THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 vt 

 
 John Wbnt CfraOtoiefc. 
 
 LATER POEMS. i2mo, $1.25, net. Post- 
 age extra. 
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING. With 
 two photogravure Portraits. Crown 8vo, 
 gilt top, $1.75, net. Postage, 13 cents. 
 
 THEODORE PARKER: PREACHER AND 
 REFORMER. With two photogravure Por- 
 traits. Crown 8vo, gilt top, $2.00. 
 
 HOUGHTON. MIFFLIN & COMPANY, 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
 
 LATER POEMS
 
 LATER POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN WHITE CHADWICK 
 
 Go, speed the stars of Thought 
 On to their shining goals ; 
 The sower scatters broad his seed ; 
 The wheat thou strew'st be souls. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 1905
 
 COPYRIGHT 1905 BY ANNIE H. CHADWICK 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published Afril jqoj
 
 PREFACE 
 
 IT had been Mr. Chadwick's hope to have these poems 
 published just before the fortieth anniversary of his 
 installation (December 21, 1904), but being unable to 
 accomplish this he had laid them aside, intending to com- 
 plete the work upon them later. I am sure I am only 
 carrying out his wishes in publishing them at this time. 
 
 I have tried to arrange them in chronological order, 
 but I know I have not succeeded in every case. 
 
 ANNIE H. CHADWICK. 
 BROOKLYN, February 9, 1905. 
 
 5285S7 
 
 LIBRARt
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 A COMMON WEED . . . . . . . i 
 
 MOIRA . . . ... . . . . 4 
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY . . . . . . . . 5 
 
 ABRAHAM KUENEN " . ' . 12 
 
 ANNIVERSARY HYMN . . . . ... . 13 
 
 THE BLIND GENTIAN . .. .-.'*.. . 15 
 
 A COOKING LESSON . . , . . . . . .17 
 
 EOSTRA . . ... . . .... . . 20 
 
 THE KING'S DIARY . . . . . . .22 
 
 HYMN FOR THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF MY 
 
 INSTALLATION, DECEMBER 21, 1889 .... 23 
 
 A MISSIONARY CHANT . . . ... . .25 
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS DAY 29 
 
 BIRTHDAY REMEMBRANCE 33 
 
 AN EASTER HYMN 34 
 
 AT BREAK OF DAY . . .... . .36 
 
 ON HOLY GROUND 37 
 
 LOVE, DEATH, AND SORROW ...... 39 
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 40 
 
 To A DEAR OLD FRIEND 45 
 
 COUNTER-ACCUSATION 47 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS 48 
 
 A THOUGHT OF WHITTIER 49 
 
 THE PRICELESS PEARL 50
 
 x CONTENTS 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 144 
 
 THE SCANT SUPPLY . . ... . . .149 
 
 TIMEO DANAOS 150 
 
 "SHORE ACRES" 151 
 
 "O THAT LAND! THAT LAND" 152 
 
 LATE KNOWLEDGE 153 
 
 DEFIANCE 154 
 
 THE BROKEN GLASS 155 
 
 FAINT, YET PURSUING 156
 
 LATER POEMS
 
 LATER POEMS 
 
 A COMMON WEED 
 
 I FIND it growing here and there 
 
 In many places far away 
 From that, so dear and pleasant, where 
 
 I first beheld its mean array. 
 
 Oft have I asked what name it bears, 
 But none is wise enough to tell ; 
 
 " Only a common weed ! " it wears 
 That modest blazon passing well. 
 
 No shame it ever seems to take, 
 
 Whatever company it keeps ; 
 Nor vagabond of flowers to make 
 
 The least ado where'er it sleeps. 
 
 It has no beauty to desire, 
 
 Gives, leaf nor bloom, no pleasant smell ; 
 Yet are there flowers which I admire, 
 
 But do not love one half so well. 
 i
 
 A COMMON WEED 
 
 And why but that when I was small, 
 A little boy of summers few, 
 
 Beside a ruddy cottage wall 
 
 This common weed so blithely grew, 
 
 As if it were the fairest rose 
 That ever on the breast of June 
 
 Made sweetness there ; so from it flows 
 A spell that puts my heart in tune 
 
 With all the poor pathetic things 
 Of that young life so long ago, 
 
 And from their shape and action brings 
 A kindling warmth, a kindly glow. 
 
 I see again the tiny yard 
 
 That neighbored with the open door, 
 The narrow plot of feeble sward ; 
 
 Within, the spotless yellow floor ; 
 
 And, moving softly to and fro, 
 My mother with her gentle eyes, 
 
 My father bronzed as those who go 
 Down to the sea in ships, and wise 
 
 2
 
 A COMMON WEED 
 
 In all its lore ; my sisters dear 
 I seem to see them now as then, 
 
 And, as the present moment clear, 
 
 All their young ways come back again. 
 
 Nor these alone, but all that made 
 My early years so warm and bright, 
 
 That heaven's self might cheaply fade 
 Matched with such simple-sweet delight. 
 
 Such magic has this common weed 
 To charm my backward-yearning heart, 
 
 That I would plant its fruitful seed 
 
 E'en where the " skyey roadways " part. 
 
 And just because you have the power 
 To work this miracle for me, 
 
 Poor little, nameless, graceless flower 
 I love you very tenderly.
 
 MOIRA 
 
 WHAT do I hear in Baby Moira's name ? 
 No sound of trees soft stirring in the air 
 
 Of summer nights in gardens warm and sweet ; 
 Nay, but the sea-bird's cry ; the loud acclaim 
 
 Of winds that blow where northern headlands flare 
 And the great waves dash even at their feet 
 The wild sea-horses that no man can tame.
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 NULL A VESTIGIA RETRORSUM 
 
 Read at a dinner of the New England Society of Brooklyn, Decem- 
 ber 21, 1885. 
 
 You know the picture : On the windy beach 
 John Alden and Priscilla stand apart, 
 
 Speaking no word ; so still it seems that each 
 Might hear the beating of the other's heart. 
 
 No dream is theirs of that degenerate time, 
 When one, a scion of their vigorous stock, 
 
 Our gentlest poet, in a tender rhyme 
 
 Shall all the treasure of their hearts unlock. 
 
 That lessening sail against the eastern sky 
 What costly freight is buried in her hold 
 
 Whose loss should make the April sunshine lie 
 On sea and shore so cheerless, gray, and cold ? 
 
 Their thoughts are all with her, but they outwing 
 Her laggard course across the treacherous deep, 
 
 Nor pause till they can nestle where the spring 
 
 In English lanes has just begun to peep. 
 
 5
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 How sweet it were to keep their bridal there 
 When, after April, May should come apace, 
 
 And then the summer, as an angel fair, 
 
 Should laugh outright in June's all-perfect face ! 
 
 To hear the joy-bells in the ivied tower 
 
 Ring out their nuptial gladness to the breeze, 
 
 And so move homeward through a gleaming shower 
 Of blossoms falling from the hawthorn trees ! 
 
 It may not be ; but only yesterday 
 
 It might have been ; so near, so very near, 
 
 The Mayflower swinging at her moorings lay ; 
 And who would go and who would tarry here ? 
 
 What sounds were those that on the eastern gale 
 Came to them there and not to them alone ? 
 
 Voices that made the ruddiest faces pale, 
 Sadder than ocean's melancholy moan ? 
 
 " Oh, fools," they cried, " upon this barren shore 
 
 A better Church or State to hope to find, 
 Or aught that can your reverence kindle more 
 Than the dear things that you have left behind, 
 6
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 " The homes wherein your fathers lived and died, 
 
 The fields they tilled with manful toil and sweat, 
 The churches where they worshiped side by side, . 
 The shores where they the rash invader met, 
 
 " The ordered custom, the unwritten law, 
 
 A million precedents have welded fast 
 In such a bond as never others saw 
 In all the mighty immemorial past. 
 
 " What sweeter kernel in your rougher shell 
 
 Yours, who already on the bleak hillside 
 Have smoothed for corn the graves that else would tell 
 How many of your bravest ones have died ? 
 
 " Nay, but you cannot cheat the savage foe, 
 
 Nor so obliterate your dead that he 
 Shall not how feeble is your remnant know, 
 And band against you with the unpitying sea. 
 
 " Come back, come back ; ere yet it is too late 
 
 Leave your poor huts, your undistinguished dead, 
 Crowd the frail deck, upheave the anchor's weight ; 
 Quick be the parting, ay, the cursing, said ! " 
 7
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 Voices and voices ! On the barren lea 
 
 They heard them cry across the cloudy rack, 
 
 And every bush and century-growing tree 
 
 Had found a voice and seemed to echo, " Back 1 " 
 
 " Back ! " From the forest's depths they heard it sound, 
 The voice of spirits eager for their doom. 
 
 " Back! " From the lonely graves it came and drowned 
 Their tempted hearts in seas of deadlier gloom. 
 
 But that was yesterday, and now to-day 
 Their poor ship falters in the offing there 
 
 'Twixt sea and sky as if she would allay 
 With one last hope the inevitable despair. 
 
 Yea, she is gone, nor bears upon her deck 
 One man or woman of the Pilgrim band 
 
 For all the horror of the winter's wreck 
 There in the desolate and homeless land. 
 
 No backward step ! More than the voices told 
 Of Merry England, in their hearts they knew ; 
 
 More than the graves had echoed, and the old 
 
 Witch-haunted forest pierced their bosoms through.
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 But they had chosen and they would abide, 
 
 Here they had come and they had come to stay ; 
 
 Whatever loss or sorrow might betide 
 
 No backward step ; this was the Pilgrim way. 
 
 The thing that has been it shall be again : 
 So runs the promise of the ancient Word ; 
 
 And, oh, how often since that morning when 
 John Alden and Priscilla might have heard 
 
 Each other's heart-beats, men of Pilgrim stock 
 Have heard their voices as they stood forlorn 
 
 On their own bleak and barren Plymouth Rock, 
 In some great epoch's cold and cheerless morn ! 
 
 : Come back ! Come back ! " How clear the pleading cry, 
 
 From old Tradition's ivy-mantled towers, 
 From haunts where ease and comfort sleeping lie, 
 Dreaming away the irrevocable hours ! 
 
 What old abuse, what hoary precedent, 
 
 What chattering ghost of faith once fair and sweet, 
 Has not some measure to the music lent 
 
 Still tugging backward their reluctant feet ! 
 9
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 Why should they care a higher faith to win 
 Than that which glorified their fathers' creed ? 
 
 How should they dare denounce, as 't were a sin, 
 That which their law and custom had decreed ? 
 
 So from the past and at the future's gate 
 
 Has crouched and howled at them a giant Fear, 
 " Go back ! Go back ! Ere yet it is too late ; 
 All hope abandon ye who enter here." 
 
 Back have they gone ? Not if their spirit stuff, 
 Not their flesh only, was the Pilgrim kind, 
 
 Which ever as the way grows steep and rough 
 Shows a more fixed, unalterable mind. 
 
 The time goes on ; the symbol does not fail ; 
 For us as for the generations gone 
 Good things with bad must struggle to prevail ; 
 With Error's might fair Reason's radiant dawn. 
 
 And we, like them from whom our stock derives, 
 Elect on ways we have not known to go, 
 
 'Gainst the night-watches how God's morning strives 
 In our own bosoms soon or late must know. 
 10
 
 THE PILGRIM WAY 
 
 There will be voices sounding in our ears, 
 
 Warning us backward from our fateful quest, 
 
 Voices of all the dead and vanished years, 
 
 Voices of Doubt and Fear and Peace and Rest. 
 
 Then when we wonder if it were not well 
 
 To strive no more, and yield the vantage won, 
 
 As men plucked backward from the mouth of hell, 
 Clear as in heaven our own New England sun, 
 
 May our resolve be taken. It is meet 
 For us to be the Pilgrims of our day ; 
 
 Whatever graves may open at our feet, 
 
 No backward step ; this is the Pilgrim way ! 
 
 ii
 
 ABRAHAM KUENEN 
 
 IN that dear fable knowledge has dethroned, 
 The patriarch Abraham from a far-off land, 
 Ur of the Chaldees, came ; and his small band 
 
 In Canaan dwelt with him as men who owned 
 
 They had no city. But the years atoned 
 
 For that first weakness : as the blowing sand 
 The multitude who blessed his guiding hand 
 
 On shores where every alien water moaned. 
 
 Our Father Abraham ! From a place of thought, 
 Dim, dark, and strange, and full of evil dreams, 
 
 By thee a few at first were safely brought. 
 
 But now, behold, how soon by countless streams 
 
 Thy children plant and build ; and none can praise 
 
 Too much the courage of thy lonely ways ! 
 
 12
 
 ANNIVERSARY HYMN 
 
 THOU glorious God, before whose face 
 
 The generations pass away, 
 As to our eyes the tender grace 
 
 And marvel of each shining day ! 
 
 We thank thee for the joy sublime 
 Of years so radiant with thy power 
 
 That all the best of endless time 
 Seems granted to the fleeting hour. 
 
 We praise thee for the surer right, 
 The clearer message from above, 
 
 The lengthening day, the shortening night, 
 The wiser ministries of love. 
 
 We bless thee for the friends we miss, 
 Who made our peace and stilled our pain ; 
 
 We trust thee on some height of bliss 
 To bring them close to us again. 
 13
 
 ANNIVERSARY HYMN 
 
 We magnify thy holy name ; 
 
 And, while in thee our hearts rejoice, 
 Strong be our wills through blame and shame 
 
 To do the bidding of thy voice.
 
 THE BLIND GENTIAN 
 
 IT grows in many a nook and bend 
 
 Our autumn ways along, 
 First cousin of the flower which love 
 
 Has sanctified with song. 
 
 A poor relation ! so it seems, 
 Whom no one cares to praise ; 
 
 That never gave a poet yet 
 One leaf among his bays. 
 
 No maiden lays you to her breast, 
 Or binds you to her zone ; 
 
 No ruthless hand is glad to pluck 
 And claim you as its own. 
 
 I often wonder what within 
 
 Doth secretly abide ; 
 I never yet have dared to draw 
 
 The clinging veil aside. 
 15
 
 THE BLIND GENTIAN 
 
 Whatever fate hath made you thus, 
 A fountain closely sealed, 
 
 One lesson in your looks I find, 
 For gentle souls revealed. 
 
 For who, and not himself be blind, 
 
 Can pass your coverts by, 
 Nor find the colors that you wear 
 
 The bluest of the sky ? 
 
 Such your reward, or such I deem, 
 For reverence pure and sweet, 
 
 Which veils an angel-face where some 
 Rush in with foolish feet. 
 
 Dear, humble flower, go home with me, 
 
 That I may better tell : 
 With such as are least bold with heaven 
 
 Doth most of heaven dwell. 
 
 16
 
 A COOKING LESSON 
 
 'T WAS St. Theresa gave it. She, you know, 
 Was here on earth three centuries agone, 
 
 And lived in Spain, and starved her body so 
 Her spirit too that, dying, she had won 
 
 Such fame for sainthood as was never worn 
 
 By any other in that land forlorn. 
 
 And her dear Lord, or Mary ever mild, 
 In token of her sweet and perfect grace, 
 
 Would sometimes grant her, happy as a child, 
 To see a vision of the heavenly place ; 
 
 And oft for hours it was her joy to be 
 
 Rapt in a high and glorious ecstasy. 
 
 I 
 Then earth was not ; then heaven was opened wide ; 
 
 Then once, they tell, that with a flaming spear 
 Her Saviour ravished from her bleeding side 
 
 Her living heart ; while she, without a fear, 
 Could wish no blessing greater, only so 
 To be forever in her gladsome woe.
 
 A COOKING LESSON 
 
 The coming rapture gave no sign before, 
 Nor made account of any task in hand ; 
 
 And once it chanced to seize her at the hour 
 When she was cooking for the convent band ; 
 
 Not as our daughters do who know by heart 
 
 A hundred secrets of the gentle art, 
 
 But not indifferently to the humble task. 
 
 'T was fish that day, just turning to a brown 
 No Andalusian girl could softer ask 
 
 For her dear cheek, when swift and sudden down 
 The vision swept, and she was caught away 
 Into a light which was not that of day. 
 
 To save the dinner ! not to lose her grip 
 
 Upon the fry-pan that was her last thought 
 Just as she felt her footing wholly slip 
 ^ Away from earth, and heaven its splendor brought 
 So close to her that she could lay her hand 
 On things that angels scarce can understand. 
 
 The vision passed, and sooner than her wish 
 
 Earth had come back ; and in her hand behold 
 The fry-pan still, and in the pan the fish 
 18
 
 A COOKING LESSON 
 
 Done to a charm ! The kitchen centuries old 
 Had never furnished forth a daintier bit 
 For angels' food it had not been unfit. 
 
 Dear sister sainted, be our pattern saint 
 
 In this at least : whatever ecstasy 
 May shake our souls, till we, with rapture faint, 
 
 Seem less on earth than in the heavens to be, 
 As thou didst not thy proper task forego 
 While heaven's rose showed many a mystic row, 
 
 So may it be with us ! From common tasks 
 Of love and duty may no visions lure, 
 
 And each but prove an angel that enmasks 
 
 With glorious semblance service sweet and pure ! 
 
 Work, love-inspired, is better than the best 
 
 Imagined foretaste of the heavenly rest.
 
 EOSTRA 
 
 GODDESS of the early days 
 
 When the world was fresh and young 
 Whom our fathers loved to praise, 
 
 Whom they worshiped, whom they sung, 
 Art thou nothing in our time 
 But the heading of a rhyme ? 
 
 Dying, thou didst give thy name 
 To the Christian's feast of life, 
 
 Feast that celebrates the fame 
 Of an hour with wonders rife, 
 
 Hour that wrought of death the doom, 
 
 When was rent the sacred tomb. 
 
 They that trust the wondrous tale, 
 They that keep the happy time, 
 
 Have for thee no gracious "Hail!" 
 Have for thee no tuneful rhyme 
 
 Thankless even for thy name, 
 
 For their day of joyous fame. 
 20
 
 EOSTRA 
 
 But whenever hearts are fain 
 
 For the winter past away, 
 When the springtime once again 
 
 Makes them happy, makes them gay, 
 Goddess bright, thy praise is sung 
 Now as when the world was young. 
 
 21
 
 THE KING'S DIARY 
 
 JULY 14, 1789 
 
 " RIEN," he wrote, because it chanced that day 
 
 There was no hunt of fawn or stag or boar. 
 All else was nothing to the man who wore 
 The crown which once the brows of Hugh Capet 
 Had ached beneath, eight centuries away. 
 
 Since then what well-belov'd and hated more 
 Had worn it lightly, or with anguish sore, 
 Some strong to rule and many but to slay ! 
 
 "Nothing ! " And, while he wrote the senseless word, 
 The tocsin rang in Paris ; the human flood 
 Poured onward raging till it came where stood 
 The Bastille. Soon the foolish King had heard 
 How prone it lay. Behold his aimless wit: 
 He and his kingdom were as he had writ. 
 
 1889 
 
 22
 
 HYMN 
 
 FOR THE TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF MY INSTAL- 
 LATION, DECEMBER 21, 1889 
 
 O THOU whose perfect goodness crowns 
 With peace and joy this sacred day, 
 
 Our hearts are glad for all the years 
 Thy love has kept us in thy way. 
 
 Thy glorious truth has made us free 
 
 From bounds of sect and bonds of creed ; 
 
 Thy light has shone that we might see 
 Our own in every brother's need. 
 
 For common tasks of help and cheer, 
 For quiet hours of thought and prayer, 
 
 For moments when we seemed to feel 
 The breath of a diviner air; 
 
 For mutual love and trust that keep 
 
 Unchanged through all the changing time ; 
 
 For friends within the veil who thrill 
 Our spirits with a hope sublime, 
 23
 
 HYMN 
 
 For this and more than words can say, 
 We praise and bless thy holy name. 
 
 Come life or death : enough to know 
 That thou art evermore the same ! 
 
 24
 
 A MISSIONARY CHANT 
 
 Read at a Missionary Meeting at Saratoga. 
 
 SPIRIT of God, in whom we live, 
 Be with us in this fateful hour, 
 
 And on our spirits shed abroad 
 The tokens of thy gracious power. 
 
 With softened hearts we think of those, 
 The fathers of our heavenly birth, 
 
 Whose will was good to all mankind, 
 Whose song was ever, Peace on earth. 
 
 With serious mind and calm intent, 
 They followed hard in darkest night 
 
 That gleam of truth to them revealed 
 From thine eternal light of light. 
 
 It led them far from beaten ways ; 
 
 But evermore, with faith unfeigned, 
 They held their course, as men who knew 
 
 A guiding star that never waned. 
 25
 
 A MISSIONARY CHANT 
 
 As for our fathers, so for us 
 
 May that supernal radiance shine, 
 
 Our path illume, our spirits cheer, 
 By day and night a conquering sign ! 
 
 Not ours the earth they calmly trod, 
 Nor ours the heavens that to their eyes, 
 
 Star answering star, in silence spoke 
 A thousand tender mysteries. 
 
 Our earth a deeper wonder shows, 
 Our skies a mightier host reveal, 
 
 Our bells of God their changes ring 
 With fuller chords and grander peal. 
 
 All things, O God, thou makest new 
 From age to age ; thy plastic hand 
 
 Our reason's force, whereto the worlds 
 Are shaped as by thy sole command. 
 
 But vain the vision's wider scope, 
 And vain the glory vaster grown, 
 
 If 'mid the splendor, awful, cold, 
 We orphaned walk, aghast, alone ! 
 26
 
 A MISSIONARY CHANT 
 
 Not such our lot, but, choosing truth, 
 We ever choose the better part ; 
 
 And every tide of knowledge bears 
 Thy children closer to thy heart. 
 
 How can we thank thee, gracious God, 
 For what no worth of ours has bought, 
 
 The cheerful faith, the glorious hope, 
 The wider, deeper, grander thought ? 
 
 Oh, not by words ! as idle wind 
 
 They come and go, and leave unpaid 
 
 Our growing debt, till of our good 
 We stand in awe and half afraid. 
 
 Thy spirit shows a better way : 
 
 Deep in our hearts its mystic word 
 
 Is clear and strong, as if the ear, 
 
 List'ning, some voice from heaven heard. 
 
 It bids us wake from idle dreams, 
 To pluck our talent from the ground, 
 
 To gird our loins and go our way 
 Until that grievous place be found 
 27
 
 A MISSIONARY CHANT 
 
 Where man for man a monster is, 
 And God another, strong in might, 
 
 And death, eternal death, were sweet, 
 If dreaming so were dreaming right. 
 
 It bids us go where doubt has wrung 
 Man's hope from out his aching breast, 
 
 And all is dark, and for his feet, 
 Far-wandering, there is no rest. 
 
 A deeper depth invites us still, 
 
 Where sin and shame the image mar 
 
 Of God in man ; where wrath and scorn 
 Are near and drear, and love is far. 
 
 Spirit of God, in thunder speak, 
 To rouse us from our sluggish joy ; 
 
 Our soft content accursed make, 
 Our peace with sharpest pain alloy, 
 
 Until for darkened souls, whom we 
 Can of our light and gladness give, 
 
 Light has sprung up ; and so our thanks 
 
 Thou shalt at length, O God, receive. 
 
 28
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 WHAT means for us this sacred day 
 By all the happy children blest, 
 
 So long desired, it breaks in dreams 
 The quiet of their rest ? 
 
 Not ours the angels' peaceful song 
 From heaven's height nor orient star, 
 
 The magi's trackless way to guide 
 With radiance pure and far. 
 
 But still upon the inward ear 
 
 That song descends with music sweet, 
 Our hearts to cheer on darksome ways, 
 
 With patience for our feet. 
 
 It sings the hope of things to be 
 Beyond the anger and the strife, 
 
 When all the cruel hate shall cease, 
 And Love be Lord of life. 
 29
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 No fabled mystery is ours 
 
 Of One who for her honor made 
 
 The peasant's wife his heavenly bride, 
 And she was not afraid. 
 
 No greater mystery we crave 
 Than every gentle mother shows 
 
 When, by God's grace, another life 
 Within her own she knows. 
 
 What need of miracle to make 
 One Son of Man the Son of God, 
 
 When all the sons of men that e'er 
 Earth's temple-floor have trod 
 
 Have but one lineage great and high, 
 
 One Father who is over all 
 The heights of heaven, the deeps of hell, 
 
 Who hears them when they call ? 
 
 Nor less if Brahm or Zeus the name, 
 Than when as God or Lord addressed : 
 
 The prayer that trusts and loves the most 
 For him is ever best. 
 30
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 O brother of the righteous will, 
 O brother full of power and grace, 
 
 Without one thought of fear or shame, 
 We come before thy face ! 
 
 Not ours to hail thee as the saints 
 Of olden times, as some to-day, 
 
 God, very God ; and still to us 
 Thou art the Life, the Way. 
 
 Thou art the Life : in thee we find 
 The glory that our lives might wear 
 
 If we for love and truth and right 
 Could learn to do and dare. 
 
 Thou art the Way ; for, still to know 
 What goodness ever reigns above, 
 
 There is no other way than thine, 
 To live the life of love. 
 
 One God have we ! Sufficeth He 
 For every want our souls can know ; 
 
 He holds us with his loving hand, 
 He will not let us go. 
 31
 
 OUR CHRISTMAS DAY 
 
 We love thee for thy tender love 
 To want and sin and sorrow shown ; 
 
 We reverence all thy truth and grace ; 
 We worship God alone. 
 
 Lo, in such heart we come with all 
 Who hail thee on this sacred day 
 
 In various speech ! Thou wilt not spurn 
 Our simple gift away.
 
 BIRTHDAY REMEMBRANCE 
 
 I 'M sure, dear friends, that you have heard the story 
 Of Walter Savage Lander's laureled head, 
 
 How one who for that deed now lives in glory 
 Plucked out his one white hair and sweetly said, 
 
 It was her own. And you, my friends, most kindly, 
 The fact that I am growing old would hide 
 
 With lovely flowers, and fain would I as blindly 
 As might be in this pretty scheme of yours confide. 
 
 But, gentle friends, the fact cannot be hidden ; 
 
 What can be done I Ve done to keep it close, 
 Friends have I bribed and others have I chidden, 
 
 There's nothing for me but to take the dose. 
 
 But in the flowers you sent the goblet wreathing, 
 
 It does n't taste so bad as else it might, 
 And so, a blessing on your kindness breathing, 
 
 I toss it off and bid you both good-night. 
 1890 
 
 33
 
 AN EASTER HYMN 
 
 THOU whose spirit dwells in all, 
 Primal source of life and mind, 
 
 In the clod as in the soul, 
 Ever full and unconfined ! 
 
 What shall separate from thee ? 
 
 Naught of all created things ! 
 Joy and sorrow, good and ill, 
 
 Each from thee its essence brings. 
 
 Thine the atom's faintest thrill, 
 
 Thine the humblest creature's breath, 
 
 Prophet-soul in every kind, 
 
 Yearning still through life and death 
 
 Yearning for the crowning race 
 
 Man, in whom at last is told 
 Every secret strange and sweet 
 
 From the farthest days of old : 
 34
 
 AN EASTER HYMN 
 
 Secrets too of things to be, 
 In the cycles on before : 
 
 Love which stronger is than death, 
 
 Life with thee forevermore. 
 1890 
 
 35
 
 AT BREAK OF DAY 
 
 JULY 21, 1891 
 
 WHEN our darling passed away, 
 It was near the break of day ; 
 And the birds with one accord 
 Sang their praises to the Lord. 
 
 What a burst of melody ! 
 Just as if there could not be, 
 In a world so fair as this, 
 Room for anything but bliss ! 
 
 Slower drew our darling's breath ; 
 Then the peace which some call death 
 Folded down ; and all around 
 Still the birds made happy sound. 
 
 Was it only birds that sung ? 
 On our hearts a music rung 
 As of praises hymned at morn 
 When in Heaven a child is born. 
 36
 
 ON HOLY GROUND 
 
 WRITTEN FOR A MEETING OF THE NEW YORK LEAGUE 
 OF UNITARIAN WOMEN 
 
 WHAT has drawn us thus apart, 
 From the common daily round, 
 
 Bringing here a lowly heart, 
 Standing as on holy ground ? 
 
 Not the scorn of humble things, 
 Simplest tasks that love can find ; 
 
 Not the pride of thought that brings 
 Laggard will and restless mind. 
 
 Nay, but here upon the height, 
 
 Rapt from idle cares away, 
 Fain our souls would see a light, 
 
 Herald of the coming day : 
 
 Morning visions high and pure, 
 Glorious things that are to be, 
 
 Faith and hope that shall endure, 
 Love's abiding unity ; 
 37
 
 ON HOLY GROUND 
 
 All the things that make for peace 
 In the daily toil and strife ; 
 
 All that can our part increase 
 In the world's diviner life. 
 
 Short the time we linger here ; 
 
 Then, with earnest heart and hand, 
 Back to work with holy fear ; 
 
 Every vision, God's command. 
 1891
 
 LOVE, DEATH, AND SORROW 
 
 UPON a day of fierce and blinding rain 
 
 One they called Love was wed with one called Death : 
 She lovely as the rose, its breath her breath, 
 
 He swart as night ; and duly of these twain 
 
 A child was born called Sorrow ; and with pain 
 Like unto theirs whom nothing comforteth 
 Love clove to him : " My all in all," she saith, 
 
 And if he die for what can I be fain ? " 
 
 Then Wisdom came and said, " O foolish one, 
 
 Why dost thou fear ? for Death is passing strong, 
 
 And thou, O Love, art yet more strong than he, 
 For all his brawn. Wherefore thou needst not shun 
 Hurt for thy Sorrow ; he shall live as long 
 As thou canst wish ; yea, only die with thee." 
 
 39
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 READ BEFORE THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE ON THE ANNI- 
 VERSARY OF HIS BIRTHDAY 
 
 To that loved prelude of the song of songs 
 Our friend and poet wrote for us, when he 
 And Fields and Taylor tented happily 
 
 On Hampton Beach the simple tale belongs. 
 
 How he upon the shining sands had traced 
 This thing and that, and by the rising tide, 
 Relentless now as when by Cnut defied, 
 
 Saw all his record quietly effaced. 
 
 Wherein a tender parable he found 
 Of all the poems he had ever made, 
 Touched for an hour by mingled sun and shade, 
 
 Then swept into oblivion's great profound. 
 
 'T was like his modest nature thus to shape 
 The fashion of his future among men ; 
 But we whose coward hearts were failing when 
 
 Our good ship staggered off the windy cape 
 40
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 Of Sixty-one, and clear above the storm, 
 
 Heard his brave voice ring out hi Luther's tone, 
 Then took fresh courage, and not then alone, 
 
 How shall we not forever keep a warm 
 
 And spacious corner in our hearts for him 
 Who helped us then, and hi a hundred ways 
 Has added strength and beauty to our days ? 
 
 How shall the tides his record ever dim ? 
 
 'T is sand and rock ; as other men's the same, 
 Even the greatest, and the flood of time 
 Shall bear away the weak and casual rhyme, 
 
 But leave unspoiled the granite of his fame. 
 
 All we who love New England's hills and streams, 
 The surges thundering on her rocky shore, 
 Her wealth of pious memories, and her store 
 
 Of fables rarer than our rarest dreams, 
 
 How can we ever but remember one 
 
 To whom these things were as his natural breath ; 
 
 Who cherished them until the gates of death 
 Shut him forever from our genial sun ?
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 See how he loved the Bearcamp's hurrying wave, 
 Chocorua's height, and all the mountains round ; 
 And best of all his Merrimac, whose sound 
 
 Makes a loved music for his modest grave. 
 
 How in his song the dead past lived again, 
 
 Old saints and sinners plied their various trade ; 
 And sweet for us the love of youth and maid 
 
 As if 't were ours that dear, delicious pain ! 
 
 But could this happy service be forgot, 
 And even from our memory be razed 
 That Abraham Davenport our poet praised, 
 
 What flood oblivious could ever blot 
 
 From our remembrance what he did for man, 
 And so for God in that accursed time 
 When slavery's shadow darkened all our clime, 
 
 And truth and right were ever under ban ? 
 
 Oh, then his Quaker gun was toughest steel, 
 And shotted to the lips with bolts that fell, 
 Hot as with presage of a coming hell 
 
 On men foredoomed his righteous scorn to feel, 
 42
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 Men who God's image freely bought and sold, 
 The bloodhounds baying on the victim's track, 
 The unctuous priests who would have sent him back, 
 
 The poor scared sheep, to slavery's reeking fold. 
 
 All this forget ? Not while our country holds 
 Her empire safe between the sounding seas, 
 And all that love her, as on bended knees, 
 
 Thank God that one humanity enfolds 
 
 Our people now, no longer bond and free ; 
 Not while we cherish any glorious name 
 Of those great souls who won the glad acclaim 
 
 Of millions brought from death to liberty. 
 
 And once again, not sand, but adamant 
 The record holds of all the songs he sang, 
 Filled with the love of God ; his trumpet rang, 
 
 And all the walls of immemorial cant, 
 
 And all the watchtowers of the warring creeds 
 Trembled and shook as those of Jericho 
 In that old fable which the faithful know. 
 
 He told us that it was not words, but deeds, 
 43
 
 JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER 
 
 That God desired ; and to his raptured gaze 
 The heavens were opened, and he saw within 
 All souls that are, made clean from every sin, 
 
 And walking glad the everlasting ways. 
 
 He sang the Eternal Goodness, how it lies 
 All pain and sin and sorrow round about, 
 The craven fear, the thinker's honest doubt, 
 
 Yea, life and death with all their mysteries. 
 
 Wherefore, O poet, as thou goest on 
 Into the heart of that great company, 
 Where all the noblest are akin to thee, 
 
 Fear not for any work already done. 
 
 While flows thy peaceful river gently down 
 To meet the sea, and while the sea obeys 
 That law by which she ever swings and sways, 
 
 Thy fame is sure of its immortal crown.
 
 TO A DEAR OLD FRIEND 
 
 APRIL 23, 1892 
 
 IN dream I saw the great assize, 
 
 And on the throne the Judge was set ; 
 
 And all the folk were gathered round, 
 On business of importance met. 
 
 It came your turn. I saw you go 
 With modest mien, as here alway, 
 
 And heard you state the simple fact 
 
 That you were born on Shakespeare's day. 
 
 " Well, and what poems have you writ ? 
 
 What plays of wonderful renown, 
 To match the man's whose life began 
 By Avon's stream in Stratford town ? " 
 
 More humbly, then, you bowed your head, 
 And said, " Your worship, if you please, 
 
 I Ve tried to do my proper work : 
 
 I have not done such things as these." 
 45
 
 TO A DEAR OLD FRIEND 
 
 The Judge's face grew stern; 'and then 
 Upspoke a man who, truth to say, 
 
 Looked more like me than any man 
 That I have seen for many a day. 
 
 He said, " If I my voice may raise 
 In such a vast immortal throng, 
 
 I 'd like to speak this woman's praise : 
 She made her life a perfect song, 
 
 " A song of faith and hope and cheer ; 
 A song of labor, peace, and love ; 
 A song of every grace that makes 
 Our earth below like heaven above." 
 
 And scarce the word had reached its end 
 And waited answering judgment, when 
 
 A hundred voices all around 
 
 Broke forth into a great "Amen ! " 
 
 Then spoke the Judge : " Who maketh life 
 A song, doth that God loveth best : 
 
 Ho, there, a crown, and then a place 
 
 Up there with Shakespeare and the rest ! 
 46
 
 COUNTER-ACCUSATION 
 
 I STOOD beside the body of one dead 
 
 Who had in life been alien to all good ; 
 . Had ever with the baser party stood, 
 Was ever to the meaner practice wed. 
 But, now, the form from which the soul had fled 
 Was calm as sleep, and, on the marble face, 
 Of gross or evil passion not one trace 
 Remained. Then, softly to myself I said : 
 Much do we hear about the grievous wrong 
 Done by the flesh to the indwelling soul ; 
 But here was one, and many there may be 
 Like him, whose spiritual part was strong 
 
 The subject flesh most basely to control. 
 Now from that long enslavement it is free.
 
 WILLIAM HENRY FURNESS 
 
 APRIL 20, 1892 
 
 Serus in ccelum ! But, when you shall hear 
 
 The tardy summons, and shall straightway pass 
 
 Into that world where we no more shall see 
 Dimly, as if reflected in a glass, 
 
 The friends we love, but clearly, face to face, 
 I know of One who, when he comes your way, 
 
 Will smile upon you very graciously, 
 And in a voice all gentleness will say : 
 
 Many have loved me well, but none, I deem, 
 Better than you. Now sit you here by me, 
 
 And how my day was like your lovely dream, 
 And how 't was other, you shall plainly see." 
 
 And half, it seems, I should be glad, dear friend, 
 My days to shorten of their natural span, 
 
 So might I stand a little way apart, 
 
 When, without glass, you see the Son of Man. 
 48
 
 A THOUGHT OF WHITTIER 
 
 " That the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." 
 
 IT was not much, O death, to quell the strength 
 
 Which trembled in that slight and spiritual frame 
 Which the long years, albeit free of blame, 
 
 Had wasted so that unto us at length 
 
 Hardly he seemed to be a mortal man, 
 
 But one who out of heaven had wandered back 
 To bless awhile our dark and stumbling track 
 
 With speech of things beyond our earthly span. 
 
 But this, O death, is strange : that thou hadst power 
 To quench the light that was in those clear eyes 
 Which brighter shone as from the evening skies 
 
 The darkness fell upon his sunset hour. 
 
 Absolute loss ? or there, beyond the tomb, 
 Wilt thou, O God, their glorious light relume ? 
 
 1892 
 
 49
 
 THE PRICELESS PEARL 
 
 Written after reading Mr. T. W. Higginson's Sonnet, " An Egyptian 
 Banquet." 
 
 " DEATH, the Egyptian, melts and drinks the pearl : " 
 
 And straight a rapture through his being runs, 
 
 A fire that seems the essence of all suns 
 That ever made the summer pomp unfurl 
 Its banners, and the green leaves softly curl 
 
 Back from the fruit ; a sense of shining ones 
 
 Engirding round, until his vision shuns 
 The awful splendor of that radiant whorl. 
 And then a voice : These things wouldst thou explore ? 
 
 Who drinks the pearl of life compounded so 
 Of love, and joy, and hope, and peace, and pain 
 
 All sweetest, saddest things that mortals know 
 Drinks to his own salvation : he shall gain 
 Life beyond life, and Death shall be no more. 
 
 1892
 
 THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 FROM lands of sunshine gay with bloom 
 We took the Northern course and came 
 
 To that great city which delights 
 Grim satire in Seattle's name. 
 
 A remnant weak, his people take 
 
 The crumbs that from her table fall : 
 
 The past is theirs : the future hers 
 Who crowds them rudely to the wall. 
 
 Proudly she sits upon her hills, 
 
 Her various waters gleaming round ; 
 
 Her snowy-crested mountains fair 
 
 Soft-mirrored in their bloom profound. 
 
 But one, the top and crown of all 
 High-soaring far above the rest, 
 
 Hid in impenetrable clouds 
 
 His towering head, his ample breast.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 But oh ! at length a morning dawned 
 One more divine earth never knew 
 
 When, better far than tales or dream, 
 The mountain clove the heavenly blue I 
 
 The Mountain ! All the snowy peaks, 
 Which mountains seemed the day before, 
 
 That day were little hills, so high 
 We saw the highest climb and soar. 
 
 So high ! so grand ! and yet withal 
 
 So sweetly, delicately fair, 
 We had believed, if one had said, 
 
 " A dream, a phantom, of the air." 
 
 And, as the perfect day went by, 
 
 More dreamlike still the mountain grew, 
 
 As gathering mists a purple zone 
 Around his base their vesture drew. 
 
 All white and pure uplifted there, 
 
 It floated in thetazure deep, 
 A hill of heaven, a Mount of God ! 
 
 It made our hearts with gladness leap.
 
 THE MOUNTAIN 
 
 The things of sense are types of soul : 
 How oft for many days the best 
 
 Is thick involved in clouds that chill 
 Man's heart within his lonely breast ! 
 
 And then there comes a day of days, 
 And, floating bright in heavenly air, 
 
 He sees the Mount of God, all white 
 With fields of faith and founts of prayer. 
 
 And by that glorious vision blest, 
 
 He knows the peace that passeth thought. 
 
 God folds him to his heart ; his good 
 Is better than the best he sought. 
 
 '893 
 
 53
 
 DECEMBER VIOLETS 
 
 FOR the day you celebrate 
 I am, dear friends, a day too late. 
 Tardier still the flowers I bring 
 Blossoms of an early spring ? 
 Nay, for in your hearts I know 
 Still the spring-time blossoms blow 
 Now as twenty years ago. 
 Dare you say it is n't so ? 
 And when your December lies 
 On your hearts as gentle-wise 
 As new snow upon the ground, 
 Still the violets will be found 
 Under that all safe and sound. 
 1893 
 
 54
 
 DOGMATIST AND AGNOSTIC 
 
 THIS one the Mystery deems so small 
 It seems to him he knows it all, 
 
 As one a handful clips ; 
 And to the other 't is so vast 
 He can but stand with eyes downcast, 
 
 His finger on his lips. 
 1893 
 
 55
 
 A HAPPY MEETING 
 
 DAY after day went gladly by, 
 
 And night to night new splendors lent, 
 As from the East we sought the West, 
 
 And spanned the mighty continent. 
 
 At length the happy goal attained, 
 
 The blue Pacific at our feet, 
 What magic changes all around 
 
 Our senses charm, our vision greet 1 
 
 Its golden globes amidst the green 
 The orange hangs like fairy lights, 
 
 The poppies flame in every mead, 
 
 Fresh wonders crown the novel heights. 
 
 All new and strange ! until one day, 
 Beneath the live-oak's generous shade, 
 
 A little flower I chanced to spy : 
 No prettier flower God ever made. 
 56
 
 A HAPPY MEETING 
 
 Then straight the landscape swam in mist, 
 Mountains and sea were lost to view, 
 
 I trod the Atlantic's rocky shore 
 
 And saw the things my boyhood knew. 
 
 There had I plucked this tiny flower 
 Or spared it in its narrow place, 
 
 Long, long ago, and wondered much 
 At such a happy little face. 
 
 So far away, and yet the same ! 
 
 And, if the truth I dare to tell, 
 I could have kissed its ruddy bloom, 
 
 That sturdy little pimpernel. 
 
 For to my heart a message sped 
 From out the bosom of the flower, 
 
 Which shall not fail for many a day 
 To cheer me with its gracious power. 
 
 A sign and symbol shall it be 
 
 Of humble things, which, though we range 
 From farthest East to farthest West, 
 
 Like God are sure, and never change. 
 SANTA BARBARA, CAL., 1893 
 
 57
 
 
 DEFEAT 
 
 I KNEW a captain girded by the foe, 
 
 Who might, had not his coward courage failed, 
 Have splendidly the hostile front assailed, 
 
 And followed up his vantage blow on blow, 
 
 Until it reeled and broke and fled. But no ! 
 He still must wait until his trumpets hailed 
 A hireling troop to help him ; then prevailed, 
 
 And thought himself a victor, doing so. 
 
 I better knew of one who, sore beset, 
 
 Had conquered by his force of heavenly will, 
 But he, more curst, must wait and wait until 
 
 With him vile circumstance had basely met 
 
 To help him through. Him let no plaudits greet, 
 Self-conquered with immeasurable defeat. 
 1893
 
 CHURCH ANNIVERSARY HYMN 
 
 WITH earnest hearts and willing hands, 
 With spirit high and purpose fair, 
 
 O God, our fathers built to thee 
 
 This home of faith, this house of prayer. 
 
 Here Truth revealed her glorious face, 
 And Right her solemn mandate gave, 
 
 And Love triumphant over Death 
 Saw all her mystic banners wave. 
 
 Here Peace possessed the troubled mind, 
 And Passion's stormy heart was stilled ; 
 
 And sweet on trembling lips became 
 The cup with sorrow over-filled. 
 
 Our fathers' God, not less than theirs 
 Our need of help and strength and cheer, 
 
 The stern rebuke, the healing hand, 
 Oh, may we come and find them here ! 
 59
 
 CHURCH ANNIVERSARY HYMN 
 
 And ever, by their memory blest, 
 May we their faith and love renew ; 
 
 Still seeking higher things to know, 
 Still finding grander work to do. 
 
 60
 
 THE SECRET FLAW 
 
 LIFE-SCULPTORS we, and on our solemn dream 
 The image dawns of perfect things to be ; 
 Whereat we labor long and lovingly, 
 
 Until no more their wonders merely seem, 
 
 But real grow, and on our vision gleam 
 
 All white and pure, and in their eyes the free 
 Glad look of souls that stand rejoicingly 
 
 Full in the light of God's eternal beam. 
 
 T is bravely said ; but there was one who well, 
 It seemed, had so conceived ; with ceaseless toil 
 
 He wrought, until at length, half -blind with tears, 
 Some secret flaw his whole creation spoil 
 
 He saw too late. Alas ! the wasted years, 
 
 And in those eyes the auguries of hell ! 
 1893 
 
 61
 
 TO ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 ON HIS 70TH BIRTHDAY 
 
 You dear old Robert whom we love so well, 
 If we the half of all our love should tell, 
 . You would grow red, as was that famous rose 
 Of York which blushed, as every poet knows, 
 To Lancaster on some soft bosom's swell. 
 
 And that would not be right and fit ; for you 
 To York's white rose have ever been as true 
 As saints to God, have worn it in your heart, 
 Have made its whiteness of your soul a part, 
 Fresh as that rose impearled with morning's dew. 
 
 We like to have you round ; we like to see 
 That crown of glory which so jauntily 
 You wear, as if already you had been 
 Promoted, and the blessed things had seen 
 Which, at life's best, we know are sure to be. 
 62
 
 TO ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 We like your shining face ; it does us good 
 To see it beam ; it makes our lazy blood 
 
 Move faster, and our quickened hearts expand ; 
 
 And, when you hold us by your mighty hand, 
 Some doubtful things are better understood. 
 
 How is it, Robert ? We, who strive with you 
 Some noble work for God and man to do, 
 We argue, and we fret ourselves to prove 
 The Perfect Life, the All-embracing Love ; 
 But you just feel and know these things are true. 
 
 What is the secret ? If you can, impart 
 Your cheery gospel of the trusting heart. 
 But, if 't is not transferable, why, then, 
 No whit the less we bring a glad amen, 
 Glad that you, somehow, know the blessed art. 
 
 There are two fountains, one of tears, and one 
 Of wholesome laughter ; and they play and run 
 Anear each other. You to both have gone 
 And drunk your fill, and then have led us on 
 To where they gleam and ripple in the sun. 
 63
 
 TO ROBERT COLLYER 
 
 You are so human : here 's the central fact 
 Of which your life and speech are all compact. 
 All things that touch the simple, common heart, 
 These have you chosen, these, the better part 1 
 You are so human, feeling, thought, and act. 
 
 And yet the other things you know as well, 
 And love almost as much : the wondrous spell 
 
 That nature weaves in grasses, trees, and flowers ; 
 
 The doings of the busy, tireless hours ; 
 What the birds know and what they sometimes tell. 
 
 Stay with us, Robert ! Do not go away ! 
 
 Stay with us yet for many a happy day ! 
 Huge, joyful, tender, help our duller ways 
 To ring with music and to laugh with praise. 
 
 God bless you ! and let all the people say, 
 
 Amen! 
 1893 
 
 64
 
 "TEMPTED OF GOD" 
 
 And captive good attending captain ill. SHAKESPEARE, Sonnet 
 LXVI. 
 
 STRANGE paradox ! Yet not more strange and sad 
 Than true to life. For often 't is the good 
 With strong temptation, not to be withstood, 
 
 That lures us surely downward to the bad. 
 
 Here with some beauteous moment sweet and glad, 
 There with some voice of pity we are woo'd 
 Which to resist were shameful, if we could ; 
 
 And straightway, we are passion-drunk and mad. 
 
 O God ! repent ; nor give to Sin the power 
 To bait her trap with morsels such as these 
 Things fair to see and kindliest sympathies 
 
 Which turn our good to evil in an hour, 
 
 Or with the lapse of many treacherous days, 
 Fill the whole soul with terror and amaze.
 
 A LIFE WELL LOST 
 
 T WAS bitter cold, and on his narrow bed 
 
 Half-clad, half-warmed, the sculptor sleepless lay, 
 
 And shivered for the thing that he had wrought 
 To sweet perfection from the insensate clay. 
 
 How could she bear the winter's sudden shock ? 
 
 Would she not crumble in the frosty air, 
 And all her beauty wane, and none believe 
 
 That he had ever fashioned her so fair ? 
 
 It should not be ! and from himself he drew 
 The covering poor, the garments thin and worn, 
 
 And wrapped them close about his goddess bright, 
 Then, naked, waited for the lagging morn. 
 
 It came to find his statue safe and whole, 
 
 And on his couch the sculptor lying dead ; 
 
 Dead, that his work might live when he was cold, 
 With his proud heart supremely comforted. 
 66
 
 A LIFE WELL LOST 
 
 Brave heart ! Who would not gladly freeze and die, 
 If something lovely from his moulding hand 
 
 Might him survive and be a thing of joy 
 Forever in a dull and weary land ?
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 READ ON THE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH 
 
 THOU mighty God, who didst of old 
 The psalmist's wondrous song inspire, 
 
 Our hearts are glad that every age 
 Is touched by thy immortal fire. 
 
 We bless thee for that radiant band 
 Whose voices on our western shore 
 
 Have made a music clear and sweet 
 Which men shall love forevermore. 
 
 Still fresh the grief that fills our hearts 
 For him who lingered on awhile, 
 
 When all the rest had gone, to cheer 
 Our spirits with his happy smile. 
 
 Dear poet of the cheerful heart, 
 
 How can our voices choked with tears 
 
 Lift up aright a song to him 
 
 Whose cycle counts a hundred years ? 
 68
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 He loved the vales, the woods, the streams, 
 The mountains cheered his loftier mind ; 
 
 The winds their summits nurtured found 
 His soul as free and unconfined. 
 
 A deeper joy his song instilled 
 
 For every flower that gems the sod ; 
 
 He looked through Nature's trembling veil, 
 And saw the face of Nature's God. 
 
 Yet more the press of busy men 
 Allured him than the forest's aisle, 
 
 And more the strife with public ill 
 Than ever the blue heaven's smile. 
 
 Wherever right her flag unfurled, 
 And justice showed a better way, 
 
 And truth and freedom spurned the night, 
 And hailed the burnished spears of day, - 
 
 There was his place, and there he made 
 His voice a clarion ringing clear 
 
 To rouse the sleepers, wake the dead, 
 And stay the faint with hope and cheer.
 
 WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 
 
 O thou who in the crowded streets 
 As in the leafy coverts dim 
 
 His song inspired, be thou with us 
 As ever in his day with him, 
 
 That nature's good our hearts may fill 
 With holy peace while still we move 
 
 With tireless feet on duty's quest, 
 
 And do the patient work of love. 
 1894
 
 DEACON HUMPHREYS 
 
 94 YEARS OLD 
 
 THE storm had kept young folks at home ; 
 
 But he was in his place, 
 And bowed to words of prayer and praise 
 
 A grave and reverent face. 
 
 Not all the preacher's talk he heard, 
 
 Nor all the songs we sang ; 
 But not in vain for him that day 
 
 The cheerful summons rang. 
 
 Full softly fell the snow without, 
 
 More softly on his mind 
 A blessing from the many years 
 
 Which he had left behind. 
 
 And whiter than the snow that lay 
 
 On turf and bush and tree, 
 The angel thoughts which in his heart 
 
 Were gathering silently. 
 71
 
 DEACON HUMPHREYS 
 
 The folk who made the company 
 
 Were many more for him 
 Than those who entered at the door, 
 
 But not more vague and dim. 
 
 They were his friends of long ago, 
 
 The loved ones he had lost, 
 The boy who died for country's sake, 
 
 And counted not the cost. 
 
 They were the men with whom he strove, 
 
 The lads with whom he played ; 
 They gathered round, they clasped his hands, 
 
 But he was not afraid. 
 
 They turned no leaf, they made no noise, 
 
 No other knew them there ; 
 But who for him sang sweet as they, 
 
 Or breathed so strong a prayer ? 
 
 The benediction came at last ; 
 
 And homeward through the snow 
 The people went with happy talk 
 
 And laughter sweet and low. 
 72
 
 DEACON HUMPHREYS 
 
 But little spoke the aged man ; 
 
 And what he did let fall 
 Was even as one who dreams a dream, 
 
 And cannot tell it all. 
 
 73
 
 MY FATHER'S QUADRANT 
 
 POOR homesick thing, I fear I do you wrong, 
 Far from the smiting of the eastern seas, 
 
 Here in my city house to hang you up, 
 
 My pride to flatter and mine eyes to please. 
 
 If you were conscious, you would ache and moan 
 Through every fibre of your mystic frame, 
 
 In this dull place to find yourself bestowed, 
 Nor hold me clear of treachery and blame. 
 
 How would you long to find yourself once more 
 Where the great waves go rolling up and down, 
 
 And the loud winds that spur their steaming flanks 
 The sailors buffet and their voices drown ! 
 
 How would you wonder if the honest hand 
 That held you sunward on the heaving main 
 
 Had quite forgot the trick it knew of old, 
 And never so would manage you again ! 
 74
 
 MY FATHER'S QUADRANT 
 
 Yea, verily, it was an honest hand, 
 
 Warm with the beating of an honest heart ; 
 
 Never from stouter did good courage come, 
 Never from truer the good impulse start. 
 
 You were his guide on many a dangerous sea, 
 Through storm and darkness led him safely home 
 
 As you to him, so he shall be to me, 
 Whatever seas I sail or lands I roam. 
 
 So onward sped, I cannot steer amiss, 
 
 Whatever darkness gathers round my way ; 
 
 Let night come down, I set the faithful watch, 
 
 And wait it out until another day. 
 1895 
 
 75
 
 f 
 
 "DEATH AND THE SCULPTOR" 
 
 STRIVING to shape the solemn Sphinx aright, 
 The sculptor works with high impassioned heart. 
 A little longer and his patient art 
 
 Shall triumph. Lo, across his waning light, 
 
 Chilling his fancy with a sudden blight, 
 
 A shadow, and an outstretched hand to part 
 The worker from his work forever ! Start 
 
 Thou not, O man, with miserable fright. 
 
 How much more grand this Presence than thy dream ! 
 What if her touch that seals thy pleading eyes 
 Shall them reopen under larger skies, 
 
 Where all thou here essay'dst in vain shall gleam 
 With rarer beauty, and the Sphinx, soothfast, 
 Shall her own riddle solve for thee at last. 
 1895 
 
 76
 
 THE PRISM 
 
 " Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, 
 Stains the white radiance of eternity." 
 
 SHELLEY, 't is greatly said, and yet I would 
 That thou hadst been a century later born : 
 Then with far less of this majestic scorn 
 
 Hadst thou the mystery of Life withstood ; 
 
 Some clearer vision of its steadfast good 
 Had come to thee in this our brighter morn 
 Of knowledge, and some voice profound to warn 
 
 Thy daring speech. For, lo, if but we could 
 
 Speak simple truth, the dome of Life would be 
 No glass discoloring God's eternal light ; 
 Rather a glorious prism which, as the night 
 
 Makes heaven stars, his white infinity 
 
 Makes warm and tender, and we live impearled 
 With all the sweet perfection of the world. 
 1895 
 
 77
 
 DEDICATION HYMN 
 
 O THOU who art the Builder strong 
 Of earth and seas and heavens high, 
 
 Thy presence fills the boundless world, 
 Thy power and grace are always nigh. 
 
 But still, in many a secret hour, 
 
 And many a calm and sheltered place, 
 
 We clearer seem to hear thy voice, 
 And nearer seems to shine thy face. 
 
 So may we often find it here : 
 No care, or pain, or grief forgot, 
 
 But all remembered as from thee, 
 
 Whose love were less if these were not. 
 
 No pomp of art, nor music's swell 
 
 Be here our best of prayer and praise, 
 
 But hearts that yearn to know thy will, 
 And love that hallows all our ways. 
 78
 
 DEDICATION HYMN 
 
 So shall it be, as forth we fare, 
 
 To ways unknown and tasks untried ; 
 
 Thy perfect peace, surpassing thought, 
 Shall ever in our hearts abide. 
 
 In darkest hours we shall not fear ; 
 
 In death, as life, shall all alarms 
 Grow faint and cease ; for we shall lie 
 
 Safe in thine everlasting arms. 
 
 79
 
 <\- , 
 
 A* 
 
 SUNT LACRIMAE RERUM 
 
 YES, there are tears in things : the blind eyes 
 Of the most ancient hills weep their decay ; 
 The trees their leaves which do not come to stay ; 
 
 The clouds because their empire of the skies 
 
 Is for a little while, then lost ; the dew that lies 
 All night expectant that it must away 
 'Fore the bright face of the long-wished-for day ; 
 
 The lonely stars their banished mysteries. 
 
 But there is also laughter : after days 
 
 Of cheerless rain when the sun shines once more ; 
 
 When Spring returns ; to birds their mating time ; 
 When roses lean together, and the sprays 
 
 Of the tall meadow-rue ; most when the shore 
 
 Hears with pure joy that immemorial chime. 
 
 1895 
 
 80
 
 AN ODE 
 
 READ AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE OF THE 
 MUSEUM OF THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND 
 SCIENCES, DECEMBER 14, 1895 
 
 WHY break we here this precious mould that knew 
 Of old the farmer's honest toil and sweat, 
 
 The sods that once, instead of glistening dew, 
 With ruddy drops from manly hearts were wet ? 
 
 Here curled the smoke of pleasant household fires, 
 Here the full wains went home with harvest cheer, 
 
 And sturdy youth their genial, jovial sires 
 
 Helped heartily through all the changing year. 
 
 Here the hot share of war went rooting up 
 
 The summer grass, the flowers that did no wrong ; 
 
 And History brimmed her immemorial cup 
 
 Once more with wine to quicken deathless song. 
 
 So peace and war their various memories blend 
 To doubly hallow this enchanted ground. 
 
 And, as we hither on our errand tend, 
 
 We hear their voices from the deep profound. 
 81
 
 AN ODE 
 
 Is it for peace or war that we are here, 
 
 To lay this stone from which at length shall spring 
 A temple grand, which shall for many a year 
 
 Remain a beautiful and glorious thing ? 
 
 For peace, indeed ! for here shall breathe around 
 That quiet air, and still, which Milton's heart 
 
 Craved when he would truth's deep abysses sound 
 Or pleasure find in his immortal art. 
 
 Here from the market's fierce and deafening roar 
 And from the daily social noise and fret, 
 
 Beloved city of the island shore, 
 
 Thy sons and daughters, coming, shall forget 
 
 All foolish pleasures and corroding cares, 
 What time the priests of Science shall unroll 
 
 Her mystic page, while Art her splendor bares 
 To flood with rapture the attentive soul. 
 
 How the huge earth was fashioned they shall learn, 
 And hear the singing of the morning stars, 
 
 Through countless ages see man's promise burn, 
 Like the red sun through morning's dusky bars. 
 82
 
 AN ODE 
 
 Here, like the kings the guilty monarch saw, 
 Coming and going, we shall see them, too ; 
 
 And nations rising, falling, by that law 
 
 Which smites the evil, crowns the good and true. 
 
 Poets and painters here with rival powers 
 
 Shall speak, and bid the happy moment stay ; 
 
 And the deft sculptor from the fleeting hours 
 A glory win that cannot pass away. 
 
 For peace or war ? For peace, indeed, and yet 
 For war no less ; so make the omen good 
 
 Of those who once their manly bosoms set, 
 
 Like mountain winds against the bristling wood, 
 
 Nay, as the wood against the rushing storm 
 That trails its vernal beauty in the dust, 
 
 But leaves unspoiled the sinewy limbs, the norm 
 Of freedom's hope and honor's glowing trust. 
 
 War let it be ! The omen hailed with joy ! 
 
 Our foreheads bared to take the mystic sign 
 Which seals us to the battles that destroy 
 
 All spirits dark, all influences malign, 
 83
 
 AN ODE 
 
 That threaten life, that hinder and delay 
 
 Man's fatal hour, when he shall crouch no more, 
 
 But stand erect, and cloudless as the day 
 That floods a continent from shore to shore. 
 
 What do we build ? Behold, an armory 
 
 Is here begun whose gleaming walls shall rise 
 
 Above our civic turmoil's whelming sea, 
 Seen from afar against the ambient skies, 
 
 Within whose spacious halls shall be bestowed 
 All instruments and weapons of that strife 
 
 Of truth with error that has onward flowed, 
 Like a great river through the dateless life 
 
 Of man on earth. These let us take, and smite 
 
 That hoary citadel wherein abide 
 The hosts of darkness, loving still the night, 
 
 When morning's happy gates are open wide. 
 
 We shall have great companions here, the powers 
 Of man's unconquerable and deathless mind, 
 
 The stars that fight for him until the hours 
 Of fear and trembling all are left behind. 
 84
 
 AN ODE 
 
 With such a battle joined, oh, who would stand 
 A useless idler in some safest place? 
 
 Behold, O God, we come at thy command, 
 And we shall see the glory of thy face !
 
 THE TWOFOLD AWE 
 
 " Two things," said he of Konigsberg, 
 Most gravely wise of modern men, 
 " With awe my spirit fill, whene'er 
 
 They break upon my ken : 
 The starry heavens, when they show 
 
 Then* countless hosts in order bright ; 
 The Law within, which teaches me 
 The way of Truth and Right." 
 
 How poor the man who cannot say 
 
 Amen to words so sweet and strong, 
 Whose heart has never known the beat 
 
 Of either mystic song ! 
 Has never felt abashed and stilled 
 
 By starry splendors, cool and far ; 
 Nor, when the inward silence thrilled, 
 
 How weak and strong we are ! 
 
 But, oh, that each might win the grace 
 To hold the twofold awe as one ; 
 86
 
 THE TWOFOLD AWE 
 
 To blend the inward voice with that 
 Which speaks in star and sun ; 
 
 From shining orbs that never swerve 
 Upon their high and glorious way, 
 
 To seize the strength by which we might 
 That law within obey ! 
 
 Then would our lives as bravely shine 
 
 As ever pomp of clearest night ; 
 For suns and moons and stars are pale 
 
 To Love and Truth and Right. 
 And then on whom in darkness sit 
 
 Should gladsome light arise and shine ; 
 And in our glory men should walk, 
 
 And conquer by our sign. 
 1895
 
 "LIKE A LAMB" 
 
 So March comes in ! And the whole visible world 
 With his white fleeces is most wonderful. 
 
 And so the lovely image is made good 
 
 Of one who said, " He giveth snow like wool." 
 1896
 
 THE WAY OF LIFE 
 
 Of all peculiarly beautiful things in Japan, the most beautiful are 
 the approaches to high places of worship or of rest, the Ways that go 
 to Nowhere and the Steps that lead to Nothing. LAFCADIO HEARN. 
 
 A THOUGHT is here, O spirits that deny, 
 
 To cheer us when your doleful prophecy 
 Of Nothingness and Nowhere breathes its sigh 
 
 Upon our hearts. For evqn if so it be, 
 And Death ends all, how beautiful the Way 
 
 That leads us thither, lit with suns and stars, 
 Bright with the seasons' magical array, 
 
 The morning's and the evening's cloudy bars, 
 The birds and poets singing as we go 
 
 From east to west across the pleasant land ; 
 The clouds, majestic, moving to and fro, 
 
 And dear companions always close at hand 
 Heart-full of love ! So rich, O God, the store 
 Of perfect things, how dare we ask for more ? 
 1896 
 
 89
 
 TOWARD THE UNKNOWN 
 
 All look gloomy when we are bearing south, or too much to the 
 west, and all are beaming with joy when we are drifting to the north- 
 ward, the farther the better. NANSEN, Farthest North. 
 
 So it is written in brave Nansen's story 
 Of the good Fram, and all the fame and glory 
 Of those stout hearts who further northward bore 
 Than any ship had ever been before. 
 
 For them the vast unknown had naught of fear ; 
 They yearned for it as for a mother dear 
 The homesick children absent from her side ; 
 As yearns the bridegroom for the tarrying bride. 
 
 They knew how many hitherward had come, 
 Nor seen again the pleasant things of home ; 
 Nor sent one word of aught that they had found 
 In any dim, enchanted sea or ground. 
 
 Yet still from out the unknown world there came 
 Voices that seemed to call them each by name ; 
 Voices of bergs that grind and seas that roll, 
 Tempting and spurning man's imperial soul. 
 90
 
 TOWARD THE UNKNOWN 
 
 Would that it might be so with us who keep 
 Our fateful course o'er life's unmeasured deep ; 
 That we, as cheerly, might that mystery hail, 
 Which is the port of every captain's sail. 
 
 What though no soul has ever yet returned 
 With news of those for whom our hearts have yearned 
 These many years ! Who would not wish to go 
 Where they have gone, what they have learned to know ? 
 
 No fear ! That great unknown toward which we move 
 Is the wide sea of God's eternal love. 
 No ice-bound beauteous desolation there ; 
 But life, more life who would not onward fare ? 
 1896
 
 A PALINODE 
 
 GREAT Death, my thought has often done thee wrong, 
 Remembering with what stern and ruthless hand 
 Thou hast struck down some of that sacred band 
 Whom I had loved full tenderly and long, 
 Some, too, whose lives were as a perfect song 
 Of peace and comfort on this strip of sand 
 'Twixt the two seas, as if my heart to brand 
 With all thy terrors. But albeit strong 
 In agonies, yet thou canst be, I know, 
 As gentle in thy coming as the snow 
 Which falleth without wind ; and thou wast so 
 With my lost saint ; wherefore henceforth thy face 
 Shall wear for me a new and tender grace, 
 In grateful memory of that kind embrace. 
 1896 
 
 92
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 GEN. JOHN B. WOODWARD 
 Given under the auspices of the Brooklyn Institute 
 
 How short the time since winter's ice and snow 
 Fettered the streams and made the pastures white ! 
 
 But sudden all is changed, the spring, so slow 
 To come, is here, a wonder and delight. 
 
 Naught can withstand her beauty, for her tide 
 
 Swells like a sea, until it takes in fee 
 Our city streets, and their poor sods abide 
 
 Content that she has touched them graciously. 
 
 And yet, somehow, it does not seem the same 
 As other springtimes we have known ere this ; 
 
 Duller the light of its ethereal flame, 
 
 Less warm its smile, less rapturous its kiss. 
 
 Something is missing from the joyful scene, 
 
 And the soft air for something seems to grieve ; 
 
 Some blessed thing is not as it has been 
 Nor any skill have we that can retrieve 
 93
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 Our bitter loss ; for one has gone away 
 Not to return, who was the light and joy 
 
 Of many hearts, their comfort and their stay. 
 Safe from all earthly trouble and annoy 
 
 Is he, henceforth, and it is well with him. 
 
 We may not doubt the goodness infinite 
 Which so decrees, yet must our hearts o'erbrim 
 
 With some fond tears, not idle nor unfit. 
 
 For he was made in such an ample mould, 
 On such a full and large and liberal plan, 
 
 That Shakespeare's self, rejoicing to behold 
 His goodly frame, had said, This is a man ! 
 
 And all men loved his sturdy soldier strength, 
 His honest, bluff, and hearty soldier ways, 
 
 His Saxon speech, which was not prone to length, 
 As if on earth we had a million days. 
 
 Simple and plain he was in everything, 
 As though, a stranger to our languid race, 
 
 He came to make our ways with laughter ring 
 
 And cheer us with the sunlight in his face. 
 
 94
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 And yet, though strong, he was most gentle, too ; 
 
 His was the kindly heart, the liberal hand ; 
 Let there be need of service, tender, true, 
 
 None readier than he in all the land. 
 
 Had duty called, he would have gone with joy 
 To meet his death where battle was aligned, 
 
 And yet the things that make for peace employ 
 More welcome gave his quiet, steadfast mind. 
 
 He loved the painter's art, the statue's grace, 
 All lovely things that make our mortal life 
 
 More worthy of the genial hopes we trace 
 In hearts that weary of its endless strife. 
 
 He loved our civic honor as his own ; 
 
 He would have had it like a beacon flare 
 On some great headland, and its splendor thrown 
 
 Wide o'er that sea where honest men despair, 
 
 And cry, How ever bring the Ship of State, 
 Beset by pirates, with a pirate crew, 
 
 Safe into port ? And some unto her fate 
 
 Would leave her, mourning, Nothing can we do. 
 95
 
 MEMORIAL VERSES 
 
 But our good John, so stout and big of heart, 
 Let who would doubt the end, so would not he ; 
 
 And something of his courage could impart 
 To those whose hearts were failing utterly. 
 
 Thank God that we have known this manly man ; 
 
 That we could call him ours ; that he has stood 
 High-towering, firm among us as the oak 
 
 That overtops his brothers of the wood ! 
 
 In bronze or marble shape him as we may, 
 That men unborn may on his visage gaze, 
 
 He will not chide the wreath we bring to-day, 
 
 For love is better than immortal bays. 
 1896 
 
 96
 
 THE MAKING OF MEN 
 
 As the insect from the rock 
 
 Takes the color of its wing ; 
 As the boulder from the shock 
 
 Of the ocean's rhythmic swing 
 Makes itself a perfect form, 
 
 Learns a calmer front to raise ; 
 As the shell, enameled warm 
 
 With the prism's mystic rays, 
 Praises wind and wave that make 
 
 All its chambers fair and strong ; 
 As the -mighty poets take 
 
 Grief and pain to build their song ; 
 Even so for every soul, 
 
 Whatsoe'er its lot may be 
 Building, as the heavens roll, 
 
 Something large and strong and free 
 Things that hurt and things that mar 
 
 Shape the man for perfect praise ; 
 Shock and strain and ruin are 
 
 Friendlier than the smiling days. 
 1896 
 
 97
 
 IN EXTREMITY 
 
 COME, science, do thy worst or even best ; 
 
 Come, patient critic, with thy searching doubt 
 From scripture wonder pluck the warrant out ; 
 
 And every hope that harbors in the breast 
 
 Be of all right and title dispossessed, 
 'Till, where heaven was, the dark shall rim about 
 A greater darkness, and the fool shall flout 
 
 All thought or dream of the immortal rest. 
 
 But thou, my Shakespeare, hast not tasted death : 
 God were not good if thou hadst failed to know 
 What joy and blessing from thy spirit flow 
 For all men drawing glad or painful breath. 
 And where thou art all human life must be, 
 Heart of thy heart, through all eternity. 
 1896 
 
 98
 
 CONCIO AD CLERUM 
 
 READ AT THE MINISTERS' LUNCH IN NEW YORK CITY 
 
 MANY a poet has sung ere now 
 
 Of the song he hoped to sing, 
 But never had quite found the music right 
 
 That was there in the quivering string. 
 Forever lovely and strong and sweet, 
 
 It was there just back of his tongue ; 
 But never the word, like a joyous bird, 
 
 Its heart on the breeze had flung. 
 
 Now we that preach as the others sing, 
 
 We know how it is ourselves : 
 We have sermons galore, a fearful store, 
 
 Packed up on the handy shelves ; 
 But where is the sermon we fain would preach, 
 
 Have followed for many a year, 
 And yet, somehow, to our cleaving prow 
 
 It is never a whit more near ? 
 99
 
 CONCIO AD CLERUM 
 
 There are days when we think it will surely come, 
 
 There are nights when the dark is bright 
 With the trail of its hem, like a priceless gem, 
 
 And we wake with a happy fright 
 To find it has vanished, already far 
 
 On the track it has held so long, 
 Away and away where it will not stay 
 
 Any more than the flying song. 
 
 Now you that love the preacher's work 
 
 As much as the poet his, 
 Come, tell me true what you would do 
 
 For to touch this height of bliss ? 
 I know : you would wrestle and sweat and pray, 
 
 Like Jacob, the livelong night, 
 If at break of day it would come to stay, 
 
 The sermon you fain would write. 
 
 And when it came, O God, to think 
 
 What a sermon it would be ! 
 It would be as high as the starry sky 
 
 And as deep as the deep, deep sea ; 
 It would stir the heart of the youth and maid 
 
 With a strange and a sweet unrest, 
 100'
 
 CONCIO AD CLERUM 
 
 And their souls would yearn for a glad return 
 To the things they know are best. 
 
 And the sinner there in his cosy pew, 
 
 As snug as a man could be, 
 Should sudden feel, like a stroke of steel, 
 
 The truth that would make him free, 
 If he would but heed ; and the aching heart, 
 
 So weary under its load, 
 Would laugh and sing like a crazy thing, 
 
 For joy of the painful road. 
 
 And the Sunday paper should be accurst, 
 
 And the women forget their whist, 
 And the children's play for that one day 
 
 Be never a moment missed. 
 It would be for all such a goodly time 
 
 As the stars in their courses know 
 When they all are* out with a joyous shout, 
 
 And the earth lies still below. 
 
 But it will not come, it will not come, 
 
 The sermon we fain would write. 
 It is evermore just on before, 
 101
 
 CONCIO AD CLERUM 
 
 If it is n't way out of sight ; 
 But better so than to smiling go 
 
 In the way by the foolish trod ; 
 Let us do our best with a manly zest, 
 
 And leave the rest to God. 
 1896 
 
 102
 
 THE NEW SCIENCE 
 
 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? JOB 
 xxxviii, 4. 
 
 THAT was in the later dawn : 
 
 Then I was where now I am, 
 In thy bosom ; there before 
 
 Time's first planet proudly swam 
 Into space, and back of then, 
 
 In the darkness thick and long, 
 Closer was I knit with thee 
 
 Than the music with the song. 
 
 Strange my fortunes since have been, 
 
 Bathed in fire, in floods congealed, 
 In the nebulous mass aglow, 
 
 In the ardent planet wheeled ; 
 From the shapeless, slow but sure, 
 
 Taking shapes with beauty rife ; 
 From the senseless clod at length 
 
 Plucking out the heart of life. 
 
 Upward, onward, striving still 
 Through the elemental forms ; 
 103
 
 THE NEW SCIENCE 
 
 Cradled in the monster trees, 
 
 Rocked by earthquakes, nursed by storms ; 
 Out of weakness growing strong, 
 
 Working still the heavenly plan, 
 Learning what the beast must do, 
 
 Ere he find himself a man. 
 
 From the plant that useless grows, 
 
 Making corn for daily bread ; 
 From the fear of stock and stone, 
 
 Homeward to the Father led ; 
 Those with whom in ages gone 
 
 Red of hand I hotly strove, 
 Taking to a brother's arms 
 
 With the awful might of love. 
 
 Never severed from thy heart, 
 
 Never parted from thy side, 
 Still as in the later dawn 
 
 In thy bosom I abide ; 
 Still as in the early dark, 
 
 Ere the worlds began to be, 
 Thou, my God, and I are one, 
 
 Thou in me and I in thee. 
 1897 
 
 104
 
 TO E. E. HALE 
 
 ON HIS 7$TH BIRTHDAY ANNIVERSARY 
 
 LABOR and sorrow, such the Psalmist found 
 
 Is theirs who pass beyond the allotted bound. 
 And thou, in truth, hast made the promise good, 
 
 Encountering sorrow in a mighty flood, 
 But working on, so getting heart to bear 
 
 The sorrow bravely, and right onward fare. 
 Since sorrow must be, God be thanked, old friend, 
 
 For work, hard work, until the happy end ! 
 1897 
 
 105
 
 "THE DEEP THAT LIETH UNDER" 
 
 OFT have we heard that in those regions where 
 The coast-wise mountains plunge so far below 
 The sea as, from its level, up they go 
 
 Towards heaven's height, the placid waters there 
 
 Are so translucent that, for those who fare 
 Across them, all the things that strow 
 The deep sea's floor, appalling, gloom and glow, 
 
 Frighting the eyes that on that vision stare. 
 
 Alas, we need not go abroad to see 
 
 Such awful things ! Each heart its soundless deep 
 Knoweth full well, and moments when are shown 
 
 In startling light its utmost mystery ; 
 
 Yea, all the secrets which its caverns keep, 
 
 And wrecks which Love moans with perpetual moan. 
 
 106
 
 GIVEN IN MARRIAGE 
 
 M. H. C. 
 
 YES, she is gone ! The blessed words are said 
 
 That make her of another's life a part, 
 
 And the deep vows are spoken, heart to heart 
 Responding, and my little girl is wed 
 To her true mate, and, homeward, music-led, 
 
 Her feet have come ; and we have seen her start 
 
 Forth and away, so glad, while we the smart 
 Of tears have known in lonely silence shed. 
 The frolic laughter ceases and the fun 
 
 Of the bright company of happy friends. 
 
 Thinking kind thoughts of her, each homeward wends 
 His way, and all the pretty pageantry is done. 
 
 God has her in his keeping : Yes, but I 
 
 Can only think of her first infant cry. 
 October 26, 1898 
 
 107
 
 FULL CYCLE 
 
 SPAIN drew us proudly from the womb of night, 
 A lusty man-child of the Western wave, 
 
 Who now, full-grown, smites the old mid-wife down, 
 And thrusts her deep in a dishonored grave. 
 
 108
 
 PREPARED 
 
 OFT have I wondered at the fearless heart 
 With which strong men and tender women go 
 To meet great Death ; but now I seem to know 
 The secret of their courage. *T is a part 
 Of their whole life, the end of all thou art, 
 O Nature, to their souls. The steady flow 
 Of time is ceaseless ; thick thy hand doth sow 
 The void with stars, while from earth's bosom start 
 The lovely flowers, and there are trees and streams 
 And women's faces and love's mystery. 
 And all these things are influences that give 
 The needed lesson. They are all foregleams 
 Of the one strangeness and the last. How be 
 Of Death afraid when we have dared to live ? 
 
 109
 
 ANTI-CLIMAX 
 
 IT is magnificent, a city's pride, 
 
 This giant stairway built with lavish art 
 Of gleaming marble quarried from the heart 
 
 Of earth's best store ; and upon either side 
 
 Are lions couchant, glorious beasts that bide, 
 Or seem to bide, their time. Stand here apart, 
 And question reverently if there could start 
 
 From earth to heaven a way more beautiful. 
 
 Leading to what ? Behold the builder's sin ! 
 
 A painted wall with little holes therein 
 
 A new grave's width and length ; and this the end 
 To which the beauty and the splendor tend ! 
 
 And if the stairway we call life were such 
 
 Nor man nor God could ever deem it much. 
 
 no
 
 SURSUM CORDA! 
 
 LIFT up your hearts, young men and maidens sweet ! 
 
 Your hearts lift up, you in your perfect prime, 
 And you whose eyes with gathering dimness greet 
 
 Dear, faithful comrades of the elder time ! 
 Lift up your hearts in hope and happy cheer 
 For that great future which is drawing near ! 
 
 It cannot be, it must not, shall not be 
 
 That this dear land, won at such awful cost 
 
 For Freedom's seat, men yet unborn shall see 
 To all great things ingloriously lost. 
 
 Our God shall keep the promise he has made 
 
 To those great hearts which on his law were stayed. 
 
 Not without us, O God, that promise be 
 
 Kept for our children, and their children's peace ! 
 Take us, and mould us to thy high decree ! 
 
 Through us thine honor and thy love increase ! 
 Not without us thy triumph shall be won : 
 Thy will, O God, thy will and ours, be done 1 
 1898 
 
 in
 
 THE DANCING LIGHTS 
 
 FROM out the country spaces cool and clear 
 We flash into the maze of city streets. 
 
 What pageant this that straightway doth appear ? 
 What land of faery that our vision greets ? 
 
 A feast of lights ! And as we roll along, 
 As if each one some lovely dancer held, 
 
 They interweave as to some choric song 
 Which from the dark mysteriously welled ; 
 
 To whose soft tune the dancers round and round 
 Move hi a rapture tremulous and intense, 
 
 With languorous paces that make faintest sound 
 And ever duller and more drowsy sense. 
 
 The dancing lights ! Too lingeringly I gazed 
 On their warm motions, till as one who reels 
 
 When by some beauteous, blinding vision dazed, 
 And then, back to himself returning, feels 
 
 112
 
 THE DANCING LIGHTS 
 
 Right glad of heart so, then, it was with me 
 As, looking up, I saw the heaven's calm 
 
 Shedding the light of stars so silently 
 
 That on my heart that stillness fell like balm. 
 
 Far off and cool, each in his perfect sphere 
 Held, as if motionless, his awful way ; 
 
 Star unto star discoursing crystal clear, 
 As when they sang creation's primal lay. 
 
 Ah me ! I would that when the dancing lights 
 Of wayward passion seek my soul to sway 
 
 With their wild motion, from those meaner sights 
 I might be strong to turn my eyes away 
 
 To where th' eternal stars so purely shine 
 Truth, Beauty, Good and by that vision blest, 
 
 Lifting my heart to make its clearness mine, 
 
 Taste then, earth-bound, the everlasting rest. 
 1899
 
 f 
 
 A GOOD PHYSICIAN 
 
 Calvin Briggs, who practiced medicine in Marblehead, Mass., for many 
 years ; during, I think, his whole professional life. He was the son of 
 Rev. James Briggs, of Cummington, Mass., who was next neighbor to 
 the poet Bryant's father, and who was the " aged man upon his bier " 
 of Bryant's beautiful poem, " The Old Man's Funeral." His severe and 
 yet effective skill cured me of a congenital blindness of such a nature 
 that I am assured by a distinguished ophthalmologist of having had 
 a very narrow escape. 
 
 His name was Calvin, and like his namesake, 
 The famous John, who in Geneva taught, 
 He dealt in brimstone freely, and he wrought 
 
 With many drugs that were not nice to take. 
 
 A stern old man, yet doth his name awake 
 
 Thoughts in my breast that are forever fraught 
 With gratefulness. He such a blessing brought 
 
 Upon my life that simply for his sake 
 
 All good physicians are more dear to me : 
 He gave me eyes when but for him I might 
 Have lived half dead in a perpetual night ; 
 
 Have read no book, have seen no flower or tree, 
 And missed, O God ! forever that one face 
 Which is my best assurance of thy grace. 
 1899 
 
 114
 
 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 
 
 TAKE up the black man's burden ! 
 
 Not his across the seas, 
 But his who grows your cotton, 
 
 And sets your heart at ease, 
 When to the sodden rice fields 
 
 Your children dare not go, 
 Nor brave the heat that singes like 
 
 The foundry's fiery glow. 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 
 He helped to share your own 
 On many a scene by battle-clouds 
 
 Portentously o'erblown ; 
 On Wagner's awful parapet, 
 
 As late where Shatter's plan 
 Was for the boys to take the lead, 
 
 He showed himself a man. 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 
 'T is heavy with the weight 
 Of old ancestral taint, the curse 
 
 Of new-engendered hate ;
 
 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 
 
 The scorn of those who throw to him 
 Their table's meanest crust 
 
 Children of those who made him serve 
 Their idleness and lust. 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 
 When you were out for votes, 
 His geese they all were swans to you, 
 
 And sheep were all his goats. 
 T was " Pompey this " and " Pompey that,' 
 
 And " Pompey, bless your heart ! " 
 But it 's " Devil take you, Pompey ! " now 
 
 You play the lion's part. 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 
 If you have got a brief 
 For all the suffering of the earth, 
 
 To give them swift relief ; 
 Don't let the millions here at home, 
 
 Whose bonds you struck away, 
 Learn from your heedlessness to cry, 
 
 " Give back the evil day I " 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 O black men, unto you 
 116
 
 THE BLACK MAN'S BURDEN 
 
 The summons is, when those forget 
 Who should be kind and true ! 
 
 Put not your trust in such as boast 
 Straight hair and paler skin ; 
 
 Their duty calls them otherwhere. 
 Fight your own fight and win. 
 
 Take up the black man's burden ! 
 
 Poor patient folk and tame 
 The heritage of cursing, 
 
 Of foolishness and blame. 
 Your task the task of earning, 
 
 By many an evil pressed, 
 Warm, touched with human pity, 
 
 The friendship of the best. 
 
 February 21, 1899 
 
 II/
 
 THE NEW HUMANITY 
 
 (Suggested by the Congressional proposal to deport the Chinese from 
 Hawaii as " unlawfully in the United States.") 
 
 " An' whose free latch-string never was drawed in 
 Against the poorest child of Adam's kin." 
 
 So Lowell sang, but now it is not true : 
 
 Long since we drew the shortened latch-string in 
 
 From men of Asia guilty of no sin 
 But willingness for little much to do. 
 Yet many found asylum 'mid the blue 
 
 Of Western seas till we, with hellish din, 
 
 Making for Asia, their last refuge win 
 For our dear country. Now, alas ! they rue 
 The stars and stripes above it. Stripes alone, 
 
 Poor yellow-skins, for you, who, being annexed 
 
 To Freedom's heritage, are sore perplexed 
 To find you must get out again move on. 
 
 " But your free lath-string ! " Never name it more ; 
 
 Stolen your hut, we kick you from the door. 
 1899 
 
 118
 
 THE KISS OF GOD 
 
 WHEN the great leader's task was done, 
 He stood on Pisgah's height, 
 
 And saw, far off, the westering sun 
 Drop down into the night ; 
 
 Saw, too, the land in which, alas ! 
 
 He might not hope to dwell 
 Spread fairly out ; and then for so 
 
 Talmudic legends tell 
 
 Jehovah touched him, and he slept ; 
 
 And smooth the mountain sod 
 Was leveled o'er him, and 't was writ, 
 
 " Died by the kiss of God." 
 
 The kiss of God ! We talk of death 
 
 In many learned ways, 
 We know so much ; which of them all 
 
 So simple in its praise 
 119
 
 THE KISS OF GOD 
 
 As this which from the oldest days 
 Has treasured been apart, 
 
 To comfort in this heel of time 
 The mourner's aching heart ? 
 
 We walk our bright or desert road, 
 And, when we reach the end, 
 
 Bends over us with gentle face 
 The Universal Friend. 
 
 Upon our lips his own are laid ; 
 
 We do not strive nor cry. 
 The kiss of God ! Upon that kiss 
 
 It is not hard to die. 
 1899 
 
 1 20
 
 THE JOLLY CARPENTERS 
 
 MY Uncle Tom and Uncle Joe 
 
 Were carpenters, and I 
 Was always happy in their shop, 
 
 A-seein' of 'em ply 
 
 Their honest craft ; and then I liked 
 
 The very smell of wood, 
 When it was bein' saw'd and plan'd, 
 
 And still it does me good. 
 
 And, as they work'd and work'd, there used 
 
 From cither's bench to fall 
 Shavings so pretty that I thought 
 
 They 'd want to keep them all. 
 
 But no ! They did n't care for them ; 
 
 And, when I stammered, " Can't 
 I have just two or three of them ? " 
 
 They said, "Take all you want." 
 
 121
 
 THE JOLLY CARPENTERS 
 
 My Uncle Tom and Uncle Joe 
 Made various kinds of things, 
 
 Houses and cradles ; but the best 
 Were just these lovely rings 
 
 Of spruce and hemlock, oft'ner pine, 
 Which now and then the girls 
 
 Would twist into their golden hair 
 And play that they were curls. 
 
 It seems to me that somehow so 
 
 It is with all of us : 
 We work and work, and there are things, 
 
 'Bout which we make no fuss, 
 
 Which, like the shavings crisp and clean, 
 
 That so unheeded fall, 
 Are quite the nicest and the best 
 
 And sweetest things of all. 
 
 But if we did n't do our work 
 In some right manful way, 
 Where 'd be the accidental stuff 
 
 For other people's play ? 
 1899 
 
 122
 
 AN AUTUMN SONG 
 
 COMES the pleasant autumn time, 
 And the leaves are getting brown ; 
 
 Loosened from their summer hold, 
 They are softly wavering down. 
 
 What a carpet warm and bright 
 Make they in the sheltered ways ! 
 
 What a splendor on the hills, 
 Filling many hearts with praise ! 
 
 Countless as the upper stars, 
 
 Asters glorify the sod, 
 And the gentian, crisp and cool, 
 
 Lifts its slender cup to God. 
 
 Homeward from his ripened field 
 Goes the farmer's loaded wain, 
 
 Ruddy with the orchard's yield, 
 Yellow with the golden grain. 
 123
 
 AN AUTUMN SONG 
 
 Oh, the bounty flowing free ! 
 
 Oh, the beauty sweet and rare ! 
 Let the nations curse and kill : 
 
 Nature, thou art good and fair. 
 1899 
 
 124
 
 TO MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE 
 
 AT THE DINNER OF THE UNITARIAN CLUB, NEW YORK, 
 APRIL 18, 1900 
 
 You sang for us a glorious marching song 
 When the great Union tottered and it seemed 
 That all we best had loved or hoped or dreamed 
 
 Was fatal loss. And, lo, how swift along 
 
 The serried ranks grew manifold and strong 
 The echoes till, at last, there faintly gleamed 
 A ray of hope, and ever higher streamed 
 
 The starry flag, while paled the ancient wrong ! 
 
 Much have you done since then to win our love, 
 Pleading the cause of full-orbed womanhood, 
 Servant of all things fair and kind and good. 
 
 Now ere you leave us, may that sacred dove, 
 
 Whose name is peace, come back to cheer your heart, 
 And nevermore from you, or us, depart. 
 
 125
 
 HYMN 
 
 WRITTEN FOR THE SEVENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
 THE AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION 
 
 A GOODLY tree our fathers planted here, 
 
 Their faithful hearts commingling hopes and fears. 
 
 How brave to us doth now its strength appear, 
 Ringed with the growth of five-and-seventy years ! 
 
 Its tonic leaves have for our healing been, 
 We have been grateful for its pleasant shade ; 
 
 And cheerful songs from out its glimmering sheen 
 Have for our hearts a pleasant music made. 
 
 Many the days of sunshine it has known, 
 Many the storms which have its vigor tried. 
 
 Through storm and sunshine it has sturdier grown, 
 And flung its branches wider and more wide. 
 
 Sweet has its fruitage been for fainting men 
 Whose souls were hungry for the living bread, 
 
 Eating whereof and taking heart again, 
 
 Upon God's errands swift their feet have sped. 
 126
 
 HYMN 
 
 Long may its strength endure, its span increase, 
 Its blossom laugh, its fruit be large and fair ; 
 
 Deep in its heart be heard the song of peace, 
 And heaven bathe it with its purest air ! 
 
 May 25, 1900. 
 
 127
 
 PHILLIPS BROOKS 
 
 AFTER READING HIS LIFE BY A. V. G. ALLEN 
 
 HERE was a man cast in such generous mould 
 
 Of body, brain, and conscience, heart and soul, 
 That if till now we never had been told 
 
 Of an eternal life and perfect goal 
 Beyond the verge of this our mortal space, 
 
 Straightway of such we should conceive, and dare 
 Believe it builded in God's boundless grace 
 
 After this man's great fashion, high and fair. 
 
 We could not make him dead ; and if for him 
 That fuller life were stablished and secure, 
 
 Then for all souls, however fallen, and dim 
 With soil and stain, it could not be less sure ; 
 
 For he no joy in heaven's height could find 
 
 Save as he shared it with all humankind. 
 1901. 
 
 128
 
 DIVINE SERVICE 
 
 " I was in the Spryte on a Sondaye." 
 
 Old Translation : Rev. i, 10. 
 
 SERVICE divine ! Such didst thou render me, 
 Thou blessed God, so bountiful and free, 
 That of my hap I in good sooth could say, 
 " I was in the Spryte on a Sondaye." 
 
 Gently the church-bell smote the morning air, 
 Sweetly inviting me to praise and prayer. 
 I heeded not ; in quite another way 
 I was in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 
 Quiet, demure, my neighbors went along. 
 " Too few," I mourned, " the heavenly-minded throng ! " 
 Yet, loving theirs, I went another way, 
 To be in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 
 Blue, deepest blue, the sky's immensity, 
 Where white cloud-galleons floated proud and free. 
 Great wealth, I trow, in their deep bosoms lay 
 For me in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 129
 
 DIVINE SERVICE 
 
 Sometimes there came a happy bird, whose note 
 Tasked the full measure of his tiny throat, 
 As if he did his very best to say, 
 1 We 're both in the Spryte on a Sondaye." 
 
 The grass-heads nodded gently to and fro 
 
 In the soft wind that did a-wooing go 
 
 With the tall trees ; I smelt the new-mown hay ; 
 
 I was in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 
 God served me, too, with many lovely flowers, 
 All fresher from the early morning showers ; 
 So pure, so sweet, so bright and fine and gay, 
 As if all in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 
 Queer little noises stiller made the air ; 
 Small-creature life seemed stirring everywhere ; 
 And every speck seemed to have its own way 
 To be in the Spryte on a Sondaye. 
 
 Sweetest of all, my daughter's little child, 
 New-born each day from heavens undefiled, 
 Played round about. What could I do but pray 
 For a Spryte like hers on a Sondaye ? 
 130
 
 DIVINE SERVICE 
 
 Homeward the church-folk came, subdued and slow, 
 And seemed to chide me. But they did not know 
 What service mine ; how truly I could say, 
 ; I was in the Spryte on a Sondaye." 
 CHESTERFIELD, MASS., 1901 
 
 131
 
 THE CHILDREN'S MISSION 
 
 WHY are the little children sent ? 
 
 Who better answer can impart 
 Than his who took them in his arms, 
 
 And held them to his heart ? 
 
 He said it was that we might see 
 God's kingdom in their faces shine, 
 
 And in their humbleness discern 
 How men may be divine. 
 
 Help us, O God, our Father kind, 
 To heed the lesson sweet and mild : 
 
 The image of thy heaven to see 
 In every little child. 
 
 And where that heaven is dimmed with tears, 
 
 Or soiled with earthly dust and stain, 
 Help us to dry the tears and make 
 
 All pure and bright again. 
 1901 
 
 132
 
 A DRIFT-WOOD PAPER-CUTTER 
 
 N. W. H. 
 
 How strange that that which clove the sea 
 And with its vast concussion shook, 
 
 Should fare this Christmas time to me, 
 To cut the pages of a book. 
 
 Part of some good ship's stern or keel 
 Or deck, or knees, or sheathing strong, 
 
 It felt the wild waves monstrous leap, 
 It heard the thunder of their song. 
 
 How dull and tame henceforth its fate ! 
 
 Upon a student's desk to lie, 
 Where, for the ships of old, sedate 
 
 And laboring thoughts go by. 
 
 But hold ! a wiser whim occurs : 
 My books are deeper than the sea ; 
 
 In them a wilder motion stirs 
 Than in that blue immensity. 
 
 133
 
 A DRIFT-WOOD PAPER-CUTTER 
 
 Then why should this your gift deplore 
 The lot your love to it assigns ; 
 
 As if its ventures all were o'er, 
 In stagnant waters cast its lines ? 
 
 Ventures more bold than e'er till now 
 Have made its inmost fibre thrill, 
 
 Await the cleaving of its prow, 
 As it shall go where'er I will. 
 
 A vaster sea it shall career 
 
 Than Colon's dauntless spirit trod, 
 
 And haply it may bring me cheer 
 
 From strange new continents of God. 
 1901 
 
 134
 
 AN AUTUMN FIELD 
 
 How rich and full in June's all-perfectness 
 Was the lush grass which in this ample field 
 Grew riotously glad ! How prodigal the yield 
 
 Of every flower whose absence had made less 
 
 The bounteous whole ! Now, where that sweet excess 
 Abounded, to itself has bareness sealed 
 The thriftless sods : reft, as a glorious shield 
 
 Of all its wrought and painted loveliness. 
 
 Yet not quite all, for here and there, behold, 
 
 A flower, like those which made the summer sweet, 
 
 Puts forth some meagre tint of red or gold, 
 
 To make the barrenness seem more complete ! 
 
 Such overflow of life, such wealth of bliss ; 
 
 Now, for remembrance and endurance this ! 
 
 1902 
 
 135
 
 HORATIO STEBBINS 
 
 ON the same day, thine by the Western sea, 
 Mine where the Eastern rolls its music in, 
 Our work began, the continent between 
 
 Our sundered ways. Thwart that immensity, 
 
 When doubt and fear had well-nigh mastered me, 
 How often has thy cheery message been 
 A trumpet calling me to rise and win 
 
 O'er foes abject triumphant victory ! 
 
 The Eastern and the Western ocean make 
 One music. Even so thy heart and mine 
 Have beat accordant. Silent now is thine ; 
 
 Yet still from thy great spirit I will take 
 Fresh courage daily, conquer by thy sign, 
 
 Be something braver, better, for thy sake. 
 
 April, 1902 
 
 136
 
 EDWARD EVERETT HALE 
 
 A MAN without a country ! Why, indeed, 
 But that all countries underneath the sun 
 
 Call him their own ? Yet, loved so much by all, 
 Best is he loved by that most happy one 
 
 Which, while rejoicing that it gave him birth, 
 
 Hears the "All Hail ! " which circles round the earth, 
 
 With grateful heart, to every sister land, 
 " In His Name," offering a " Helping Hand." 
 
 April 3, 1902 
 
 137
 
 LULLABY 
 
 Day is ending ; night is falling ; 
 
 From the Land of Drowsihead, 
 Don't you hear the Sand-Man calling, 
 " Children all should be abed " ? 
 
 Go to sleep ! Go to sleep ! 
 
 Not for all his golden treasure 
 Will he sell the wicked King 
 
 Sleepy-sand the smallest measure, 
 Nor for any precious thing. 
 
 Go to sleep ! Go to sleep ! 
 
 Best he loves the poor man's dwelling, 
 Tire and ache the surest plea 
 
 For the gift beyond all telling 
 Sweet to men on land and sea. 
 
 Go to sleep ! Go to sleep ! 
 
 Bless him for his magic fetter ! 
 
 Now, my sweet, he comes to you. 
 Eyes wide open ? All the better 1 
 
 He will know just what to do. 
 
 Go to sleep ! Go to sleep 1 
 1902 
 
 138
 
 THE BLACK SNOW-CLOUD 
 
 Who would have thought such whiteness lay concealed 
 
 Within the bosom of so black a pall ? 
 Who, that such strange white peace the cloud could yield 
 
 When death's black moment overshadows all ? 
 
 January 6, 1903 
 
 139
 
 JEWEL-WEED 
 
 DAINTY enough to grace a lady's ear, 
 
 Thousands of blossoms swaying to and fro 
 In the light wind, and countless butterflies 
 
 In the bright sunshine softly come and go 
 On honey bent. The flowers are orange-hued, 
 
 And orange-hued the feasters on their sweets. 
 So like the two that pretty doubts intrude 
 
 Anent this wonder that my vision greets. 
 For half I deem the flowers are butterflies 
 
 That on the flowerless stalks have come to stay, 
 And half, or more, that the bright butterflies 
 
 Are blossoms that the wind has blown away. 
 1903 
 
 140
 
 SHERMAN HOAR 
 
 OTHERS he saved ; himself he could not save : 
 So ran of old the taunt of those who saw 
 The Son of Mary perish by their law. 
 
 Here was a man who, like that great one, gave 
 
 His life for others : let the foolish rave, 
 
 And cowards shirk; he from Oblivion's maw 
 Would pluck a life exempt from stain or flaw : 
 
 Then sudden, for his guerdon, found a grave. 
 
 But, no ! Death cannot quench the flaming soul. 
 It saves itself by giving ; by its zeal 
 Of honest service to the public weal ; 
 
 By loss of ease -and gain, which to the roll 
 Of God's co-workers of enduring fame 
 Adds one more spotless and inspiring name. 
 1903 
 
 141
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 
 
 A HYMN SUNG AT THE ARLINGTON STREET CHURCH, 
 CELEBRATING THE UNVEILING OF MR. HERBERT 
 
 ADAMS'S STATUE OF CHANNING, BOSTON, JUNE i, 1903 
 
 SPIRIT Divine, who, in all lands and ages, 
 In holy souls thy dwelling-place hast made, 
 
 We bless thee for thy heroes, saints, and sages, 
 In whom thou hast thy love and truth displayed. 
 
 Yea, and not only thanks for those who sought thee 
 Long since, and found thee with a glad surprise, 
 
 Our grateful hearts their offerings have brought thee 
 For, close at home, a faithful one and wise. 
 
 Simply and purely of thy love he told us, 
 Showed us the Father, merciful and kind, 
 
 Yearning with strong compassion to enfold us, 
 In error wandering and with passion blind. 
 
 He of our nature's solemn height assured us, 
 Welcomed thy likeness in each human soul, 
 
 Ever to things more excellent allured us, 
 Speeding us onward to the flying goal. 
 142
 
 WILLIAM ELLERY CHANNING 
 
 Loved he thy truth with pure and perfect passion, 
 Its coming hailed as by no limit bound : 
 
 Where thou hadst work for him in any fashion, 
 There tireless, fearless, was thy prophet found. 
 
 Dead, he yet speaketh, and his voice is sounding 
 Now in our ears as when our fathers heard : 
 
 To us he publishes thy grace abounding, 
 To us he brings thy everlasting word. 
 
 143
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 A POEM READ IN THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC, BROOKLYN, 
 N. Y., AT A CELEBRATION OF THE ONE HUNDREDTH 
 ANNIVERSARY OF EMERSON*S BIRTH 
 
 How make my verse so simple and sincere 
 That it shall merit nothing now and here 
 Of accusation ? Who may sing of one 
 So simple and sincere as Emerson, 
 Without reproach or fear ? 
 
 We who New England love because we drew 
 From her our life, from her the blood and thew 
 Whereby we seek and yearn and strive and dare, 
 Grave, noble mother, dear beyond compare, 
 We bring thee offerings due. 
 
 For he of thy pure elements was made, 
 Thy winds and waters in his pulses played, 
 Thy rocks and hills to him their vigor gave, 
 Its briny tang thy shore-consuming wave, 
 Its calm when winds are laid. 
 144
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 As in his blood thy genius worked amain, 
 So in his spirit, for more precious gain, 
 New England souls, great mothers and good sires, 
 Guarding Religion's deathless altar-fires 
 With holy fear and pain. 
 
 Nor these alone, but all the centuries down 
 Aiders and friends of high fulfilled renown, 
 Shakespeare, revolving his majestic sphere ; 
 Heroic Plutarch, sounding lofty cheer ; 
 Plato, of all most dear. 
 
 Nor less to him than voices of the sages, 
 From the deep bosom of the solemn ages, 
 Were things that with their penetrating ray 
 In the strait confines of the common day 
 The quiet heart engages. 
 
 Nothing to him was common or unclean, 
 Nothing, so God had made it, poor or mean ; 
 The sheet let down from heaven held for him 
 No stock or stone without some presence dim 
 Of the one God, unseen. 
 145
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 With smiling eyes he looked, and saw unrolled 
 (As 't were an endless scroll) the manifold 
 Of space and time ; and what he saw and heard 
 He sang like some full-throated, joyous bird, 
 And all the wonder told. 
 
 He saw the manifold, but through it all 
 He felt the mighty everlasting thrall 
 Of the one Power and Love which shapes and warms 
 The many-millioned world of beauteous forms 
 By Igdrasil let fall. 
 
 God is, not was ! Thus, in a faithless time, 
 Clearly he uttered his own faith sublime, 
 Each sending back to that eternal fount 
 Which in each private heart doth ever mount 
 As in th' Judean prime. 
 
 And still o'er all, alike for God and man, 
 And wide as Nature's sempiternal plan, 
 For him the Ought its awful mandate sped, 
 Made thrill with life the kingdoms of the dead, 
 One Law since worlds began. 
 146
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 That to obey, he taught, is life indeed, 
 And whoso gives to that his utmost heed, 
 Him naught above nor from beneath can harm : 
 No heaven can bribe him, and no hell alarm 
 This man, this thinking reed. 
 
 Great spirit, purge our eyes that we may see 
 How in these times we best may honor thee, 
 Lest with our lips we idly praise thy name, 
 While still our lives are full of blame and shame, 
 Our hearts still far from thee. 
 
 Help hate whate'er by thee was hated most, 
 The lust of things, the rich man's sensual boast, 
 The search 'mid signs and wonders for the God 
 Whose splendor shineth everywhere abroad, 
 And beacons every coast. 
 
 Help us to love what to thy heart was dear, 
 Each season's part in the whole bounteous year, 
 The simple life, the spirit, first and last, 
 To its own native centre holding fast 
 With heart of dauntless cheer.
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 If to such things we can, O friend, attain, 
 If so each one with his own sceptre reign 
 O'er his own life, not thankless shall we prove 
 For thy great ministry of thought and love, 
 Nor live, nor die, in vain. 
 
 May 25, 1903 
 
 148
 
 THE SCANT SUPPLY 
 
 There was not enough of the last war to go round. THEODORE 
 ROOSEVELT. 
 
 Lo, what a strange lament bursts from the lips 
 Of our bold captain whom these piping times 
 Of peace oppress with their monotonous rhymes 
 
 Of wealth and ease ! No more the embattled ships 
 
 Hurling forth death ; the foliage rank that drips 
 With the hot blood of men ; the hideous crimes 
 Whereby to honor sneaking treachery climbs ; 
 
 No more the great hopes suffering vast eclipse ! 
 
 Mourn for the scant supply of foul disease, 
 
 Of loathsome wounds that drain young life away, 
 Of limbless bodies and perduring pain ; 
 
 Of anguished mothers and of wives whose knees 
 Bend vainly unto God for those who stay 
 So long and send no word and come no more again. 
 1904 
 
 149
 
 TIMEO DANAOS 
 
 ART proud, my country, that these mighty ones, 
 Wearing the jeweled splendor of old days, 
 Come bringing prodigality of praise 
 
 To thee amid thy light of westering suns ; 
 
 Bidding their blaring trumpets and their guns 
 Salute thee, late into their crooked ways 
 Now fallen ; to their sorrow and amaze, 
 
 Blood of whose hearts the ancient honor runs ? 
 
 Nay, fear them rather, for they cry with glee, 
 " She has become as one of us, who gave 
 All that she had to set a people free : 
 
 She wears our image she that loved the slave ! 
 Fear them, for there is blood upon their hands, 
 And on their heads the curse of ruined lands. 
 1904 
 
 150
 
 "SHORE ACRES" 
 
 How sweetly it comes back, how tenderly, 
 That evening's end ; no little thing forgot ; 
 The fire made safe ; set back the steaming pot ; 
 
 Windows and door shut tightly as could be ; 
 
 The tall clock wound ; the house all still ; and then 
 The dear old man his candle takes and goes 
 To seek his own well-earned, prayer-blest repose, 
 
 His heart at peace with all the sons of men. 
 
 And, when we to the end of toil have won, 
 And it is time for us to go to bed, 
 
 May we as gently move unto our rest, 
 Leaving no simplest needful thing undone, 
 No word of healing gentleness unsaid, 
 
 Some lamp of God close to our bosoms prest. 
 1904
 
 "O THAT LAND! THAT LAND!" 
 
 MAY 23, 1846 
 
 IN my dear mother's Bible, by the hand 
 Of my dear father written large and clear, 
 With the day stated, and the month and year 
 
 And place, the lonely Banks of Newfoundland, 
 
 These simple words of doubtful meaning stand ; 
 And much I wonder what of hope or fear, 
 Or homesick longing, or half-hearted cheer, 
 
 Thrilled in that outcry toward some distant strand. 
 
 That land ! What land ? Yearned his fond heart that day 
 For heaven's height or for that humbler place 
 
 Where he had left his wife and children three ? 
 Divine who can^ Enough for me to say, 
 It is all one. His best of God's pure grace 
 
 Was, here or there, with his best loved to be. 
 1904 
 
 152
 
 LATE KNOWLEDGE 
 
 LIFTING mine eyes unto the hills from whence 
 
 My help hath come through the long summer days, 
 They throng enfolded with the silvery haze 
 
 Which seems more spirit than a thing of sense ; 
 
 And lo, a wonder ! that they borrow thence 
 Clearness of outline : not the day-star's rays, 
 Spoiling illusion with their ruthless blaze, 
 
 So fix each hill, sharp, separate, immense. 
 
 And when to my death-hallowed friends there clings 
 
 A tender mist of unavailing tears, 
 That trembling veil such revelation brings 
 
 As never life's full glare : straightway appears 
 Divinely clear, seen in that softened light, 
 What life's hard blaze had hidden from my sight. 
 1904 
 
 153
 
 DEFIANCE 
 
 "TAKE what you can, sirs " (thus the story runs), 
 Said a poor scholar, who for dearest book 
 Had loved his Virgil ; and the wretches took 
 The book away from him, and thought his sun's 
 Light was put out. But he had balked their rage, 
 Learning by heart the Mantuan's lofty rhyme, 
 So, 'gainst all spite of theirs or envious time, 
 Holding it safe a flawless heritage. 
 
 So, dearest, since I have you in my heart, 
 Like that poor scholar I those powers defy 
 Which threat to rob me : You may live or die, 
 But nevermore from me shall you depart. 
 
 I have you safe ; " Take what you can," I say ; 
 " Here she abides, and will abide alway." 
 1904 
 
 154
 
 THE BROKEN GLASS 
 
 WHEN it was whole, across the mirror fine 
 What images of strength and beauty passed ! 
 Here was the loveliness of woman glassed, 
 
 Of children too, and only less divine, 
 
 The forms of rocks and trees, the glorious shine 
 Of suns and stars and splendidly amassed 
 The journeying clouds ; beneath them ocean's vast 
 
 Illimitable surge of restless brine. 
 
 'T is shattered now, and all these things and more 
 Great thoughts, imaginations strong and free 
 Are in this glass reflected brokenly ; 
 
 Crazed is the dance upon this polished floor. 
 Poor useless frame that held this sacred trust, 
 Too soon thou canst not crumble into dust. 
 
 1904 
 
 155
 
 FAINT, YET PURSUING 
 
 THE LAST JOURNEY, FROM CHESTERFIELD TO NEW YORK, 
 SEPTEMBER 25, 1904 
 
 SPLITTING the evening silence like a wedge, 
 
 Our flying train sped its appointed way, 
 And high above the black horizon's edge 
 
 The full-orbed moon made night a softer day. 
 And ever as she sailed through cloud and clear, 
 
 One faithful star toiled onward in her wake, 
 Seeming as if, with heart of dauntless cheer, 
 
 Night's argent queen it hoped to overtake. 
 
 In vain the toil, and to my inward eye 
 I was that star, the moon my flying goal, 
 
 Which through the spaces of an ampler sky 
 Still lured and baffled my adventurous soul, 
 
 Defeated ever, yet divinely blest : 
 
 One more insatiate striver for the best. 
 
 156
 
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