LIBRARY or-- THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF THE FAMILY OF REV. DR. GEORGE MOOAR Class site, r&k POEMS BY ALBERT SUTLIPFE OF THE { UNIVERSITY ) OF BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE: JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY MDCCCLIX. CAMBRIDGE: Thurston, Miles, and Pritchett, PRIN TEBS . 56? CONTENTS. DEDICATION TO J. S. B. . . 7 RETROSPECTION ...... 15 THE VESTAL ...... 20 FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM . . .24 GOOD NIGHT 30 FOUR STANZAS 33 ABROAD AND AT HOME .... 35 JUNE 43 THE CLOUD WITH THE SILVER LINING . 46 AN AUTUMN BALLAD . . . . .49 To ONE AFAR 53 SONNET 58 THE DEAD TASSO 59 LILLA 62 OCTOBER 65 IN THE WOODS ...... 69 THE GREEK LOVER 74 THAT NIGHT 79 076 IV CONTENTS. PAGS LINES 83 THE CHURCH ...... 85 OUR SISTER 88 INDIAN SUMMER ...... 92 A TRUCE TO HOPE 94 MOTHER EARTH 99 I Woo THEE, SPRING .... 104 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY .... 107 FRAGMENT. A PICTURE . . .110 A POET S THOUGHT 112 To D. S 113 PRAISE AND DISPRAISE .... 120 MAT NOON 124 SEPTEMBER 127 DECEMBER 128 A WINTER BALLAD 131 A HOME SONG 134 CHANGED 137 LOVE 141 A VALEDICTION 142 POEMS DEDICATION. TO J. S. B. THE reapers to the fields of wheat And to the fields of barley, From daylight reddening in the blue Till vesper dews are pearly ; The humming bird to lilies deep Spotted and gold all over ; The bee unto his honied sleep Close-shaded by the clover ; The grand ones to the fields of thought, The sapphire skies above them, DEDICATION. The golden air with odors fraught, And flowers and clouds to love them ; Firm-cinctured for the harvest spoil They reap rich sheaves and bind them Before them waves a life of toil, Their great deeds lie behind them. But I, who long for calmer skies, Sweet airs and days serener, Across the harvest fields of thought Go but a rustic gleaner. Before me lie the upland slopes, A stubborn glebe for labor, With clouds that never flush with hopes, And eves too sad for tabor. The leaden skies above me pine More dark than sunshine knoAving ; The afflatus from the realm divine Is but the storm-wind blowing. DEDICATION. 9 And yet I bring my sheaf of song From fields of toil and sorrow ; Some tares, with scattering grains of wheat And promise of to-morrow. Perchance a little specious thought Imagination-gilded ; A little fabric, word-inwrought, Starlit, and fancy-builded. A little echo faint and low Caught where the winds were straying ; A little of the sunset glow Upon the far clouds playing. A little landscape lowly laid, By Naiad brooks run over, Bee-haunted in the linden shade Among the snowy clover. I mind me of the time we walked Beside the sea together ; O *1 10 DEDICATION. A pleasant reach of sandy beach, And azure was the weather. Before our feet ,in glimmering lines Curved in the waves white-crested, And over us the broad blue sky Like God s great presence rested. We walked, and talked of sunny things, Of times before and after, And still the deep sea s voice rose up And mingled with our laughter. And whyles we conned the pleasant rhymes With ripple like the water, All silver-voiced like waves in caves Or Nereus fair-haired daughter, The far ships seemed to beckon us With silent speech and gesture, Thrilling with thoughts of odorous climes, Sweet tongues, and alien vesture. DEDICATION. 11 Or where Nahant s deep-searching rocks Go down into the ocean, Storm-beaten on their foreheads bare Sea-vexed with ceaseless motion. How broad upon that sweet June day That landscape from the mountain ! The hazy blue sea on its edge ; Nearer, wood, stream, and fountain. The quiet villages in peace Among the round hills lying, With skyward spires ; and up above The pure cloud-angels flying. Or erst we trod the city s streets, Jostled by wealth and fashion, Perusing foreheads worn with care, And eyes aglow with passion. And still from sky, and wood, and hill, And earnest human faces, 12 DEDICATION. The Sphinx looked on us calm and still As from its desert places, And gave its riddle of the earth, Its mystery of heaven ; I think we have not solved it yet ; God grant we be forgiven. But now great distance lies between Steep mountain, lake, and river ; The free waves flow, the free winds blow, Forever and forever. The prairie oceans round me swell, Wind-swept and never ending, Long frost-browned reaches like the sea Ascending and descending. A dark uneasy river comes With ceaseless voice upswelling ; Long sunless days and starless nights It rolleth past my dwelling. DEDICATION. 13 Yet o er the distance like a waste My weary glances turning, Discern through all the gathering mist Thy friendly watch-fires burning. I come within thy fireside gleam, I lay my task before thee ; We tell beneath its cheering beam Some old familiar story, And then we part ; again there lie These long-drawn leagues between us ; Yet have we met ; and scarce the stars, The keen-eyed stars have seen us. POEMS. RETROSPECTION, BUT half the sky is filled with stars, And half the sky with mist ; No moon to light the waste of snows ; But toward the west Orion glows, And underneath, the east wind blows The clouds where it doth list. The mist creeps swiftly on and on, The stars fade one by one ; Do hopes die thus ? it cannot be ; 16 RETROSPECTION. There goes Orion s sword-belt, see ! And now no light is left to me But Memory alone. And can we dream when stars are dead ? I ween it may be so ; We search the old time through and through ; We think of what w^e used to do ; We light our altar-fires anew, With half the olden glow. Bring out the pictures of the Past, That we may look them o er ; Here passed my childhood, here between These high-browed mountains ; here the green Sloped riverward ; a pleasant scene, Star-lighted now once more. There, crept my childhood on to youth ; Here, was a space for tears ; Then, twas one tear that hid the sun, But now it is ah ! many a one, RETROSPECTION. 17 With floating mists or shadows dun Between me and the spheres. We dreamed the day out till the stars, The stars out till the day ; We said, " Let come the darker time; The hours shall pass like pleasant rhyme ; " We thought the nights all morning prime, The stars would shine alway. We tire of looking o er the Past ; Our altar-fires grow dim ; We see the snow-clouds gathering cold ; The deadlier mists around us fold ; Ah ! but our hearts are over-bold ; How dense the shadows swim. We look above and look around, The shadows touch our eyes ; We hear through hollow distance still The moaning wind across the hill, The fierce gust seeking, seeking still, And winning no replies. 18 RETROSPECTION. The stars are out and memory fades ; Alas ! what may be done ! We fold our robes to keep aglow The heart-fires, flickering, burning low, Chilled by the snow-cloud and the snow, And longing for the sun. Behind us, like a place of tombs, The Past lies sad and lone ; Before us, dreamed-of, hoped-for, guessed, And sloping downward unto rest, Glooms the broad Future, all unblest, Visioned, but still unknown. Stand up, my soul, with Hope beside, And search the sky for stars ! It may be that the storm will cease, And from the glorious starlit East, Some angel voice will whisper peace Down through thy prison bars. Look out, my soul, with courage high, Although thou be but one ! RETROSPECTION. 19 What if the Norland, blowing bleak, Freeze all the tears upon thy cheek ! Look upward, if thou canst not speak, And think, " Thy will be done ! " THE VESTAL. MY hope was skyward, and my thoughts were stars ; My soul the fleckless whiteness of a cloud, That past the round head of Mount Aventine, Goeth to southward and Sicilian shores, Across the even sea ; my fair desires, Brushed with fair-plumed wings and ruffling speed, Heaven s pearl gates swung ajar ; and down all deeps, And up all heights, sunned by Jove s summer thought, Peered my chaste-sighted vision. Lo, the change ! The one white cloud hath darkened to a storm. THE VESTAL. 21 Whose ominous thunders burst above our fane ; My thoughts are but faint glow-worms in the dark; My hope is self-devoured ; my unplumed wings Trail dimmed and useless ; and my purblind thought Seeketh the olden glimmer all in vain. Hateful the bright day searching through my soul ; Hateful the eve that brings the amorous star ; Hateful the moonsheen silvering the night, And the broad Tiber lapsing to the sea, And the lone wood wail mong the piny trees. The morn, the eve, the day, the starred night, Are one to so assoiled, accursed a thing. Whence came this love that knolleth Hope s death-bell ? That comes with glare, and goeth with a gloom In sunlight born and fading in a cloud Close clinger to the skirts of transient joy Rare banqueter, that spreads life s richest feast ? *2 22 THE VESTAL. Whence came lie in our walks by glen and steep, When the full-blossomed spring, bedropt with green, March-blown, and April-showered, scented with May, Ran in and out among the budding vales ? Or when blue Summer, trailing her white clouds, And blown about the sunshine of her locks With southwest winds from off the Tyrrhene sea, Warmed the deep-hearted hills ? Or when the Fall, Gold-crowned and amber-locked, swept through the woods, With shining fruitage from the western isles, Calling from steepy hill and wind-swept lea The wandering goats to fold ? We saw him not ; Yet spying us without our mail of proof, Roving the world beyond the temple gates, He pierced us through and through, and brought me down From all my heights of purity and joy. THE VESTAL. 23 And where art tliou who found st me as the cloud, And left st me as the poor earth drenched with rain ? Among the isles of Grecia, or, perchance, In Cyprian groves among the willing maids, Like Bacchus crowned, like Bacchus leopard- drawn, Oblivious of the woe that here at Eome Comes with the darkness of a shameful grave Between me and the blessedness of life. Thou art afar ; but here I send to thee The bark of my remembrance, blown with sighs, And freighted with alas ! I know not what Blessing or curse. But I go to my death, The great fane fadeth from me, and the groves, Dimly prophetic, shade me nevermore. FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM WE slowly climbed the mountain road A hazy October afternoon, The beautiful forests flamed and glowed, The air was sweeter than June . For who would see, said he, (my friend) God s wonder and glory, should go with me And view, at sunset, hill, valley, and glen, With a back-ground of the sea. We stood on a lofty point of land And watched the sun set in the sea, The vales grew dark on either hand While high in the light stood we. FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. 25 The lowermost points of diamond crag Went out like tapers one by one. Far up the stream, a blood-red line, Ran down to the setting sun. A single ship, all golden sailed, Flared up like a torch at the mouth of the bay, Then growing dimmer, it failed, and failed, And faded quite away. The wakening owl with shrilly whoop Called out the echoes from the dim ; The sun-gilt eagle, with dizzying swoop, Swept down to the mountain s rim. The cedarn wood, with its sunny edge, And the night in its branches thick and deep, Brightened awhile the granite ledge, Grew dimmer, and went to sleep. The first faint lights of the village below Gleamed slowly out on the plain afar, And high above, o er a ripple of cloud, Came forth the lover s star. 26 FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. Of many scenes from east to west I have never seen one fairer than this ; The hay, the harbor, the ships at rest In the sunset s golden kiss. The city, its spires and turrets ablaze ; The river in curves, the land in squares ; The day into twilight with holier rays, Slow-fading, unawares. The hills with their summits like crowns of gold, A shadowy drapery around their feet ; The sturdy mountains so grand and old ; The air so pure and sweet. " God scatters his wonders near and far," He said, " He doth neither stint nor spare ; The few see God in the flower and star, The many are unaware." I said, " This eye that seeth all It is no blessing, but truly a bane ; Go sleep, go sleep, with thy face to the wall, Thy bliss is only a pain. FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. 27 " There are the sunset glories unfurled ; Here is the landscape at thy feet ; Go rake in thy rapture the muck of the world, Go get thee bread to eat. " Thou sawest yon city one flash of light, Its buildings all of precious stones ; What was beneath but crime and night, o " But death, and dead men s bones. " For she that wins to death with her lips Now leads the victim in her bands ; Young famished children down by the ships Die with uplifted hands. " The rich with his shining chariot wheels, O Rolls up to his palace along a grand street ; The tattered beggar totters and reels, And dies at his very feet. " The maid with her star-like jewels and eyes Looks down in the street through the crystal pane ; 28 FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. The homeless maiden, with wild surprise, Returns her glance again." " I would not be," he answered, " that one Who looketh upon this bright world so ; God filleth the heavens with his sun, With a hand-breadth cloud for woe. " This glorious world is broad and bright, Above are the stars and below the flowers ; And little in shadow, and much in light, Glide the swift-footed hours. " And if the sunbeams brightly fall, Why should we curse the air we breathe, Blowing o er tombs ; and tarnish all With the dust and shadow of death ! " For if we trample the flowers in the sod, And pluck the stars from the bright blue sky, We cast back our gifts in the face of God ; It were better far to die ! " FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. 29 We slowly descended the mountain road ; High in the heavens sailed the moon ; Along by our feet a rivulet flowed, The winds and the woods were in tune. Lower and lower unto the plain ; The woods grew dark and grim and still ; We came from the woods, and the golden rain Of the stars fell down at will. Past the village, and on to the sea Where the city was sinking to darkness and rest, And the traveled ships by the wave-worn quay Swayed up and down abreast. GOOD NIGHT. " GOOD day," I said to thee, what early time The austral winds, from out their torrid rest, With ruffling speed, and wheels of music chime, Drove fast and far their white cloud-steeds abreast Out of the warm south-west. Upon thy cheek the tinted apple blooms Shed timid glory as when sunset dies ; And far behind thee, through the odorous glooms, Flashed maple blossoms ; and the violet eyes Looked up in mild surprise. Above thee bent the beautiful blue heaven ; Around thee swept alternate light and shade ; Beyond thee, fair the greening meads did lie ; Behind thee stretched a deep and mossy glade With light, like pearl, inlaid. GOOD NIGHT. 31 Anon, "Good eve," when, o er the dewy woods, The August moon, with tenfold glories bright, Sought out the forest secrets, and the floods Rolled up against the shore broad sheets of light, Too fair for mortal sight. How moveless all the landscape, and how sweet The golden atmosphere that hung above ; The fleecy clouds, neither too slow nor fleet, Seemed with a calm delight ever to rove Above the sacred grove. Far down the cedarn glades we saw the white, Still, moonlight lie upon the forest green, And tangled vines ; and backward, full in sight, The church and village homes arow were seen With ghostly streets between. And now, " Good night ! " night that is almost morn ; Morn of the morrow thou wilt be my bride ; The autumn morning, beauteous and forlorn, With gold and crimson over and beside Where thou shalt walk, my pride. 32 GOOD NIGHT. There is no moon to-night, but far away, O er sleepy fields, beside one shining light, A slender tapering cloud of steady gray, The old church spire towereth into the night, Just fading from the sight. How calmly blows the breeze with odors sweet ; How clearly sound the distant city clocks ; The falling leaves drop faint like spectral feet ; And hear old ocean, with its muffled shocks, Beat on the time-worn rocks. Good night ! good morn ! for see that floating gleam Come leading on the morning s fuller rays ; And hear that first faint bird-trill by the stream. O, glorious morn, too beautiful for praise ! Morning of happier days. FOUR STANZAS. THE days grow strange, the nights grow cool, The bees have left the clover, The maple droppeth in the pool Its shady summer cover. All day the swallows southward flit, All night the wind sighs dreary, And through the thin veil over it The moon looks wan and weary. The crisp leaves rustle on the path That slopeth to the meadow, The oak beside the lily pond Drops down its naked shadow ; The bardd boughs at eventide On upland fells keep swaying, And doleful sounds through valley wide At lonely hours are straying. *3 34 FOUR STANZAS. Three summer months to warm the heart, And then the chill frosts after ; Three summer moons to dream of love Some ninety days for laughter ; And then the south doth end its reign The north- winds clip our dreaming The shadow droppetli once again, To end Love s empty scheming. There is no strip of summer blue But winter clouds blow over ; There is no inch of sodden turf The white snow shall not cover ; No pleasant thing but has its end When sunny days are waning, No note of music for the lyre But endlessly complaining. ABROAD AND AT HOME. SANK the red sun of October, rounder, ruddier, fairer grown, For the Indian Summer glories round its setting grouped and thrown, And the Rhenish watchful castles, crimson-dra- peried every one. Sank behind the unseen outline of the mount ains gold and blue, Leaving such a sunlit fullness that the gazer scarcely knew It was night-time ; hills and valleys pierced and flooded through and through. In the shadows birds were singing, in the braid ed boughs and vines, 36 ABROAD AXD AT HOME. With a summer sweetness blended with an au tumn wail of winds ; Very softly swang the willows ; very mournful sighed the pines. Past the vineyards stood the windmills with their arms in quiet crossed, Pausing for the mountain breezes, mighty labor ers without cost, Watching on the hills their brethren in the dis tance dim and lost. Then the coarseness of the herd-boy at the beauty of the scene Changed, as distance softens music, to a silence most serene, And he walked with measured paces, and an awed and gentle mien. And the fisher by the river sang a distance- softened song, Rolled along the vintner s hillsides, sweetly sad and faintly strong, ABROAD AND AT HOME. 37 Slowly veering, as if fearing it should do the silence wrong. Then the peasant dame in cottage, and the lady fair in hall, Felt the selfsame influence falling with the holy dews that fall ; And they prayed to Mary Mother gentle mother hearing all. So the golden paled to ashen ; and above the hills afar, Peering o er a silver cloud-edge, like a queen in shining car, Gleamed that light the antique poets called love s bright peculiar star. And amid that tender beauty did we stand, my love, that day, Looking from the vine d Rhine bank o er the ocean far away To our land, and to the homestead, seeming distant as Cathay. 38 ABROAD AND AT HOME. Then we thought, " This land is lovely, vine yard slope and river vale, Castled crag so proudly standing, when the day begins to fail, And the sunset, making golden, renders true the Arab tale." And I said, " There flow between us and the land our fathers trod, Ocean wastes so wild and dreary, like our sins twixt us and God ; But the sun shines calm and steady, on the river, on the sod. " Let us go unto the sunset ; we will plant a slope with vines ; They shall ripen within murmur of our forest of old pines, Gathering sweetness from our sunshine, getting substance for our wines. " But our rivers shall be brighter with the names our fathers gave, ABROAD AND AT HOME. 39 And the forests on our hill-sides tall shall grow, and green shall wave, And the twining flowers shall cover each old mossy stone and grave. " We have seen the Alpine mountains going down into the deeps, Soaring up into the heavens where is God who never sleeps Sunlight round their heads,"but lower, hanging mist that frowns and weeps. " We have seen the Tiber flowing, mid its olives to the sea, And the old Rome standing by it, grand in its antiquity Crowned and crownless ; Lear and Caesar, such another may not be. " And the noble masters hanging ever on the walls of time, Every century s harvest greater till their fame is in its prime, 40 ABROAD AXD AT HOME. When the world s last sun is setting, and its death-bell gins to chime. " But our wanderings may be ended ; let the tall Alps now give place To our childhood s humble mountain, with the trout brook at its base, And the pond with sky reflected, or the stars for nightly grace." And you said, " Your words are treading where my thoughts have gone before, When Ave stood amid the ruins on the yellow Tiber s shore, When we heard the thundering torrents down the Alpine gorges roar. " All the home-sounds murmured through me, all the voices of the hill Where the forest standeth grandly when the autumn days are still, When the earth keeps golden silence, and we wander as we will." ABROAD AND AT HOME. 41 So we came ; the sea was halcyon, but the skies were darker grown ; Far along the shivering landscape, fitfully the leaves were blown ; Southward went the summer, leaving the bright woodlands all alone. But the Lares warmed our spirits with the hearthlight never dim, And the pine-tree warders murmured, as of old, the ancestral hymn, Watching in the midnight vapors moon and stars together swim. And our former life moves smoother in these latter grooves of thought, Wiser for the old-world lessons, in this new ex perience taught, Fairer for the old-world pictures, in our memo ries homeward brought ; For we see the visioned vineyards on the proudly castled Rhine, 4 42 ABROAD AND AT HOME. And the blue Italian heavens spread above the Appenine, Making all our day-dreams golden making half our life divine. JUNE. THE livelong day, this summer weather, Chased by the zephyr fleet, The light and the shadow go together Over the browning wheat. And after the staring daytime closes, Passionless, white, and high, The moon peeps into the elvish roses, Out of her native sky. Under the hill where the sun shines dimmer, Shrunk from the eager beam, The brook goes on, with a fitful glimmer, And music for a dream. 44 JUNE. Over the groves and moistened meadows The steady gray hawks wing, And down below, in the shifting shadows, The merry small birds sing. My tired foot, from the broad sun going, Presseth the curling moss, And my eye doth see, mid the green leaves showing, The fair clouds flit across. Give me a bed, with a brook-fall nigh me Pattering low and sweet ; And a glimpse of the Dryads glancing by me, With white unbuskined feet ; Give me a brown-leaved volume olden, Quaint with its antique dream, Leading the full-flowered fancies golden, Back in a swelling stream ; And a vision of ancient groves and meadows, Where Hyacinthus nods, JUNE. 45 And fairly gleam through the mythic shadows White temples of the gods. Then shall the sky, with its deep-blue glory, Telling of Heavenly clime, Mistily blend with the gentle story Draperied in the rhyme. So shall a ray of sunshine brighten Life s ever tiresome steeps ; And a purer starlight come to lighten My dim way o er the deeps. THE CLOUD WITH THE SIL VER LINING. Tis many a weary night and day, Since thou and I have met ; Behind the circling line of hills, Three months the sun hath set : September shrinking from the frost, October with its calms, November swelling in the woods Its loud and angry psalms. The thrifty farmer long ago Hath housed his yellow sheaves, And in the nooks of stubble fields Are drifts of shrunken leaves. THE CLOUD WITH THE SILVER LINING. 47 The stream hath caught a wilder tone, Filled even to its brims It liketh well, through chilly woods, To hear December s hymns. And while I muse, thy memory Looks in upon my dreams, Like golden sunsets flashing back Athwart a breadth of streams. For when the summer s healthy green Was winning sadder grace, The shadow of a parting lay Upon thy gentle face ; It lay upon thy gentle face, It lay upon my heart ; And broadened o er the fading world, The painter Sorrow s art. One moment ; then thy kindlier cheer Was like that holy look, Dim seen, in saintly picture, set In some cathedral nook, 48 THE CLOUD WITH THE SILVER LINING, With glances like a hopeful seer, Who looketh through the dim, Where all the Future, like a mist, Doth seem to reel and swim. So, while the ranges of cold cloud, Fold back the sunshine white, The summer of thy smiles and words, Comes filled ^with flowers and light. I see alone the silver lines That edge the cloudy bars ; And, in the alternating gleams, The sleek leaves drop like stars. I hear alone the lulling wind, Tuning its roundelays To murmurs of the sprouting May, And June s serener praise. AN AUTUMN BALLAD Come, say the Ave-Mary prayer, And chant the Miserere ! The autumn frosts have chilled the air, The winter groweth dreary ! The willow, bending o er the tomb, Moans dolefully for ever, The north-wind bloweth in the gloom, The morning cometh never ! Avaunt, thou memory, springing up Like demon bold uprising ! Full cold and bitter is our cup, Nor needeth thine apprising ! The Future glimmereth in the dark ; We hear the billows roaring ; 50 AN AUTUMN BALLAD. The wind beleaguereth our barque ; The storm will soon be pouring. Of all the visions of our youth, The mind is disenchanted, When manhood sternly paints the truth, The soul is sadly haunted ; The sun is sepulcherd of night ; The flower in autumn bendeth ; Fair fruitfulness has soonest blight ; All beauty graveward tendeth ; The world is petrified at heart, No sympathy is welling ; Each plays in mime his soulless part, Too woful tis for telling. Then say the Ave-Mary prayer, And chant the Miserere I The autumn frosts have chilled the air, The winter groweth dreary ! Bethink ye that He made ye all ! The same God bends above ye AN AUTUMN BALLAD. 51 The same God spreads the light or pall The same God deigns to love ye ! The wind that blows the cultured lea, And through the rich man s hedges, Sighs round the poor man pleasantly, And o er the barren ledges. The rich go up on Fortune s wheel, The poor are crushed beneath it ; Oppression draws the bloody steel, Alas, when will she sheathe it ! Then say the Ave-Mary prayer, And chant the Miserere ! The autumn frosts have chilled the air, The winter groweth dreary ! The beldame sitteth at her loom, She weepeth mid the weaving ; The orphan lingers at the tomb, He s mickle cause for grieving. The dust is laid with dropping tears ; The slave cowers neath the scourging ; Each day is filled with busy fears, Like restless spirits urging. 52 AN AUTUMN BALLAD. O, God, within the Heaven unseen, When will the sun be shining ! Until the spring time cometh green, Forgive us for our pining ! Then say the Ave-Mary prayer, And chant the Miserere ! The autumn frosts have chilled the air, The winter groweth dreary ! TO ONE AFAR. I HEAR the shrill December wind About my window playing, And past the backward-swinging blind The new moon s rays come straying ; Upon a thousand hills at rest The spotless snows are gleaming, And giving back from earth s chill breast The chillier starlight streaming. The tremulous eve-star drops its ray Behind the hill-tops lonely, With smile, which, striving to be gay, Goes out in sadness only ; 5 54 TO ONE AFAR. As if it fain, before farewell, Would dream some fond awaking, But o er its retrospection swell Earth s thousand years of aching. I would not think of tliee to-night ! Another time were fitter, When airs are light, and skies are bright, And memory less bitter ; When summer days come o er the sea, And heart and pulse are beating ; When memory of thy voice might be The harbinger of meeting. It is in vain ! thy visioned face Still looks from out the distance, As when, in the retreating days, Thou would st have given assistance ; With earnest eyes that would have smiled To hide the pain of parting, And grief that would not be beguiled To keep the tears from starting. TO ONE AFAR. 55 I cannot deem thou thinkest less On him the world hath driven Afar into life s wilderness, Perchance, afar from Heaven ; I may not think the newer claim, Of later friendship s rearing, Should make his seldom spoken name Fall duller on thy hearing. I dare not dream the leagues between, With long interposition, Should make his face, no longer seen, Fall dimmer on thy vision ; But through the waste of stricken years, Thy prayers go up to Heaven, For one of Life s poor mariners, Athwart the wild sea driven. I have not knelt for any boon, My poor, proud spirit pawning, And if the world gave bitter words, I gave it only scorning ; 56 TO ONE AFAR. Then, if my grief grew passionate, None looked upon my weeping, Except the distant, holy stars, That watch the earth a-sleeping. I ve passed among the silly crowd, Nor faltered at their gazing ; With knee unbent, and head unbowed, Reckless of blame or praising. False smiles and cheer died out afar, The broad world lay before me, But like a distant, cloudless star, Thy friendship still beamed o er me. I have not stopped, with smoothed brow, At wayside shrines for praying ; Dark thoughts would deepen to a curse Each pure word I was saying. I scarce recall the gentle themes I learned in childhood, kneeling, Beside that one whose quiet voice Comes slowly o er me stealing. TO ONE AFAR. 57 And when across the broad-sunned plain, And o er the craggy mountain, I longed to cool my burning brain At some Pierian fountain, Foul dust had choked the lilied brim ; Dark cypress, o er them leaning, Had made the very sunlight dim, With their funereal screening. Then muse not at the weary strain I fain would have it gladder ; But should I strike the lyre again, Its notes would be still sadder. With hopeful flowers it should be wreathed, To make its tones be gayer ; Yet every note, per force, it breathed, Would but bemock the player. Now dimmer gleams the waste of snows Athwart the hills they lie on ; And high above their white repose Beams triple-starred Orion. 58 TO ONE AFAR. Good night ! broad Nature s holy calm Be round thy spirit closing ; And all the holy joy of dreams Upon thy soul reposing. SONNET. I TELL thee a new sorrow ; for the old Last night expired, and cold and motionless And white as moonshine, laid we it to rest With clasped palms ; and a huge stone we rolled, For fear of resurrection, gainst the place, And bade it sleep. And when the East Crimsoned with this day s dawn, I set a feast Of happy thoughts, and gave my soul to taste ; And she did eat, singing till noontide high, 44 No more, no more of woe ! " But thence till eve, Again the shade, the old woe new did grieve, And made me this new sorrow ; and the sky Thickened with sadder clouds ; yet still I pray, " God sencl a brighter sun to-morrow dav." THE DEAD TASSO. AN urn for holy ashes, Italy, A shapely obelisk, whiter than the sheen Of one pure soul, new comer to the stars ; For he that was the gateway of thy dreams The usher of thy visions grand and new Whose fame hath domed thee like a sky of fire, Thy golden-mouthed, thy silver-songful one, Thy should-be-crowned lies disencrowned before thee. Oh, for thy glory, weeping Italy ! Ah, for thy shame, too, land of glorious dooms ! Drop down thy palms from thy blue, tearful eyes, And hie thee through the twilight of the place, Seeking a tomb fit for thy lofty dead ! 60 THE DEAD TASSO. Pile high the altar of his memory With the rich incense of thy fragrant deeds ; And then, go weep ! Tears are not all in vain ! From the snow-crowns high up bleak Alpine steeps, That blush for thee each crimson eventide, To the far indolence of that extreme, Sang to by syrens the sweet summer through, Send the deep lyric tones of thy lament, Saddening the immemorial Appenine, And broadening o er the conscious Tyrrhene sea, Softlier, sadlier, towards the Afric coast, Until, o erwearied with its mournfulness, The blue waves rock it to a sleep of death. For who shall dare, with bold hand tremorless, The lyre of Zion, wherein stately plumes Surge to the sea-swell of the eager rhyme, And hope to take again his scathless hand ? For on that last, cold, dismal, ruthless dav, The skyward chariot of his prophecy Dropt down no prophet robe. Thou, too, O Rome ! Fair-skied, seven-hilled, and ever Tiber-swept, THE DEAD TASSO. 61 Huge-domed, and starry with ancestral fame, Down through the midnight of thy cypresses Bow low the locks bright with the Caesars beams, And weep like April in the greening woods Thy penitential grief. Be clad in robes Fit for a princely weeper, and, with hands Slow travelers from thy mournful, flooded eyes. Down to thy holy task on bended knee ; Plait thou the laurel for that forehead pale, Late mocked by crown of thorns. Then let there be The glare of torches, and high mummery ! The long, dull, monkish line beneath the stars, Slack-drawn round corners of the dusky street ; The chant and pageant neath imperial dome ; Then leave his urned greatness to repose And the far ages wonder, ever new. LILLA. ENAMORED, o er my Lilla s cot, The summer wind slides lazily ; Entranced, o er her gentle lot, The summer sky hangs hazily. And there the bee hums day by day, Housed sweetly in the blue-bell s heart ; A soft- voiced streamlet comes that way Its low song tuned with winsome art. Through all the dreamy day-time there The songful birds a-tuning keep ; All drowsy nights, when nights are fair, The kind stars tend her holy sleep ; LILLA. 63 No wind will rudely mar her rest ; The grey dawn creeps in orient skies The sleep glides gently from her breast, And careless morn un spheres her eyes. Her footfall, passing in the dew, Awakes the birds with glad good-morrow ; The flowers, to their liege lady true, With bright eyes smile down every sorrow. For be it or the dawn or eve, She hath not any thought of harm ; Good spirits will not let her grieve, And Envy wields a palsied arm. Those eyes, awaking, wake for me, Those thoughts, a-sleeping, dream my dreams, Her smiling haunts me ceaselessly, Until my o er-fed memory teems With shapely visions telling well One grand conclusion well-nigh won, When I shall hear the marriage bell, And when our separate paths be done. 04 LILLA. Then sing, thou bird, and flow, thou stream, Glide silverly apast her cot ! Ye winds sigh low when she doth dream, And, blue sky, brighten o er her lot ! Our separate paths shall blissful meet ; We tread no death-ward way alone, For death, when one, were passing sweet, Our Dreani-Land guest, a joy full-grown. OCTOBER. Now the middle autumn days, Neath a blue luxurious sky, Over woods and traveled ways, With their golden glories lie. Now the oak that stands afield, Royal on a dais brown, Shows its kingly purple shield Like the jewels of a crown. In the late September rains Dark the night and dim the day ; Rings of mist shut in the plains, And the dawns were sad and gray. 6 66 OCTOBER. But the sunlight drove the shades Over hill and over stream, Far into the stillest glades, Where the owlets dream and dream. Where the blue sky stoopeth down, It hath won a golden edge, O er the corn-fields square and brown, With their lines of crimson hedge. Plainly heard, the pheasant s drum Falletli through the air of morn ; Strikino- all the echoes dumb o Pipes the quail beyond the corn. Silent doth the river run, Lapsing to the silent sea, Through the shadows, through the sun, Neither sadly nor in glee ; Past the inlets, past the bays, Dreaming in and out at coves ; Silver in the meadow ways ; Golden underneath the groves. OCTOBER. 67 Children whom no sorrow grieves, Loiter on the way to school, Watching how the crimson leaves Flutter down into the pool. Everything the softer seems ; Gentlier doth the worldling speak, Tarrying in the land of dreams With glad eye and flushing cheek. And the matron far in years, Moveth with a graver grace, All her by-gone hopes and fears Grouped and chastened in her face. Oh, ye days, I may not speak All your teachings unto me ; Ye are balm to hearts that break, Oil unto the troubled sea. I am gliding down the stream ; Ye are ranged on either side ; Can I pause awhile to dream ? Nay ! I cannot stem the tide ! 68 OCTOBER. For I hear a noise of pain, Roar of winds and rush of waves, Dashing o er a sea of storms, Beating on a shore of graves. IN THE WOODS. LET us away in the summer time ! Let us away to the ancient woods ! There the oak trees brood sublime, Over the shrinking floods. There the mosses are moist and cool ; There the shades are dreamy and deep ; And the tangled vines above the pool Hang in a gentle sleep. There the breeze, the balmy breeze, Runs in the shadow up and down ; The murmur, smothered by the trees, Dies half way from the town. *6 70 IN THE WOODS. There is the quiet centuries old, Only broken by bee and bird, And the wind, with its voices manifold, Such as a thousand ages have heard. What will you bring along with you ? Wordsworth ? Wordsworth ? that is well ! What stains the leaf here ? is it dew ? He was a wonder in wood and dell. Shelley ? ah, you know my mind ; But do you think we shall go so deep ? Tennyson s music ? we shall find Bass to his treble will make you weep. Keats ? oh, yes, with his Arcady ; Sensuous ; sensual ; as you please. What gods and temples and nymphs to see, Lying in shadow at your ease ! Coleridge ? yes ! no ? tis as well ! He is great on moonlit eves ; We will read his Christabel When the moon peeps through the leaves. IN THE WOODS. 71 Here we are in the woods, ma belle, Over shoe in the yielding moss ; Are not these flowers asphodel ? This brook Idalian ? leap across ! What if the nymphs have left the glooms ! Naiads, plashing the ancient brooks ! Dryads, glimmering mid the tombs. On the pages of books ! Half asleep we shall see them all, See them all in our leafy dream ; Naiads, pausing within our call, Dripping with pearls of the stream. Up the vistas shrouded with vines, Through the laureled and long arcades, Pillared and corniced, the glorious shrines Lighten the holy shades. Where that bridle-path away Into the wildwood seems to turn, There is Numa, the old man gray ; That is Egeria with her urn. 72 IN THE WOODS. There is a fountain of antique stone, Fit for a garden of regnant Rome With coucliant lions ; a lonely swan Is fluttering in the foam. What is that gleam like a jewelled crown ? Cydnus, over a bit of lea ; And the queenly Afric sweeping down, Down and away to sea. Those are bacchantes under the trees, Filled to the brim with mirth and wine ; Pards, and thyrsi, and life to the lees ; Golden goblet, and juice of the vine. And where the shadow deepest lies, Those are fauns ; now what do you think ! And fool Silenus, with star-like eyes, Stooping again to drink. And here are the fairies of England s prime, Dancing the greensward into rings ; Who would have thought at such a time We should see such things ; IN THE WOODS. 73 Flitting around and athwart in view, Measuring out the summer day, Here as I sit and sing to you, The measure of this lay. THE GREEK LOVER. THE sky is blue, the day is bland, The waves have hushed their glee ; No leaflet stirs upon the land, No ripple on the sea. The shoreward pinnace plies the oar, Unaided by a breeze ; The cliffs, with dry smile, from the shore O ergaze the idle seas. My galley thrusts her brazen prow Far up the pebbly strand, The galley-slaves, with sleepy tread, Pace up and down the sand. THE GREEK LOVER. 75 The hot sun burnetli close and low The shrinking tufts of palm, The rounded hills slope far away In universal calm. The fresh ning gale that drove to crisp The waves upon the bay, Hath not a solitary lisp To help me on my way : I will not go upon the sea To wrestle with the oar, While sweet eyes, gently turned to me, Give blessed heed on shore. The Dryad seeks the thicket cool, Close-woven with the vine, The Naiads in the plashy pool With pearly whiteness shine ! The groves that skirt the pillared fane Scarce tremble to the hymn, From white-armed nymphs and pacing priests, Neath arches hushed and dim. 76 THE GREEK LOVER. V O, let us to some grotto cool The sunshine never seeks, Which hateful noon-day never warms Through sultry summer weeks : And while slow waves slide up and down Fair Delos rim of sand, And we await the tardy breeze To bear us off the land, O, let us have another hour, Such hours as love hath seen, While parching noontide burneth all The woods and valleys green. The wilding spray, deep-shading all, Our bower-roof shall be, Where love may see till even-fall Its own felicity. But list ! the aspen stirs its leaves, The palm-top quivereth ; Down where the drooping willow grieves I hear the breeze s breath ; THE GREEK LOVER. 77 From far, o er Paros snowy top, A white cloud, floating nigher, Bedims the brightness of the noon This sultry noon of fire. The fresh wind daslietli up the spray Above the hot gray sand ; The gleaming sails are on the bay, Swift driving to the land ; The galley-slaves beside the sea Pace swifter to and fro, The galley floateth glad and free, Tis time for me to go. I cannot leave thee here alone, I cannot go from thee : Through sacred groves the fair winds moan That call me o er the sea. O come ! for soon will fade the day, The night doth fall anon ; Love s happy star shall rule the way, Brave south- winds bear us on. 78 THE GREEK LOVER. Balm-zephyrs, from each fertile isle, Shall lull us into rest ; The quiet moon, with fairer smile, Shall light the ocean s breast. Hope hath not thought such happiness Since boyhood dreams were mine, Love hath not seen such store of bliss Since Venus gan to shine. But come ! our joy may not delay ! The gale is blowing keen ; The breaking waves are white with spray My vessel waits her queen ! Let Delos keep its pillared fane Far-gleaming through the grove ! For other, purer haunts are ours Sacred to hope and love. THAT NIGHT. THE seaward sun grew broad o er field and fen, The waves were at their ebb ; And fateful fingers were enweaving then Our sorrow s dusky web. We knelt together on the smoothed sand, The ocean at our feet ; And, slowly breeze-borne o er the hushing land, We heard the world s heart beat. The broader sun sank to his crimson rest In the slow-heaving waves ; The earth-worn slept upon their mother s breast, As still as in their graves. 80 THAT NIGHT. Yet were we silent till the moon arose In silver and in gold, And time, swift passing, bade our lips unclose, With thoughts that must be told. Ours were not words of soulless commonplace That thrust the lips apart, But such as light the inner on the face, And burn into the heart. The hoarded passion of the active brain Came rushing in our speech ; High waves of soul, storm-driven o er the main, Against a rocky beach. Thou saidest things deep-drawn from sorrow s lore, And breathed with sorrow s skill ; Thou spakest of a bliss that was no more, And of a father s will. And of a duty, that to do and dare, Led on by separate ways ; THAT NIGHT. 81 Of conscious right that brightened each day s care Passing all human praise. Yet while thy lips spake these false words of cheer, Thy heart in honest guise, True-heralded by many a silent tear, Leapt ever to thine eyes. And when anon those tremulous lips did fail With words they could not speak, The soul-fed passion, telling its own tale, Flashed red upon thy cheek. And I the while, with helpless agony, And intermitted speech, As in a dream, just heard the swelling sea Calm-beating on the beach* " O come, O come ;" the ripples seemed to say, " Thy slaves are wave and wind ! " 7* 82 THAT NIGHT. I saw the sails moon-lighted down the bay, Their white wakes trailed behind ; And visions rose of some far home of ease, With Indian breadths of lawn, And on the roof the glistening white dove, Peace : I turned, and thou wast gone. Then smote the blinding passion on my face In agony and tears ; hapless night ! that like a burial place, Looms through the rift of years. 1 see thee as thou art, the cloud, the woe, The slow swell of the sea ! The queenly, swan-winged ships that come and go, Far off eternally. LINES. THE autumn time has come again, With meanings on the yellow hills ; The skies with melancholy rain Have flooded all the rills ; The heavens are hung with deathly black ; The fields lie blank and desolate ; The cold winds sweep the sunshine back To lands of palm and date. The winter comes as sure as death To gloom the hours and clip the flowers,- To wither with its fatal breath The hopes that should be ours. 84 LINES. Go draw your curtains close and warm, And stir your hearth-fires clear and bright ; Make faint the roaring of the storm ; Fold back the dusky night. If skies are dark, relume the stars That glimmer in the heaven of home ; Festoon your prison s iron bars With flowers of fadeless bloom. For hearts that need perpetual sun To keep the torch of love alight, Are sadder than these shadows dun, Colder than winter s night. THE CHURCH. THE antique church, it shrinketh back Ten paces from the green ; The emerald neat doth clasp its feet, The quiet graves between ; Strong-buttressed like a castle old That hath its fill of wars ; By night and day, gold eve or gray, It points the place of stars. It clasps a holy silence in, Six days of every seven, And then an angel organist Plays interludes of heaven ; 86 THE CHURCH. And in the hushing of the days, Throughout the after week, Unto the golden-kissing sun It holds its dusky cheek. A bow-shot distant either side, A sister chapel stands, With reverent fear, from year to year, Upholding prayerful hands ; And when, in nerveless August noons, The clouds are like a fleece, It seems to bear, high up in air, God s snowy flag of peace. Within, the moted sunlight falls On carving rich and brown, Without, far off, hums on and on, The knavery of the town ; Within, the light makes purely dim The niches of the saints, Without, the earth doth flout the heaven, With immemorial plaints. THE CHURCH. 87 A porphyry angel o er the font, Its breadth of plume extends ; A purple light, serenely bright, Rests on it as it bends ; It hath no haste to stir its wings, Dun eve or dawning pale, Its steady shade, like sorrow laid, Doth cross the chancel rail. Old friendships snap ; love s golden bowl Lies shattered in my hold ; Yet still God s granite watchman thrills The chords that thrilled of old, And still may its evangel be, Through endless waning moons, While yet its tell-tale brazen face Clangs out its hourly tunes. OUR SISTER. THEY have buried her out of sight, Heaping the earth above her head, And they let no glimmer of light Cheerfully in to see her bed ; Sad shall we be when the summer blows, Sadder still when the summer goes, Lone as death in the sober fall, And the winter colder and darker than all. Green the May hills that we cannot see, Hidden away by the mist and rain, Hidden by tears, that as fountains free Pour them into life s restless main. OUR SISTER. 89 Mother, what dost thou gazing away Toward a mound of senseless clay ? Earth hath the graves, but soul hath the wings, Soaring upward to better things. Brother, a mist is over the hills ! Brother, a mist is over thine eyes, Damper and dimmer than that which fills Marshy vales at the faint sunrise ; What didst thou see when looking last o Into that tomb as the rain fell fast ? Hope should have shown thee a vista bright, Opening up to the gates of light. Sister, the clouds are trailing low, But the sunshine chases the cloud ! Then we will see how the flowers grow, Where she sleeps in her quiet shroud ; Dost thou think the soul-home far, Stepping upward from star to star, The way alight with the angel wings, The air all full of their murmurings ? 8 90 OUR SISTER. Green shall the grass that is over her be When the summer is flush and long, Gentle winds from the distant sea Shall bring her the seashelFs faintest song ; Voices from sea, and woods, and caves, These are the fittest sounds for graves ; Songs that linger neath greenwood eaves Dreams that the Ocean-spirit weaves. All the noise of men shall be Far away in the dusty street, But timid echoes here shall flee, And here shall be odors rare and sweet ; The summer winds shall lightlier pass Over the tops of the bending grass, And when the chilly months grow red, The leaves will rustle above her bed. Day and night, and night and day, Ever the same, ever the same ! The dusty summer growing gray, And the autumn-summer with woods aflame. 91 There will be care, but she will not know, There will be winds that \vill mdelier blow. And winter snows will coldlier beat, Yet her rest shall be soft and sweet. INDIAN SUMMER. THE sun is warm upon the withered sod, And over all the landscape brown and broad, The glorious hills are smiling up to God. The ancient woods, impatient of the heat, Half-dropped their spotted mantles at their feet. Breathe with a rustling murmur soft and sweet. The air is filled with glory like a mist, The sunlight falls upon the earth in bliss As through God s presence drops an angel s kiss. A-nights the moon she hath a golden face, She climbs the yellow mist with dreaming grace, Seeking among the stars her royal place. INDIAN SUMMER. 93 Away, among the burly, oaken trees, Are held in leash the winter s harmonies ; Earth hath a Sabbath-hour of prayerful ease. My soul is like one resting from the wars ; These shining hours beyond the prison bars, It catcheth them as lakes do falling stars. A TRUCE TO HOPE. A TRUCE to Hope, what hath she to do here, With her far-speeding gear, With glistening gawds yclad and tinsel sheen ? She brings the flowers spread On my last sorrow dead, And says, " Be we thy queen ! " Begone false glitter ! come another morrow ! I have not halt-mourned my last dead sorrow. Against the background of my late despair She showeth large and fair, She looks much promise from her prophet eye ; " Dear youth behold yon star, Thou mayst not deem it far, Tis just this side the sky ; A TRUCE TO HOPE. 95 An easy path upwincleth through the bowers, Bestrewn with wreaths dust-laid with summer showers." Now by thy torch, fair shadow, which doth light The dullness of our night, An oath, not here slack-held, to thee I swear, Like taper burning clear Through purest atmosphere, I see it in its lair ; But Heaven s grace I crave, I cannot see The path of flowers up-climbing easily. " Go to ! thine eyes are bleared ! thou couldst not ken Above the- glimpse of men, Though God s archangel held the trump of fame, And, as each blast was blown, Each angel round the throne Sang out thy puissant name ; Go to, and creep, thy weary soul outpouring, Fitter for earthly thrall than heavenly soaring!" 96 A TRUCE TO HOPE. Thou rare false ministrant to man s deceiving, Vain errors past retrieving Are all the boon thou ever gavest me ; Thou that wouldst make clay things Soar upward without wings, Forestalling destiny, From great increase thou ever growest dimmer, Thou traitorous gleam more fit for marish glim mer. So rail we, when my sadness giveth scope, This shadow of a Hope ; And foolish I, who scarce know earthly ways ; I, who am low and weak, Who have few words to speak, To think of crownet bays ! Tis past believing ; were it past retrieving ; God pity my poor weakness self-deceiving ! The summer of my intellect is blown By winds from icy zone, The waste-ground of my fancy hath no bloom ; I see no upward slope, A TRUCE TO HOPE. 97 Lit by a shadowy Hope, But downward to a tomb ; One broad, bleak cloud dotli hide all fairer shining ; My lyre s low notes die out in their repining. It may be well to grovel in the dust, Who hath no higher trust ; The dust may render grains of shining gold, Which, wrought into a lyre, And struck with holy fire^ May rapturous sounds unfold ; But woe is me, if, in the searching lowly, This darkened soul hath lost the God-light wholly. Backward along the path my memory shows, I wander mid the snows, And see my childhood in its gay conceit ; I see through childish tears, The look my mother wears, Her smiling sad, yet sweet ; 98 A TRUCE TO HOPE. Up the dim lane close-shrouded from the heat, I hear the billowy swell of the far dusty street. Forward through snow, and low clouds gloom ing fast, A weary glance I cast ; Around my pathway gather mirk and storm ; And through the thickening mist, Along the dun waves whist, The lightnings gather warm : O, for a glimpse, across the clouded sea, Of some fair orient morn uprising cheerily ! MOTHER EARTH. MOTHER Earth is dead and cold ! Bury her with honor Six feet neath the frozen mold ; Heap the sods upon her. Place between her clasped palms Something growing greenly ; Meek, as if in asking alms, Is that face so queenly. Let the sun be in the west, Clad in solemn vapor, While the moon, like spirit blest, Holds her silver taper. 100 MOTHER EARTH. Let the planets bear the pall, Who so well can weep her ; Fast their starry tears shall fall O er the mourne d sleeper. While the stars, with dimming eyes, Turned away for weeping, Through the night, in dusky skies, Watch her moveless sleeping, Come the ghosts of tearful years, Hoary with their sorrows, With their weary hopes and fears, For the cloudy morrows ; Troops of hours behind them stand, Boughs of cypress holding, Draperies from Shadow-Land Every form enfolding. Let the. wailing winter wind Plain its pensive ditty, MOTHER EARTH. 101 Trailing up a mist behind, Moist-eyed in its pity. Let me look upon the bier ! Give me leave for weeping ! I have known her many a year, Bitter harvests reaping, Since she took me by the hand, With a kindly smiling, Telling me of Fairy-Land, Weary hours beguiling. But the hope she promised me Faded on the morrow, And the hours of boyish glee Darkened into sorrow. Then she gave, for greater boon, Manhood s broader scheming ; Pleasant trysts beneath the moon, With a loved one dreaming. 9 102 MOTHER EARTH. But the scheming fled away Ere the noontide glitter, And the dreams became at day Retrospections bitter. All the smiles that should be mine, Other faces wore them ; Joys that might have been divine, Merrier spirits bore them. Then she gave me friends for cheer, But each fair new-comer, Staying with me half a year, Vanished with the summer. Clouds, for aye, instead of sun, Tears instead of gladness ; So the life in joy begun, Soon became all sadness. Fare thee well ! thy heart is cold ! Mine is scarcely beating ; MOTHER EARTH. And I feel the life-blood bold To its cells retreating. Now close up the coffin-lid I have done my plaining ; Let the pallid moon be hid Set the moist sky raining. Mother Earth is dead and cold ! Bury her with honor, Six feet neath the frozen mold ; Heap the sods upon her. 103 I WOO THEE, SPRING. I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring, To a kindly-thoughted lay, And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming, Through the lee-lang sunny day ! When young loves bud and old loves bloom When the warm earth bans all shade of gloom, And bees hum summerly. I woo thine ears to a kindly tale, And what shall the story be ? I will tell thee dearest bonds are frail, And that stars and flowers flee. I will tell thee a tale of woful wings That rive from the soul its precious things, And shadow sweet fantasy. I WOO THEE, SPRING. 105 I will tell thee of some that have fled away Since last we saw thy face ; And some that are gone from the sheeny day To the lonesome burial place ; And of joys, like a string of pearls unstrung Like treasured flowers to the fierce wind flung, That sleep with the buried grace. O, I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring, To a sadly-thoughted lay, And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming, Through the lee-lang cloudy day ! For the lone day dies through purple bars And a misty grief enwraps the stars, And our hopes are ashen-gray. But the flowers bud and the flowers blow, And the mossy streams are sheen, And the downy clouds to the Norland go, While the blue sky laughs between ; And the light without, to the dark within, 10 Would seem to say, " Will ye up and win While the paths of life are green ? " 9* 106 I WOO THEE, SPRING. But the outer joy on the soul s annoy Looks in and laughs in vain, For the inner chains of the spirit s pains May ne er be reft in twain ; And the song that erst in joy begun Sinks into wail ere the setting sun, A sad and deathful strain. So I woo thee, Spring, and I wed thee, Spring, To a dreary-thoughted lay, And I sing thee, Spring, in thy blossoming, Through the lee-lang weary day ! Through the lee-lang day and the plodding night When no golden star s in the lift alight, To brighten a weary way. A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. LIGHTING the lonely taper of a thought Lone and forlorn, solely entranced I sit, While night, in silence deeper dipt for aye, Hushes to midnight in a wierdish calm. I may not muse the low abasing earth That ever yearn beyond its sensual coil Nor all the stars, th ambitious stars sublime, Sprinkling the liquid blue on witching nights But in the hazy precincts of a dream, Soft-pacing, like a shade, erring I roam. Go to, go to, ye winds with wasting moan, And chase the shadows through the woody aisles, And gild the sleep-drunk earth with slender beam, Ye stars that watch the undulating S ea ! 108 A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. While dimly I, with memory s torch alight, And fancy s shifting prism, chase my will, My own dear will, incessant through and through The antique halls of the Past s dusky dome. And now the glimmering of a friendly face Grows haze-like through the gloom ; and now a burst Of hateful passion in my childish soul ; And now a coterie of friends enring My heart with sunshine, lighting up the dim For many a dream-land rood. But soon a shape Comes brightening on and on into a face Of serious loveliness and graceful form, With eyes lit up in sweet expectancy, And slanted earthward so to veil their joy : My sister at her bridal, know t is she ! And then again, drooped as with hidden woe, As one doth bide a threatened stormy shock, And, trembling ever, yet affirmed and strong, Doth linger till its coming ; her I see, A MIDNIGHT FANTASY. 109 Clinging with tendrils of enhanced love To one pale image ever at her side Until the cloud shall drop its deathly store. A rainy burial on a sullen day, When all the heaven showers its hoarded gloom, Melts in and out the vision as I dream, And the wild strangeness of the pale farewell And scattered sobs unclosing all the heart Blend darkly with the varying of my thought ; Till the starred midnight and the homeless wind o Thrill in upon the sense with light and sound, Bringing me back from visions unto tears. FRAGMENT. A PICTURE. CALM was the wave ; such stillness up in Heaven Heralds the voicefulness of Deity, Or such, on earth, o erstoops a placid mere, Mountained all round, and sentineled of woods, And citadeled of tufted islets green. A barque lay on the deep ; and from the shore Fled back rude-climbing slopes, high-terminate In snow and clustering cloud, and the hills stared With a dry burning smile up zenith-ward, Into the broad blue quiet of the sky : Quiet the sea-kissed shore noiseless the hills All soothed the Titan pulses of the deep And the huge-breathing winds were caverned all, FRAGMENT. A PICTURE. Ill Moveless, and murmurless, as somewhere near Some god were chambered, pillowed in sweet rest. A barque was on the deep ; and some few men, Plain-garbed, and bronzed by life-expending toil, Looked steadily down into the unwinking main, And saw themselves look up and nothing more. A POET S THOUGHT. A THOUGHT that lay anear a Poet s heart, Found utterance into this cloudy world, And stirred some souls with rapture. This poor bard, Whose home was where the rugged mountains stoop Their foreheads o er small streams that plash their feet, Sang a sweet note that through a palace stole, Fluttering a queen s proud breast until she wept. For the same God doth deftly tune the strings Of all men s souls to one melodious strain, And Nature runs one silver chord through all, Which, sadly touched, gives each a tearful thrill. TO D. S. THE violets with tlieir gentle eyes Blow thick on marsh and meadow, The brook in silver fretfulness Trails on through sun and shadow. The river with a lesser din Down through the lone pass urges, The birch disports her tender green, Far up the mountain gorges. The fields with flocks and kine besprent, Each day are growing greener, Each morn the sky for wonderment Seems bluer and serener. 10 114 TO 1). 8. With light and shade, with shower and sun, Blithe go the winsome hours, And allegoric Hope and Mirth, Glide by with wreath of flowers. I dare not, in my folly, think Another season better Than these broad, bright, sunshiny days, For converse or for letter. The first the ungentle Fates forbid, Who care not for my sorrow, Yet leave the last for solace dear, And hopes beyond to-morrow. So now, with lines of pleasant rhyme, And words of easy measure, I think this lightsome task assumed No task, but only pleasure. What though steep mountains intervene, Deep vales by Spring made brighter, TO D. S. 115 Heart links to heart through endless space, Sorrow makes sorrow lighter. My native hills are lovely hills, There are not many fairer ; Albeit of their fruitfulness Fond Nature hath been sparer. Still does my boyhood memory spread A golden haze upon them, My manhood still in sunset sees Pearl-gated heavens beyond them. Thy hills have neath the fruitful sun, More grain and less of beauty, And they are blended in thy heart With thoughts of love and duty. There first thou heardst those childish tones That eased thine hour of labor, Across the corn-field and the slopes, Sweeter than song or tabor. 116 TO D. S. There still thou hast their holy cheer, When twilight shadows gather, The noisy prattle at thy knee From lips that call thee father. When last I saw thee, August suns Above the hills were burning, The garden vines and corn-blades, all To ghostly yellow turning ; The forest felt them at the root, The very leaves were fading, The earth had vastly too much sun, And very scanty shading. The sober Fall came hastening on, The drowsy nights grew longer ; The wild- wood songster gathered heart, The shrill-voiced quail piped stronger. But me, the while, far other scenes, And other friends were greeting ; TO D. S. 117 Yet memory of the parting chilled The home-bred joys of meeting. Then came the Winter dark and drear: The snows piled high and higher; I watched across the glaring drifts The village vane and spire. I read in long, close-curtained eyes, The rhymes we conned together, And longed for creeks, and beechen green, And blue and cloudless weather. I thought of calmest skies that saw Our rapt Shaksperian reading, Of Portia and the hateful Jew, And Desdemona pleading. But now the earth is all a-blush With apple blooms the fairest : From treasured beauties, Nature draws The newest and the rarest ; 10* 118 TO D. S. She scatters them with open palm, Nor stint nor measure knowing ; She starts the fountain in the wood ; She sets the balm- wind blowing ; She trails in gladness to the sea The silver-shining river ; She fills the heart with holiest joy, O, might it last forever ! But, of Spring lights and Winter shades, I must have done my prosing : This golden day hath come to end ; Tis time that / were closing ; For at this purple twilight time, Star-dreaming would be better, Than this poor strife in endless rhyme, To make your kindness debtor. And if in busy days, for this You find an hour of leisure, TO D. S. 119 Let me in fancy see you smile A smile of friendly pleasure. Yet think not of the poet-craft, Poor skill not worth discerning, But of the love informing all, The friendship ever burning. PRAISE AND DISPRAISE. I HEARD one speaking in a poet s praise, And one speak in his blame ; Greening and withering the circling hays, The crownets of his fame. One said, " What giveth he to quench our thirst ? The desert s fair deceit, The palmy mirage, for the founts that hurst Life-giving, at our feet ; " Icy abstractions for hearts beating light, And glittering cold and far, The pole-star of the bitter northern night For Venus kindlier star." PRAISE AND DISPRAISE. 121 And with cold features quiet all the while, Looking at heaven above, " What of an iceburg with its freezing smile ? The tropics are for love." " Yet," said the other, " Gleaming cold and far, But ever, ever true, Shines the pure North star, true as angels are, Loving beyond the blue : " How beams the face of Nature when he speaks ! How tower the mountains high ! Sun-flooded daily to their golden peaks, Which press against the sky ; " How smile the meadows ; past them, broad and dark, On to the sounding sea, Sweep the full rivers ; round them do but hark The wild-wood minstrelsy. u The gorgeous Orient ! ah, the treacherous East ! The bow-string for its loves, 122 PRAISE AND DISPRAISE. Houris unto their heavens ; lust s high-priest Mid arabesques and doves. " But Northern climes for pure and temperate For passions without heat : The shady Summer with its woody noise ; The Autumn rich and sweet ; " The marble Winter with long mooned nights Above a world of snows ; Without, cold-smiling; but within, delights, Calm pleasure, deep repose." " Nature is with us always," answered he, Her Winter nights so mute, Her nut-brown Autumns, when, from vine and tree, Hangs the rare, ripened fruit. " But cold before us, in the lifeless rhyme, Lie hill, and stream, and lake, Faint shadows, like a dusky vesper time, With naught the hush to break. PRAISE AND DISPRAISE. 123 " He who speaks passion, tells the life of man, His loves, his hates, his fears, The doubtful future of his little span, His memory of the years." " Yet," said the other, calmly speaking on, " His task is great and high : To tell the glory of the stars and sun, The azure of the sky ; " To paint the flowers and all the winding streams, <|B The far-laid fields at rest, The season bursting neath the sunny beams, And that with fruitage blest. " Tis God that shades the hills and woods in leaf, And man with lower art, But tells, on canvas, or in verses brief, Their lessons to the heart ; " And if, deep-skilled, he does his labor well, Tis God s own guiding hand, Gilding the mountain mists that shrink and swell, The seas curved toward the strand. " MAY NOON. THE farmer tireth of his half-day toil, He pauseth at the plough, He gazeth o er the furrow-lined soil, Brown hand above his brow. He hears, like winds lone-muffled mong the hills, The lazy river run ; From shade of covert woods the eager rills Bound forth into the sun. The clustered clouds of snowy apple-blooms, Scarce shivered by a breeze, With odor faint, like flowers in feverish rooms, Fall, flake by flake, in peace. MAY NOON. 125 In neighboring fields with wearisome accord, Moist brows and sun-burnt hands, The brothers of his toil upon the sward Unloose the irksome bands. Straight through scant foliage of the lone field- oak, The broad sun sheds its rays ; Wreath above wreath the towering cottage smoke Curls up from hearths ablaze. And savory scents go forth upon the air, From generous doors swung back, While stout old dames and gentler girls prepare The cheer which doth not lack. By threadlike paths which radiate afield The fasting bands come in ; And list ! the house-fly round the sweets unsealed Maketh a hungry din. T is labor s ebb ; a hush of gentle joy, For man, and beast, and bird ; 11 126 MAY NOON. The quavering songster ceases its employ ; The aspen is not stirred. But Nature hath no pause ; she toileth still ; Above the last-year leaves Thrusts the lithe germ, and o er the terraced hill A fresher carpet weaves. From many veins she sends her gathered streams To the huge-billowed main, Then through the air, impalpable as dreams, She calls them back again. She shakes the dew from her ambrosial locks, She pours adown the steep The thundering waters ; in her palm, she rocks The flower-throned bee to sleep. Smile in the tempest, faint and fragile man, And tremble in the calm ! God plainest shows what great Jehovah can, In these fair days of balm. SEPTEMBER. MONTH of all months most glorious, Unto an earth tired of the dust and heat, And the scorched path of Sirius unshod feet, I welcome thee ! Surely from regions blest Thou comest hither : for thy mellow smile Is half angelic, and thine eyes are deep As Love s own orbs when running o er with sleep, Or dreaming Fancy s when she would beguile. Thy days are days fit for all heavenward dreams, Thine eves for wandering with the friends we love ; Thy midnights for all strange, weird thoughts that rove And lose themselves far down eternity, thy gleams Of sunshine, moonshine, all are bright and fair, Thy breath as fragrant as Heaven s own winds are. DECEMBER. THE bleak December, blowing keen, Hath frosted all the land, And whitened all the swaying pines That overlook the strand. The sun doth drop with stranger glare Adown the chilly West, And drear the twilight cometh on, The star-gems in her breast. The shining snow hath drifted well, Up hill and down the vale, And maketh all the winter night With moonlight ghostly pale ; DECEMBER. 129 And in the night, the moon doth cast Tree-shadows 011 the floor, And in the night the rattling blast Still biteth more and more : The roaring blast that bloweth high Above the palace dome, The whistling blast that creepeth low In to the beggar s home, The merry wind that langheth loud Outside the rich man s door, The doleful wind that pipeth scorn Among the frozen poor. Ye proud ones, gird the fire-light in, And shut the frost-winds out, And bandy with your choicest wit The pointless jest about ; And wrap your souls in silken folds, And sit in gilded ease, And warm your human love with wine Blown hither on the seas. 11* 130 DECEMBER. It may be well : God knowetli all ! One laughs, and one may weep ! He will not let the haughty dame Be chilly in her sleep ; But o er the scanty coverlet The drift creeps on and on, And faces whiter than the drift See not the rising sun. A WINTER BALLAD. OLD Winter is howling at every crack He comes with a sorrowful train ; The poor man hath never a coat to his back, But the rich rolls on in splendor s track, And his barns burst out with grain. Day in and day out It is ever the same ; The poor may die, But who is to blame ! Oh ! cold is the wind, and the snow doth fall, Tis a piercing blast I ween : The bright fires blaze in each splendid hall, But the snow drives in through the riven wall,- From the blast there is no screen. 132 A WINTER BALLAD. Alas, Alas ! They will freeze I fear ! There is death in the blast A dirge I hear. A lady sings to her harp a lay, A sweeter I never heard : A baby is moaning its life away, The snow will its shroud be ere dawn of day- Its mother says never a word. Oh the home of the rich Is the home of sloth ; The babe and the lady, God made them both. Ah well-a-day ! tis a dolorous tale The angel of death will tell ! And the snowy winds they wildly wail O er the roofless cot where the famished quail, While the pampered are sleeping well. The lady laughs, But the babe may cry : A WINTER BALLAD. 133 The pampered live, While the famished die. The morn hath come, and the blast hath fled ; The tempest is in its tomb. Oh peace to the snowy-shrouded dead, And no curse light down on the rich man s head, And no Avant bring his household gloom. Ah, well-a-day ! God ruleth all ! The peasant s cot, And the richest hall. A HOME SONG. I SING thee a song of home, Faint heart that will not rest ; A rhyme of the homely roof, Afar from the broader West ; Where the shade-trees stoop and swing, From the morn to the even-fall ; With a low, sad voice neath the vesper-star, " Come home ! come home ! " they call. "Where a sister s tomb is green, On the slope of the grave-yard hill ; Who has had one quiet year I ween, One year that has known no ill. A HOME SONG. 135 Wouldst thou see the sunshine fall, And the tall lush grasses grow, Above the one who cherished thee When life had less of woe ? " " Peace ! peace ! " the heart replies, " Sun shines and grass grows green ; I am not faint from life s fierce heat, But the thoughts of what hath been. Then soothe if thou canst not heal ! Speak not of the days of yore ! There is shadow here, there is shadow there ; Home once, but home no more." " There a mother s prayer is heard, And a sister longs for thee ; A brother s loving hand is given, A father asks for me. Love hath not lost its heat, Fond eyes have not grown dim Friends that have cherished think not less, But still they ask for c 136 A HOME SONG. " The fresh wood-walks wind far Along the breezy hills ; Mid cool haunts shut from noon-day sun, By banks of reedy rills. Walks that have pleased thee well, When Spring was on the wane With friends whose pleasant tones Thou mayst not hear again." " Ah, well, thou pleadest well ! " The heart doth make reply ; " I see the hearth-light gleam, I see the beaming eye ; Back where the roof-tree sways, Through summer night and day ; Back to the woody walks and ways, Too long, too long, away." CHANGED. AH, you do not love me now, As you loved me yesterday ; Love hath got a frowning brow, And your fancies go astray. When you loved me yesterday, All the winds were tuning sweet ; Moaning now they sigh away, With a plaining most unmeet. AVhen you spake me fair and free At our feet the sea did seem Stretching on unceasingly Sleeping in a placid dream. 12 138 CHANGED. And a tree that stood apart Thrilled with music o er and o er, From a bird whose happy heart Streamed with rapture evermore. Now, the sunshine droppeth in On my vision dim and gray, And the blue sea cannot win One sweet dream the livelong day. Now, the winds are sick at heart, So they may not blithely sing, And the lone tree stands apart, For the bird hath taken wing. Chance and change are all the creed Which the mind will hold at last ; True in word, but false in deed, Is the faith that bindeth fast. But to-day is as the yore : Dames will love and men forget CHANGED. 139 Hope must ever waste its store Brightest eyes are soonest wet. Love will dote and hearts will break T is among the human woes ; Eyes must longest keep awake, Longing most for deep repose. Hearts are made of brittle stuff Eyes will dim with time and tears Shortest life has grief enough, Fretting out its lease of years. But I would not hedge thee in ! Go, as free as any wind ! Word of mine shall never win Thee to cast a look behind. See if other hearts will rend, Since thy fancy needeth twain ! See if other eyes will send Tears as thick as autumn rain. 140 CHANGED. Go ! and if I keep a thought, T is the nature of the mind ; Memory of the dearly bought Evermore will stay behind. But to-day is as the yore : Dames will love, and men forget ; All the story told before, Myriad tongues shall tell it yet. All the pulses throb with pain, Through the weary, lonesome years ; Souls were made for woful stain, Hearts to ache, and eyes for tears. LOVE. LOVE is a text from which a god might preach Truths too sublime for manhood s utterance. Love is a holy shield from which might glance A vile world s venomed arrows. This to teach Were a high mission. But the world has lost One of its senses five, and heareth not Seraphic echoes ; while, to scheme, and plot, And build high golden altars, this at most Is its endeavor. Soft the summer wind Breathes over them its Benedicite : It wakes no heart-throb, while most freezingly, They bow, and clasp the hand of many a friend, Then pass to others. Father, when will flow Millennial love and joy, and set the earth aglow ? A VALEDICTION. I LEAVE my dream undreamed; my stringed pearls Sweet boyish hopes which glimmered on my dawn Strown on the level dark that floods my past ; And with my foot upon the threshold-stone The ante-chamber of the outer world Tutor my trembling tongue to say, Farewell. Farewell ! and yet I linger on the word, The while my eyes are misty, and my voice, Like a strange wind-harp struck by ruder air, Doth pine complainingly, and while my ear Doth catch the tumult of the life to-be I linger on the word, and grasp thy hand, Then turn me to my barque and launch away : Thou back to meadow lands well known, well trod, A VALEDICTION. 143 I to the pathless, seething, desert sea, Without a guide, alone alone alone. I leave my dream undreamed, my songs unsung ! My olden paths will grow an unworn sward ; The unpruned vines will moulder on the wall ; The creeping brook will lisp to other ears ; And all the long, flush, Indian summer days, With a broad glory o er the browning woods, Will dream, and dream, and I not ever see Their beauty red and golden. Wo is me ! My Shakspeare, which I left with leaf turned down At un queened Katharine dreaming, will be turned By other, careless hands, and I away ; And many summer eves the crescent moon Will slowly drop behind the ranged hills Past Hesper glowing, and the sunset sheen, Fading from gold to purple, will die out Between the two brown peaks which childhood made The gateway of a promised heaven beyond, Fit for the dreaming of a poet-boy, As I were not, as I had never been. 144 A VALEDICTION. I go to other hearts, whose portals ope Never to alien wanderers ; whose touch Gives ne er emotion like a touch of thine ; Whose voice comes like the first bleak winter wind Unbosoming a snow-fall ; and whose eye Is like an ice-gleam in the Arctic noon : The wide world widens on my anxious sight, And the sweet wind that drifted boyhood s bark ; Freshens into a gale, and sternly chides My dallying on the strand. Once more, Fare well ! I leave my dream undreamed I My song is sung ! All intricate ways are mine, all adverse fate, All the rude swelling of the hasty sea. Thine the smooth swarded, dustless, shaded way That up by graded terraces and lawns, Slopes to the level of the evening star, Whence broadens out thy yellow vesper-land, Golden with harvest which thyself shall garner In the near storehouse of thine endless rest, ToTT^V OF TH UNIVER OF U. C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES II YB I 360O