiden, Fancy-free, and I were young Antinous, I'd come each morn, with arms are flower-laden, And weave them in your tresses, soft and sinuous ! And press upon your lips the fondest kisses A god could find 'mid his Elysian blisses. There are few lords of earth in these fair lands, 'Tis women tend the markets, till the fields, With faces like the dawn, but horny hands, Though some wear crested helmets on their shields ; The men ! Where are they ? Ask the Western morn, Those echoes sleep within the Golden Horn ! At Zara, here, we meet the old Crusaders, Those argonauts who sought the Holy Grail ; 'Twas Venice made those knights invaders, Marauders, and stained with blood that mail, The triple crown, all Christendom had blessed ! By raining hell on Innocence distrest. 86 The Crusader's Crime But turn your eyes to those Cyclopean walls, That fortress lifts its head above the clouds ! Twas when those paladins the town in palls Had wrapt, the sword of Chivalry in shrouds, That Venice raised that keep to frighten slaves Great ./Etna's terrors hurled by Titan knaves ! Zara Italiana ! Rome was your mother, Ye foster-sons of Greece and Troy ! What sons Had nobler sires ? In Time's tempestuous weather, When Earth was drunk with Night these were the suns Illumed those darkest ages with their light, And lent a mellow radiance to the night. Cassandra ? No ! But Aphrodite now ! And all your virtues unto learning lean ; 'Tis Courtesy that greets us with her bow ; The very air has such a kindly mein ; There is more beauty in your children's faces, Than hid its blush since Greece was rose of races. The fisher meets the morn upon the mere ; The tradesman traffics in a mimic palace ; Thrift grasps the hand once Famine held severe ; Apollo and the Muses are your solace ; Your purse is small but opens with a laugh ; No cup by Temperance your lips will quaff. The Crusader's Crime 87 Yes, and your wines ! Your Maraschino ! When Jupiter a symphony would give To all his gods he wanted some rare vine Would make a heavenlier Olympus live ; And Bacchus and Silenus both declared That no elixir e'er with yours compared. To-day I saw Crespina digging bones At San Grisogono's inebriate dome, Whose ninety decades have so wrecked its stones, That Fortunatus' purse regilds this home Of acolites ! bones ! bones ! a leg ! a jaw ! The worms are the last sheriffs of the law. How gorgeous are these Romish ceremonies ! They put the cope on our simplicities ; Her coliseums shake with harmonies That sneer at Puritan felicities ! But hearts are hearts, fanes fanes, and saints are saints, Caparisoned like peacocks or bedaubed with paints. OUR CLASS DAY SWEET Maids and merry Swains, And Men and Matrons and soft Strains Of Harmony and youthful Rapture, The templed Lawn and dappled Shade, And Memories so loth to fade ; You Ghosts of Bye-gone Ages, And you Groves of Learning, For which the heart of Boyhood rages, And Age is ever yearning ; To-day all hearts you capture ! This pageantry of Joys That ends the college year ! To-day the Graces rout, To-night is Cupid's revel ; No ghosts of Dread and Doubt, No hands at tasks still grovel ; We came her full-fledged boys, Tis Manhood's trumpet now we hear ! .88 Our Class Day I've wandered over many lands, I've bent my knees to Rome, And stood where Buddha's wonder stands, And 'neath the frozen dome ; IVe trod the Sunset's golden sands, IVe been a woodland gnome, And on the Isis' classic strands My silver feet could roam ; But wearied of these stranger lands, For Harvard was my home. I've seen, oh ! many a wondrous sight, The work of Man and God : Jehovah stride across the night, His feet with star-dust shod ; And Venice, when, the Bride of Light, The silver sea she trod ; Ten thousand saints in copes of white Come bow to Peter's rod ; And millions own the Brahmin's might And kiss the Brahmin's sod ; And ships in flight, And pageants bright ; But ne'er a more Parnassian sight, The work of Man or God, Than fame to-day and joy to-night, That wake at Harvard's nod. 90 Our Class Day I wandered thro' her groves to-day, When June lay in the arms of May, And all the college-world was gay, And sang and danced a roundelay ; And Youth and Beauty, hand in hand, Lured hither by the Queen of Leisure, Were sipping beakers brimmed with pleasure. Such Merriment ! Delights ! They lift us to Andean heights Of true, ecstatic joy, That knows no base alloy. Within the shadow of a tree, A step away from all this gaiety, I saw a woman robed in weeds, That chrysalis that Sorrow breeds ; How Sorrow like a buzzard feeds Upon a famished heart ! Why stand you here apart ? I asked, for I had known her long, Come ! Join this merry throng And with these revellers march along And hear their sweet good-byes, Their songs, their cheers That shake the skies ! Come ! Dry your eyes and still your fears, And on fair Harvard's day, Our Class Day 91 When Heaven and Earth are gay, Let your heart dance a roundelay. " Not so ! Not so !" she said, And sadly shook her head. I took her trembling hand, for I had loved her long, And knew too well the cruel wrong That held her heavy eyes in trance. " No ! No ! Oh no ! My heart can never dance Upon this day, this darkest day Of all these weary, weeping moons have brought ! There is a choking thought I cannot, never can gainsay. Oh ! I have longed for twenty years To see this day, this glad, proud day, And hear these farewell cheers ; Aye ! Ever since my baby boy I laid Within his cradle I have prayed That he might hear these rhapsodies that my ear hears. Last year it seems a century ! last year My boy, my only boy, grown man, was here ; These men you see stalk through these gates Were then forgive these tears ! his mates ; 92 Our Class Day Two swift-winged months 'twas laid him on his bier ! Yes, 'tis indeed a glorious sight, But my sun wears the cowl of night." I pressed upon her sobbing lips a kiss, And said : " You do not see me, mother dear, But I am here and ever near ; When Nineteen-Ten goes out to-night The horoscope will still be bright, For there are other worlds than this." Another and another kiss ! She longed to see that realm of bliss. THE SACRIFICE ON the very tip-top of a laurel 'Twas the top of its quivering feather A linnet was singing his carol, And facing the rage of the weather. But his heart ! 'Twas as light as the zephyr At play with the bud and the blossom ! And his song ! 'Twas as sweet as the heather The hillside has wrapt in her bosom ! Let the hurricane howl in the branches, Let the fog from the surges keep drifting Through the palm-trees so stiff on their haunches, And the thunder the rain-drops keep sifting. There he sat in the top of the laurel With his face to the wind and the weather Till a goshawk had strangled his carol And spattered with blood-stains the heather 93 SUN PAINTED (ON LAKE LEMAN) ENSCONCED within an ingle-nook between The mother of the storms and their frail child Time tapestries your sides. A glittering sheen Of golden light glides o'er your templed wild From out a sifting, fleeting gauze of mist ; The sun for hours has climbed the Eastern steep, And stands beside the well-curb, drawing deep To fill the upturned mouths of climbing fields ; He hangs on Heaven's high pillar two tall shields ; Bon Port is veiled as for her wedding tryst ! Dent Midi shakes her mane and shows her teeth ; Her frozen daughter glows beneath the heat, And winds her forehead with a lily wreath. Man ! Man ! kneel down and kiss great Nature's feet! 94 LOVE'S LAMENT MAN'S days are deserts with no star To guide his steps through the mirage, To lift his barque across the bar Or ope the vista of some Taj ! We hear the echo of his song, We hear his laughter shut the door, To ope that gate of love e'er long With laughter sweeter than before. What hart e'er leaped with lighter bound Than when he bounded up the stair ? What lark e'er hymned a sweeter sound Than when his greeting woke the air ? No, never in that heaven of years Did he lead home the ghost of care, And ne'er did disappointment's tears Benumb as ice-tears freeze the air ! The sun of peace shone day and night ; It slept with him where'er he slept As if there were some echoing light Apollo shed and Day had kept. 95 96 Love's Lament Dear Love ! You have chameleon's charms ; Your fairest roses crown the bride, A.nd you are saddest when your arms Have laid some angel child aside. THE SEA-WOLVES' LAIR OLD Venice frowns as you this portal enter ; These alligator mouths have brazen throats ; No longer now the Universe's centre, The Hapsburg sits upon her crumbling moats ; This cave of winds a bottle that he corks To cage his sea-wolves and his steel-beaked hawks ! And here are painted saints and peacock domes And vaulted wagon-roofs of fretted stone, And marble faces ; where the sea-wolf roams No eyes of flame light such a glacial zone, Three score and more, and never two alike, Clay cameos ; ghosts' heads upon a pike ! 'Tis Thommasseo is the peoples' pride ; This rugged poet loved the rugged hind; 'Twas here life's fervid day-dream dawned and died ; His face is marble, but his heart is shrined In hearts that beat, as beats sirocco's wind On these grey crags, hot, flower-scented, kind. 97 7 98 The Sea-Wolves' Lair And ye, whose vistas are but walls of brick, Whose faces on the wheel of toil are ground, Whose universe is your own bailiwick, Know ye, all hearts are echoes of one sound, And East and West, the Christian, Croat are brothers, All people's children of the same old mothers. These sons, so sunburnt, and these buxom daughters Have blood as blue, and hearts as true as yours, Oft truer, bluer ; Care less often slaughters Their blushing cheeks ; and Pride less often pours Its vitriol in their veins ; those sirens, too, Ambition, Greed, their ears with softer voices woo. But Harlequin still sucks his country's milk, Parades his clothes a clothes'-horse in himself! As idle as a popinjay of silk, Listed for a target for a paltry pelf, The pride of milk-eyed maids who buttons love, He sighs for war as sighs the amorous dove. War makes a machine of a man, Smothers the sense Nature granted ; Mixes white wheat and black bran, Treads on the seeds she has planted. Stretches all men on one bed. The Sea-Wolves' Lair 99 The longest the shortest can tell, Bows to heels instead of the head, Makes ikons of parasangs trod, Sets a fiend in the shoes of his God To make of this paradise hell. Lift up, lift up your heads, ye Sons of Peace, Who tread her slums and hedgerows, fain to teach Sweet concord ! Yours not War's the Golden Fleece ! When, when did Buddha, Christ or Prophet reach So high to fling a pennon to the sky ? Spread, Winds, its folds and lure the statesman's eye ! ISLES OF THE BLEST THOSE alabaster walls that St. John sees, And draws with whirlwind pen in Revelation ! And was he wafted there by seraph breeze, Or is his lay sublimity's creation ? Those jasper halls, those gates of pearl, that realm That rings with hymns of praise through tideless days, Ten thousand times ten thousand voices raise ! Are these but dreams our spirit-eyes o'erwhelm ? No woes ! No sighs ! No blood ! No famished eyes ! What cohorts of cloud-girdled cherubim, What choirs of .golden-throated seraphim Are marshalled on those plains among the skies ! The serpent tempts with syren fruit no more, For joy alone can cross that tideless shore. This is the Christian's heaven. Pagans, too, Had their Elysian islands of the blest, Whose stadia immortal warriors woo ; No bower of song ! No haven of unrest ! 100 Isles of the Blest 101 The hand the discus hurls ; the chariot still The circus sweeps with smoking wheel ; the goal Their burning feet still seek ; the boxer's skill Impales his fist ; the keel still scorns the shoal. Euterpe still scales her ethereal heights ; Achilles still turns heroes' faces pale ; Still tongues of gold the victor's footsteps hail ; Philosophy essays sublimest flights ! O God ! But grant our thirsting souls above, Loved this on earth, some semblance of that love. FELLSMERE PHANTOM-HAUNTED and forsaken ! These Are ghosts are moaning to the breeze ! What dirges haunt this howling brook, This page ripped out of Nature's book, This weeping sky, wan fell, and purple sea ! Now goblins stalk across the lea ; The screams of goshawks scare the breeze, And yell their farewells to the trees ; Deserted ! yes, deserted all ! No voice save voiceless Solitude's cold call ! But why ? oh, why deserted so ? Why, why no longer does the glow Of love disport upon this lawn ? Why does no lark regale the dawn ? Where is the wizard called to life, The lover shut the heart of strife, Lured Eden out of Nature's womb, Threw wide the portals of her tomb ? Gone ! Gone ! Gone to that voiceless land, Where only shadeless shadows grasp his hand ! 102 A DALMATIAN GEM HERE is a hamlet Hellenic ! Tragorium 'twas to the Caesars, Troger to pristine Croatians, And plain Trau to the hind of Dalmatia. Tho' 'tis an isle 'tis a cherub, A babe in a basket of rushes ; Held in the hands of the narrows, These loving and azurine waters, Mediterranean waters, That hug her with motherly fondness. Venice 'tis sits in the gateway, Her sentinel lion triumphant ; When she had glutted a province She stationed this bandit to guard it ! Oh ! but the sun of this planet, Its gem is its baby cathedral, Fit for St. Catherine's penance ! For thirty decades was it growing, Planted when the holy Crusaders In that gorgeous and hungry procession, Crawled to the kingdom of Allah To rescue the tomb of our Lord. 103 IO4 A Dalmatian Gem Silently step, loving pilgrims ! Those are worshippers bent at the altar ; Open both eyes at this archway, It is fit for the portal of Heaven. Spurn not the choir, 'twas hollowed To echo the chorals of angels ; Yes, and this holy of holies ! These angels awoke from the marble, Called by the blast of the trumpet, Will waken the dead at their rising : Here is a hand-painted missal Whose picturing ate up a lifetime, Sketched by a priest in his cloister With a pen had been lent by a raven. When have you seen such a coping, A wagon-roof flaming with faces ? Sleep ! and sleep sweetly, Orsini ! Who sleeps in a heavenlier haven ? Now to the Logia hasten, For here 'twas the Seniori sat ; Justice, not blended by patience And not the frankincense of mercy, Here from the bludgeons of Dracoes Was rained like the lavas of doom. See, see these stones, smell of murders ! It was here stood the horrible headsman, Never a breath for repentance, The lightning and then roared the crash. A Dalmatian Gem 105 Come, let us go to the castle ; San Michile" 'twas fathered its tower Spoiled by the hands of the Ages ! And another old vandal is rampant, Prying from out the foundations, An heirloom to melt into mortar. Maidens, with cheeks like the blushes Of the echoing light on the snow-fields After Aurora has vanished, Are casting big head-loads of pillage. Give them the smile of a pittance, And they'll give you the smile of the Virgin ; Men, so they seemed by their vesture, Sat watching ; so Rome in the circus Watched when the lions ate martyrs. But what of that staggering minster ? Built when bold William the Norman Was feasting his sword upon Saxons ; Called for sweet Barbara, sainted, Whom Palma the Elder translated ! Shadows now stretch out their fingers Which often bring scourge in their grip ; Back, let us back to the piazza Where Phaeton long has been fretting ; Good-bye to you, pigmy cathedral, And the same, too, to you, campanile ! Good-bye to Aurora, emerging To light up the pines' candelabra ! 106 A Dalmatian Gem Good-bye to the roses of purple And the daisies now closing their eyelids ; Good-bye, too, to you, sweetest bud of Dalmatia ! A kiss and a blessing ! No ! not a kiss, tho' I'd like it ! For my Love has the eyes of an eagle. FORTUNATUS MY country ! Charms are yours no land Exceeds ! "Pis home ; but hell was home To Satan, Rome to Hildebrand, That king of kings Fate doomed to roam, And fatten vultures on an exile's heart ; 'Tis not your fireside joys I sing, Something akin and yet apart ; This is the garland I would bring, Those sweet and fortunate delights That Fortunatus gives his wights. See Europe shiver at the sword ! There every land is legion-mad, And every roof is danger-clad, And every hearth is soldier-sad ; But you, my land, are harvest-fed, Your every sunrise glows with red, No ghosts of warfare haunt your bed, And every voice is Freedom's word. 107 ADRIATIC ISLES ALL ye who love the curlew's cry, love views Of headlands swim in seas, love fern and fell, And with a doting lover's eye can choose Those ingle-nooks with magic in their spell, Come to Dalmatia, feast upon the hoard Of bounties Nature piles upon her board ! For we, my Love and I, have cruised full far, To where mid ice-floes roves Alaska's bear, To zones where in the Crescent sleeps the Star, Where pigmy-giants soft kimonos wear, Nor found more woodland fanes where Grandeur dwells, And nimble-fingered Fancy spins such spells. Come see the Titans lift the skies yourself, That slippered ease that lisps of life and love ; Nor are there corsairs now grasping for pelf Who watch with Argus' eyes a sleeping shore ; 'Tis no Euboea, no Arcadian wild, These glens were glades when Venice was a child ! 108 Adriatic Isles 109 Between the surf and those Cyclopian hills Lessina nestles like a blushing maid Whose heart is trembling with unwonted thrills When love-lit eyes espy her in some glade ; A castled crown upon her forehead rests ; This Venice coins to guard her cuckoo-nests. What brazen battlements Venetia raised And guarded with the roar of her winged lion The sea-shoals still have palace-faces raised When Adria's bride was but the Ages' scion ; Hyenas could hold her lion's wand, And half a world slipt thro' their nerveless hand. ***** But Busi ! Here's a care of indigo. Is it some haven timid mermaids made For shelter, when Borean tempests blow ? Or is it some subaqueous, Delphic shade ? Lo, when it glistens in Aurora's beams The sea-nymphs shine with iridescent gleams ! *:$:** % At Lissa Adriatic's Malta lies ; The Roman eagle watched his enemies From yon grey crag ; his thunderous cries, Cracking the air, I hear, as down he flies Swift as a fork of lightning, clutches his prey, There where that iron island shuts the bay. 1 10 Adriatic Isles 'Twas here St. George had once a lion's lair ; Here Nelson's heroes after Trafalgar Counted their wounds, and ye, his foes, beware ! The lightning loves his demon ships of war ; 'Tis muzzled now and sleeps within his guns ; The archers wing the bolts are Nelson's sons. Briarian this people were ; they are ! When less in men and might than our Bay-State, They clipt the Spaniard's wings, and rode the car Bore Verulam and Avon, Titans' mate ! And now, with half the world within their hand, The torch of liberty lights all their land. ***** Those silkworms of the sea ! With Tritons, down 'Neath Neptune's myriad smiles, anemones Their life-in-death fight wage till death shall drown- They die to live again death's enemies ; Ages their mimic battle wages ! Men Make coral gems of their sepulchral den. ***** 'Tis Zarra Vecchia ! 'Twas old Belgrade, Croatia's Holy Grail in those dim ages We use a telescope to see ; the trade The Adriatic miser craved and rages To clutch to-day here razed another Carthage Some Marius may weep o'er in his dotage. Adriatic Isles 1 1 1 Her hills were purple then, her dales were blue ! Here Colman came before the Doge's reign, A furious youth, a Norman bride to woo ; 'Twas such a wedding feast ! What tears would stain Silenus' cheeks in Hades could he hear The flagons Bacchus drank of foaming beer ! No wedding but must have its funeral, Why gallop, Time, at such a furious pace W T ith Bess of Hungary ? Why must the pall That draped her bier be draped with bridal lace ? Why must Dalmatia's maidens freedom wild, Hurl her from off the crags that nursed her child ? At Citta Vecchia we meet the Ages, Those walls the Bard of Chios might have seen And lit with fire upon his picture pages, And Baise's Bard could call a flickering sheen ; To one whose country counts a single moon, To tread where Pyrrhus trod is Fortune's boon. But 'twas not always here a bower of roses ! The sands of time once ran through pirates' dens, And one was where Mascara still reposes And hides her blushes from her crags and fens ; Yes, and those grisly monks, so hoar with age, And gorgons' lairs were once the corsairs' cage. A REQUIEM MUST always sorrow, A bleeding heart and burning wounds, Awaken thee at dawn ? at dead of night ? No sun to-morrow ? Must still those ghoulish sounds That fright the sailor from the shoal Ring in your ear ? Is there no beacon light ? Is there no goal Thy feverish feet can reach Where you the morning-star can see, The peans of the lark can hear ? Are there no jasper walls, no streets of gold, No gates of pearl on silver hinges fold ? Those jaws of death, oh, are they iron jaws For ever bolted by God's laws ? Must ever this dull thud upon the beach, These dirges of the sea, These moanings of the midnight owl, This bell-buoy's growl, Which bellows warnings of the reef, With diapasons shake the sky ? 112 A Requiem 1 1 3 Your barque, but five short moons ago, Was swimming upon summer tides, Not plunging with its freight of woe ; Its white-winged pennon streaming high 'Twas merry as the sea-mew when he glides Adown the flashings of the Sun-God's eye, When sunrise wakes the sleeping sea And fills the heart of morn with glee ! Death is a nightmare when no star, No glow illumes the fading skies, To light our steps across the bar As day on dusky pinions flies. NIOKE THE churchyard yawned last night ! The eye of nightmare saw a gloaming light That swathed the graves in gloom, And saw a spirit stalk from out a tomb, Had open'd those marble jaws The goaler, Death, has sealed for years, And on its threshold pause As if the moon's pale light had wakened fears. Anon, I seemed to stand where roadways meet ; A roar, a crash, a cry ! A concourse surged across a frenzied street ; I'd come to say good-bye. I feared my Love or sweet Antinous might Ah ! be that piteous sight That waved its bloody pleading hands on high ; But soon that eager heart Came flying, as in halcyon days of yore, To fright the ghosts of fear ; And now I felt those cheeks the velvet of before !- That silver voice could hear ; 114 Nioke 1 1 5 I saw the love-light in those tender eyes, The tear when Rapture cries And Gratitude with loving, longing charms The lost grasps in its arms ; And once again I felt those clinging lips Imprint their honey-trace, Sweeter than humming bird from blue- bell sips! Of dew upon my face. No more the aching heart and stifling sigh ! No banns with Death shall part ! O Cerberus ! are all your horrors shorn ? What ! This is Easter morn ! MY FOREBEAR'S FAREWELL FAREWELL, old Home ! I love you well, God knows, And kneel and print my kiss upon your soil ; We stood by Harold 'gainst your robber foes, Helped wrench from John that shibboleth of toil. Our blood has warmed the hearts of chancellors, It fed the fount of liberty for centuries, It helped your barons frame your baby laws. And how did you repay these argosies ? Attainted my illustrious father's blood, Because too well he loved your coarse-mouthed king! Now I must don the vagrant palmer's hood And all my heirlooms to the four winds fling, Become a pilgrim, herd with savage men And beg my bread of the reluctant fen. 116 THE UNFORGOTTEN 'Tis those who need us mourn ! 'Tis those have stayed the tide of tears, Our yoke of toil, of sorrow borne, Grown pale as paled the fading years ; Have climbed with us the scowling hill, Have sunned with us within the vale, Have toiled the throbbing heart to still, And shared the shadow of the sail ; Who cannot count upon his fingers The friends who love to hold his hands ? While Gladness runs 'tis Sadness lingers ; 'Tis Sadness' hands are iron bands ! 117 RADETSKY FIEND in the mask of man ! and hanging on the edge Of earth till dropped into the gulf of hell ! 'Twas Freedom you would wreck upon the ledge Of Tyranny ; 'twas in the reeking cell And loathsome fen that mountain nymph you'd drown, Tearing from her head her myrtle crown To deck a tyrant's pageantry of blood ! Her shrine of martyrdom your rage would flood With cruelties the tongue would blush to tell ! Your grave was yawning, yet you scorned death's pledge, Aye, scorned your God's and After-Ages' frown, And with a devil's front unblushing stood. Age had no pity for the heart of Youth, Strangled with noose and knout the voice of Truth. 118 THE CARDINAL A PUDDING'S features and a milestone's heart, Herodias' love, Ignatius' piety, A peasant's zeal to play a prince's part, A miser's greed, parrot's formality, A dancing dervish with a bandit's sword, A libertine with women, saint with priests, Freedom's assassin and a gambler's word ; At home a pinchbeck, glutton at high feasts, You held the sword of State and ruled the Church, Befooled the Pontifex, betrayed your peers, Lifted the vulture to the wood-dove's perch, Coined ingots out of widows', orphans' tears, And when within a harlot's arms you died, No one could sob, for all were satisfied. 119 LINGUA MUSICA WHEN sitting at your lattice while the twilights stay, And Luna bathes in silver sheen the virgin sea, Have you e'er heard the child of Italy at play And thought he learned his music of the linnet's song ? Or wondered whether Orpheus and Eurydice Were sponsors at the christening when this music sprang Into a speaking language in some far off year, And lisped its accents in the young child's ear ? 120 BRUTUS BRUTUS is my name, But not that son of Rome ! This Caesar was my foster-father, And lifted me to power ! I stabbed him in the forum, But not to death, I fear, Because he sought to wear the crown His hand once placed on me. Those three-and-thirty daggers That did to death great Julius All died in their own blood, And Dante sent their souls to hell To herd with Judas and his kin ; Appalling thought ! 121 CALUMNY THE Alpine chamois-hunter sometimes sees The mountain's forehead pelted with fierce hail, Below sees summer showers gild the trees, And sunshine clasps in loving arms the vale ; So calumny the giant's head assaults While pigmies hide their faces in their faults. 122 GOOD-NIGHT " OH ! you, mamma, have lovely eyes !" It was at eventide a child, Who, praying, in his cradle lies, These sweet words said in lispings mild. That mother now is old and grey, That child a spirit far away ; But no one since had power to say Six words so sweet, so loved as they. 123 VENI! VIDI! VICI! I CAME ! I saw ! I conquered ! These words with wings That sword had thrown a scabbard in the Thames, The Rhine, the Tigris, and the Guadalquiver, The Nile, and that thin stream Numidia hems To teach man's blood to flow as flows a river, Sent home to Rome to tell the Tiber how Its Scythian shadow made the Dnieper bow. 124 FAIR TREBIZOND O TREBIZOND ! Fair Trebizond Beside the Euxine sea, Of which my boyhood days were fond, My heart returns to thee ! When Cyrus had Cunaxa won And died upon the field, 'Twas here those Greeks with Zenophon Bore him upon his shield. And I, with that Ten Thousand, tramped Across that frozen plain ; And with them, night by night, encamped, And with them murdered pain. Again I hear the lusty cheer That smote the Asian sky ; They shout Thalassa ! in my ear And toss their spears on high. 125 THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS O TYRANNY ! What crimes are thine ! In every age and every clime What heroes taunt you with their staring eyes ! Millions of acres, drenched in blood, Made holy by the martyr's shrine, Blaspheme you to the skies ; Can you not hear their cries ? They wail as wails the Caspian flood In its great agony sublime. Dear goddess of the sea and air, Sweet Aphrodite, blithe and fair, Glad daughter of the foaming sea And of the Zephyr, fond and free, Epitome of liberty ! What men have loved thee, died for thee ! In those fair isles of far-off Greece That scarce in centuries knew peace, In that hard land, Imperial Rome, Where Janus' temple had its home, 126 The Blood of the Martyrs 127 And once was closed in all its years To widows' sobs and orphans' tears, What worshippers have knelt to thee, What men have loved and died for thee ! Since then the words but not the song has changed, For where the Alps in giant grandeur ranged, There you, fair nymph, in morning's garb arrayed, Defied the Fiend, ne'er awed and ne'er dismayed ; When Albion, too, was face to face with kings You were her patron saint, you forged her sword, Taught her those anthems Revolution sings, And smote the sea that she might find a ford ; What men there gave their loves to thee, What men there fought and died for thee ! See her fair sister ride the crimson flood And drive the Bourbons from their dragon-den ! What if her meadows were a lake of blood, She paid the price to assert the rights of men ; And you, brave Italy, so long was Thraldom's home, What aches and agonies have you not borne That you might with this beauteous goddess roam As free as air and by no factions torn ! When men, fair goddess of the free, When heroes loved and died for thee ! 128 The Blood of the Martyrs Nor were nor are these half thy devotees ; There is an empire wondrous as old Rome ; Like Rome the Hydra has it at his knees ; Come ! Come, great goddess, to this people come ! Millions have loved, still love, your mountain song, And love is love though not by trumpets blown ; For weary years their hearts have cringed at Wrong ; Their love is caged ! But no, it has not flown ! Legions have shed their blood for thee, Legions are exiles now for thee. O God ! Is there no heaven of patriots, No hill where Gracchus and Demosthenes And martyrs loved their lands far more than life, Can share with these great dead their peerless lots, And hold communion on their days of strife ? Their blood has been the seed of States ! yes, these Have built them shrines within the Halls of Fame, Bestowed on fading ages an unfading name. And these were one in glory And one within the grave ; This is their simple story, The fortune greets the brave ; To linger on the tongues of men When ghosts and ghouls have fled, And be the theme of voice and pen When enmities are dead. THE DYNAST'S TYRANNY WHAT man, unasked, should be my lord ? What vampire suck my country's blood, Or drench its meadows with a crimson flood ? What man, unloved, and of an alien race, Should ride upon the people's backs, And feed on suffrance, sword, and tax ? What robber-baron, standing at the ford, Should pilfer tolls and grind the toiler's face ? What vulture fatten on my bones and flesh, Should bid me grind his corn and thresh His wheat, and doff my cap, and bend my knees r Or bid his jackals herd me in his cage To languish in the clutch of Famine's rage And in the winter of his frenzy freeze ? Who has the right to sit astride My neck and call himself God's son, And in the chariot of Cassar ride And cast his shadow 'twixt me and the sun ? Millions there are in mine and every land As truly sons of God as he ! 129 9 130 The Dynast's Tyranny Then why should they stand hat in hand And cringe and crawl and clasp his knee ? Ye Sons of God awake ! From God your charter take ! Eternal vigilance ! This is the price The freeman pays to keep from Thraldom's vice ! THE MOTHER TO HER SONS MY children ! I have wrought for you And made you happy homes, And, children, I have fought for you 'Neath hot and frigid domes. And when to manhood you were come And might have been my stay, I let you from my roof-tree run Upon your wandering way. But always kept you in my heart Whate'er your clime or shore, And if you had an enemy He heard the lion's roar ; But, children, I am growing old, And I have many woes, Have rivalries and enemies, And friends are worse than foes. I need you, sorely need you, To stand beside my gate And help me keep the wolves at bay And jackals spurred by hate. 132 The Mother to her Sons Come ! come to me, my boys and girls, As I would come to you, To feed you if you were in need ; Be filial and be true; And bring me battleships, my dears, And bring me British cheers, And bring me hearts of oak, my dears, And then I have no fears. OLYMPIC GAMES CORCEBUS ran before a million eyes ! Some thousands saw him with their own, The rest with others' eyes, and from this day The Olympiads began their race with Time ! They bound his brow with bay, And steeped his joys in thyme. For loud-voiced centuries, Full five and twenty ! memories Of these Olympian cries And of that swain who bore from Marathon The news have kept their laurels green. Their names are deathless as the sun ! Empedocles, for so the legends run, When great Miltiades had dammed the Persian tide A laurel plucked on that far field of fame, And swifter than he could a courser ride To Athens brought and died. A thousand years 'Twas fed Olympia's campus with the tears Of gratitude those bailiwicks of Greece Distilled upon that battlefield of peace ; i33 1 34 Olympic Games And how the victor's plumage they would preen ! They carved his form in Parian gold, And, though 'twas often told, The tale could ne'er grow old. There is a statue, standing now in Rome, 'Twas in that crypt entombed That fortune so illumed Of one of those proud sons of fame In peace and war renowned his home. To steep his sword in Punic blood And fill the world with war's renown Would not suffice that King of Syracuse ; He sighed to win the Olympic crown And swim the tide of glory at its flood. The plaudits of his town had little use, All lands and seas must hear his name ; Nor would he lower his lance until it bore That sprig of laurel to Sicilia's shore. What was Olympia ? The Mecca of the classic world ! Each time that Phosbus scored a quadriga Of years this foremost people of all time Would sheath their swords, their jealousies and fears, And to this Marathon of Nations come, At other times a voiceless vale of tears. Olympic Games 135 Here poets peerless, eloquence of solar ray, Philosophers are rituals to-day, Historians are fireside friends display The wonders of the Attic soul To Hellas herded in that mountain bowl, While Culture hangs upon their lips And Wisdom Delphic nectar sips. Hear Athos thunder with his leaded hand ! See Gyas scatter victims o'er the land ! 'Twas Alcibiades that discus hurled ! The feet of Sophocles that garland won ! Like gleams of light Alcestis' steeds have run, And Phocion's wheels of flame have dazed the world. The God of Sports, great Herakles, looked on ; And Zeus in gold and ivory arrayed, That marble miracle of godlike mien, Whose pomp no earthly eye before had seen, The master genius of all time had made ; And Mercury, Praxiteles had wrought ; Some said 'twas here from high Olympus brought ; The face still glows with life and will ; His dancing faun is dancing still. A graveyard now is where Olympia stood ; The earthquake's sacrilege and torrent's flood Have sunk its glories in a lake of sand ; Then fell Time's tooth and murderous hand ; But still the Ghost of Greatness haunts the land. 1 36 Olympic Games We tread on Grandeur's grave, The altars of the brave ; Olympia, the Pynx, and Tempe, The Academy, Thermopyle, Are naught but waifs of memory. Forgotten ? No ! Her seeds still grow, And will while men are men And Honour is their ken ; Apollo's sons are fancy-free, But swim upon the self-same sea ; The battle of the Nations wages still ; There still are feet with wings, an iron will, Steel hands, Helenic hearts and smiling eyes, America bears home Athena's prize. WORDS WITH WINGS A WAYFARER upon a summer's day, While idling in an Alpine hostelry, Descried a book some loon had thrown away, And hoped an hour on swallow's wings would fly. Sketches of Italy, the title ran ; How few the pens are tipt with the eagle's wing That can life's fens and voiceless canyons span, And from Parnassian heights the laurel bring ! A double score, no more ! of all who speak Our tuneful tongue have gained the classic goal, Tho' thousands have worn out a godlike soul In running breathlessly to scale this peak. A page or two revealed the wizard's wand, For gold is gold whate'er the nugget's size ; With fairy feet my jaded Fancy flies, Till sadly dropt the pearl from hands grown fond. 137 THE UNCROWNED KING STAY Hapsburg ! Hohenzollern ! Romanoff! Beware the sceptre of that Uncrowned King, Mightier than dynasties, was once the scoff Of Tyranny, now hurls the bolt of Jove, The People's will, the Press its mermidon ! Its birthplace was Athena's sacred grove ; Through Freedom's agonies this child has won A power will laugh to scorn your sceptre-sword ; 'Tis mightier than Law or Custom's word ; Briarius-like it has a hundred hands, And Argus-eyed upon their heights it stands ; What single eye, what single hand, can hope With this Chimera, spouting flame, to cope ? Its rage is kindling now among all lands. 138 THAT MARBLE HEART HER heart and flesh were one, of marble made, And quarried in Carrara's glacial bed ; What man could love an iceberg ? He has laid Upon that pulseless breast his throbbing head ! Her mother was a lava stream of love, And burned to ashes in her love for her ; But still those tears were ice, if tears they were ; Not even Death that marble heart could move. DETHRONED A FOUNDLING that a she-wolf nursed ! So Rome was nursed in infancy ; My baby lips 'twas kissed your baby feet While Liberty was binding on your wings And demi-gods were fashioning your sword. What men have died for you ! Your swaddling clothes were dipt in martyrs' blood ; What heroes rocked your cradle, Stood sponsors at your christening ! There is no churchyard in our land Does not enthrone their love. For five decades you were a nation's goddess, And millions kissed your snow-white robe As Athens kissed the kirtle of Athena. Yes. Time would faint to call the roll Of noblemen upon your temple walls ; You saved a nation, freed a dusky race, Laid violets upon a million graves Whose dying eyes sang hymns of joy. 140 Dethroned 141 And do the dead still live ? And can they see and hear ? Then dead men's teardrops flow like cataracts ; The ghosts of Gettysburg and Shiloh Mingle with these their tears, For your young lovers all are dead Who thought your blood-drops rubies ; Grown old, unhonoured and forsaken, Now jackals suck your blood. HUNGARY'S MILLENNIUM A THOUSAND years your royal crown Has borne the battering blows of Time, The Moslem fist and Hapsburg frown And Impotence corroding rime, The furnace heat of Civil War, The death of dynasties, the Conqueror's scorn And kicks of violated Law, Those agonies with Scourge and Famine run, And still it blazes like a golden sun. And in those centuries what kings were yours ! Saint Stephen wore it first, and dozens bore It like a cross against the Paynim's front ; And oft 'twas tarnished with red gouts of gore, For you stood in the battle's brunt ; Still 'gainst your breast barbaric Asians pour And have since from the Caucasus you came ; But ever you have held aloft the Magyar name And kept her flag upon the towers of fame. 142 AT THE GRAVE OF KOSSUTH OH for a hand like Washington's ! that calm And stately will could look with wisdom's eye On Sorrow and Defeat, and hear the cry Of Valley Forge without a trembling qualm ! He, on his Atlantean shoulders, bore A struggling nation with a godlike fear, Looked with composure upon Famine's tear, And ne'er despair upon his forehead wore ; Bided with faith his time till Europe woke From her long lethargy to hear the stroke Of Time knelling within the dynast's ear ; If you, Kossuth, had had that sage's skill, Known Scylla and Carybdis when they spoke, Your six month's sway had been a nation still. 143 THE KOENIG SEA How still ! Can God be here ? For if man spoke Twere sacrilege ! A silence as of night Lies on the face of land and lake ; the light Has laid its lashes on the mountain's cheek ; The clouds laid ghostly fingers on their heads That veil the Eye of Day ; the glaciers lie Asleep as children lie in trundle-beds ; A calm like this could hear a spirit's flight, A shadow's footsteps creep across the sky. But stay ! "What sound is this I turn to seek ? Ah ! 'tis a brook that tumbles with a sigh From its high nest as 'twere a fledgling's cry; No sound but this has broke the witching spell Since God's great voice upon these waters fell. 144 THE DANUBE'S GATES ONE morn beside a rivulet I stood As blue and crystalline as Capri's sky ; And now I float on a majestic flood, The Danube's bosom, where armadas lie. Those tears the clouds and glaciers shed Have from their mountain cradles fled To find once more their mother's breast, That Pontic Sea where once they found their rest. For full five hundred leagues, aye, more, Through gorges, canyons, meadow-lanes And Magyar wheatfields that once bore The brunt of Moslem rage, past fanes The Huns rebuilt when Rome decayed ; Through bayons where the crimson ibis wades And realms of voiceless everglades ; Past Servian castles, battlemented domes Where sword and crosier fought for Christian homes ; 145 10 146 The Danube's Gates Through lakes are fed from Alpine's zones And faces featured like their stones That mowed it swath amidst Carpathian rifts Since Hungary's broad plains were Pontic's floor Through iron gates the earthquake's hand had made And locked till Science their portcullis raised. These gates, like kings, were relics of that life Barbaric waits for Progress' knife. THE HYENA OF BRESCIA HAYNAU ! Radetsky's brother and red Cain's ! Triumvirate of murderers ! The pains Poor Hungary, that Niobe of Nations, Has borne outscales in crime the stations Of Christ's sad pilgrimage to Calvary ; On Arad's day, hear, hear her tearful wails That mingle with the paeans of the free And your glad entrance into Hades hails ! Scorn ! Scorn ! The hatred that on Judas rains These Sons of Freedom shower on your head ; See thousands, millions, pile their curses, see ! To build a cairn weighs down your grave like lead ; Ah ! he would have a cenotaph of tears Must wake sweet springs of love, not hells of fears. 147 THE CRADLE OF THE RACE UPON the breast of Ararat, And all its eyelids closed, The cradle of the nations sat Awaiting the receding deep, Earth's resurrection, the rebirth Of Nature from the water's womb ; Vast silences the seas engirth And vast vacuities of gloom ! A grim and ghostly isle With nothing can beguile Except one lonely dove That sadly sails above. And here at last ! We traversed land and sea A thousand leagues to gaze into those eyes, And at this throne to bend a reverent knee, And hear the voice that in your torrent cries ; My pious heart is tremulous with awe To stand within the shadow of your frown, And look on peaks man's second father saw, And jewels then were sparkling in your crown. 148 The Cradle of the Race 149 Long leagues of rock-ribbed slope, unsprinkled ground ; No rain-drop tickles Nature into smiles, Nor makes her blushing cheeks look full and round Her parching lips with ruddy life beguiles ! Who has not heard the thunder's bugle sound And bid the desert leap to life and joy, And withered Age bound up as bounds a boy ? Big brothers of the Alps, the Storm King's home, And taller by a head than Europe's sons, With shoulders lifting up Earth's central dome, And avalanches drowning thunder's guns ! Mount Blanc must tip -toe to touch Elbrus' head, Whose girdle more than cinctures Rosa's bulk, The Jungfrau lose herself in Kasbek's bed ; No Alpine mantle clothes Caucasus' hulk. A mile above the sea, another mile Of clinging fields where sings the waving grain, And rosy roofs and sunny hamlets smile : And see that climbing cloud of smoke that fain Would frolic, childlike, in the tiger's paws, A mile of towering snows and glacial lakes. 'Tis 'neath this ermine that he hides his claws ; God pity us if e'er the monster wakes ! 150 The Cradle of the Race Great Tsar ! Sole sovereign of a continent, Whose regal brow has always worn the crown ! To thee great vassals their allegiance sent, While mighty monarchs reverenced your frown ; Vesuvius and JEtna. incense raise ; The Pyrenees lift up their royal voice ; Carpathia sends garlands in your praise ; The Apennines have made you their sole choice ; While Alps her anthem to your grandeur sings, Proclaims you, awful Elbrus ! king of kings. But size may not be beauty, no, nor grace ; There is more beauty in a Highland loch Than in the Caspian ; in Como's face Than in a continent of sea. Men flock To Europe's playground, call her crags their shrine, And drink their grandeur like an amber wine. 'Twas here that Jason came of yore To find the Golden Fleece, And bear away the golden ore To his far home in Greece ; And still the hungry hunt goes on, A battle never won ! And still we chase the rolling sun, With frenzy's madness run, And still the golden beaker sip With livid, parching lip. The Cradle of the Race 151 O fair Caucasian maid, Fit mother of our race, A tall, white-petalled rose That on the mountain blows, We love your Grecian face, Your grace can never fade. O fair Caucasian vale, True cradle of the race, Encircled by the peaks Your brown-winged eagle seeks, We love your smiling face, The sunshine and the gale. And Suram on the height, The valley's eagle-nest ; Full twenty centuries flight Have left you here to rest ; 'Gainst yon ^Egean tide Of greedy commerce prest To reach the Caspian's side. Shine out ! shine bright, brave beacon- light ! Still guide old Asia's fearsome flight ! Glad Tiflis by the Kura flood, Queen city of the Caucasus, And where her capital long stood, Your nomad charms 'tis dazzles us ; 152 The Cradle of the Race Here 'tis those double highways meet, And here 'twas Asia's sandalled feet Their pathway unto Moscow wore, Or sought the Euxine's castle door. An earldom in the clouds, a mile above The sea ! and freedom's vestals kept the fire For ever lighted by the light of love ; The music of the mountains was their choir And God their Choir-master ; when the storm Shouts loudest they can almost see His hand Directing Nature's voices see His form Upon the hurricane that sweeps the land. And long Caucasia held the fort, Held Persian, Turk, and Romanoff At bay ; their threats were but her scoff, Their blood-hunt but her summer's sport ; Those mountaineers of wild Algiers, Who ever for two thousand years Defied a foeman's spears and guns, Were brothers of Caucasia's sons. And five decades did scarce suffice To bind them in the tyrant's chains, And grind them 'neath his juggernaut And hold them in the Russian vice. What mother ever bore such pains ? Was ever with more perils fraught ? The Cradle of the Race 153 And all these peaks were freedom's shrine, They spilt their blood like babbling wine ; But wooed a seraph, clasped a cloud, And wrapt seven aeons in a shroud. Four hundred thousand fugitives ! What nation, after this, still lives ? All exiled from their fathers' land ! O Tyranny ! Your fiendish hand ! Schamyl ! Upon her blood-red roll, With Abdel Kayder and with Tell, The Muse of Liberty will scroll One name these glens and glades love well ; Who love the Vedas of the free When at their prayers should think of thee. The signal tower still is on the height That told the freeman where the foeman lurks, And here and there a grave has marked the site Where one man watches while his brother works ; What hamlet has not wrecks of patriot homes ? Tell us, fair goddess, where your lover roams ! Among the hills ? or is it by the sea ? We know it is some haunt of liberty. UNTRODDEN WAYS I LOVE to hear our Samovar Singing its merry tune, Or whistling like some jolly tar And turning May to June ! It tells us of the joys of home, Our home beyond the sea, When in some alien land we roam With hearts are fancy-free ! And tells us of the kindling eyes We met when wandering far Across that land of boundless skies, The Kingdom of the Tsar ; And tells us of the welcome word That met a speechless tongue, Which we so oft, so gladly heard When journeyings were young. 154 Untrodden Ways 155 Come back to us ! Come back, dear days, And bring your cloudless smiles, Your sun-girt steppes, untrodden ways, And fond Caucasian wiles ! MOTHER THE sweetest word the tongue can say, The first that infancy can speak ; The last upon the lips of Day, The dearest when the pulse grows weak ! Let other eyes grow blind, Let other loves grow cold, One love is ever kind, One heart is never old. And now your children all are dead I love to think you still the same, To keep their crown upon your head, And call you by your children's name. 156 EVEREST'S SOLILOQUY ON Elbrus pile Pilatus, still I reign Supreme ! Great Jove was no more king ! The vassals of Olympus could not feign The grandeurs that my mighty vassals bring. I bear the earth's east dome upon my breast, My head o'erlooks all earthly mists and cloud, God's fearful thunders in my bosom rest, His lightnings hem my corslet, and my shroud Would cover Chimborazo and Mont Blanc ; This great world's rulers look to me like flies. Come, see my courtiers, standing rank on rank ! What else is older save the eternal skies ? What works the hand of God or man has made Will not be ashes when my wonders fade ? '57 THE FLIGHT FROM MOSCOW SING, Holy city of the Tsars, And Kremlin with your twenty towers ! And sing, ye fanes that court the stars, And ye seven hilltops lend your powers ; And Moskva blend your silver tongue ; Ye smoking ashes live again, be young ; Let mighty Volga hear your loud acclaim, And with her hundred voices shout the shame And bear your thunders to the sounding sea ! Great Heart of all the Russias, thou art free. To-day the conquering Captain with the bow Of Jove, and at whose awful frown The Kings and Sceptres of all Europe bow, At last must like a cowering hind bow down Before that mightiest sceptre of the earth That in our frosts and forest has its birth. Now Famine, Fever, Slaughter, Whirlwinds, Snows, With all the Furies Russia's winter knows, Shall smite that host whose banners hid the sun 158 The Flight from Moscow 159 And claimed the homage of the bending skies, Aye, rivalled Xerxes in our wondering eyes ; For God Himself will fight on Russia's side And crush to dust this Corsican's mad pride. O God ! our Father, and our fathers' friend, Lend us Thy lightnings and Thy tempests send ; Smite them, Father, smite them hip and thigh, And teach the bandit there's a God on high ! EUROPE'S AMAZON OUR Little Mother ! So all Russia says ! So vast your surface thrice o'er France would run, So long six nights would lengthen out six days, So regal you are Europe's Amazon ; One highway of a State whose waterways Would ten times gird the world and mammoth size Is double our huge bulk ! Your floods and bays Five gilt-winged days have seen with wonder's eyes. Within your lap armadas by the hundred play, And yet your waters find a land-locked bay And in a mighty incense fade away. Man bridles the Leviathan and brings Frankincense unto Father Nile ; He harnesses the Triton, and he sings To gaze upon that Rameses Moses saw. Those liyid lips enacted Israel's law, And on the glitter of the Pharaohs' cataracts : He tramps with Bible-guide across wide tracts Of desert till he finds the Bloody Sea, And hear it roll again its billows back And give those fugitives a dry-shod track. 160 Europe's Amazon 161 Your waters, Volga, have a fairer flow, Whose buttresses were bulwarks 'gainst the hordes Of Tartars cursed so long your fens and fords ; No monoliths, 'tis true, the hand of man Would tremble to relift here glow ; Nor mummies, nakedness, and awful Carnac Here faced such ages and defied their havoc ; But mimic Grecian St. Sophia's can Recall a culture far exceedeth theirs, Though they and Greece as well were Egypt's heirs. For half the year you are an ice-bound book Upon whose page the eyes of fishes look, And yet your Muskite scorns the fellah's boast And is a cannier and mightier post ; Your walls, too, by a mightier power hurled Still screen from sight the granary of the world, And where has Nature with a lordlier hand More riches strewn or buried in a land ? To-night big, bustling cities meet The wave and big-browed peasants greet Each other, sometimes with a kiss ; And Luna, in the pride of bliss, Her portrait paints before our eyes And hangs it on the frozen skies. ii SKOBELEF MILLOSCOW 'tis his statue stands, For Moscow was his natal home, That cavalier who added lands So many to his Tsar's great dome, And captured Plevna from the Turk, And Shipka Pass, too, was his work. A very dare devil was he ! For when the Bear's two armies stood At rest upon the Balkans' knee He would not halt, oh, no ! he would Still enter Stamboul in disguise And face the Sultan to his eyes. An artist friend was asked to go And he it was told me the tale And help him string the Crescent's bow And scan the purlieus of the pale, And see with him that Golden Gate Where foes will enter, legends state. 162 Skobelef 163 His army ne'er resumed its way, And ne'er the soldiers of the Tsar Have slept beside the Golden Bay Where 'mid the Crescent sleeps the Star Save one and this one was their chief And with a daring dares belief. THE TSAR'S SOLILOQUY. I AM a flitting breath That haunts the House of Death ; But, mightier than Charlemagne, My eyes a broader empire scan ! The condor of the Caucasus And our still wings of steam Would take ten days to compass us ; My sceptre seems a dream ! The child of Ignorance And fruitful Superstition, I reign by sufferance And fanciful tradition. No saint, but sinner like my sex, I wear the Saviour's crown, The people call me pontifex, And think me son of God ; As Romish bigotry bows down Before the papal nod, These simple hearts have long been taught This vain and priestly thought. 164 The Tsar's Soliloquy 165 O Ignorance, Imposture's toy ! Whose crafty fingers your stops As magic frets a dull-eyed boy ; Your sweat and toil are priestly props, And kings sit snugly on your back And rob the cradle of your son To lead him o'er some blood-stained track And keep a crown some brigand won. But ye whose days are freedom's fasts, And nights are vigils of her acolites, Be comforted ! Here are no airship's flights, The musjik's will is stolid, but it lasts ; He has a Samson's patience, no Greek fire That flashes, meteor-like, and then fades out. My Ministers, beware that ire That kindleth slowly ! Dare not flout Its signal-guns ! There'll be no fete like Gaul's ; An avalanche, a frenzy such as Saul's. Elliot Stock, 7, Paternoster Row, London, E.G. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY > || || || II | III A A 000035743 4 SOUTHERN BRANCH UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY LOS ANGELES, CALIF.