POEMS 
 
 FRANCES FULLER VICTOR 
 
 UC-NRLF 
 
 E7S SflD 
 
FRED M. I>EWm 
 BOOKSELLER 
 TKLKGHAPH AVE. 
 

 
POEMS 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANCES FULLER VICTOR 
 
 AUTHOR S EDITION 
 1900. 
 
 jgx 
 
 1 
 
But when the question arose whether 
 
 he was not only a lyrist but a poet, we 
 
 are obliged to confess that be is plainly 
 
 a contemporary, and not an eternal man. 
 
 EMERSON. 
 
 36981 
 
INDEX. 
 
 LINES TO A VASE 7 
 
 Music 7 
 
 THE POST-BOY S SONG 8 
 
 SOUVENIR 10 
 
 TWAS JUNE, NOT I 11 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM 18 
 
 A PAGAN REVERIE 19 
 
 A JUNE SONG 23 
 
 PASSING BY HELICON 26 
 
 THE OLD MAN S FAVORITE 29 
 
 To M 31 
 
 A SUMMER DAY 32 
 
 THE POPPIES OF WA-II-LAT-PU 34 
 
 A LYRIC OF LIFE 52 
 
 LOVE . . 53 
 
 BEAUTIFUL SOUL 54 
 
 To MY VALENTINE 56 
 
 ASPASIA 57 
 
 ON SAN FRANCISCO BAY 63 
 
 AUTUMN IN THE HILLS . . . . 64 
 
 SUNSET AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA . . 69 
 
 PALO SANTO 72 
 
 THE PASSING OF ALICE 73 
 
 PALMA 76 
 
 EDITH 78 
 
 To THE BLUE NEMOPHELA 79 
 
INDEX CONTINUED. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NEVADA 80 
 
 CHILDHOOD 82 
 
 To MRS. 83 
 
 BY THE SEA ........ 85 
 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING 86 
 
 WAITING 87 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE YEAR 89 
 
 HE AND SHE 99 
 
 THE PLAYER 100 
 
 AUTUMNALIA 101 
 
 POETRY 103 
 
 A REPRIMAND . 104 
 
 VERSES FOR M 105 
 
 AH ME ! 107 
 
 OATHS ARE BUT WORDS 108 
 
 PARTED LOVE 109 
 
LINES TO A VASE. 
 
 Thou art a dainty dream 
 
 Of Eastern art, 
 To make a sorrow seem 
 
 Of joy a part. 
 
 Within thy graceful curves 
 What hopes were urned! 
 
 The ashes of lost loves 
 Once passioned-burned. 
 
 Tis thus the Poet s heart 
 
 Entombs desire, 
 And seals from life apart 
 
 Promethean fire. 
 
 Behind his well-turned phrase, 
 
 His studied lines, 
 Hidden as in a vase 
 
 His soul s soul pines. 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Music s first anthem was the song the stars 
 
 Chanted together when God said "Amen" 
 To the earth s morning loveliness. It jars 
 All sentience to its depths now, even as then. 
 
THE POST-BOY S SONG. 
 
 The night is wild, and the road is long, 
 The scudding clouds fly fast, 
 The swift wind sings a dreary song 
 
 And the trees creak in the blast; 
 Ine moon is down in the tossing sea, 
 
 The stars shed not a ray, 
 The lightning flashes frightfully, 
 
 But I must on my way. 
 
 Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of fate 
 
 Forward and back I go 
 Bearing a thread to the desolate 
 
 To darken his web of woe, 
 A brighter thread to the glad of heart, 
 
 And a mingled one for all, 
 Yet the dark and light I cannot part, 
 
 Nor alter their hues at all. 
 
 Full many a hundred times have I 
 
 Gone o er it in the dark, 
 Till my faithful steeds can well descry 
 
 Each long familiar mark, 
 Withal should peril come tonight 
 
 God have us in his care, 
 For all alone, and without light 
 
 The boldest well beware. 
 
Now, on, my steeds; the lightning s flash 
 
 An instant gilds our way; 
 But steady! by that fearful crash 
 
 The heavens seem rent away. 
 Soho, here comes the blast anew, 
 
 And a pelting flood of rain; 
 Steady! a sea seems bursting through 
 
 A rift in some upper main. 
 
 Tis a terrible night, a dreary hour, 
 
 But who will remember to pray 
 That the care of the storm-controlling power 
 
 Be over the post-boy s way? 
 The wayward wanderer from his home, 
 
 The sailor upon the sea, 
 Have prayers to bless them where they roam- 
 
 Who thinketh to pray for me? 
 
 The storm has passed. Up swims the moon 
 
 Like a stately ship at sea; 
 Now on, my steeds! this brilliant noon 
 
 Of a night so black shall be 
 A scene for us. Toss high your heads, 
 
 And merrily speed away, 
 We shall startle the sleepers in their beds 
 
 Before the dawn of day. 
 
Like a shutter thrown by the hand of fate 
 
 Forward and back I go, 
 Bearing a thread to the desolate 
 
 To darken his web of woe, 
 A brighter thread to the glad of heart, 
 
 And a mingled one for all. 
 But the dark and light I cannot part, 
 
 Nor alter their hues at all. 
 
 Wooster, Ohio, 1849. 
 
 SOUVENIR. 
 
 You ask me, "Do you think of me?" 
 
 Dear, thoughts of thee are like this river, 
 
 Which pours itself into the sea, 
 
 Yet empties its own channel never. 
 
 All other thoughts are like these sail 
 Drifting the river s surface over; 
 
 They veer about with every gale 
 The river keeps its course forever. 
 
 So deep and still, so strong and true, 
 The current of my soul sets thee-ward, 
 
 Thy river I, my ocean you, 
 
 And all myself am running seaward. 
 10 
 
TWAS JUNE, NOT I. 
 
 "Come out into the garden, Maud," 
 
 In whispered tones young Percy said; 
 
 He but repeated what he d read 
 That afternoon, with soft applaud; 
 A snatch, which for my same name s sake, 
 
 He d caught, out of the sweet, soft song, 
 A lover for his love did make, 
 
 In half despite of some fond wrong: 
 And more he quoted, just to show 
 
 How still the rhymes ran in his head, 
 
 With visions of the roses red 
 That on the poet s pen did grow. 
 
 The poet s spell was in our blood; 
 
 The spell of June was in the air; 
 We felt, more than we understood, 
 
 The charm of being young and fair. 
 Where everything is fair and young 
 
 As on June eves doth fitly seem: 
 The Earth herself lay in among 
 
 The misty, azure fields of space, 
 A bride, whose startled blushes glow 
 
 Less flame-like through the shrouds of lace 
 That sweeter all her beauties show. 
 11 
 
We walked and talked beneath the trees 
 
 Bird-haunted, flowering trees of June 
 
 The roses purpled in the moon, 
 We breathed their fragrance on the breeze. 
 Young Percy s voice is turned to clear 
 
 Deep tones, as if his heart were deep; 
 This night it fluttered on my ear 
 
 As young birds flutter in their sleep. 
 My own voice faltered when I said 
 
 How very sweet such hours must be 
 
 With one we love. At that word he 
 Shook like the aspen overhead. 
 
 "Must be!" he drew me from the shade, 
 To read my face to show his own: 
 
 "Say are, Dear Maud!" my tongue was stayed; 
 My pliant limbs seemed turned to stone. 
 
 He held my hands I could not move, 
 
 The nerveless palms together prest, 
 
 And clasped them tightly to his breast, 
 \Yhile in my heart the question strove. 
 
 The fire-flies flashed like wandering stars 
 I thought some sprang from out his eyes 
 
 Surely some spirit makes or mars 
 At will our earthly destinies. 
 "Speak, Maud!" At length I turned away; 
 
 He must have thought it woman s fear; 
 12 
 
For, whispering softly in my ear 
 Such gentle thanks as might allay 
 
 Love s tender shame, left on my brow, 
 And on each hand, a warm light kiss 
 
 I feel them burn there even now 
 But all my fetters fell at this. 
 
 I answered like an injured queen: 
 
 Its our own defense when we re surprised- 
 
 The way our weakness is disguised; 
 I said things that I could not mean, 
 Or ought not since it was a lie 
 
 That love had not been in my mind; 
 Twas in the air I breathed; the sky 
 
 Shone love, and murmured it the wind. 
 It had absorbed my soul with bliss; 
 
 My blood ran love in every vein, 
 
 And to have been beloved again 
 Were heavenly so I thought till this 
 
 Unlooked-for answer to the prayer 
 My heart was making with its might. 
 
 Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare, 
 Like two clouds meeting on a height 
 And, pausing first in short strange lull, 
 
 Then bursting into awful storm, 
 
 Opposing feelings multiform, 
 Struggled in silence, and then, full 
 
 13 
 
Of our blind woman-wrath, broke forth 
 
 In stinging hail of sharp-edged ice, 
 As freezing as the polar north. 
 
 Yet maddening. O, the poor mean vice 
 We women have been taught to call 
 
 By virtue s name: the holy scorn 
 
 We feel for lovers left love-lorn 
 By our own coldness, or by the wall 
 Of other love twixt them and us ; 
 
 The tempest past, I paused. He stood 
 Silent, and yet "Ungenerous!" 
 
 Was hurled back, plainer than ere could 
 His lips have said it, by his eyes 
 
 Fire-flashing, and his pale, set face, 
 
 Beautiful and unmarred by trace 
 Of aught save pain and pained surprise. 
 I quailed at last before that gaze, 
 
 And even faintly owned my wrong; 
 I said, "I spoke in such amaze 
 
 I could not choose words that belong 
 To such occasions." Here he smiled. 
 
 To cover one low, quick-drawn sigh: 
 
 "June even disturb us differently," 
 He said, at length; "and I, beguiled 
 
 By something in the air did do 
 My lady Maud unmeant offense; 
 
 14 
 
And, what is stranger far, she too, 
 Under the baleful influence 
 Of this fair heaven" he raised his eyes, 
 
 And gestured proudly toward the stars 
 
 "Has done me wrong. Wrong, lady, mars 
 God s purpose, written on these skies, 
 Painted and uttered in this scene, 
 
 Acknowledged in each secret heart. 
 We both are wrong, you say; twould mean 
 
 That we, too, should be wide apart 
 And so adieu!" with this he went. 
 
 I sat down whitening in the moon, 
 
 With heat as of a desert noon, 
 Sending its fever vehement 
 
 Across my brow, and through my frame ; 
 The fever of a wild regret 
 
 A vain regret without a name, 
 In \vhich both love and loathing met. 
 Was this the same enchanted air 
 
 I breathed one little hour ago? 
 
 Did all these purple roses blow 
 But yestermorn, so sweet, so fair? 
 Was it this eve that some one said 
 
 Come out into the garden, Maud?" 
 And while the sleepy birds o erhead 
 
 Chirped out to know who walked abroad, 
 
 15 
 
Did we admire the plumey flowers 
 On the wide-branched catalpa trees. 
 And locusts, scenting all the breeze, 
 
 And call the balm-trees our bird-towers? 
 Did we recall the "black bat Night," 
 
 That flew before young Maud walked forth 
 And say this Night s wings were too bright 
 
 For bats being feathered, from its birth, 
 
 Like butterflies with powdered gold 
 Still talking on, from gay to grave, 
 And trembling lest some sudden wave 
 
 Of the soul s deep, grown over-bold. 
 
 Should sweep the barriers of reserve. 
 And whelm us in tumultuous floods 
 
 Of unknown power? What did unnerve 
 Our frames, as if we walked with gods, 
 
 Unless ttiey, meaning to destroy, 
 
 Had made us mad with a false heaven, 
 Or drunk with wine and honey given 
 
 Only for immortals to enjoy? 
 
 Alas, I only knew that late 
 
 I d seemed in an enchanted sphere; 
 
 That now I felt the web of fate 
 
 Close round me witti a mortal fear. 
 
 If only once the gods invite 
 
 To banquets that are crowned with roses, 
 
 16 
 
After which the celestial closes 
 Are barred to us; if in despite 
 
 Of such high favor, arrogant 
 We blindly choose to bide our time, 
 
 Rejecting Heaven s, and ignorant 
 What we have spurned, attempt to climb 
 To heavenly places at our will, 
 
 Finding no path thereto but one, 
 
 Nemesis-guarded, where atone 
 To heaven, all such as hopeful still, 
 Press toward the mount, yet find it strewn 
 
 With corpses, perished by the way, 
 Of those who Fate did importune 
 
 Too rashly, or her will gainsay; 
 If I have been thrust out from heaven 
 
 This night, for insolent disdain 
 
 Of putting a young god in pain, 
 How shall I hope to be forgiven? 
 Yet let me not be judged as one 
 
 Who mocks at any high behest, 
 My fault being that I kept the throne 
 
 Of a Jove vacant in my breast, 
 And when Apollo claimed the place 
 
 I was too loyal to my Jove, 
 
 Unmindful the how the masks of love 
 Transfigure all things to our face. 
 
 17 
 
Ah, well! if I have lost to fate 
 
 The greatest boon that heaven disposes, 
 And closed upon myself the gate 
 
 To fields of bliss, tis on these roses, 
 On this intoxicating air, 
 
 The witching influence of the moon, 
 
 The poet s rhymes that went in tune 
 To the night s voices low and rare 
 To all that goes to make such hours 
 
 Like hasheesh-dreams. These did defy, 
 With contrary fate-compelling power 
 
 The intended bliss; twas June, not I. 
 
 Lancaster, Ohic, 1860. 
 
 LINES WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. 
 
 The highest use of happy love is this, 
 To make us loving to the loveless ones; 
 
 Willing, indeed, to halve our meed of bliss; 
 If our sweet plenty others want atones; 
 
 Of love s abundance may God give thee store, 
 
 To spend in love s sweet charities, Lenore. 
 is 
 
A PAGAN REVERIE. 
 
 Tell me, Mother Nature! tender yet stern mother! 
 In what nomenclature (fittlier than another) 
 Can I laud and praise thee, entreat and implore thee; 
 Ask thee what thy ways be, question yet adore thee? 
 
 Over me thy heaven bends its royal arches; 
 Through its vault the seven planets keep their marches; 
 Rising, shining, setting, with no change or turning; 
 Never once forgetting wasted not with burning. 
 
 On and on, unceasing, move the constellations, 
 Lessening nor increasing since the birth of nations; 
 Sun and moon unfailing keep their times and seasons, 
 But man, unavailing, pleads to thee for reasons 
 
 Why the great dumb mountains, why the ocean hoary, 
 Even the babling fountains, older are than story, 
 And his life s duration s but a few short marches 
 Of the constellations through the heavenly arches! 
 
 Even the oaks of Mamre, and the palms of Kedar, 
 (Praising thee with psalmistrv), and the stately cedar, 
 Through the cycling ages, stinted not are growing, 
 While the holiest sages have not time for knowing. 
 
 19 
 
Mother whom we cherish, savage while so tender, 
 Do the lilies perish mourning their lost splendor? 
 Does the diamond shimmer brightlier that eternal 
 Time makes nothing dimmer of its light supernal? 
 
 Do the treasures hidden in earth s rocky bosom. 
 Cry to men unbidden that they come and loose them? 
 Is the dew r of dawntide sad because the Summer 
 Kissed to death the fawn-eyed Spring, the earlier comer? 
 
 Would the golden vapors trooping over heaven, 
 
 Quench the starry tapers of the sunless even? 
 
 When the arrowy lightnings smite the rocks asunder, 
 
 Do they shrink with frightenings from the bellowing thunder? 
 
 Inconceivable Nature! these, thy inert creatures, 
 With their sphinx-like stature, are of man the teachers; 
 Silent, secret, passive, endless as the ages 
 Gainst their forces massive fruitlessly he rages. 
 
 Winds and waves misuse him, buffet and destroy him; 
 Thorns and pebbles bruise him, heat and cold annoy him; 
 Sting of insect maddens, snarl of beast affrights him; 
 Shade of forest saddens, breath of flowers delights him. 
 
 O them great, mysterious mother of all mystery 
 At thy lips imperious man entreats his history 
 Whence he came and whither is his spirit fleeing: 
 Ere it wandered hither had it other being: 
 
 20 
 
Will its subtle essence, passing through death s portal, 
 Put on nobler presence in a life immortal? 
 Or is man but matter, that a touch ungentle, 
 Back again may shatter to forms elemental? 
 
 Can mere atoms question how they feel sensation ? 
 Or dust make suggestion of its own creation? 
 Yet if man were better than his base conditions, 
 Could things baser fetter his sublime ambitions? 
 
 What unknown conjunction of the pure etherial, 
 With the form and function of the gross material, 
 Gives the product mortal? whose immortal yearning 
 Brings him to the portal of celestial learning: 
 
 To the portal gleaming, where the waiting sphinxes, 
 Humoring his dreaming, give him what he thinks is 
 Key to the arcana plausible equation 
 Of the problems many in his incarnation. 
 
 Pitiful delusion! in no nomenclature 
 Maugre its profusion O ambiguous nature! 
 Can man find expression of his own relation 
 To the great procession of facts in creation? 
 
 Fruitless speculating! none may lift the curtain 
 From the antedating ages and uncertain 
 When what is, was not, and tides of pristine being 
 Beat on shores forgot, and all, as now, unseeing 
 
 21 
 
Whence impelled, or whither, or by what volition; 
 Borne now here, now thither in blind inanition. 
 Out of this abysmal, nebulous dim distance. 
 Haunted by a dismal, phantomic existence. 
 
 Issued man? a creature without inspiration. 
 Gross of form and feature, dull of inclination? 
 Or was his primordial self a something higher? 
 Fresh from test and ordeal of elemental fire? 
 
 Were there ages golden when the world was younger, 
 When the giants olden knew not toil nor hunger? 
 When no pain nor malice marred joy s full completeness, 
 And life s honeyed chalice rapt the soul with sweetness? 
 
 When the restless river of time loved to linger; 
 Ere flesh felt the quiver of death s dissolving finger; 
 When man s intuition led without deflection. 
 To a sure fruition, and a full perfection? 
 
 Individual man is ever new created; 
 And his being s plan is, loosely predicated 
 On the circumstances of his sole condition. 
 Colored by the fancies borrowed from tradition. 
 
 His creation gives him clue to nothing older; 
 Naked, life receives him wondering beholder 
 Of the world about him and ere aught is certain, 
 Time and mystery flout him, and death drops the curtain. 
 
 22 
 
Man, the dreamer, groping after what he should be, 
 Cheers himself with hoping to be what he would be; 
 When he hopes no longer, with self-adulation. 
 Fancies he was stronger at his first creation: 
 
 E] se i n him inhering powers of intellection 
 Death, by interfering with his mind s perfection, 
 Itself gives security to restore life s treasure, 
 Freed from all impurity, and in endless measure. 
 
 Thou, O Nature, knowest, yet no word is spoken. 
 Time, that ever flowest, presses on unbroken , 
 All in vain the sages toil with proof and question 
 The immemorial ages give no least suggestion. 
 
 Portland, Or., 1876. 
 
 A JUNE SONG. 
 
 O song-birds from the east, 
 And sea-birds from the west, 
 And great birds of the shining wing, 
 That in the northlands nest, 
 Come, sing to my red, red rose, 
 And my lilies saintly white, 
 To my golden poppies sing 
 Your throatful of delight; 
 Lilt on the swinging boughs 
 
 23 
 
Of my accacia trees, 
 And pour your music out upon 
 The perfume-laden breeze. 
 Come, songsters of the wood, 
 And put my heart in tune 
 To the flowers and the sun 
 Of this happy land of June. 
 
 Cry out, O brave, bright birds 
 
 That soar, and swoop and swing 
 
 Above the sapphire sea 
 
 In a wild wassailing; 
 
 Drop down and flick the foam, 
 
 As the arrow flies when sped; 
 
 Laugh at your startled prey; 
 
 And scream to your mates o erhead; 
 
 Be drunken with the joy 
 
 Of the sparkling air and brine, 
 
 With the glory of the day, 
 
 Its shadows and its shine; 
 
 With the color and the warmth 
 
 Of this June-land by the sea, 
 
 That you whirl above in play, 
 
 And you scream unto in glee. 
 
 24 
 
Cry, O pilots of the air, 
 Leading to the lonely meads 
 By. the quiet lakes and cold, 
 To the land of grass and reeds, 
 Twixt the northern mountains set 
 Like a picture in a frame. 
 In among the headlands bold; 
 Where the weird northlights flame, 
 Flashing through the evening sky; 
 Where the days are still and long, 
 And the hours are brief that roll 
 Filled with murmurs of the song 
 Sung by cataracts and pines 
 To the fiercely glowing stars 
 Swinging round the northern pole- 
 Back the midnight s ebon bars. 
 
 O, winged creatures all. 
 Of the land or of the sea, 
 Of the west, or east, or south, 
 Bird or butterfly or bee, 
 Or the eagle of the crags, 
 Breathing of this air divine 
 Blowing from its maker s mouth, 
 Quickening the blood like wine, 
 Sing and cry unto this land, 
 To this sunland by the sea, 
 
 25 
 
To the sea that bounds this shore 
 
 In a summer symphony 
 
 Topaz wave and amber sand 
 
 To this sapphire sea and sky, 
 
 To the mountains towering o er 
 
 Vales where shimmering" harvests lie 
 
 To this joyous land and free, 
 
 To my flowers, and to my heart, 
 
 Sing a jocund jubilee 
 
 June is sweet, and life is short. 
 
 San Francisco, Cal., 1896. 
 
 PASSING BY HELICON . 
 
 My steps are turned away, 
 
 Yet my eyes linger still, 
 
 On their beloved hill, 
 In one long, last survey: 
 Gazing through tears that multiply the view. 
 
 Their passionate adieu. 
 
 O joy-empurpled height. 
 
 Down whose enchanted sides 
 The rosy mist now glides. 
 
 How can I lose thy sight? 
 
 How can my eyes turn where my feet must go, 
 Trailing their way in woe? 
 
 26 
 
Gone is my strength of heart; 
 The roses that I brought 
 From thy dear bowers, and thought 
 
 To keep, since we must part 
 Thy thornless roses, sweeter until now, 
 Than round Hymettus brow. 
 
 The golden-vested bees 
 
 Find sweetest sweetness in 
 Such odors dwelt within 
 
 The moist red hearts of these 
 Alas, no longer give out blissful breath, 
 But odors rank with death. 
 
 Their dewiness is dank, 
 
 It chills my pallid arms, 
 
 Once blushing neath their charms, 
 And their green stems hang lank, 
 Stricken with leprosy, and fair no more, 
 
 But withered to the core. 
 
 Vain thought, to bear along 
 Into this torrid track, 
 Whence no one turneth back 
 
 With his first wanderer s song 
 Vet on his lips, thy odors and thy dews, 
 To deck these dwarfed yews. 
 
 27 
 
No more within thy vales, 
 
 Beside thy plashing wells. 
 
 Where sweet Euterpe dwells 
 With songs of nightingales, 
 And sounds of flutes that make pale Silence glow, 
 
 Shall I their rapture know. 
 
 Farewell, ye stately palms 
 
 Clashing your cymbal tones 
 
 In thro the mystic moans 
 Of pines at solemn psalms; 
 Ye myrtles, singing Love s inspired song, 
 
 We part, and part for long. 
 
 Farewell, majestic peaks 
 
 Whereon my listering soul 
 
 Hath trembled to the roll 
 Of thunders that Jove wreaks 
 And calm Minerva s oracles hath heard 
 
 All more than now unstirred. 
 
 Adieu, ye beds of bloom; 
 No more shall zephyr bring 
 To me, upon its wing, 
 Your loveliest perfume; 
 No more upon your pure, immortal dyes. 
 Shall rest my happy eyes. 
 
 28 
 
I pass by; at thy foot 
 O mount of my delight, 
 Ere yet from out thy sight, 
 
 I drop my voiceless lute: 
 Relentless Nemesis my doom hath sent 
 This cruel banishment. 
 
 THE OLD MAN S FAVORITE. 
 
 Do you ask where she has fled 
 Lucy with the laughing eyes? 
 
 Should I tell you "she is. dead," 
 You would mimic tears and sighs, 
 And pretend a sad surprise. 
 
 Yesterday when you were here 
 She was sitting on your knee, 
 
 Whispering stories in your ear 
 With an air of mystery 
 And a roguish glance at me. 
 
 Lucy s heart was always light, 
 Light and free as plumed bird; 
 
 When she glanced within our sight, 
 Or her merry voice we heard, 
 Music in our hearts was stirred. 
 
 29 
 
Ask you still where Lucy hides? 
 I will tell you by-and-by; 
 
 Look you where the river glides 
 In whose depths the shadows lie 
 Mingled, of the earth and sky. 
 
 Lucy always loved that spot; 
 
 There her favorite flowers grew 
 Violet, forget-me-not, 
 
 Iris, with its gold and blue, 
 
 Bending under beads of dew. 
 
 Oft on the old rustic bridge 
 
 Framed of supple boughs entwined, 
 
 Hanging from each margin s ridge, 
 Swinging softly in the wind, 
 Lucy carelessly reclined. 
 
 Once she told me, while her eyes 
 Filled with tears of childish bliss, 
 
 That she could see Paradise 
 
 From her rocking resting-place, 
 Mirrored in the river s face: 
 
 That she saw the tall trees wave, 
 
 Bright-winged birds among the bowers, 
 
 And a river that did lave 
 
 Banks o ergrown with wondrous flowers, 
 And a sky more fair than ours. 
 
 30 
 
Then she asked with such a smile 
 As a seraph s face might wear, 
 
 If she watched a long, long while, 
 She should see her mother there, 
 Walking in the groves so fair? 
 
 When, to answer her, I said 
 
 She should see mamma in heaven. 
 
 Lightly to the bridge she sped 
 As if wings to her were given, 
 And but look, you see tis riven. 
 
 Ah, you start! your look is wild! 
 Calm yourself, old man, I pray; 
 
 Lucy was no earthly child, 
 
 And tis well she s gone away 
 To her Paradise so gay. 
 
 TO M 
 
 Do thy chamber windows open east, 
 
 Beloved, as did ours of old? 
 And do you stand when day has ceased. 
 
 Withdrawn through evening s porch of gold 
 And watch the fading flush above 
 
 The hills on which the wan moon leans, 
 Remembering the girlish love 
 
 That blest this hour in other scenes? 
 
 31 
 
A SUMMER DAY. 
 
 Fade not, sweet day! 
 
 Another hour like this 
 
 So full of tranquil bliss 
 
 May never come my way, 
 I walk in paths so shadowed and so cold; 
 
 But stay thou, darling hour, 
 
 Nor stint thy gracious power 
 To smile away the clouds that me enfold; 
 
 Oh, stay! when thou art gone, 
 
 I shall be lost and lone. 
 
 Lost, lone, and sad; 
 
 And troubled more and more, 
 
 By the dark ways, and sore, 
 
 In which my feet are led; 
 Alas my heart, it was not always so; 
 
 Therefore, O happy day, 
 
 Haste not to fade away, 
 Nor let pale night chill all thy tender glow 
 
 Thy rosy mists, that steep 
 
 The violet hills to sleep 
 
 Thy airs of gold, 
 That over all the plain, 
 And fields of ripened grain, 
 A shimmering glory hold, 
 
 32 
 
The soft fatigue-dress of the drowsy sun, 
 
 Dreaming, as one who goes 
 
 To peace, and sweet repose, 
 After a battle hardly fought, and won; 
 
 Even so, my heart, today, 
 
 Dream all thy fears away. 
 
 O happy tears, 
 
 That everywhere I gaze, 
 
 Jewel the golden maze, 
 
 Flow on, till earth appears 
 Worthy the soft perfection of this scene: 
 
 Beat, heart, more soft and low, 
 
 Creep, hurrying blood, more slow, 
 Waste not one throb, to lose me the serene, 
 
 Deep, satisfying bliss 
 
 Of such an hour as this 
 
 How like our dream, 
 
 Of that delightful rest 
 
 God keepest for the blest, 
 
 This lovely peace doth seem: 
 Perchance, my heart, He sent this gracious day, 
 
 That when the dark and cold, 
 
 Thy doubtful steps enfold, 
 Thou may st remember, and press on thy way, 
 
 Nor faint midway the gloom 
 
 That lies this side the tomb. 
 
 33 
 
All, all in vain 
 
 Sweet day, do I entreat 
 
 To stay thy winged feet; 
 
 The gloom, the cold, the pain, 
 Gather me back as thon dost pale and fade; 
 
 Yet in my heart 1 make 
 
 A chamber for thy sake, 
 And keep thy picture in warm color laid: 
 
 Thy memory, happy day, 
 
 Thou can st not take away. 
 
 St. Helens, Or., 1868. 
 
 THE POPPIES OF WA-II-LAT-PU. 
 
 Between the zones of ice and sun, 
 
 Between the east seas and the west, 
 Where boundless prairies stretch, where run 
 
 Great rivers, born about the crest 
 Of heaven-piercing mountains, hoar 
 
 With centuries of unguessed time, 
 Within whose murky gorges roar 
 
 Vast cataracts, whose awful chime 
 Shakes the tall spires of rock o erhead, 
 
 Where pines hang shivering with dread: 
 
 Note. The first white women to cross the continent and settle in Or 
 egon territory were Mrs. Narcissa Prentiss Whitman and Mrs. Eliza 
 Hart Spalding, who with their husbands, Dr. Marcus Whitman and Rev. 
 H. H. Spalding, founded the missions of Waiilatpu and Lapwai, in 
 1S36. Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, with eleven others, fell victims to the 
 fury of the Cayuse Indians of the Umatilla valley in November, 1847. 
 The Protestant missions east of the Cascade mountains were broken up 
 by this tragedy, and never resumed. Various theories of the cause of 
 the massacre are entertained, but my subject deals only with poetical 
 inc dents, and is designed as a slight tribute to tthe memory of a he 
 roic woman, whose name must go down in history as the pioneer of 
 women pioneers in the territory north of the Columbia river. 
 
 34 
 
Where tropic trees flaunt gaudy vines, 
 
 Where northern firs stand dark and stern; 
 By desert springs, in night-black mines, 
 
 Where sun-scorched sand-plains blind and burn; 
 From the Atlantic s rocky rim 
 
 To the Pacific s steel-bound shore, 
 We trace the trails, time cannot dim, 
 
 The men of destiny have trod before, 
 Leading an empire on a line 
 
 Stretching from flashing brine to brine. 
 
 There is no place they have not been, 
 
 The men of deeds and destiny; 
 No spot so wild they have not seen, 
 
 And measured it with dauntless eye. 
 They in a common danger shared, 
 
 Nor shrunk from toil, nor want nor pain, 
 But sternly every peril dared, 
 
 Just to be heroes, scorning gain. 
 We, trembling, listen to the tale 
 
 That turns the hardiest hearer pale. 
 
 Constrained to question why, and when, 
 
 And how at first the impulse came 
 Which parted these from other men, 
 
 Leaving us often scarce a name 
 For history s page. Yet these are they 
 
 By whom the race unseen is led; 
 
 35 
 
Who blaze through untrod wilds the way 
 
 Successive generations tread, 
 Asking no more than this, to be 
 
 Lords of themselves, in all things free. 
 
 Here is a rose. It grew above 
 
 A grave in that fair tropic isle 
 The poets name the home of love 
 
 Paul et Virginie. One can smile, 
 Remembering that idyl sweet 
 
 Of youthful passion, tender, pure, 
 For though it ends in death, tis meet 
 
 Such gentle souls should not endure; 
 Their fragile natures, soft and warm, 
 
 Are bruised to death in life s first storm. 
 
 Here is a relic some one brought 
 
 From the far South Pacific seas; 
 A souvenir of a battle fought 
 
 For freedom by the Tahitese. 
 The story stirs indignant blood, 
 
 For wrongs inflicted on a race; 
 Yet here, a lack of brotherhood, 
 
 A feeling of the lowlier place 
 In nature s plan for such as these, 
 
 Dulls our indignant sympathies. 
 
 36 
 
"They are not fitted to survive," 
 
 We say. "Why pain ourselves to feel 
 The battle-throes in which they strive? 
 
 Fate has decreed. Mistaken zeal 
 Would meddle where it cannot mend, 
 
 And lengthen woes it cannot cure; 
 A champion may be not a friend; 
 
 Enough for us that we endure 
 The heat and burden of the day, 
 
 In our own lives, in our own way." 
 
 There is a pang that strikes us through 
 
 When strong great natures bend and break 
 Or when the earnest and the true 
 
 Are martyrs for their conscience sake. 
 That gives a sense of wasteful loss. 
 
 From which we feel a sharp recoil, 
 A protest against crownless cross, 
 
 Gainst hopes misplaced and fruitless toil; 
 A verdict, by our hearts, that we 
 
 Censure the ways of destiny. 
 
 Our protest gives the lonely trail, 
 
 Or spring that bears some wanderer s name, 
 The spell of an Arabian tale, 
 
 Linking it to heroic fame. 
 For dauntless daring led the way, 
 
 37 
 
And hope s strong magnet drew them on; 
 What hopes they were no man can say, 
 
 But we enjoy what they have won. 
 We pass in safety where they found 
 
 Only the dark and bloody ground. 
 
 Between the Rockies peaks of snow 
 
 And blue Columbia rolling free, 
 From Washington to Mexico, 
 
 From the Sierras to the sea, 
 Our footsteps press historic ground, 
 
 Albeit often all unknown. 
 Storms level soon the simple mound, 
 
 Time crumbles e en the lettered stone; 
 The wilderness the secret keeps 
 
 Of him who in its bosom sleeps. 
 
 Not always. If perchance a seed 
 
 The wanderer brought from home, should share 
 The earth with him, and being freed, 
 
 And fertilized, spring up more fair 
 Than its fair ancestors at home, 
 
 And spread, and cover all that spot 
 With the sad story, writ in bloom, 
 
 So that it could not be forgot 
 Twould match. this tale I m telling you 
 
 The Poppies of Wa-ii-lat-pu ! 
 
 38 
 
Long years ago I chanced to meet 
 
 Upon Nebraska s borderland, 
 A gentle woman, pale and sweet, 
 
 Who held within a slender hand 
 Some crimson poppies. Such, I thought, 
 
 Would well become her bronze-brown hair, 
 In which a glint of sunshine caught 
 
 Brightened the silver lurking there; 
 A low-voiced woman, fair to see, 
 
 Gifted with grace and courtesy. 
 
 We talked of flowers. I careless said 
 
 That poppies were no loves of mine; 
 I liked them for their brilliant red, 
 
 Like sunlight through a vase of wine, 
 But was content that they should lie 
 
 Relieved against her soft dark dress; 
 They pleased right well my artist eye, 
 
 But failed to touch me ne ertheless. 
 She smiled: "They sweetness lack, tis true, 
 
 But they appeal to me, from you. 
 
 As homely, tried, and constant friends, 
 Or kindred we have always known; 
 
 It is their homeliness that lends 
 A grace we else might fail to own. 
 
 They grew beside my mother s door, 
 
 39 
 
And bloomed despite my careless feet; 
 They spread the grassy orchard o er, 
 
 And blossomed gaily mong the wheat 
 We never for their brightness paid 
 
 I love these careless things," she said. 
 
 At this I quoted Robbie Burns 
 
 To prove her careless favorites frail; 
 And thus we bandied words by turns, 
 
 Barren of import to this tale, 
 Till memories that were long-time dead 
 
 Revived* at touch of loving hands. 
 The sisters of these flowers," she said, 
 
 "Are blooming in far-distant lands 
 fn earth the sun last looks upon, 
 
 Where rolls the rock-vexed Oregon." 
 
 "Ah!" then I asked to know the rest 
 
 What fate had plumed her poppy seeds, 
 To bear them to that wondrous West, 
 
 Where hardly winged fancy leads 
 So long the distance, strange the road. 
 
 "Their wings were tender woman hands, 
 And gentle feet, that heavenward trode 
 
 In toiling to those savage lands." 
 "And she who owned them? "With her blood 
 
 She sealed her Christian womanhood." 
 
 40 
 
"Her blood!" I thrilled with sudden pain, 
 
 As one myself in dread of death, 
 While she resumed the tale again, 
 
 With saddened mein and bated breath. 
 Yet there was much that caught my ear, 
 
 Like martial airs blown over sea, 
 And stirred my soul in spite of fear 
 
 With waves of joyful poesy; 
 The theme was grand, the story laid 
 
 In colors Homer might have spread. 
 
 Tis told in history now; but hear 
 
 The tale her poppies brought to mind: 
 " Twas in the springtime of the year, 
 
 And twenty years ago, I find 
 On looking back. My boy was then 
 
 A babe a lovely babe in truth 
 This year he takes his place with men 
 
 Thus time glides by and steals our youth. 
 Yes, twenty years ago today, 
 
 I gave those poppy seeds away. 
 
 "Our post was on the Papillion, 
 
 That feeds the Platte a half day s ride 
 
 Beyond the Council Bluffs, among 
 
 Smooth h ; J1s that closed on every side 
 
 The view of other hills and vales, 
 
Each one as all its fellows green, 
 Alternating with dimpling dales, 
 
 And meadows silvered with the sheen 
 Of rippling grass, that like the sea 
 
 In billowy swells moved bright and free. 
 
 "From out this emerald waste there came 
 
 One soft spring eve, two women dear, 
 Who ran to me, and called my name, 
 
 And kissed my cheek, with many a tear, 
 As we had sisters been, whose ways 
 
 Long parted, here together drew; 
 I gave the loving Father praise 
 
 Who brought them every danger through, 
 And granted me to see a face 
 
 Once more of my own sex and race." 
 
 "One moment: tell me why \vere you 
 
 Apart from others of your kind." 
 "The church appointed us to view 
 
 The wilderness, and somewhere find 
 A spot to found a mission. Here 
 
 We fixed our post; and here we taught 
 The blessed \vord from year to year." 
 
 "And found your teaching come to naught 
 "Ah, who shall say? We kept the faith; 
 
 Fought the good fight, for life or death." 
 
 42 
 
"And those who came your heart to cheer? 
 
 "Were young wives, with their husbands bound 
 To Oregon, on a frontier 
 
 Beyond our West, and only found 
 By months of toilsome travel, spent 
 
 In cold and heat, in rain and sun, 
 By day on horse, by night in tent, 
 
 A journey each day new begun 
 For they must keep fast by the train 
 
 Escorting them across the plain." 
 
 "The train?" "Ah, yes. St. Louis, then, 
 
 Was but a post on the frontier; 
 Recruiting camp for mountain men; 
 
 French in its aspect, quaint and queer, 
 Of long, low houses, white and neat, 
 
 With corridors on every side; 
 The people sitting in the street, 
 
 Beneath the shadows cool and wide, 
 While hunters, in half Indian dress, 
 
 Made picturesque the quietness: 
 
 "A traders depot and exchange, 
 
 Where fleets of bateaux, from Orleans, 
 
 Brought hunting outfits, and the strange, 
 Barbaric gauds in which the queens 
 
 Of mountain wigwams took delight: 
 
 43 
 
Fine scarlet blankets, bells, and beads, 
 Gay ribbons, jingling anklets, bright, 
 
 Soft silken kerchiefs for their heads. 
 With arms designed for their lords use. 
 
 And white men s unrestrained abuse. 
 
 "These bateaux, with their pulsing oars, 
 
 That gainst a mighty current beat; 
 That glided betwixt murmurous shores, 
 
 And moved with plashings low and sweet, 
 Were then the river craft that plied 
 
 Between St. Louis and Bellevue, 
 Bringing each year, their freight beside, 
 
 Such travelers as the mountains drew 
 Artists, and students, those who find 
 
 In wildest wastes food for the mind. 
 
 "To meet them came long laden trains, 
 
 Mules, Indian ponies, packed with spoil 
 Of dammed-up streams, and marshy plains 
 
 Made populous by the beavers toil; 
 With skins of otter, and the hides 
 
 Of the great hump-backed buffalo; 
 White traders, and their dusky brides, 
 
 Decked out with gay barbaric show. 
 And half-caste babes, whose bold black eyes 
 
 Ne er shrank in terror or surprise." 
 
 44 
 
"And so," I said, "they joined a train 
 
 Of Indian traders and their wives ? 
 I own it draws me like a chain, 
 
 The romance of these barbarous lives. 
 I think I should have done as they, 
 
 And gone out to the mighty West. 
 But with the motive? Who shall say? 
 
 We each pursue our special quest: 
 Perchance I am not of the stuff 
 
 Men take for stormsails." Tis enough 
 
 That they were," sighed she. "Yes, like you, 
 
 They counted life naught, duty all; 
 But zeal may be mistaken, too. 
 
 Did they not follow at the call 
 Of wife-love, more than God-love strong 
 
 In most of us?" She spake: "No tongue 
 Could have convinced them they were wrong, 
 
 Though it with prophecies had rung 
 Eloquent as Isaiah s page: 
 
 No; for they felt a holy rage, 
 
 "Such as the prophets might have known, 
 To conquer by their Christian faith, 
 
 And by the sword of Christ alone 
 To win their way, for life or death. 
 
 The voice that called on them to go 
 
 45 
 
 \ 
 
And teach the word to all the earth, 
 \Vas not to them a sound of woe, 
 
 But rather one of holy mirth: 
 Rejoice, it said, for victories won 
 
 In name of my beloved son. 
 
 " God moves in a mysterious way, 
 
 I murmured, with a hidden thought: 
 "To hear his voice was to obey; 
 
 But they mistook the message brought." 
 Then: "Tell me who those women were, 
 
 Their names, their looks, their natures tell 
 For they were goddesses, and bear 
 
 Homeric armor passing well. 
 First of their race and sex to stand 
 
 Alone unharmed in that far land." 
 
 She told me all. How both were good, 
 
 Sweet Christian women, full of love, 
 An honor to pure womanhood; 
 
 But one had graciousness above 
 Her serious sister, and her name, 
 
 A fittingly descriptive one 
 Narcissa from a flower came, 
 
 As she suggested flower and sun; 
 A stately blonde, with golden hair. 
 
 And blue eyes neath a forehead fair. 
 
 46 
 
The other was of graver type, 
 
 Dark- haired, and slight, of quiet mien; 
 Her spirit showing strong, and ripe 
 
 For action on whatever scene 
 Her duty placed her; asking not, 
 
 And caring nothing for applause; 
 Herself, and self-love, all forgot 
 
 In service of the Master s cause, 
 With such devotion and restraint 
 
 As in past ages made the saint. 
 
 "They could not tarry. But a day 
 
 We had them with us. While they staid, 
 We talked each fleeting hour away, 
 
 Nor any pause in labor made, 
 But worked the while we talked. I strove 
 
 To add such comforts to their store, 
 Too small at most, as anxious love 
 
 Suggested, pained to do no more: 
 And, added to more real needs, 
 
 My little gift of poppy seeds." 
 
 "You knew they bloomed?" I asked. "In time 
 A message came. She praised their hue 
 
 And said they loved that soil and clime, 
 And with a rich luxuriance grew 
 
 Unknown to us. They made her walk 
 
 47 
 
About her humble garden sweet 
 With homeward thoughts and homeward talk; 
 
 They drew the little restless feet 
 Of her girl-babe, who crowed and played, 
 
 Delighted with the show they made." 
 
 "And then? What then?" "They passed to where 
 
 Columbia s waters foam and flow, 
 And parted company. I spare 
 
 The sickening tale. Enough to know 
 They with their husbands went among 
 
 The restless wild men of the plains, 
 And taught that love returned for wrong 
 
 Will bring reward in priceless gains; 
 Taught, with alternate hopes and fears, 
 
 Their Christian faith for ten long years. 
 
 "Then came the end. The wild men tired 
 
 Of straining after thoughts too high 
 For their low level, and conspired 
 
 To blot all out, and all deny. 
 Narcissa Whitman fell. She whom 
 
 I told you of, whose poppies grew. 
 And pleased her baby with their bloom, 
 
 Fell drenched in blood her husband, too. 
 Wolves tore her dainty flesh, and bare 
 
 Her bones lay, in her long fair hair." 
 
 48 
 
Years passed. Fate placed my feet upon 
 
 The self-same way those women trode; 
 On me the prairie sunshine shone, 
 
 With eager steps I pressed the road 
 Which they, first of my sex and race 
 
 To pass the Rockies stony wall, 
 Had honored, passing to their. place 
 
 Among the immortals. I recall 
 The wonder that I felt to find 
 
 The deepened ruts with roses lined. 
 
 Alas, not marked by these alone, 
 
 The weary way from shore to shore; 
 But a white line of bleaching bone 
 
 Of worn-out oxen stretched before, 
 With lonely wayside graves. Twas thus 
 
 That first I learned the fearful price 
 The nation gave to dower us 
 
 W 7 ith this fair land; the sacrifice 
 Of hecatombs of beasts and men, 
 
 By weariness, want, and foes in ambush slain. 
 
 This by the way. I stood, in time, 
 
 By Walla W T alla s gentle stream, 
 In Wa-ii-lat-pu s vale, where crime 
 
 Struck down a good man, and his dream. 
 But, ah, no sign of that career 
 
 49 
 
Begun so bravely; not a trace 
 Of her, the woman pioneer 
 
 Of all the great Northwest; no place 
 Bore mark, or sign, except a mound 
 
 A nameless heap of this so hallowed ground; 
 
 And not far off some gnarled trees. 
 
 That might have borne imperfect fruit: 
 I turned my reverent steps to these, 
 
 As honoring every branch, and root, 
 On which I gazed with misty eyes; 
 
 Then down the little valley glanced, 
 And lo, oh exquisite surprise! 
 
 Her blood-red poppies waved and danced 
 O er all the meadow, bright and gay, 
 
 As when they pleased her babe at play. 
 
 "These are your monument," I cried, 
 
 "O noble woman, foully slain! 
 Blooming with every summmer-tide, 
 
 And needing only sun and rain. 
 Here in this wilderness they spread 
 
 Your story new, from year to year, 
 As your dear blood as crimson red, 
 
 As deathless as your virtues dear. 
 Here in this vale of Wa-ii-lat-pu 
 
 Each wandering zephyr speaks of you. 
 
 50 
 
The waving grass, the brookside grove, 
 
 The tangled thickets of wild rose, 
 And bending birch, that droops above 
 
 The bed where Walla Walla flows; 
 The glorious morns, the sultry noons, 
 
 The blazoned sunsets of the plains, 
 The starry nights, and white-fire moons, 
 
 The golden fields of ripening grains, 
 That prove this land, in God s great plan, 
 
 The last, best heritage of man! 
 
 Yours was the first of womanhood 
 
 Whose eyes beheld, whose mind could reach 
 The heights where beauty, use and good, 
 
 Stood beckoning; who longed to teach 
 An untaught and unteachable race, 
 
 To see, seize and enjoy. What though 
 You failed of purpose? We still trace 
 
 The God-word thought, and feel and know 
 Your life s deep lesson, brought to view 
 
 In the red poppies of Wa-ii-lat-pu. 
 
 Walla Walla, 1877. 
 
 f.l 
 
A LYRIC OF LIFE. 
 
 Said one to me: "I seem to be 
 Like a bird blown out to sea, 
 In the hurricane s wild track 
 Lost, wing-weary, beating back 
 Vainly toward a fading shore, 
 It shall rest on nevermore." 
 
 Said I: "Betide, some good ships ride, 
 
 Over all the waters wide; 
 
 Spread your wings upon the blast, 
 
 Let it bear you far and fast 
 
 In some sea serene and blue, 
 
 Succor-ships are waiting you. 
 
 This soul then said: "Would I were dead, 
 Billows rolling o er my head; 
 Those that sail the ships will cast 
 Storm-waifs back into the blast; 
 Omens evil will they call 
 What the hurricane lets fall." 
 
 For my reply: "Beneath the sky 
 
 Countless isles of beauty lie: 
 
 Waifs upon the ocean thrown, 
 
 After tossings long and lone, 
 
 To those blessed shores have come, 
 
 Finding there love, heaven, and home." 
 
 52 
 
This soul to me: "The seething sea, 
 
 Tossing hungry under me, 
 
 I fear to trust; the ships I fear; 
 
 I see no isle of beauty near; 
 
 The sun is blotted out no more 
 
 Twill shine for me on any shore. 1 * 
 
 Once more I said: "Be not afraid; 
 Yield to the storm without a dread; 
 For the tree, by tempests torn 
 From its native soil, is borne 
 Green, to where its ripened fruit 
 Gives a sturdy forest root. 
 
 "That which we lose, we think we choose, 
 
 Oft, from slavery to use. 
 
 Shocks that break our chains, tho rude, 
 
 Open paths to highest good: 
 
 Wise, my sister soul, is she 
 
 Who takes of life the proffered key." 
 
 LOVE. 
 
 Love robs the "dread unknown" of any dread; 
 
 "\Ve live in deeds, not years, not years," the poet 
 
 said; 
 
 And loving deeds in widening cycles move 
 Until they climb to God, the fount of love. 
 
 53 
 
BEAUTIFUL SOUL. 
 
 Stay, Soul Beautiful, stay, oh, stay! 
 
 Listen again to my crying, dear; 
 Pause even while pursuing your way 
 
 To your home in heaven s most shining sphere. 
 
 Beautiful Soul, how came you so fair? 
 
 Did God when He made vou leave uut sin, 
 With so little of earth and so much of air 
 
 That the dust fell away from the spirit within? 
 
 As a drop of dew in its delicate sphere 
 
 Holds imprisoned a globe of the morning light, 
 
 And exhaling frees to the amosphere 
 
 The molecule of sun it has stayed in its flight, 
 
 So you lived in your beautiful body, Sweet, 
 
 And shone through its white and dainty mould; 
 
 So you passed away from world s toil and heat 
 To the glory that gathered you in its fold. 
 
 And I? Will my soul when it is free 
 Discover the print of your spirit feet, 
 
 And follow and find? O ecstacy, 
 
 To come where you are, my Sweet, my Sweet! 
 
 Drop down along your shimmering way 
 The golden dust of your shining wings, 
 
 And haste not too much, but pause and stay 
 While my soul essays its journeyings, 
 54. 
 
For, dearest Dear, you "must not forget, 
 Because you re in heaven, and I on earth, 
 
 The sweet love bond that binds us yet, 
 And what to me is its meaning and worth: 
 
 It means that no matter where you may be 
 But I know where you are there must be bliss 
 
 To no other heaven can my spirit flee, 
 Beautiful Soul, but only to this. 
 
 And perhaps were it not that you are there. 
 For me to desire, and seek, and gain, 
 
 O my Sweet, my Sweet, I should fail to dare 
 The heights you would help me to attain. 
 
 Leave me, along the wondrous way, 
 Some token my soul may understand; 
 
 From your lambent vesture part a ray, 
 Or loosen within your shining hand 
 
 Some radiant blossoms to fall along 
 Your ariel path, like stars new born; 
 
 Tune the motionless ether to a song; 
 
 Or breathe through it fragrance like the morn : 
 
 But O, Soul Beautiful, on your way 
 In and out mong the spheres of light, 
 
 Be sure that I am not left to stray, 
 
 When to seek you, and find you I take my flight. 
 
 55 
 
I ll come as a perfume, a color, a thought. 
 
 And touch you with fingers more light than a look, 
 
 Till you tremble and thrill, and I know you have caugl 
 The remembrance of earth, and the love you forsool 
 
 I will surely follow, through doubt and fear, 
 To sit at your feet in your bowers of bliss; 
 
 Beautiful Soul, my dearest Dear, 
 Fly not too far, lest the way I miss. 
 
 For the universe is long and wide, 
 
 And your elements so etherial fine, 
 If by any chance I should pass aside. 
 
 My heaven would be lost in seeking thine. 
 
 TO MY VALENTINE. 
 
 Vexed with the day s long toil of thought. 
 I fly to where it cometh not; 
 I ope my door a fine perfume 
 Pervades the quiet of my room. 
 A glance I cry out with delight 
 "The Saint! the Saint!" O blessed sprite, 
 Thrice welcome when you come with flower? 
 To sweeten my reposeful hours! 
 
 February 14, 1888. 
 
 56 
 
ASPASIA. 
 
 O, ye Athenians, drunken with self-praise, 
 
 What dreams I had of you, beside the sea, 
 In far Miletus, while the golden days 
 
 Slid into silver nights, so sweet to me; 
 For then I. dreamed my day-dreams sweetly o er, 
 
 Fancying the touch of Pallas on my brow 
 Libations of both heart and wine did pour. 
 
 And offered up my being with my vow. 
 
 Twas thus to Athens my heart drew at last 
 
 My life, my soul, myself. Ah, well, I learn 
 To love and loathe the bonds that hold me fast, 
 
 Your captive and your conqueror in turn; 
 Am I not shamed to match my charms with those 
 
 Of fair boy-beauties? gentled for your love 
 To match the freshness of the morning rose, 
 
 And lisp in murmurs like the cooing aove? 
 
 O, men of Athens, by the purple sea 
 
 In far Miletus, when I dreamed of you, 
 Watching the winged ships ^bat invited me 
 
 To follow their white track upon the blue; 
 Twas the desire to mate my lofty soul 
 
 That drew me ever like a viewless chain 
 Toward Homer s land of heroes, till I stole 
 
 Away from home and dreams, to you and pain. 
 
 57 
 
I brought you beauty but your boys invade 
 
 My woman s realm of love with girlish airs; 
 1 brought high gifts, and powers to persuade. 
 
 To charm, to teach, with your philosophers. 
 But knowledge is man s realm alone, you hold, 
 
 And I who am your equal am cast down 
 Level with those who sell themselves for gold 
 
 A crownless queen a woman of the town. 
 
 Ye vain Athenians, know this, that I 
 
 By your hard laws am only made more free; 
 Your unloved dames may sit at home and cry, 
 
 But, being unwed, I meet you openly, 
 A foreigner, you cannot wed with me; 
 
 But I can win your hearts and sway your will, 
 And make your free wives envious to see 
 
 What power Aspasia wields, Milesian still. 
 
 Who would not be beloved of Pericles? 
 
 I could have had all Athens at my feet, 
 And have them for my flatterers, when I please, 
 
 Yet, one great man s great love is far more sweet 
 He is my proper mate as I am his 
 
 You see my young dreams were not all in vain 
 And I have tasted of ineffable bliss, 
 
 If I am stung at times with fiery pain. 
 
 58 
 
It is not that I long to be a wife 
 
 By your Athenian laws, and sit at home 
 Behind a lattice, prisoner for life, 
 
 With my lord left at liberty to roam; 
 Nor is it that I crave the right to be 
 
 At the symposium or the Agora known; 
 My grievance is, that your proud dames to me 
 
 Come to be taught, in secret and alone. 
 
 They fear what do they fear? Is t me or you? 
 
 Am I not pure as any of them all? 
 But your laws are against me; and tis true. 
 
 If fame is lowering,, I have had a fall. 
 O, selfish men of Athens, shall the world 
 
 Remember you, and pass my glory by? 
 Nay, til from their proud heights your names are hurled, 
 
 Mine shall blaze with them on your Grecian sky. 
 
 Am I then boastful? It is half in scorn 
 
 Of caring for your love, or for your praise, 
 As women do, and must. Had I been born 
 
 In this proud Athens, I had spent my days 
 In jealousy of boys, and stolen hours 
 
 With some Milesian, of a questioned place, 
 Learning of her the use of woman s powers 
 
 Usurped by men of this patrician race. 
 
 59 
 
Alas, I would I were a child again, 
 
 Steeped in dream languors by the purple sea, 
 And Athens but the vision it was then, 
 
 Its great men good, its noble women free 
 That I on some winged ship should strive to fly 
 
 To reach this goal, and founder and go down. 
 O, impious thought ! how could I wish to die, 
 
 With all that I have felt and learned unknown? 
 
 Nay, I am glad to be to future times 
 
 As much Athenian as is Pericles; 
 Proud to be named by men of other climes 
 
 The friend and pupil of great Socrates. 
 What is the gossip of the city dames 
 
 Behind their lattices to one like me? 
 More glorious than their high patrician names 
 
 I hold my privilege of being free! 
 
 And yet I would that they were free as I; 
 
 It angers me that women are so weak, 
 Looking askanre when ere they pass me by 
 
 Lest on a chince their lords should see us speak 
 And coming next day to an audience 
 
 In hope of learning to resemble me: 
 They wish, they tell me, to learn eloquence 
 
 The lesson they should learn is liberty. 
 
 60 
 
O, Athens, city of the beautiful, 
 
 Home of all art, all elegance, all grace, 
 Whose orators and poets sway the soul 
 
 As the winds move the sea s unstable face; 
 O, wondrous city, nurse and home of mind, 
 
 This is my oracle to you this day- 
 No generous growth from starved roots will you find, 
 
 But fruitless blossoms weakening to decay. 
 
 You take my meaning? Sappho is no more, 
 
 And no more Sapphos will be, in your time; 
 The tree is dead on one side that before 
 
 Ran with such burning sap of love and rhyme. 
 Your glorious city is the utmost flower 
 
 Of a one-sided culture, that will spend 
 Itself upon itself, till, hour by hour, 
 
 It runs its sources dry, and so must end. 
 
 That race is doomed behind whose lattices 
 
 Its once free women are constrained to peer 
 Upon the world of men with vacant eves: 
 
 It was not so in Homer s time, I hear. 
 But Eastern slaves have eaten of your store, 
 
 Till in your homes all eating bread are slaves; 
 They re built into your walls, beside your door, 
 
 And bend beneath your lofty architraves. 
 
 61 
 
A woman of the race that looks upon 
 
 The sculptured emblems of captivity 
 Shall bear a slave or tyrant for a son, 
 
 And none shall know the worth of liberty. 
 Am I seditious? Nay, then, I will keep 
 
 My lesson for your dames when next they steal 
 On tip-toe to an audience. Pray sleep 
 
 Securely, and dream well: we wish your weal. 
 
 Why, what vain prattle? But my heart is sore 
 
 With thinking of the emptiness of things, 
 And these Athenians, treacherous to the core, 
 
 Who hung on Pericles with flatterings. 
 I would, indeed, I were a little child, 
 
 Resting my tired limbs on the sunnv sands 
 In far Miletus, where the airs blow mild. 
 
 And countless looms throb under busy hands. 
 
 The busy hand must calm the busy thought, 
 
 And labor cool the passions of the hour; 
 To the tired weaver, when his web is wrought, 
 
 What signifies the party last in power? 
 But here in Athens, twixt philosophers 
 
 Who reason on the nature of the soul, 
 And all the vain array of orators, 
 
 Who strive to hold the people in control; 
 
 62 
 
Between the poets, artists, critios, all, 
 
 Who form a faction, or who found a school, 
 We weave Penelope s web with hearts of gall, 
 
 And my poor brain is oft the weary tool. 
 Yet do I choose this life. What is to me 
 
 Peace or good fame, away from all of these, 
 But living death? I do choose liberty, 
 
 And leave to Athens dames their soulless ease. 
 
 The time shall come, when Athens is no more, 
 
 And you and all your gods have passed away, 
 That other men, upon another shore, 
 
 Shall from your errors learn a better way. 
 To them eternal justice will reveal 
 
 Eternal truth, and in. its better light 
 All that your legal falsehoods now conceal 
 
 Will stand forth clearly in the whole world s sight. 
 
 ON SAN FRANCISCO BAY. 
 
 O perfect day, O sunlit Bay, 
 
 Whene er our souls are called to sail 
 The sunless strait where shadows wait, 
 
 May we emerge into a vale 
 Where Angel Islands guard the gate! 
 
 San Francisco, September 1886. 
 63 
 
AUTUMN IN THE HILLS. 
 
 November came that day, 
 
 And all the air was gray 
 
 With delicate mists, blown down 
 From hilltops by the south wind s balmy breath; 
 
 And all the oaks were brown 
 As Egypt s kings in death. 
 
 The maple s crown of gold 
 
 Laid tarnished on the wold; 
 The alder, and the ash, the aspen and the willow, 
 Wore tattered suits of yellow. 
 
 The soft October rains 
 Had left some scarlet stains 
 Of color on the landscape s neutral ground; 
 Those fine ephemeral things, 
 
 The winged notes of sound, 
 That sing the Harvest Home" 
 Of ripe Autumn in the gloam 
 
 Of the deep and bosky woods, in the field and by the ri 
 Sang that day their best endeavor. 
 
 I said: "In what sweet place 
 Shall we meet, face -to face, 
 Her loveliest self to see 
 Meet Nature, at her sad autumnal rites, 
 And learn the mystery 
 Of her unnamed delights?" 
 
 64 
 
IVben you said, "Let us go 
 Where the late violets blow 
 Under dead oak leaves hiding." 
 
Then you said: "Let us go 
 Where the late violets blow 
 
 In hollows of the hills, under dead oak leaves hiding: 
 We ll find she s there abiding." 
 
 Do we recall that day? 
 
 Has its grace passed away 
 
 Its tenderest, dream-like tone. 
 Like one of Turner s landscapes limned on air 
 
 Has its fine perfume flown 
 And left the memory bare? 
 
 Not so; its charm is still 
 
 Over wood, vale and hill 
 
 The ferny odor sweet, the humming insect chorus, 
 The spirit that before us 
 
 Enticed us with delights 
 
 To the blue, breezy heights. 
 
 O, beautiful hills that stand 
 Serene twixt earth and heaven, with the grace 
 
 Of both to make you grand, 
 Your loveliness leaves place 
 
 For nothing fairer, fair, 
 
 And complete beyond compare, 
 O, lovely purple hills! O, first day of November, 
 Be sure that I remember. 
 
 Salem. Or., 1869. 
 
 65 
 
LINES TO A LUMP OF VIRGIN GOLD. 
 
 Dull, yellow, heavy, lusterless 
 
 With less of radiance than the burnished tress, 
 
 Crumpled on Beauty s forehead; clodish, cold, 
 
 Kneaded together with the common mold; 
 
 Worn by sharp contact with the fretted edges 
 
 Of ancient drifts, or prisoned in deep ledges; 
 
 Hidden within some mountain s rugged breast 
 
 From man s desire and quest 
 
 Would them couldst speak and tell the mystery 
 
 That shrines thy history! 
 
 Yet tis of little consequence, 
 
 Today, to know how them wert made, or whence 
 
 Earthquake and flood have brought thee; them art here, 
 
 At once the master that men love and fear; 
 
 Whom they have sought by many strange devices, 
 
 In ancient riverbeds; in interstices 
 
 Of hardest quartz; upon the wave-wet strand, 
 
 Where curls the tawny sand; 
 
 By mountain torrents hurried to the main, 
 
 And thence hurled back again: 
 
 Yes, suffered, dared, and patiently 
 Offered up everything, () gold, to thee 
 Home, wife and children, native soil, and all 
 That once they deemed life s sweetest, at thy call; 
 
 66 
 
Fled over burning plains; in deserts fainted; 
 Wearied for months at sea yet ever painted 
 Thee as the shining Mecca, that to gain 
 Invalidated pain, 
 
 Cured the sick soul made nugatory evil 
 Of man or devil. 
 
 Alas, and well-a-day! we know 
 
 What idle dreams were these that fooled men so. 
 
 On yonder hillside sleep in nameless graves, 
 
 To which they went untended, the poor slaves 
 
 Of fruitless toil; the victims of a fever 
 
 Called homesickness no remedy found ever; 
 
 Or slain by vices that grow rankly where 
 
 Men madly do and dare, 
 
 In alternations of high hope and deep abysses 
 
 Of recklessnesses. 
 
 Painfully, and by violence, 
 
 Even as heaven is taken, thou wert dragged whence 
 
 Nature had hidden thee whose face is worn 
 
 With anxious furrows, and her bosom torn 
 
 In the hard strife and ever yet there lingers 
 
 Upon these hills work for the effacing fingers 
 
 Of time, the healer, who makes all things seem 
 
 A half forgotten dream; 
 
 Who smooths deep furrows and lone graves together, 
 
 By touch of wind and weather. 
 
 67 
 
Thou heavy, lusterless, dull clod, 
 
 Digged from the earth like a base, common sod, 
 
 I wonder at thee, and thy power to hold 
 
 The world in bond to thee, thou yellow gold. 
 
 Yet do I sadly own thy fascination, 
 
 And would I gladly show my estimation 
 
 By giving house-room to thee, if thou lt come 
 
 And cumber up my home; 
 
 I d even promise not to call attention 
 
 To these things that I mention. 
 
 The King can do no wrong," and thou 
 Art King indeed to most of us, I trow. 
 Thou lt an enchanter, at whose sovereign will 
 All that there is of progress, learning, skill, 
 Of beauty, culture, grace and I might even 
 Include religion, though that flouts at heaven- - 
 Comes at thy bidding, flies before thy loss 
 And yet men call thee dross 
 If thou art dross, then I mistaken be 
 Of thy identity. 
 
 Ah, solid, weighty, beautiful! 
 How could I first have said that thou wert dull? 
 How could have wondered that men willingly 
 Gave up their homes, and toiled and died for thee? 
 Theirs was the martyrdom in which was planted 
 A glorious state, by precious memories haunted; 
 
 68 
 
Ours is the comfort, ease, the power, and fame 
 Of an exalted name; 
 
 Theirs was the struggle of a proud ambition 
 Ours the full fruition. 
 
 Thou, yellow nugget, wert the star 
 
 That drew these willing votaries from afar, 
 
 Twere wrong to call thee lusterless or base, 
 
 That lighted onward all the human race. 
 
 Emblem them art, in every song or story, 
 
 Of highest excellence and brightest glory; 
 
 Thou crown st the angels, and enthronest Him 
 
 Who made the cherubim. 
 
 My reverent thought, indeed, is not withholden, 
 
 O nugget golden! 
 
 SUNSET AT THE MOUTH OF THE COLUMBIA. 
 
 There sinks the sun; like cavalier of old, 
 
 Servant of crafty Spain, 
 He flaunts his banner, barred with blood and gold, 
 
 Wide o er the western main; 
 A thousand spear-heads glint beyond the trees 
 
 In columns bright and long, 
 While kindling fancy hears upon the breeze 
 
 The swell of shout and song. 
 
 69 
 
And yet, not here Spain s gay, adventurous host, 
 
 Dipped sword or planted cross; 
 The treasures guarded by this rock-bound coast, 
 
 Counted them gain nor loss. 
 The blue Columbia, sired by the eternal hills, 
 
 And wedded with the sea, 
 O er golden sands, tithes from a thousand rills, 
 
 Rolled in lone majesty 
 
 Through deep ravine, through burning, barren plain. 
 
 Through wild and rocky strait, 
 Through forests dark, and mountains rent in twain, 
 
 Toward the sunset gate, 
 While curious eyes, keen with the lust of gold. 
 
 Caught not the informing gleam, 
 These mighty breakers age on age have rolled 
 
 To meet this mighty stream. 
 
 Age after age these noble hills have kept, 
 
 The same majestic lines: 
 Age after age the horizon s edge been swept 
 
 By fringe of pointed pines. 
 Summers and Winters circling came and went. 
 
 Bringing no change of scene; 
 Unresting, and unhasting, and unspent, 
 
 Dwelt nature here serene. 
 
Till God s own time to plant of Freedom s seed. 
 
 In this selected soil. 
 Denied forever unto blood and greed, 
 
 But blest to honest toil. 
 There sinks the sun! Gay Cavalier no more, 
 
 His banners trail the sea, 
 And all his legions shining on the shore 
 
 Fade into mystery. 
 
 The swelling tide laps on the shingly beach, 
 
 Like any starving thing, 
 And hungry breakers, white with wrath, upreach, 
 
 In a vain clamoring. 
 The shadows fall; just level with mine eye 
 
 Sweet Hesper stands and shines, 
 And shines beneath an arc of golden sky, 
 
 Pinked round with pointed pines. 
 
 A noble scene, all breadth, deep tone and power. 
 
 Suggesting glorious themes, 
 Shaming the idler who would fill the hour 
 
 With unsubstantial dreams. 
 Be mine the dreams prophetic, shadowing forth 
 
 The things that yet shall be, 
 As through this gate the treasures of the North 
 
 Flow outward to the sea. 
 
 Astoria, Or., 1865. 
 
 71 
 
PALO SANTO. 
 
 In the deep woods of Mexico, 
 
 Where screams the painted paroquet. 
 And mocking-birds flit to and fro 
 
 With borrowed notes they half forget; 
 Where brilliant flowers and noxinoes vines 
 
 Are mingled in a firm embrace, 
 And the same gaudy plant entwines 
 
 Some reptile of a poisonous race; 
 Where spreads the itos icy shade, 
 
 Benumbing, even in summer s heat, 
 The thoughtless traveler who hath laid 
 
 Himself to noonday slumbers sweet; 
 
 Where skulks unseen the "beast of prey, 
 
 The native robber glares and hides, 
 And treacherous death keeps watch alway 
 
 On him who flies, or he who bides: 
 In these deep tropic woods there grows 
 
 A tree, whose tall and silvery bole 
 Above the dusky forest shows, 
 
 As shining as a saintly soul 
 Among the souls of sinful men, 
 
 Lifting its milk-white flowers to heaven, 
 And breathing incense out, as when 
 
 The passing saints of earth are shriven. 
 
 72 
 
The skulking robber drops his eyes, 
 
 And signs himself with holy cross, 
 If, far between him and the skies, 
 
 He sees its pearly blossoms toss. 
 The wanderer halts to gaze upon 
 
 The lovely vision, far or near, 
 And smiles and sighs to think of one 
 
 He wishes for the moment here. 
 The Mexic native fears not fang 
 
 Of poisonous serpent, vine, or bee, 
 If he may soothe the baleful pang 
 
 With juices of this "holy tree. 
 
 How do we all, in life s wild ways, 
 Which oft we traverse lost and lone, 
 
 Need that which heavenward draws the gaze, 
 Some Palo Santo of our own! 
 
 THE PASSING OF ALICE. 
 
 In the city, hot and breathless city, 
 At her open casement wide and high, 
 
 With a face that moves our hearts to pity, 
 Leans pale Alice, gazing on the sky; 
 
 Gazing out above the housetops dreary, 
 
 73 
 
Where the countless chimneys crowd the view. 
 Seeking with a wistful look and weary 
 
 Through the smoke, a glimpse of heaven s blue. 
 
 Sighing " Tis June; I see the pleasant meadows 
 
 Round my home lie peaceful in the sun; 
 Fleecy clouds flit overhead, and shadows 
 
 Chase the wind-blown dimples as they run 
 Down the ripening hay-fields, and the clover 
 
 Nods its honied blossoms in the breeze; 
 Sun-steeped sweetnesses exhale, and over 
 
 Cups of nectar drone the laden bees. 
 
 Down the lane the locust trees are shining, 
 
 White with scented plumes, too sickly sweet, 
 Dainty eglantine, the fences twining, 
 
 Sheds its fragrance to the quiet street; 
 In the elms that meet above our dwelling 
 
 Orioles swing, singing to their young 
 Happy birds, whose pretty throats are swelling 
 
 With the joy of their home-coming song. 
 
 List! I hear the children s voices singing 
 Roundelays, as they bring home the kine, 
 
 Sweet-breathed heifers round whose necks are clinging 
 Garlands of some flowering wayside vine; 
 
 Hear my mother, as they laugh and linger, 
 
 74 
 
Call each name her rosary of pearls 
 See her touch each one with gentle finger, 
 This one s cheek, and that one s sunny curls; 
 
 Hear my father s mellow tones commingling 
 
 With the sounds a-field, the click of hoes, 
 The clashing of the corn-blades, the ear-tingling, 
 
 Faint-growing shots along the bristling rows. 
 Oh, the free, fair haven of my childhood! 
 
 Oh, the sweet, sure love that never failed! 
 Oh, the pure, bright fancies dreamed in wildwood 
 
 Ere the dews of life s young morn exhaled! 
 
 Is this summer? I am cold and weary. 
 
 June? I see the pleasant fields no more. 
 Home? The landscape wintry is and dreary, 
 
 And no mother meets me at the door." 
 Ah, her eyes are closed upon these shadows; 
 
 Hushed for her the birds song, the bees drone 
 As her white feet touch the heavenly meadows, 
 
 Sweet with asphodel, she finds her own. 
 
 75 
 
PALMA. 
 
 What tellest thou to heaven, 
 Thou royal tropic tree? 
 At morn or noon or even. 
 Proud dweller by the sea, 
 What is thy song" to heaven? 
 
 The homesick heart that fainted 
 In torrid sun and air, 
 With peace becomes acquainted 
 Beholding thee so fair 
 With joy becomes acquainted: 
 
 And charms itself with fancies 
 About thy kingly race, 
 With gay and wild romances 
 That mimic thee in grace 
 Of supple, glorious fancies. 
 
 I feel thou art not tender, 
 Scion of sun and sea 
 The wild-bird does not render 
 To thee its minstrelsy- 
 Fearing thou art not tender: 
 
 But calm, serene and saintly, 
 As highborn things should be, 
 
 76 
 
Who, if they love us faintly, 
 Make us love reverently, 
 Because they are so saintly. 
 
 To be loved without loving, 
 O proud and princely palm, 
 Is to fancy our ship moving 
 With the ocean at dead calm 
 The joy of love is loving. 
 
 Because the sun did sire thee, 
 The ocean nurse thy youth, - 
 Because the stars desire thee, 
 The warm winds whisper truth, 
 Shall nothing ever fire thee? 
 
 What is thy tale to heaven 
 In the sultry tropic noon? 
 What whisperest thou at even 
 To the dusky Indian moon 
 Has she sins to be forgiven? 
 
 Keep all her secrets, loyal 
 As only great souls are 
 As only souls most royal, 
 To the flower or to the star 
 Alike are purely loyal. 
 
 77 
 
Palma, if them hearest, 
 Thou proud and princely tree, 
 Thou knowest that my Dearest 
 Is emblemed forth in thee 
 My kingly Palm, my Dearest. 
 
 1 am his Moon admiring, 
 His wooing Wind, his Star; 
 And I glory in desiring 
 My Palm-tree from afar 
 Glad as happier lovers are, 
 Am happy in desiring. 
 
 Acapulco, Mexico, 1863. 
 
 EDITH. 
 
 "A violet by a mossy stone 
 
 Half hidden to the eye," 
 Sang Wordsworth of that English girl 
 
 Who pleased the poet s eye. 
 I sing of one, a garden rose, 
 
 Grown in a freer air 
 As modest as the violet 
 
 And many times more fair. 
 
 78 
 
TO THE BLUE NEMOPHELA. 
 
 Dear dainty bloom, with disk ot blue 
 Right joyfully I welcome you! 
 Unlike the scented garden sweets 
 Round which each painted insect flits, 
 You stir my thoughts to pleasant dreams 
 Of summer shade and murmurous streams. 
 I hail thee, flower of heavenly hue! 
 All that is modest, chaste and true 
 Peers from thy pretty, upturned face 
 Is breathed in thy unstudied grace. 
 I gaze on thee, and fancies start 
 To sudden blossom in my heart. 
 Years all too quickly troop along, 
 Named some for sorrow, some for song; 
 Ever the summer s heat we dread; 
 Winter brings storms upon our head; 
 Yet spring returns, and in her smile 
 Earth hath forgot her wreck and toil: 
 Sweet child of spring, a joy alway, 
 Right welcome, blue Nemophela! 
 
 Alameda, Cal., 1885. 
 
 79 
 
NEVADA. 
 
 Sphinx, down whose rugged face 
 The sliding centuries their furrows cleave 
 By sun, and frost, and cloudburst, scarce to leave 
 
 Perceptible a trace 
 
 Of age or sorrow; 
 
 Faint hints of yesterdays with no tomorrow; 
 My mind regards thee with a questioning eye, 
 
 To know thy secret, high. 
 
 If Theban mystery, 
 
 With head of woman, soaring, birdlike wings 
 And serpent s tail on lion s trunk, were things 
 
 Puzzling in history; 
 
 And men invented 
 For it an origin which represented 
 Chimera and a monster double-headed, 
 
 By myths Phenician wedded 
 
 Their issue being this 
 This most chimerical and wondrous thing, 
 From whose dumb mouth not even the gods could w 
 
 Truth, nor anthithesis: 
 
 Then what I think is, 
 
 This creature being chief among men s sphinxes 
 Is eloquent, and overflows with story, 
 
 Beside thy silence hoary! 
 
 80 
 
Nevada, desert, waste, 
 Mighty, and inhospitable, and stern; 
 Hiding a meaning over which we yearn 
 
 In eager, panting haste, 
 
 Grasping and losing, 
 
 Still being deluded ever by our choosing, 
 Answer us Sphinx: What is thy meaning double 
 
 But endless toil and trouble? 
 
 Inscrutable, men strive 
 
 To rend thy secret from thy rocky breast; 
 Breaking their hearts, and periling heaven s rest 
 
 For hopes that cannot thrive; 
 
 Whilst unrelenting, 
 
 From thy unlovely throne, and unrepenting, 
 Thou sittest, basking in a fervid sun, 
 
 Seeing or hearing none. 
 
 I sit beneath thy stars, 
 
 The shallop moon beached on a bank of clouds, 
 And see thy mountains wrapped in shadowy shrouds, 
 
 Glad that the darkness bars 
 
 The day s suggestion 
 The endless repetition of one question; 
 Glad that thy stony face I cannot see, 
 
 Nevada Mystery ! 
 
 Shermantown, Nev., 1869. 
 
 81 
 
CHILDHOOD. 
 
 A child of scarcely seven years. 
 
 Light-haired, and fair as any lily, 
 With pure eyes ready in their tears 
 
 At chiding words, or glances chilly, 
 And sudden smiles, as inly bright 
 
 As lamps through alabaster shining, 
 With ready mirth, and fancies light, 
 
 Dashed with strange dreams of child-divining; 
 A child in all infantile grace, 
 
 With paradise still pictured in her face. 
 
 A curious, eager, questioning child, 
 
 Whose logic leads to naive conclusions, 
 Her little knowledge reconciled 
 
 To truth amid some odd confusions, 
 Yet credulous, and loving much 
 
 The problems hardest for her reason, 
 Placing her lovely faith on such, 
 
 And deeming disbelief a treason; 
 Doubting that which she can disprove, 
 
 And wisely trusting all the rest to love. 
 
 Such graces dwell beside your hearth, 
 And bless you in a priceless pleasure, 
 
 Leaving no sweeter spot on earth 
 
 Than that which holds your household treasure. 
 
 82 
 
No entertainment ever yet 
 
 Had half the exquisite completeness 
 The gladness without one regret, 
 
 You gather from your darling s sweetness; 
 An angel sits beside the hearth 
 
 Where e er an innocent child is found on earth. 
 
 TO MRS. 
 
 I have not found the meaning out 
 
 That lies in wrong, and pain and strife 
 
 I know not why we grope through grief, 
 Tear-blind, to touch the higher life. 
 
 In my unconscious viens there runs, 
 Perchance, some old ancestral taint; 
 
 In Eve I sinned. Poor Eve and I ! 
 We each may utter one complaint 
 
 One and the same for knowledge came 
 Too late to save her paradise; 
 
 And I my paradise have lost 
 
 Forsooth because I am not wise. 
 
 O, vain traditions, small the aid 
 We women gather from your lore ; 
 
 Why, when the world was lost, did death 
 Not come our children s birth before? 
 
 83 
 
It had been better to have died 
 Sole prey of death, and ended so, 
 
 Than to have dragged through endless time 
 One long, unbroken trail of woe. 
 
 To suffer, yet not expiate; 
 
 To die at last yet not atone; 
 To mourn our heirship to a guilt 
 
 Erased by innocent blood alone! 
 
 You lift your hands in shocked surprise, 
 You say enough I have not prayed; 
 
 Can prayer go back through centuries 
 And change the web of fate one braid? 
 
 Nay, own the truth, and say that we 
 Are but the bonded slaves of doom. 
 
 Unconscious to the cradle came, 
 Unwilling must go to the tomb. 
 
 I wait to find the meaning out 
 That lies beyond the bitter end; 
 
 Comfort yourself with wearying- heaven, 
 I find no comfort, O my friend. 
 
 84 
 
BY THE SEA. 
 
 Blue is the mist on the mountains, 
 White is the fog on the sea, 
 
 Ruby and gold is the sunset 
 And Bertha is waiting for me. 
 
 Down on the lonesome sand beach, 
 Her eyes as blue as the mist, 
 
 Her brow as white as the sea-fog 
 Bertha, whose lips I have kissed. 
 
 Bertha, whose lips are like rubies, 
 Whose hair is like coiled gold, 
 
 Whose sweet, rare smile is tenderer 
 Than any legend of old. 
 
 One morn, one noon, one sunset, 
 Must pass before we meet; 
 
 O wind and sail bear steady on, 
 And bring me to her feet. 
 
 The morn rose pale and sullen, 
 The noon was still and dun; 
 
 Across the storm at sunset, 
 
 Came the boom of a signal-gun. 
 
 85 
 
Who treads the lonesome sand beach, 
 
 With wet, disordered hair, 
 With garments tangled with seaweed, 
 
 And cheeks more pale than fair? 
 
 O blue-eyed, white-browed maiden, 
 He will keep love s tryst no more; 
 
 His ship sailed safely into port 
 But on the heavenward shore. 
 
 Santa Cruz., Cal., 1804. 
 
 A GOLDEN WEDDING. 
 
 Down the vista of the years 
 Bright with joy, or dim with tears, 
 
 Turning back our gaze, 
 Not a shadow falls between 
 You and I in all that scene 
 
 Of life s checkered ways. 
 Kindly by the Father led, 
 Since the day that we were wed 
 
 Years have fluttered by, 
 Silently as leaves that fall 
 By the sunny garden wall 
 
 When the roses die. 
 
 L,os Angeles, 1887. 
 
 86 
 
WAITING. 
 
 1 cannot wean my wayward heart from waiting, 
 Though the steps watched for never come anear; 
 
 The wearying want clings to it unabating 
 The fruitless wish for presences once dear. 
 
 No fairer eve e er blessed a poet s vision, 
 No softer airs e er kissed a fevered brow, 
 
 No scene more truly could be called Elysian, 
 
 Than this which holds my gaze enchanted now. 
 
 And yet I pine; this beautiful completeness 
 
 Is incomplete, to my desiring heart; 
 Tis Beauty s form, without her soul of sweetness 
 
 The pure, but chiseled loveliness of art. 
 
 There is no longer pleasure in emotion. 
 
 I envy those dead souls no touch can thrill, 
 Who "painted ships upon a painted ocean," 
 
 Seem to be moved, yet are forever still. 
 
 Where are they fled? they whose delightful voices, 
 Whose very footsteps had. a charmed fall: 
 
 No more, no more their sound my heart rejoices, 
 Change, death, and distance part me now from all. 
 
 87 
 
And this fair evening, with remembrance teeming. 
 
 Pierces my soul with every sharp regret; 
 The sweetest beauty saddens to my seeming, 
 
 Since all that s fair forbids me to forget. 
 
 Eyes that have gazed upon yon silver crescent, 
 
 Till filled with light, then turned to gaze in mine, 
 
 Lips that could clothe a fancy evanescent, 
 
 In words whose magic thrilled the brain like wine: 
 
 Hands that have wreathed June s roses in my tresses, 
 And gathered violets to deck my breast, 
 
 Where are ye now? I miss your dear caresses 
 I miss the lips, the eyes, that made me blest. 
 
 Lonely I sit and watch the fitful burning 
 
 Of prairie fires, far off, through gathering gloom; 
 
 While the young moon, and one bright star returning 
 Down the blue solitude, leave Night their room. 
 
 Gone is the glimmer of the silent river, 
 
 Hushed is the wind that op ed the leaves today; 
 
 Alone through silence falls the crystal shiver 
 Of the sweet starlight, on its earthward way. 
 
 And yet I wait, how vainly, for a token 
 A sigh, a touch, a whisper from the past; 
 
 Alas, I listen for a word unspoken, 
 
 And wait for arms that have embraced their last. 
 
 88 
 
I wish no more, as once I wished, each feeling 
 To grow immortal in my happy breast; 
 
 Since not to feel will leave no wounds for healing 
 The pulse that thrills not has no need of rest. 
 
 As the conviction sinks into my spirit 
 
 That my quick heart is doomed to death in life 
 
 Or that these pangs must pierce and never sear it, 
 I am abandoned to despairing strife. 
 
 To the lost life, alas, no more returning, 
 
 In this to come no semblance of the past- 
 Only to wait hoping this ceasless yearning 
 
 May ere long end and peace may come at last, 
 
 Omaha, Neb., 1857. 
 
 THE PASSING OF THE YEAR. 
 
 Worn and poor 
 
 The old year came to Eternity s door. 
 Once when his limbs were young and strong 
 From that shining portal came he forth, 
 Led by the sound of shout and song 
 To the festive halls of jubilant earth: 
 Now, his allotted cycle o er, 
 He waited, spent, by the Golden Door. 
 
 89 
 
Faint and far, faint and far, 
 Surging up soft between sun and star, 
 Strains of revelry smote his ear, 
 Musical murmurs from lyre and lute, 
 Rising in choruses grand and clear, 
 Sinking in cadences almost mute, 
 Vexing the ear of him .who sate 
 Wearied beside the Shining Gate. 
 
 Sad and low, 
 
 Flowed in an undertone of woe. 
 Wailing among the moons it came, 
 Sobbing in echoes against the stars, 
 Smothered behind some comet s flame, 
 Lost in the wind of the warlike Mars, 
 Mingling, ever and anon, 
 With the music s swell a sigh or moan. 
 
 "As in a glass 
 
 Let the earth once before me pass," 
 The Old Year said; and space untold 
 Vanished till nothing came between, 
 Folded away, crystal and gold, 
 Nor azure air did intervene 
 "As in a glass he saw the earth 
 Decking a bier, and waiting a birth. 
 
 90 
 
"You crown me dead," the Old Year said, 
 
 Before my parting hour is sped, 
 
 O fickle, false and reckless world! 
 
 Time to Eternity may not haste; 
 
 Not til the last Hour s wing is furled 
 
 Within the gate my reign is passed: 
 
 Earth! O World! fair, false and vain, 
 
 1 grieve not at my closing reign." 
 
 Yet spirit-sore 
 
 The dead King noted a palace door; 
 He saw the gay crowd gather in, 
 He scanned the face of each passerby, 
 Snowiest soul and heart of sin, 
 Tried and untried humanity, 
 Age and Youth, Pleasure and Pain, 
 Braided at chance in a motley skein. 
 
 "Ill betide 
 
 Ye thankless ones!" the Old Year cried: 
 "Have I not given you night and day, 
 Over and over, score upon score, 
 Wherein to live, and love, and pray, 
 And suck the ripe world to its rotten core? 
 Yet do ye reek if my reign be done? 
 Ere I pass ye crown the newer one. 
 At ball and rout ye dance and shout, 
 
 91 
 
Shutting men s cries of suffering out 
 That startle the white-tressed Silences 
 Musing beside the fount of light 
 In the eternal space, to press 
 Their roses, each a nebula bright, 
 More closely to their lips serene, 
 While ye wear this unconscious mien!" 
 
 "Even so," 
 
 The revelers said, " We ll have naught of woe 
 Why should we mourn who have our fill? 
 Enough if the poor and hungry cry. 
 We from our plenty cast at will 
 Some crumbs to make their wet eyelids dry; 
 But to the rich the world is fair, 
 Why should we grovel in tears and prayer?" 
 
 In her innocent bliss 
 A fair bride said, with sweet eafnestness, 
 For the dear Year am I truly sad, 
 Since in its happy and hopeful days 
 Every brief hour my heart was glad, 
 And blessings were strewn in all my ways : 
 Will it be so forevermore? 
 Will the New Years bring of love new store? 
 
 92 
 
Youth and maid, 
 
 Of their conscious blushes half afraid, 
 Shunning each other s tell-tale eyes, 
 Yet cherishing hopes too fond to own, 
 Sped the Old Year with secret sighs, 
 And smiled that his time was overflown; 
 Should they not hear each other say 
 "Dear Love!" ere the New Year passed away? 
 
 "Oh, haste on! 
 
 The Year or the pleasure is dead that is gone," 
 Boasted the man of pomp and power: 
 "That which we hold is alone the good, 
 Give me new pleasures for every hour, 
 And grieve over past joys ye who would: 
 Joys that are fled are poor, I wis, 
 Give me forever the newest bliss." 
 
 "Wish me joy," 
 
 Girl Beauty cried, with glances coy: 
 In the New Year a woman I. 
 I ll then have jewels in my hair, 
 And such rare webs as princes buy 
 Be none too choice for me to wear: 
 I ll queen it as a beauty should 
 And not be won before I m wooed." 
 
 93 
 
Sighed a student in the motley crowd: 
 
 " Poor and proud, poor and proud, 
 "I heard her whisper that aside. 
 O fatal fairness aping heaven 
 When earthly most! I ll not deride. 
 God knows that were all good gifts given 
 To me as lavishly as rain, 
 I d bring them to her feet again." 
 
 "Here are the fools we use for tools, 
 Bending their passion ere it cools 
 To any need/ the Cynic said; 
 "So, I will give him gold, and he 
 Shall sell me brain as it were bread. 
 His very soul I ll hold in fee 
 For baubles that shall buy the hand 
 Of the coldest woman in the land." 
 
 Spirit-sore 
 
 The Old Year cared to see no more; 
 While as he turned he heard a moan; 
 Frosty and keen was the wintry night, 
 Prone on the city s paving-stone 
 Unwatched, unwept, a piteous sight 
 Starved and dying a poor wretch lay. 
 Through the blast he heard him dying say; 
 
 94 
 
"O Old Year, 
 
 From sightless eyes you force this tear: 
 
 Sorrows you ve heaped upon head, 
 
 Losses you ve gathered to drive me wild, 
 
 All that I lived for, loved, are dead, 
 
 Brother and sister, wife and child, 
 
 1, too, am perishing as well, 
 
 1 shall share the toll of your passing bell." 
 
 Grieved and sad 
 
 For the sins and woes the Human had, 
 The Old Year strove to avert his eyes ; 
 But fly or turn wherever he would 
 On his vexed ear smote the mingled cries 
 Of revel and new-made widowhood, 
 Of grief that would not be comforted, 
 With the loved and beautiful lying dead. 
 
 Evermore, every hour, 
 Rising from hovel, hall and bower, 
 Swelling the strain of discontent, 
 Gurgled the hopeless prayer for alms , 
 Rung out the wild oath impotent; 
 Echoed by some brief walls of calms 
 Straining the listener s shrinking ear 
 Like silence when thunderbolts are near. 
 
 95 
 
Across that calm, like gales of balm 
 Some low, sweet household voices ran, 
 Thrilling, like flute notes straying out 
 From land to sea some stormy night, 
 The ear that listens for the shout 
 Of drowning boatman lost to sight, 
 And died away again so soon 
 The pulseless air seemed fallen in a swoon. 
 
 Once, pure and clear, 
 Clarion strains fell on the ear: 
 The preacher rent the soulless creeds, 
 And pierced men s hearts with arrowy words, 
 Yet failed to stir them to good deeds 
 Their new-fledged thoughts, like July birds, 
 Soared on the air and glanced away 
 Before the eloquent voice could stay. 
 
 " Tis very sad, the man is mad," 
 The men and women gaily said 
 As they laughing tread their homeward road, 
 Talking of other holidays; 
 Of last year how it rained or snowed, 
 Who went abroad, who wed a blaze 
 Of diamonds with his sickly bride, 
 On certain days and who had died. 
 
 96 
 
"Would I were dead 
 And vexed no more," the Old Year said; 
 "In vain may the preacher pray and warn, 
 The tinkling cymbals in your ears 
 Turn every gracious word to scorn; 
 Ye care not for the orphan s tears, 
 Your sides are fed and your bodies clad; 
 Is there anything heaven itself could add?" 
 
 And then he sighed as one who died 
 With a great wish unsatisfied ; 
 Around him like a wintry sea 
 Whose waves were nations, surged the world, 
 Stormy, unstable, constantly 
 Upheaved to be again down-hurled. 
 Here struggled some for freedom; here 
 Oppression rode in high career. 
 
 In hot debate 
 
 Men wrestled while the hours waxed late, 
 Contending with the watchful zeal 
 Of gladiators trained to die; 
 Yet not for life, nor country s weal, 
 But that their names might hang on high 
 As men who loved themselves, indeed, 
 And robbed the state to satisfy their need. 
 
 97 
 
Heads of snow and eyes aglow 
 With fires that youth might blush to know; 
 And brows whose youthful fairness shamed 
 The desperate thoughts that strove within, 
 While each his cause exultant named 
 As purest that the world had seen 
 All names they had to tickle honest ears 
 Reform, and Rights, and sweet Philanthropy s cares. 
 
 "W r ell-a-day! well-a-day!" 
 The Old Year strove to put away 
 Sight and sound of the reckless earth. 
 But soft! from out a cottage door 
 Stole strains of neither grief nor mirth, 
 And on his dying ear did pour 
 "Give us, O God," the singers said, 
 As good a year as this one dead!" 
 
 Pealing loud from sod to cloud 
 Earth s bells rang out in a chorus proud; 
 Great waves of music shook the air 
 From organs pulsing with the sound; 
 Hushed was the voice of sob and prayer 
 As Time touched the eternal bound; 
 To the dead monarch earth was dimmed, 
 And the golden portals brighter gleamed. 
 
 98 
 
Sad no more 
 
 The Old Year reached the Golden Door 
 Just as the Hours with crystal clang 
 Aside the shining portals bent, 
 And murmuring mong the spheres there rang 
 The chorus of earth s acknowledgment. 
 One had passed out of the Golden Door, 
 And one had gone in forevermore. 
 
 HE AND SHE. 
 
 Under the pines sat a young man and maiden: 
 
 "Love," said he, life is sweet, think st thou not so?" 
 
 Sweet were her eyes, full of pictures of Aidenn 
 "Life," said she, "love is sweet; no more I know." 
 
 Into the wide world the maid and her lover 
 
 Wandered by pathways that sundered them far; 
 
 From pine groves to palm groves he flitted, a rover, 
 She tended his roses, and watched for his star. 
 
 Oft he said softly, while melting eyes glistened, 
 "Sweet is my life, love, with you ever near"; 
 
 Morning and evening she waited and listened 
 For a voice and a footstep that never came near. 
 
 Fainting at last on her threshold she found him; 
 
 "Life is but ashes and bitter," he sighed. 
 She, with her tender arms folded about him, 
 
 Whispered, "But love is still sweet" and so died. 
 
 Sprague River, Or., 1873. 
 
 99 
 
THE PLAYER. 
 
 He played as one walks in his sleep, 
 Unconscious of the heights he dares, 
 
 Un-souled, and treading unawares 
 The edges of a dangerous deep. 
 
 I listened in an ecstacy 
 
 To music loved but long forgot, 
 
 And stealing softly to the spot 
 Gazed on the player wonderingly. 
 
 I saw his fingers touch the keys 
 With skill no master ever taught, 
 
 While all my being, lost in thought, 
 Vibrated to his harmonies. 
 
 I saw it was no idle dream 
 
 A formless Presence glide and glance 
 
 Behind the keys, a radiance 
 That on the ivory lit a gleam. 
 
 Ah, then I knew whence came the skill 
 That touched with flame the instrument, 
 
 And to his dreamy fingering lent 
 A power beyond the player s will. 
 
 The old, old songs she loved so well, 
 
 By her pure soul interpreted, 
 With all the poet meant and said 
 
 Thence came the player s wondrous spell. 
 
 100 
 
AUTUMNALIA. 
 
 The crimson color lays , , 
 
 As bright as beauty s blush along the West, 
 
 And a warm golden haze, 
 Promising sheafs of ripe autumnal days 
 
 To crown the old year s crest, 
 Hangs in mid air, a half-pellucid maze, 
 
 Through which the sun at set, 
 Grown round and rosy, looks with Bacchian blush, 
 
 For an old wine-god meet, 
 Whose brows are dripping with the grape-blood sweet, 
 
 As if his southern flush 
 Rejoiced him, in his northern-zoned retreat. 
 
 The amber-colored air 
 Musical is with hum of tiny things 
 
 Held idly struggling there, 
 As if the golden mists entangled were 
 
 About the viewless wings, 
 That beat out music on their gilded snare. 
 
 If but a leaf, all gay 
 With Autumn s gorgeous coloring, doth fall, 
 
 Along its fluttering way 
 A shrill alarum wakes a sharp dismay, 
 
 And, answering to the call, 
 The insect chorus swells and dies away 
 
 101 
 
With a fine piping noise, 
 As if some younger singing motes cried out, 
 
 As- do mischievous boys, 
 Startling their playmates with a pained voice, 
 
 Or sudden thrilling shout, 
 Followed by laughter, full of little joys. 
 
 Perchance a lurking breeze 
 Springs, just awakened to its wayward play, 
 
 Tossing the sober trees 
 Into a frolic maze of ecstacies, 
 
 And snatching at the gay 
 Banners of Autumn, strews them where it please. 
 
 The sunset colors glow 
 A second time in flame from out wood, 
 
 As bright and warm as though 
 The vanished clouds had fallen, and lodged below 
 
 Among the treetops, hued 
 With all the colors of heaven s signal-bow. 
 
 The fitful breezes die 
 Into a gentle whisper, and then sleep; 
 
 And sweetly, mournfully, 
 Starting to sight, in the transparent sky, 
 
 Lone in the upper deep, 
 Sad Hesper pours its beams upon the eye; 
 
 And for one little hour, 
 102 
 
Holds audience with the lesser lights of heaven, 
 
 Then to its western bower 
 Descends in sudden darkness, as the flower 
 
 That at the fall of even 
 Shuts its bright eye, and yields to slumber s power. 
 
 Soon, with a dusky face, 
 Pensive and proud as an East Indian queen, 
 
 And with a solemn grace, 
 The moon ascends, and takes her royal place 
 
 In the fair evening scene, 
 While all the reverential stars, apace, 
 Take up their march through the cool fields of space, 
 
 And wed in the sweet day with night serene. 
 
 Ann Arbor, Mich., 1852. 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 The world s first singers sang heroic deeds 
 
 Of gods and men upon their flutelike reeds; 
 
 Sang to the chorded shell and tinkling lyre 
 
 Of themes that touched the Olympian heights with fire, 
 
 And made men godlike with divine desire. 
 
 103 
 
A REPRIMAND. 
 
 Behold my soul she sits so far above you 
 
 Your wildest dream has never glanced so high, 
 Yet in the old time when you said "I love you," 
 
 How fairly we seemed mated, eye to eye. 
 How long we dallied on in flowery meadows, 
 
 By languid lakes of sweetly sinuous dreams, 
 Steeped in enchanted mists, beguiled by shadows, 
 
 Casting life s flowers upon loitering streams, 
 My memory owns, and yours mine with deej 
 
 shame 
 Yours with a sigh that life is not the same. 
 
 What parted us to leave you in the valley, 
 
 And send me struggling to the mountain top; 
 Too weak for duty, even love failed to rally 
 
 The manhood that should float your pinions up. 
 On my spent feet are many cruel bruises, 
 
 My limbs are wasted with their heavy toil, 
 But I have learned adversity s sweet uses, 
 
 And brought my soul up pure through every soil; 
 Have I no right to scorn the man s dead power 
 That leaves you far beneath me at this hour? 
 
 104 
 
Scorn you I do, while pitying even more 
 
 The ignoble weakness of a strength debased 
 Do I yet mourn the faith that died of yore, 
 
 The trust by timorous treachery effaced? 
 Through all, and over all my soul mounts free 
 
 To heights of peace you cannot hope to gain, 
 Sings to the stars its mountain minstrelsy, 
 
 And smiles down proudly on your murky plain; 
 Tis vain to invite you yet come up, come up, 
 Conquer your way toward the mountain top. 
 
 VERSES FOR M 
 
 The river on the east 
 Ripples its azure flood within my sight, 
 
 And, darting from the west. 
 Are sunset arrows feathered with red light; 
 
 The northern wind has hung 
 His wintry harp upon some giant pine, 
 
 And the pale stars among 
 I see the stars I love to name as mine, 
 
 But toward the south I turn my eager eyes- 
 Beyond its flushed horizon my heart lies. 
 
 105 
 
The snow-clad isles of ice 
 Launched by wild Boreas from a northern shore 
 
 Journey the way my eyes 
 Turn with an envious longing" evermore, 
 
 Smiling back to the sky 
 Its own pink blush, and, floating out of sight, 
 
 Bear south the softest dye 
 
 Of northern heavens to fade in southern night 
 My eyes but look the way my joys are gone, 
 And the ice islands travel not alone. 
 
 The untrod fields of snow 
 Glow with the rosy dye of parting day, 
 
 And fancy asks if so 
 The snow is stained with sunset far away, 
 
 And if some face, like mine, 
 Its forehead pressed against the window pane, 
 
 Peers northward with the shine 
 Of the pole star reflected in eyes rain; 
 
 "Ah yes," my heart says, "it is surely so," 
 And like a bound bird flutters hard to go. 
 
 Port Huron, Mich., 1852. 
 
 106 
 
AH ME! 
 
 I say to my heart, "Be still! 
 
 Beat not against my breast 
 
 With all this fierce unrest; 
 I am ill, I am ill, 
 
 Fainting, sinking in the fire 
 
 Of a passionate desire 
 That consumes my thought and will. 
 
 I say to my soul, "In vain 
 You beat your restless wings 
 Gainst the cruel bars of things 
 
 That imprison and restrain; 
 
 Turn your eyes away, be strong, 
 Captive shall you be not long, 
 
 But your prisen rent in twain." 
 
 That life should be, ah me! 
 
 Longing, and never joy; 
 
 Paltry pleasures that cloy, 
 And writhings to be free; 
 
 Paintings, cryings to the sky, 
 
 "My God, O let me die," 
 When it should sweetest be. 
 Ah me! 
 
 107 
 
OATHS ARE BUT WORDS. 
 
 "Oaths are but words," the Spaniards said, 
 "And words but air"; and so they broke 
 Both word and oath, as I have read. 
 
 In truth I think that words are air, 
 And scarcely worthy to be spoke 
 Twixt friend and friend whose hearts we share. 
 
 Far sweeter language speaks the eye, 
 
 And truer than the pliant tongue; 
 And by this we are friends for aye. 
 
 1 see your gentle heart, and you 
 
 Are sure that mine is kind and strong 
 And each believes the other true. 
 
 What need is there for me to say, 
 
 "Remember me in times to come?" 
 You will remember, come what may. 
 
 And I I have no pledge to give, 
 
 My lips when I would speak are dumb, 
 But vou will trust, nor I deceive. 
 
 108 
 
PARTED LOVE. 
 
 When we parted in our youth, 
 
 Parted not to meet again, 
 Did you doubt my love or truth, 
 
 Doubt my passion or my pain ? 
 
 Have you never on your breast 
 
 Felt my kisses as of yore, 
 And awaked from blissful rest 
 
 To be sadder evermore ? 
 
 Through the long and weary years 
 Have you never felt my hand 
 
 Brush away the bitter tears 
 
 Duty, will, could not command? 
 
 Love, I doubt you not, and you 
 Surely feel my presence near, 
 
 Through the years have I been true, 
 Through the years have you been dear. 
 
 109 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO 5O CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 , 
 
 AUG 23 1937 
 
 APR 19 1948 
 
 1 JUN I94rt 
 
 LD 21-5m- 
 
VD i ***->! 
 
 Tb i HHO I 
 
 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES 
 
 
 736981 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY