UC-NRLF ELM 3E7 of GIFT OF n "A "Book of Verses underneath the lough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread, and Thou Beside S^fe singing in the \Vilderness, Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow." Omar Khayyam. COPYRIGHTED. 1910. BY J. T. CONNOR Tke Road to Fame -W Frontispiece By Annie W. Brigraan -. , ook of "\7erses Published by P. C.: A. C 1910 - ... ; / ~> f i Renewal I HO 4) 313148 The sea is a molten pearl, And pearl the fleckless sky; The firstling leaves unfurl, And the air is a fragrant sigh. A bird s soft madrigal In the peartree s blossoming; High on the church-spire tall A white dove preens her wing. The elemental strife Lost in a peace profound, In sound of quickening life That yet is scarcely sound. One with the starry chime Earth keeps her rhythmic beat Our mother, old as time, With heart still young and sweet. Tke MotL of Time Lo! this audacious vision of the dust This dream that it hath dreamt ! Unresting wings, Too strong for Time, too frail for timeless things ! Whence all thy thirst for God, thy piteous lust For life to be when matter s chain shall rust? What pact hast thou with the undying kings, Silence and Death? What sibyl s counselling Assure thee that the eternal laws are just? Nay! all thy hopes are nothing to the Night, And justice but a figment of thy dream! Upon the waste what wide mirages glow, With hills that shift, and palms that mock the sight, And cities on the desert s far extreme Those veils we name, and dare to think we know! Compensation For every pang a thrill of joy, For every sin a deed of grace, For every curse a benison, Somewhere, somehow, sometime. This is my faith, that God is just, That wrong shall be resolved in right, That out of darkness breaks the light. We would not have eternal day, We would not have all happiness; The shadows make the glow more bright, The night-gloom glorifies the day, And sorrow sanctifies our bliss. So if this life seem mostly lost In the dull reach of dreary gloom, And if the good be bowed in dust, What matters it, if God be just? The great world-plan cannot be wrong, In other lives, on other spheres The good God justifies earth-tears, And souls that suffer shall be blessed. Truth s Dawn Had truth not dawned There had been in my heart no little shrine On which the flame of joy burns ceaselessly. I had not known the way, pure and benign, Nor soft-lipped peace, nor even hope were mine, Had truth not dawned! Had truth not dawned I had not understood that Love will keep The spirit unconfined, the footsteps free That tread the king s highway; nor known the sweep Of life unending, changeless, love-crowned, deep, Had truth not dawned! c Ckarity Thou art no slave nor diplomatic Sage, Dissembling in no high nor servile guise. The common lot of all is thy emprise, The common weal of all thy tutelage. No war of favors doth thy white hands wage. The poorest waif or clod beneath the skies Finds knightly favor in thy gentle eyes. Thy soft caress a boon for youth and age. Thou fair handmaid of God, supernal fount Of love; thy tears like fadeless asphodels, Bestrew earth s rugged path with fragrant grace. Our solaced hearts forgetting oft to count The many painful scars life s record tells Beguiled to patient trust by thy sweet face. How Stall It Be? How shall it be, when some supernal morning, Longed for, and given of God s abiding grace- Borne by a breath, and with no note of warning, On unknown paths, we two meet face to face. So long it seems since you went sailing, sailing Far on a sea that, yet, I may not cross; So long, since pitying breeze brought back your hailing : "Life is but love, and love is never loss." And yet when dusks on all the hills are lying, And ships creep homeward through the Golden Gate, I call to you and hear your low replying: "Sing and be glad, and still in patience wait." Retrospection Ah, give me back my chain of childhood days That now like scattered opals at my feet Do lie; their lights at variance with the sweet Of memories, and in the gathering haze Of twilight thoughts, when hushed silence lays A finger on my heart, it bids it beat To melodies that urge my soul to meet Those dear dream-voices of my happier ways. To hold one hour that in remembrance lies So that on slender, golden threads of years I could string fancies of the long ago: The time when fairies painted sunset skies And I saw lights of rainbows through my tears, For this I d give my all to have and know. ( ^ wo Song; For me the Skylark never sang Save soaring in the pages Of Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, To sing for all the ages. But ah, I ve heard a Meadow-lark From hedges, fields and fences, Pour on the air his song of joy When rosy dawn commences. His rounded, mellow, soulful song, Like full-sustained contralto, Would blend in sweetest harmony The treble with his alto If with the Skylark he could sing, Though never soaring high; The one a love-song of the earth, The other of the sky. At Twenty-One At twenty-one the wildest tales are yet As visions, credible ; and thou canst let Thy fancy roam at sweet unchequered will. Naught in the world thou dar st not do ! No hill Thou would st not climb ! No prizes too high set ! But in thy dreams and triumphs ne er forget The golden hour when falls love s mystic net Around thy soul to set the blood a-thrill At twenty-one. Alas ! What say I ? Passions breed regret. Who knows love s joy shall know her aching fret, Unless the pulses of desire grow still. And yet, ah yet! may thou the fate fulfill: To find thyself in love s eternal debt At twenty-one. Twiligkt in tke Redwoods The sun has slipped behind the mountain steep, On whose thick, wooded slopes I linger yet, Beneath the redwood s shadow, hushed and deep, And full of night. For me the sun has set. But suddenly the dusk is vibrant. Hark ! An oriole sings with lingering run and trill. I raise my eyes. Across the canon dark, On distant slopes the sun is shining still. Tke OU Gate A gate deep-sunk in an adobe wall Where creamy roses over red tiles fall, Watered by her who waits with patient tears For one delayed through twice a score of years. Within the dark recessed grateful shade A phantom soldier greets a Spanish maid; The rose from out her bosom planted there His faith protested with a fragrance rare; The maid coquetted, but she waits to-day; So pluck a rose and pass upon your way. - Small, kindling pulses in dry stems, Green carpets on the lanes; Bold, little, sudden winds that whirl, And warm, sweet blustering rains The earth is warm, the heart is warm, The gay acacia blows; And lo ! the lovely march of flowers In glad procession goes. Above tke Clouds Mid white Sierras, that slope to the sea, Lie turbulent lands. Go dwell in the skies, And the thundering tongues of Yosemite Shall persuade you to silence, and you shall be wise. I but sing for the love of song and the few Who love me first and shall love me last; And the storm shall pass as the storms have passed, For never were clouds but the sun came through. Tarantelle A dazzling maze of dizzy, whirling sound, Struck through with sudden chords of strenuous strength, Wherein the height and depth, and breadth and length Of the hot Southern passion Love unbound, And Hate unleashed and risen from depths profound Are shadowed forth and limned by music s notes, While round and o er and through it all there floats Soft air and sweet from far Italian ground. This picture rises: Neath a wide stone-pine, Fronting the Midland Sea s deep liquid blue, Backed by th escarpments of the Apennine, On flowery carpet, pied and rich of hue, While chimes the distant convent s vesper bell, A youth and maiden dance the tarantelle. Ttc GoJ of tte DcaJ Up through Canton city, Through the reek of rotting ills, You come to the old Pagoda Above the funeral hills. Five-storied over the sleepers Lying in crowded ways Some in a Buddhist heaven, Some in a Buddhist blaze. In the deserted courtyard, The great stone idol grins, Looking at grass-grown out-walls Thinking of Chinese sins. Battered and stained and broken, That grinning gray stone head, Ugly as sin discovered Old as the oldest dead. He waits, but they come never To that old forsaken shrine, And he dreams of the pungent incense That curled, and the sam shu wine. He waits with a heathen patience, While the lizards dart in the sun, And the trees spring up in the courtyard But of the dead, there comes not one. At tke Helm If love, true love, is at the helm, No matter how the storm may rage, Our barques it ne er can overwhelm, In any clime or age. Love holds the tempest in his hand; The elements, his laws obey. There is no power can love withstand, And love is love alway. It turns life s darkness into light, It lightens even death s dark gloom. It leads the soul to glorious height And lives beyond the tomb. msasr^p In S ummer Summer time in Arcady, No one there with you and me. Summer breezes, summer showers, Dew-drops glist ning on the flowers. Naught care I, if we but be All alone in Arcady. Summer time in Arcady, In the garden fair, are three. "Two s company, three s a bore," A fig for all such ancient lore! When you and I, and Love the three Who inhabit Arcady! fl Tke \Vorker and tke Tramp Villanelle Heaven bless you, my friend You, the man who won t sweat; Here s a quarter to spend. Your course I commend, Nor regard with regret; Heaven bless you, my friend. On you I depend For my work, don t forget; Here s a quarter to spend. Ah! you comprehend That I owe you a debt; Here s a quarter to spend, Heaven bless you, my friend. Slave Still Thou claim st this Earth thy birth-right, home, and yet, Not yet, strong, dignified in presence proud Of King, Czar, Pope, or Lord bourgeois? Back, back To chamber lone, poor Thrall ! Purge, scourge thyself ! And stand self-franchised citizen with these! Sunset Over the sea runs a path of light, A carpet of gold that the sight may tread Into the west, toward the realm of night, Losing itself in the dusky red. Gossamer mists float over the spray, Kissing the waves with their gentle rain; While the sun calls back its last slant ray, And sinks beneath the light-swept main. The Redwood Tree When the Power, that out of chaos, Wrought from mist to God-like man, As a scroll before the Maker Stretched the great, immortal plan; And the wonders of the heavens Were unrolled so full and free, In His love for man and beauty God designed the Redwood tree. TLe Way Hungered is thy heart-life? Would st thou richly live? Scant tho all thy holdings GIVE. Restless is thy spirit? Why Life s purpose shirk? Find thy task and humbly WORK. On to larger living, Counting not the throe, With thy soul aspiring GROW. / Morpkia Come, sleep-eyed boy! Let thy spell fall. Lead lead me on through cloistered hall, Or classic ruin, neath mouldering wall. Oh, sound again the witching call ! Ay, waft me with thy subtle spell O er lake, o er mountain, fen or fell, To flowery glades where dryads dwell, Where wilds resounds with satyr s yell. Love waits with rampant pulse divine, With kiss on lips like ruddy wine, With cheeks aglow and eyes ashine, And whispers low through leaf and vine. Come! And from out thy leafy wold Bring fabled brew in cup of gold. Tke Road to Fame Yon lies the goal, across the sun-scorched plain! No primrose path invites the pilgrim band; At every step the blood-red flower of Pain, Set round with thorns, springs from the burning sand. v>*v> t> PRESS OF CARRUTH ft CARRUTH CO. 520 FIFTEENTH STREET OAKLAND, CAL 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is,due on the last date stamped below, or oh the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 1 m "J ^v>l)l RprrD LD M/W S v ^ JAN 1 9 1966 6 i F JZlNiq n i . v PT SENT ON ILL niki 1 7 ZOuu JUW / LD 21A-50m-9, 58 UniSrsii (6889slO)476B Ben U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES YA 03637 313146 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY