GIFT OF 
 Prof. S- Einarsson 
 
 
THE POEMS OF 
 EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 
 
THE POEMS 
 
 OF 
 
 EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 tfrintrtr at i)e litfcermtre $m 
 1902 
 

 Copyright 1867 by K R Sill 
 
 Copyright 1887, 1889, 1899, 1902 by Houghton, Mifflin and Company 
 All rights reserved 
 
s 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 EDWARD ROWLAND SILL xiii 
 
 THE VENUS OF MILO 1 
 
 FIELD NOTES . . ... . . . 9 
 
 FIRST LOVE AND FANTASY ..... 21 
 
 MORNING 24 
 
 LIFE 26 
 
 FAITH 27 
 
 SOLITUDE 29 
 
 RETROSPECT 30 
 
 CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA 32 
 
 AMONG THE REDWOODS ..... 37 
 
 OPPORTUNITY 40 
 
 HOME 41 
 
 GOOD NEWS 42 
 
 REVERIE 45 
 
 SPRING 47 
 
 67-9819 
 
C vi ] 
 
 FIVE LIVES 49 
 
 TRANQUILLITY .52 
 
 MY PEACE THOU ART 54 
 
 HER FACE 55 
 
 DARE YOU? 56 
 
 THE INVISIBLE 58 
 
 A DRIFTING CLOUD ....... 61 
 
 WORDSWORTH 62 
 
 PEACE 64 
 
 THE HOUSE AND THE HEART 65 
 
 THE FOOL S PRAYER 67 
 
 BUT FOR HIM 70 
 
 A REPLY 72 
 
 THE DESERTER 74 
 
 THE REFORMER ........ 75 
 
 DESIRE OF SLEEP 76 
 
 HER EXPLANATION 78 
 
 EVE S DAUGHTER 79 
 
 BLINDFOLD . 80 
 

 C vii 1 
 
 RECALL 82 
 
 STRANGE . 83 
 
 WIEGENLIED 84 
 
 AN ANCIENT ERROR 86 
 
 TO A FACE AT A CONCERT 88 
 
 TWO VIEWS OF IT 89 
 
 THE LINKS OF CHANCE .90 
 
 "WORDS, WORDS, WORDS" ..... 91 
 
 THE THRUSH 93 
 
 CARPE DIEM 94 
 
 SERVICE 95 
 
 THE BOOK OF HOURS 97 
 
 THE WONDERFUL THOUGHT 98 
 
 NATURE AND HER CHILD . . . . . 102 
 
 THE FOSTER-MOTHER 103 
 
 TRUTH AT LAST 104 
 
 "QUEM METUI MORITURA?" 105 
 
 A MORNING THOUGHT 106 
 
 THE HERMITAGE . 107 
 
C viii 3 
 
 SUNDOWN 150 
 
 THE ARCH 152 
 
 APRIL IN OAKLAND 154 
 
 STARLIGHT 157 
 
 A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER 160 
 
 SPRING TWILIGHT 162 
 
 * 
 
 EVENING , 164 
 
 THE ORGAN 166 
 
 EASTERN WINTER 168 
 
 SLEEPING 170 
 
 A PRAYER 172 
 
 THE POLAR SEA 173 
 
 THE FUTURE 176 
 
 A DAILY MIRACLE ... 178 
 
 THE NORTH WIND .... 179 
 
 CALIFORNIA WINTER ... 132 
 
 INFLUENCES .... 135 
 
 THE LOVER S SONG .... 186 
 
 A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA 137 
 
C ix 3 
 
 A FOOLISH WISH . . . . . . . .190 
 
 EVERY-DAY LIFE 192 
 
 BEFORE SUNRISE IN WINTER 193 
 
 THE CHOICE 194 
 
 SIBYLLINE BARTERING 195 
 
 MUSIC 197 
 
 THREE SONGS . .200 
 
 DESPAIR AND HOPE 201 
 
 WISDOM AND FAME 204 
 
 SERENITY 206 
 
 THE RUBY HEART 208 
 
 TO CHILD ANNA 213 
 
 THE WORLD S SECRET 215 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 217 
 
 DISCONTENT 219 
 
 SEEMING AND BEING 220 
 
 WEATHER-BOUND 223 
 
 TO CHILD SARA 225 
 
 A FABLE . 228 
 
C x 3 
 
 THE CREATION ........ 233 
 
 THE FIRST CAUSE 234 
 
 SEMELE 236 
 
 A POETS APOLOGY 239 
 
 ONE TOUCH OF NATURE 240 
 
 THE CRICKETS IN THE FIELDS .... 243 
 HERMIONE. 
 
 I. THE LOST MAGIC 244 
 
 II. INFLUENCES 245 
 
 III. THE DEAD LETTER 246 
 
 IV. THE SONG IN THE NIGHT 247 
 
 REPROOF IN LOVE ... .... 248 
 
 TEMPTED 249 
 
 ALONE 250 
 
 TO A MAID DEMURE 252 
 
 THE COUP DE GRACE 254 
 
 THE WORLD RUNS ROUND . . . . .256 
 
 SUNDAY 261 
 
 ON SECOND THOUGHT 262 
 
C xi ] 
 
 HIS LOST DAY .263 
 
 FERTILITY . . . 265 
 
 THE MYSTERY 266 
 
 THE LOST BIRD 267 
 
 WARNING 269 
 
 SUMMER AFTERNOON .270 
 
 SUMMER NIGHT 272 
 
 A CALIFORNIAN S DREAMS 273 
 
 FULFILLMENT 276 
 
 THE SINGER ......... 278 
 
 THE THINGS THAT WILL NOT DIE ... 280 
 
 THE SECRET . . 283 
 
 LOST LOVE 286 
 
 APPRECIATED 288 
 
 MOODS 289 
 
 SPACE 290 
 
 UNTIMELY THOUGHT 291 
 
 THE LIFE NATURAL 292 
 
 THE ORACLE . 293 
 
C x 3 
 
 FORCE .......... 295 
 
 NIGHT AND PEACE 298 
 
 THE SINGER S CONFESSION 299 
 
 LIVING 301 
 
 EVEN THERE 302 
 
 SUMMER RAIN 303 
 
 A RESTING-PLACE 304 
 
 A MEMORY 306 
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 308 
 
 ON A PICTURE OF MT. SHASTA BY KEITH . 310 
 
 THE TREE OF MY LIFE 313 
 
 A CHILD AND A STAR 315 
 
 AT DAWN 317 
 
 AN ADAGE FROM THE ORIENT .... 318 
 
 A PARADOX 319 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER 320 
 
 A BIRD S SONG 321 
 
 THE DEAD PRESIDENT 322 
 
 ROLAND . 325 
 
EDWAED ROWLAND SILL 
 
EDWARD ROWLAND SILL 
 
 -L HE steady although somewhat tardy growth of 
 Sill s reputation as a poet may best be illustrated by 
 the history of his published writings. In 1868, seven 
 years after leaving college, he issued, through the 
 house of Leypoldt and Holt, a slender volume en 
 titled The Hermitage and Other Poems. He waited 
 fifteen years before venturing upon his next book, 
 which was a still more tiny, privately printed vol 
 ume, The Venus of Milo and Other Poems, dated at 
 Berkeley, California, 1883. A year or two before 
 his death, which occurred in 1887, his present pub 
 lishers, who had noted with interest the poems which 
 Sill had been contributing to the Atlantic and other 
 periodicals, both under his own name and under pseu 
 donyms, invited him to make a collection of his poetry 
 for publication. He was in no haste to do this, for 
 he was in the midst of his most fertile period of cre 
 ative activity. While he was still uncertain as to his 
 choice of material for the proposed volume, he passed 
 
C xiv ] 
 
 away. But in November, 1887, his publishers issued 
 Poems ~by Edward Rowland Sill, a volume which 
 contained five pieces from The Hermitage, a consid 
 erable portion of the contents of The Venus of Milo 
 and Other Poems, and a selection from the uncol- 
 lected poems of the last four or five years of his life. 
 This book won many readers. Two years later a 
 second collection was made, bearing the title The 
 Hermitage and Later Poems, and enriched with a 
 tributary lyric by Mr. Aldrich. So constant did the 
 interest in Sill s poetry prove to be, that in 1899, 
 twelve years after the poet s death, his publishers pre 
 sented a final volume of verse, Hermione and Other 
 Poems, gathered from his manuscripts and from the 
 various periodicals in which his work had appeared. 
 It is by these books, together with The Prose of Ed 
 ward Rowland Sill (1900), a volume made up chiefly 
 of papers written for the Contributors Club of the 
 Atlantic, that his reputation as a man of letters has 
 been established. 
 
 The interest aroused by Sill s writings is attributa 
 ble in part, no doubt, to the marked individuality of 
 the man. The story of his career is brief and modest. 
 He was born in Windsor, Connecticut, April 29, 1841, 
 
C xv 3 
 
 of English and Welsh ancestry. His mother s father 
 and grandfather were Congregational ministers. His 
 father and his father s father were physicians and sur 
 geons. He was graduated at Yale in 1861, and for 
 some years was engaged in business in California. 
 In 1867 he returned East with the expectation of en 
 tering the ministry, and studied for a few months at 
 the Divinity School of Harvard University. He gave 
 up the purpose, however, married, and began to 
 occupy himself with literary work. He translated 
 Rau s Mozart, and held for a while an editorial posi 
 tion on the New York Evening Mail. But his pe 
 culiar power in stimulating the minds of others drew 
 him into the work of teaching, and he became prin 
 cipal of an academy in Ohio. His California life, 
 however, had given him a strong attachment to the 
 Pacific coast and a sense that his health would be 
 better there, and accordingly, on receiving an invita 
 tion to a position in the Oakland High School, he re 
 moved to California in 1871. In 1874, he accepted 
 the chair of English Literature in the University of 
 California, and filled it with rare success for eight 
 years. Compelled by failing health to resign in 
 1882, he passed the latest years of his life in Ohio, 
 
c: xvi 3 
 
 and died in Cleveland, after a brief illness, on Feb 
 ruary 27, 1887. 
 
 Yet back of this career, typical of that of many 
 of his countrymen in its frequent changes of scene, 
 its patient struggle against hard conditions, one per 
 ceives a strong personality. His life as a teacher was 
 noteworthy for its capacity to inspire right principles 
 of conduct ; he was a passionate idealist, who drew to 
 himself the affection and pride of his pupils. One of 
 his comrades in many a yearly outing in California 
 sums up his disposition by calling him "a genial, 
 gentle, sincere, unaffected, deep-sighted, quick-witted, 
 delightful, gifted, lovable, manful, communicating 
 man." In this long concourse of friendly adjectives 
 much stress, doubtless, is to be thrown upon the last. 
 Sill loved to communicate, and it was this quality of 
 his temperament which helped to make him a poet. 
 
 A real poet he unquestionably is : a " minor poet," 
 if one chooses to insist upon distinctions of rank, yet 
 with a message of his own, and a voice that is subtly 
 differentiated from that of any other singer. He 
 wrote in a private letter, the year before his death, " I 
 know my Browning, Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, 
 
Emerson, far better than I do the ancients. And my 
 Scott, Byron, Shelley and Wordsworth far better than 
 the more ancient than they." This intimate know 
 ledge of the greater English poets of the nineteenth 
 century left its impress upon Sill s own productions, 
 and among the names cited, Tennyson, Arnold, and 
 Emerson seem to have influenced him most. But as 
 with Lowell, whose nature was in many respects akin 
 to Sill s, the inspiration that comes from books left 
 upon the poet s work few traces of mere bookishness. 
 He saw the world with his own eyes, and his verse was 
 all the richer for his familiarity with the thought and 
 the music of the masters. Some of the most character 
 istic phases of his poetry, such as its variety of mood 
 and form, sensitiveness to the influences of nature, and 
 the flawless purity of its spirit, are traits which attest 
 his brotherhood with the representative authors of his 
 country and his time. But the individual impression 
 he has made thus far and it should be remembered 
 that Sill s fame is still crescent is by virtue of the 
 fine strenuousness, the noble temper, of such poems 
 as Opportunity and The Fool s Prayer. Here are 
 gallant courage, reverence, and enduring faith; an 
 
xv 
 
 insight that divines the prof oundest sources of human 
 emotion and an art that expresses them with finished 
 beauty. 
 
 The present edition gives the reader, for the first 
 time, an opportunity to survey Sill s poetical produc 
 tions in their entirety. It contains all the work in 
 cluded in the three volumes already published by 
 Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin and Company, and, in ad 
 dition to this, several poems hitherto uncollected, which 
 are thought worthy of being placed among the rest, 
 and which the increasing company of Sill s admirers 
 are sure to welcome. 
 
 March, 1902. 
 
POEMS 
 
THE VENUS OF MILO 
 
 THERE fell a vision to Praxiteles : 
 Watching thro drowsy lids the loitering seas 
 That lay caressing with white arms of foam 
 The sleeping marge of his Ionian home, 
 He saw great Aphrodite standing near, 
 Knew her, at last, the Beautiful he had sought 
 With lifelong passion, and in love and fear 
 Into unsullied stone the vision wrought. 
 
 Far other was the form that Cnidos gave 
 To senile Rome, no longer free or brave, 
 The Medicean, naked like a slave. 
 The Cnidians built her shrine 
 Of creamy ivory fine ; 
 Most costly was the floor 
 Of scented cedar, and from door 
 Was looped to carven door 
 Rich stuff of Tyrian purple, in whose shade 
 Her glistening shoulders and round limbs outshone, 
 Milk-white as lilies in a summer moon. 
 
C * ] 
 
 Here honey-hearted Greece to worship came, 
 And on her altar leaped a turbid flame. 
 The quickened blood ran dancing to its doom, 
 And lip sought trembling lip in that rich gloom. 
 
 But the island people of Cos, by the salt main 
 From Persia s touch kept clean, 
 Chose for their purer shrine amid the seas 
 That grander vision of Praxiteles. 
 Long ages after, sunken in the ground 
 Of sea-girt Melos, wondering shepherds found 
 The marred and dinted copy which men name 
 Venus of Milo, saved to endless fame. 
 
 Before the broken marble, on a day, 
 There came a worshiper : a slanted ray 
 Struck in across the dimness of her shrine 
 And touched her face as to a smile divine ; 
 For it was like the worship of a Greek 
 At her old altar. Thus I heard him speak : 
 
 Men call thee Love : is there no holier name 
 Than hers, the foam-born, laughter-loving dame ? 
 Nay, for there is than love no holier name : 
 
C 3 ] 
 
 All words that pass the lips of mortal men 
 With inner and with outer meaning shine ; 
 An outer gleam that meets the common ken, 
 An inner light that but the few divine. 
 Thou art the love celestial, seeking still 
 The soul beneath the form ; the serene will ; 
 The wisdom, of whose deeps the sages dream ; 
 The unseen beauty that doth faintly gleam 
 In stars, and flowers, and waters where they roll ; 
 The unheard music whose faint echoes even 
 Make whosoever hears a homesick soul 
 Thereafter, till he follow it to heaven. 
 
 Larger than mortal woman I see thee stand, 
 With beautiful head bent forward steadily, 
 As if those earnest eyes could see 
 Some glorious thing far off, to which thy hand 
 Invisibly stretched onward seems to be. 
 From thy white forehead s breadth of calm, the hair 
 Sweeps lightly, as a cloud in windless air. 
 Placid thy brows, as that still line at dawn 
 Where the dim hills along the sky are drawn, 
 When the last stars are drowned in deeps afar. 
 Thy quiet mouth I know not if it smile, 
 
C 4 n 
 
 Or if in some wise pity thou wilt weep, 
 Little as one may tell, some summer morn, 
 Whether the dreamy brightness is most glad, 
 Or wonderfully sad, 
 So bright, so still thy lips serenely sleep ; 
 So fixedly thine earnest eyes the while, 
 As clear and steady as the morning star, 
 Their gaze upon that coming glory keep. 
 
 Thy garment s fallen folds 
 Leave beautiful the fair, round breast 
 In sacred loveliness ; the bosom deep 
 Where happy babe might sleep ; 
 The ample waist no narrowing girdle holds, 
 Where daughters slim might come to cling and rest, 
 Like tendriled vines against the plane-tree pressed. 
 Around thy firm, large limbs and steady feet 
 The robes slope downward, as the folded hills 
 Slope round the mountain s knees, when shadow fills 
 The hollow canons, and the wind is sweet 
 From russet oat-fields and the ripening wheat. 
 
 Prom our low world no gods have taken wing ; 
 Even now upon our hills the twain are wandering ; 
 
C 5 ] 
 
 The Medicean s sly and servile grace, 
 
 And the immortal beauty of thy face. 
 
 One is the spirit of all short-lived love 
 
 And outward, earthly loveliness : 
 
 The tremulous rosy morn is her mouth s smile, 
 
 The sky her laughing azure eyes above ; 
 
 And, waiting for caress, 
 
 Lie bare the soft hill-slopes, the while 
 
 Her thrilling voice is heard 
 
 In song of wind and wave, and every flitting bird. 
 
 Not plainly, never quite herself she shows ; 
 
 Just a swift glance of her illumined smile 
 
 Along the landscape goes ; 
 
 Just a soft hint of singing, to beguile 
 
 A man from ah 1 his toil ; 
 
 Some vanished gleam of beckoning arm, to spoil 
 
 A morning s task with longing wild and vain. 
 
 Then if across the parching plain 
 
 He seek her, she with passion burns 
 
 His heart to fever, and he hears 
 
 The west wind s mocking laughter when he turns, 
 
 Shivering in mist of ocean s sullen tears. 
 
 It is the Medicean : well I know 
 
 The arts her ancient subtlety will show ; 
 
C 6 ^ 
 
 The stubble-fields she turns to ruddy gold ; 
 
 The empty distance she will fold 
 
 In purple gauze : the warm glow she has kissed 
 
 Along the chilling mist : 
 
 Cheating and cheated love that grows to hate 
 
 And ever deeper loathing, soon or late. 
 
 Thou, too, fairer spirit, walkest here 
 Upon the hf ted hills : 
 
 Wherever that still thought within the breast 
 The inner beauty of the world hath moved ; 
 In starlight that the dome of evening fills ; 
 On endless waters rounding to the west : 
 For them who thro 5 that beauty s veil have loved 
 The soul of all things beautiful the best. 
 For lying broad awake, long ere the dawn, 
 Staring against the dark, the blank of space 
 Opens immeasurably, and thy face 
 Wavers and glimmers there and is withdrawn. 
 And many days, when all one s work is vain, 
 And life goes stretching on, a waste gray plain, 
 With even the short mirage of morning gone, 
 No cool breath anywhere, no shadow nigh 
 Where a weary man might lay him down and die, 
 
C 7 ] 
 
 Lo ! thou art there before me suddenly, 
 
 With shade as if a summer cloud did pass, 
 
 And spray of fountains whispering to the grass. 
 
 Oh, save me from the haste and noise and heat 
 
 That spoil life s music sweet : 
 
 And from that lesser Aphrodite there 
 
 Even now she stands 
 
 Close as I turn, and, my soul, how fair ! 
 
 Nay, I will heed not thy white beckoning hands, 
 
 Nor thy soft lips like the curled inner leaf 
 
 In a rosebud s breast, kissed languid by the sun, 
 
 Nor eyes like liquid gleams where waters run. 
 
 Yea, thou art beautiful as morn ; 
 
 And even as I draw nigh 
 
 To scoff, I own the loveliness I scorn. 
 
 Farewell, for thou hast lost me : keep thy train 
 
 Of worshipers ; me thou dost lure in vain : 
 
 The inner passion, pure as very fire, 
 
 Burns to light ash the earthlier desire. 
 
 greater Aphrodite, unto thee 
 Let me not say farewell. What would Earth be 
 Without thy presence? Surely unto me 
 A lifelong weariness, a dull, bad dream. 
 
Abide with me, and let thy calm brows beam 
 
 Fresh hope upon me every amber dawn, 
 
 New peace when evening s violet veil is drawn. 
 
 Then, tho I see along the glooming plain 
 
 The Medicean s waving hand again, 
 
 And white feet glimmering in the harvest-field, 
 
 I shall not turn, nor yield ; 
 
 But as heaven deepens, and the Cross and Lyre 
 
 Lift up their stars beneath the Northern Crown, 
 
 Unto the yearning of the world s desire 
 
 I shall be ware of answer coming down ; 
 
 And something, when my heart the darkness stills, 
 
 Shall tell me, without sound or any sight, 
 
 That other footsteps are upon the hills ; 
 
 Till the dim earth is luminous with the light 
 
 Of the white dawn, from some far-hidden shore, 
 
 That shines upon thy forehead evermore. 
 
FIELD NOTES 
 
 BY the wild fence-row, all grown up 
 
 With tall oats, and the buttercup, 
 
 And the seeded grass, and blue flax-flower, 
 
 I fling myself in a nest of green, 
 
 Walled about and all unseen, 
 
 And lose myself in the quiet hour. 
 
 Now and then from the orchard-tree 
 
 To the sweet clover at my knee 
 
 Hums the crescendo of a bee, 
 
 Making the silence seem more still ; 
 
 Overhead on a maple prong 
 
 The least of birds, a jeweled sprite, 
 
 With burnished throat and needle bill, 
 
 Wags his head in the golden light, 
 
 Till it flashes, and dulls, and flashes bright, 
 
 Cheeping his microscopic song. 
 
 1 Written for the graduating class of 1882, at Smith College, 
 Northampton, Mass. It is a pleasant custom at that college for each 
 class to send abroad and invite some one to celebrate its entrance 
 into the greater world. 
 
i: 
 
 ii 
 
 Far up the hill-farm, where the breeze 
 
 Dips its wing in the billowy grain, 
 
 Waves go chasing from the plain 
 
 On softly undulating seas ; 
 
 Now near my nest they swerve and turn, 
 
 And now go wandering without aim ; 
 
 Or yonder, where the poppies burn, 
 
 Race up the slope in harmless flame. 
 
 Sometimes the bold wind sways my walls, 
 
 My four green walls of the grass and oats, 
 
 But never a slender column falls, 
 
 And the blue sky-roof above them floats. 
 
 Cool in the glowing sun I feel 
 
 On wrist and cheek the sea-breeze steal 
 
 From the wholesome ocean brine. 
 
 The air is full of the whispering pine, 
 
 Surf-sound of an aerial sea ; 
 
 And the light clashing, near and far, 
 
 As of mimic shield and scimitar, 
 
 Of the slim Australian tree. 
 
C " 3 
 
 III 
 
 So all that azure day 
 In the lap of the green world I lay ; 
 And drinking of the sunshine s flood, 
 Like Sigurd when the dragon s blood 
 Made the bird-songs understood, 
 Inward or outward I could hear 
 A murmuring of music near ; 
 And this is what it seemed to say : 
 
 IV 
 
 Old earth, how beautiful thou art ! 
 Though restless fancy wander wide 
 And sigh in dreams for spheres more blest, 
 Save for some trouble, half -confessed, 
 Some least misgiving, all my heart 
 With such a world were satisfied. 
 Had every day such skies of blue, 
 Were men all wise, and women true, 
 Might youth as calm as manhood be, 
 And might calm manhood keep its lore 
 
And still be young and one thing more. 
 Old earth were fair enough for me. 
 
 Ah, sturdy world, old patient world ! 
 Thou hast seen many times and men ; 
 Heard jibes and curses at thee hurled 
 From cynic lip and peevish pen. 
 But give the mother once her due : 
 Were women wise, and men all true 
 And one thing more that may not be, 
 Old earth were fair enough for me. 
 
 If only we were worthier found 
 
 Of the stout ball that bears us round ! 
 
 New wants, new ways, pert plans of change, 
 
 New answers to old questions strange ; 
 
 But to the older questions still 
 
 No new replies have come, or will. 
 
 New speed to buzz abroad and see 
 
 Cities where one needs not to be ; 
 
 But no new way to dwell at home, 
 
 Or there to make great friendships come ; 
 
C is 3 
 
 No novel way to seek or find 
 True hearts and the heroic mind. 
 Of atom force and chemic stew 
 Nor Socrates nor Caesar knew, 
 But the old ages knew a plan 
 The lost art how to mould a man. 
 
 VI 
 
 World, wise old world. 
 What may man do for thee ? 
 Thou that art greater than all of us, 
 What wilt thou do to me ? 
 This glossy curve of the tall grass-spear 
 Can I make its lustrous green more clear ? 
 This tapering shaft of oat, that knows 
 To grow erect as the great pine grows, 
 And to sway in the wind as well as he 
 Can I teach it to nod more graciously ? 
 The lark on the mossy rail so nigh, 
 Wary, but pleased if I keep my place 
 Who could give a single grace 
 To his flute-note sweet and high, 
 Or help him find his nest hard by ? 
 
C 14 1 
 
 Can I add to the poppy s gold one bit ? 
 Can I deepen the sky, or soften it ? 
 
 VII 
 
 jEons ago a rock crashed down 
 
 From a mountain s crown, 
 
 Where a tempest s tread 
 
 Crumbled it from its hold. 
 
 Ages dawn and in turn grow old : 
 
 The rock lies still and dead. 
 
 Flames come and floods come, 
 
 Sea rolls this mountain crumb 
 
 To a pebble,, in its play ; 
 
 Till at the last man came to be, 
 
 And a thousand generations passed away. 
 
 Then from the bed of a brook one day 
 
 A boy with the heart of a king 
 
 Fitted the stone to his shepherd sling, 
 
 And a giant fell, and a royal race was free. 
 
 Not out of any cloud or sky 
 
 Will thy good come to prayer or cry. 
 
 Let the great forces, wise of old, 
 
 Have their whole way with thee, 
 
C 15 ] 
 
 Crumble thy heart from its hold, 
 
 Drown thy life in the sea. 
 
 And aeons hence, some day, 
 
 The love thou gavest a child, 
 
 The dream in a midnight wild, 
 
 The word thou wouldst not say 
 
 Or in a whisper no one dared to hear, 
 
 Shall gladden the earth and bring the golden year, 
 
 VIII 
 
 Just now a spark of fire 
 
 Flashed from a builder s saw 
 
 On the ribs of a roof a mile away. 
 
 His has been the better day, 
 
 Gone not in dreams, nor even the subtle desire 
 
 Not to desire ; 
 
 But work is the sober law 
 
 He knows well to obey. 
 
 It is a poem he fits and fashions well ; 
 
 And the five chambers are five acts of it : 
 
 Hope in one shall dwell, 
 
 In another fear will sit ; 
 
 In the chamber on the east 
 
C l6 1 
 
 Shall be the bridal feast ; 
 In the western one 
 The dead shall lie alone. 
 So the cycles of life shall fill 
 The clean, pine-scented rooms where now he 
 works his will. 
 
 IX 
 
 Might one be healed from fevering thought, 
 
 And only look, each night, 
 
 On some plain work well wrought, 
 
 Or if a man as right and true might be 
 
 As a flower or tree ! 
 
 I would give up all the mind 
 
 In the prim city s hoard can find 
 
 House with its scrap-art bedight, 
 
 Straitened manners of the street, 
 
 Smooth-voiced society 
 
 If so the swiftness of the wind 
 
 Might pass into my feet ; 
 
 If so the sweetness of the wheat 
 
 Into my soul might pass, 
 
 And the clear courage of the grass ; 
 
I 17 ] 
 
 If the lark caroled in my song ; 
 If one tithe of the faithfulness 
 Of the bird-mother with her brood 
 Into my selfish heart might press, 
 And make me also instinct-good. 
 
 Life is a game the soul can play 
 
 With fewer pieces than men say. 
 
 Only to grow as the grass grows, 
 
 Prating not of joys or woes ; 
 
 To burn as the steady hearth-fire burns ; 
 
 To shine as the star can shine, 
 
 Or only as the mote of dust that turns 
 
 Darkling and twinkling in the beam of light divine ; 
 
 And for my wisdom r- glad to know 
 
 Where the sweetest beech-nuts grow, 
 
 And to track out the spicy root, 
 
 Or peel the musky core of the wild-berry shoot ; 
 
 And how the russet ground-bird bold 
 
 With both slim feet at once will lightly rake the 
 
 mould ; 
 And why moon-shadows from the swaying limb 
 
[ 18 3 
 
 Here are sharp and there are dim ; 
 
 And how the ant his zigzag way can hold 
 
 Through the grass that is a grove to him. 
 
 T were good to live one s life alone. 
 
 So to share life with many a one : 
 
 To keep a thought seven years, and then 
 
 Welcome it coming to you 
 
 On the way from another s brain and pen, 
 
 So to judge if it be true. 
 
 Then would the world be fair, 
 
 Beautiful as is the past, 
 
 Whose beauty we can see at last, 
 
 Since self no more is there. 
 
 XI 
 
 I will be glad to be and do, 
 
 And glad of all good men that live, 
 
 For they are woof of nature too ; 
 
 Glad of the poets every one, 
 
 Pure Longfellow, great Emerson, 
 
 And all that Shakespeare s world can give. 
 
 When the road is dust, and the grass dries, 
 
I 19 ] 
 
 Then will I gaze on the deep skies ; 
 And if Dame Nature frown in cloud, 
 Well, mother then my heart shall say 
 You cannot so drive me away ; 
 I will still exult aloud. 
 Companioned of the good hard ground, 
 Whereon stout hearts of every clime, 
 In the battles of all time, 
 Foothold and couch have found. 
 
 XII 
 
 Joy to the laughing troop 
 
 That from the threshold starts, 
 
 Led on by courage and immortal hope, 
 
 And with the morning in their hearts. 
 
 They to the disappointed earth shall give 
 
 The lives we meant to live, 
 
 Beautiful, free, and strong ; 
 
 The light we almost had 
 
 Shall make them glad ; 
 
 The words we waited long 
 
 Shall run in music from their voice and song. 
 
 Unto our world hope s daily oracles 
 
C 20 3 
 
 From their lips shall be brought ; 
 
 And in our lives love s hourly miracles 
 
 By them be wrought. 
 
 Their merry task shall be 
 
 To make the house all fine and sweet 
 
 Its new inhabitants to greet, 
 
 The wondrous dawning century. 
 
 XIII 
 
 And now the close of this fair day was come ; 
 
 The bay grew duskier on its purple floor, 
 
 And the long curve of foam 
 
 Drew its white net along a dimmer shore. 
 
 Through the fading saffron light, 
 
 Through the deepening shade of even, 
 
 The round earth rolled into the summer night, 
 
 And watched the kindling of the stars in heaven, 
 
C 
 
 FIRST LOVE AND FANTASY 
 
 HID in the silence of a forest deep 
 Dwelt a fair soul, in flesh that was as fair. 
 Over her nimble hands her floating hair 
 Made waving shadows, while her eyes did keep 
 The winding track of weavery intricate. 
 Early at morn, and at the evening late, 
 A robe of shimmering silk she wove with care. 
 Hour after hour, though might she smile or weep, 
 Still ran the golden or the glooming thread. 
 Waking, she wove that which she dreamed asleep, 
 Till many a moon had bloomed and blanched above 
 her head. 
 
 Now when the time was full, the robe was done. 
 Light she would hold it in her loving hand, 
 And with wide eyes of wonder she would stand 
 For half the day, and turn it to the sun, 
 To see its gold lights shift and melt away 
 And grow again, and flash in myriad play. 
 Or, while it glimmered on each glossy strand, 
 
L 22 3 
 
 For half the night she held it to the moon ; 
 
 Or, sitting with it sleeked across her knee, 
 
 She would bend down above it, and would croon 
 
 The strangest bits of broken songs that e er could be. 
 
 Then came the dawn when (so her doom had said) 
 Out through the shadowy forest she must go, 
 And follow wheresoever chance might show, 
 Or whither any sound her footsteps led ; 
 Taking for wayward guides whatever stirred 
 The rustling squirrel, or the startled bird, 
 Their pathless ways pursuing, fast or slow 
 Until the forest s border she should tread. 
 There, whosoever met her, she must fling 
 That woven wonder blindly o er his head, 
 And see in him f orevermore her lord and king. 
 
 Dim was the morn, and dew-wet was the way : 
 
 Aloft the ancient cedars lifted high 
 
 Their jagged crosses on the brightening sky : 
 
 Below, the gossamers were glimmering gray 
 
 Along her path, and many a silver thread 
 
 Caught glancing lights, in floating curves o erhead ; 
 
 And little dew-showers pattered far and nigh, 
 
[ 33 3 
 
 Where wakened thrushes stirred the sprinkled spray. 
 For hours she wandered where her footsteps led, 
 Till a long glance of open sunlight lay 
 As red as gold upon her lifted, eager head. 
 
 Ah, woe for her, that mortal doom must be ! 
 Just then the prince came spurring, fair and young, 
 With heart as merry as the song he sung ; 
 But when she started forward, at her knee 
 A cringing beggar from the weeds close by 
 Holds up his cap for alms, with whining cry. 
 Swift over him the lifted robe was flung : 
 Henceforth, his slave, forever she must see 
 All princely beauty in that brutal face 
 Heaven send that by some deeper witchery 
 His meagre soul through her may gain its touch of 
 grace ! 
 
C 
 
 MORNING 
 
 I ENTERED once, at break of day, 
 
 A chapel, lichen-stained and gray, 
 
 Where a congregation dozed and heard 
 
 An old monk read from a written Word. 
 
 No light through the window-panes could pass, 
 
 For shutters were closed on the rich stained-glass ; 
 
 And in a gloom like the nether night 
 
 The monk read on by a taper s light. 
 
 Ghostly with shadows, that shrank and grew 
 
 As the dim light flared, were aisle and pew ; 
 
 And the congregation that dozed around 
 
 Listened without a stir or sound 
 
 Save one, who rose with wistful face, 
 
 And shifted a shutter from its place. 
 
 Then light flashed in like a flashing gem 
 
 For dawn had come unknown to them 
 
 And a slender beam, like a lance of gold, 
 
 Shot to the crimson curtain-fold, 
 
 Over the bended head of him 
 
 Who pored and pored by the taper dim ; 
 
And it kindled over his wrinkled brow 
 Such words " The law which was till now ; " 
 And I wondered that, under that morning ray, 
 When night and shadow were scattered away, 
 The monk should bow his locks of white 
 By a taper s feebly flickering light 
 Should pore, and pore, and never seem 
 To notice the golden morning-beam. 
 
C 26 
 
 LIFE 
 
 FORENOON and afternoon and night, Forenoon, 
 And afternoon, and night, Forenoon, and what ! 
 The empty song repeats itself. No more ? 
 Yea, that is Life : make this forenoon sublime, 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer, 
 And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. 
 
FAITH 
 
 THE tree-top, high above the barren field, 
 Rising beyond the night s gray folds of mist. 
 
 Rests stirless where the upper air is sealed 
 To perfect silence, by the faint moon kiss d. 
 
 But the low branches, drooping to the ground, 
 Sway to and fro, as sways funereal plume, 
 
 While from their restless depths low whispers sound- 
 " We fear, we fear the darkness and the gloom ; 
 Dim forms beneath us pass and reappear, 
 And mournful tongues are menacing us here." 
 
 Then from the topmost bough falls calm reply 
 " Hush, hush ! I see the coming of the morn ; 
 
 Swiftly the silent Night is passing by, 
 And in her bosom rosy Dawn is borne. 
 T is but your own dim shadows that ye see, 
 T is but your own low moans that trouble ye." 
 
 So Life stands, with a twilight world around ; 
 Faith turned serenely to the steadfast sky, 
 
C 28 3 
 
 Still answering the heart that sweeps the ground, 
 Sobbing in fear, and tossing restlessly 
 
 " Hush, hush ! The Dawn breaks o er the East 
 ern sea, 
 
 T is but thine own dim shadow troubling thee." 
 
C 
 
 SOLITUDE 
 
 ALL alone alone, 
 
 Calm, as on a kingly throne, 
 
 Take thy place in the crowded land, 
 
 Self-centred in free self-command. 
 
 Let thy manhood leave behind 
 
 The narrow ways of the lesser mind : 
 
 What to thee are its little cares, 
 
 The feeble love or the spite it bears ? 
 
 Let the noisy crowd go by : 
 
 In thy lonely watch on high, 
 
 Far from the chattering tongues of men, 
 
 Sitting above their call or ken, 
 
 Free from links of manner and form 
 
 Thou shalt learn of the winged storm 
 
 God shall speak to thee out of the sky. 
 
C 30 
 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 NOT all which we have been 
 
 Do we remain. 
 Nor on the dial-hearts of men 
 
 Do the years mark themselves in vain ; 
 But every cloud that in our sky hath passed, 
 Some gloom or glory hath upon us cast ; 
 And there have fallen from us, as we traveled, 
 
 Many a burden of an ancient pain 
 Many a tangled chord hath been unraveled, 
 
 Never to bind our foolish heart again. 
 Old loves have left us lingeringly and slow, 
 As melts away the distant strain of low 
 Sweet music waking us from troubled dreams, 
 Lulling to holier ones that dies afar 
 On the deep night, as if by silver beams 
 Claspt to the trembling breast of some charmed star. 
 And we have stood and watched, all wistfully, 
 While fluttering hopes have died out of our lives, 
 As one who follows with a straining eye 
 A bird that far, far off fades in the sky, 
 
C s 1 3 
 
 A little rocking speck now lost; and still he strives 
 
 A moment to recover it in vain ; 
 
 Then slowly turns back to his work again. 
 
 But loves and hopes have left us in their place. 
 
 Thank God ! a gentle grace, 
 
 A patience, a belief in His good time, 
 
 Worth more than all earth s joys to which we climb. 
 
CHRISTMAS IN CALIFORNIA 
 
 CAN this be Christmas sweet as May, 
 With drowsy sun, and dreamy air, 
 
 And new grass pointing out the way 
 For flowers to follow, everywhere ? 
 
 Has Time grown sleepy at his post, 
 And let the exiled Summer back, 
 
 Or is it her regretful ghost, 
 Or witchcraft of the almanac ? 
 
 While wandering breaths of mignonette 
 
 In at the open window come, 
 I send my thoughts afar, and let 
 
 Them paint your Christmas Day at home. 
 
 Glitter of ice, and glint of frost, 
 And sparkles in the crusted snow ; 
 
 And hark ! the dancing sleigh-bells, tost 
 The faster as they fainter grow. 
 
C 33 1 
 
 The creaking footsteps hurry past ; 
 
 The quick breath dims the frosty air ; 
 And down the crisp road slipping fast 
 
 Their laughing loads the cutters bear. 
 
 Penciled against the cold white sky. 
 Above the curling eaves of snow, 
 
 The thin blue smoke lifts lingeringly, 
 As loath to leave the mirth below. 
 
 For at the door a merry din 
 
 Is heard, with stamp of feathery feet, 
 And chattering girls come storming in, 
 
 To toast them at the roaring grate. 
 
 And then from muff and pocket peer, 
 And many a warm and scented nook, 
 
 Mysterious little bundles queer, 
 
 That, rustling, tempt the curious look. 
 
 Now broad upon the southern walls 
 
 The mellowed sun s great smile appears, 
 
 And tips the rough-ringed icicles 
 
 With sparks, that grow to glittering tears. 
 
I 34 ] 
 
 Then, as the darkening day goes by, 
 The wind gets gustier without, 
 
 And leaden streaks are on the sky, 
 And whirls of snow are all about. 
 
 Soon firelight shadows, merry crew, 
 Along the darkling walls will leap 
 
 And clap their hands, as if they knew 
 A thousand things too good to keep. 
 
 Sweet eyes with home s contentment filled, 
 As in the smouldering coals they peer, 
 
 Haply some wondering pictures build 
 Of how I keep my Christmas here. 
 
 Before me, on the wide, warm bay, 
 
 A million azure ripples run ; 
 Eound me the sprouting palm-shoots lay 
 
 Their shining lances to the sun. 
 
 With glossy leaves that poise or swing, 
 The callas their white cups unfold, 
 
 And faintest chimes of odor ring 
 
 From silver bells with tongues of gold. 
 
C 35 3 
 
 A languor of deliciousness 
 
 Fills all the sea-enchanted clime ; 
 
 And in the blue heavens meet, and kiss, 
 The loitering clouds of summer-time. 
 
 This fragrance of the mountain balm 
 From spicy Lebanon might be ; 
 
 Beneath such sunshine s amber calm 
 Slumbered the waves of Galilee. 
 
 wondrous gift, in goodness given, 
 Each hour anew our eyes to greet, 
 
 An earth so fair so close to Heaven, 
 T was trodden by the Master s feet. 
 
 And we what bring we in return ? 
 
 Only these broken lives, and lift 
 Them up to meet His pitying scorn, 
 
 As some poor child its foolish gift : 
 
 As some poor child on Christmas Day 
 Its broken toy in love might bring ; 
 
 You could not break its heart and say 
 
 / 
 
 You cared not for the worthless thing ? 
 
C 36 1 
 
 Ah, word of trust, His child ! That child 
 Who brought to earth the life divine, 
 
 Tells me the Father s pity mild 
 
 Scorns not even such a gift as mine. 
 
 I am His creature, and His air 
 
 I breathe, where er my feet may stand ; 
 The angels song rings everywhere, 
 
 And all the earth is Holy Land. 
 
37 3 
 
 AMONG THE REDWOODS 
 
 FAREWELL to such a world ! Too long I press 
 The crowded pavement with unwilling feet. 
 
 Pity makes pride, and hate breeds hatef ulness, 
 And both are poisons. In the forest, sweet 
 
 The shade, the peace ! Immensity, that seems 
 
 To drown the human life of doubts and dreams. 
 
 Far off the massive portals of the wood, 
 
 Buttressed with shadow, misty-blue, serene, 
 
 Waited my coming. Speedily I stood 
 
 Where the dun wall rose roofed in plumy green. 
 
 Dare one go in ? Glance backward ! Dusk as night 
 
 Each column, fringed with sprays of amber light. 
 
 Let me, along this fallen bole, at rest, 
 
 Turn to the cool, dim roof my glowing face. 
 
 Delicious dark on weary eyelids prest ! 
 Enormous solitude of silent space, 
 
 But for a low and thunderous ocean sound, 
 
 Too far to hear, felt thrilling through the ground. 
 
[ 38 3 
 
 No stir nor call the sacred hush profanes ; 
 
 Save when from some bare treetop, far on high, 
 Fierce disputations of the clamorous cranes 
 
 Fall muffled, as from out the upper sky. 
 So still, one dreads to wake the dreaming air, 
 Breaks a twig softly, moves the foot with care. 
 
 The hollow dome is green with empty shade, 
 
 Struck through with slanted shafts of afternoon ; 
 
 Aloft, a little rift of blue is made, 
 
 Where slips a ghost that last night was the moon ; 
 
 Beside its pearl a sea-cloud stays its wing, 
 
 Beneath a tilted hawk is balancing. 
 
 The heart feels not in every time and mood 
 What is around it. Dull as any stone 
 
 I lay ; then, like a darkening dream, the wood 
 Grew Karnak s temple, where I breathed alone 
 
 In the awed air strange incense, and uprose 
 
 Dim, monstrous columns in their dread repose. 
 
 The mind not always sees ; but if there shine 
 A bit of fern-lace bending over moss, 
 
 A silky glint that rides a spider-line, 
 
 On a trefoil two shadow-spears that cross, 
 
C 39 3 
 
 Three grasses that toss up their nodding heads, 
 With spring and curve like clustered fountain- 
 threads, 
 
 Suddenly, through side windows of the eye, 
 Deep solitudes, where never souls have met ; 
 
 Vast spaces, forest corridors that lie 
 In a mysterious world, unpeopled yet. 
 
 Because the outward eye elsewhere was caught, 
 
 The awf ulness and wonder come unsought. 
 
 If death be but resolving back again 
 Into the world s deep soul, this is a kind 
 
 Of quiet, happy death, untouched by pain 
 Or sharp reluctance. For I feel my mind 
 
 Is interfused with all I hear and see ; 
 
 As much a part of All as cloud or tree. 
 
 Listen ! A deep and solemn wind on high ; 
 
 The shafts of shining dust shift to and fro ; 
 The columned trees sway imperceptibly, 
 
 And creak as mighty masts when trade-winds blow. 
 The cloudy sails are set ; the earth-ship swings 
 Along the sea of space to grander things. 
 
OPPORTUNITY 
 
 THIS I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream : 
 There spread a cloud of dust along a plain ; 
 And underneath the cloud, or in it, raged 
 A furious battle, and men yelled, and swords 
 Shocked upon swords and shields. A prince s banner 
 Wavered, then staggered backward, hemmed by foes. 
 A craven hung along the battle s edge, 
 And thought, " Had I a sword of keener steel 
 That blue blade that the king s son bears, but this 
 Blunt thing ! " he snapt and flung it from his 
 
 hand, 
 
 And lowering crept away and left the field. 
 Then came the king s son, wounded, sore bestead, 
 And weaponless, and saw the broken sword, 
 Hilt-buried in the dry and trodden sand, 
 And ran and snatched it, and with battle-shout 
 Lifted afresh he hewed his enemy down, 
 And saved a great cause that heroic day. 
 
HOME 
 
 THERE lies a little city in the hills ; 
 
 White are its roofs, dim is each dwelling s door, 
 
 And peace with perfect rest its bosom fills. , 
 
 There the pure mist, the pity of the sea, 
 Comes as a white, soft hand, and reaches o er 
 And touches its still face most tenderly. 
 
 Unstirred and calm, amid our shifting years, 
 Lo ! where it lies, far from the clash and roar, 
 With quiet distance blurred, as if thro tears. 
 
 heart, that prayest so for God to send 
 
 Some loving messenger to go before 
 
 And lead the way to where thy longings end, 
 
 Be sure, be very sure, that soon will come 
 His kindest angel, and through that still door 
 Into the Infinite love will lead thee home. 
 
C 42 3 
 
 GOOD NEWS 
 
 T is just the day to hear good news : 
 The pulses of the world are still ; 
 
 The eager spring s unfolding hues 
 Are drowned in floods of sun, that fill 
 
 The golden air, and softly bear 
 
 Deep sleep and silence everywhere. 
 No ripple runs along that sea 
 
 Of warm, new grass, but all things wear 
 A hush of calm expectancy : 
 What is coming to Heart and me ? 
 
 The idle clouds, that work their wills 
 In moods of shadow, on the hills ; 
 The dusky hollows in the trees, 
 Veiled with their sunlit broideries ; 
 The gate that has not swung, all day ; 
 
 The dappled water s drowsy gleam ; 
 The tap of hammers far away, 
 
 And distant voices, like a dream, 
 All seem but visions, and a tone 
 
 Haunts them of tidings they refuse : 
 
C 43 ^ 
 
 So, all the quiet afternoon, 
 Heart and I we sit alone, 
 
 Waiting for some good news. 
 
 Other days had lif e to spare, 
 
 Tasks to do, and men to meet, 
 Trifling wishes, bits of care, 
 
 A hundred ways for ready feet ; 
 
 But this bright day is all so sweet, 
 So sweet, t is sad in its content ; 
 As if kind Nature, as she went 
 Her happy way, had paused a space, 
 Remembered us, and turned her face 
 
 As toward some protest of distress ; 
 Waiting till we should find our place 
 
 In the wide world s happiness. 
 Nothing stirs but some vague scent, 
 
 A breath of hidden violet 
 The lonely last of odors gone 
 
 Still lingering from the morning dews, 
 As if it were the earth s regret 
 For other such bright days that went, 
 While Heart and I we sat alone, 
 
 Waiting for our good news. 
 
C 44 ] 
 
 What would you have for your good news, 
 Foolish Heart, foolish Heart ? 
 
 Some new freedom to abuse, 
 Some old trouble to depart ? 
 
 Sudden flash of snowy wing 
 
 Out of yonder blue, to bring 
 
 Messages so long denied ? 
 
 The old greeting at your side, 
 
 The old hunger satisfied ? 
 
 Nay, the distant will not come ; 
 To deaf ears all songs are dumb : 
 
 Silly Heart, silly Heart ! 
 From within joy must begin 
 
 What could help the thing thou art ? 
 Nothing draweth from afar, 
 The gods can give but what we are. 
 Heaven makes the mould, but soon and late 
 Man pours the metal that is Fate. 
 We must speak the word we wait, 
 
 And give the gift we die to own. 
 
 Wake, Heart ! From us alone 
 Can come our best good news. 
 
C 45 
 
 REVERIE 
 
 WHETHER t was in that dome of evening sky, 
 So hollow where the few great stars were bright, 
 
 Or something in the cricket s lonely cry, 
 
 Or, farther off, where swelled upon the night 
 The surf -beat of the symphony s delight, 
 
 Then died in crumbling cadences away 
 
 A dream of Schubert s soul, too sweet to stay : 
 
 Whether from these, or secret spell within, 
 It seemed an empty waste of endless sea, 
 
 Where the waves mourned for what had never been, 
 Where the wind sought for what could never be : 
 Then all was still, in vast expectancy 
 
 Of powers that waited but some mystic sign 
 
 To touch the dead world to a life divine. 
 
 Me, too, it filled that breathless, blind desire ; 
 
 And every motion of the oars of thought 
 Thrilled all the deep in flashes sparks of fire 
 
 In meshes of the darkling ripples caught, 
 
C 46 ]] 
 
 Swiftly rekindled, and then quenched to naught ; 
 And the dark held me ; wish and will were none : 
 A soul unformed and void, silent, alone, 
 And brooded over by the Infinite One. 
 
SPRING 
 
 WHEN is it Spring ? When spirits rise, 
 Pure crocus-buds, where the snow dies ; 
 When children play outdoors till dark ; 
 When the sap trickles up the bark ; 
 When bits of blue sky flit and sing, 
 Playing at birds then is it Spring ? 
 
 When is it Spring ? When the bee hums ; 
 When through the opened window comes 
 The breeze, and summer-license claims 
 To swing and toss the picture frames ; 
 When the walk dries ; the robins call ; 
 The brown hens doze by the sunny wall, 
 One foot drawn up to warm, or sing 
 With half -filmed eyes then is it Spring ? 
 
 Nay, each might prove a treacherous sign : 
 But when old waters seem new wine ; 
 When all our mates are half divine ; 
 When love comes easier than hate ; 
 
C 48 ] 
 
 When we have no more shrugs at Fate, 
 But think sometimes of God, and late 
 Our swiftest serving seems to be ; 
 When bright ways numberless we see, 
 And thoughts spring up, and hopes run free. 
 And wild new dreams are all on wing, 
 Till we must either fly or sing 
 With riotous life be sure t is Spring. 
 
C 49 
 
 FIVE LIVES 
 
 FIVE mites of monads dwelt in a round drop 
 That twinkled on a leaf by a pool in the sun. 
 To the naked eye they lived invisible ; 
 Specks, for a world of whom the empty shell 
 Of a mustard-seed had been a hollow sky. 
 
 One was a meditative monad, called a sage ; 
 And, shrinking all his mind within, he thought : 
 " Tradition, handed down for hours and hours, 
 Tells that our globe, this quivering crystal world, 
 Is slowly dying. What if, seconds hence, 
 When I am very old, yon shimmering dome 
 Come drawing down and down, till all things end ? " 
 Then with a weazen smirk he proudly felt 
 No other mote of God had ever gained 
 Such giant grasp of universal truth. 
 
 One was a transcendental monad ; thin 
 And long and slim in the mind ; and thus he mused : 
 " Oh, vast, unfathomable monad-souls ! 
 
C 50 3 
 
 Made in the image " a hoarse frog croaks from the 
 
 pool 
 
 " Hark ! t was some god, voicing his glorious thought 
 In thunder music ! Yea, we hear their voice, 
 And we may guess their minds from ours, their work. 
 Some taste they have like ours, some tendency 
 To wriggle about, and munch a trace of scum." 
 He floated up on a pin-point bubble of gas 
 That burst, pricked by the air, and he was gone. 
 
 One was a barren-minded monad, called 
 A positivist ; and he knew positively : 
 " There is no world beyond this certain drop. 
 Prove me another ! Let the dreamers dream 
 Of their faint dreams, and noises from without, 
 And higher and lower ; life is life enough." 
 Then swaggering half a hair s breadth, hungrily 
 He seized upon an atom of bug, and fed. 
 
 One was a tattered monad, called a poet ; 
 And with shrill voice ecstatic thus he sang : 
 " Oh, the little female monad s lips ! 
 Oh, the little female monad s eyes ! 
 Ah, the little, little, female, female monad ! " 
 
c 51 : 
 
 The last was a strong-minded monadess, 
 Who dashed amid the infusoria. 
 Danced high and low, and wildly spun and dove 
 Till the dizzy others held their breath to see. 
 
 But while they led their wondrous little lives 
 Ionian moments had gone wheeling by. 
 The burning drop had shrunk with fearful speed ; 
 A glistening film t was gone ; the leaf was dry. 
 The little ghost of an inaudible squeak 
 Was lost to the frog that goggled from his stone ; 
 Who, at the huge, slow tread of a thoughtful ox 
 Coming to drink, stirred sideways fatly, plunged, 
 Launched backward twice, and all the pool was still. 
 
52 
 
 TRANQUILLITY 
 
 WEARY, and marred with care and pain 
 And bruising days, the human brain 
 Draws wounded inward, it might be 
 Some delicate creature of the sea, 
 That, shuddering, shrinks its lucent dome, 
 And coils its azure tendrils home, 
 And folds its filmy curtains tight 
 At jarring contact, e er so light ; 
 But let it float away all free, 
 And feel the buoyant, supple sea 
 Among its tinted streamers swell, 
 Again it spreads its gauzy wings, 
 And, waving its wan fringes, swings 
 With rhythmic pulse its crystal bell. 
 
 So let the mind, with care overwrought, 
 Float down the tranquil tides of thought : 
 Calm visions of unending years 
 Beyond this little moment s fears ; 
 Of boundless regions far from where 
 
C 53 3 
 
 The girdle of the azure air 
 
 Binds to the earth the prisoned mind. 
 
 Set free the fancy, till it find 
 
 Beyond our world a vaster place 
 
 To thrill and vibrate out through space, 
 
 As some auroral banner streams 
 
 Up through the night in pulsing gleams, 
 
 And floats and flashes o er our dreams ; 
 
 There let the whirling planet fall 
 
 D own down, till but a glimmering ball, 
 
 A misty star : and dwindled so, 
 
 There is no room for care, or woe, 
 
 Or wish, apart from that one Will 
 
 That doth the worlds with music fill. 
 
C 54 
 
 MT PEACE THOU ART 
 
 MY peace thou art, thou art my rest ; 
 From thee my pain, in thee so blest : 
 Enter mine eyes, this heart draw near, 
 Oh come, oh dwell forever here. 
 
 Enter, and close the door, and come, 
 And be this breast thine endless home ; 
 Shut out all lesser care and woe, 
 I would thy hurt and healing know. 
 
 Clear light that on my soul hath shone, 
 Still let it shine from thee alone, 
 From thee alone. 
 
C 55 
 
 HER FACE 
 
 I STOOD in sombre dreaming 
 Before her image dear, 
 
 And saw, in secret wonder, 
 Living my darling appear. 
 
 About her mouth a smile came, 
 So wonderful and wise, 
 
 And tears of some still sorrow 
 Seemed shining in her eyes. 
 
 My tears, they too were flowing, 
 Her face I could not see, 
 
 And oh ! I cannot believe it, 
 That my love is lost to me. 
 
C 56 
 
 DARE YOU? 
 
 DOUBTING Thomas and loving John, 
 Behind the others walking on : 
 
 " Tell me now, John, dare you be 
 One of the minority ? 
 To be lonely in your thought, 
 Never visited nor sought, 
 Shunned with secret shrug, to go 
 Through the world esteemed its foe ; 
 To be singled out and hissed, 
 Pointed at as one unblessed, 
 Warned against in whispers faint, 
 Lest the children catch a taint ; 
 To bear off your titles well, 
 Heretic and infidel ? 
 If you dare, come now with me, 
 Fearless, confident, and free." 
 
 " Thomas, do you dare to be 
 Of the great majority ? 
 
c 57 : 
 
 To be only, as the rest, 
 
 With Heaven s common comforts blessed ; 
 
 To accept, in humble part, 
 
 Truth that shines on every heart ; 
 
 Never to be set on high, 
 
 Where the envious curses fly ; 
 
 Never name or fame to find, 
 
 Still outstripped in soul and mind ; 
 
 To be hid, unless to God, 
 
 As one grass-blade in the sod, 
 
 Underfoot with millions trod ? 
 
 If you dare, come with us be 
 
 Lost in love s great unity." 
 
C 58 
 
 THE INVISIBLE 
 
 IF there is naught but what we see, 
 
 What is the wide world worth to me ? 
 
 But is there naught save what we see ? 
 
 A thousand things on every hand 
 
 My sense is numb to understand : 
 
 I know we eddy round the sun ; 
 
 When has it dizzied any one ? 
 
 I know the round worlds draw from far. 
 
 Through hollow systems, star to star ; 
 
 But who has e er upon a strand 
 
 Of those great cables laid his hand ? 
 
 What reaches up from room to room 
 
 Of chambered earth, through glare or gloom, 
 
 Through molten flood and fiery blast, 
 
 And binds our hurrying feet so fast ? 
 
 T is the earth-mother s love, that well 
 
 Will hold the motes that round her dwell : 
 
 Through granite hills you feel it stir 
 
 As lightly as through gossamer : 
 
 Its grasp unseen by mortal eyes, 
 
 Its grain no lens can analyze. 
 
C 59 ] 
 
 If there is naught but what we see, 
 The friend I loved is lost to me : 
 He fell asleep ; who dares to say 
 His spirit is so far away ? 
 Who knows what wings are round about ? 
 These thoughts who proves but from without 
 They still are whispered ? Who can think 
 They rise from morning s food and drink ! 
 These thoughts that stream on like the sea, 
 And darkly beat incessantly 
 The feet of some great hope, and break, 
 And only broken glimmers make, 
 Nor ever climb the shore, to lie 
 And calmly mirror the far sky, 
 And image forth in tranquil deeps 
 The secret that its silence keeps. 
 
 Because he never comes, and stands 
 And stretches out to me both hands, 
 Because he never leans before 
 .The gate, when I set wide the door 
 At morning, nor is ever found 
 Just at my side when I turn round, 
 Half thinking I shall meet his eyes, 
 
C so 3 
 
 From watching the broad moon-globe rise, 
 For all this, shall I homage pay 
 To Death, grow cold of heart, and say : 
 " He perished, and has ceased to be ; 
 Another comes, but never he " ? 
 Nay, by our wondrous being, nay ! 
 Although his face I never see 
 Through aD the infinite To Be, 
 I know he lives and cares for me. 
 
C 6l 
 
 A DRIFTING CLOUD 
 
 BORN of the shadows that it passes through, 
 Incessantly becoming and destroyed, 
 
 Its form unchanged, its substance ever new, 
 Builded from its own largess to the void ; 
 
 Of steady purpose innerly aware, 
 
 Yet blindly borne upon the streaming air, 
 
 Giving itself away, distributing 
 
 Its own abundant heart in splendid showers, 
 But not impoverished, since its losses bring 
 
 Perpetual renewing all the hours : 
 Drifting, sunlit or shadowed, to the sea, 
 
 cloud, thou hast a human destiny ! 
 
WORDSWORTH 
 
 A MOONLIT desert s yellow sands, 
 Where, dimmer than its shadow, stands 
 A motionless palm-tree here and there, 
 And the great stars through amber air 
 Burn calm as planets, and the face 
 Of earth seems lifting into space : 
 
 A tropic ocean s starlit rest, 
 
 Along whose smooth and sleeping breast 
 
 Slow swells just stir the mirrored gleams, 
 
 Like faintest sighs in placid dreams ; 
 
 All overhead the night, so high 
 
 And hollow that there seems no sky, 
 
 But the unf athomed deeps, among 
 
 The worlds down endless arches swung : 
 
 On moonlit plain, and starlit sea, 
 Is life s lost charm, tranquillity. 
 
 A poet found it once, and took 
 It home, and hid it in a book, 
 
C 6 3 H 
 
 As one might press a violet. 
 
 There still the odor lingers yet 
 
 Delicious ; from your treasured tomes 
 
 Reach down your Wordsworth, and there comes 
 
 That fragrance which no bard but he 
 
 E er caught, as if the plain and sea 
 
 Had yielded their serenity. 
 
. PEACE 
 
 T is not in seeking, 
 
 T is not in endless striving, 
 
 Thy quest is found : 
 Be still and listen ; 
 Be still and drink the quiet 
 
 Of all around. 
 
 Not for thy crying, 
 
 Not for thy loud beseeching, 
 
 Will peace draw near : 
 Rest with palms folded ; 
 Rest with thine eyelids fallen 
 
 Lo ! peace is here. 
 
THE HOUSE AND THE HEART 
 
 EVERY house with its garret ; 
 Lumbered with rubbish and relics 
 Spinning-wheels leaning in corners, 
 Chests under spider-webbed rafters, 
 Brittle and yellow old letters, 
 Grandfather s things and grandmother s. 
 There overhead, at the midnight, 
 Noises of creaking and stepping 
 
 Startle the hush of the chambers 
 
 . 
 Ghosts on their tip-toes repassing. 
 
 Every house with its garden ; 
 Some little plot a half -acre, 
 Or a mere strip by the windows, 
 Flower-beds and narrow box-borders, 
 Something spicily fragrant, 
 Something azure and golden. 
 There the small feet of the sparrow 
 Star the fresh mould round the roses ; 
 And, in the shadowy moonlight, 
 Wonderful secrets are whispered. 
 
C 66 3 
 
 Every heart with its garret, 
 Cumbered with relics and rubbish 
 Wheels that are silent forever, 
 Leaves that are faded and broken, 
 Foolish old wishes and fancies, 
 Cobwebs of doubt and suspicion 
 Useless, unbeautiful, growing 
 Year by year thicker and faster : 
 Naught but a fire or a moving 
 Ever can clear it, or clean it. 
 
 Every heart with its garden ; 
 Some little corner kept sacred, 
 Fragrant and pleasant with blossoms ; 
 There the forget-me-nots cluster, 
 And pure love-violets, hidden, 
 Guessed but by sweetness all round them ; 
 Some little strip in the sunshine, 
 Cheery and warm, for above it 
 Rest the deep, beautiful heavens, 
 Blue, and beyond, and forever. 
 
C 67 
 
 THE FOOL S PRAYER 
 
 THE royal feast was done ; the King 
 Sought some new sport to banish care, 
 
 And to his jester cried : " Sir Fool, 
 
 Kneel now, and make for us a prayer ! 
 
 The jester doffed his cap and bells, 
 And stood the mocking court before ; 
 
 They could not see the bitter smile 
 Behind the painted grin he wore. 
 
 He bowed his head, and bent his knee 
 Upon the monarch s silken stool ; 
 
 His pleading voice arose : " Lord, 
 Be merciful to me, a fool ! 
 
 " No pity, Lord, could change the heart 
 
 From red with wrong to white as wool ; 
 The rod must heal the sin : but, Lord, 
 Be merciful to me, a fool ! 
 
C 68 : 
 
 " T is not by guilt the onward sweep 
 
 Of truth and right, Lord, we stay ; 
 T is by our follies that so long 
 
 We hold the earth from heaven away. 
 
 " These clumsy feet, still in the mire, 
 
 Go crushing blossoms without end ; 
 These hard, well-meaning hands we thrust 
 Among the heart-strings of a friend. 
 
 " The ill-timed truth we might have kept 
 
 Who knows how sharp it pierced and stung ? 
 The word we had not sense to say 
 Who knows how grandly it had rung ? 
 
 " Our faults no tenderness should ask, 
 
 The chastening stripes must cleanse them all ; 
 But for our blunders oh, in shame 
 Before the eyes of heaven we fall. 
 
 " Earth bears no balsam for mistakes; 
 
 Men crown the knave, and scourge the tool 
 That did his will; but Thou, Lord, 
 Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 
 
C 69 ] 
 
 The room was hushed ; in silence rose* 
 The King, and sought his gardens cool, 
 
 And walked apart, and murmured low, 
 " Be merciful to me, a fool ! " 
 
C 70 
 
 BUT FOR HIM 
 
 DUMB and still was the heart of man 
 
 By the river of Time : 
 
 Far it stretched, and wide and free, 
 
 This rapid river ; on it ran, 
 
 Through many a land and many a clime, 
 
 On and on, and no tide turned, 
 
 Down and down to Eternity. 
 
 Dumb and still but the man s heart yearned 
 For a voice to break the silence long ; 
 And there by the side of the heart of man 
 Stood the spirit of Song. 
 
 Then the waves laughed 
 
 Down the river of Time ; 
 
 And the west wind and the south wind sang, 
 
 And the world was glad, 
 
 For now it had 
 
 A voice to utter, in jocund chime, 
 
 The joy it quaffed 
 
 From the river of Time. 
 
C 71 ] 
 
 But when the song grew low and sad, 
 
 The trees drooped, 
 
 The flowers were dim, 
 
 And a dark cloud down from heaven stooped ; 
 
 The wind mourned, and tear-drops fell ; 
 
 And the world cried, grieving, " But for him 
 
 We had not known but all was well ! " 
 
A REPLY 
 
 To the mother of the world, 
 Not for help or light or grace, 
 Basely I for comfort came : 
 And I brought my craven fears, 
 Late amends of useless tears, 
 Brought my stumbling feet so lame, 
 Hopes with weary pinions furled, 
 Every longing unattained, 
 All my love with self-love stained, 
 Told them to her grave, mild face. 
 
 And the mother of the world 
 Spake, and answered unto me, 
 In the brook that past me purled ; 
 In the bluebird s heavenly hue, 
 When beyond his downward swerve 
 Up he glanced, a sweep of blue ; 
 In the sunshine s shifting spray, 
 Drifted in beneath the tree 
 Where I sheltered, lest its flood 
 
C 73 3 
 
 There outside should drown my blood ; 
 In the cloud-pearl s melting curve ; 
 In the little odorous thrill 
 Trembling from each blossom-bell ; 
 In the silence of the sky, 
 And the thoughts that from it fell. 
 Floating as a snowflake will, 
 So the mother answered me : 
 
 Child ! it is not thine to see 
 Why at all thy life should be, 
 Wherefore thou must thus abide, 
 Foiled, repulsed, unsatisfied, 
 Thou hast not to prove thy right 
 To the earth-room and the light. 
 Thou hast not to justify 
 Thought of mine to human eye. 
 I have borne thee ! Trust to me ! 
 Strength and help are in thy deed ; 
 Comfort thou shalt scorn to need. 
 Careless what shall come to thee, 
 Look but what thy work shall be." 
 
[ 74 
 
 THE DESERTER 
 
 BLINDEST and most frantic prayer, 
 Clutching at a senseless boon, 
 
 His that begs, in mad despair, 
 
 Death to come ; he comes so soon ! 
 
 Like a reveler that strains 
 
 Lip and throat to drink it up 
 
 The last ruby that remains, 
 One red droplet in the cup. 
 
 Like a child that, sullen, mute, 
 
 Sulking spurns, with chin on breast, 
 
 Of the Tree of Life a fruit, 
 
 His gift of whom he is the guest. 
 
 Outcast on the thither shore, 
 Open scorn to him shall give 
 
 Souls that heavier burdens bore : 
 " See the wretch that dared not live ! 
 
THE REFORMER 
 
 BEFORE the monstrous wrong he sets him down 
 One man against a stone- walled city of sin. 
 For centuries those walls have been a-building ; 
 Smooth porphyry, they slope and coldly glass 
 The flying storm and wheeling sun. No chink, 
 No crevice lets the thinnest arrow in. 
 He fights alone, and from the cloudy ramparts 
 A thousand evil faces gibe and jeer him. 
 Let him lie down and die : what is the right, 
 And where is justice, in a world like this ? 
 But by and by, earth shakes herself, impatient ; 
 And down, in one great roar of ruin, crash 
 Watch-tower and citadel and battlements. 
 When the red dust has cleared, the lonely soldier 
 Stands with strange thoughts beneath the friendly 
 stars. 
 
C 76 ] 
 
 DESIRE OF SLEEP 
 
 IT is not death I mean, 
 
 Nor even f orgetf ulness, 
 But healthful human sleep, 
 Dreamless, and still, and deep, 
 Where I would hide and glean 
 Some heavenly balm to bless. 
 
 I would not die ; I long 
 
 To live, to see my days 
 Bud once again, and bloom, 
 And make amidst them room 
 For thoughts like birds of song, 
 Out-winging happy ways. 
 
 I would not even forget : 
 Only, a little while 
 Just now I cannot bear 
 Eemembrance with despair ; 
 The years are coming yet 
 When I shall look, and smile. 
 
c 77 n 
 
 Not now oh, not to-night ! 
 
 Too clear on midnight s deep 
 Come voice and hand and touch ; 
 The heart aches overmuch 
 
 Hush sounds ! shut out the light ! 
 A little I must sleep. 
 
HEE EXPLANATION 
 
 So you have wondered at me, guessed in vain 
 What the real woman is you know so well ? 
 
 I am a lost illusion. Some strange spell 
 Once made your friend there, with his fine disdain 
 Of fact, conceive me perfect. He would fain 
 
 (But could not) see me always, as befell 
 
 His dream to see me, plucking asphodel, 
 In saffron robes, on some celestial plain. 
 All that I was he marred and flung away 
 
 In quest of what I was not, could not be, 
 
 Lilith, or Helen, or Antigone. 
 Still he may search ; but I have had my day, 
 
 And now the Past is all the part for me 
 That this world s empty stage has left to play. 
 
C 79 
 
 EVE S DAUGHTER ( 
 
 I WAITED in the little sunny room : 
 
 The cool breeze waved the window-lace, at play, 
 The white rose on the porch was all in bloom, 
 
 And out upon the bay 
 I watched the wheeling sea-birds go and come. 
 
 " Such an old friend, she would not make me stay 
 
 While she bound up her hair." I turned, and lo, 
 Danae in her shower ! and fit to slay 
 
 All a man s hoarded prudence at a blow : 
 Gold hair, that streamed away 
 
 As round some nymph a sunlit fountain s flow. 
 " She would not make me wait ! " but well I know 
 
 She took a good half -hour to loose and lay 
 Those locks in dazzling disarrangement so ! 
 
C 8o 3 
 
 BLINDFOLD 
 
 WHAT do we know of the world, as we grow so old 
 
 and wise ? 
 Do the years, that still the heart-beats, quicken the 
 
 drowsy eyes ? 
 At twenty we thought we knew it, the world there, 
 
 at our feet ; 
 We thought we had found its bitter, we knew we had 
 
 found its sweet. 
 Now at forty and fifty, what do we make of the 
 
 world? 
 There in her sand she crouches, the Sphinx with her 
 
 gray wings furled. 
 
 Soul of a man I know not ; who knoweth, can fore 
 tell, 
 And what can I read of fate, even of self I have 
 
 learned so well ? 
 Heart of a woman I know not : how should I hope to 
 
 know, 
 I that am foiled by a flower, or the stars of the silent 
 
 snow; 
 
I that have never guessed the mind of the bright-eyed 
 
 bird, 
 Whom even the dull rocks cheat, and the whirlwind s 
 
 awful word ? 
 Let me loosen the fillet of clay from the shut and 
 
 darkened lid, 
 For life is a blindfold game, and the Voice from view 
 
 is hid. 
 
 I face him as best I can, still groping, here and there, 
 For the hand that has touched me lightly, the lips that 
 
 have said, " Declare ! " 
 Well, I declare him my friend, the friend of the 
 
 whole sad race ; 
 And oh, that the game were over, and I might see his 
 
 face! 
 But t is much, though I grope in blindness, the Voice 
 
 that is hid from view 
 May be heard, may be even loved, in a dream that 
 
 may come true. 
 
RECALL 
 
 " LOVE me, or I am slain ! " I cried, and meant 
 Bitterly true each word. Nights, morns, slipped by, 
 Moons,, circling suns, yet still alive am I ; 
 But shame to me, if my best time be spent 
 
 On this perverse, blind passion ! Are we sent 
 Upon a planet just to mate and die, 
 A man no more than some pale butterfly 
 That yields his day to nature s sole intent ? 
 
 Or is my life but Marguerite s ox-eyed flower, 
 
 That I should stand and pluck and fling away, 
 
 One after one, the petal of each hour, 
 
 Like a love-dreamy girl, and only say, 
 
 " Loves me," and " loves me not," and " loves me " ? 
 
 Nay! 
 Let the man s mind awake to manhood s power. 
 
STRANGE 
 
 HE died at night. Next day they came 
 To weep and praise him : sudden fame 
 These suddenly warm comrades gave. 
 They called him pure, they called him brave ; 
 One praised his heart, and one his brain ; 
 All said, You d seek his like in vain, 
 Gentle, and strong, and good : none saw 
 In all his character a flaw. 
 
 At noon he wakened from his trance, 
 Mended, was well ! They looked askance ; 
 Took his hand coldly ; loved him not, 
 Though they had wept him ; quite forgot 
 His virtues ; lent an easy ear 
 To slanderous tongues ; professed a fear 
 He was not what he seemed to be ; 
 Thanked God they were not such as he ; 
 Gave to his hunger stones for bread ; 
 And made him, living, wish him dead. 
 
WIEGENLIED 
 
 BE still and sleep, my soul ! 
 
 Now gentle-footed Night 
 In softly shadowed stole, 
 
 Holds all the day from sight. 
 
 Why shouldst thou lie and stare 
 Against the dark, and toss, 
 
 And live again thy care, 
 Thine agony and loss? 
 
 T was given thee to live, 
 And thou hast lived it all ; 
 
 Let that suffice, nor give 
 
 One thought what may befall. 
 
 Thou hast no need to wake, 
 
 Thou art no sentinel ; 
 Love all the care will take, 
 
 And Wisdom watcheth well. 
 
C 8 5 3 
 
 Weep not, think not, but rest ! 
 
 The stars in silence roll ; 
 On the world s mother-breast, 
 
 Be still and sleep, my soul ! 
 
AN ANCIENT ERROR 
 
 He that has and a little tiny wit, 
 With hey, ho, the wind and the rain. 
 
 LEAR 
 
 THE " sobbing wind/ the " weeping rain/ 
 
 T is time to give the lie 
 To these old superstitions twain, 
 
 That poets sing and sigh. 
 
 Taste the sweet drops, no tang of brine ; 
 
 Feel them, they do not burn ; 
 The daisy-buds, whereon they shine, 
 
 Laugh, and to blossoms turn. 
 
 There is no natural grief or sin ; 
 
 T is we have flung the pall, 
 And brought the sound of sorrow in. 
 
 Pan is not dead at all. 
 
 The merry Pan ! his blithesome look 
 Twinkles through sun and rain ; 
 
i 87 3 
 
 By ivied rock and rippled brook 
 He pipes his jocund strain. 
 
 If winds have wailed and skies wept tears, 
 
 To poet s vision dim, 
 T was that his own sobs filled his ears, 
 
 His weeping blinded him. 
 
 T is laughing breeze and singing shower, 
 
 As ever heart could need ; 
 And who with " hey " and " ho " must lower 
 
 Hath " tiny wit " indeed. 
 
c: 
 
 TO A FACE AT A CONCERT 
 
 WHEN the low music makes a dusk of sound 
 
 About us, and the viol or far-off horn 
 Swells out above it like a wind forlorn, 
 That wanders seeking something never found, 
 
 What phantom in your brain, on what dim ground, 
 Traces its shadowy lines ? What vision, born 
 Of unfulfillment, fades in mere self -scorn, 
 Or grows, from that still twilight stealing round ? 
 
 When the lids droop and the hands lie unstrung, 
 Dare one divine your dream, while the chords weave 
 Their cloudy woof from key to key, and die, 
 
 Is it one fate that, since the world was young, 
 Has followed man, and makes him half believe 
 The voice of instruments a human cry ? 
 
C 89 3 
 
 TWO VIEWS OF IT 
 
 " WORLD, glorious world, good-by ! " 
 Time but to think it one wild cry 
 Unuttered, a heart-wrung farewell 
 To sky and wood and flashing stream, 
 All gathered in a last swift gleam, 
 As the crag crumbled, and he fell. 
 
 But lo ! the thing was wonderful ! 
 After the echoing crash, a lull : 
 The great fir on the slope below 
 Had spread its mighty mother-arm, 
 And caught him, springing like a bow 
 Of steel, and lowered him safe from harm, 
 
 T was but an instant s dark and daze : 
 Then, as he felt each limb was sound, 
 And slowly from the swooning haze 
 The dizzy trees stood still that whirled, 
 And the familiar sky and ground, 
 There grew with them across his brain 
 A dull regret : " So, world, dark world, 
 You are come back again ! " 
 
I 90 3 
 
 THE LINKS OF CHANCE 
 
 HOLDING apoise in air 
 
 My twice-dipped pen, for some tense thread of 
 thought 
 
 Had snapped, mine ears were half aware 
 Of passing wheels ; eyes saw, but mind saw not, 
 
 My sun-shot linden. Suddenly, as I stare, 
 Two shifting visions grow and fade unsought : 
 
 Noon-blaze : the broken shade 
 Of ruins strown. Two Tartar lovers sit : 
 
 She gazing on the ground, face turned, afraid ; 
 And he, at her. Silence is all his wit. 
 
 She stoops, picks up a pebble of green jade 
 To toss : they watch its flight, unheeding it. 
 
 Ages have rolled away ; 
 
 And round the stone, by chance, if chance there be, 
 Sparse soil has caught ; a seed, wind-lodged one 
 
 Grown grass ; shrubs sprung ; at last a tufted tree : 
 
 Lo ! over its snake root yon conquering Bey 
 Trips backward, fighting and half Asia free ! 
 
91 
 
 WORDS, WORDS, WORDS" 
 
 (TO ONE WHO FLOtTTED THEM AS VAIN) 
 I 
 
 AM I not weary of them as your heart 
 Or ever Hamlet s was ? the empty ones, 
 Mere breath of passing air, mere hollow tones 
 That idle winds to broken reeds impart. 
 
 Have they not cursed my life ? sounds I mistook 
 For sacred verities, love, faith, delight, 
 And the sweet tales that women tell at night, 
 When darkness hides the falsehood of the look. 
 
 I was the one of all Ulysses crew 
 
 (What time he stopped their ears) that leaped and fled 
 
 Unto the sirens, for the honey-dew 
 
 Of their dear songs. The poets me have fed 
 With the same poisoned fruit. And even you, 
 Did you not pluck them for me in days dead ? 
 
C 93 
 
 II 
 
 Nay, they do bear a blessing and a power, 
 Great words and true, that bridge from soul to soul 
 The awful cloud-depths that betwixt us roll. 
 I will not have them so blasphemed. This hour, 
 
 This little hour of life, this lean to-day, 
 What were it worth but for those mighty dreams 
 That sweep from down the past on sounding streams 
 Of such high-thoughted words as poets say ? 
 
 What, but for Shakespeare s and for Homer s lay, 
 And bards whose sacred names all lips repeat ? 
 Words, only words ; yet, save for tongue and pen 
 
 Of those great givers of them unto men, 
 And burdens they still bear of grave or sweet, 
 This world were but for beasts, a darkling den. 
 
THE THRUSH 
 
 THE thrush sings high on the topmost bough, - 
 Low, louder, low again ; and now 
 He has changed his tree, you know not how, 
 For you saw no flitting wing. 
 
 All the notes of the forest-throng, 
 Flute, reed, and string, are in his song; 
 Never a fear knows he, nor wrong, 
 Nor a doubt of anything. 
 
 Small room for care in that soft breast ; 
 All weather that comes is to him the best, 
 While he sees his mate close on her nest, 
 And the woods are full of spring. 
 
 He has lost his last year s love, I know, 
 He, too, but t is little he keeps of woe ; 
 For a bird forgets in a year, and so 
 No wonder the thrush can sing. 
 
C 94 
 
 CARPE DIEM 
 
 How the dull thought smites me dumb, 
 " It will come ! " and " It will come ! " 
 But to-day I am not dead ; 
 Life in hand and foot and head 
 Leads me on its wondrous ways. 
 T is in such poor, common days, 
 Made of morning, noon, and night, 
 Golden truth has leaped to light, 
 Potent messages have sped, 
 Torches flashed with running rays, 
 World-runes started on their flight. 
 
 Let it come, when come it must ; 
 But To-Day from out the dust 
 Blooms and brightens like a flower, 
 Fair with love, and faith, and power. 
 Pluck it with unclouded will, 
 From the great tree Igdrasil. 
 
[ 95 
 
 SERVICE 
 
 FRET not that the day is gone. 
 And thy task is still undone. 
 T was not thine, it seems, at all : 
 Near to thee it chanced to fall, 
 Close enough to stir thy brain, 
 And to vex thy heart in vain. 
 Somewhere, in a nook forlorn, 
 Yesterday a babe was born : 
 He shall do thy waiting task ; 
 All thy questions he shall ask, 
 And the answers will be given, 
 Whispered lightly out of heaven. 
 His shall be no stumbling feet, 
 Falling where they should be fleet : 
 He shall hold no broken clue ; 
 
 Friends shall unto him be true ; 
 
 
 
 Men shall love him ; falsehood s aim 
 Shall not shatter his good name. 
 Day shall nerve his arm with light, 
 Slumber soothe him all the night ; 
 
C 9 6 3 
 
 Summer s peace and winter s storm 
 Help him all his will perform. 
 T is enough of joy for thee 
 His high service to foresee. 
 
I 97 
 
 THE BOOK OF HOURS 
 
 As one who reads a tale writ in a tongue 
 
 He only partly knows, runs over it 
 
 And follows but the story, losing wit 
 And charm, and half the subtle links among 
 The haps and harms that the book s folk beset, 
 
 So do we with our life. Night comes, and morn ; 
 
 I know that one has died and one is born ; 
 That this by love and that by hate is met. 
 But all the grace and glory of it fail 
 
 To touch me, and the meanings they enfold. 
 The Spirit of the World hath told the tale, 
 
 And tells it : and t is very wise and old. 
 But o er the page there is a mist and veil : 
 
 I do not know the tongue in which t is told. 
 
C 
 
 THE WONDERFUL THOUGHT 
 
 IT comes upon me in the woods. 
 Of all the days, this day in May : 
 
 When wind and rain can never think 
 Whose turn t is now to have its way. 
 
 It finds me as I lie along, 
 
 Blinking up through the swaying trees, 
 Half wondering if a man who reads 
 
 " Blue sky " in books that color sees, 
 
 So fathomless and pure : as if 
 
 All loveliest azure things have gone 
 
 To heaven that way, the flowers, the sea, 
 And left their ^olor there alone. 
 
 Hark ! leaning on each other s arms, 
 The pines are whispering in the breeze, 
 
 Whispering, then hushing, half in awe 
 Their legends of primeval seas. 
 
C 99 3 
 
 The wild things of the wood come out, 
 And stir or hide, as wild things will, 
 
 Like thoughts that may not be pursued, 
 But come if one is calm and still. 
 
 Deep hemlocks down the gorge shut in 
 Their caves with hollow shadow filled, 
 
 Where little feathered anchorites 
 Behind a sunlit lattice build. 
 
 And glimmering through that lace of boughs, 
 Dancing, while they hang darker still, 
 
 Along the restful river shines 
 
 The restless light s incessant thrill : 
 
 As in some sober, silent soul, 
 
 Whose life appears a tranquil stream, 
 
 Through some unguarded rift you catch 
 The wildest wishes, all agleam. 
 
 But to my thought so wonderful ! 
 
 I know if once t were told, all men 
 Would feel it warm at heart, and life 
 
 Be more than it had ever been. 
 
T would make these flowerless woods laugh out 
 
 With every garden-color bright, 
 Where only, now, the dogwood hangs 
 
 Its scattered cloud of ghostly white, 
 
 Those birds would hold no more aloof : 
 How know they I am here, so well ? 
 
 T is yon woodpecker s warning note ; 
 He is their seer and sentinel. 
 
 They use him, but his faithfulness 
 Perchance in human fashion pay, 
 
 Laugh in their feathers at his voice, 
 And ridicule his stumbling way. 
 
 That far-off flute-note hours in vain 
 I ve followed it, so shy and fleet ; 
 
 But if I found him, well I know 
 
 His song would seem not half so sweet. 
 
 The swift, soft creatures, how I wish 
 They d trust me, and come perch upon 
 
 My shoulders ! Do they guess that then 
 Their charm would be forever gone ? 
 
c ii 3 
 
 But still I prate of sight and sound ; 
 
 Ah, well, t is always so in rhyme ; 
 The idle fancies find a voice, 
 
 The wise thought waits another time. 
 
102 
 
 NATURE AND HER CHILD 
 
 As some poor child whose soul is windowless, 
 Having not hearing, speech, nor sight, sits lone 
 In her dark, silent life, till cometh one 
 With a most patient heart, who tries to guess 
 
 Some hidden way to help her helplessness, 
 
 And, yearning for that spirit shut in stone, 
 
 A crystal that has never seen the sun, 
 
 Smooths now the hair, and now the hand will press, 
 
 Or gives a key to touch, then letters raised, 
 
 Its symbol ; then an apple, or a ring, 
 
 And again letters, so, all blind and dumb, 
 
 We wait ; the kindly smiles of summer come, 
 
 And soft winds touch our cheek, and thrushes sing ; 
 
 The world-heart yearns, but we stand dull and dazed, 
 
103 
 
 THE FOSTER-MOTHER 
 
 As some poor Indian woman 
 A captive child receives, 
 
 And warms it in her bosom, 
 And o er its weeping grieves ; 
 
 And comforts it with kisses, 
 And strives to understand 
 
 Its eager, lonely babble, 
 Fondling the little hand, 
 
 So Earth, our foster-mother, 
 Yearns for us, with her great 
 
 Wild heart, and croons in murmurs 
 Low, inarticulate. 
 
 She knows we are white captives, 
 
 Her dusky race above, 
 But the deep, childless bosom 
 
 Throbs with its brooding love. 
 
C 104 
 
 TRUTH AT LAST 
 
 DOES a man ever give up hope, I wonder, 
 Face the grim fact, seeing it clear as day ? 
 When Bennen saw the snow slip, heard its thunder 
 Low, louder, roaring round him, felt the speed 
 Grow swifter as the avalanche hurled downward, 
 Did he for just one heart-throb did he indeed 
 Know with all certainty, as they swept onward, 
 There was the end, where the crag dropped away ? 
 Or did he think, even till they plunged and fell, 
 Some miracle would stop them ? Nay, they tell 
 That he turned round, face forward, calm and pale, 
 Stretching his arms out toward his native vale 
 As if in mute, unspeakable farewell, 
 And so went down. ? T is something, if at kst, 
 Though only for a flash, a man may see 
 Clear-eyed the future as he sees the past, 
 From doubt, or fear, or hope s illusion free. 
 
105 
 
 "QUEM METUI MORITURA?" 
 
 IV. 604 
 
 WHAT need have I to fear so soon to die ? 
 Let me work on, not watch and wait in dread : 
 What will it matter, when that I am dead, 
 
 That they bore hate or love who near me lie ? 
 
 T is but a lifetime, and the end is nigh 
 At best or worst. Let me lift up my head 
 And firmly, as with inner courage, tread 
 
 Mine own appointed way, on mandates high. 
 
 Pain could but bring, from all its evil store, 
 
 The close of pain : hate s venom could but kill ; 
 
 Kepulse, defeat, desertion, could no more. 
 Let me have lived my life, not cowered until 
 
 The unhindered and unhastened hour was here. 
 
 So soon what is there in the world to fear ? 
 
C lo6 
 
 A MORNING THOUGHT 
 
 WHAT if some morning, when the stars were paling, 
 And the dawn whitened, and the East was clear, 
 
 Strange peace and rest fell on me from the presence 
 Of a benignant Spirit standing near : 
 
 And I should tell him, as he stood beside me, 
 
 " This is our Earth most friendly Earth, and 
 fair; 
 
 Daily its sea and shore through sun and shadow 
 Faithful it turns, robed in its azure air : 
 
 " There is blest living here, loving and serving, 
 And quest of truth, and serene friendships dear ; 
 
 But stay not, Spirit ! Earth has one destroyer, 
 His name is Death : flee, lest he find thee here ! " 
 
 And what if then, while the still morning brightened, 
 And freshened in the elm the Summer s breath, 
 
 Should gravely smile on me the gentle angel 
 
 And take my hand and say, " My name is Death." 
 
I i7 ] 
 THE HERMITAGE 
 
 CALIFORNIA, BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO, 1866 
 
 A LIFE, a common, cleanly, quiet life, 
 Full of good citizenship and repute, 
 New, but with promise of prosperity, 
 A well-bred, fair, young-gentlemanly life, 
 What business had a girl to bring her eyes, 
 And her blonde hair, and her clear, ringing voice, 
 And break up life, as a bell breaks a dream? 
 Had Love Christ s wrath, and did this life sell doves 
 In the world s temple, that Love scourged it forth 
 Beyond the gates? Within, the worshipers, 
 Without, the waste, and the hill-country, where 
 The life, with smarting shoulders and stung heart, 
 Unknowing that the hand which scourged could heal, 
 Drave forth, blind, cursing, in despair to die, 
 Or work its own salvation out in fear. 
 
C 
 
 Old World old, foolish, wicked World farewell! 
 Since the Time-angel left my soul with thee, 
 Thou hast been a hard stepmother unto me. 
 Now I at last rebel 
 
 Against thy stony eyes and cruel hands. 
 I will go seek in far-off lands 
 Some quiet corner, where my years shall be 
 Still as the shadow of a brooding bird 
 That stirs but with her heart-beats. Far, unheard 
 May wrangle on the noisy human host, 
 While I will face my Life, that silent ghost, 
 And force it speak what it would have with me. 
 
 Not of the fair young Earth, 
 The snow-crowned, sunny-belted globe; 
 Not of its skies, nor Twilight s purple robe, 
 Nor pearly dawn; not of the flowers birth, 
 And Autumn s forest-funerals; not of storms, 
 And quiet seas, and clouds incessant forms; 
 Not of the sanctuary of the night, 
 With its solemnities, nor any sight 
 And pleasant sound of all the friendly day: 
 But I am tired of what we call our lives; 
 Tired of the endless humming in the hives, 
 
t 
 
 Sick of the bitter honey that we eat, 
 And sick of cursing all the shallow cheat. 
 
 Let me arise, and away 
 To the land that guards the dying day, 
 Whose burning tear, the evening-star, 
 Drops silently to the wave afar; 
 The land where summers never cease 
 Their sunny psalm of light and peace. 
 Whose moonlight, poured for years untold, 
 Has drifted down in dust of gold ; 
 Whose morning splendors, fallen in showers, 
 Leave ceaseless sunrise in the flowers. 
 
 There I will choose some eyrie in the hills, 
 Where I may build, like a lonely bird, 
 And catch the whispered music heard 
 Out of the noise of human ills. 
 
 So, I am here at last ; 
 
 A purer world, whose feet the old, salt Past 
 Washes against, and leaves it fresh and free 
 As a new island risen from the sea. 
 
C no ] 
 
 Three dreamy weeks we lay on Ocean s breast, 
 Rocked asleep, by gentle winds caressed, 
 Or crooned with wild wave-lullabies to rest. 
 A memory of foam and glassy spray ; 
 Wave chasing wave, like young sea-beasts at play 
 Stretches of misty silver neath the moon, 
 And night-airs murmuring many a quiet tune. 
 Three long, delicious weeks monotony 
 Of sky, and stars, and sea, 
 Broken midway by one day s tropic scene 
 Of giant plants, tangles of luminous green, 
 With fiery flowers and purple fruits between. 
 
 I have found a spot for my hermitage, 
 No dank and sunless cave, 
 I come not for a dungeon, nor a cage, 
 Not to be Nature s slave, 
 But, as a weary child, 
 Unto the mother s faithful arms I flee, 
 And seek the sunniest footstool at her knee, 
 Where I may sit beneath caresses mild, 
 And hear the sweet old songs that she will sing 
 tome. 
 
C in H 
 
 T is a grassy mountain-nook, 
 In a gorge, whose foaming brook 
 Tumbles through from the heights above, 
 Merrily leaping to the light 
 From the pine-wood s haunted gloom, 
 As a romping child, 
 Affrighted, from a sombre room 
 Leaps to the sunshine, laughing with delight : 
 Be this my home, by man s tread undefiled. 
 Here sounds no voice but of the mourning dove, 
 Nor harsher footsteps on the sands appear 
 Than the sharp, slender hoof -marks of the deer, 
 Or where the quail has left a zigzag row 
 Of lightly printed stars her track to show. 
 
 Above me frowns a front of rocky wall, 
 Deep cloven into ruined pillars tall 
 And sculptures strange ; bald to its dizzy edge, 
 Save where, in some deep crevice of a ledge 
 Buttressed by its black shadow hung below, 
 A solitary pine has cleft the rock, 
 Straight as an arrow, feathered to the tip, 
 As if a shaft from the moon-huntress bow 
 Had struck and grazed the cliff s defiant lip, 
 And stood, still stiffly quivering with the shock. 
 
C 112 3 
 
 Beyond the gorge a slope runs half-way up. 
 With hollow curve as for a giant s cup, 
 Brimming with blue pine-shadows : then in air 
 The gray rock rises bare. 
 Its front deep-fluted by the sculptor-storms 
 In moulded columns, rounded forms, 
 As if great organ-pipes were chiseled there, 
 Whose anthems are the torrent s roar below, 
 And chanting winds that through the pine- tops go. 
 Here bursts of requiem music sink and rise, 
 When the full moonlight, slowly streaming, lies 
 Like panes of gold on some cathedral pave, 
 While floating mists their silver incense wave, 
 And from on high, through fleecy window-bars, 
 Gaze down the saintly faces of the stars. 
 
 Against the huge trunk of a storm-snapped tree, 
 (Whose hollow, ready-hewn by long decay, 
 Above, a chimney, lined with slate and clay, 
 Below, a broad-arched fireplace makes for me,) 
 I ve built of saplings and long limbs a hut. 
 The roof with lacing boughs is tightly shut, 
 Thatched with thick-spreading palms of pine, 
 And tangled over by a wandering vine, 
 
C "3 ] 
 
 Uprooted from the woods close by, 
 
 Whose clasping tendrils climb and twine, 
 
 Waving their little hands on high, 
 
 As if they loved to deck this nest of mine. 
 
 Within, by smooth white stones from the brook s 
 
 beach 
 
 My rooms are separated, each from each. 
 On yonder island-rock my table s spread, 
 Brook-ringed, that no stray, fasting ant may come 
 To make himself with my wild fare at home. 
 
 Here will I live, and here my life shall be 
 Serene, still, rooted steadfastly, 
 Yet pointing skyward, and its motions keep 
 A rhythmic balance, as that cedar tall, 
 Whose straight shaft rises from the chasm there, 
 Through the blue, hollow air, 
 And, measuring the dizzy deep, 
 Leans its long shadow on the rock s gray wall. 
 
 Through the sharp gap of the gorge below, 
 From my mountains feet the gaze may go 
 Over a stretch of fields, broad-sunned, 
 
[ 114 ] 
 
 Then glance beyond, 
 
 Across the beautiful bay, 
 
 To that dim ridge, a score of miles away, 
 
 Lifting its clear-cut outline high, 
 
 Azure with distance on the azure sky, 
 
 Whose flocks of white clouds brooding on its crests 
 
 Have winged from ocean to their piny nests. 
 
 Beyond the bright blue water s further rim, 
 
 Where waves seem ripples on its far-off brim, 
 
 The rich young city lies, 
 
 Diminished to an ant-hill s size. 
 
 I trace its steep streets, ribbing all the hill 
 
 Like narrow bands of steel, 
 
 Binding the city on the shifting sand : 
 
 Thick-pressed between them stand 
 
 Broad piles of buildings, pricked through here and 
 
 there 
 
 By a sharp steeple ; and above, the air 
 Murky with smoke and dust, that seem to show 
 The bright sky saddened by the sin below. 
 
 The voice of my wild brook is marvelous ; 
 Leaning above it from a jutting rock 
 
C "5 3 
 
 To watch the image of my face, that forms 
 
 And breaks, and forms again (as the image of God 
 
 Is broken and re-gathered in a soul), 
 
 I listen to the chords that sink and swell 
 
 From many a little fall and babbling run. 
 
 That hollow gurgle is the deepest bass ; 
 
 Over the pebbles gush contralto tones, 
 
 While shriller trebles tinkle merrily, 
 
 Running, like some enchanted-fingered flute, 
 
 Endless chromatics. 
 
 Now it is the hum 
 
 And roar of distant streets ; the rush of winds 
 Through far-off forests : now the noise of rain 
 Drumming the roof ; the hiss of ocean-foam : 
 Now the swift ripple of piano-keys 
 In mad mazurkas, danced by laughing girls. 
 
 So, night and day, the hurrying brook goes on ; 
 Sometimes in noisy glee, sometimes far down, 
 Silent along the bottom of the gorge, 
 Like a deep passion hidden in the soul, 
 That chafes in secret hunger for its sea : 
 Yet not so still but that heaven finds its course ; 
 
C "6 3 
 
 And not so hid but that the yearning night 
 Broods over it, and feeds it with her stars. 
 
 When earth has Eden spots like this for man, 
 Why will he drag his life where lashing storms 
 Whip him indoors, the petulant weather s slave ? 
 There he is but a helpless, naked snail, 
 Except he wear his house close at his back. 
 Here the wide air builds him his palace walls, 
 Some little corner of it roofed, for sleep ; 
 Or he can lie all night, bare to the sky, 
 And feel updrawn against the breast of heaven, 
 Letting his thoughts stretch out among the stars, 
 As the antennae of an insect grope 
 Blindly for food, or as the ivy s shoots 
 Clamber from cope and tower to find the light, 
 And drink the electric pulses of the sun. 
 
 As from that sun we draw the coarser fire 
 That swells the veins, and builds the brain and bone, 
 So from each star a finer influence streams, 
 Kindling within the mortal chrysalis 
 The first faint thrills of its new life to come. 
 
C "7 I! 
 
 Here is no niggard gap of sky above, 
 With murk and mist below, but all sides clear, 
 Not an inch bated from the full-swung dome ; 
 Each constellation to the horizon s rim 
 Keen-glittering, as if one only need 
 Walk to the edge there, spread his wings, and float, 
 The dark earth spurned behind, into the blue. 
 
 I love thee, thou brown, homely, dear old Earth ! 
 Those fairer planets whither fate may lead, 
 Whatever marvel be their bulk or speed, 
 Ringed with what splendor, belted round with fire, 
 In glory of perpetual moons arrayed, 
 Can ne er give back the glow and fresh desire 
 Of youth in that old home where man had birth, 
 Whose paths he trod through wholesome light and 
 
 shade. 
 
 Out of their silver radiance to thy dim 
 And clouded orb his eye will turn, 
 As an old man looks back to where he played 
 About his father s hearth, and finds for him 
 No splendor like the fires which there did burn. 
 
C 1*8 3 
 
 See : I am come to live alone with thee. 
 Thou hast had many a one, grown old and worn, 
 Come to thee weary and forlorn, 
 Bent with the weight of human vanity. 
 But I come with my life almost untried, 
 In thy perpetual presence to abide. 
 Teach me thy wisdom ; let me learn the flowers, 
 And know the rocks and trees, 
 And touch the springs of all thy hidden powers. 
 Let the still gloom of thy rock-fastnesses 
 Fall deep upon my spirit, till the voice 
 Of brooks become familiar, and my heart rejoice 
 With joy of birds and winds ; and all the hours, 
 Unmaddened by the babble of vain men, 
 Bring thy most inner converse to my ken. 
 So shall it be, that, when I stand 
 On that next planet s ruddy-shimmering strand, 
 I shall not seem a pert and forward child 
 Seeking to dabble in abstruser lore 
 With alphabet unlearned, who in disgrace 
 Keturns, upon his primer yet to pore 
 But those examiners, all wise and mild, 
 Shall gently lead me to my place, 
 
C "9 ] 
 
 As one that faithfully did trace 
 
 These simpler earthly records o er and o er. 
 
 Beckoned at sunrise by the surf s white hand, 
 I have strayed down to sit upon the beach, 
 And hear the oratorio of the Sea. 
 On this steep, crumbling bank, where the high tides 
 Have crunched the earth away, a crooked oak 
 A hunch-backed dwarf, whose limbs, cramped down 
 
 by gales, 
 
 Have twisted stiffening back upon themselves 
 Spreads me a little arbor from the sun. 
 
 On the brown, shining beach, all ripple-carved, 
 Gleams now and then a pool ; so smooth and clear, 
 That, though I cannot see the plover there 
 Pacing its farther edge (so much he looks 
 The color of the sand), yet I can trace 
 His image hanging in the glassy brine 
 Slim legs and rapier-beak like silver-plate 
 With such a pictured bird clean-etched upon it. 
 
 Beyond, long curves of little shallow waves 
 Creep, tremulous with ripples, to the shore, 
 
[ 120 ] 
 
 Till the whole bay seems slowly sliding in, 
 With edge of snow that melts against the sand. 
 
 Above its twinkling blue, where ceaselessly 
 The white curve of a slender arm of foam 
 Is reached along the water, and withdrawn, 
 A flock of sea-birds darken into specks ; 
 Then whiten, as they wheel with sunlit wings, 
 Winking and wavering against the sky. 
 
 The earth for form, the sea for coloring, 
 And overhead, fair daughters of the two, 
 The clouds, whose curves were moulded on the hills, 
 Whose tints of pearl and foam the ocean gave. 
 
 Sea, thou art all-beautiful, but dumb ! 
 Thou hast no utterance articulate 
 For human ears ; only a restless moan 
 Of barren tides, that loathe the living earth 
 As alien, striving towards the barren moon. 
 Thou art no longer infinite to man : 
 Has he not touched thy boundary-shores, and now 
 Laid his electric fetters round thy feet ? 
 
C 
 
 Thy dumb moan saddens me ; let me go back 
 And listen to the silence of the hills. 
 
 At last I live alone : 
 No human judgment-seats are here 
 Thrust in between man and his Maker s throne, 
 With praise to covet, or with frown to fear : 
 No small, distorted judgments bless, or blame ; 
 Only to Him I own 
 The inward sense of worth, or flush of shame. 
 
 God made the man alone ; 
 And all that first grand morning walked he so. 
 Then was he strong and wise, till at the noon, 
 When tired with joyous wonder he lay prone 
 For rest and sleep, God let him know 
 The subtile sweetness that is bound in Two. 
 
 Man rises best alone : 
 Upward his thoughts stream, like the leaping flame, 
 Whose base is tempest-blown ; 
 Upward and skyward, since from thence they came, 
 
 And thither they must flow. 
 
 * 
 
C 122 3 
 
 But when in twos we go, 
 
 The lightnings of the brain weave to and fro. 
 
 Level across the abyss that parts us all ; 
 
 If upward, only slantwise, as we scale 
 
 Slowly together that night-shrouded wall 
 
 Which bounds our reason, lest our reason fail. 
 
 If linked in threes, and fives, 
 
 However heavenward the spirit strives, 
 
 The lowest stature draws the highest down, 
 
 The king must keep the level of the clown. 
 
 The grosser matter has the greater power 
 
 In all attraction ; every hour 
 
 We slide and slip to lower scales, 
 
 Till weary aspiration fails, 
 
 And that keen fire which might have pierced the 
 
 skies 
 Is quenched and killed in one another s eyes. 
 
 A child had blown a bubble fair 
 That floated in the sunny air : 
 A hundred rainbows danced and swung 
 Upon its surface, as it hung 
 In films of changing color rolled, 
 
Crimson, and amethyst, and gold, 
 With faintest streaks of azure sheen, 
 And curdling rivulets of green. 
 " If so the surface shines," cried he, 
 " What marvel must the centre be ! " 
 He caught it on his empty hands 
 A drop of turbid water stands ! 
 
 With men, to help the moments fly, 
 I tossed the ball of talk on high, 
 With glancing jest, and random stings, 
 Grazing the crests of thoughts and things, 
 In many a shifting ray of speech 
 That shot swift sparkles, each to each. 
 I thought, " Ah, could we pierce below 
 To inner soul, what depths would show ! " 
 In friendships many, loves a few, 
 I pierced the inner depths, and knew 
 T was but the shell that splendor caught : 
 Within, one sour and selfish thought. 
 
 I found a grotto, hidden in the gorge, 
 Paved by the brook in rare mosaic work 
 Of sand, and lucent depths, and shadow-streaks 
 
C 124 ] 
 
 Veining the amber of the sun-dyed wave. 
 Between two mossy masses of gray rock 
 Lay a clear basin, which, with sun and shade 
 Bewitched, a great transparent opal made, 
 Over whose broken rims the water ran. 
 Above each rocky side leaned waving trees 
 Whose lace of branches wove a restless roof, 
 Trailed over by green vines that sifted down 
 A dust of sunshine through the chilly shade. 
 
 Leaning against a trunk of oak, rock-wedged, 
 Whose writhen roots were clenched upon the stones, 
 I was a Greek, and caught the sudden flash 
 Of a scared Dryad s vanishing robe, and heard 
 The laughter, half -suppressed, of hiding Fauns. 
 Up the dark stairway of the tumbling stream 
 The sun shot through, and struck each foamy fall 
 Into a silvery veil of dazzling fire. 
 Along its shady course, the tossing drops 
 By some swift sunbeam ever caught, were lit 
 To sparkling stars, that fell, and flashed, and fell, 
 Incessantly rekindled. Bubble-troops 
 Came dancing by, to break just at my feet; 
 Lo ! every bubble mirrored the whole scene 
 
C 
 
 The streak of blue between the roofing-boughs, 
 And on it my own face in miniature 
 Quaintly distorted, as if some small elf 
 Peered up at me beneath his glassy dome. 
 
 If men but knew the mazes of the brain 
 And all its crowded pictures, they would need 
 No Louvre or Vatican : behind our brows 
 Intricate galleries are built, whose walls 
 Are rich with all the splendors of a life. 
 Each crimson leaf of every autumn walk, 
 Dewdrops of childhood s mornings, every scene 
 From any window where we ve chanced to stand, 
 Forgotten sunsets, summer afternoons, 
 Hang fresh in those immortal galleries. 
 Few ever can unlock them, till great Death 
 Unrolls our lifelong memory as a scroll. 
 One key is solitude, and silence one, 
 And one a quiet mind, content to rest 
 In God s sufficiency, and take His world, 
 Not dabbling all the Master s work to death 
 With our small interference. God is God. 
 
[ 126 ^ 
 
 Yet we must give the children leave to use 
 Our garden-tools, though they spoil tool and plant 
 In learning. So the Master may not scorn 
 Our awkwardness, as with these bungling hands 
 We try to uproot the ill. and plant with good 
 Life s barren soil : the child is learning use. 
 Perhaps the angels even are forbid 
 To laugh at us, or may not care to laugh, 
 With kind eyes pitying our little hurts. 
 
 T is ludicrous that man should think he roams 
 Freely at will a world planned for his use. 
 Lo, what a mite he is ! Snatched hither and yon, 
 Tossed round the sun, and in its orbit flashed 
 Round other centres, orbits without end ; 
 His bit of brain too small to even feel 
 The spinning of the little hailstone, Earth. 
 So his creeds glibly prate of choice and will, 
 When his whole fate is an invisible speck 
 Whirled through the orbits of Eternity. 
 
 We think that we believe 
 
 That human souls shall live, and live, 
 
I 127 ] 
 
 When trees have rotted into mould. 
 
 And all the rocks which these long hills enfold 
 
 Have crumbled, and beneath new oceans lie. 
 
 But why ah, why 
 
 If puny man is not indeed to die, 
 
 Watch I with such disdain 
 
 That human speck creeping along the plain, 
 
 And turn with such a careless scorn of men 
 
 i . , 
 
 Back to the mountain s brow again, 
 
 And feel more pleased that some small, fluttering 
 
 thing 
 
 Trusts me and hovers near on fearless wing, 
 Than if the proudest man in all the land 
 Had offered me in friendliness his hand ? 
 
 However small the present creature man, 
 Ridiculous imitation of the gods, 
 Weak plagiarism on some completer world, 
 Yet we can boast of that strong race to be. 
 The savage broke the attraction which binds fast 
 The fibres of the oak, and we to-day 
 By cunning chemistry can force apart 
 The elements of the air. That coming race 
 
I 128 ] 
 
 Shall loose the bands by which the earth attracts ; 
 A drop of occult tincture, a spring touched 
 Shall outwit gravitation ; men shall float, 
 Or lift the hills and set them where they will. 
 The savage crossed the lake, and we the sea. 
 That coming race shall have no bounds or bars, 
 But, like the fledgeling eaglet, leave the nest, 
 Our earthly eyrie up among the stars, 
 And freely soar, to tread the desolate moon, 
 Or mingle with the neighbor folk of Mars. 
 Yea, if the savage learned by sign and sound 
 To bridge the chasm to his fellow s brain, 
 Till now we flash our whispers round the globe, 
 That race shall signal over the abyss 
 To those bright souls who throng the outer courts 
 Of life, impatient who shall greet men first 
 And solve the riddles that we die to know. 
 
 T is night: I sit alone among the hills. 
 There is no sound, except the sleepless brook, 
 Whose voice comes faintly from the depths below 
 Through the thick darkness, or the sombre pines 
 That slumber, murmuring sometimes in their dreams. 
 
C 
 
 Hark ! on a fitful gust there came the sound 
 
 Of the tide rising yonder on the bay. 
 
 It dies again : t was like the rustling noise 
 
 Of a great army mustering secretly. 
 
 There rose an owl s cry, from the woods below, 
 
 Like a lost spirit s. Now all s still again. 
 
 T is almost fearful to sit here alone 
 
 And feel the deathly silence and the dark. 
 
 I will arise and shout, and hear at least 
 
 My own voice answer. Not an echo even ! 
 
 I wish I had not uttered that wild cry ; 
 
 It broke with such a shock upon the air, 
 
 Whose leaden silence closed up after it, 
 
 And seemed to clap together at my ears. 
 
 The black depths of these muffled woods are thronged 
 
 With shapes that wait some signal to swoop out, 
 
 And swirl around and madden me with fear. 
 
 I will go climb that bare and rocky height 
 
 Into the clearer air. 
 
 So, here I breathe ; 
 That silent darkness smothered me. 
 
 Away 
 Across the bay, the city with its lights 
 
[ 130 ]] 
 
 Twinkling against the horizon s dusky line, 
 Looks a sea-dragon, crawled up on the shore, 
 With rings of fire across his rounded back, 
 And luminous claws spread out among the hills. 
 Above, the glittering heavens. Magnificent ! 
 Oh, if a man could be but as a star, 
 Having his place appointed, here to rise, 
 And there to set, unchanged by earthly change, 
 Content if it can guide some wandering bark, 
 Or be a beacon to some homesick soul ! 
 
 Those city-lights again : they draw my gaze 
 As if some secret human sympathy 
 Still held my heart down from the lonely heaven. 
 A new-born constellation, settling there 
 Below the Sickle s ruby-hilted curve, 
 
 They gleam Not so ! No constellation they ; 
 
 I mock the sad, strong stars that never fail 
 
 In their eternal patience ; from below 
 
 Comes that pale glare, like the faint, sulphurous flame 
 
 Which plays above the ashes of a fire : 
 
 So trembles the dull flicker of those lamps 
 
 Over the burnt-out energies of man. 
 
C 
 
 II 
 
 A month since I last laid my pencil down, 
 An April, fairer than the Atlantic June, 
 Whose calendar of perfect days was kept 
 By daily blossoming of some new flower. 
 The fields, whose carpets now were silken white, 
 Next week were orange-velvet, next, sea-blue. 
 It was as if some central fire of bloom, 
 From which in other climes a random root 
 Is now and then shot up, here had burst forth 
 And overflowed the fields, and set the land 
 Aflame with flowers. I watched them day by day, 
 How at the dawn they wake, and open wide 
 Their little petal-windows, how they turn 
 Their slender necks to follow round the sun, 
 And how the passion they express all day 
 In burning color, steals forth with the dew 
 All night in odor. 
 
 I have wandered much 
 These weeks, but everywhere a restless mind 
 Has dogged me like the shadow at my heels. 
 
[ 132 : 
 
 Sometimes I watched the morning mist arise, 
 
 Like an imprisoned Genie from the stream, 
 
 And wished that death would come on me like dawn, 
 
 Drawing the spirit, that white, vaporous mist, 
 
 Up from this noisy, fretted stream of life, 
 
 To fall where God will, in his bounteous showers. 
 
 Sometimes I walked at sunset on the edge 
 
 Of the steep gorge, and saw my shadow pace 
 
 Along a shadow-wall across the abyss, 
 
 And felt that we, with all our phantom deeds, 
 
 Are but far-slanted shadows of some life 
 
 That walks between our planet and its God. 
 
 All the long nights those memory-haunted nights, 
 
 When sleepless conscience would not let me sleep, 
 
 But stung, and stung, and pointed to the world 
 
 Which like a coward I had left behind, 
 
 I watched the heavens, where week by week the moon 
 
 Slow swelled its silver bud, blossomed full gold, 
 
 And slowly faded. 
 
 Laid the pencil down 
 
 Why not ? Are there not books enough ? Is man 
 A sick child that must be amused by songs, 
 Or be made sicker with their foolish noise ? 
 
[ 133 
 
 Then illness came : I should have argued, once, 
 That the ill body gave me those ill thoughts ; 
 But I have learned that spirit, though it be 
 Subtile, and hard to trace, is mightier 
 Than matter, and I know the poisoned mind 
 Poisoned its shell. Three days of fever-fire 
 Burned out my strength, leaving me scarcely power 
 To reach the brook s side and my scanty food. 
 What would I not have given to hear the voice 
 Of some one who would raise my throbbing head 
 And shade the fevering sun, and cool my hand 
 In her moist palms ! But I lay there, alone. 
 Blessed be sickness, which cuts down our pride 
 And bares our helplessness. I have had new thoughts. 
 I think the fever burned away some lies 
 Which clogged the truthful currents of the brain. 
 Am I quite happy here ? Have I the right, 
 As wholly independent, to scorn men ? 
 What do I owe them self ? Should I be I, 
 Born in these hills ? A savage rather ! Food, 
 The sailor-bread ? Yes, that took mill and men : 
 Yet flesh and fowl are free ; but powder and gun 
 What human lives went to the making of them ? 
 I am dependent as the villager 
 
C 
 
 Who lives by the white wagon s daily round. 
 Yea, better feed upon the ox, to which 
 The knife is mercy after slavery, 
 Than kill the innocent birds, and trustful deer 
 Whose big blue eyes have almost human pain ; 
 That s murder ! 
 
 I scorned books : to those same books 
 I owe the power to scorn them. 
 
 I despised 
 
 Men : from themselves I drew the pure ideal 
 By which to measure them. 
 
 At woman s love 
 
 I laughed : but to that love I owe 
 The hunger for a more abiding love. 
 Their nestlings in our hearts leave vacant there 
 These hollow places, like a lark s round nest 
 Left empty in the grass, and filled with flowers. 
 
 What do I here alone ? T was not so strange, 
 Weary of discords, that I chose to hear 
 The one, clear, perfect note of solitude ; 
 But now it plagues the ear, that one shrill note : 
 Give me the chords back, even though some ring false. 
 
c: *35 3 
 
 Unmarried to the steel, the flint is cold : 
 Strike one to the other, and they wake in fire. 
 
 A solitary fagot will not burn : 
 Bring two, and cheerily the flame ascends. 
 Alone, man is a lifeless stone ; or lies 
 A charring ember, smouldering into ash. 
 
 If the man riding yonder looks a speck, 
 The town an ant-hill, that is but the trick 
 Of our perspective : wisdom merely means 
 Correction of the angles at the eye. 
 I hold my hand up, so, before my face, 
 It blots ten miles of country, and a town. 
 This little lying lens, that twists the rays, 
 So cheats the brain that My house, My affairs, 
 My hunger, or My happiness, My ache, 
 And My religion, fill immensity ! 
 Yours merely dot the landscape casually. 
 T is well God does not measure a man s worth 
 By the image on his neighbor s retina. 
 
I 136 1 
 
 I am alone : the birds care not for me, 
 Except to sing a little farther off, 
 With looks that say, " What does this fellow 
 
 here?" 
 
 The loud brook babbles only for the flowers : 
 The mountain and the forest take me not 
 Into their meditations ; I disturb 
 Their silence, as a child that drags his toy 
 Across a chapel s porch. The viewless ones 
 Who flattered me to claim their company 
 By gleams of thought fchey tossed to me for alms, 
 About their grander matters turn, nor deign 
 To notice me, unless it were to say 
 As we put off a troublesome child " There, go ! 
 Men are your fellows, go and mate with them ! " 
 
 If I could find one soul that would not lie, 
 I would go back, and we would arm our hands, 
 And strike at every ugly weed that stands 
 
 In God s wide garden of the world, and try, 
 Obedient to the Gardener s commands, 
 
 To set some smallest flowers before we die. 
 
C 
 
 One such I had found, 
 But she was bound, 
 Fettered and led, bid for and sold, 
 Chained to a stone by a ring of gold. 
 
 In a stony sense the stone loved her, too : 
 Between our places the river was broad, 
 Should she tread on a broken heart to go through 
 Could she put a man s life in mid-stream to be trod, 
 To come over dry-shod ? 
 
 Shame ! that a man with hand and brain 
 Should, like a love-lorn girl, complain, 
 Rhyming his dainty woes anew, 
 When there is honest work to do ! 
 
 What work, what work ? Is God not wise 
 To rule the world He could devise ? 
 Yet see thou, though the realm be His, 
 He governs it by deputies. 
 Enough to know of Chance and Luck, 
 The stroke we choose to strike is struck ; 
 The deed we slight will slighted be, 
 
I 138 ] 
 
 In spite of all Necessity. 
 The Parcse s web of good and ill 
 They weave with human shuttle still, 
 And fate is fate through man s free will. 
 
 With sullen thoughts that smoulder hour by hour, 
 In vague expectancy of help or hope 
 Which still eludes my brain, waiting I sit 
 Like a blind beggar at a palace-gate, 
 Who hears the rustling past of silks, and airs 
 Of costly odor mock him blowing by, 
 And feels within a dull and aching wish 
 That the proud wall would let some coping down 
 To crush him dead, and let him have his rest. 
 
 No help from men : they could not, if they would. 
 And God ? He lets His world be wrung with pain. 
 No help at all then ? Let life be in vain : 
 To get no help is surely greatest gain ; 
 To taunt the hunger down is sweetest food. 
 
C 
 
 mocker, Memory ! From what floating cloud, 
 Or from what witchery of the haunted wood, 
 Or faintest perfumes, softly drifting through 
 The lupines lattice-bars of white and blue, 
 Steals back upon my soul this weaker mood ? 
 My heart is dreaming ; in a shadowy room 
 I breathe the vague scent of a jasmin-bloom 
 That floats on waves of music, softer played, 
 Till song and odor all the brain pervade ; 
 Swiftly across my cheek there sweeps the thrill 
 Of burning lips, then all is hushed and still ; 
 And round the vision in unearthly awe 
 Deeps of enchanted starlight seem to draw, 
 In which my soul sinks, falling noiselessly 
 As from a lone ship, far-off, in the night, 
 Out of a child s hand slips a pebble white, 
 Glimmering and fading down the awful sea. 
 
 That night, which pushed me out of Paradise, 
 When the last guest had taken his mask of smiles 
 And gone, she wheeled a sofa from the light 
 Where I sat touching the piano-keys, 
 And begged me play her weariness away. 
 
[ 140 3 
 
 I played all sweet and solemn airs I knew. 
 And when, with music mesmerized, she slept, 
 I made the deep chords tell her dreams my love. 
 Once, when they grew too passionate, I saw 
 The faint blush ripen in their glow, and chide, 
 Even in dreams, the rash, tumultuous thought. 
 Then when I made them say, "Sleep on, dream on, 
 For now we are together ; when thou wak st 
 Forevermore we are alone alone," 
 She sighed in sleep, and waked not : then I rose, 
 And softly stooped my head, and, half in awe, 
 Half passion-rapt, I kissed her lips farewell. 
 
 Only the meek-mouthed blossoms kiss I now, 
 
 Or the cold cheek that sometimes comes at night 
 In haunted dreams, and brushes past my own. 
 
 Ah, what hast thou to do with me, sweet song 
 Why hauntest thou and vexest so my dreams ? 
 
 Have I not turned away from thee so long 
 So long, and yet the starry midnight seems 
 
 Astir with tremulous music, as of old, - 
 
 Forbidden memories opening, fold on fold ? 
 
 ghost of Love, why, with thy rose-leaf lips, 
 Dost thou still mock my sleep with kisses warm, 
 
C 
 
 Torturing my dreams with touching finger tips. 
 That madden me to clasp thy phantom form ? 
 Have I not earned, by all these tears, at last, 
 The right to rest untroubled by that Past ? 
 
 Unto thy patient heart, my mother Earth, 
 I come, a weary child. 
 
 I have no claim, save that thou gav st me birth, 
 And hast sustained me with thy nurture mild. 
 I have stood up alone these many years ; 
 Now let me come and lie upon my face, 
 And spread my hands among the dewy grass, 
 Till the slow wind s mesmeric touches pass 
 Above my brain, and all its throbbing chase ; 
 Into thy bosom take these bitter tears, 
 And let them seem unto the innocent flowers 
 Only as dew, or heaven s gentle showers ; 
 Till, quieted and hushed against thy breast, 
 I can forget to weep, 
 And sink at last to sleep, 
 Long sleep and rest. 
 
C 142 ] 
 
 Her face ! 
 
 It must have been her face, 
 No other one was ever half so fair, 
 No other head e er bent with such meek grace 
 Beneath that weight of beautiful blonde hair. 
 In a carriage on the street of the town, 
 Where I had strayed in walking from the bay, 
 Just as the sun was going down, 
 Shielding her sight from his latest ray, 
 She sat, and scanned with eager eye 
 The faces of the passers-by. 
 Whom was she looking for ? Not me 
 Yet what wild purpose can it be 
 That tempted her to this wild land ? 
 I marked that on her lifted hand 
 The diamonds no longer shine 
 Of the ring that meant, not mine not mine ! 
 
 Ah fool fool fool ! crawl back to thy den, 
 Like a wounded beast as thou art, again ; 
 Whosever she be, not thine not thine ! 
 
 I sat last night on yonder ridge of rocks 
 To see the sun set over Tamalpais, 
 
C 
 
 Whose tented peak, suffused with rosy mist, 
 Blended the colors of the sea and sky 
 And made the mountain one great amethyst 
 Hanging against the sunset. 
 
 In the west 
 
 There lay two clouds which parted company, 
 Floating like two soft-breasted swans, and sailed 
 Farther and farther separate, till one stayed 
 To make a mantle for the evening-star ; 
 The other wept itself away in rain. 
 A fancy seized me ; if , in other worlds, 
 That Spirit from afar should call to me, 
 Across some starry chasm impassable, 
 Weeping, " Oh, hadst thou only come to me ! 
 I loved you so ! I prayed each night that God 
 Would send you to me ! Now, alas ! too late, 
 Too late farewell ! " and still again, " farewell ! 
 Like the pulsation of a silenced bell 
 Whose sobs beat on within the brain. 
 
 I rose, 
 
 And smote my staff strongly against the ground, 
 And set my face homeward, and set my heart 
 
144 
 
 Firm in a passionate purpose : there, in haste, 
 With that one echo goading me to speed, 
 " If it should be too late if it should be 
 Too late too late ! " I took a pen and wrote : 
 
 " Dear Soul, if I am mad to speak to thee, 
 And this faint glimmer which I call a hope 
 Be but the corpse-light on the grave of hope 
 If thou, darling Star, art in the West 
 To be my Evening-star, and watch my day 
 Fade slowly into desolate twilight, burn 
 This folly in the flames ; and scattered with 
 Its ashes, let my madness be forgot. 
 But if not so, oh be my Morning-star, 
 And crown my East with splendor : come to me ! 
 
 A stern, wild, broken place for a man to walk 
 And muse on broken fortunes ; a rare place, 
 There in the Autumn weather, cool and still, 
 With the warm sunshine clinging round the rocks 
 Softly, in pity, like a woman s love, 
 To wait for some one who can never come 
 As a man there was waiting. Overhead 
 
[ 145 D 
 
 A happy bird sang quietly to himself, 
 Unconscious of such sombre thoughts below. 
 To which the song was background : 
 
 " Yet how men 
 
 Sometimes will struggle, writhe, and scream at death ! 
 It were so easy now, in the mild air, 
 To close the senses, slowly sleep, and die ; 
 To cease to be the shaped and definite cloud, 
 And melt away into the fathomless blue ; 
 Only to touch this crimson thread of life, 
 Whose steady ripple pulses in my wrist, 
 And watch the little current soak the grass, 
 Till the haze came, then darkness, and then rest. 
 Would God be angry if I stopped one life 
 Among His myriads such a worthless one ? 
 If I should pray, I wonder would He send 
 An angel down out of that great, white cloud, 
 (He surely could spare one from praising Him,) 
 To tell if there is any better way 
 Than Look ! Why, that is grand, now ! (Am I 
 
 mad? 
 
 I did not think I should go mad !) That s grand 
 One of the blessed spirits come like this 
 
n 
 
 To meet a poor, lean man among the rocks, 
 And answer questions for him ? " 
 
 There she stood, 
 
 With blonde hair blowing back, as if the breeze 
 Blew a light out of it, that ever played 
 And hovered at her shoulders. Such blue eyes 
 Mirrored the dreamy mountain distances, 
 (Yet, are the angels faces thin and wan 
 Like that ; and do they have such mouths, so drawn, 
 As if a sad song, some sad time, had died 
 Upon the lips, and left its echo there ?) 
 
 And the man rose, and stood with folded hands 
 And head bent, and his downcast looks in awe 
 Touching her garment s hem, that, when she spoke, 
 Trembled a little where it met her feet. 
 
 " I am come, because you called to me to come. 
 What were all other voices when I heard 
 The voice of my own soul s soul call to me ? 
 You knew I loved you oh, you must have known ! 
 Was it a noble thing to do, you think, 
 To leave a lonely girl to die down there 
 
n 147 1 
 
 In the great empty world, and come up here 
 
 To make a martyr s pillar of your pride ? 
 
 There has been nobler work done, there in the world, 
 
 Than you have done this year ! " 
 
 Then cried the man : 
 
 " voice that I have prayed for sad voice, 
 And woeful eyes, spare me if I have sinned ! 
 There was a little ring you used to wear " 
 
 " strange, wild Fates, that balance bliss and woe 
 On such poor straws ! It was a brother s gift." 
 
 " You never told me " 
 
 " Did you ever ask ? " 
 " You, too, were surely prouder then than now ! " 
 
 " Dear, I am sadder now : the head must bend 
 A little, when one s weeping." 
 
 Then the man, 
 While half his mind, bewildered, at a flash 
 
Took in the wide, lone place, the singing bird, 
 The sunshine streaming past them like a wind, 
 And the broad tree that moved as though it breathed : 
 " Oh, if t is possible that in the world 
 There lies some low, mean work for me to do, 
 Let me go there alone : I am ashamed 
 To wear life s crown when I flung down its sword. 
 Crammed full of pride, and lust, and littleness, 
 God, I am not worthy of thy gifts ! 
 Let me find penance, till, years hence, perchance, 
 Made pure by toil, and scourged with pain and 
 prayer " 
 
 Then a voice answered through His creature s 
 
 lips, 
 
 " God asks no penance but a better life. 
 He purifies by pain He only ; t is 
 A remedy too dangerous for our 
 Blind pharmacy. Lo ! we have tried that way, 
 And borne what fruit, or blossoms even, save one 
 Poor passion-flower ! Come, take thy happiness ; 
 In happy hearts are all the sunbeams forged 
 That brighten up our weatherbeaten world. 
 
149 
 
 Come back with me Come ! for I love you 
 Come!" 
 
 If it was not a dream : perchance it was 
 Often it seems so, and I wonder when 
 I shall awaken on the mountain-side, 
 With a little bitter taste left in the mouth 
 Of too much sleep, or too much happiness, 
 And sigh, and wish that I might dream again. 
 
SUNDOWN 
 
 A SEA of splendor in the West, 
 
 Purple, and pearl, and gold, 
 With milk-white ships of cloud, whose sails 
 
 Slowly the winds unfold. 
 
 Brown cirrus-bars, like ribbed beach-sand, 
 
 Cross the blue upper dome ; 
 And nearer flecks of feathery white 
 
 Blow over them like foam. 
 
 But when that transient glory dies 
 
 Into the twilight gray, 
 And leaves me on the beach alone 
 
 Beside the glimmering bay ; 
 
 And when I know that, late or soon, 
 
 Love s glory finds a grave, 
 And hearts that danced like dancing foam 
 
 Break like the breaking wave ; 
 
C 
 
 A little dreary, homeless thought 
 
 Creeps sadly over me, 
 Like the shadow of a lonely cloud 
 
 Moving along the sea. 
 
THE ARCH 
 
 JUST where the street of the village ends, 
 
 Over the road an oak-tree tall, 
 Curving in more than a crescent, bends 
 
 With an arch like the gate of a Moorish wall. 
 
 Over across the river there, 
 
 Looking under the arch, one sees 
 The sunshine slant through the distant air, 
 
 And burn on the cliff and the tufted trees. 
 
 Each day, hurrying through the town, 
 
 I stop an instant, early or late, 
 As I cross the street, and glancing down 
 
 I catch a glimpse through the Moorish gate. 
 
 Only a moment there I stand, 
 
 But I look through that loop in the dusty air, 
 Into a far-off fairy land, 
 
 Where all seems calm, and kind, and fair. 
 
C W 3 
 
 So sometimes at the end of a thought, 
 
 Where with a vexing doubt we ve striven, 
 
 A sudden, sunny glimpse is caught 
 
 Of an open arch, and a peaceful heaven. 
 
c: 154 3 
 
 APRIL IN OAKLAND 
 
 WAS there last night a snowstorm ? 
 
 So thick the orchards stand, 
 With drift on drift of blossom-flakes 
 
 Whitening all the land. 
 
 Or have the waves of life that swelled 
 The green buds, day by day, 
 
 Broken at once in clinging foam 
 And scattered odor-spray ? 
 
 The winds come drowsy with the breath 
 
 Of cherry and of pear, 
 Sighing their perfume-laden wings 
 
 No more of sweet can bear. 
 
 Over the garden-gateway 
 That parts the tufted hedge, 
 
 Rimming the idly twinkling bay 
 Sleeps the blue mountains edge, 
 
C 155 H 
 
 Yon fleece of clouds in heaven, 
 
 So delicate and fair, 
 Seems a whole league of orchard-bloom 
 
 Sailing along the air. 
 
 Oh, loveliness of nature ! 
 
 Oh, sordid minds of men ! 
 Without, a world of bloom and balm 
 
 A sour, sad soul within. 
 
 winds that sweep the orchard 
 
 With Orient spices sweet, 
 Why bring ye with that desolate sound 
 
 The dead leaves to my feet ? 
 
 Ah, sweeter were the fragrance 
 
 That I to-day have found, 
 If last year s crumbled leaves of love 
 
 Were buried under ground ; 
 
 And fairer were the shadowed troops 
 
 That fleck the distant hill, 
 If shades of clouds that will not pass 
 
 Dimmed not my memory still. 
 
C 156 ] 
 
 Better than all the beauty 
 
 Which cloud or blossom shows 
 
 Is the blue sky that arches all 
 With measureless repose. 
 
 And better than the bright blue sky, 
 
 To know that far away 
 Sweep all the silent host of stars 
 
 Behind the veil of day. 
 
 And best to feel that there and here, 
 
 About us and above, 
 Move on the purposes of God 
 
 In justice and in love. 
 
L 157 
 
 STARLIGHT 
 
 THEY think me daft, who nightly meet 
 My face turned starward, while my feet 
 Stumble along the unseen street ; 
 
 But should man s thoughts have only room 
 For Earth, his cradle and his tomb, 
 Not for his Temple s grander gloom ? 
 
 And must the prisoner all his days 
 Learn but his dungeon s narrow ways 
 And never through its grating gaze ? 
 
 Then let me linger in your sight, 
 
 My only amaranths ! blossoming bright 
 
 As over Eden s cloudless night. 
 
 The same vast belt, and square, and crown, 
 That on the Deluge glittered down, 
 And lit the roofs of Bethlehem town ! 
 
[ 158 3 
 
 Ye make me one with all my race, 
 A victor over time and space, 
 Till all the path of men I pace. 
 
 Far-speeding backward in my brain 
 We build the Pyramids again, 
 And Babel rises from the plain ; 
 
 And climbing upward on your beams 
 I peer within the Patriarchs dreams, 
 Till the deep sky with angels teems. 
 
 My Comforters ! Yea, why not mine ? 
 The power that kindled you doth shine, 
 In man, a mastery divine ; 
 
 That Love which throbs in every star, 
 And quickens all the worlds afar, 
 Beats warmer where his children are. 
 
 The shadow of the wings of Death 
 Broods over us ; we feel his breath : 
 " Resurgam " still the spirit saith. 
 
[ 159 3 
 
 These tired feet, this weary brain, 
 Blotted with many a mortal stain, 
 May crumble earthward not in vain. 
 
 With swifter feet that shall not tire, 
 Eyes that shall fail not at your fire, 
 Nearer your splendors I aspire. 
 
c; 16 3 
 
 A DEAD BIRD IN WINTER 
 
 THE cold, hard sky and hidden sun, 
 The stiffened trees that shiver so, 
 
 With bare twigs naked every one 
 
 To these harsh winds that freeze the snow,- 
 
 It was a bitter place to die, 
 
 Poor birdie ! Was it easier, then, 
 
 On such a world to shut thine eye, 
 And sleep away from life, than when 
 
 The apple-blossoms tint the air, 
 And, twittering in the sunny trees, 
 
 Thy fellow-songsters flit and pair, 
 
 Breasting the warm, caressing breeze ? 
 
 Nay, it were easiest, I feel, 
 
 Though t were a brighter Earth to lose, 
 To let the summer shadows steal 
 
 About thee, bringing their repose ; 
 
C l61 3 
 
 When the noon hush was on the air, 
 
 And on the flowers the warm sun shined, 
 
 And Earth seemed all so sweet and fair, 
 That He who made it must be kind. 
 
 So I, too, could not bear to go 
 
 From Life in this unfriendly clime, 
 
 To lie beneath the crusted snow, 
 
 When the dead grass stands stiff with rime ; 
 
 But under those blue skies of home, 
 
 Far easier were it to lie down 
 Where the perpetual violets bloom 
 
 And the rich moss grows never brown ; 
 
 Where linnets never cease to build 
 
 Their nests, in boughs that always wave 
 
 To odorous airs, with blessing filled 
 From nestled blossoms round my grave. 
 
162 
 
 SPRING TWILIGHT 
 
 SINGING in the rain, robin ? 
 
 Rippling out so fast 
 All thy flute-like notes, as if 
 
 This singing were thy last ! 
 
 After sundown, too, robin ? 
 
 Though the fields are dim, 
 And the trees grow dark and still, 
 
 Dripping from leaf and limb. 
 
 T is heart-broken music 
 That sweet, faltering strain, 
 
 Like a mingled memory, 
 Half ecstasy, half pain. 
 
 Surely thus to sing, robin, 
 Thou must have in sight 
 
 Beautiful skies behind the shower, 
 And dawn beyond the night. 
 
C 
 
 Would thy faith were mine, robin ! 
 
 Then, though night were long, 
 All its silent hours should melt 
 
 Their sorrow into song. 
 
EVENING 
 
 THE Sun is gone : those glorious chariot-wheels 
 Have sunk their broadening spokes of flame, and left 
 Thin rosy films wimpled across the West, 
 Whose last faint tints melt slowly in the blue, 
 As the last trembling cadence of a song 
 Fades into silence sweeter than all sound. 
 
 Now the first stars begin to tremble forth 
 Like the first instruments of an orchestra 
 Touched softly, one by one. There in the East 
 Kindles the glory of moonrise : how its waves 
 Break in a surf of silver on the clouds ! 
 White, motionless clouds, like soft and snowy wings 
 Which the great Earth spreads, sailing round the 
 Sun. 
 
 silent stars ! that over ages past 
 Have shone serenely as ye shine to-night, 
 Unseal, unseal the secret that ye keep ! 
 Is it not time to tell us why we live ? 
 
C 
 
 Through all these shadowy corridors of years, 
 (Like some gray Priest, who through the Mysteries 
 Led the blindfolded Neophyte in fear,) 
 Time leads us blindly onward, till in wrath 
 Tired Life would seize and throttle its stern guide, 
 And force him tell us whither and how long. 
 But Time gives back no answer only points 
 With motionless finger to eternity, 
 Which deepens over us, as that deep sky 
 Darkens above me : only its vestibule 
 Glimmers with scattered stars; and down the West 
 A silent meteor slowly slides afar, 
 As though, pacing the garden-walks of heaven, 
 Some musing seraph had let fall a flower. 
 
C l66 
 
 THE ORGAN 
 
 IT is no harmony of human making, 
 
 Though men have built those pipes of burnished 
 
 gold; 
 Their music, out of Nature s heart awaking, 
 
 Forever new, forever is of old. 
 
 Man makes not only finds all earthly beauty, 
 Catching a thread of sunshine here and there, 
 
 Some shining pebble in the path of duty, 
 Some echo of the songs that flood the air. 
 
 That prelude is a wind among the willows, 
 Eising until it meets the torrent s roar ; 
 
 Now a wild ocean, beating his great billows 
 Among the hollow caverns of the shore. 
 
 It is the voice of some vast people, pleading 
 
 For justice from an ancient shame and wrong, 
 
 The tramp of God s avenging armies, treading 
 With shouted thunders of triumphant song. 
 
3 
 
 soul, that sittest chanting dreary dirges, 
 Couldest thou but rise on some divine desire, 
 
 As those deep chords upon their swelling surges 
 Bear up the wavering voices of the choir ! 
 
 But ever lurking in the heart, there lingers 
 The trouble of a false and jarring tone, 
 
 As some great Organ which unskillful fingers 
 Vex into discords when the Master s gone. 
 
C 168 
 
 EASTERN WINTER 
 
 COLD cold the very sun looks cold, 
 With those thin rays of chilly gold 
 Laid on that gap of bluish sky 
 That glazes like a dying eye. 
 
 The naked trees are shivering, 
 Each cramped and bare branch quivering, 
 Cutting the bleak wind into blades, 
 Whose edge to brain and bone invades. 
 
 That hard ground seems to ache, all day, 
 
 Even for a sheet of snow, to lay 
 
 Upon its icy feet and knees, 
 
 Stretched stiffly there to freeze and freeze. 
 
 And yon shrunk mortal what s within 
 That nipped and winter-shriveled skin ? 
 The pinched face drawn in peevish lines, 
 The voice that through his blue lips whines, 
 
C 16 9 3 
 
 The frost has got within, you see, 
 Left but a selfish me and me : 
 The heart is chilled, its nerves are numb, 
 And love has long been frozen dumb. 
 
 Ah, give me back the clime I know, 
 Where all the year geraniums blow, 
 And hyacinth-buds bloom white for snow ; 
 
 Where hearts beat warm with life s delight, 
 Through radiant winter s sunshine bright, 
 And summer s starry deeps of night ; 
 
 Where man may let earth s beauty thaw 
 The wintry creed which Calvin saw, 
 That God is only Power and Law ; 
 
 And out of Nature s Bible prove, 
 
 That here below as there above 
 
 Our Maker Father God is Love. 
 
[ 170 
 
 SLEEPING 
 
 HUSHED within her quiet bed 
 She is lying all the night, 
 In her pallid robes of white, 
 Eyelids on the pure eyes pressed, 
 Soft hands folded on the breast, 
 
 And you thought I meant it dead ? 
 
 Nay ! I smile at your shocked face : 
 In the morning she will wake, 
 Turn her dreams to sport, and make 
 All the household glad and gay, 
 Yet for many a merry day, 
 
 With her beauty and her grace. 
 
 But some summer t will be said, 
 " She is lying all the night, 
 In her pallid robes of white, 
 Eyelids on the tired eyes pressed, 
 Hands that cross upon the breast : " 
 
 We shall understand it dead ! 
 
C 
 
 Yet t will only be a sleep : 
 
 When, with songs and dewy light, 
 Morning blossoms out of Night, 
 She will open her blue eyes 
 Neath the palms of Paradise, 
 
 While we foolish ones shall weep. 
 
C 
 
 A PRATER 
 
 GOD, our Father, if we had but truth ! 
 
 Lost truth which thou perchance 
 Didst let man lose, lest all his wayward youth 
 
 He waste in song and dance ; 
 That he might gain, in searching, mightier powers 
 For manlier use in those foreshadowed hours. 
 
 If, blindly groping, he shall oft mistake, 
 
 And follow twinkling motes 
 Thinking them stars, and the one voice forsake 
 
 Of Wisdom for the notes 
 Which mocking Beauty utters here and there, 
 Thou surely wilt forgive him, and forbear ! 
 
 Oh, love us, for we love thee, Maker God ! 
 
 And would creep near thy hand, 
 And call thee " Father, Father," from the sod 
 
 Where by our graves we stand, 
 And pray to touch, fearless of scorn or blame, 
 Thy garment s hem, which Truth and Good we name. 
 
I 173 
 
 THE POLAR SEA 
 
 AT the North, far away, 
 Kolls a great sea for aye, 
 Silently, awfully. 
 Round it on every hand 
 Ice-towers majestic stand, 
 Guarding this silent sea 
 Grimly, invincibly. 
 Never there man hath been, 
 Who hath come back again, 
 Telling to ears of men 
 What is this sea within. 
 Under the starlight, 
 Rippling the moonlight, 
 Drinking the sunlight, 
 Desolate, never heard nor seen, 
 Beating forever it hath been. 
 
 From our life far away 
 Roll the dark waves, for aye, 
 Of an Eternity, 
 
[ 174 ] 
 
 Silently, awfully. 
 Round it on every hand 
 Death s icy barriers stand. 
 Guarding this silent sea 
 Grimly, invincibly. 
 Never there man hath been 
 Who could return again, 
 Telling to mortal ken 
 What is within the sea 
 Of that Eternity. 
 
 Terrible is our life 
 
 In its whole blood-written history 
 
 Only a feverish strife ; 
 
 In its beginning, a mystery 
 
 In its wild ending, an agony. 
 
 Terrible is our death 
 
 Black-hanging cloud over Life s setting sun, 
 
 Darkness of night when the daylight is done. 
 
 In the shadow of that cloud, 
 
 Deep within that darkness shroud, 
 
 Rolls the ever-throbbing sea ; 
 
 And we all we 
 
C 175 1 
 
 Are drifting rapidly 
 And floating silently 
 Into that unknown sea 
 Into Eternity. 
 
[ 176 
 
 THE FUTURE 
 
 WHAT may we take into the vast forever? 
 
 That marble door 
 Admits no fruit of all our long endeavor, 
 
 No fame-wreathed crown we wore, 
 
 No garnered lore. 
 
 What can we bear beyond the unknown portal ? 
 
 No gold, no gains 
 Of all our toiling : in the life immortal 
 
 No hoarded wealth remains, 
 
 Nor gilds, nor stains. 
 
 Naked from out that far abyss behind us 
 
 We entered here : 
 No word came with our coming, to remind us 
 
 What wondrous world was near, 
 
 No hope, no fear. 
 
 Into the silent, starless Night before us, 
 Naked we glide : 
 
C 177 : 
 
 No hand has mapped the constellations o er us, 
 No comrade at our side, 
 No chart, no guide. 
 
 Yet fearless toward that midnight, black and hollow, 
 
 Our footsteps fare : 
 The beckoning of a Father s hand we follow 
 
 His love alone is there, 
 
 No curse, no care. 
 
C 178 
 
 A DAILY MIRACLE 
 
 JUNE S sunshine on the broad porch shines 
 Through tangled curtains of crossing vines ; 
 The restless dancing of the leaves 
 Dusky webs of shadow weaves, 
 That wander on the oaken floor, 
 Or cross the threshold of the door. 
 Scattered where er their mazes run 
 Lie little phantoms of the sun : 
 Whatever chink the sunbeam found, 
 Crooked or narrow, on the ground 
 The shadowy image still is round. 
 
 So the image of God in the heart of a 
 Which truth makes, rifting as it can 
 Through the narrow crooked ways 
 Of our restless deeds and days, 
 Still is His image bright or dim 
 And scorning it is scorning Him. 
 
I 179 
 
 THE NORTH WIND 
 
 ALL night, beneath the flashing hosts of stars, 
 The North poured forth the passion of its soul 
 In mighty longings for the tawny South, 
 Sleeping afar among her orange-blooms. 
 All night, through the deep canon s organ-pipes, 
 Swept down the grand orchestral harmonies 
 Tumultuous, till the hills rock buttresses 
 Trembled in unison. 
 
 The sun has risen, 
 
 But still the storming sea of air beats on, 
 And o er the broad green slopes a flood of light 
 Comes streaming through the heavens like a wind, 
 Till every leaf and twig becomes a lyre 
 And thrills with vibrant splendor. 
 
 Down the bay 
 
 The furrowed blue, save that t is starred with foam, 
 Is bare and empty as the sky of clouds ; 
 For all the little sails, that yesterday 
 
C 18 3 
 
 Flocked past the islands, now have furled their wings, 
 And huddled frightened at the wharves just as, 
 A moment since, a flock of twittering birds 
 Whirled through the almond-trees like scattered 
 
 leaves, 
 And hid beyond the hedge. 
 
 How the old oaks 
 
 Stand stiffly to it, and wrestle with the storm ! 
 While the tall eucalyptus plumy tops 
 Tumble and toss and stream with quivering light. 
 Hark ! when it lulls a moment at the ear, 
 The fir-trees sing their sea-song : now again 
 The roar is all about us like a flood ; 
 And like a flood the fierce light shines, and burns 
 Away all distance, till the far blue ridge, 
 That rims the ocean, rises close at hand, 
 And high, Prometheus-like, great Tamalpais 
 Lifts proudly his grand front, and bears his scar, 
 Heaven s scath of wrath, defiant like a god. 
 
 I thank thee, glorious wind ! Thou bringest me 
 Something that breathes of mountain crags and 
 pines, 
 
C l81 1 
 
 Yea, more from the unsullied, farthest North, 
 Where crashing icebergs jar like thunder-shocks, 
 And midnight splendors wave and fade and flame, 
 Thou bring st a keen, fierce joy. So wilt thou help 
 The soul to rise in strength, as some great wave 
 Leaps forth, and shouts, and lifts the ocean-foam, 
 And rides exultant round the shining world. 
 
CALIFORNIA WINTER 
 
 THIS is not winter : where is the crisp air, 
 And snow upon the roof, and frozen ponds, 
 And the star-fire that tips the icicle ? 
 
 - 
 
 Here blooms the late rose, pale and odorless ; 
 And the vague fragrance in the garden walks 
 Is but a doubtful dream of mignonette. 
 In some smooth spot, under a sleeping oak 
 That has not dreamed of such a thing as spring, 
 The ground has stolen a kiss from the cool sun 
 And thrilled a little, and the tender grass 
 Has sprung untimely, for these great bright days, 
 Staring upon it, will not let it live. 
 The sky is blue, and t is a goodly time, 
 And the round, barren hillsides tempt the feet ; 
 But t is not winter : such as seems to man 
 What June is to the roses, sending floods 
 Of life and color through the tingling veins. 
 
It is a land without a fireside. Far 
 Is the old home, where, even this very night, 
 Roars the great chimney with its glorious fire, 
 And old friends look into each other s eyes 
 Quietly, for each knows the other s trust. 
 
 Heaven is not far away such winter nights : 
 The big white stars are sparkling in the east, 
 And glitter in the gaze of solemn eyes ; 
 For many things have faded with the flowers, 
 And many things their resurrection wait ; 
 Earth like a sepulchre is sealed with frost, 
 And Morn and Even beside the silent door 
 Sit watching, and their soft and folded wings 
 Are white with feathery snow. 
 
 Yet even here 
 
 We are not quite forgotten by the Hours, 
 Could human eyes but see the beautiful 
 Save through the glamour of a memory. 
 Soon comes the strong south wind, and shouts aloud 
 Its jubilant anthem. Soon the singing rain 
 Comes from warm seas, and in its skyey tent 
 Enwraps the drowsy world. And when, some night, 
 
Its flowing folds invisibly withdraw, 
 Lo ! the new life in all created things. 
 The azure mountains and the ocean gates 
 Against the lovely sky stand clean and clear 
 As a new purpose in the wiser soul. 
 
INFLUENCES 
 
 FROM the scarlet sea of sunset, 
 
 Tossing up its waves of fire 
 To a floating spray of splendor, 
 
 Kindles through me mad desire 
 
 Now now now to call her mine ! 
 
 Prom the ashen gray of twilight 
 Musings dark as shadows linger 
 
 Slowly creeping, leave me weeping 
 While in silence round my finger 
 That long glossy lock I twine. 
 
 From the holy hush of starlight 
 Sinks a peace upon my spirit, 
 
 And a voice of hope and patience 
 All the quiet night I hear it 
 
 Whispers, " Wait, for she is thine ! " 
 
THE LOVER S SONG 
 
 LEND me thy fillet, Love ! 
 
 I would no longer see ; 
 Cover mine eyelids close awhile. 
 
 And make me blind like thee. 
 
 Then might I pass her sunny face, 
 
 And know not it was fair ; 
 Then might I hear her voice, nor guess 
 
 Her starry eyes were there. 
 
 Ah ! banished so from stars and sun 
 
 Why need it be my fate? 
 If only she might deem me good 
 
 And wise, and be my mate ! 
 
 Lend her thy fillet, Love ! 
 
 Let her no longer see : 
 If there is hope for me at ah 1 , 
 
 She must be blind like thee. 
 
A TROPICAL MORNING AT SEA 
 
 SKY in its lucent splendor lifted 
 
 Higher than cloud can be ; 
 Air with no breath of earth to stain it, 
 
 Pure on the perfect sea. 
 
 Crests that touch and tilt each other, 
 
 Jostling as they comb ; 
 Delicate crash of tinkling water, 
 
 Broken in pearling foam. 
 
 Flashings or is it the pinewood s whispers, 
 
 Babble of brooks unseen, 
 Laughter of winds when they find the blossoms, 
 
 Brushing aside the green ? 
 
 Waves that dip, and dash, and sparkle ; 
 
 Foam-wreaths slipping by, 
 Soft as a snow of broken roses 
 
 Afloat over mirrored sky. 
 
Off to the East the steady sun-track 
 
 Golden meshes fill 
 Webs of fire, that lace and tangle, 
 
 Never a moment still. 
 
 Liquid palms but clap together, 
 Fountains, flower-like, grow 
 
 Limpid bells on stems of silver 
 Out of a slope of snow. 
 
 Sea-depths, blue as the blue of violets 
 
 Blue as a summer sky, 
 When you blink at its arch sprung over 
 
 Where in the grass you lie. 
 
 Dimly an orange bit of rainbow 
 Burns where the low west clears, 
 
 Broken in air, like a passionate promise 
 Born of a moment s tears. 
 
 Thinned to amber, rimmed with silver, 
 Clouds in the distance dwell, 
 
 Clouds that are cool, for all their color, 
 Pure as a rose-lipped shell. 
 
[ 189 3 
 
 Fleets of wool in the upper heavens 
 
 Gossamer wings unfurl ; 
 Sailing so high they seem but sleeping 
 
 Over yon bar of pearl. 
 
 What would the great world lose, I wonder- 
 
 Would it be missed or no 
 If we stayed in the opal morning, 
 
 Floating forever so? 
 
 Swung to sleep by the swaying water, 
 
 Only to dream all day 
 Blow, salt wind from the north upstarting, 
 
 Scatter such dreams away ! 
 
190 
 
 A FOOLISH WISH 
 
 WHY need I seek some burden small to bear 
 
 Before I go ? 
 Will not a host of nobler souls be here, 
 
 Heaven s will to do? 
 Of stronger hands, unfailing, unafraid? 
 
 silly soul ! what matters my small aid 
 
 Before I go ! 
 
 1 tried to find, that I might show to them, 
 
 Before I go, 
 The path of purer lives : the light was dim, 
 
 I do not know 
 
 If I had found some footprints of the way ; 
 It is too late their wandering feet to stay, 
 
 Before I go. 
 
 I would have sung the rest some song of cheer, 
 
 Before I go ; 
 But still the chords rang false ; some jar of fear, 
 
 Some jangling woe. 
 
c: 
 
 And at the end I cannot weave one chord 
 To float into their hearts my last warm word, 
 Before I go. 
 
 I would be satisfied if I might tell, 
 
 Before I go, 
 That one warm word, how I have loved them well, 
 
 Could they but know ! 
 
 And would have gained for them some gleam of good ; 
 Have sought it long; still seek, if but I could ! 
 
 Before I go. 
 
 T is a child s longing, on the beach at play : 
 
 "Before I go," 
 He begs the beckoning mother, " Let me stay 
 
 One shell to throw!" 
 
 T is coming night; the great sea climbs the shore, 
 " Ah, let me toss one little pebble more, 
 
 Before I go ! " 
 
EVERT-DAT LIFE 
 
 THE marble-smith, at his morning task 
 Merrily glasses the blue-veined stone. 
 
 With stout hands circling smooth. You ask, 
 " What will it be, when it is done ? " 
 
 A shaft for a young girl s grave." Both hands 
 Go back with a will to their sinewy play ; 
 
 And he sings like a bird, as he swaying stands, 
 A rollicking stave of Love and May. 
 
BEFORE SUNRISE IN WINTER 
 
 A PURPLE cloud hangs half way down ; 
 
 Sky, yellow gold below ; 
 The naked trees, beyond the town, 
 
 Like masts against it show 
 
 Bare masts and spars of our earth-ship, 
 With shining snow-sails furled ; 
 
 And through the sea of space we slip, 
 That flows all round the world. 
 
C 194 
 
 THE CHOICE 
 
 ONLY so much of power each day 
 
 So much nerve-force brought in play ; 
 
 If it goes for politics or trade, 
 
 Ends gained or money made, 
 
 You have it not for the soul and God 
 
 The choice is yours, to soar or plod. 
 
 So much water in the rill : 
 
 It may go to turn the miller s wheel, 
 
 Or sink in the desert, or flow on free 
 To brighten its banks in meadows green, 
 Till broadening out, fair fields between, 
 
 It streams to the moon-enchanted sea. 
 Only so little power each day : 
 Week by week days slide away ; 
 
 Ere the life goes, what shall it be 
 A trade a game a mockery, 
 Or the gate of a rich Eternity? 
 
C 
 
 SIBYLLINE BARTERING 
 
 FATE, the gray Sibyl, with kind eyes above 
 
 Closely locked lips, brought youth a merry crew 
 
 Of proffered friends ; the price, self -slaying love. 
 Proud youth repulsed them. She and they with 
 drew. 
 
 Then she brought half the troop ; the cost, the 
 same. 
 
 My man s heart wavered : should I take the few, 
 And pay the whole ? But while I went and came, 
 
 Fate had decided. She and they withdrew. 
 
 Once more she came, with two. Now life s midday 
 
 Left fewer hours before me. Lonelier grew 
 The house and heart. But should the late purse 
 
 pay 
 
 The earlier price ? And she and they withdrew. 
 
 At last I saw Age his forerunners send. 
 Then came the Sibyl, still with kindly eyes 
 
C 
 
 And close-locked lips, and offered me one friend, 
 Thee, my one darling ! With what tears and cries 
 
 I claimed and claim thee ; ready now to pay 
 The perfect love that leaves no self to slay ! 
 
C 197 
 
 MUSIC 
 
 THE little rim of moon hangs low the room 
 Is saintly with the presence of Night, 
 And Silence broods with knitted brows around. 
 The woven lilies of the velvet floor 
 Blend with the roses in the dusky light, 
 Which shows twin pictures glimmering from the 
 
 walls : 
 
 Here, a mailed group kneels by the rocky sea 
 There, a gray desert, and a well, and palms ; 
 While the faint perfume of a violet, 
 Vague as a dream of Spring, pervades the air. 
 Where the moon gleams along the organ-front, 
 The crooked shadow of a dead branch stirs 
 Like ghostly fingers gliding through a tune. 
 
 Now rises one with faintly rustling robes, 
 And white hands search among the glistening keys. 
 Out of the silence sounds are forming tones 
 That seem to come from infinite distances, 
 Soft trebles fluttering down like snowy doves 
 Just dipping their swift wings in the deep bass 
 
C 198 ] 
 
 That crumbles downward like a crumbling wave ; 
 
 And out of those low-gathering harmonies 
 
 A voice arises, tangled in their maze, 
 
 Then soaring up exultantly alone, 
 
 While the accompaniment wails and complains. 
 
 I am upon the seashore. T is the sound 
 Of ocean, surging on against the land. 
 That throbbing thunder is the roar of surf 
 Beaten and broken on the frothy rocks. 
 Those whispering trebles are the plashing waves 
 That ripple up the smooth sand s slope, and kiss 
 The tinkling shells with coy lips, quick withdrawn ; 
 And over all, the solitary voice 
 
 Is the wind wandering on its endless quest. 
 
 A change comes, in a crash of minor chords. 
 I am a dreamer, waking from his dream 
 
 Into the life to which our life is sleep. 
 
 My soul is floating floating, till afar 
 
 The round Earth rolls, with fleece of moonlit cloud, 
 
 A globe of amber, gleaming as it goes. 
 
 Deep in some hollow cavern of the sky 
 
 All human life is pleading to its God. 
 
 Still the accompaniment wails and complains ; 
 
 A wild confusion of entangled chords, 
 
C 199 ] 
 
 Kevenge, and fear, and strong men s agony, 
 The shrill cry of despair, the slow, deep swell 
 Of Time s long effort, sinking but to swell, 
 While woman s lonely love, and childhood s faith 
 Go wandering with soft whispers hand in hand. 
 Suddenly from the ages one pure soul 
 Is singled out to plead before the Throne ; 
 And then again the solitary voice 
 Peals up among the stars from the great throng, 
 Catching from out the storm all love, all hope, 
 All loveliness of life, and utters it. 
 
 Then the hushed music sobs itself to sleep, 
 And all is still, save the reluctant sigh 
 That tells the wakening from immortal dreams. 
 
20 
 
 THREE SONGS 
 
 SING me, thou Singer, a song of gold ! 
 
 Said a careworn man to me : 
 So I sang of the golden summer days, 
 And the sad, sweet autumn s yellow haze, 
 Till his heart grew soft, and his mellowed gaze 
 
 Was a kindly sight to see. 
 
 Sing me, dear Singer, a song of love ! 
 
 A fair girl asked of me : 
 Then I sang of a love that clasps the Race, 
 Gives all, asks naught till her kindled face 
 Was radiant with the starry grace 
 
 Of blessed Charity. 
 
 Sing me, O Singer, a song of life ! 
 
 Cried an eager youth to me : 
 And I sang of the life without alloy, 
 Beyond our years, till the heart of the boy 
 Caught the golden beauty, and love, and joy 
 
 Of the great Eternity. 
 
201 
 
 DESPAIR AND HOPE 
 
 WE sailed a cruise on a summer sea 
 
 I, and a skull for company : 
 
 I in the stern our course to turn, 
 
 And it on the prow to grin at me. 
 
 Over the deep heaven, hung below, 
 
 Whose imaged clouds lay white like snow, 
 
 Glided we, as the tide might be, 
 
 Slipping swiftly, floating slow. 
 Past the woods all living green 
 
 Save by the marge some fading tree, 
 Whose leaf, so early autumn-touched, 
 
 Would make the skull to grin at me. 
 
 Past a grove of fragrant pine, 
 Prom whose dusky depths of shade 
 Snowy shaft and colonnade 
 
 Marked a ruined altar-shrine ; 
 
 And the skull s grim face grinned into mine. 
 
202 
 
 Under the arch of a vine-clasped elm 
 
 Leaning off from the mossy land, 
 Across the shallow the idle helm 
 
 Lightly furrowed the silver sand : 
 Down the slope all clover-sweet 
 
 Danced a group in childish glee 
 Hissed a swift snake at their feet ; 
 
 Then the skull grinned unto me. 
 
 Into a cavern dim and dank 
 
 Crept we on the creeping tide ; 
 Shapeless creatures rose and sank, 
 
 Dripped with damp the ceiling wide. 
 Darker, chiller hung the air ; 
 
 Scarcely I the prow could see ; 
 But I, through the shadow there, 
 
 Felt the skull still grin at me. 
 
 Out of the cavern s thither side, 
 Into a mellow, morn-like glow, 
 
 Streams the ripple-curving tide ; 
 Sounds of music sweeter grow ; 
 
 Odorous incense, softened air, 
 
 Melodies so faint and fair, 
 
Thrill me through with life and love : 
 And all suddenly from the prow, 
 Where had seemed the skull just now, 
 
 Flutters to my breast a dove. 
 
WISDOM AND FAME 
 
 A WILDERNESS, made awful with the night 
 Great glimmering trunks whose tops were hid in 
 
 gloom, 
 
 Vast columns in the blackness broken off, 
 Between whose ghostly forms, slow-wandering, 
 A company of lost men sought a path. 
 
 Some groped among the dead leaves and fallen 
 
 boughs 
 
 For footprints ; but the rattle of the leaves 
 And crook of stems seemed serpents coiled to strike. 
 
 Some took the momentary sparks that rode 
 Upon their straining eyeballs, for far lights, 
 And followed them. 
 
 Some stood apart, in vain 
 Searching, with horror-widened eyes, for stars. 
 
 So, stumbling on, they circled round and round 
 Through the same mazes. 
 
 Then they singled one 
 To climb a pinnacled height, and see from thence 
 
C 205 ] 
 
 The landmarks, and to shout from thence their course. 
 With aching sinews, bleeding feet, bruised hands, 
 He gained the height ; but when they cried to him 
 They got but maudlin answers, he had found, 
 Slaking hot thirst, a fruit that maddened him. 
 
 Another, and another still they sent ; 
 But every one that climbed found the ill fruit 
 And maddened, and gave back but wild replies : 
 And still in darkness they go wandering, lost. 
 
2 6 
 
 SERENITY 
 
 BROOK, 
 
 Be still, be still! 
 Midnight s arch is broken 
 In thy ceaseless ripples. 
 Dark and cold below them 
 Runs the troubled water, 
 Only on its bosom, 
 Shimmering and trembling, 
 Doth the glinted star-shine 
 
 Sparkle and cease. 
 
 Life, 
 
 Be still, be still! 
 Boundless truth is shattered 
 On thy hurrying current. 
 Rest, with face uplifted, 
 Calm, serenely quiet ; 
 Drink the deathless beauty 
 Thrills of love and wonder 
 Sinking, shining, star-like ; 
 
C 2 7 3 
 
 Till the mirrored heaven 
 Hollow down within thee 
 Holy deeps unfathomed, 
 Where far thoughts go floating, 
 And low voices wander 
 
 Whispering peace, 
 
C 208 
 
 THE RUBY HEART 
 
 A CHILD S STORY 
 
 UNDER a fragrant blossom-bell 
 A tiny Fairy once did dwell. 
 The moss was bright about her feet, 
 Her little face was fair and sweet, 
 Her form in rainbow hues was clad, 
 And yet the Fairy s soul was sad ; 
 For, of the Elves that round her moved, 
 And in the yellow moonlight roved, 
 There was no Spirit that she loved. 
 
 Many a one there was, I ween, 
 Among the sprites that danced the green, 
 Whose hands were warm to clasp her own, 
 And voices kindly in their tone ; 
 But love the fondest and the best 
 Awaked no answer in her breast : 
 Her heart unmoved within her slept 
 And, " I can never love ! " she wept. 
 
C 
 
 She taught herself a quaint old song 
 And crooned it over all day long : 
 
 "Heprayeth best, who loveth best 
 
 All things both great and small; 
 For the dear God who loveth us, 
 He made and loveth all. 7 
 
 " But I," she said, " can never pray, 
 Nor to His mansions find the way, 
 For he will suffer not, I know, 
 A creature unto Him to go 
 Who has not loved His world below." 
 
 Slow-wandering by the brook alone, 
 She chose a pure white pebble-stone, 
 And carved it, sitting there apart, 
 Into a little marble heart ; 
 She hung it by her mossy bed 
 " My heart will never love," she said, 
 " Till this white stone turn ruby-red." 
 
 One night a moonbeam smote her face 
 And wakened her, and in its place 
 
C 21 1 
 
 There stood an angel, full of grace. 
 "Dear child/ he said, "from far above 
 I come to teach thee how to love. 
 Do every day some little deed 
 Of kindness, some faint creature feed, 
 Make some hurt spirit cease to bleed, 
 Then carve the record fair, at night, 
 Upon thy heart of marble white. 
 Each word shall turn to ruby-red, 
 And so much of thy task be sped ; 
 For when the whole is ruddied o er, 
 Thy bosom shall be cold no more ; 
 The souls thy careless thoughts contemn 
 Shall win thee by thy deeds to them. 9 
 
 Upon the sorrowful Fairy broke 
 Like sudden sunshine this new hope. 
 Each day to some one s door she took 
 A kindly act, or word, or look, 
 Whose record, fairly carved at night, 
 Blushed out upon the stony white ; 
 Till, somehow, wondrously there grew 
 More grace in every one she knew 
 Each little ugliness concealed, 
 
Each goodness more and more reveal d, 
 As, when you watch the twilight through, 
 The sky seems one pure empty blue, 
 Till, o er the paling sunset-bars, 
 Suddenly t is one sweep of stars ! 
 
 So day by day she found herself 
 Grow kindlier to each little elf ; 
 Yea, even to the birds and bees, 
 And slender flowerets round her knees : 
 The very moss-buds at her feet 
 She came with warmer smile to greet, 
 Till now, at last, her marble heart 
 Was ruddy, save one little part 
 That gleamed all snowy as of old 
 In the still moonbeams, white and cold. 
 
 Her task was almost done she knelt 
 And hid her glad wet eyes, and felt 
 Her soul s first prayer steal up to God, 
 Like Spring s first violet from the sod. 
 Through all her being softly stole 
 Such joy of gratitude, her soul 
 Brimmed over like a brimming cup 
 
C 212 3 
 
 And then a voice said, " Child, look up ! 
 
 And lo ! the stone above her head 
 
 Was a pure ruby, starry-red ; 
 
 And down among the flowers there flew, 
 
 Brushing aside the moonlit dew, 
 
 A little snowy elfin dove, 
 
 And nestled on her breast, to prove 
 
 Sweet trust in one whose heart was love. 
 
C 
 
 TO CHILD ANNA 
 
 As in the Spring, ere any flowers have come, 
 
 A vague and blossomy smeh 1 
 Pervades the woods, all odors mixed in one, 
 As if to tell 
 
 That they are mustering in each sunny dell, 
 
 So round your childish form there seems to cling 
 
 A sense of nameless grace, 
 A sweet confusion budding hints of Spring 
 Just giving place 
 
 To graver woman-shadows in your face. 
 
 I see no longer the mere child you are 
 
 The woman you might be 
 Stands in your place, with eyes that gaze afar : 
 Her face I see, 
 
 And it is very beautiful to me. 
 
 The little soft white hands you lay in mine 
 I touch with reverent care; 
 
C 214 ] 
 
 I see them wrinkled into many a line, 
 
 But fair more fair 
 For every weary deed they do and bear. 
 
 The fresh young mouth, all careless purity, 
 
 Has faded from my gaze, 
 And all the tender looks, which charity 
 And many patient days 
 
 Leave round the lips, seem now to take its place. 
 
 Therefore I stroke so tenderly your head, 
 
 Or watch your steps afar, 
 Praying that God His love on you will shed 
 More faithful far 
 
 Than our blind human love and watching are. 
 
[ 215 
 
 THE WORLD S SECRET 
 
 I KNOW the splendor of the Sun, 
 
 And beauty in the leaves, and moss, and grass ; 
 I love the birds small voices every one, 
 
 And all the hours have kindness as they pass ; 
 
 But still the heart can apprehend 
 
 A deeper purport than the brain may know : 
 I see it at the dying daylight s end, 
 
 And hear it when the winds begin to blow. 
 
 It strives to speak from all the world, 
 
 Out of dumb earth, and moaning ocean-tides ; 
 
 And brooding Night, beneath her pinions furled, 
 Some message writ in starry cipher hides. 
 
 Must I go seeking everywhere 
 
 The meanings that behind our objects be 
 A depth serener in the azure air, 
 
 A something more than peace upon the sea ? 
 
C 2l6 3 
 
 Not one least deed one soul to bless ? 
 
 Unto the stern-eyed Future shall I bear 
 Only the sense of pain without redress, 
 
 Self -sickness, and a duh* and stale despair? 
 
 Nay, let me shape, in patience slow, 
 
 My years, like the holy child his bird of clay, 
 
 Till suddenly the clod its Master know, 
 
 And thrill with lif e, and soar with songs away. 
 
C ^ 3 
 
 THE FOUNTAIN 
 
 WERE it not horrible 
 
 After all the dreams we dream, 
 
 Our yearnings and our prayers, 
 
 If this " I "" were but a stream 
 
 Of thoughts, sensations, joys, and pains, 
 
 Which being clogged, no soul remains ? 
 
 Even as the fountain seems to be 
 
 A shape of one identity, 
 
 But only is a stream of drops, 
 
 And when the swift succession stops, 
 
 The fountain melts and disappears, 
 
 Leaving no trace but scattered tears. 
 
 Yet even here, foolish heart, 
 
 Thou wert not cheated of thy part ; 
 
 Were it not better, even here, 
 
 To keep thy current pure and clear, 
 
 With pearly drops of dew to wet 
 
 The amaranth and violet, 
 
 And round thy crystal feet to shower 
 
[ 218 1 
 
 Blessings and beauty every hour 
 Better than in a sullen flow 
 To creep around the ground, and go 
 Wasting and sinking through the sand, 
 Because not always thus to stand ? 
 
DISCONTENT 
 
 OH that one could arise and flee 
 
 Unto blue-eyed Italy, 
 
 Far from mechanical clank and hum ! 
 
 There to sit by the sighing sea, 
 
 And to dream of the days that shall be shall be 
 
 And the glory of years to come : 
 
 Or on some far ocean-isle, 
 
 Under the palm and the cocoa-tree, 
 
 To build of the coral boughs a home ; 
 
 Or floating and falling down the Nile, 
 
 
 
 To drown one s cares in the deeps of Time 
 
 And the desert s brooding mystery. 
 
 Yet howsoever we plot or plan, 
 
 In every age through every clime 
 
 Still the littleness of man 
 
 Would follow us, fast as we might flee ; 
 
 And the wrangling world break in on whatever is ten 
 der and sweet, 
 
 As on a beautiful tune the rattling and noise of the 
 street. 
 
[ 220 
 
 SEEMING AND BEING 
 
 THE brave old motto, " Seem not only be/ 
 Would it were set ablaze against the sky 
 In golden letters, where the world must read ! 
 What is there done for the honest doing s sake, 
 In these poor times gone mad with self -parade ? 
 There s not a picture of the Cross but bears 
 The painter s name as prominent as the Christ s: 
 There s not a scene, of such peculiar grace 
 That one would fain forget men s meanness there, 
 But from the rocks some rascal clothier s name 
 Stares in great capitals, till one could wish 
 The knave hung from his signboard, for a sign : 
 There s not a graveyard in the land, but lo ! 
 On the white tablets of the dead, full cut 
 Below their sacred names, his shameless name 
 Who carved the marble ! 
 
 Is it not pitiful? 
 
 We are all actors, and all audience. 
 Yea, such a dreary farce we make our lives, 
 
C 221 ] 
 
 That something is expected of a man 
 
 Upon his deathbed : " Hark ye now, good friends, 
 
 These fine last words, this notable bravery, see ! " 
 
 So even the grim cross-bones of awful Death 
 
 Must take an attitude, and the skull smirk 
 
 For a last picture. 
 
 Here is a nation, too, 
 
 (God help it !) that dare scarcely act its mind, 
 But walks the world s stage, quaking with the 
 
 thought, 
 " What will great England think of me for this ? " 
 
 The poet scoffs at fame, then sets himself, 
 Full-titled, with a portrait at the front ; 
 Each beautiful impatient soul, who left 
 The world he scorned, still lingered near enough 
 To listen, not displeased, and hear the world 
 Admiringly relate how he had scorned it ; 
 Even our great doubting Thomas, in young days 
 When he praised silence, did it with loud speech, 
 That ever too distinctly told, " T is I, 
 Thomas, so noisily abuse your noise ! " 
 
Is it not enough for the trumpet that the god 
 Has chosen it to sound his message through 
 Must the brass blare in its own petty praise ? 
 And can we never do the right, and do it 
 As though we were alone upon the earth, 
 And the gods blind ? 
 
C 
 
 WEATHER-BOUND 
 
 THOU pitiless, false sea ! 
 How, like a woman, thou wilt softly sigh 
 
 With heaving breast where bubble- jewels shine, 
 Or, beckoning, toss thy foam-white arms on high, 
 
 And laugh with those blue sunny eyes of thine ! 
 
 Ah, crouching, creeping sea ! 
 Thou tiger-cat ! how, while the winds make pause 
 
 To stroke thy long smooth back in quiet play, 
 Thou canst unsheathe thy velvet-hidden claws 
 
 And spring all unawares upon thy prey ! 
 
 Thou treacherous, cruel sea ! 
 How thou wilt show thy glittering smile at night, 
 
 Hiding thy fangs, hushing thy fiendish cry, 
 And rise all gentle sport from licking white 
 
 The bones of men that underneath thee lie ! 
 
 bitter, bitter sea ! 
 Didst thou not fawn about my naked feet, 
 
When I stood with thee on the beach, and say 
 That thou wouldst bear me swiftly home to meet 
 My darling, waiting there in vain to-day ? 
 
 Yea, thou most mighty sea ! 
 Keep then that promise murmured on the shore ; 
 
 Put thy great shoulders to our loitering keel, 
 Not as in rage and wrath thou hast before 
 
 Let the good ship thy help gigantic feel. 
 
 Thou answerest me, sea ! 
 Lifting in silence, o er the waters stilled, 
 
 The shattered fragment of a rainbow fair, 
 A mocking promise, ne er to be fulfilled, 
 
 Based on the waves and broken in mid-air. 
 
C 
 
 TO CHILD SARA 
 
 I LOOKED in a dew-drop s heart to-day 
 
 As it clung on a leaf of clover. 
 Holding a sparkle of starry light, 
 Like a liquid drop of opal bright 
 With diamond dusted over. 
 
 In that least globe of quivering dew, 
 
 The sunny scene around, 
 Diminished to a grass-blade s width 
 Scarcely a fairy s finger-breadth 
 
 All imaged there I found : 
 
 The spreading oak, the fir s soft fringe, 
 The grain-field s brightening green, 
 The linnet that flew fluttering by, 
 And, over all, the dear blue sky, 
 The bending boughs between : 
 
 And all the night, as from its nest 
 It gazes up afar, 
 
I 226 3 
 
 Its bosom holds the heavens deep, 
 Whose constellations o er it sweep. 
 And mirrors every star. 
 
 Child, is that drop of dew your soul 
 
 With mirrored heaven as bright ? 
 (Forgive me that I ask of you, 
 Whose heart I know is pure and true 
 And stainless as the light :) 
 
 The sunshine, and the starlight too, 
 
 Fair hope, and faith as fair, 
 Courage, and patience, silent power, 
 And wisdom for each troubled hour, 
 
 Tell me, are they all there ? 
 
 Your quiet grace, and kindly words 
 Have influence sweet and strong ; 
 Your hand and voice can calm the brain, 
 And cheer the heavy hearts of men 
 With music and with song : 
 
 Let the soul answer can it give 
 That music clear and calm 
 
C 
 
 The rhythmic years, the holier aim, 
 The scorn of pleasure, fortune, fame 
 To make our life a psalm ? 
 
 All round the house, your birthday morn 
 
 The budded orchards stand ; 
 And we can watch from every room 
 The trees all blushing into bloom 
 Blossoms on every hand : 
 
 So may your Life be, many a year, 
 
 A fair and goodly tree ; 
 Not blossoming only, but sublime 
 With fruit, so hastening the time 
 
 When Earth shall Eden be. 
 
A FABLE 
 
 TO CHILD ANNA 
 
 ONE morning, in a Prince s park, 
 Before the rising of the lark 
 Or the first glimmering twilight beam, 
 A Lily blossomed by a stream ; 
 Just at the chillest, darkest hour, 
 When frowning clouds in heaven lower, 
 When shadows crouch all gaunt and grim, 
 And every little star is dim. 
 
 " dreary world ! " the Lily sighed : 
 Only the dreary wind replied. 
 
 Soon, in the East uprising slow, 
 A cold gray dawn began to grow. 
 The Lily watched where all around 
 The mist came creeping o er the ground, 
 And listened, while with sadder tone 
 The morning-wind began to moan : 
 But all the more the light drew on, 
 Her tear-dewed cheek was deathlier wan, 
 Each streak of daylight, as it grew, 
 
[ 229 ] 
 
 Revealed a world so strange and new. 
 Slowly the dawn crept up the sky 
 Like a cold, cruel, watching eye. 
 Once from some little wakened bird 
 A twittering note of joy she heard : 
 The chill dew fell upon her head 
 She almost wished that she were dead ; 
 " There comes no joy for me," she said. 
 
 A gnarled and wisdom-wrinkled Oak 
 Which overheard, in answer spoke : 
 
 " foolish little Lilybell, 
 Why do you weep, when all is well ? 
 Look up ! Have faith ! For by and by 
 The sun is coming up the sky ; 
 All golden red the heavens will glow, 
 All golden green the earth below ; 
 The birds their rippling songs will sing, 
 And wooing winds their spices bring : 
 And then the Prince will hither come 
 To wander mid his flowers, and some, 
 (Ah, favored blossoms !) bending down, 
 He plucks and places in his crown. 
 Look up, foolish Lilybell ! 
 A little while, and all is well." 
 
The Lily drooped and trembled still : 
 " The dawn/ she sobbed, " is dim and chill ; 
 And if the Prince should come, alas ! 
 He will not stoop among the grass ; 
 I surely cannot please his eyes, 
 For I am neither fair nor wise : 
 He 11 choose some tall and stately tree, 
 He surely will not care for me ! " 
 
 But now the sunrise was at hand, 
 Lighting with splendor all the land ; 
 As if a seraph stood below 
 With lifted pinions all aglow, 
 Whose tips of fire still nearer came 
 In feathery plumes of floating flame ; 
 While from his hidden face the rays 
 Shot up and set the heavens ablaze. 
 They warmed the old Oak s wrinkled face, 
 And touched it with a mellow grace ; 
 Then dancing downward to his feet 
 They kissed the Lily s face so sweet, 
 And laughed away her foolish fear 
 And lit a gem in every tear ; 
 Then flew to greet the Master s eye, 
 Who even now was drawing nigh. 
 
C 231 3 
 
 He saw the Lily s fragile cup 
 With dew and sunlight brimming up, 
 And, as he marked each beauty well, 
 The petals pure as pearliest shell, 
 And on the lowly bending stem 
 The tear-drop sparkling like a gem, 
 The Prince was glad, and stooping down 
 Plucked it, and set it in his crown ; 
 And mid the jewels glittering there 
 None shone so royally and rare, 
 For none was half so pure and fair. 
 
 Dear child, t is our ingratitude, 
 And faithless fear, and sullen mood, 
 Darken a world so bright and good ! 
 There s nothing beautiful and true 
 There s not a rift of heaven s blue, 
 And not a flower, or dancing leaf, 
 But shames our selfish-hearted grief. 
 His hand that feels the sparrow s fall, 
 And builds the bee his castle-wall, 
 And spreads the tiniest insect s sail, 
 And tints the violet s purple veil, 
 Will never let His children stray 
 Or wander from His arms away. 
 
[ 232 ] 
 
 To-day may seem all cold and dim 
 Trust the To-morrow unto Him. 
 
 T is slander that we often hear, 
 " Hope whispers falsehoods in our ear/ 
 There s no such lying voice as Fear. 
 Hope is a prophet sent from Heaven, 
 Fear is a false and croaking raven. 
 The dawn that buds all gray and cold 
 Will blossom to a sky of gold ; 
 God s love shall like a sunrise stay 
 To lighten all the future way 
 Still brighter to the Perfect Day. 
 
THE CREATION 
 
 A FOUNTAIN rusheth upward from God s throne ; 
 Its streaming stem we name Eternal Power : 
 Its tossing drops are worlds, that spin and fall, 
 While on their spheres our little human lives 
 Like gleams and shadows swiftly glance and go. 
 
C 234 
 
 THE FIRST CAUSE 
 
 DOUBTLESS the linnet, shut within its cage, 
 Thinks the fair child that loves it, brings it seed, 
 And hangs it, chirping to it, in the sun, 
 Is the preserver of its little world. 
 
 Doubtless the child, within her nursery walls, 
 Thinks her kind father is the father of all 
 Those happy children, chattering on the lawn 
 Keeps yonder town as well as this bright room, 
 And pours the brook that sparkles past the door. 
 
 Doubtless we think the Being who made man, 
 The visible world, space powdered thick with stars, 
 The golden fruit whose core is curious life, 
 Created all things love, and law, anc^, death; 
 Fate, the crowned forehead ; Will, the sceptred hand. 
 
 Perchance perchance : yet need it be that He 
 Who planted us is the Head-gardener? What 
 If beyond Him rose rank on rank, as the bulb 
 Is higher than the crystals of its food, 
 And he who sets it, higher than the flower, 
 And he that owns the garden, more than all ? 
 
C 
 
 The great Cause works through lesser ones ; per 
 mits 
 
 The plant to bear dead buds on dying stems ; 
 The beaver to weave dams that the stream snaps ; 
 The workman to make watches that lose time, 
 Or organ pipes all jarred and out of tune. 
 Did not I build a playhouse for my boys. 
 And made it ill, and that loose plank fell down 
 And hurt the children ? And did not I learn, 
 After three trials, how to make it well ? 
 Know we the limit of the power He gives 
 To lesser Wills to will imperfectly ? 
 Is earth that limit ? Is the last link man, 
 Between the finite and the infinite? 
 When that new star flared out in heaven, and died, 
 Who knows what Spirit, failing in his plan, 
 Dashed out his work in wrath, to try anew? 
 
 mother world ! we stammer at thy knee 
 Vainly our childish questions. T is enough 
 For such as we to know, that on His throne, 
 Nearer than we can think, and farther off 
 Than any mind can fathom, sits the One, 
 And sees to it though pain and evil come, 
 And all may not be good that all is well. 
 
[ 236 
 
 SEMELE 
 
 WHAT were the garden-bowers of Thebes to me ? 
 What cared I for their dances and their feasts, 
 Whose heart awaited an immortal doom? 
 The Greek youths mocked me, since I shunned in 
 
 scorn 
 
 Them and their praises of my brows and hair. 
 The light girls pointed after me, who turned 
 Soul-sick from their unending fooleries. 
 Apollo s noon-glare wrathf ully beat down 
 Upon the head that would not bend to him 
 Him in his fuming anger ! as the highest. 
 In every lily s cup a venomous thing 
 Crooked up its hairy limbs ; or, if I bent 
 To pluck a blue-eyed blossom in the grass, 
 Some squatted horror leered with motionless eyes. 
 
 I think the very earth did hate my feet, 
 And put forth thistles to them, since I loathed 
 Her bare brown bosom ; and the scowling pines 
 Menaced me with dark arms, and hissed their threats 
 Behind me, hurrying through their gloom, to watch 
 (Blurred in unsteady tears till all their beams 
 
Dazzled, and shrank, and grew) that oval ring 
 Of shining points that rift the Milky Way, 
 Revealing, through their gap in the dusted fire, 
 The hollow awf ulness of night beyond. 
 
 There came a change : a glory fell to me. 
 No more t was Semele, the lonely girl, 
 But Jupiter s Beloved, Semele. 
 With human arms the god came clasping me : 
 New life streamed from his presence ; and a voice 
 That scarce could curb itself to the smooth Greek 
 Now and anon swept forth in those deep nights, 
 Thrilling my flesh with awe ; mysterious words 
 I knew not what ; hints of unearthly things 
 That I had felt on solemn summer noons, 
 When sleeping earth dreamed music, and the heart 
 Went crooning a low song it could not learn, 
 But wandered over it, as one who gropes 
 For a forgotten chord upon a lyre. 
 
 Yea, Jupiter ! But why this mortal guise, 
 Wooing as if he were a milk-faced boy? 
 Did I lack lovers ? Was my beauty dulled, 
 
[ 238 ] 
 
 The golden hair turned dross, the lithe limbs shrunk, 
 The deathless longings tamed, that I should seethe 
 My soul in love like any shepherd girl ? 
 
 One night he sware to grant whate er I asked ; 
 And straight I cried, " To know thee as thou art ! 
 To hold thee on my heart as Juno does ! 
 Come in thy thunder kill me with one fierce 
 Divine embrace ! Thine oath ! Now, Earth, at 
 last!" 
 
 The heavens shot one swift sheet of lurid flame : 
 The world crashed : from a body scathed and torn 
 The soul leapt through, and found his breast, and died. 
 
 " Died? " So the Theban maidens think, and 
 
 laugh, 
 
 Saying, " She had her wish, that Semele ! " 
 But sitting here upon Olympus height 
 I look down, through that oval ring of stars, 
 And see the far-off Earth, a twinkling speck 
 Dust-mote whirled up from the Sun s chariot-wheel 
 And pity their small hearts that hold a man 
 As if he were a god ; or know the god 
 Or dare to know him only as a man ! 
 human love, art thou forever blind ? 
 
A POET S APOLOGY 
 
 TRUTH cut on high in tablets of hewn stone, 
 Or on great columns gorgeously adorned, 
 Perchance were left alone, 
 
 Passed by and scorned ; 
 
 i/ 
 
 But Truth enchased upon a jewel rare, 
 
 A man would keep, and next his bosom wear. 
 
 So, many an hour, I sit and carve my gems 
 Ten spoiled, for one in purer beauty set : 
 
 Not for kings diadems 
 Some amulet 
 
 That may be worn o er hearts that toil and plod, 
 
 Though but one pearl that bears the name of God. 
 
[ 240 
 
 ONE TOUCH OF NATURE 
 
 CRUEL and wild the battle : 
 
 Great horses plunged and reared, 
 
 And through dust-cloud and smoke-cloud, 
 
 Blood-red with sunset s angry flush, 
 
 You heard the gun-shots rattle, 
 
 And, mid hoof-tramp and rush, 
 
 The shrieks of women speared. 
 
 For it was Kuss and Turcoman, 
 
 No quarter asked or given ; 
 
 A whirl of frenzied hate and death 
 
 Across the desert driven. 
 
 Look ! the half -naked horde gives way, 
 
 Fleeing frantic without breath, 
 
 Or hope, or will; and on behind 
 
 The troopers storm, in blood-thirst blind, 
 
 While, like a dreadful fountain-play, 
 
 The swords flash up, and fall, and slay 
 
 Wives, grandsires, baby brows and gray, 
 
[ 241 ] 
 
 Groan after groan, yell upon yell 
 Are men but fiends, and is earth hell ? 
 
 Nay, for out of the flight and fear 
 
 Spurs a Russian cuirassier ; 
 
 In his arms a child he bears. 
 
 Her little foot bleeds ; stern she stares 
 
 Back at the ruin of her race. 
 
 The small hurt creature sheds no tear. 
 
 Nor utters cry; but clinging still 
 
 To this one arm that does not kill, 
 
 She stares back with her baby face. 
 
 Apart, fenced round with ruined gear, 
 The hurrying horseman finds a space, 
 Where, with face crouched upon her knee, 
 A woman cowers. You see him stoop 
 And reach the child down tenderly, 
 Then dash away to join his troop. 
 
 How came one pulse of pity there 
 One heart that would not slay, but save 
 In all that Christ-forgotten sight ? 
 Was there, far north by Neva s wave, 
 
[ 242 ] 
 
 Some Kussian girl in sleep-robes white, 
 Making her peaceful evening prayer. 
 That Heaven s great mercy neath its care 
 Would keep and cover him to-night? 
 
THE CRICKETS IN THE FIELDS 
 
 ONE, or a thousand voices? filling noon 
 With such an undersong and drowsy chant 
 
 As sings in ears that waken from a swoon. 
 
 And know not yet which world such murmurs 
 
 haunt : 
 Single, then double beats, reiterant ; 
 
 Far off and near ; one ceaseless, changeless tune. 
 
 If bird or breeze awake the dreamy will, 
 We lose the song, as it had never been ; 
 
 Then suddenly we find J t is singing still 
 
 And had not ceased. So, friend of mine, within 
 My thoughts one underthought, beneath the din 
 
 Of life, doth every quiet moment fill. 
 
 Thy voice is far, thy face is hid from me, 
 But day and night are full of dreams of thee. 
 
244 
 
 HEBMIONE 
 
 THE LOST MAGIC 
 
 WHITE in her snowy stone, and cold. 
 With azure veins and shining arms, 
 
 Pygmalion doth his bride behold, 
 
 Rapt on her pure and sculptured charms. 
 
 Ah ! in those half -divine old days 
 Love still worked miracles for men ; 
 
 The gods taught lovers wondrous ways 
 To breathe a soul in marble then. 
 
 He gazed, he yearned, he vowed, he wept. 
 
 Some secret witchery touched her breast ; 
 And, laughing April tears, she stepped 
 
 Down to his arms and lay at rest. 
 
 Dear artist of the storied land ! 
 I too have loved a heart of stone. 
 
C 245 ] 
 
 What was thy charm of voice or hand, 
 Thy secret spell, Pygmalion ? 
 
 II 
 
 INFLUENCES 
 
 If quiet autumn mornings would not come, 
 
 With golden light, and haze, and harvest wain, 
 
 And spices of the dead leaves at my feet ; 
 
 If sunsets would not burn through cloud, and stain 
 
 With fading rosy flush the dusky dome ; 
 
 If the young mother would not croon that sweet 
 
 Old sleep-song, like the robin s in the rain ; 
 
 If the great cloud-ships would not float and drift 
 
 Across such blue all the calm afternoon ; 
 
 If night were not so hushed ; or if the moon 
 
 Might pause forever by that pearly rift, 
 
 Nor fill the garden with its flood again ; 
 
 If the world were not what it still must be, 
 
 Then might I live forgetting love and thee. 
 
C 246 ] 
 III 
 
 THE DEAD LETTER 
 
 The letter came at last. I carried it 
 To the deep woods unopened. All the trees 
 Were hushed, as if they waited what was writ, 
 And feared for me. Silent they let me sit 
 Among them ; leaning breathless while I read, 
 And bending down above me where they stood. 
 A long way off I heard the delicate tread 
 Of the light-footed loiterer, the breeze, 
 Come walking toward me in the leafy wood. 
 I burned the page that brought me love and woe. 
 At first it writhed to feel the spires of flame, 
 Then lay quite still; and o er each word there came 
 Its white ghost of the ash, and burning slow 
 Each said : " You cannot kill the spirit ; know 
 That we shall haunt you, even till heart and brain 
 Lie as we lie in ashes all in vain." 
 
C 
 
 IV 
 THE SONG IN THE NIGHT 
 
 In the deep night a little bird 
 Wakens, or dreams he is awake : 
 
 Cheerily clear one phrase is heard, 
 
 And you almost feel the morning break. 
 
 In the deep dark of loss and wrong, 
 One face like a lovely dawn will thrill, 
 
 And all night long at my heart a song 
 Suddenly stirs and then is still. 
 
248 
 
 REPROOF IN LOVE 
 
 BECAUSE we are shut out from light, 
 Each of the other s look and smile ; 
 
 Because the arms and lips delight 
 Are past and dead, a weary while ; 
 
 Because the dawn, that joy has brought, 
 Brings now but certainty of pain, 
 
 Nothing for you and me has bought 
 The right to live our lives in vain. 
 
 Take not away the only lure 
 
 That leads me on my lonely way, 
 
 To know you noble, sweet, and pure, 
 Great in least service, day by day. 
 
TEMPTED 
 
 YES, I know what you say : 
 Since it cannot be soul to soul, 
 
 Be it flesh to flesh, as it may ; 
 But is Earth the whole? 
 
 Shall a man betray the Past 
 
 For all Earth gives ? 
 " But the Past is dead ? " At last, 
 It is all that lives. 
 
 Which were the nobler goal 
 To snatch at the moment s bliss, 
 
 Or to swear I will keep my soul 
 Clean for her kiss ? 
 
ALONE 
 
 STILL earth turns and pulses stir, 
 And each day hath its deed ; 
 
 But if I be dead to her, 
 What is the life I lead? 
 
 Cares the cuckoo for the wood, 
 When the red leaves are down? 
 
 Stays the robin near the brood, 
 When they are fledged and flown? 
 
 Yea, we live ; the common air 
 To both its bounty brings. 
 
 Mockery ! Can the absent share 
 The half -forgotten things? 
 
 Barren comfort fancy doles 
 
 To him that truly sees ; 
 Sullen Earth can sever souls 
 
 Far as the Pleiades. 
 
C 
 
 Take thy toys, stepmother Earth, 
 Take force of limb and brain ; 
 
 All thy gifts are little worth, 
 Till her I find again. 
 
 Grass may spring and buds may stir,- 
 Why should mine eyes take heed ? 
 
 For if I be dead to her, 
 Then am I dead indeed. 
 
[ 252 
 
 TO A MAID DEMURE 
 
 OFTEN when the night is come, 
 With its quiet group at home, 
 While they broider, knit, or sew, 
 Kead, or chat in voices low, 
 Suddenly you lift your eyes 
 With an earnest look, and wise ; 
 But I cannot read their lore, 
 Tell me less, or tell me more. 
 
 Like a picture in a book, 
 Pure and peaceful is your look, 
 Quietly you walk your ways; 
 Steadfast duty fills the days. 
 Neither tears nor fierce delights, 
 Feverish days nor tossing nights, 
 Any troublous dreams confess, 
 Tell me more, or tell me less. 
 
 Swift the weeks are on the wing; 
 Years are brief, and love a thing 
 
n 253 3 
 
 Blooming, fading, like a flower; 
 Wake and seize the little hour. 
 Give me welcome, or farewell; 
 Quick ! I wait ! And who can tell 
 What to-morrow may befall, 
 Love me more, or not at all. 
 
254 ] 
 
 THE COUP DE GRACE 
 
 IF I were very sure 
 That all was over betwixt you and me 
 
 That, while this endless absence I endure 
 With but one mood, one dream, one misery 
 Of waiting, you were happier to be free, 
 
 Then I might find again 
 In cloud and stream and all the winds that blow, 
 
 Yea, even in the faces of my fellow-men, 
 The old companionship ; and I might know 
 Once more the pulse of action, ere I go. 
 
 But now I cannot rest, 
 While this one pleading, querulous tone without 
 
 Breaks in and mars the music in my breast. 
 I open the closed door lo ! all about, 
 What seem your lingering footprints; then I 
 doubt. 
 
C 255 ] 
 
 Waken me from this sleep ! 
 Strike fearless, let the naked truth-edge gleam ! 
 
 For while the beautiful old past I keep, 
 I am a phantom, and all mortals seem 
 But phantoms, and my life fades as a dream. 
 
c; 
 
 THE WORLD RUNS ROUND 
 
 r 
 
 FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF THE OVERLAND MAGAZINE, SAN 
 FRANCISCO, 1884 
 
 THE world runs round, 
 And the world runs well ; 
 And at heaven s bound, 
 Weaving what the hours shall tell 
 Of the future way. 
 Sit the great Noras, sisters gray. 
 Now a thread of doom and hate, 
 Now a skein of life and love, 
 Whether hearing shriek or psalm, 
 Hearts that curse or pray, 
 Most composed and very calm 
 Is their weaving, soon and late. 
 
 One man s noisy years go by, 
 Rich to the crowd s shallow eye, 
 Full of big and empty sound, 
 Brandished gesture, voice profound, 
 Blustering benevolence, 
 
C 257 3 
 
 Thin in deeds and poor in pence. 
 
 Out of it all, so loud and long. 
 
 What one thread that s clean and strong 
 
 To weave the coming good, 
 
 Can the great Norns find ? 
 
 But where some poor child stood, 
 
 And shrank, and wept its f aultiness, 
 
 Out of that little life so blind 
 
 The great web takes a golden strand 
 
 That shall shine and that shall stand 
 
 The whole wide world to bless. 
 
 One man walks in silk : 
 Honey and milk 
 Flow through his days. 
 Corn loads his wains, 
 He hath all men s praise, 
 He sees his heart s desire. 
 In all his veins 
 
 What can the sorrowful Norns 
 Find of heroic fire ? 
 Another finds his ways 
 All blocked and barred. 
 Lonely, he grapples hard, 
 
C 
 
 Sets teeth and bleeds. 
 Then the glad Norns 
 Know he succeeds, 
 With victory wrought 
 Greater than he sought. 
 
 When will the world believe 
 
 Force is for him that is met and fought : 
 
 Storm hath no song till the pine resists ; 
 
 Lightning no flame when it runs as it lists ; 
 
 So do the wise Norns weave. 
 
 The world runs round, 
 
 And the world runs well : 
 
 It needs no prophet, when evil is found, 
 
 Good to foretell. 
 
 Many the voices 
 Ruffling the air : 
 This one rejoices, 
 That in despair 
 Past the sky-bars 
 Climbs to the stars. 
 
 One voice is heard 
 By the ocean s shore, 
 
C 
 
 Speaking a word 
 Quiet and sane, 
 
 Amid the human rush and roar 
 Like a robin s song in the rain. 
 The red gold of the sun 
 Seems to stream in power 
 Already from behind the shower 
 When that song s begun. 
 
 It doth not insist, or claim ; 
 
 You may hear, or go : 
 
 It clamors not for gain or fame, 
 
 Tranquilly and slow 
 
 It speaketh unafraid, 
 
 Calls the spade, spade, 
 
 With the large sense mature 
 
 Of him that hath both sat and roved, 
 
 And with a solemn undercurrent pure, 
 
 As his that now hath lived and loved. 
 
 Brightened with glimpse and gleam 
 
 Of mother- wit 
 
 There is more salt in it, 
 
 More germ and sperm 
 
 Of the great things to be, 
 
 Than louder notes men speak and sing. 
 
[ 260 ] 
 
 It is a voice of Spring, 
 Clear and firm. 
 Tones prophetic in it flow, 
 Steady and strong, 
 Yet soft and low 
 An excellent thing in song. 
 " I can wait," saith merry Spring, 
 If the rain runneth, and the wind hummeth, 
 And the mount at morn be hoar with snow, 
 In the frost the violet dozes, 
 Wind and rain bear breath of roses, 
 And the great summer cometh 
 Wherein all things shall gayly bloom and grow. 
 Long may the voice be found, 
 Potent its spell, 
 While the world runs round, 
 And the world runs well. 
 
C 261 
 
 SUNDAY 
 
 NOT a dread cavern, hoar with damp and mould, 
 Where I must creep, and in the dark and cold, 
 
 Offer some awful incense at a shrine 
 
 That hath no more divine 
 Than that *t is far from life, and stern, and old ; 
 
 But a bright hilltop in the breezy air, 
 
 Full of the morning freshness high and clear, 
 
 Where I may climb and drink the pure, new day, 
 
 And see where winds away 
 The path that God would send me, shining fair. 
 
ON SECOND THOUGHT 
 
 THE end s so near, 
 
 It is all one 
 What track I steer, 
 
 What work ? s begun. 
 
 It is all one 
 
 If nothing s done, 
 The end s so near ! 
 
 The end s so near, 
 It is all one 
 
 What track thou steer, 
 What work s begun 
 Some deed, some plan, 
 As thou J rt a man ! 
 
 The end s so near ! 
 
C 
 
 HIS LOST DAY 
 
 GROWING old, and looking back 
 Wistfully along his track, 
 I have heard him try to tell, 
 With a smile a little grim, 
 Why a world he loved so well 
 Had no larger fruit of him : 
 
 T was one summer, when the time 
 Loitered like drowsy rhyme, 
 Sauntering on his idle way 
 Somehow he had lost a day. 
 Whether t was the daisies meek, 
 Keeping Sabbath all the week, 
 Birds without one work-day even, 
 Or the little pagan bees, 
 Busy all the sunny seven, 
 Whether sleep at afternoon, 
 Or much rising with the moon, 
 Couching with the morning star, 
 Or enchantments like to these, 
 Had confused his calendar, 
 
[ 264 3 
 
 " It is Saturday/ men said. 
 "Nay, t is Friday/ obstinate 
 
 Clung the notion in his head. 
 
 Had the cloudy sisters three 
 
 In their weaving of his fate, 
 
 Dozed, and dropped a stitch astray? 
 
 " T was the losing of that day 
 Cost my fortune," he would say. 
 On that day I should have writ 
 Screeds of wisdom and of wit ; 
 Should have sung the missing song, 
 Wonderful, and sweet, and strong ; 
 Might have solved men s doubt and dream 
 With some waiting truth supreme. 
 If another thing there be 
 That a groping hand may miss 
 In a twilight world like this, 
 Those lost hours its grace and glee 
 Surely would have brought to me." 
 
C 
 
 FERTILITY 
 
 CLEAR water on smooth rock 
 
 Could give no foothold for a single flower, 
 
 Or slenderest shaft of grain : 
 
 The stone must crumble under storm and rain 
 
 The forests crash beneath the whirlwind s power - 
 
 And broken boughs from many a tempest-shock, 
 
 And fallen leaves of many a wintry hour, 
 
 Must mingle in the mould, 
 
 Before the harvest whitens on the plain, 
 
 Bearing an hundred-fold. 
 
 Patience, weary heart ! 
 
 Let all thy sparkling hours depart, 
 
 And all thy hopes be withered with the frost, 
 
 And every effort tempest-tost 
 
 So, when all life s green leaves 
 
 Are fallen, and mouldered underneath the sod, 
 
 Thou shalt go not too lightly to thy God, 
 
 But heavy with full sheaves. 
 
[ 266 
 
 THE MYSTERY 
 
 I NEVER know why t is I love thee so : 
 I do not think t is that thine eyes for me 
 Grow bright as sudden sunshine on the sea ; 
 Nor for thy rose-leaf lips, or breast of snow, 
 Or voice like quiet waters where they flow. 
 
 So why I love thee well I cannot tell : 
 Only it is that when thou speak st to me 
 T is thy voice speaks, and when thy face I see 
 It is thy face I see ; and it befell 
 Thou wert, and I was, and I love thee well. 
 
[ 267 J 
 
 THE LOST BIRD 
 
 WHAT cared she for the free hearts ? She would com 
 fort 
 
 The prisoned one : 
 What recked I of the wanton other singers? 
 
 She sang for me alone 
 
 Was all my own, my own ! 
 
 But when they loaded me with heavier fetters, 
 
 And chained I lay, 
 How could she know I longed to reach her window ? 
 
 Athirst the livelong day, 
 
 At eve she fled away. 
 
 Still stands her cage wide open at the casement, 
 
 In sun and rain, 
 
 Though years have gone, and rust has thickly gath 
 ered, 
 
 My watching all in vain ; 
 
 She will not come again. 
 
C 268 H 
 
 Against its wires I strum with idle fingers 
 
 From morn to noon ; 
 I swing the door with loitering touch, and listen 
 
 To hear that old-time tune. 
 
 Sweet as the soul of June. 
 
 My bird, my silver voice that cheered my prison, 
 
 Hushed, lost to me : 
 And still I wait for death, in chains, forsaken, 
 
 (Soon may the summons be !) 
 
 But she is free. 
 
 "Is free?" 
 
 Nay, in the palace porches caught and hanging, 
 Who says t is gay 
 
 The song the false prince hears ? who says her sing 
 ing, 
 
 From day to summer day, 
 Grieves not her heart away ? 
 
 But when my dream comes true in that last sleeping, 
 
 And death makes free, 
 Against the blue shall snowy wings come sweeping, 
 
 My bird flown back to me, 
 
 Mine for eternity ! 
 
WARNING 
 
 BE true to me ! For there will dawn a day 
 When thou wilt find the faith that now I see, 
 Bow at the shrines where I must bend the knee, 
 Knowing the great from small. Then lest thou say, 
 " Ah me, that I had never flung away 
 His love who would have stood so close to me 
 Where now I walk alone " lest there should be 
 Such vain regret, Love, oh be true ! But nay, 
 Not true to me : true to thine own high quest 
 Of truth ; the aspiration in thy breast, 
 Noble and blind, that pushes by my hand, 
 And will not lean, yet cannot surely stand ; 
 True to thine own pure heart, as mine to thee 
 Beats true. So shalt thou best be true to me. 
 
[ 270 
 
 SUMMER AFTERNOON 
 
 FAR in hollow mountain canons 
 Brood with purple-folded pinions, 
 Flocks of drowsy distance-colors on their nests ; 
 And the bare round slopes for forests 
 Have cloud-shadows, floating forests, 
 On their breasts. 
 
 Winds are wakening and dying, 
 Questions low with low replying, 
 Through the oak a hushed and trembling whis 
 per goes : 
 
 Faint and rich the air with odors, 
 Hyacinth and spicy odors 
 Of the rose. 
 
 Even the flowerless acacia 
 Is one flower such slender stature, 
 With its latticed leaves a-tremble in the sun : 
 They have shower-drops for blossoms, 
 Quivering globes of diamond blossoms, 
 Every one. 
 
C 
 
 In the blue of heaven holy 
 Clouds go floating, floating slowly, 
 Pure in snowy robe and sunny silver crown ; 
 And they seem like gentle angels 
 Leisure-full and loitering angels, 
 Looking down. 
 
 Half the birds are wild with singing, 
 And the rest with rhythmic winging 
 Sing in melody of motion to the sight; 
 Every little sparrow twitters, 
 Cheerily chirps, and cheeps, and twitters 
 His delight. 
 
 Sad at heart amid the splendor, 
 Dull to all the radiance tender, 
 What can I for such a world give back again ? 
 Could I only hint the beauty 
 Some least shadow of the beauty, 
 Unto men ! 
 
272 
 
 SUMMER NIGHT 
 
 FROM the warm garden in the summer night 
 
 All faintest odors came : the tuberose white 
 
 Glimmered in its dark bed, and many a bloom 
 
 Invisibly breathed spices on the gloom. 
 
 It stirred a trouble in the man s dull heart, 
 
 A vexing, mute unrest : " Now what thou art, 
 
 Tell me ! " he said in anger. Something sighed, 
 
 " I am the poor ghost of a ghost that died 
 
 In years gone by." And he recalled of old 
 
 A passion dead long dead, even then that came 
 
 And haunted many a night like this, the same 
 
 In their dim hush above the fragrant mould 
 
 And glimmering flowers, and troubled all his breast. 
 
 " Best ! " then he cried ; " perturbed spirit, rest ! " 
 
c; 273 
 
 A CALIFORNIAFS DREAMS 
 
 A THUNDER-STORM of the olden days ! 
 
 The red sun sinks in a sleepy haze ; 
 
 The sultry twilight, close and still, 
 
 Muffles the cricket s drowsy trill. 
 
 Then a round-topped cloud rolls up the west, 
 
 Black to its smouldering, ashy crest, 
 
 And the chariot of the storm you hear, 
 
 With its jarring axle rumbling near ; 
 
 Till the blue is hid, and here and there 
 
 The sudden, blinding lightnings glare. 
 
 Scattering now the big drops fall, 
 
 Till the rushing rain in a silver wall 
 
 Blurs the line of the bending elms, 
 
 Then blots them out and the landscape whelms. 
 
 A flash a clap, and a rumbling peal : 
 
 The broken clouds the blue reveal ; 
 
 The last bright drops fall far away, 
 
 And the wind, that had slept for heat all day, 
 
 With a long-drawn sigh awakes again 
 
 And drinks the cool of the blessed rain. 
 
C 2 74 3 
 
 November ! night, and a sleety storm : 
 
 Close are the ruddy curtains, warm 
 
 And rich in the glow of the roaring grate. 
 
 It may howl outside like a baffled fate, 
 
 And rage on the roof, and lash the pane 
 
 With its fierce and impotent wrath in vain. 
 
 Sitting within at our royal ease 
 
 We sing to the chime of the ivory keys, 
 
 And feast our hearts from script and score 
 
 With the wealth of the mellow hearts of yore. 
 
 A winter s night on a world of snow ! 
 Not a sound above, not a stir below : 
 The moon hangs white in the icy air, 
 And the shadows are motionless everywhere. 
 Is this the planet that we know 
 This silent floor of the ghostly snow ? 
 Or is this the moon, so still and dead, 
 And yonder orb far overhead, 
 With its silver map of plain and sea, 
 Is that the earth where we used to be ? 
 Shall we float away in the frosty blue 
 To that living, summer world we knew, 
 With its full, hot heart-beats as of old, 
 Or be frozen phantoms of the cold ? 
 
C 275 ] 
 
 A river of ice, all blue and glare, 
 
 Under a star-shine dim and rare. 
 
 The sheeny sheet in the sparkling light 
 
 Is ribbed with slender wisps of white 
 
 Crinkles of snow, that the flying steel 
 
 Lightly crunches with ringing heel. 
 
 Swinging swift as the swallows skim, 
 
 You round the shadowy river s rim : 
 
 Falling somewhere out of the sky 
 
 Hollow and weird is the owlet s cry ; 
 
 The gloaming woods seem phantom hosts, 
 
 And the bushes cower in the snow like ghosts. 
 
 Till the tinkling feet that with you glide 
 
 Skate closer and closer to your side, 
 
 And something steals from a furry muff, 
 
 And you clasp it and cannot wonder enough 
 
 That a little palm so soft and fair 
 
 Could keep so warm in the frosty air. 
 
 T is thus we dream in our tranquil clime, 
 Rooted still in the olden time ; 
 Longing for all those glooms and gleams 
 Of passionate Nature s mad extremes. 
 Or was it only our hearts, that swelled 
 With the youth and life and love they held ? 
 
FULFILLMENT 
 
 ALL the skies had gloomed in gray, 
 Many a week, day after day. 
 Nothing came the blank to fill, 
 Nothing stirred the stagnant will. 
 Winds were raw ; buds would not swell : 
 Some malign and sullen spell 
 Soured the currents of the year, 
 And filled the heart with lurking fear. 
 
 In his room he moped and glowered, 
 Where the leaden daylight lowered ; 
 Drummed the casement, turned his book, 
 Hating nature s hostile look. 
 
 Suddenly there came a day 
 When he flung his gloom away. 
 Something hinted help was near : 
 Winds were fresh and sky was clear ; 
 Light he stepped, and firmly planned, 
 Some good news was close at hand 
 
C 
 
 Truly : for when day was done, 
 He was lying all alone, 
 Fretted pulse had ceased to beat, 
 Very still were hands and feet, 
 And the robins through the long 
 Twilight sang his slumber song. 
 
THE SINGER 
 
 SILLY bird ! 
 
 When his mate is near, 
 
 Not a note of singing shall you hear. 
 
 Take his little love away. 
 
 Half the livelong day 
 
 Will his tune be heard 
 
 Silly bird! 
 
 Sunny days 
 
 Silent basks he in the light, 
 
 Little sybarite ! 
 
 But when all the room 
 
 Darkens in the gloom, 
 
 And the rain 
 
 Pours and pours along the pane, 
 
 He is bent 
 
 (Ah, the small inconsequent !) 
 
 On defying all the weather ; 
 
 Rain and cloud and storm together 
 
 Naught to him, 
 
 Singing like the seraphim. 
 
C 
 
 So we know a poet s ways : 
 Sunny days, 
 Silent he 
 
 In his fine serenity ; 
 But if winds are loud, 
 He will pipe beneath the cloud ; 
 And if one is far away, 
 Sings his heart out, as to say, 
 " It may be 
 She will hear and come to me." 
 
^80 
 
 THE THINGS THAT WILL NOT 
 DIE 
 
 WHAT am I glad will stay when I have passed 
 From this dear valley of the world, and stand 
 
 On yon snow-glimmering peaks, and lingering cast 
 
 From that dim land 
 A backward look, and haply stretch my hand* 
 
 Regretful, now the wish comes true at last? 
 
 Sweet strains of music I am glad will be 
 
 Still wandering down the wind, for men will hear 
 
 And think themselves from all their care set free, 
 
 And heaven near 
 When summer stars burn very still and clear, 
 
 And waves of sound are swelling like the sea. 
 
 And it is good to know that overhead 
 
 Blue skies will brighten, and the sun will shine, 
 
 And flowers be sweet in many a garden bed, 
 
 And all divine, 
 (For are they not, Father, thoughts of thine ?) 
 
 Earth s warmth and fragrance shall on men be shed, 
 
C 281 3 
 
 And I am glad that Night will always come, 
 Hushing all sounds, even the soft-voiced birds, 
 
 Putting away all light from her deep dome, 
 
 Until are heard 
 In the wide starlight s stillness, unknown words, 
 
 That make the heart ache till it find its home. 
 
 And I am glad that neither golden sky, 
 
 Nor violet lights that linger on the hill, 
 Nor ocean s wistful blue shall satisfy, 
 But they shall fill 
 
 With wild unrest and endless longing still 
 The soul whose hope beyond them all must lie. 
 
 And I rejoice that love shall never seem 
 
 So perfect as it ever was to be, 
 But endlessly that inner haunting dream 
 Each heart shall see 
 
 Hinted in every dawn s fresh purity, 
 Hopelessly shadowed in each sunset s gleam. 
 
 And though warm mouths will kiss and hands will 
 
 cling, 
 And thought by silent thought be understood, 
 
 \ 
 
C 
 
 I do rejoice that the next hour will bring 
 
 That far-off mood, 
 
 That drives one like a lonely child to God, 
 Who only sees and measures everything. 
 
 And it is well that when these feet have pressed 
 The outward path from earth, t will not seem sad 
 
 To them that stay ; but they who love me best 
 
 Will be most glad 
 That such a long unquiet now has had, 
 
 At last, a gift of perfect peace and rest. 
 
C 283 
 
 THE SECRET 
 
 A TIDE of sun and song in beauty broke 
 Against a bitter heart, where no voice woke 
 Till thus it spoke : 
 
 What was it, in the old time that I know, 
 That made the world with inner beauty glow, 
 Now a vain show ? 
 
 Still dance the shadows on the grass at play, 
 Still move the clouds like great, calm thoughts away, 
 Nor haste, nor stay. 
 
 But I have lost that breath within the gale, 
 That light to which the daylight was a veil, 
 The star-shine pale. 
 
 Still all the summer with its songs is filled, 
 But that delicious undertone they held 
 Why is it stilled? 
 
C 284 3 
 
 Then I took heart that I would find again 
 The voices that had long in silence lain, 
 Nor live in vain. 
 
 I stood at noonday in the hollow wind, 
 Listened at midnight, straining heart and mind 
 If I might find ! 
 
 But all in vain I sought, at eve and morn, 
 On sunny seas, in dripping woods forlorn, 
 Till tired and worn, 
 
 One day I left my solitary tent 
 And down into the world s bright garden went, 
 On labor bent. 
 
 The dew stars and the buds about my feet 
 Began their old bright message to repeat, 
 In odors sweet ; 
 
 And as I worked at weed and root in glee, 
 Now humming and now whistling cheerily, 
 It came to me, 
 
C 285 H 
 
 The secret of the glory that was fled 
 Shone like a sweep of sun all overhead, 
 And something said, 
 
 The blessing came because it was not sought ; 
 There was no care if thou wert blest or not : 
 The beauty and the wonder all thy thought, - 
 Thyself forgot." 
 
LOST LOVE 
 
 BURY it, and sift 
 
 Dust upon its light, 
 
 Death must not be left, 
 To offend the sight. 
 
 Cover the old love 
 
 Weep not on the mound 
 Grass shall grow above, 
 
 Lilies spring around. 
 
 Can we fight the law, 
 
 Can our natures change 
 Half-way through withdraw 
 
 Other lives exchange ? 
 
 You and I must do 
 As the world has done, 
 
 There is nothing new 
 Underneath the sun. 
 
C 
 
 Fill the grave up full 
 Put the dead love by 
 
 Not that men are dull, 
 Not that women lie, 
 
 But t is well and right 
 Safest, you will find 
 
 That the Out of Sight 
 Should be Out of Mind. 
 
C 288 
 
 APPRECIATED 
 
 AH, could I but be understood ! " 
 
 (I prayed the powers above,) 
 " Could but some spirit, bright and good, 
 Know me, and, knowing, love ! " 
 
 One summer s day there came to pass 
 
 A maid ; and it befell 
 She spied and knew me : yea, alas ! 
 
 She knew me all too well. 
 
 , 
 
 Gray were the eyes of Rosamund, 
 
 And I could see them see 
 Through and through me, and beyond, 
 
 And care no more for me. 
 
C 289 
 
 MOODS 
 
 DAWN has blossomed : the sun is nigh : 
 Pearl and rose in the wimpled sky, 
 Rose and pearl on a brightening blue : 
 (She is true, and she is true !) 
 
 The noonday lies all warm and still 
 And calm, and over sleeping hill 
 And wheatfields falls a dreamy hue: 
 (If she be true if she be true !) 
 
 The patient evening comes, most sad and fair : 
 Veiled are the stars : the dim and quiet air 
 Breathes bitter scents of hidden myrrh and rue 
 (If she were true if she were only true !) 
 
SPACE 
 
 BLACK, frost-cold distance, sparsely honeycombed 
 With hollow shells of glimmering golden light ; 
 Mere amber bubbles floating through the night, 
 Lit by one centred sparkle, azure-domed, 
 With circling motes where life hath lodged and 
 roamed. 
 
UNTIMELY THOUGHT 
 
 I LOOKED across the lawn one summer s day, 
 Deep shadowed, dreaming in the drowsy light, 
 And thought, what if this afternoon, so bright 
 
 And still, should end it ? as it may. 
 
 Blue dome, and flocks of fleece that slowly pass 
 Before the pale old moon, the while she keeps 
 Her sleepy watch, and ancient pear that sweeps 
 
 Its low, fruit-laden skirts along the grass. 
 
 What if I had to say to all of these, 
 
 " So this is the last time " suddenly there 
 My love came loitering under the great trees ; 
 
 And now the thought I could no longer bear : 
 Startled I flung it from me, as one flings 
 All sharply from the hand a bee that stings. 
 
C 
 
 THE LIFE NATURAL 
 
 OVERHEAD the leaf -song, on the upland slope ; 
 Over that the azure, clean from base to cope ; 
 Belle the mare beside me, drowsy from her lope. 
 
 Goldy-green the wheat-field, like a fluted wall 
 
 In the pleasant wind, with waves that rise and fall, 
 
 " Moving aU together/ if it " move at all." 
 
 Shakespeare in my pocket, lest I feel alone, 
 Lest the brooding landscape take a sombre tone ; 
 Good to have a poet to fall back upon ! 
 
 But the vivid beauty makes the book absurd : 
 What beside the real world is the written word ? 
 Keep the page till winter, when no thrush is heard ! 
 
 Why read Hamlet here ? what s Hecuba to me ? 
 Let me read the grain-field ; let me read the tree ; 
 Let me read mine own heart, deep as I can see. 
 
293 
 
 THE ORACLE 
 
 DOWN in its crystal hollow 
 
 Gleams the ebon well of ink : 
 In the deepest drop lies lurking 
 
 The thought all men shall think. 
 
 Fair on the waiting tablet 
 Lies the empty paper s space : 
 
 Out of its snow shall flush a word 
 Like an angel s earnest face. 
 
 * 
 Who in those depths shall cast his line 
 
 For the gnome that hugs that thought ? 
 Who from the snowy field shall charm 
 That flower of truth untaught ? 
 
 Not in the lore of the ancients, 
 
 Not in the yesterday : 
 On the lips of the living moments 
 
 The gods their message lay. 
 
n 
 
 Somewhere near it is waiting, 
 
 Like a night-wind wandering free, 
 
 Seeking a mouth to speak through, 
 Whose shall the message be ? 
 
 It may steal forth like a flute note, 
 
 It may be suddenly hurled 
 In blare upon blare of a trumpet blast, 
 
 To startle and stir the world. 
 
 Hark ! but just on the other side 
 Some thinnest wall of dreams, 
 
 Murmurs a whispered music, 
 And softest rose-light gleams. 
 
 Listen, and watch, and tell the world 
 What it almost dies to know : 
 
 Or wait and the wise old world will say, 
 " I knew it long ago." 
 
n 295 
 
 FORCE 
 
 THE stars know a secret 
 
 They do not tell ; 
 And morn brings a message 
 
 Hidden well. 
 
 There s a blush on the apple, 
 
 A tint on the wing, 
 And the bright wind whistles, 
 
 And the pulses sting. 
 
 Perish dark memories ! 
 
 There s light ahead ; 
 This world s for the living ; 
 
 Not for the dead. 
 
 In the shining city, 
 
 On the loud pave, 
 The life-tide is running 
 
 Like a leaping wave. 
 
C 
 
 How the stream quickens, 
 As noon draws near, 
 
 No room for loiterers, 
 No time for fear. 
 
 Out on the farm lands 
 Earth smiles as well ; 
 
 Gold-crusted grain-fields, 
 With sweet, warm smell ; 
 
 Whir of the reaper, 
 
 Like a giant bee ; 
 Like a Titan cricket, 
 
 Thrilling with glee. 
 
 On mart and meadow, 
 Pavement or plain ; 
 
 On azure mountain, 
 Or azure main 
 
 Heaven bends in blessing ; 
 
 Lost is but won ; 
 Goes the good rain-cloud, 
 
 Comes the good sun ! 
 
C 
 
 Only babes whimper, 
 
 And sick men wail, 
 And faint hearts and feeble hearts 
 
 And weaklings fail. 
 
 Down the great currents 
 
 Let the boat swing ; 
 There was never winter 
 
 But brought the spring. 
 
NIGHT AND PEACE 
 
 NIGHT in the woods, night : 
 
 Peace, peace on the plain. 
 The last red sunset beam 
 
 Belts the tall beech with gold ; 
 
 The quiet kine are in the fold, 
 And stilly flows the stream. 
 
 Soon shall we see the stars again, 
 
 For one more day down to its rest has lain, 
 And all its cares have taken flight, 
 
 And all its doubt and pain. 
 Night in the woods, night : 
 
 Peace, peace on the plain. 
 
C 
 
 THE SINGER S CONFESSION 
 
 ONCE he cried to all the hills and waters 
 And the tossing grain and tufted grasses : 
 " Take my message tell it to my brothers ! 
 Stricken mute I cannot speak my message. 
 When the evening wind comes back from ocean, 
 Singing surf-songs, to Earth s fragrant bosom, 
 And the beautiful young human creatures 
 Gather at the mother feet of Nature, 
 Gazing with their pure and wistful faces, 
 Tell the old heroic human story. 
 When they weary of the wheels of science, 
 Grinding, jangling their harsh dissonances, 
 Stones and bones and alkalis and atoms, 
 Sing to them of human hope and passion ; 
 And the soul divine, whose incarnation, 
 Born of love alas ! my message stumbles, 
 Faints on faltering lips : Oh, speak it for me ! " 
 
 Then a hush fell ; and around about him 
 Suddenly he felt the mighty shadow 
 
[ 300 ] 
 
 Of the hills, like grave and silent pity ; 
 And, as one who, sees without regarding, 
 The wide wind went over him and left him, 
 And the brook, repeating low, " His message ! " 
 Babbled, as it fled, a quiet laughter. 
 
 What was he, that he had touched their message 
 
 Theirs, who had been chanting it forever : 
 
 With whose organ-tones the human spirit 
 
 Had eternally been overflowing ! 
 
 Then, with shame that stung in cheek and forehead, 
 
 Slow he crept away. 
 
 And now he listens, 
 
 Mute and still, to hear them tell their message 
 All the holy hills and sacred waters ; 
 When the sea-wind swings its evening censer, 
 Till the misty incense hides the altar 
 And the long-robed shadows, lowly kneeling. 
 
301 
 
 LIVING 
 
 " TO-DAY/ I thought, " I will not plan nor strive ; 
 Idle as yon blue sky, or clouds that go 
 Like loitering ships, with sails as white as snow, 
 I simply will be glad to be alive." 
 
 For, year by year, in steady summer glow 
 
 The flowers had bloomed, and life had stored its hive, 
 
 But tasted not the honey. Quite to thrive, 
 
 The flavor of my thrift I now would know. 
 
 But the good breeze blew in a friend a boon 
 At any hour. There was a book to show, 
 A gift to take, a slender one to give. 
 The morning passed to mellow afternoon, 
 And that to twilight ; it was sleep-time soon, 
 And lo ! again I had forgot to live. 
 
EVEN THERE 
 
 A TROOP of babes in Summer Land, 
 At heaven s gate the children s gate : 
 
 One lifts the latch with rosy hand, 
 
 Then turns and, dimpling, asks her mate, 
 
 " What was the last thing that you saw ? " 
 
 "Hay and watched the dawn begin, 
 And suddenly, through the thatch of straw, 
 A great, clear morning star laughed in." 
 
 " And you ? " "A floating thistle-down, 
 
 Against June sky and cloud-wings white." 
 
 " And you ? " "A falling blow, a frown 
 It frights me yet ; oh, clasp me tight ! " 
 
 " And you ? " "A face through tears that smiled " 
 
 The trembling lips could speak no more ; 
 The blue eyes swam ; the lonely child 
 Was homesick even at heaven s door. 
 
303 
 
 SUMMER RAIN 
 
 I SAID : " Blue heaven/ (Oh, it was beautiful !) 
 
 " Send me a tent to shut me to myself : 
 
 I am all lonely for my soul, that wanders 
 
 Weary, bewildered, beckoned by thy depths ; 
 
 Thy white, round clouds, great bubbles of creamy 
 
 snow; 
 
 Thy luscious sunshine, like some ripe, gold fruit ; 
 Thy songs of birds, and wind warm with the flowers." 
 
 And there swept down (Oh, it was beautiful !) 
 
 A tent of silver rain, that fell like a veil 
 
 Shutting me in to think all quiet thoughts, 
 
 And feel the vibrant thrill of shadowy wings 
 
 That fluttered, checking their swift flight, and hear, 
 
 Though with no syllable of earthly music, 
 
 A voice of melody unutterable. 
 
C 304 
 
 A RESTING-PLACE 
 
 A SEA of shade ; with hollow heights above, 
 Where floats the redwood s airy roof away, 
 
 Whose feathery lace the drowsy breezes move, 
 And softly through the azure windows play: 
 No nearer stir than yon white cloud astray, 
 
 No closer sound than sob of distant dove. 
 
 I only live as the deep forest s swoon 
 
 Dreams me amid its dream ; for all things fade, 
 
 Nor pulse of mine disturbs the unconscious noon. 
 Even love and hope are still albeit they made 
 My heart beat yesterday in slumber laid, 
 
 Like yon dim ghost that last night was the moon. 
 
 Only the bending grass, grown gray and sear, 
 Nods now and then, where at my feet it swings, 
 
 Pleased that another like itself is here, 
 
 Unseen among the mighty forest things 
 Another fruitless life, that fading clings 
 
 To earth and autumn days in doubt and fear. 
 
C 305 ] 
 
 Dream on, wood ! wind, stay in thy west, 
 Nor wake the shadowy spirit of the fern, 
 
 Asleep along the fallen pine-tree s breast ! 
 
 That, till the sun go down, and night-stars burn, 
 And the chill dawn-breath from the sea return, 
 
 Tired earth may taste heaven s honey-dew of rest. 
 
I 306 
 
 A MEMORY 
 
 UPON the barren, lonely hill 
 
 We sat to watch the sinking sun ; 
 Below, the land grew dim and still, 
 
 Whose evening shadow had begun. 
 Her finger parted the shut book, 
 
 At Aylmer s Field the leaf was turned, 
 Bound her meek head and sainted look 
 
 The sunset like a halo burned. 
 She knew not that I watched her face 
 
 Her spirit through her eyes was gone 
 To some far-off and Sabbath place, 
 
 And left me gazing there alone. 
 Could she have known, that quiet hour, 
 
 What ghosts her presence raised in me, 
 What graves were opened by the power 
 
 Of that unconscious witchery, 
 She would not thus have sat and seen 
 
 The bird that balanced far below 
 On the blue air, and watched the sheen 
 
 Along his broad wings come and go. 
 
C 307 ] 
 
 For was she not another s bride ? 
 
 And I what right had I to feast 
 Upon those eyes in revery wide, 
 
 With hungering gaze like famished beast ? 
 Was it before my fate I knelt 
 
 The human fate, the mighty law 
 To hunger for the heart I felt, 
 
 And love the lovely face I saw? 
 Or was it only that the brow, 
 
 Or some sweet trick of hand or tone, 
 Brought from the Past to haunt me now 
 
 Her ghost whose love was mine alone ? 
 I know not ; but we went to rest 
 
 That eve, from songs that haunt me still, 
 And all night long, in visions blest, 
 
 I walked with angels on the hill. 
 
[ 308 ] 
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 MY tower was grimly builded, 
 With many a bolt and bar, 
 " And here," I thought, " I will keep my life 
 Prom the bitter world afar." 
 
 Dark and chill was the stony floor, 
 
 Where never a sunbeam lay, 
 And the mould crept up on the dreary wall, 
 
 With its ghost touch, day by day. 
 
 One morn, in my sullen musings, 
 
 A flutter and cry I heard ; 
 And close at the rusty casement 
 
 There clung a frightened bird. 
 
 Then back I flung the shutter 
 That was never before undone, 
 
 And I kept till its wings were rested 
 The little weary one. 
 
[ 309 ] 
 
 But in through the open window, 
 
 Which I had forgot to close, 
 There had burst a gush of sunshine 
 
 And a summer scent of rose. 
 
 For all the while I had burrowed 
 
 There in my dingy tower, 
 Lo ! the birds had sung and the leaves had danced 
 
 From hour to sunny hour. 
 
 And such balm and warmth and beauty 
 
 Came drifting in since then, 
 That window still stands open 
 
 And shall never be shut again. 
 
[ 310 
 
 ON A PICTURE OF MT. SHASTA 
 BY KEITH 
 
 Two craggy slopes, sheer down on either hand, 
 
 Fall to a cleft, dark and confused with pines. 
 
 Out of their sombre shade one gleam of light 
 
 Escaping toward us like a hurrying child, 
 
 Half laughing, half afraid, a white brook runs. 
 
 The fancy tracks it back through the thick gloom 
 
 Of crowded trees, immense, mysterious 
 
 As monoliths of some colossal temple, 
 
 Dusky with incense, chill with endless time : 
 
 Through their dim arches chants the distant wind, 
 
 Hollow and vast, and ancient oracles 
 
 Whisper, and wait to be interpreted. 
 
 Far up the gorge denser and darker grows 
 
 The forest ; columns lie with writhen roots in air, 
 
 And across open glades the sunbeams slant 
 
 To touch the vanishing wing-tips of shy birds ; 
 
 Till from a mist-rolled valley soar the slopes, 
 
 Blue-hazy, dense with pines to the verge of snow, 
 
 Up into cloud. Suddenly parts the cloud, 
 
I 311 3 
 
 And lo ! in heaven as pure as very snow, 
 Uplifted like a solitary world 
 A star, grown all at once distinct and clear 
 The white earth-spirit, Shasta ! Calm, alone, 
 Silent it stands, cold in the crystal air, 
 White-bosomed sister of the stainless dawn, 
 With whom the cloud holds converse, and the storm 
 Bests there, and stills its tempest into snow. 
 
 Once you remember ? we beheld that vision, 
 But busy days recalled us, and the whole 
 Fades now among my memories like a dream. 
 The distant thing is all incredible, 
 And the dim past as if it had not been. 
 Our world flees from us ; only the one point, 
 The unsubstantial moment, is our own. 
 We are but as the dead, save that swift mote 
 Of conscious life. Then the great artist comes, 
 Commands the chariot wheels of Time to stay, 
 Summons the distant, as by some austere 
 Grand gesture of a mighty sorcerer s wand, 
 And our whole world again becomes our own. 
 So we escape the petty tyranny 
 Of the incessant hour ; pure thought evades 
 
C 
 
 Its customary bondage, and the mind 
 
 Is lifted up, watching the moon-like globe. 
 
 . 
 
 How should a man be eager or perturbed 
 
 Within this calm ? How should he greatly care 
 
 For reparation, or redress of wrong, 
 
 To scotch the liar, or spurn the fawning knave, 
 
 Or heed the babble of the ignoble crew ? 
 
 Seest thou yon blur far up the icy slope, 
 
 Like a man s footprint ? Half thy little town 
 
 Might hide there, or be buried in what seems 
 
 From yonder cliff a curl of feathery snow. 
 
 Still the far peak would keep its frozen calm, 
 
 Still at the evening on its pinnacle 
 
 Would the one tender touch of sunset dwell, 
 
 And o er it nightlong wheel the silent stars. 
 
 So the great globe rounds on, mountains, and vales, 
 
 Forests, waste stretches of gaunt rock and sand, 
 
 Shore, and the swaying ocean, league on league ; 
 
 And blossoms open, and are sealed in frost ; 
 
 And babes are born, and men are laid to rest. 
 
 What is this breathing atom, that his brain 
 
 Should build or purpose aught or aught desire, 
 
 But stand a moment in amaze and awe, 
 
 Rapt on the wonderf ulness of the world ? 
 
313 
 
 THE TREE OF MY LIFE 
 
 WHEN I was yet but a child, the gardener gave me a 
 
 tree, 
 A little slim elm, to be set wherever seemed good to 
 
 me. 
 What a wonderful thing it seemed ! with its lace-edge 
 
 leaves uncurled, 
 
 And its span-long stem, that should grow to the grand 
 est tree in the world. 
 So I searched all the garden round, and out over field 
 
 and hill, 
 But not a spot could I find that suited my wayward 
 
 will. 
 I would have it bowered in the grove, in a close and 
 
 quiet vale ; 
 I would rear it aloft on the height, to wrestle with the 
 
 gale. 
 
 Then I said, " I will cover its roots with a little earth 
 
 by the door, 
 And there it shall live and wait, while I search for a 
 
 place once more. 
 
C 314 ]] 
 
 But still I could never find it, the place for my won 
 drous tree, 
 
 And it waited and grew by the door, while years 
 passed over me. 
 
 Till suddenly, one fine day, I saw it was grown too 
 tall, 
 
 And its roots gone down too deep, to be ever moved 
 at all. 
 
 So here it is growing still, by the lowly cottage door ; 
 
 Never so grand and tall as I dreamed it would be of 
 yore, 
 
 But it shelters a tired old man in its sunshine-dappled 
 shade, 
 
 The children s pattering feet round its knotty knees 
 have played, 
 
 Dear singing birds in a storm sometimes take refuge 
 there, 
 
 And the stars through its silent boughs shine glori 
 ously fair. 
 
315 ] 
 
 A CHILD AND A STAR 
 
 THE star, so pure in saintly white, 
 Deep in the solemn soul of night, 
 With dreams of deathless beauty wed, 
 And golden ways that seraphs tread : 
 The child so mere a thing of earth, 
 So meek a flower of mortal birth : 
 A far-off lucent world, so bright, 
 Stooping to touch with tender light 
 That little gown at evening prayer : 
 It seems a condescension rare, 
 Heaven round a common child to glow ! 
 Ah ! wiser eyes of angels know 
 The star, a toy but roughly wrought ; 
 The child, God s own most loving thought. 
 Yon evening planet, wan with moons, 
 Colossal, mid its dim, swift noons, 
 What is it but a bulk of stone, 
 Like this gray globe we dwell upon ? 
 Down hollow spaces, sightless, chill, 
 Its vibrant beams in darkness thrill, 
 
C 316 1 
 
 Till through some window drift the rays 
 Where a pure heart looks up and prays ; 
 And in that silent worshiper, 
 The waves of feeling stir and stir, 
 And spread in wider rings above, 
 To tremble at God s heart of love. 
 Though it be kingliest one of all 
 His worlds, t is but a stony ball : 
 What are they all, from sun to sun, 
 But dust and stubble, when ah 1 s done? 
 Some heavenly grace it only caught, 
 When, like a hint from home, it brought 
 To a child s heart one tender thought : 
 Itself in that great mystery lost, 
 As some bright pebble, idly tost 
 Into the darkling sea at night, 
 Whose widening ripples, running light, 
 Go out into the infinite. 
 
317 3 
 
 AT DAWN 
 
 I LAY awake and listened, ere the light 
 Began to whiten at the window pane. 
 The world was all asleep : earth was a fane 
 Emptied of worshipers ; its dome of night, 
 Its silent aisles, were awful in their gloom. 
 Suddenly from the tower the bell struck four, 
 Solemn and slow, how slow and solemn ! o er 
 Those death-like slumberers, each within his room. 
 The last reverberation pulsed so long 
 It seemed no tone of earthly mould at all. 
 But the bell woke a thrush ; and with a call 
 He roused his mate, then poured a tide of song : 
 Morning is coming, fresh, and clear, and blue," 
 Said that bright song ; and then I thought of you. 
 
318 
 
 AN ADAGE FROM THE ORIENT 
 
 AT the punch-bowl s brink, 
 Let the thirsty think 
 What they say in Japan : 
 
 " First the man takes a drink, 
 Then the drink takes a drink, 
 Then the drink takes the man ! " 
 
319 ] 
 
 A PARADOX 
 
 HASTE, haste, laggard! leave thy drowsy 
 
 dreams ; 
 Cram all thy brain with knowledge clutch and 
 
 cram! 
 
 The earth is wide, the universe is vast : 
 Thou hast infinity to learn. Oh, haste ! 
 
 Haste not, haste not, my soul ! " Infinity ! " 
 Thou hast eternity to learn it in. 
 Thy boundless lesson through the endless years 
 Hath boundless leisure. Kun not like a slave 
 Sif like a king, and see the ranks of worlds 
 Wheel in their cycles onward to thy feet. 
 
C 320 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHER 
 
 His wheel of logic whirled and spun all day ; 
 All day he held his system, grinding it 
 Finer and finer, till t was fined away. 
 
 But the chance sparks of sense and mother-wit, 
 Flung out as that wheel-logic spun and whirled, 
 Kindled the nations, and lit up the world. 
 
A BIRD S SONG 
 
 THE shadow of a bird 
 
 On the shadow of a bough ; 
 Sweet and clear his song is heard, 
 
 " Seek me now I seek thee now." 
 The bird swings out of reach in the swaying tree, 
 But his shadow on the garden walk below belongs to 
 me. 
 
 The phantom of my Love 
 
 False dreams with hope doth fill, 
 Softly singing far above, 
 
 " Love me still I love thee still ! " 
 The cruel vision hovers at my sad heart s door, 
 But the soul love is soaring out of reach for ever 
 more. 
 
322 
 
 THE DEAD PRESIDENT 
 
 WEKE there no crowns on earth, 
 No evergreen to weave a hero s wreath, 
 That he must pass beyond the gates of death, 
 Our hero, our slain hero, to be crowned ? 
 Could there on our unworthy earth be found 
 
 Naught to befit his worth ? 
 
 The noblest soul of all ! 
 When was there ever, since our Washington, 
 A man so pure, so wise, so patient one 
 Who walked with this high goal alone in sight, 
 To speak, to do, to sanction only Right, 
 
 Though very heaven should fall ! 
 
 Ah, not for him we weep ; 
 What honor more could be in store for him ? 
 Who would have had him linger in our dim 
 And troublesome world, when his great work was 
 
 done 
 Who would not leave that worn and weary one 
 
 Gladly to go to sleep ? 
 
[ 323 ] 
 
 For us the stroke was just ; 
 We were not worthy of that patient heart ; 
 We might have helped him more, not stood apart, 
 And coldly criticised his works and ways 
 Too late now, all too late our little praise 
 
 Sounds hollow o er his dust. 
 
 Be merciful, our God ! 
 Forgive the meanness of our human hearts, 
 That never, till a noble soul departs, 
 See half the worth, or hear the angel s wings 
 Till they go rustling heavenward as he springs 
 
 Up from the mounded sod. 
 
 Yet what a deathless crown 
 Of Northern pine and Southern orange-flower, 
 For victory, and the land s new bridal hour, 
 Would we have wreathed for that beloved brow ! 
 Sadly upon his sleeping forehead now 
 
 We lay our cypress down. 
 
 martyred one, farewell ! 
 Thou hast not left thy people quite alone, 
 
C 324 ] 
 
 Out of thy beautiful life there comes a tone 
 Of power, of love, of trust, a prophecy, 
 Whose fair fulfillment all the earth shall be, 
 And all the Future tell. 
 
325 
 
 ROLAND 
 
 A FOOLISH creature full of fears, 
 
 He trembled for his fate, 
 And stood aghast to feel the earth 
 
 Swing round her dizzy freight. 
 
 With timid foot he touched each plan, 
 Sure that each plan would fail ; 
 
 Behemoth s tread was his, it seemed, 
 And every bridge too frail. 
 
 No glory of the night or day 
 
 Lit any crown for him, 
 The tranquil past but breathed a mist 
 
 To make the future dim. 
 
 The world, his birthright, seemed a cell, 
 
 An iron heritage ; 
 Man, a trapped creature, left to die 
 
 Forgotten in his cage. 
 
In every dark he held his breath, 
 
 And warded off a blow ; 
 While at his shoulder still he sought 
 
 Some tagging ghost of woe. 
 
 Spying the thorns but not the flowers, 
 Through all the blossoming land 
 
 He hugged his careful heart and shunned 
 The path on either hand. 
 
 The buds that broke their hearts .to give 
 
 New odors to the air 
 He saw not ; but he caught the scent 
 
 Of dead leaves everywhere. 
 
 Till on a day he came to know 
 
 He had not made the world ; 
 That if he slept, as when he ran, 
 
 Each onward planet whirled. 
 
 He knew not where the vision fell, 
 Only all things grew plain 
 
 As if some thatch broke through and let 
 A sunbeam cross his brain. 
 
C 327 ] 
 
 In beauty flushed the morning light, 
 With blessing dropped the rain, 
 
 All creatures were to him most f air, 
 Nor anything in vain. 
 
 He breathed the space that links the stars, 
 
 He rested on God s arm 
 A man unmoved by accident, 
 
 Untouched by any harm. 
 
 The weary doubt if all is good, 
 
 The doubt if all is ill, 
 He left to Him who leaves to us 
 
 To know that all is well. 
 
THIS EDITION CONSISTS OF 500 COPIES 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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