THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 POEMS BY 
 THOMAS WALTER BUCHANAN.
 
 One hundred and fifty copies of this book were 
 printed at the Marion Press, in June, 1899. 
 This copy is No. /
 
 POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS WALTER BUCHANAN 
 
 THE MARION PRESS 
 
 JAMAICA, QUEENSBOROUGH, NEW-YORK 
 
 1899
 
 Copyright, 1899, by MRS. DUNCAN BUCHANAN.
 
 ft I I 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 THE CLASS OF EIGHTEEN EIGHTY-NINE, 
 YALE COLLEGE.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 SCHOOL-DAY VERSES : 
 
 To L. L. D 15 
 
 From " The Song of Mirimichi " . . 17 
 
 '85 C. in Review . . . . 19 
 
 On Mountain Day . . . . 21 
 
 O Nos Beati ...... 23 
 
 Fragment . . . . . . 26 
 
 The Storm ...... 27 
 
 To the Class of '85, Williston Seminary . 29 
 
 To the Swallows . . . . -3 
 
 To the Swallows . . . . . 31 
 
 To the Swallows . . . . 32 
 
 To Agnes Mabel . . . . . 34 
 
 Verses ....... 36 
 
 The Cliffs of Yorlo . . . . 37 
 
 The Legend . . . . . .40 
 
 The Spectre ..... 42 
 
 Chorus of the Seabirds . . . -44 
 The Legend of Saint Altons ... 46 
 
 9
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 COLLEGE YEARS, 1885-1889: 
 
 Dreams . . . . . . -53 
 
 Verses ...... 54 
 
 The Scottish Bard . . . . -55 
 
 Beyond the Clouds .... 56 
 
 Translation . . . . . -57 
 
 Translation . . . . . . 58 
 
 Translation . . . . . -59 
 
 Drinking Song ..... 60 
 
 Chivalry . . . . . . .61 
 
 Suspiria . . . . . . 62 
 
 Unphilosophy . . . . . .64 
 
 'Oh, Life is Fair' 66 
 
 Nina Glencairn . . . . -67 
 
 Class Poem, 1889 . . . . 68 
 
 LATER POEMS : 
 
 The Jester's Return . . . . 91 
 
 A Whilom Love . . . . . 92 
 
 Triolet ....... 93 
 
 Rondeau ...... 94 
 
 Triolet . . . . . . -95 
 
 Rondeau ...... 96 
 
 'When Phyllis Moves' . . . -97 
 
 Triolet 08
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Rondeau . . . . . -99 
 
 Ballad of Experience . . . .100 
 
 Rondel . . . . . . .102 
 
 North . . . . . .103 
 
 South . . . . . . .104 
 
 On the Stile . . . . .105 
 
 Serenade . . . . . . .106 
 
 A Winning Pair . . . . .107 
 
 Madrigal 108 
 
 Thrice Crowned . . . . .109 
 
 ' Cease Your Song ' . . . . 1 1 o 
 
 Ballad of the Years . . . . 1 1 1 
 
 ' Thought is Young ' . . . . . 1 1 3 
 
 Sonnet . . . . . . 114 
 
 An Imitation of Browning . . . -115 
 
 Hope . . . . . . .118 
 
 ' Over the Great Divide ' . . .119 
 
 At Eastertide i 2 1
 
 SCHOOL-DAY VERSES.
 
 TO L. L. D. 
 
 Gloomy darkness broods in air, 
 
 And droops her sable wing, 
 While queenly Nox the lone hour mocks, 
 
 And the stars their anthems sing. 
 
 The stars gleam bright in the azure deep 
 
 Above the horizon's bar, 
 But the swaying lines of pointed pines 
 
 Break the rays of the lone pole star. 
 
 Ruddy tongues of dancing flames 
 
 On the inky wall of space 
 Paint many a scene and view between 
 
 With a weird, majestic grace. 
 
 The light leaps up in jagged flame, 
 
 And glints on foliage green, 
 As the swaying trees in the midnight breeze 
 
 Seem fringed with a changing sheen.
 
 TO L. L. D. 
 
 Around this roaring, cheerful fire, 
 In the midst of the sylvan scene, 
 
 On a verdant rise 'neath star-gemmed skies 
 There rest on the moss-grown green 
 
 Those who wear a crescent of gold 
 O'er hearts that beat more true, 
 
 For the bosoms of all do rise and fall 
 Like the tides of the ocean blue. 
 
 16
 
 FROM "THE SONG OF MIRIMICHL" 
 
 When the moon in all her splendor 
 Waded through the cloud-flecked heaven, 
 Drove the shadows from the forest, 
 Lighting up the darkest places, 
 When the winds were sharply blowing 
 From the country east or northward, 
 When they beat the Nashawannuck 
 Till the running ripples swelled up, 
 Sprang up, kissed the sand and pebbles 
 Lying in the grass and rushes, 
 Then the guardian, Mirimichi, 
 Plucked a branch from off the hemlock, 
 Waved it o'er the rocking surface, 
 Singing some weird incantation 
 Known to him, and to him only. 
 
 Then the romping winds turned sadly 
 From their sport upon the waters ; 
 Slept they 'neath the pine tree's needles, 
 In the bosom of the hemlocks, 
 In the shadow of the cedars. 
 And the running waves grew smaller 
 Till the surface stood like silver, 
 Till the ripples ceased their murmur, 
 Ceased to kiss the bending rushes.
 
 FROM "THE SONG OF MIRIMICHI." 
 
 Thus it stood in all its grandeur 
 
 On the borders of the Manhan, 
 
 Near bright shoals and foaming shallows, 
 
 Where the laughing waters sprang down 
 
 Over crags and pointed ledges, 
 
 Making music in their tumbling 
 
 Like the music of immortals, 
 
 Near the place where now the milldam 
 
 Lies across the running rapids, 
 
 Lies across and checks the passage 
 
 Of the Manhan slowly gliding 
 
 With the sound of many thunders, 
 
 With its crystal surface rolling, 
 
 Ever gliding o'er in beauty, 
 
 Like a reel that never ceases 
 
 Folding in a web of silver. 
 
 18
 
 '8j C. IN REVIEW. 
 
 With theorists, rushers, and all, 
 
 With flunkers and cavalry force, 
 The Seniors sat in midnight review, 
 
 Like coroners over a corse. 
 Some foreheads were knotted and dark, 
 
 Some eyes like the sun in eclipse ; 
 Some sat there, a frown on their brow, 
 
 And some with a smile on their lips. 
 
 With theories airy and light, 
 
 With notions somber and grim, 
 A half dozen sat apart from the rest, 
 
 Of ideas full to the brim ; 
 Bo and Summit and Newt, 
 
 Derb and Jimmy and Pad, 
 And wisely discussed which end of the goat 
 
 The butt in reality had. 
 
 Rush rush rush, 
 
 Like the rushing tide of time ; 
 Rush rush rush, 
 
 With energy sublime. 
 Pap and Fatty and Dick, 
 
 Reed and Dieaway too, 
 They shall rush while time rolls on, 
 
 And lead with the rushing few. 
 
 19
 
 'Ss C. IN REYIEW. 
 
 Flunk flunk flunk ! 
 
 Prex and Grogan and Ho, 
 Flunk flunk flunk, 
 
 'T is flunk wherever they go; 
 Bewk and J. C. and Jones, 
 
 "Turba quae maxima est." 
 Drop a tear for their failings, boys, 
 
 "God doeth all for the best." 
 
 With eyelids nor heavy nor red, 
 
 With never an aching brain, 
 Chic and the sweet-voiced singer Rob 
 
 Ride the saddle amain. 
 Steed and pony and crib, 
 
 Crib and pony and steed ! 
 While one doth "crow " and the other 
 "sing," 
 
 As on together they speed.
 
 ON MOUNTAIN DAT. 
 
 O Mountain Day ! do you think it was fair, 
 
 When the throbbing winds were sharply blowing, 
 
 To tempt him out in your bracing air, 
 
 Under the autumn leaves earthward going? 
 
 Was it right, think you, O eddying breeze, 
 When the chestnut burrs were fully apart, 
 
 To lure her there 'neath the swinging trees, 
 
 And throne young Love in each bounding heart ? 
 
 They gathered the chestnuts' princely store 
 From the autumn leaves and mosses bare, 
 
 They gathered them all yet looked for more, 
 When well they knew that none were there. 
 
 The breeze blew strong from the cloud-flecked West, 
 And wildly romped with the blushing maid, 
 
 Till she asked, had they better not leave the rest? 
 And the young man agreed to all she said. 
 
 The playful wind, with mischievous glee, 
 
 Was madly, merrily doing its best 
 Under the waving chestnut tree, 
 
 And it blew her against his throbbing breast.
 
 ON MOUNTAIN DAY. 
 
 Where the young man gladly folded her in, 
 As the winds sang on in the boughs above, 
 
 And kissed her lips and her dimpled chin, 
 There in the shade of the chestnut grove.
 
 Q #03 BEATL 
 
 When morning dawns in steelgray gleam 
 
 Along the eastern sky, 
 When pale star's ray and silver beam 
 
 With fleeting darkness vie, 
 A deep-mouthed baying fills mine ear, 
 
 The forests echo round ; 
 I can but waken when I hear 
 
 That full, melodious sound. 
 
 I rouse me from my piney bed ; 
 
 My watcher standeth nigh ; 
 I brush the dewdrop from my head, 
 
 And skyward cast mine eye. 
 The murmuring pine's unnumbered hands 
 
 With incense lade the air; 
 In all its strength the giant stands, 
 
 What can with it compare ? 
 
 With gun in hand, and dog with me, 
 
 For nothing else I care, 
 For ours is all the woodland free, 
 
 And ours the forest fare. 
 I seek companionship with none 
 
 Except wild Nature's brood, 
 And these I court with dog and gun 
 
 Beneath the bracing wood.
 
 Q NOS BEATL 
 
 I love my rifle's trumpet tone, 
 
 That speaketh words to me 
 When in the darkness, deep, unknown, 
 
 The panther's eyes I see ; 
 But far the sweetest sound I hear, 
 
 And hear I Nature's songs, 
 Breaks forth in accents deep and clear, 
 
 And to my dog belongs. 
 
 No foes have I o'er mountains gray, 
 
 Except that savage brood 
 That steal the bleating lambs away, 
 
 And thrive on human blood. 
 Yet friends in plenty have I too, 
 
 Beside my dog and gun, 
 Who roam the greenwood forest through 
 
 From morn till set of sun. 
 
 Ah, Nature, when I am with thee 
 
 How swells my pulsing breast ! 
 All your voices chant to me, 
 
 "Beyond this there is rest." 
 And every breath of sighing pine 
 
 Or sound of hemlock tree 
 Bespeaks that God of Nature, thine, 
 
 Doth keep watch over me. 
 H
 
 O NOS BEATI. 
 
 Thus I am happy all the day, 
 
 Nor care disturbs my rest ; 
 And while I dream the night away 
 
 The friend that I love best 
 Keeps guard around from false alarms 
 
 That else may break my sleep, 
 While o'er me hemlocks fold their arms, 
 
 Or sighing pine trees weep. 
 
 *S
 
 FRAGMENT. 
 
 For clouds may rise in the noonday skies, 
 
 Black with a gloomy fate, 
 And hide the day with a pall of gray, 
 
 And the stars ne'er shine till late. 
 
 Yet what care I for the tempest's cry, 
 Or the gleam of the lightning bright ? 
 
 For she waits for me 'neath the linden tree, 
 With the heaving sea in sight. 
 
 a6
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 You may talk of moonlight streaming 
 Over trees that have a seeming, 
 Be they beech or pine or oaken, 
 
 To be dancing in the light ; 
 And the starlight's twinkling glimmer 
 Growing brighter, growing dimmer, 
 By the tossing branches broken 
 Into gleaming jewels bright. 
 
 While e'er runs the merry fountain, 
 And the shadowy outlined mountain 
 Flings aloft its inky banner 
 
 'Gainst the vaulted azure sky ; 
 And the throbbing winds go stealing 
 O'er one's heated senses, feeling, 
 In the evening's moonlit manor, 
 Like a white-winged embassy. 
 
 Such your evening then for roaming ? 
 When the twilight's dreamy gloaming 
 Changes all her dusky features 
 
 To the moonlight's silvery grace? 
 Grandest is this silent splendor, 
 And the moonlight, true and tender? 
 Common one among God's creatures, 
 With the starlight in your face ! 
 27
 
 THE STORM. 
 
 Give to me that eve whose glimmer 
 Dimmer grows and ever dimmer, 
 Till throughout the eve nigrescent 
 
 Not a star is seen to gleam ; 
 Till in the sky you cannot muster 
 Enough of light of silver luster 
 
 From that changing orb, the crescent, 
 To let one see or seem. 
 
 When the thunder rolls and crashes, 
 While the lightning burns in flashes, 
 And the winds are full of showers 
 
 That fall in torrents down ; 
 When the forms of things, elastic, 
 Take upon them shapes fantastic, 
 Be it stalk of swaying flowers, 
 Or be it hedges brown. 
 
 Such a night I cannot banish, 
 Though the tempest all may vanish, 
 If I heard, and, hearing, listened, 
 
 And turned my eyes to see ; 
 For I saw the grandest forces 
 That e'er spring from Nature's courses, 
 When the leaping lightning glistened, 
 And the thunder rolled for me. 
 28
 
 TO THE CLASS OF '85, 
 WILLISTON SEMINART. 
 
 Our friendship then at anchor lay, 
 And proudly rode the years' green bay, 
 Whate'er the night or what the day 
 
 In future time should bring. 
 For through a rift, as the storm-clouds drift, 
 
 Hemmed by a golden ring, 
 Appeared a sight like a sun at night, 
 
 The sight of an angel's wing. 
 
 The radiance then like a promise fell 
 Across our ship with a potent spell, 
 As she rode the foamy deep sea's swell 
 
 Like queen of the briny deep. 
 And every sail was filled by the gale 
 
 That over the waters sweep ; 
 The masts bent low like a chieftain's bow, 
 
 And the mountain waves rose steep. 
 
 Guardian angel it seemed to me, 
 To tend our ship on the swelling sea, 
 When mighty winds blow fearfully, 
 
 And ocean blue turns gray. 
 Then well did she ride on the running tide, 
 
 Flecked with the snowy spray, 
 Tipped with a gleam of the pale moon's beam, 
 
 As the moon in the dark clouds lay. 
 29
 
 TO THE SWALLOWS. 
 
 To the Swallows 
 On the Roof, 
 
 Where the Sunlight Streams. 
 
 Little dreamers ! sun yourselves 
 On the roof by tens and twelves, 
 While the early robin delves, 
 
 Charily, charily. 
 Busy idlers ! flit along 
 On the wing do you belong, 
 Flying high and flying strong, 
 
 Merrily, merrily. 
 
 30
 
 TO THE SWALLOWS. 
 
 To the Swallows 
 ' Neatb the Eaves, 
 
 Dreaming Fairy Dreams, 
 
 Weather prophets ! where you fly, 
 Be it low or be it high, 
 Foretells weather wet or dry, 
 
 Truthfully, truthfully. 
 As the rain drips on the leaves, 
 How your tender bosom heaves, 
 Looking out from 'neath the eaves 
 
 Ruthfully, ruthfully.
 
 TO THE SWALLOWS. 
 
 All the day you 're on the wing, 
 To your nest the insects bring, 
 There to feed your foundeling, 
 
 Carefully, carefully. 
 And when the setting sun hangs low, 
 When the cattle homeward go, 
 You still watch the nestlings so 
 
 Prayerfully, prayerfully. 
 
 Twitter ! twitter ! Do you say 
 Your work is done at close of day ? 
 When the shadows gather gray 
 
 Fearfully, fearfully. 
 Sometimes you are working still 
 When dark shadows climb the hill, 
 And the night winds whistle shrill, 
 
 Tearfully, tearfully. 
 
 Then build your nest of plastic walls 
 'Neath the shingle waterfalls, 
 Better far than marble halls, 
 
 Built so airily. 
 
 Twitter still as you have done, 
 When the day has scarce begun, 
 Or the ruddy-breasted sun 
 
 Sets so fairily. 
 
 3*
 
 TO THE SWALLOWS, 
 
 Welcome you shall ever be, 
 Summer here with mine and me, 
 Fly o'er grassy lawn and lea 
 
 Warily, warily. 
 
 Little dreamers ! sun yourselves 
 On the roof by tens and twelves, 
 While the robin digs and delves, 
 
 Charily, charily.
 
 TO AGNES MABEL. 
 
 A maiden she whose speeding years 
 My lonely life of sadness cheers, 
 And to me herself endears, 
 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Tall and sylph-like form hath she, 
 Strong and lithe as willow tree, 
 Graceful as magnolias be, 
 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Jetty bands of flowing hair 
 Falling round a forehead fair, 
 Free from furrowed trace of care, 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Raven lashes falling down 
 Over eyes of tender brown, 
 Eyes that hold no wraith of frown, 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Behind her lips of blushing red, 
 On wealth of roses having fed, 
 Teeth like orients rear their head, 
 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 34
 
 TO AGNES MABEL. 
 
 O throat as white as driven snows, 
 O'er which color like the rose 
 Often, fleeting, comes and goes, 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Voice that speaketh soft and low 
 As the evening winds that blow 
 Where JEgean waters flow, 
 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 Rippling laugh of merry glee, 
 Sounds that ever seem to me 
 Like sweet strains of melody, 
 
 Agnes Mabel. 
 
 35
 
 r ERSES. 
 
 I 've tired me quite of the dusty town, 
 And the crowds in impetuous tread, 
 
 Where the rays of the sun fall hotly down, 
 And the very air seems dead. 
 
 I '11 wend me away to the bright green fields, 
 Where the flowers in beauty grow, 
 
 Where the clover red its perfume yields, 
 And the ox-eyed daisies blow. 
 
 36
 
 THE CLIFFS OF TORLO. 
 
 O pillars of the lofty sky ! 
 Who raised your towering peaks on high, 
 With clouds alone for company, 
 Ye cliffs of Yorlo ? 
 
 Immutable watch-towers of the light ! 
 The morning sun first gilds your height, 
 And drops his last ray there at night, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 When setting suns with living fire 
 Do light thy rugged domes and spire, 
 Cathedral-like are ye but higher, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 Around thy peaks hang misty wreaths, 
 Tossed by wind that faintly breathes, 
 While at thy base the ocean seethes, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 Against thy rocky, wave-lapped sides 
 Impetuous beat the running tides, 
 And back the white foam softly glides, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 37
 
 THE CLIFFS OF rORLO. 
 
 Around thy crags the sea-birds cry, 
 Around their nests they wheel and fly, 
 While far below the waters lie, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 O, can thy pointed domes and spires, 
 Alive with heaven's resplendent fires, 
 Infuse the heart with thy desires, 
 Ye cliffs of Yorlo? 
 
 Whene'er the zephyrs faintly swoon, 
 And hang thy crags with gray festoon, 
 Men know the tempest follows soon, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 Ah, were those fissures in thy tower 
 But human eyes, and had they power 
 To tell what passes every hour, 
 Ye cliffs of Yorlo, 
 
 What wondrous tales, what stories old, 
 What daring feats of seamen bold, 
 Thou 'dst tell, which now must be untold, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo.
 
 THE CLIFFS OF TORLO. 
 
 As in an old man's furrowed face, 
 Along thy rifted walls I trace 
 The tale of Time's unceasing race, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 On thee I gaze in the moon's pale beam, 
 Till mine Ideal Self doth seem 
 To rise from out my fevered dream, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 I cannot tell what ye have seen, 
 Nor can I read what may have been, 
 But in thy massy front serene, 
 O cliffs of Yorlo, 
 
 I can read that those who aim 
 To rear a monument to Fame, 
 And first build well, ne'er come to shame, 
 Ye cliffs of Yorlo. 
 
 39
 
 THE LEGEND. 
 
 Well the old monastic volume, 
 With its bindings black and solemn, 
 
 Which the story 's written in, 
 Tells the legend weird and striking 
 Of the battle with the Viking, 
 
 And the sorrow that hath been. 
 
 On the beach, with billows breaking, 
 In the sleep that knows no waking, 
 
 Lay the Corven's captain bold. 
 And around him lay his yeomen, 
 'Mong the corses of his foemen 
 
 Hither on the breakers rolled. 
 
 'Neath the beach sand, faintly gleaming 
 With a light that had a seeming 
 
 To caress the tide-swept graves, 
 Sleep the comrades of Black Yorlo, 
 With their armor ringing hollow, 
 
 And beside them Ivan's braves. 
 
 And the ebbing tides outflowing 
 Leave the beach with traces showing 
 Where the former buried lie ; 
 
 40
 
 THE LEGEND. 
 
 For upon the gray sands' level, 
 Where the sporting billows revel, 
 Drawn by tides, or drawn by devil, 
 Are faint marks of mystery. 
 
 O'er the graves in which are sleeping 
 Ivan's men, while tides are sweeping 
 
 Swift above their palsied form, 
 Reappears a cross each morning, 
 Each forgotten grave adorning, 
 
 Till effaced by tide or storm. 
 
 And a symbol rises, mystic, 
 With its figure cabalistic, 
 
 Where Black Yorlo's comrades lie ; 
 Say the sailors, as they mumble 
 Ave Marias, crossed, and humble, 
 
 "Yorlo's this diablerie." 
 
 And they tremble, lest the phantom 
 Of black Yorlo e'er should haunt them 
 
 With its augury of death ; 
 Which the old monastic volume, 
 In its dead roll, and its column 
 
 Of disaster, amply saith. 
 
 41
 
 THE SPECTRE. 
 
 Hath the wan spectre 
 
 Ever appeared 
 In the pale moonlight, 
 
 Frightful and weird ? 
 
 Scaled he the sea crags 
 Reared up on high, 
 
 Stood, his gaunt outline 
 'Gainst the blue sky ? 
 
 Then death and destruction 
 Thee doth await, 
 
 Caused by Black Yorlo's 
 Sinister hate. 
 
 Saw you the phantom, 
 Wrinkled and grim, 
 
 Shrouded by sea-fog 
 
 Clinging round him? 
 
 Was Yorlo riding 
 
 On a black mast, 
 
 Torn from a vessel 
 Drifting on past? 
 
 42
 
 THE SPECTRE. 
 
 Did the weird spectre 
 
 Then disappear, 
 While the thick fogbank 
 
 Rose from the mere? 
 
 Then sealed is the sentence, 
 Spoken thy doom, 
 
 The dark caves of ocean 
 
 Thy form shall entomb. 
 
 Guard thine eyes' vision, 
 Him lest thou spy ; 
 
 Watching his treasure, 
 Yorlo is nigh. 
 
 43
 
 CHORUS OF THE SEABIRDS. 
 
 Fly we high or fly we low, 
 Still the world doth onward go ; 
 
 Blow, ye beating, icy gales, 
 
 On thy tides the seagull sails ; 
 One man's joy's another's woe, 
 Thus the tides do ebb and flow ; 
 
 Intermingled songs and wails 
 
 Float upon these icy gales. 
 
 Nest we here or nest we there, 
 
 Weeping sorrows one must bear ; 
 Shine, ye red-eyed, circling sun, 
 This waning day will soon be done ; 
 
 Thus the night of carking care, 
 
 With its breath of prison air, 
 
 Comes when day its course hath run, 
 When hath set the morning sun. 
 
 Toil we e'er or idle be, 
 
 Wheeling Time moves ceaselessly ; 
 Waxing night shall wane again, 
 Light will come to patient men, 
 
 And the gloom that brave ones see 
 
 Looming in futurity 
 
 Fades before its chill they ken, 
 And the white dawn comes again.
 
 CHORUS OF THE SE4BIRDS. 
 
 Sing we songs or silent fly, 
 
 Still all mortal things must die ; 
 Roll, ye Ocean, ever roll, 
 Bathe the winds of either Pole ; 
 
 Wide as thou art wide, and high, 
 
 Are thy needs, Humanity ; 
 
 Hampering each ambitious soul 
 Doth some mystic current roll. 
 
 Go we South or stay we here, 
 Stormy winter holds no cheer ; 
 
 Shine out, Truth, and, shining, be 
 Freed from all uncertainty ; 
 When thy white light doth appear, 
 Fades all gloomy doubt and fear ; 
 While, on pinions broad and free, 
 We breast thy gales, O restless Sea ! 
 
 45
 
 THE LEGEND OF S4INT 4LTONS. 
 
 By the harbor of Saint Altons, where the gaunt crags 
 
 touch the sky, 
 Round whose summit scream the sea-birds, ruins of a 
 
 kloster lie. 
 
 But the old monastic volume, in its covers iron-bound, 
 Clasping pages rich with legends, in the black debris 
 was found : 
 
 Telling how, in simple grandeur, by the sea the kloster 
 stood, 
 
 While beneath its roof of gables dwelt a lowly brother 
 hood ; 
 
 How they humbly taught the peasants brighter hopes 
 
 and purer love, 
 Taught that death was but the passage to their home 
 
 the stars above. 
 
 But the halls of that old kloster echoed to a sterner 
 
 tread, 
 While the friars were at devotions, as the eastern sky 
 
 grew red. 
 
 Then at eve the dark marauders, sailing straight into 
 
 the night, 
 Left the kloster, and the murdered, sinking down in 
 
 ruddy light. 
 
 46
 
 THE LEGEND OF SAINT ALTONS. 
 
 Still their spirits oft, returning, wear the long, dark 
 
 night away, 
 With their strange and weird carousals, o'er the ruins 
 
 of that day. 
 
 Read I through this dusty legend, and it fascinated me 
 With its story of the Vikings, and its spirits of the sea. 
 
 Then I climbed the cliffs of Altons, looking down 
 
 upon the bay, 
 Where I saw huge vessels anchored, saw them come, 
 
 and sail away. 
 
 And around me, o'er the gray crags, wheeled the sea- 
 birds in the breeze, 
 
 Till these voyageurs I likened to our white-winged 
 argosies. 
 
 Then I linked the vague with real in the dreamland 
 
 of my mind, 
 Saw my phantasy existing, saw the real fancy-lined ; 
 
 Till I could not quite distinguish from the vessels on 
 
 the sea 
 Those that sailed above in cloudland, or the sea-birds 
 
 over me. 
 
 47
 
 THE LEGEND OF S4INT 4LTONS. 
 
 As the setting sun was sowing brilliant rays that 
 
 tipped each wave, 
 And with burnished golden splendor seemed the 
 
 rocking sea to pave, 
 
 Turned a pyramid of granite, took on it the human 
 
 form, 
 Not an aged sailor was he, whitened by the ocean's 
 
 storm, 
 
 But he stood as straight as plummet, and his brow 
 
 was white and fair, 
 Though upon it writ in furrows were the lines of 
 
 heavy care. 
 
 And I saw the jutting ledges come to life, and then 
 
 advance, 
 Saw them wheel to mystic numbers in a wild, chaotic 
 
 dance. 
 
 These, I thought, were ancient corsairs, Vikings of the 
 
 olden time, 
 Round whose name gray legends gather, sung in every 
 
 land and clime. 
 
 48
 
 THE LEGEND OF SAINT 4LTONS. 
 
 Crossed they swords in mystic circles, weird the 
 
 chorus songs they sung, 
 Drank they deep of foaming beakers, spoke they in 
 
 an unknown tongue. 
 
 But a shudder touched their being, and mine own 
 
 caught up the thrill, 
 Till I woke from out my dreaming, saw the rough 
 
 crags lone and still. 
 
 "Those are but dull spurs of granite, all is but a 
 
 trance, I ween ' ' ; 
 And myself I almost doubted, disbelieving what 
 
 I 'd seen. 
 
 But I felt that spirit presence as I paced the shore 
 
 along, 
 Heard the waves that wash the ruins chant that 
 
 ghostly banquet song. 
 
 Once each year, when darkening shadows hide those 
 
 ruins by the sea, 
 On the crags the peasants hear them feast those 
 
 corsairs merrily. 
 
 49
 
 COLLEGE YEARS. 
 
 1885-1889.
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 They come like flashes of a free soul's flight, 
 Those nightly visitors that we call dreams ; 
 Oft, when the weary form death's image seems, 
 
 They lightly smoothe that knotted brow of night, 
 
 And bear the soul away from height to height ; 
 Large bounds are overleapt, which mortsl deems 
 Too high, and realms are reached where glory beams, 
 
 Where troubles flee, and darkness yields to light. 
 
 Oh ! can these dreams but vagrant fancies be, 
 
 Inept eidola, sleep's insensate toll 
 Usurped from those who rest so peacefully ? 
 
 No ! rather glimpses of the unchained soul, 
 That, loosed from earth, from mortal fetters free, 
 
 Doth spurn at space and seek its proper goal. 
 
 S3
 
 VERSES. 
 
 Gone art thou now, as the star of the morning 
 Fades in the light of the radiant dawn ; 
 
 Still do we know what realms thou 'rt adorning, 
 Though from our sight thy face is withdrawn. 
 
 Gone, when the bud of thy grace was unfolding, 
 Gone, ere its fragrance was shed on the air ; 
 
 Lost to the world is the mind thou wast moulding ; 
 Lost is thy beauty and promise so rare. 
 
 Vain are the hopes I had built up about thee; 
 
 They share thy cold grave, beneath the green sod ; 
 Drear is my life, a drear desert without thee ; 
 
 But home art thou now at home with thy God. 
 
 54
 
 THE SCOTTISH BARD. 
 
 O gentle Burns, thy Muse since long 
 Hath silent been in fields of song ; 
 No more it chants those martial strains, 
 Those sunny songs and sad refrains ; 
 But yet the swain his Jessie woos 
 While birks are wet with evening dews, 
 And, breathing vows in songs of thine, 
 Their hearts unite, their arms entwine. 
 
 When all thy sky was overcast, 
 And even faith was fading fast, 
 Thy genius scattered gems of song 
 With careless hand thy path along ; 
 But purer flights of mind we see, 
 And richer sheaves of poesy, 
 When age thy fuller life should crown 
 With genial peace and calm renown. 
 
 But, noble Bard, thy life was spent, 
 And sunk in gloom thy morning sun, 
 Long ere thy work of life was done ; 
 Yet faithful hearts in reverence bent 
 Shall be thy lasting monument, 
 The guerdon thou hast won. 
 
 55
 
 BETOND THE CLOUDS. 
 
 Down on the campus, robed in snow, 
 
 Fantastic shadows fall, 
 
 Traced by the full-orbed moon's white glow, 
 That doth pale and shiver, and shiver and flow 
 
 Through the elm trees dark and tall. 
 
 Out of the darkness comes a cloud, 
 
 And, though the moon shines free, 
 A shadow hangs like a deathly shroud 
 Over the elms, which moan aloud 
 Over the elms and me. 
 
 Darkness and fear twin brethren they, 
 
 Who hold all life in pawn. 
 Still, though the darkness holds wide sway, 
 Though fear is mighty, and weak men stay, 
 
 Remember that Truth shines on.
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 The Letter {Heine}. 
 
 That letter thou hast written 
 Affects me like a song ; 
 
 Thou flingst to me the mitten, 
 But the note is over long. 
 
 Twelve pages, shapely columns ! 
 
 A dainty manuscript ! 
 One never writes such volumes 
 
 To one that's truly shipped. 
 
 57
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 Thamire to the Roses (Gc/z). 
 
 My beloved a promise left me, 
 
 Here to be when thou wert blown. 
 
 The time is come thou hast bereft me, 
 Roses ! here am I alone. 
 
 Lovely daughters of fair Venus, 
 Roses ! spare my peace of soul ; 
 
 Spare the vow he spoke between us ; 
 Close, oh close thy petals all !
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 To Leucon (Gleirn). 
 
 Pluck the roses while they blow, 
 To-morrow's nof to-day ! 
 
 Let no hour unheeded go, 
 The moments flit away ! 
 
 Wine and kisses ! There is, see, 
 
 Noble spoils to-day ! 
 Know you what to-morrow '11 be ? 
 
 The moments flit away ! 
 
 Deep regret is oft the price 
 Of some good deed's delay ; 
 
 Live thy life, is my advice, 
 The moments flit away ! 
 
 59
 
 DRINKING SONG. 
 
 Come, brother, come and drink with me ; 
 
 See now the cups are streaming ; 
 With copious glasses here will we 
 
 An hour employ in dreaming ; 
 With eyes that flame and cheeks that glow- 
 In lively tones the song doth flow ; 
 
 Already moves the drink divine ! 
 
 More wine ! 
 
 60
 
 CHIYALR r. 
 
 From out the deep and soulless gloom, 
 That His own hand could scarce relume, 
 A voice was heard, as from a tomb, 
 ' For God and her ! ' 
 
 And straightway in that darksome time 
 The kloster bells began to chime 
 In sweet, rare tones of song sublime, 
 * For God and her ! ' 
 
 Athwart the gloom bright arms flashed light, 
 While on the lance he bore each knight 
 Inscribed these magic words of might, 
 ' For God and her ! ' 
 
 Then ghastly shadows fled away, 
 And through the darkness stole the grey 
 Of hope's fair morning, and the day, 
 For God and her ! ' 
 
 And when at last within its tomb 
 The knight had swept the lingering gloom, 
 Achilles-like he faced his doom, 
 ' For God and her ! ' 
 
 The knight is gone ; but yet we see 
 Within best manhood, beating free, 
 The ancient heart of Chivalry, 
 ' For God and her ! ' 
 61
 
 SUSPIRU. 
 
 Hbrvia, Tr6rvia vi)|, 
 
 virvodbreipa ruv Tro\vir6vuv fipor&v, 
 
 'Epep66ev tdi- 
 
 EURIPIDES. 
 
 Hasten, O Night ! ye queenly transcendent, 
 Bearing sweet rest from the regions of shade, 
 
 Mounted on wings, though dark, yet resplendent, 
 That woo to forgetfulness hillside and glade ! 
 
 Cease thy dark flight a worn heart confesses 
 
 The peace that it knows in thy silken caresses ; 
 
 Damp are thy garments and damp thy black tresses, 
 But bright is thy crown, with starlight inlaid. 
 
 Soft be the breezes that play on the meadows, 
 Tender the light of the stars in the sky ; 
 
 Laid be the spirits whose shrouds are the shadows 
 That darken the heart and deaden the eye ; 
 
 Let me forget, while the moments are flying, 
 
 The discords of life that, in bitterness crying, 
 
 Tell us of loveliness, suffering, dying, 
 Tell us no tale but ends in a sigh. 
 
 Far in the distance I hear the waves rolling 
 On with the sound of the trampling sea ; 
 
 Aloft from yon tower the death-bells are tolling 
 Out admonitions to me and to thee ; 
 6z
 
 SUSPIRIA. 
 
 Rest there is none for the feet that grow weary 
 In scaling the heights, and all nature, though cheery, 
 Yet chants to herself a low miserere 
 Maybe a dirge for the souls that go free. 
 
 Sleep ! let me rest till the gates that are golden 
 
 Turn on the hinge of melodious sound ; 
 Let my lone couch be the forest whose olden 
 
 Trunks and gnarled arms keep the shadows around. 
 Me, like the oaks beneath deep mosses sleeping, 
 No care shall disturb of busy winds creeping 
 O'er my low couch, nor where they are heaping 
 It high with the leaves that whirl o'er the ground.
 
 UNPHILOSOPHT. 
 
 In the harp of life some chord makes moan, 
 In the moving throng some eye grows dim, 
 
 That note, that tear for me, 
 Doth touch great nature's heart ; nor sweeter hymn 
 
 Hath upward flown 
 
 Than this from thee, 
 
 My sweet unknown ! 
 
 And nobler far 
 
 I ever hold are unknown friends, 
 And seek to fathom choicer ends, 
 
 Than trysting lovers are, 
 Whose burning kiss is thrice repaid 
 When hearts in foolish masquerade 
 
 Their mystic gates unbar ; 
 
 The silver rays of yon lone star, 
 That span the leaning centuries, 
 Fall down in clearer light than these 
 
 Poor earth-bought gleams of ours that scar 
 The eyes they light amid the shade. 
 
 What desert bloom, 
 What flower doth blush but lades the air 
 
 That hurries by with its perfume, 
 
 What star is lit but doth illume 
 The dusky night's disheveled hair 
 
 That floats above the gloom ! 
 64
 
 UNPHILOSOPHT. 
 
 The ranging years 
 
 Are thickly sown with sound of glee, 
 That fade into the melody 
 
 And music of the spheres, 
 Where wishes all unvoiced combine 
 In harmonies far too divine 
 
 For earth's most tuneful ears ; 
 
 'Tis sweet to think these hopes and tears 
 Do thrill the universe of mind, 
 In some dim way and undefined ; 
 
 So love, and not love's source, appears 
 To bind thy bleeding heart and mine. 
 
 And the sum of all that we enthrone 
 In this life of sacrifice and love 
 
 Is full of voiceless prayer, 
 And each of us doth climb the stars above 
 
 Not all alone, 
 
 For thou art there, 
 
 O sweet unknown !
 
 ' OH, LIFE IS FAIR.' 
 
 Oh, life is fair when the eyes are bright 
 Aud the heart is strong, I trow, 
 
 But day is followed by depths of night 
 Then merrily heave, ye ho ! 
 
 Oh, sweet is death when the hair turns gray 
 And the pulse beats weak and slow, 
 
 For night is followed by golden day 
 Then merrily heave, ye ho ! 
 
 66
 
 NINA GLENCAIRN. 
 
 Nina Glencairn, thy cheeks are red 
 Like flushing dawn what hath he said t 
 
 Naught hath he said to me ; no tone 
 Falls from his lips for me alone. 
 
 Nina Glencairn, thy word belies 
 The hope that lives within thine eyes. 
 
 With thy cold face, pray what to thee 
 Is aught of this, or yet of me? 
 
 Nina Glencairn, thy heart I know. 
 Learn thou his faith, and, thus, my woe. 
 
 Thy story's false, as false as thou; 
 He ne'er was thine, nor thine his vow. 
 
 Nina Glencairn, though time hath flown, 
 Why is thy face so like mine own ? 
 
 Alas ! the blush of hope is fled, 
 The rose of love lies withered, dead. 
 
 Nina Glencairn, like one who gropes 
 We loved, in him, ideal hopes 
 That, fading roselike, leave the smart 
 And dust of life upon the heart. 
 67
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 I. 
 
 To me, who am the mere historian 
 
 Of what has softly touched our common life, 
 Or waked within the unlit depths a strife 
 
 That thrilled our being to the inmost man, 
 The task is sweet ; for all the air is rife 
 With eloquence and glory of the past, 
 Whose golden rays, projected forward, cast 
 
 A brightness on ahead for us to scan 
 
 The hidden eyes of years unborn, whose plan 
 We fain would know ; and how our secret hopes 
 will last. 
 
 II. 
 
 O that the spirit of passing years, 
 
 That bathes in life's broad noon-day glare, 
 
 On pinions strong 
 
 Would wing my words with rounded spheres 
 Of passion light, that I might dare 
 The ether height of song ! 
 But unassumingly I bring 
 My cull of blushing flowers, and fling 
 Them on the air ; 
 68
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 For, chastened by no fiery hand of wrong, 
 
 The soul of passion, slumbering, 
 
 Doth ever leave a humbler muse to sing 
 A gentle theme of memory, hopes, and fears ; 
 A melting threnody that moves the throng 
 
 With its sad undertone of tears ; 
 
 Or silver melodies that ring 
 A truer note, and ripple o'er with laughter, 
 While, in the silences that follow after, 
 
 No hollow mockery appears. 
 
 III. 
 
 At last we gather here, but no one feels 
 Such leaping joy as trysting lovers know, 
 
 Nor bitter grief; 
 
 A sweet, sad earnestness throws in relief 
 The joy we once did think, so long ago, 
 Would fill our hearts, for memory steals 
 Across the soul and, wistful, garners slow 
 A quaint, rich sheaf 
 The glooming past reveals. 
 We meet once more full four years gone, 
 And yet not lost within the haze 
 
 That narrows fast ; 
 
 Four years ! to take a view of what has passed 
 We halt a moment's space receding days, 
 69
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 On which some gleam of glory shone, 
 Will glow an instant with reflected rays, 
 
 And then at last 
 We'll slowly turn and journey on. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Though life in all its wide perplexities 
 
 Be but a tangled skein 
 
 Of passion, love, and pain, 
 And in the years that disappear like these, 
 In every day that fades, one sees 
 
 Some sad farewell draw near, 
 Another step in that old story 
 
 Of love and gain, of death and loss and fear ; 
 
 Yet with it comes a misty atmosphere 
 Shot through with golden glory. 
 
 And over all those jarring chords there rolls 
 The organ harmony of bygone days, 
 Too rare and sweet for spoken phrase 
 
 To sing its mystic sounds to other souls. 
 
 V. 
 
 O spirit, thou of Happiness ! 
 
 Whate'er doth lie between 
 
 Thy full, sweet life and ours, this is thy fair demesne 
 And here thy courts ; thou dost possess 
 
 70
 
 CLASS POEM, i 
 
 With song these earthly palaces, 
 The dark elms speak about thee, 
 These walls were dead without thee, 
 Nor in the parting throngs, I ween, 
 Which the receding years have seen, 
 Breathes there a soul that e'er would doubt thee. 
 There is a voice among these echoing walks 
 None may escape, 
 And it doth shape 
 Itself to our most transient mood, 
 E'en as the spirit of a mighty solitude 
 
 In unheard numbers talks. 
 Thy presence night and day doth brood 
 O'er thine and beauty's lovers, 
 Like a majestic interlude 
 
 Of golden song that hovers 
 On the verge of sense. Whoso discovers 
 The secret of thy glad omnipotence 
 Can voice his joy in no soft phrase 
 One silent thrill, true life is won, 
 He feels the burning ichor run, 
 A pure abandonment of soul to sense, 
 An utterness of life, as when the tents 
 Of night are swept with level rays, 
 And the long splendor of the morning sun, 
 
 In floods immense, 
 Leaps o'er the barrier of days. 
 71
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 O spirit shy ! a pure devotion, 
 That fronts thy quick, unfathomed gaze, 
 Is never lost thou hast thy gala days, 
 
 When piping winds from off the ocean 
 
 Do stir the blood to wild commotion, 
 And thy face the salt spray half betrays ; 
 
 Or soft winds breathing o'er the sea 
 
 Do sing a sweet, wild melody, 
 
 Transfusing thee and me. 
 Thy trailing garments mount the eastern chase 
 
 In many a purpling dawn ; 
 I feel them sweep across my face 
 
 And thrill the pulses on ; 
 Thy parted lips are wet with life's best wine, 
 And mere existence seems a thing divine 
 
 From thine own beauty drawn. 
 Celestial days pursue thy flight 
 
 Beyond the sunset's golden fruit, 
 
 And, joining in the glad pursuit, 
 The stars just silver o'er the top of night 
 
 With floating veils of ambient light. 
 
 Thou one fair jewel on the naked breast of Time, 
 Sweet Beauty's child, O Happiness ! 
 Thou art alone whom morsels bless 
 And seek in lives sublime ; 
 72
 
 CLASS POEM, 
 
 For thou art not some spirit only 
 
 Singing sweet in realms ideal, 
 But a presence with the lonely, 
 
 Making beautiful the real. 
 Creation is but half completed 
 
 Until its purposes are known, 
 
 And in the heart that rich, deep undertone 
 Doth wake the music there secreted 
 To harmonies divine. 
 Before thy mystic shrine 
 
 The gage of years to us is thrown, 
 And thou the winner's prize ; 
 
 Nor doth the soul of manly mould incline 
 
 To shun the conflict, nor resign 
 For slothful ease the glory of thine eyes. 
 We only grow in life and limb as we enjoy 
 
 A pulse beat of thy life, which runs 
 
 Coeval with the ceaseless suns, 
 
 And laden deep with benisons ; 
 For youth matured in thine employ 
 
 Assures a stature of heroic size, 
 
 A soul to rule the destinies. 
 
 Without thee living were a dismal thing, 
 And earth's fair face a haunted tomb 
 
 To those who sing 
 To-day amid her heavy gloom, 
 10 73
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 This hapless scourge of suffering 
 Which thy blythe spirit can but half relume. 
 But thou art life itself, 
 And not some fitful elf, 
 Whose wanton pleasure is our joy or doom. 
 I see thee everywhere the rose's bloom 
 
 Contains a touch of thee, 
 Meek arbutus and modest violet 
 Are but expressions of a life that's set 
 
 Above the level of dull misery. 
 Thou art love's sacred complement, 
 Immortal Happiness, 
 And strivest to express 
 The trackless realms of deep content 
 That front an earnest search to represent 
 
 Thee as thou art were such success 
 As masters win. Thy peerless glance 
 Breathes fuller life, and thy fair countenance 
 Bent full on us were immortality, 
 
 Which gods alone may wear, 
 
 And we may only share, 
 O Happiness, by winning thee. 
 
 74
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 * 
 VI. 
 
 Thus we have dreamed of happiness, 
 In roaming these her outer courts, 
 When hoary Time himself disports 
 In almost Saturnalian dress ; 
 But in this round of gaiety, no less 
 
 Than in more sober paths, 
 There spring up aftermaths. 
 For ceaselessly the days have poured 
 Upon us all Time's thrilling chrism, 
 
 Which sternly scathes 
 Unreasoning youth's optimism, 
 Replacing boyhood's tinsel sword 
 With manlier brand ; which, unimplored, 
 Gives purpose that diviner touch of power 
 That crowns all with accomplishment, 
 The noblest dower 
 To manhood lent. 
 And yet these years together spent 
 Have known a touch of pain, 
 For hearts have ached though lips were mute, 
 And many's the rift within the lute 
 That ne'er will close again. 
 
 75
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Our limited horizon amplifies 
 
 The lives that we experience, 
 
 And this is true is no strained sense, 
 That, holding selfhood as a worthy prize, 
 And life as more than mere returning memories, 
 We are a part of all whom we may meet. 
 And even nature aids this strange conceit, 
 
 For sunset's golden lilies sometimes cast 
 
 A mellow light across the past 
 To fall upon some half-forgotten place, 
 
 Where faint below a life's debris 
 
 We yet can dimly trace 
 To the sweet memories of some pure face 
 Something we are, or much we hope to be. 
 
 What deep unconscious influence 
 A high resolve may have upon the soul, 
 Which aye is gathering in life's toll, 
 We may not know its balances are set 
 
 Upon a verge so delicate, 
 Its movements lie beyond the range of sense. 
 We see the sudden tremors that commence 
 A life's sharp crisis, 
 
 76
 
 CLASS POEM, i 
 
 And think the day suffices 
 
 To explain the sore suspense, 
 Whose springs may lie back in the buried years 
 Like living wraiths of dim-remembered fears. 
 
 The mighty hopes that thrill the central heart 
 
 Strike root deep in the darkling past apart 
 From its rich legacy but little worth appears. 
 The mystical far sources 
 
 Of life, and those magnetic forces 
 
 That make the future promise crowned, 
 Lie in the hearty grasp of hands to-day, 
 The subtle touch that minds display 
 
 When hearts in reddest blood abound. 
 The strongest tie between the hearts of men, 
 
 With all its influences rife, 
 
 Is that of common life, 
 Whose subtle currents flow beyond our ken, 
 Transmuting with its magic touch, e'en when 
 
 The senses reel in strife, 
 The sad debris of weakness, self, and passion 
 Into ideal strength, the perfect fashion 
 
 Of manhood framed on classic lines, 
 Like that which drank of springs Parnassian, 
 
 Or quaffed Etruscan wines. 
 
 77
 
 CL4SS POEM, 1889. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 'Tis not to wake a vain regret, 
 
 Or stir the ashes of a burnt-out hope, 
 
 That I repeat old thoughts, or blindly grope 
 
 In scenes on which the sun has set ; 
 
 But bygone pain we easily forget, 
 
 While joys that lie upon the eastern slope 
 
 Grow mellow as the years roll on ; 
 
 As hills on which the sun has shone 
 Become ethereal in the afterglow 
 
 Of evening, when purpling rosy veils are drawn 
 Across the Alpine heights of snow. 
 
 IX. 
 
 As one who lies beneath an idle sail 
 
 Within the shelter of some hollow shore, 
 And hears without the ocean's sullen roar, 
 
 Where billows toss their white caps in the gale ; 
 
 Who ponders on some medieval tale, 
 Or musing cons an ancient poem o'er, 
 While, drifting on the tides that outward pour, 
 
 He nears the main where tempest shocks prevail ; 
 78
 
 CLASS POEM, 7 
 
 So we : but ere we cut the line of foam, 
 While rhymes of yesterday still fill the soul 
 
 With tenderness and memories of home, 
 I feel the influences that control 
 Our lives the shocks of conflict that enroll 
 
 Us in the lists from which we may not roam. 
 
 X. 
 
 Like beacon fires of olden days 
 That flashed their tidings on from peak to peak, 
 
 In leaping rays, 
 
 Across j-Egean wastes and headlands bleak 
 To waiting watch-towers of the Greek ; 
 From the grey centuries behind, 
 
 Which ever backward gaze, 
 Comes leaping on from mind to mind 
 
 That bright imperial truth 
 That life is more than mere existence, 
 
 Or drudgery uncouth. 
 
 The golden days of an eternal youth 
 Belong to gods alone, while in the distance 
 The shades await the aimless dreamer, 
 
 Who in the sunshine vainly tries 
 
 To linger, scorning the sad eyes 
 Of a compassionate redeemer, 
 Among the flowers in dust-stained guise. 
 
 79
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 For whoso idty jests or lingers 
 
 Among the jocund days with careless laugh, 
 
 Doth hold within his hands the chaff, 
 While through his nerveless fingers 
 Slips the yellow grain of high emprise. 
 
 Returning seasons speak to him an empty phrase, 
 And life's best wine unnoticed drips, 
 
 In tripping rhyme, 
 From off the crowned urn's lips, 
 Where dwells the sunshine of the passing time, 
 
 The vintage songs for other days. 
 
 XI. 
 
 Where ends the path that we pursue, 
 Whose goal lies ever just beyond 
 
 The best we do ? 
 The mocking centuries respond 
 By ceaseless changes that renew 
 Our doubts. What legacy they held in bond, 
 
 What purposes in view, 
 They partially reveal. No age 
 Hath e'er possessed its own ideal heritage, 
 
 Nor fully won the thing for which it fought. 
 The high-souled wars each one doth wage 
 Develop needs beyond the end it sought, 
 Create the larger spheres another age will fill 
 80
 
 CLASS POEM, 
 
 And pass beyond, until the noble plan, 
 
 For which men toiled and wrought, 
 Is lost within the broader span 
 That ages hold in trust for man. 
 
 Our paths are up an endless hill 
 Whose steeps are ever higher than the last, 
 
 Where hope doth mount and fear doth stay, 
 
 To-day's attainment was the dream of yesterday, 
 And so will be to-morrow's past. 
 The soul that doth most fully live 
 Doth soonest find that life is relative. 
 
 Ideal beauty's iris wings may fade, 
 
 Perfection's soul be but a masquerade, 
 Within the whiter light succeeding summits give. 
 This is the principle of all advance, 
 
 The motive power that thrills the soul, 
 
 To scorn its bitter prison dole ; 
 And turns each earnest countenance 
 
 Agaze beyond the dungeon bars, 
 
 To where the calm eternal stars 
 Must read inviolate laws that govern change and 
 chance. 
 
 XII. 
 
 The springs of life are hidden deep 
 
 In ceaseless change and dreams of spoil, 
 II 81
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 Of love and gain, that bid us keep 
 Our faith and footing firm upon the steep 
 Where shines the orient light. 
 
 Who fails to touch the offered hand of toil 
 Can scarcely read his stars aright, 
 Nor in the lily's grace take full delight 
 
 Who delves not in the mother soil. 
 
 The birthplace of the avalanche 
 Is up amid the fields of ceaseless snow, 
 And every spring that feeds the vales below 
 Is but a branch 
 
 Of gathering life above. Most staunch 
 And true are those who've fought and struggled slow 
 On up the steeps they only know 
 
 The worth of weary races run 
 
 And, like the eagle in the sun, 
 Can face, unblenching, Fortune's brightest glow. 
 
 Manhood's rarest prize is won 
 
 In the battle nobly done 
 
 Where sure defeat appears. 
 For this doth lend us limbs of larger mould, 
 
 And bid us fling defiance to the years 
 
 That gather in the distance, and be the peers 
 Of fate, the heirs of centuries untold.
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 With such A path marked out by fate 
 Before the march began 
 Of blind, impulsive man, 
 One feels the awful disproportionate 
 
 Between the best endowment of the mind 
 And opportunities that lie in wait 
 
 Protean-like to fret mankind. 
 Stalwart manhood's limbs are strong, 
 
 But scales of ages blind the eyes, 
 
 And in the gloom life's mysteries 
 Assume dire shapes that not belong 
 To them; e'en in these days we've oft gone wrong, 
 Or through the years so highly prized 
 Life went in masquerade, for unadvised 
 
 Each felt a love that is not tangible, 
 A hope that is not realized, 
 
 And now a fear we may not tell. 
 Certain it is that in the blush of youth 
 We tread too fast the wine press which, forsooth, 
 
 Runs out as red as blood, and we believe, 
 On rushing through our veins, to be the truth 
 
 That all men must receive. 
 So some with souls aflame with fond desire 
 To set the world to rights, have strung their lyre 
 
 Above the ken of those whom they would raise, 
 83
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 Nor stoop to reach the hearts they might inspire 
 
 With level words and downward gaze. 
 While others feel the hot tide surging on, 
 And blindly follow whither they are drawn, 
 
 Nor heed the lees within the golden cup, 
 But, grasping at life's chance, when it is gone, 
 
 They turn the goblet up. 
 These aimless aspirations, increate, 
 Betray a lack of that etherical freight 
 
 That grapples problems of the market place, 
 Or with skillful hand unveils, 
 Though ancient credence rails, 
 Before God's altar Truth's eternal face. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 Nor is the universe so narrowly conceived 
 That truth appears the same to all ; 
 
 Not so achieved 
 Heroic deeds that honest fame 
 Hath from darkness and the grave retrieved 
 To cherish in its deathless flame 
 
 When life is glorified. 
 For truth, the clearest gem 
 Set in life's diadem, 
 Reflects a different ray from every side, 
 And, touching mortals open-eyed, 
 Points different ways to them. 
 84
 
 CLASS POEM, i 
 
 Whither thou goest I will go, 
 Said patient Ruth, 
 And found her meed of truth 
 Among the golden corn not so 
 The summons came to her who stayed behind 
 
 To seek her place. 
 
 The direst failure of the narrow mind 
 Is not to know that Truth's pure face 
 
 Is ever ill-defined 
 
 Within the misty lights that color space ; 
 But all can feel her influence 
 That makes the soul divinely large 
 To grapple with its high-born charge, 
 And shape incipient events 
 Into a graphic coronal of grace. 
 
 XV. 
 
 The mysteries of life that break upon us here 
 
 Grow deeper as the years roll on ; 
 
 Those sensuous lights of early dawn 
 Are chastened as the zenith point draws near. 
 Vague questionings appear 
 
 Within the whiter light of manhood's day ; 
 Keen whence and whither throw a spell of fear 
 
 Wherever virile intellect may stray ; 
 
 And whoso treads life's wider curves 
 Soonest encounter shadows of the night, 
 
 85
 
 CLASS POEM, i 
 
 For only some lone mountain height 
 
 Eternal purity preserves. 
 
 The thrilling touch of life that nerves 
 
 A soul to manlier resolves, 
 
 Although it be divine, involves 
 A chance of grief or death ; yet not in vain 
 Is living mixed with throbs of pain, 
 For only when the sunlight fades before us 
 Do the distant lights of heaven break o'er us, 
 
 And present loss seem future gain. 
 
 We may but grasp a segment of the plan 
 That governs life in seeming doom, 
 Where men are lost within the gloom 
 
 That ministers to man. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Heroic deeds we ever celebrate 
 In chiseled lines or golden song 
 
 And days of fete, 
 
 Which soothe the craving of the throng 
 That unctiously repeat lip-homage to the great. 
 Oblivion, that cold, hard name 
 That swallows up what most men do 
 
 Is never satiate. 
 
 Though deeds there are unsung by fame 
 That were conceived preeminently true, 
 For simple ends beyond the common view. 
 86
 
 CLASS POEM, 
 
 Those mighty hopes that thrill the inner sense, 
 
 Not deeds alone, do make us men ; 
 
 Oblivion's cold stream or stagnant fen 
 Can never fully hide their influence. 
 Unworthy he who fears he may not win 
 His measures of success, 
 Or fortune's coveted caress ; 
 No deed that chords with nature's peerless hymn 
 
 Doth die unnoticed on the universe, 
 
 But soon becomes a giant nurse 
 To stalwart broods, clad in the vim 
 Of perfect manhood, tainted with no curse 
 
 Of craven feebleness. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 A change draws on here ends our common way, 
 And merges into duty's rugged path, 
 Which breathes a sterner beauty aye than hath 
 Adorned the May-born years we leave to-day 
 
 To seek the aftermath. 
 With care the fronting years are sown, 
 
 That bids us bear our manhood's privilege 
 As though it were a sacred pledge 
 We held in trust ; to let our faith be shown 
 By high resolve and manly deed, 
 
 That indicate the tone 
 Of earth's most grand, heroic breed. 
 87
 
 CLASS POEM, 1889. 
 
 Defeat shall rectify our creed 
 And nerve the heart to stronger blows, 
 
 Or where possession hath been lost, 
 
 To reckon it the cost 
 Of opportunity the days disclose. 
 
 Laws of progress bind the race, 
 
 Change is mighty, thought is king, 
 
 Stalwart minds lead on apace 
 
 Seeking right and following 
 Beyond the daylight's outer ring. 
 For him who manfully doth cope 
 
 With wrongs and hydra-headed ills, 
 
 Who faithfully his part fulfils, 
 The coming years are big with hope, 
 And when his sun goes westering o'er the twilight hills 
 Life's sweetest joys will wait him on the evening slope. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 The change is on us it is meet 
 
 That we should gather here once more 
 
 Where first we met, and thus complete 
 
 The circle of the years whose silent feet 
 
 Has hither brought the parting, where my task 
 is o'er.
 
 LATER POEMS.
 
 THE JESTER'S RETURN. 
 
 RONDEL. 
 
 Back into court with his oldtime graces 
 The Jester steps with his smile of yore, 
 And the motley garb that he whilom wore 
 
 At feasts with ladies and lords in laces. 
 
 His sleep of ages hath left no traces 
 
 That the world hath wept since he laughed 
 before ; 
 
 Back into court with his oldtime graces 
 The Jester steps with his smile of yore. 
 
 With nod and quip he salutes new faces 
 And thrusts as of old to the bosom's core, 
 For he wears the blade that he onetime bore 
 When he fenced with kings in feudal places ; 
 Back into court with his oldtime graces 
 The Jester steps with his smile of yore.
 
 A WHILOM LOYE, 
 
 She goeth by ! Her modest smile 
 Hath all its oldtime artless lure, 
 But there is something more demure 
 
 Than in the pleasant summer while. 
 
 She walketh down the church's aisle, 
 Of every eye the cynosure, 
 While swelling organ tones conjure 
 
 A scene to me of different style. 
 
 (In summer hills her artless guile 
 Had waked my love, made it mature, 
 Nor did she then her own deny.) 
 
 The music sinketh soft and shy, 
 Her answers said in tones so pure, 
 The ring is on, the bond secure, 
 
 The organ peals aloft, while I 
 
 Remember well a sunset sky, 
 
 (Her sweet "yes" made it seem obscure !) 
 But well may I that glimpse endure, 
 
 For she? with me she goeth by !
 
 TRIOLET. 
 
 For the hours that are past 
 Sing no miserere ; 
 
 But let buskins trip fast 
 
 For the hours that are past. 
 
 Since new chances thou hast 
 To be ever so cheery, 
 
 For the hours that are past 
 Sing no miserere ! 
 
 93
 
 RONDEAU. 
 
 In Lenten time Phyllis beguiles 
 The sober time with tender wiles, 
 She paces down, with drooping eyes 
 Where Cupid lurks in fair disguise, 
 The solemn length of dim church aisles. 
 
 All graces that the time exiles 
 From merry waltz or rhythmic files 
 Doth Phyllis breathe into her sighs, 
 In Lenten time ; 
 
 And humble swains wait at the stiles 
 To help her pass, or walk for miles 
 To cull the flower that first defies 
 For her, it seems, the rheumy skies;- 
 She greets them all with winning smiles, 
 In Lenten time. 
 
 94
 
 TRIOLET. 
 
 My heart gave a bound, 
 
 Of that I am certain ! 
 Dusk softly fell round, 
 My heart gave a bound, 
 For eyes deeply browned 
 
 Peeped out through the curtain. 
 My heart gave a bound, 
 
 Of that I am certain. 
 
 95
 
 RONDEAU. 
 
 Forget-me-not ! may you not fade 
 
 Until your petaled ambuscade 
 
 Hath told the hope that softly lies 
 Unto my Ladie's darkling eyes 
 
 Where Cupid waits in masquerade. 
 
 And sweetly as your hue, which strayed 
 One day from heaven's choicest shade, 
 Say unto her when daylight dies, 
 Forget me not ! 
 
 Be never silent, nor afraid 
 
 To touch her lips my pencil swayed 
 With all thy tenderness that vies 
 In grace with fair Italian skies, 
 
 And chime this ceaseless serenade, 
 Forget me not ! 
 
 96
 
 ' WHEN PHYLLIS MO^ES.' 
 
 When Phyllis moves, a host of friends 
 Upon her slightest wish attends : 
 
 Unconstant they as clouds that fly 
 
 Across the opal evening sky 
 And fade away when daylight ends. 
 
 Yet constant as that sky that bends, 
 Or like her shadow, with her wends 
 Kind Father Time, and ditto I, 
 When Phyllis moves. 
 
 Yclad is he in garb that lends 
 
 The air of suitor as he bends 
 
 To touch her lips in passing by, 
 
 And leave a gem they both know why ; 
 
 While I my heart his taste commends, 
 When Phyllis moves. 
 
 13 97
 
 TRIOLET. 
 
 Once Cupid grew shy, 
 
 When he was out Maying, 
 
 Where daisies stood high, 
 
 Once Cupid grew shy, 
 
 As he heard you trip by 
 
 On the path he was straying. 
 
 Once Cupid grew shy, 
 
 When he was out Maying. 
 
 98
 
 RONDEAU. 
 
 St. Valentine, tell her for me, 
 You cannot miss My Lady she 
 Is kind as thou, like lilies fair, 
 The gloom of twilight's on her hair 
 Or sweeter lights when vis-a-vis. 
 
 Her eyes are like a darkling sea, 
 When lovelight shines is it for thee? 
 But that's a secret none may dare, 
 St. Valentine. 
 
 Her lips are those as you'll agree 
 That tempt a man in reverie 
 
 To bend and take the red wine there. 
 
 Then tell her this I do declare 
 The lines are full as full can be, 
 St. Valentine. 
 
 99
 
 BALLAD OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 {Bachelor in his chambers loquitur.*} 
 
 When the perfumes of springtime are thick on the air, 
 
 And the violets blush by the hedge on the way, 
 Every sound is a song, and forgotten is care, 
 
 For the pulse in such hours doth beat love's reveille ; 
 
 But the heart may be sated with murmurs of May, 
 And weariness mar Spring's exquisite rhyme ; 
 
 Yet whatever the mood, be it solemn or gay, 
 Oh, give me the magic of holiday time. 
 
 In the midsummer twilight the moments are rare 
 
 When a smile will not sweeten the close of the day, 
 And the smile be a challenge that no man may dare, 
 
 For the pulse in such hours doth beat love's reveille. 
 
 But whenever the heart its full depths would display, 
 And would ransom his life by venial crime, 
 
 Tho' a sweet pair of eyes may half utter a "Nay," 
 Oh, give me the magic of holiday time. 
 
 And a stroll thro' the woodlands where breezes blow 
 fair, 
 
 Where the copses are nodding in Autumn array, 
 May end at the altar, or yet in despair, 
 
 For the pulse in such hours doth beat love's reveille. 
 
 100
 
 BALLAD OF EXPERIENCE. 
 
 But if I to a maiden my heart would betray 
 In a manner affecting, or touch the sublime, 
 
 And would win with a kiss a lingering "Yea," 
 Oh, give me the magic of holiday time. 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 Yet in matters like this most hearts are au fait, 
 For the pulse in such hours doth beat love's reveille; 
 But for bachelor ease, and my pipe in its prime, 
 Oh, give me the magic of holiday time. 
 
 10)
 
 RONDEL. 
 
 Yule-tide airs are sown with fancies 
 Of holly branch and mistletoe, 
 As breezes heap the falling snow 
 
 Upon the pane where firelight glances. 
 
 Vender's a shadow mine and Nancy's, 
 Over us both red berries glow ; 
 
 Yule-tide airs are sown with fancies 
 Of holly branch and mistletoe. 
 
 The hour is rife with extravagances 
 
 And weaves a spell it alone may know, 
 When only tall, weird shadows show 
 How as the mystic eve advances 
 Yule-tide airs are sown with fancies.
 
 NORTH. 
 
 Back to the tune of sleighbells ringing, 
 
 Grey Christmas comes with his smile of yore, 
 And he sings to himself as he hath before 
 
 The angels' song that all hearts are singing. 
 
 With a rime of frost to his white beard clinging, 
 And merry calls at each bolted door, 
 
 Back to the tune of sleighbells ringing, 
 
 Grey Christmas comes with his smile of yore. 
 
 Peace like a bride in his train he is bringing, 
 And Goodwill, rich in the Magi's lore ; 
 While cheer, that goes to each bosom's core, 
 Comes like a rush of sweet love winging 
 Back to the tune of sleighbells ringing. 
 
 103
 
 SOUTH. 
 
 Back to the realm of deathless roses 
 
 Glad Christmas comes with the rhyme of song, 
 And he hymns it aloud as he speeds along, 
 
 That star-born theme that all hearts engrosses. 
 
 With a wealth of flowers that the eve imposes, 
 And words of love that do ring so strong, 
 
 Back to the realm of deathless roses 
 
 Glad Christmas comes with the rhyme of song. 
 
 Poetry swells in the bosom that proses, 
 Restfulness touches the rushing throng, 
 And love, that pardons the bleeding wrong, 
 
 Comes like the flush as daylight closes 
 
 Back to the realm of deathless roses. 
 
 104
 
 ON THE STILE. 
 
 RONDEAU. 
 
 If smiles were all, then it were more 
 Than bliss enough to wander o'er 
 
 These moonlit walks beneath thy smile, 
 And dream this glen some spicy isle 
 With soft waves lapping on the shore. 
 
 There in the ocean's sullen roar, 
 
 Translated by Love's mystic lore, 
 Were whispers sweet as Vivien's wile, 
 If smiles were all. 
 
 And in my bosom's inmost core 
 Were rest serene but I adore, 
 And let me dream the little while 
 The slim moon silvers o'er the stile, 
 As, in Elysian nights of yore, 
 If smiles were all. 
 
 105
 
 SERENADE. 
 
 Oh, sweet thro' the trembling air 
 
 In the balmy hour of night, 
 The stars reach down with their silver dust 
 
 To bathe thy face in light ; 
 And I dream of a flight with thee 
 
 Away thro' the crystal deep, 
 Beating on wings to starry spheres, 
 
 While the world rolls on in sleep. 
 
 Where the music, faint and rare 
 
 As the breath of a secret love, 
 Sounds like the sweep of folding wings 
 
 In the starry world above ; 
 When the throbbing ether bends 
 
 With odors that never die, 
 And soul with soul in a fond embrace 
 
 Keep tryst in the opal sky. 
 
 Oh, list to the stars that plead 
 
 While the airs of night breathe low, 
 Turn to this soul that faints and fails 
 
 As the tides of life run slow ; 
 Life for a life and a love for love ! 
 
 Turn ere the voice grows dumb, 
 And rain thy kisses upon my lips, 
 
 And rest on my bosom come ! 
 
 106
 
 A WINNING PAIR. 
 
 VILLANELLE. 
 
 Let the zithern awake and the castanets ring, 
 And the night winds a burden of melody bear, 
 When the sweet queen of hearts doth wed diamond's 
 king. 
 
 Where no perfume the Orient hastens to bring, 
 For her soul is like fragrant Arabia's air; 
 Let the zithern awake and the castanets ring. 
 
 Let the gold ships of India at anchorage swing, 
 For all hearts are at ease, and an exile is care, 
 When the sweet queen of hearts doth wed diamond's 
 king. 
 
 And this bride with the grace of a white rose doth cling 
 To the side of the red, with his wealth and to spare ; 
 Let the zithern awake and the castanets ring. 
 
 On their couch heap the bloom of a violet Spring, 
 For the gods have made this a victorious pair, 
 When the sweet queen of hearts doth wed diamond's 
 king. 
 
 And the years will away on an aether-dipped wing, 
 For young love never dies where no trouble may dare 
 Let the zithern awake and the castanets ring, 
 When the sweet queen of hearts doth wed diamond's 
 
 king. 
 
 107
 
 MADRIGAL. 
 
 Touch the lute 
 
 With loving fingers, 
 
 Sing a sweet, low greeting song ; 
 Like the breath that often lingers 
 
 After vocal chords are mute ; 
 
 Touch the lute with loving fingers 
 
 To the fancy's firelight throng, 
 
 Breathe a sweet, low Christmas carol 
 To them, robed in bright apparel, 
 And to me, whose heart is where all 
 
 Hearts must be when love grows strong. 
 
 Touch the lute and voice the fancies 
 
 That unto the eve belong, 
 
 Read me how this spell entrances 
 All who visit yet I know : 
 
 Haunted surely this old manse is 
 
 By these eyes and lips, sweet Nancy's, 
 And we're 'neath the mistletoe! 
 
 Touch no lute 
 
 With loving fingers ! 
 
 While this sweeter music lingers, 
 
 Be it mute ! 
 
 108
 
 THRICE CROWNED. 
 
 When she walked among the flowers, 
 Smiling at the idling hours, 
 
 Sipping joys they brought, 
 Like a naiad of the wood 
 Was she crowned with all that's good, 
 In her sweetest maidenhood ; 
 That is best, I thought. 
 
 Days went by. I saw her stand 
 Clasping love with either hand, 
 
 Whom she was to wed. 
 Crowned with wifehood's sacred blush, 
 Souls grew large with love's sweet rush, 
 In that peaceful afterhush ; 
 
 That is best, I said. 
 
 Years had gone. I saw her face 
 Crowned with more than wifehood's grace, 
 
 Madonna-like to view. 
 Noblest, sweetest, grandest yet 
 Who wears this thrice gemmed coronet ; 
 Beauty, grace, and love had met ; 
 
 She was best, I knew. 
 
 109
 
 'CEASE TOUR SONG.' 
 
 Cease your song ! 
 
 For love is going, 
 Like the sunny flighted swallow, 
 Where my feet can never follow, 
 Leaving hearts and nest-homes hollow. 
 Cease your song, for love is going, 
 Music should be kept for mating, 
 When the chords with love vibrating 
 Tell of hearts that end long waiting. 
 
 Cease your song 
 Loneliness is now bestowing 
 Twilight calm that one, not knowing, 
 Might not notice in the throng ; 
 But the afterglow's rare splendor, 
 Over lawn and river flowing, 
 Bids my lone heart not surrender 
 Memories as deep and tender 
 As the deepness of the wrong. 
 List the night wind's dreary blowing, 
 
 Cease your song, 
 For love is going.
 
 BALLAD OF THE TEARS. 
 
 (On a rage de son caeur.} 
 
 In the afternoon, out from the leafy shade 
 
 That doth bud with the wealth of the purple vine, 
 Here re-echoes the rhyme of a rich roulade, 
 
 For the hour may be told by the sun's decline ; 
 And so e'en with the ripening song-charged wine, 
 
 Its age may be known by its taste and flow, 
 But though years may be marked by the furrowed line, 
 
 Still one is as young as his heart, I trow. 
 
 And across the breast of the clover glade, 
 
 In the shadows that lengthen, the patient kine 
 To the low pasture bars have ranged and stayed, 
 
 For the hour may be told by the sun's decline ; 
 Or without in the heat of a life's sunshine; 
 
 The days that have faded the world may know, 
 And the years that are gone a phrase confine, 
 
 Still one is as young as his heart, I trow. 
 
 In the hush of the evening day-tints fade, 
 And the roses that over the trellis twine 
 
 Whisper softly, "Good night," to the trysting maid, 
 For the hour may be told by the sun's decline ; 
 
 in
 
 BALLAD OF THE TEARS. 
 
 And the army of measures the years combine, 
 
 The deep furrows of care and the hair like snow, 
 
 May have guessed the truth of your age and mine 
 Still one is as young as his heart, I trow. 
 
 I 
 
 ENVOY. 
 
 Let the busy world plod in its treadmill shrine, 
 For the hour may be told by the sun's decline, 
 And the niggard years challenge the rich blood's 
 
 glow 
 Still one is as young as his heart, I trow. 

 
 'THOUGHT IS TOUNG.' 
 
 Thought is young; though ages roll, 
 And the thinkers pass and die, 
 
 Still the springs that feed the soul 
 Flow afresh eternally. 
 
 15 113
 
 SONNET. 
 
 Ay loved and lost ! the leaden hours drag by, 
 The Summer goes, and Winter days resume 
 Their icy robes, and spread across thy tomb 
 
 A spotless garment, which like thee doth lie, 
 
 As calm, as cold, in matchless purity ; 
 
 A sorrow haunts my heart with sullen gloom 
 And calm despair, when love's once rich perfume 
 
 Filled every hour that sped across the sky. 
 
 The waking Spring removes the icy chill 
 
 That folds around thy tomb its frosty breath, 
 
 Red roses bloom again upon the hill, 
 
 And white ones o'er thy head, but nothing saith 
 
 To my dead heart, that lieth there as still, 
 
 That death was aught to me and thee but death. 
 
 114
 
 AN IMITATION OF BROWNING. 
 
 Thanks for your thinking I could do a thing 
 
 Like that. A weak kneed kind of honesty, 
 
 You see, I have, which apes my simple soul 
 
 And frankly tells you flattery is sweet. 
 
 And sweet that you should think me abler than, 
 
 With all my struggles in that way, I am, 
 
 That one should think me strong to pen such thought 
 
 As those that touch the soul like jets of blood 
 
 That from the fountain of God's own great heart, 
 
 And words that wheel concentric to one point, 
 
 Whose singing robes are all aflame with truth, 
 
 Held in their swinging orbits by no hand 
 
 Save only the full beat of melody. 
 
 This sweet suspicion that you crown me with 
 
 Doth seem to raise me up above myself, 
 
 Endowing me with almost power enough 
 
 To coin into a rich intaglio's grace 
 
 An hour's intoxication of the brain 
 
 In perfect union with the pulsing heart, 
 
 Which all men must at times experience. 
 
 Strange you should think I wrote the lines, 
 And yet I'm proud that you did think of me. 
 It makes the light lean softer on the lawn, 
 And these broad trees to croon their secrets out 
 
 "5
 
 AN IMITATION OF BROWNING. 
 
 More clearly to my waiting, dreamy soul. 
 
 It pleases little minds, and great ones too, 
 
 To fancy them creators of a thing 
 
 That breathes an atmosphere of life, 
 
 Or robes itself in use or beauty's folds ; 
 
 For little minds and great, to measure them 
 
 By what is done, touch not each other's sphere ; 
 
 But take the truest measure, what might be, 
 
 And they touch hands across the shrinking chasm. 
 
 "The poem sounds like that" ? You think you catch 
 
 In those magnetic lines some trick of mine ? 
 
 'Tis I who am the borrower from them ! 
 
 The ringing sound yet beats within my brain, 
 
 And fadeless fragrance lies upon my heart. 
 
 Deep thoughts, once born into a reader's soul, 
 
 Unconsciously will ever reappear. 
 
 And yet I love you better that you find 
 
 Some thing in them like me. It shows you see 
 
 I sympathize with those deep poet thoughts 
 
 I never could express. What, going now ? 
 
 'Tis strange Well, good by, sweet, till gloaming 
 
 comes. 
 Watch for your unknown friend's next verse ! Good 
 
 bye! 
 
 116
 
 AN IMITATION OF BROWNING. 
 
 And yet it is not strange I wrote those lines, 
 With thy pure soul unlocked for me to read 
 The regal glories of an unknown realm. 
 Oh, lip to lip and soul to soul with thee, 
 I feel how dull the flame within those lines, 
 How faint the melody that breathes in them. 
 Once more I'll copy down a hidden song 
 And send it to the magazine unsigned, 
 That I may hear her tender wondering. 
 And yet were it not wrong to filch the truth 
 From her sweet heart, and write the music down 
 To win those sweet suspicions with? I'll wait ! 
 
 117
 
 HOPE. 
 
 Beautiful dream of my youth, 
 Thou art identified long, 
 Daughter of Beauty and Truth, 
 Born in the lull of a song. 
 Thine were the issues of life, 
 Wisdom thy ultimate prize, 
 Viewing the kingdom of strife 
 With thine ineffable eyes. 
 Only thy passionate glances 
 Breathing a purpose divine, 
 Doth the world's beauty enhance 
 Till the ideal be mine. 
 Tarry thy flight for an hour, 
 If separation must come, 
 Furnish thy worshiper power 
 To smile with the lips that be dumb. 
 
 118
 
 THE GREAT DIVIDE.' 
 
 Over the great divide, 
 
 What shall we see ? 
 
 Life has had grandeurs and sights sublime, 
 Beauties with horrors have filled all time, 
 Moments have fled With a halting rhyme ; 
 But on the other side, 
 
 What shall it be ? 
 
 Over the great divide, 
 
 What shall we know ? 
 
 Life has been teeming with hopes and dreams, 
 Visions of darkness with sunlit gleams 
 Shot in between them like golden seams ; 
 But on the other side, 
 
 What shall it show ? 
 
 Over the great divide, 
 
 What shall it be ? 
 
 Infinite silence broods there like sleep, 
 Infinite questionings ford the deep ; 
 Finite the answer, and that we keep. 
 Death ! on the other side 
 Shall any see ? 
 
 119
 
 ' OVER THE GREAT 
 
 Over the great divide? 
 
 Fruitless to ask ! 
 Infinite silence is there for me ; 
 Infinite burdens we may not flee 
 Lie on the brain here, the heart, and knee ! 
 Not on the other side, 
 Here is our task.
 
 AT EASTERTIDE. 
 
 At Eastertide, when soft winds blow 
 Across the Northern hills of snow, 
 Tall lilies nod in breaking bloom, 
 And, nodding, lade with rich perfume 
 The airs that wander to and fro. 
 
 And organ voices, soft and low 
 As is the thrill of deep love's flow, 
 Doth fill dim aisles that lie in gloom, 
 At Eastertide. 
 
 Old thoughts come stealing sweet and slow, 
 Of loves gone by long years ago ; 
 
 But from that distant rock-hewn tomb 
 Hope always shines across our doom, 
 With breath of lilies row on row, 
 At Eastertide. 
 
 16
 
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