Bar*"* 
 
 m 
 
 
 
V 
 
t Iwttona from 
 
 JHanj S 
 
 WITH 
 
 Biographical Sketches 
 
 This is life: the Shadow of Death always 
 overhangs, but earnest souls who love and 
 live^the Truth do conquer death. 
 
 Bishop Vincent 
 
 PRINTED 
 
 FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION 
 
 SAN DIEGO, 
 
 1914 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Copyrighted by Mabel F. Hastings 
 
 1914 
 
 TWENTIETH CENTURY PRESS 
 
 PRINTERS 
 SAN DIEGO, CAL. 
 
9G9270 
 
tljai Ollfotr of 
 
 Carlotta, Isabella, Eugenie and Eloise Mabury, 
 
 acknowledgement of their helpfulness in 
 
 the making of this book* 
 
 M. F. H. 
 
To 
 
 j^aralj row 
 
 In Remembrance of a gracious Friendship 
 
 in age, in youth, through 
 
 sixty years 
 
Biographical 5 e / c /z e s 
 
 If we could but keep our hearts pure this day, 
 untainted by the many pettinesses, untouched 
 by the things the world deems important, undi 
 verted by the fictitious values and standards 
 set up by various sections of mankind; who 
 knows what vision aye of Infinity itself 
 might be vouchsafed to us. 
 
 Richard Wagner. 
 
1890 
 
 10 
 
Mary Field 
 
 Biographical Sketch by Mabel Field Hastings 
 
 Mrs. Mary Field was born in 1833 in Niles, Michigan, 
 when a few small settlements broke the wilderness between 
 there and Detroit, nearly two hundred miles away. Her 
 father, Nathaniel Bacon, then a studious young attorney, 
 was later one of the first judges of the supreme court of 
 Michigan. Her mother was of Scotch descent, and though 
 she had grown up in her grandfather s luxurious home in 
 New York, she was radiant with enthusiasm over the life 
 of that far West. Mrs. Field (little Mary Hannah Bacon) 
 was born in a log cabin, the first white child christened in 
 southwestern Michigan. 
 
 Her maternal grandfather, Joseph Sweetman, a Scotch 
 Presbyterian minister, was called to the Fifth Avenue 
 "Brick Church" of New York City, but he declined the call 
 choosing "the simple life" in Charlton, New York. Mrs. 
 Field s great-grandfather was Judge Edward Savage: on 
 his old slate tombstone in New York the record is that he 
 was for twenty-one years a member of the New York legis 
 lature, for forty years an elder in the Presbyterian church. 
 His father was Captain John Savage,, an adventurous sea 
 captain and stanch patriot who served in the French and 
 Indian wars. Though long wounded and going with a 
 crutch, he led his men at the storming of Ticonderoga. 
 Mrs. Field s paternal grandmother was an ardent student, 
 who in her youth, when the printed page was rare, walked 
 
 11 
 
Biographical 
 
 thirty-nine miles, or thereabouts, to borrow and return a 
 bound vclume of Addison s Spectator which she fairly 
 learned by heart. 
 
 Little Mary was left motherless in her seventh year. 
 Then came to mother the children, this grandmother whose 
 strong character and intellectual fire left its potent impress 
 throughout their lives. Mary was educated almost intirely 
 at home. At the age of four she could read well in the 
 Testament and was ever an omnivorous reader. In her early 
 home there were inspiring influences: the original mind of 
 her eldest brother Edward, the fine personality of her elder 
 brother Joseph, and a great love for the younger children. 
 There were four sisters in the household and six brothers. 
 All her brothers became attorneys. The house teemed 
 with youthful energy, held within bounds by the austere 
 puritanic ideals of the head of the house and by the in 
 valuable influence of the stepmother, Caroline Lord Bacon, 
 sister of Dr. John Lord, author of Beacon Lights of His 
 tory. She was a woman of high education, refinement and 
 spirituality. Mrs. Emily Hoppin, widely known in social, 
 educational and philanthropic work, is her daughter. Fred 
 erick Bacon, the author of standard law books, is her son. 
 
 Mary Bacon was a student in New York City for one year, 
 graduating at Brooklyn Heights Seminary. The editor of 
 the publication which later became St. Nicholas Magazine, 
 observing this intellectual girl on commencement day, 
 called to see her and asked her to stay in New York and! 
 be on the magazine staff. She was then eighteen. 
 
 She returned to her home in Michigan, and four years 
 later was married to Frederick Field. Their home was for 
 seventeen years in the picturesque Vermont mountain town 
 of East Dorset, birthplace of their six children. There 
 came unspeakable tragedy in the death of three children in 
 one month from typhoid fever. 
 
 12 
 
Sketches 
 
 Mrs. Field s life s story of mother-love she told in verses 
 which are now in permanent collections and will live 
 through centuries. Her literary work is reviewed in follow 
 ing pages of this volume. In 1874 Mr. Field brought 
 his family to San Jose, California, which became their home 
 for many years. Aside from swift and versatile literary 
 achievement, Mrs. Field worked con amore for the church, 
 for charities and philanthropies, lectured at Stanford Uni 
 versity on sociological topics, was for many years director 
 of the Monterey Summer School, and for twelve years was 
 Pacific Coast secretary of the home reading circles of the 
 Chautauqua Society, then of large membership and fore 
 runner of university extension. Mrs. Field became one 
 of the most popular women on the Pacific Coast, to which 
 fact the accompanying extracts from letters show "so great 
 a cloud of witnesses." This wide popularity was the more 
 unusual as Mrs. Field was not of "popular" type : abstraction 
 in thought was habitual, a spirit-like remoteness was 
 characteristic of her gentle presence. She resembled her 
 father, his rugged profile was developed in her face into 
 tender, noble lines, the eyes were gray and deep-set, her 
 brow was of intellectual beauty ***** 
 
 13 
 
Biographical Sketches 
 
 An editorial by Judge John E. Richards, on the eve 
 of Mrs. Field s departure from San Jose for the 
 East in 1891: 
 
 As has been announced in our social columns, Mrs. Mary 
 H. Field will in a few days leave San Jose to make her home 
 in the East. This means to us something more than the 
 closing of a hospitable house, the absence of a pleasant fam 
 ily and the lack of the personal presence of a friend. It 
 means that in many circles of work there will be missing 
 hereafter an energy, an influence and a leadership that have 
 been most potent and helpful in the past, and the withdrawal 
 of which cannot but be accounted as a great loss. Mrs. Field 
 has long occupied a unique position in relation to the var 
 ious elements and cliques of our society, and when she de 
 parts will leave no one to take her place. In her church and 
 its societies and work, in the Woman s Christian Temper 
 ance Union, in the Chautauqua classes, and the literary 
 circles of the city, she has been not only a leader but an in 
 spiration. Her versatility has enabled her to be unobtrusively 
 masterful in all that she undertook, and having undertaken 
 much, her daily life among us has been directly helpful to a 
 greater variety of men and women and in more varied ways 
 than that of any other one person among us. Her absence 
 therefore will be sorely felt in many ways and at many 
 times, and the loss cannot be made up until she herself re 
 turns to live with us again and reopen for us her hospitable 
 home. 
 
 From the San Joie Mercury 
 
 14 
 
MARY FIELD 
 
 Sculptured by T. B. Jackson, 1 886 
 
 15 
 
Monterey, California 
 Detroit Pub. Co. 
 
 Extracts from biographical sketch iy Lucp M. Washburn 
 
 * * * * Mrs. Mary H. Field was for twenty years associated 
 in varied ways with the very best of San Jose life, and her 
 memory will long live in many hearts. ***** Mr. and Mrs. 
 Field and their children came to San Jose in 1874. Mrs. 
 Field s personality, while modest and gentle, was of so high 
 an order as to be quickly felt in San Jose. In the Presby 
 terian church, where her husband was an elder, Mrs. Field 
 was foremost in every good work. Often she was president 
 of missionary and other societies, but was equally ready to 
 help in every capacity. Her religion, deep, thoughtful, yet 
 joyous, full of a cheerful and steadfast faith, was the main 
 spring of her life, shown not only in her church loyalty and 
 activity, but in every relation in the family, the neighbor- 
 
 From the San Jose Mercury, July 1912. 
 
 16 
 
Biographical Sketches 
 
 hood, the community. Her quick intelligence and her vital 
 interest in every living question were equaled by her social 
 charm, and she was sought in every circle. Her sense of 
 humor played over her solid qualities and enlivened her 
 quiet dignity most attractively, helping to make her a rare 
 conversationalist. 
 
 Her ready pen disclosed the same qualities of her per 
 sonality. It was at the service of every good cause, and 
 generous to grace social occasions. Many a graphic report, 
 or tenderly written personal tribute, charming poem or jeu 
 d esprit remains, the best history of the event that called 
 it forth. Their merit made them constantly sought for 
 publication, and thus many of them have happily been pre 
 served by the Mercury and other periodicals. A missionary 
 appeal would in her hands take the form of a quaint and 
 moving story "Ezra and Me and the Missionary Boards." 
 Her gay little parody, "This is the Church Mrs. Cobb Built," 
 preserves for smiles and tears the rollcall and the very 
 spirit of the united effort that enlarged the building of the 
 old pioneer First Church, afterward laid low by the earth 
 quake. It is to her "Arboreal Song" that we must turn to 
 realize the greatest beauty San Jose possessed the noble 
 triple lines of grand trees planted by the Mission Fathers 
 between Santa Clara and San Jose, that made the broad 
 avenue indeed, "The Alameda, the beautiful Way, the pride 
 and joy of San Jose." 
 
 The copies of this poem still extant in the form of an 
 illustrated booklet sold for the benefit of the Orphans 
 Home, to which Mrs. Field donated it, should be treasured 
 by San Joseans, who have lost the glory of the ancient trees. 
 
 Everything Mrs. Field wrote had the literary touch. But 
 her poetic gift was not limited to the service of occasions. 
 Some exquisite poems of hers voicing the deeper ex 
 periences, particularly of motherhood, and appealing to the 
 
 17 
 
Biographical 
 
 universal heart have found their way through magazines 
 and newspapers into general circulation, and have become a 
 part of our permanent national literature. 
 
 Mrs. Field wrote valuable literary and historical studies, 
 many sketches of life in Mexico, and in her seventieth year 
 becoming interested in the language when sojourning in 
 Mexico, she published a much needed English-Mexican book 
 of household phrases. 
 
 As secretary of the Pacific Coast branch of the Chau- 
 tauqua Literary and Scientific circle Mrs. Field carried on a 
 wide correspondence and exerted a large influence during 
 the years when that society pioneered the way on this coast 
 for university extension and other reading courses of study. 
 This work made her the leader of hundreds of readers, 
 gathered in "circles" or inspired in their solitary studies 
 in the wide, lonely spaces of California. It also made her 
 a central figure in the summer assembly at Pacific Grove, 
 and eventually gave her a warm reception at the great 
 parent assembly at Chautauqua Lake, New York, which 
 she visited in the year of the World s Fair. Two of her best- 
 known books were ^he outgrowth of this connection "Kate 
 Thurston s Chautauqua Circle" and "The Evolution of Mrs. 
 Thomas." The latter book brought her warm recognition 
 from that best judge of such writing in the land, Edward 
 Everett Hale, who told her, as he grasped her hand, that it 
 was the best Chautauqua book he had ever read. And 
 crowning her Chautauqua work and intercourse with its 
 leaders was her permanent friendship with the eminent 
 founder of the institution, Bishop Vincent, whose appre 
 ciation of Mrs. Field has shown itself deep and lasting. 
 
 Although it is over twenty years since her home was in 
 San Jose, the intervening time having led her far away 
 with her daughter and sons to Colorado, to New Yorkj 
 City, to Mexico she has been several times a guest in our 
 
 18 
 
Sketches 
 
 city, at the home of Mrs. S. R. Field, and has never lost 
 touch with old friends nor with the progress of San Jose. 
 Her last visit here, nearly two years ago, was made the 
 occasion of an ovation by the Monday Club, of which she 
 had been one of the foremost members. In 1903 Mrs. Field 
 sent from New York City the following response to an in 
 vitation to attend a reunion with San Jose friends when 
 a continent lay between. It may well be published here, as 
 if a last word from her to her many friends and to the 
 San Jose she loved and adorned. 
 
 ANOTHER GUEST 
 
 Not as of old at the Egyptian board 
 
 The cerement-vestured dead 
 Stood in his wonted place with meagre form 
 
 And darkly mantled head 
 
 A shadowing presence, hushing youth s gay laugh, 
 
 Quenching the jest and song, 
 And whispering in the unwilling ear of life, 
 
 "Thou too, thou too, ere long!" 
 
 Nor as a ghostly comrade, wan and strange, 
 
 With gliding step, alone, 
 Claiming with upraised finger and cold eye 
 
 All that was once my own. 
 
 Nay, nay, not with unwonted garb or mien, 
 
 Nor with unsmiling face, 
 But just as in the days gone by I seek 
 
 The dear familiar place. 
 
 I stretch out friendly hands to meet your grasp, 
 
 My eyes with warm lights fill, 
 And to the music of your welcoming cheer 
 
 My heart is all athrill. 
 
 Across the severing mountains and wide plains 
 
 Flies my untrammeled soul 
 O friends beloved, make room for me I pray, 
 
 Have I not reached my goal? 
 
 19 
 
fe. 
 
 * Pub. Co. Almond Orchard Near San Jose, O.I. 
 
 MCaria Holly Sheldon 
 
 * * * * ]y[ rs Field was a woman of unusual charm, and she 
 tl-raw a spell over all who came within the radius of her 
 winning and gracious personality. The author, Elizabeth 
 Prentiss, who was her friend in the old Dorset days, said 
 of her, "She is a woman who has on her the touch of 
 genius." 
 
 A delicate humor, a never failing optimism, the God- 
 given intuition that found the best in everyone: these were 
 distinguishing charms of hers. In a time of bitter religious 
 controversy her nephew was heard to say to her, "Aunt 
 Mary, what do you say to all this discussion?" "I would 
 say," was her reply, " Little children, love one another ." 
 
 In conversation, she drew on a fund of stories, and of per 
 sonal experiences in times of trial and of joy. In corre- 
 
 In part from obituary notice in The Manchester Journal 
 
 20 
 
Biographical Sketches 
 
 spondence she gave herself lavishly to her family and 
 friends. Little packages of letters from her facile pen 
 have been cherished it is safe to say, the world over in 
 Chinese fisher huts on lone Santa Calalina Island, and even 
 in the White House. A letter from Mrs. Field to President 
 Garfield after the assassination had the following reply 
 from Mrs. Garfield, in part, "Your words to cheer the suf 
 ferer were not in vain. Your beautiful graphic descriptions 
 gave the president a pleasant half hour" * * * * * The letter 
 was sent from the White House to the New York Times. 
 The poet William Henry Woods wrote to Mrs. Field s 
 daughter, "I had only a literary acquaintance with Mrs. 
 Field but there was something individual and to me very 
 pleasant in her letters. I shall await with interest the 
 forthcoming volume of her poems. I recall the tenderness 
 and delicacy of her preceding little book of verses." 
 
 Children loved Mrs. Field and never forgot her wise and 
 witty teachings. In early life she wrote several books for 
 children, but her poems will stay longest in the hearts of 
 her friends. 
 
 In Mrs. Field s seventy-ninth year, after lifelong good 
 health, the silver cords were loosed, She wrote to a rela 
 tive, "I dare say I shall go through the operation safely. 
 If not, I am in no wise to be lamented. All is well. Thank 
 God for dear friends and children who will not forget me." 
 To another relative she wrote, "I hope I shall slip away 
 some day and give little warning. My mortal part would 
 soon be lying by dear ones in Dorset, and I, the rsal I, 
 should home have gone and *ta en my wages not sad at all 
 to my thinking." To the last her mind was clear anil un- 
 quenched as in youth. She found peace after a week of 
 great suffering borne in strength of spirit. 
 
 21 
 
Biographical Sketches 
 
 At the old home in the village of Dorset, Vermont, on 
 the last day of July, 1912, a little group of friends and rela 
 tives strewed pansies with loving thoughts upon her 
 grave. In accordance with the wish of our beloved, Tenny 
 son s Crossing the Bar was read with beautiful expression 
 by her relative, Dr. George Gilbert. 
 
 CROSSING THE BAR. 
 
 Sunset and evening star, 
 
 And one clear call for me! 
 And may there be no moaning of the bar, 
 
 When I put out to sea, 
 
 But such a tide as moving seems asleep, 
 
 Too full for sound and foam, 
 When that which drew from out the boundless deep 
 
 Turns again home 
 
 Twilight and evening bell, 
 
 And after that the dark! 
 And may there be no sadness of farewell, 
 
 When I embark, 
 
 For tho from out our bourne of Time and Place 
 
 The flood may bear me far, 
 I hope to see my Pilot face to face 
 
 When I have crossed the bar. 
 
 One daughter, Mrs. Mabel Field Hastings is left in the 
 desolated home in California. Three sons mourn the death 
 of their mother, Arthur Field and Hubert Field of Guana 
 juato, Mexico, and Wilfrid Field of New York City. 
 
 Dirge, Shakespeare 
 
 22 
 
In Remembrance 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM LETTERS OF CONDOLENCE 
 
 Guanajuato, Mexico. 
 
 * * * * * Let us recall for consolation mother s pure and 
 tranquil life. I wish my sons could have known her better. 
 Her superior mind counted for naught the trivial things of 
 life, she saw the good and almost entirely overlooked the 
 evil. Surely such character does not die with the body. 
 What delightful memories she has left us. 
 
 Arthur Field. 
 
 Brookwatson, Nenagh, Ireland. 
 
 * * * # * jj er serene spirit was an inspiration to all smaller 
 fretful souls. Write me more of her interesting life of 
 striving and attaining. It is easy to picture her with her 
 beloved in a better world for which no one I know was better 
 fitted. Elizabeth Miller Bernal. 
 
 San Jose, California 
 
 * * * * *Your dear mother s absence from this world makes 
 it seem a less habitable place. You must know how much 
 she was beloved, admired and honored. San Jose has never 
 seemed fully itself since she left us. May you have a sense 
 of presence in absence as the days go on. 
 
 Lydia S. B. Cox. 
 
 Berkeley, California. 
 
 * How precious is her memory yet how we shall 
 long for her dear presence here Penelope B. Eyster. 
 
 Yolo, California. 
 
 * * * * * . I often think of my short visit to your mother in 
 Southern California in 1911. How she was enjoying her 
 "Homelet" there, the glimpses of the ocean and the soft 
 blue haze of the beautiful hills with their lights and 
 shadows! She had me come often and stand with her at 
 the window to watch the sunset glow or sunrise radiance 
 and the mocking birds, how they did sing! Once we spoke 
 
 23 
 
Letters 
 
 to each other in the night, exclaiming over the enchanting 
 songs. She cannot come back to tell us of the beauties 
 of the other Land, and 
 
 We know not where His Islands lift 
 
 Their fronded palms in air; 
 We only know we cannot drift 
 
 Beyond His love and care." 
 
 Emily Bacon Hoppin. 
 
 San Jose, California. 
 
 * * * * * She was the dearest of grandmothers. Her life, and 
 her sweetness to me, have been a benediction. 
 
 Sarah Richards Field. 
 
 9 St. Louis, Mo. 
 
 * * * * * For fifty years our affection for each other has, 
 been strong and abiding. My sister was a lovely character. 
 He intellect was brilliant. Find consolation in remembering 
 her long, useful, and kindly life. . 
 
 Frederick Bacon. 
 
 Ashland, Oregon. 
 
 *****i hope Aunt Mary did not suffer, but that her 
 sweet symmetrical spirit peacefully went to its Maker. 
 For her there will be so many "voices crying Hail !" 
 
 Cornelia Goodrich Kirkpatrick. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 * * * * * s ne has laid the burden down. How cousin Mary 
 would see the good side! She had earned Heaven. 
 
 Gertrude Sykes Child. 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 * * * * * NO one loved her more than I after living with 
 her so long. We can have only pleasant memories of her. 
 Dear, good Mary Field, the one I loved most among my hus 
 band s relatives and as if she were born my sister. 
 
 Mary Landon Bacon. 
 
 24 
 
Letters 
 
 Purdys, N. Y. 
 
 * Her wonderful delightful personality charmed me. 
 The blood tie seemed particularly strong. It is a deep per 
 sonal grief to me to know she is gone into the Great Silence. 
 
 Anne Beeson Purdy. 
 
 Erie, Pa. 
 
 * So my husband s sweet sister is gone to the 
 other side. But she is ours to love as much as ever. 
 
 Harriet Holly Bacon. 
 
 North Vernon, Indiana. 
 
 * We cannot wish her back to take up life s burdens 
 and anxieties. I never thought of her as old. I cannot 
 think of her as claimed by death but as alive in the 
 Garden of the Lord. 
 
 Mary Babb Taylor. 
 
 San Jose, California. 
 
 I feel deeply for you, I loved your mother. May 
 you have strength to pass through this deep sorrow. 
 
 Frances Sibley Williams. 
 
 San Jose, California. 
 
 Your mother was beloved by so many who knew 
 her only through what she had written. In blindness I am 
 only waiting to go into the Eternal Light. Near the end 
 of a long life, I have no friend whose memory is sweeter 
 than that of your mother. 
 
 Mary Carey. 
 
 New York City. 
 
 * I cannot be too thankful that you could go with her 
 to the end of life s journey. For her, dear saint, we can 
 only rejoice. I love to think of her awakening to the other 
 life. How fitted and equipped she was to enter the 
 Heavenly Land. 
 
 Sarah Trow Carter. 
 
 25 
 
L, e 1 1 e r s 
 
 Los Angeles, California. 
 * I cannot tell my grief. 
 
 Ada M. Gates. 
 
 San Jose, California. 
 
 * How we miss her life here among us, her living 
 self, her true affection words cannot tell. Those blessed 
 old days will come no more, but love is fadeless. 
 
 Helen E. Beal. 
 
 San Jose, California. 
 
 : * How earnestly we wish that our love, our long 
 unbroken friendship, could help you to bear this unspeak 
 able sorrow. 
 
 Flora E. Beal. 
 
 Santa Ana, California. 
 
 < We shall love to think of the old times, blessed! 
 memories ! A help and comfort through the rest of our lives. 
 
 Etta Beal Miner. 
 
 Mills College, California. 
 
 * Accept my deep sympathy. Your mother was our 
 valued friend these many years. 
 
 Amelia A. Keep. 
 (Mrs. Josiah Keep.) 
 
 East Dorset, Vermont. 
 
 * I shall miss her letters. She was so dear a friend. 
 
 Mary C. Harwood. 
 
 Indianapolis, Indiana. 
 
 :< Wherever her gentle influence has been felt, there 
 she will ever be very near, ever near. For she has left 
 memories that shall not soon pass. And I rejoice that I am 
 among those who came under the heritage of those memo 
 ries. As gently as I can I ask you to accept for yourself 
 and your brothers the tenderest sympathy. 
 
 Albert Garrett Small. 
 
 26 
 
Letters 
 
 Redlands, California. 
 
 Aunt Mary had such rare intellectual and spiritual gifts, 
 and her companionship was so delightful that all of us who 
 knew her loved her and feel her death keenly. 
 
 Kirke H. Field. 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 * * * * * What Mrs. Field enjoyed in the wider, nobler, 
 richer realm to which by natural endowment and early 
 opportunity she belonged, she was eager to have others 
 enjoy. I sympathize with you in your great bereavement, 
 but I must congratulate you on having (for she is still 
 yours) such an unusually wise gifted charming mother. 
 
 * * * * * I wrote you yesterday but rereading your letter for 
 the fifth or sixth time other memories awaken. Mrs. Field 
 was as enterprising as she was interesting. Her devotion 
 to the Chautauqua work was always a source of delight to 
 me. This is life: the shadow of death always overhangs, 
 but earnest souls who love and live the Truth do conquer 
 death. 
 
 John H. Vincent. 
 
 * * * * * Close to the Faith, she passed out of the world 
 into the Eternal we so much desire. 
 
 Jose Guadalupe Medrano. 
 (The old priest of Calderones, Mexico) 
 
 Chicago, 111. 
 
 * * * * * Our mothers are from first to last our heroines. 
 Their loves and enthusiasms are ours, first because we fol 
 low them unseeing, but finally as our best output. Dear 
 Aunt Mary has gone away from the suffering and from old 
 age. I remember I loved to be with her when I was a little 
 girl and I have never seen Aunt Mary leave me without a 
 grip at my heart, a sense of great loss. 
 
 Kitty Field White. 
 
 27 
 
Author 
 
 1855 
 
 ONE LITTLE MEADOW 
 
 Reminiscence of the early home 
 
 @y MARY FIELD 
 
 * * * * * Year by year the grain fields of the home 
 stead stretched farther into the forest, and orchards took 
 the place of the "oak-openings," although many a stately 
 father of the forest was left standing to adorn the land 
 scape, and the house stood in a grove of them. But the 
 little meadow was left untouched. Its few acres of rich soil 
 blossomed on at their own sweet will, and all around it was 
 also left a fringe of underbrush, with here and there a great 
 oak or a tall unbranching hickory. 
 
 Ah, what a playground was here for the four children 
 two little sisters and two brothers! All summer here they 
 raced and climbed and swung along with the squirrels and 
 
 28 
 
Autobiographical Reminiscence 
 
 the birds, and in the fall at nutting time shared amiablyj 
 with them the unfailing harvest. Only the bluejays scolded. 
 
 The wise young mother turned this grove into an 
 Academe, herself a modest and unconscious Plato. Here 
 long before "nature study" had been urged from the house 
 tops, or "summer schools" been opened to gather in unwary 
 holiday-takers, she invented the whole scheme. 
 
 She had a way of taking her little sewing chair and work- 
 basket out under the trees, in the long sweet summer days, 
 and thus made all outdoors seem homelike. With the sewing 
 came always a book or two; often the children s own little 
 orange-colored ornithology, full of pictures of their friends, 
 the robins and meadow-larks and wood-peckers and whip- 
 poorwills, with their long names slyly tucked into parenthes 
 es over which the children made wry faces and the birds 
 themselves, from their leafy perches, seemed to look 
 askance. It seems almost incredible that there should have 
 been such a book out on the frontier at that early day, but 
 there it certainly was. There too were all the volumes of 
 Goldsmith s "Animated Nature." These with the Peter 
 Parley books and the well worn botany, made up the Nature 
 library of this little pioneer school. All were brought into 
 use, and the young students two of them mere toddlers 
 who could hardly be trusted out of sight were turned loose 
 for original investigation and experiment, quite like uni 
 versity students of the present day. What patient watch 
 ing went on of bee and bird and blossom! What careful 
 handling of beetles and butterflies! What skilful and ac 
 curate counting of petals, stamens and pistils! A wonderful 
 schoolroom, a model teacher, never to be forgotten lessons! 
 
 The flowers, on the whole carried off the palm with both 
 teacher and pupils. They seemed to come in endless pro 
 cession, and the meadow was almost always accessible to 
 little feet. The winters were very mild and short. Deep 
 snows and lasting storms were rare, and always there was 
 
 29 
 
A utobio graphical 
 
 something to look for: some feathery dry grass or weed, 
 some quaint rush or lichen, or valiant great cattail.. And 
 then, to the eye of faith, pussy willows were forever imma 
 nent and should be daily watched for. Neither did Bob 
 White ever forsake the meadow as a visiting place, especially 
 if small hands scattered corn among the dry grasses; and 
 all winter long old father Crow, on sunny days preened his 
 shining feathers atop of an old fire-girdled oak, giving 
 challenge ever and anon to loquacious jays who also lingered 
 through the year. 
 
 But oh, when spring really came up from the southland 
 and dried up the pools and the miry places, how the 
 meadow and the children welcomed her! A single week of 
 mild March weather brought indisputably the catkins to 
 the front, and set the little blue eyes of the hepaticas peep 
 ing out from their furry hoods. The child who came run 
 ning home with the first of these was as welcome as the 
 earliest bluebird and as flattered and distinguished as 
 other lucky people are apt to be. . Then Nan, the black cook, 
 encouraged by these tokens, would set forth with pail and 
 knife for the wet far side of the meadow where the cow 
 slips (marsh marigolds) grew, and return, if successful, 
 with the material for the first welcome dish of "greens/ 
 April came, and on a certain sunny southern slope near the 
 meadow, where a thicket of saplings grew, wood anemones 
 began to unfurl their white kerchiefs and set up a flirtation 
 with the south wind. Then came the violets, half a dozen 
 kinds, but, loveliest and most abundant of all, the great 
 pale blue viola pedata. By May-day the children would be 
 bringing in claytonias and bishop s caps and dandelions 
 galore. 
 
 After this there was no use trying to keep count! 
 It was high time for the Summer School to open, and what 
 a gala season it was! The green leaves over them "clapped 
 their little hands in glee," the bluebells rang cheerily, and 
 
 30 
 
emtntscence 
 
 Jack-in-the-pulpit stood up in his royal purple vestments 
 to give them his benediction. In those days of lavish 
 blossoming the teacher s basket used to lose itself in 
 lychnidias and lupines, the children rolled down banks of 
 moss-pinks, they made flower garlands and necklaces and 
 girdles like young Hawaiians, they even pulled off shoes 
 and stockings and decorated their toes with ladies slippers ! 
 The teacher started a competition as to who could find 
 most kinds of flowers, and thus beguiled, they discovered 
 more than a hundred genera. Then of course herbariums 
 came in fashion, and there was a commendable struggle to 
 call the little flower neighbors by their scientific names. 
 This feat could not be accomplished to any great extent, but 
 there were quite a number of the simpler technical names 
 which became familiar and were thus engraved for a life 
 time on the impressible young memories. 
 
 Best of all, they learned to "consider the lilies how they 
 grow," to know well each great flower family, and how 
 there were tribes and kindred among those pretty wild- 
 wood things, and that each had its appointed time an$ 
 place Law and Order everywhere and tender Care not 
 even tiny seeds forgotten, but equipped with wise fore 
 thought for their journey ings. The smallest child learned 
 to see that "the meadow all over was lettered LOVE." 
 
 May was buttercup and daisy time. June brought the 
 trilliums and columbines and clovers, the cranebills, the 
 blazing-stars, the spiderworts and castellias and the be 
 loved wild roses. In July the meadow was aflame with 
 cardinal flowers and red lilies and blackeyed-Susans. In 
 August the orchids arrived, the beautiful arethusa bulbosa 
 first, and then the great yellow-fringed orchis lit its 
 torches. Then came the asters and the goldenrods, and 
 last the dear gentians. Only the great leaders in the pro 
 cession have been named. There were trains of humble 
 followers, as is the way of the world. It goes without tell- 
 
 31 
 
Autobiographical Reminiscence 
 
 ing that the meadow was a famous foraging place. There 
 was always something to nibble, and children are as ad 
 dicted to this as young lambs. Our little foresters were 
 always perfumed with sassafras or wintergreen. 
 
 The latter was in evidence through the whole year. Its 
 spicy young shoots were among the earliest of the "green 
 things growing," and all summer the shining leaves were 
 good munching. Then came the delightful wintergreen ber 
 ries which stayed on all winter, and could be found on the 
 lee side of old logs, when snow lay thick on the ground un- 
 faded by frost and with undiminished flavor. Sassafras 
 grew everywhere along the edges of the fields. What aro 
 matic pungencies lay in leaf and bark and root ! What grate 
 ful coolness and flavor the white pith gave to a glass of 
 water ! 
 
 All the mints flourished in this garden of simples: spear- 
 mint, balms of two or three kinds, pennyroyal, peppergrass, 
 and watercress. Early in July great luscious strawberries 
 abounded, and later came huckleberries and blueberries, 
 dewberries and blackberries, each according to its season. 
 The little Potawottimies must have had rare pickings there 
 in the old days, but the Government had ere this moved the 
 tribe to a new reservation far to the westward. 
 
 To the pale-face children also must come the inevitable 
 changes of Time. Let us drop the curtain while all is well 
 with them and leave mother and children among the flow 
 ers. 
 
 More than half a century has passed. Strangers live in 
 the old home. The great trees have all disappeared. The 
 meadow has been converted into a fruitful field. All who 
 loved the wild-flower garden are far away, most of them in 
 the Invisible Country and the garden itself is irreparably 
 and forever gone. 
 
 Gone, do we say? Nay, verily. It lives and shall live. 
 "God s colors all are fast." 
 
 Its blossoms take their place beautiful, fragrant, im 
 mortal among the asphodels. 
 
 32 
 
Frederic^ Field 
 
 Biographical Pages 
 By Mabel Field Hastings 
 
My homesick heart would backward turn 
 To find this dear familiar Earth, 
 
 To watch its sacred hearth fires burn 
 And hear its songs of joy and mirth. 
 
 Pd lean from out the heavenly choir 
 To hear once more the red cock crow 
 
 What time the morning s rosy fire 
 O er hill and field begin to glow. 
 
 To hear the ripple of the rain, 
 
 The summer waves at ocean s brim, 
 
 To hear the sparrow sing again 
 
 I d quit the wide-eyed cherubim. 
 
 And yet, and yet, O dearest one, 
 
 My comfort from life s earliest breath, 
 
 To follow you where you are gone 
 
 Through those dim awful Gates of Death, 
 
 To find you, feel your smile once more, 
 
 To have eternity s long day 
 To tell my grateful love why then 
 
 Both Heaven and Earth might pass away. 
 
 Celia Thaxter. 
 
Photograph by 
 Huntington Gilbert 
 
 FREDERICK FIELD 
 
 Biographical pages regarding Mrs. Mary Field would be 
 only partly true if but slight mention were made of Fred 
 erick Field, whose "dauntless hope and patient care and 
 generous sacrifice" his wife commemorates in the first poem 
 of this volume. His chivalrous mind maintained for his 
 wife, freedom, a large measure of leisure, perfect health, 
 opportunity for a joyful intellectual life. 
 
 In Dorset, Vermont, in 1820, in the old homestead of the 
 broad elms pictured above Frederick Field was born to true 
 love and care. O wise and kind, dearest old New England 
 home! Your light still shines from many young faces of 
 the third and fourth generations. 
 
 35 
 
Frederick Field 
 
 About 1820, over in Stockbridge, Mass., Frederick Field s 
 kinsmen were growing up: Cyrus Field, Stephen J., James 
 T., David Dudley and Henry M., in one household, product of 
 another good New England home. 
 
 The delicate, oversensitive face of Alfred Field, father of 
 Frederick Field, looks forth from a clear old daguerreotype. 
 Faithful eldest brother of thirteen children, he had seen 
 long training and was grown swift and erudite in kindness. 
 "Squire" Alfred Field was made administrator without 
 bonds (and incidentally without fee) for uncounted widows 
 and orphans. "Faculized" and "forehanded" (in good down 
 East phrase) his stony stock farm prospered and endowed 
 each of his four children. Frederick Field s great-grand 
 father gave his life in the Revolutionary War. Lest we for 
 get, let it be set down that this patriotism left his son a 
 fatherless boy who went barefoot to winter school. This 
 son married Governor Huntington s granddaughter, who 
 held a little teacher s certificate, unusual in that day (now 
 an heirloom still outlasting). Her daughter, Saphronia Gil 
 bert, Frederick Field s mother, was a thoughtful woman, 
 who read far into the night through the arctic winters. She 
 had seen "the great plague" sweep the Vermont valleys, 
 when she had been called far and wide as a brave and skill 
 ful nurse in her thirteenth year. 
 
 Little Frederick even in the puritanic atmosphere of that 
 time, so the record runs, never once required real "punish 
 ment." He was a friendly little one. We see him fondly 
 clothed in apple green, the little trousers reaching to the 
 ankle, a short-waisted jacket begirt with many small yellow 
 buttons, white hose, strapped slippers, this at the age of 
 six. His costume was topped off by a tall white silk hat 
 such as is worn now only by "Uncle Sam" in all cartoons. 
 There has been handed down one tale of his sixth year. 
 Then, one morning, Frederick found a new baby sister in 
 the house. Thereafter, all that spring, it was difficult to 
 persuade little Frederick to set forth without a heavy plaid 
 shawl, which all day he wanted to carry to wrap a sister in 
 
FROM THE FIELD FARM 
 
 From a painting by Mabel Field Hastings 
 
Frederick Field 
 
 if he should chance to find another, in fresh-turned furrow 
 or among small new leaves in the keen spring weather 
 kind little soul ! In the Dorset home, his grandfather, Amos 
 Field, sat at the good fireside and told his memories of "em 
 battled farmers" in the great war for liberty. And told of 
 a yet earlier day when a daughter of the house was captured 
 by Indians at the Deerfield massacre. A wild story: the 
 captive white girl loved her children of the forest and her 
 young Indian husband, and though he would have joined 
 the white settlement, she never could be persuaded to stay 
 long in "civilization" with its torture of finatic puritanism. 
 Difficult alternatives were yours, Mary Field, plucky toast 
 of our latter day Thanksgiving dinner! 
 
 Frederick Field was one of the many pale New England 
 boys who went into the rough West as teachers in public 
 school. He had then, and always after, a special interest 
 in chemistry. Later and through life he was a dealer in 
 marble and granite. He imported to Chicago the first gran 
 ite foundations of the city. In 1855 when he brought home 
 his bride, it chanced they came unexpected to the door of 
 the old homestead. They overheard the voice of Mrs. Al 
 fred Field within cheering on another daughter-in-law 
 through devious ways of preserving wild berries: the ca 
 ressing voice floated out across the hospitable, old threshold 
 to the ear of the timid young Western bride without and 
 thereupon she trusted her husband s mother, unseen, with a 
 trust undimmed to the end. They were a united family. Mr. 
 Field was devotedly attached to his sister, Mrs. James Good 
 rich, his sister, Ellen Field, and his brother, Charles Field, 
 who served with distinction as an officer in the Civil War. 
 
 Mr. Field s home was in East Dorset, Vermont, from 1855 
 to 1873 when, soon after the completion of the transconti 
 nental railroad, he brought his family to San Jose, Califor 
 nia, which became their home for many years. He was a 
 student of civics. In active service he upheld every public 
 cause, yet with fine mental poise no man was more sane. 
 Dr. Henry Minton wrote of him as "challenging universal 
 
Photographed by Huntington Gilbert 
 
 DORSET, VERMONT 
 
Fr e d e r i c k F i eld 
 
 admiration, a champion ever mindful of the highest wel 
 fare of the community, the ready sharer of men s joys, the 
 willing partner of their grief; yet with character of gran 
 ite, not of sickly sentiment or of mere sediment of circum 
 stance a very father in the wisdom of his counsels, a 
 brother in the loyalty of his affection, a man to love!" 
 Socially his taste was flawless. The fortunate and the dis 
 tinguished folk, many of whom knew him, were loath to 
 leave the clear light of his presence. He was many an out 
 cast man s most cheerful friend. He carried consummately 
 well, a man s part. He bore through life the sore burden of 
 a weak physique, and other daily loads too heavy for mor 
 tal, he endured with fortitude. His children say of him 
 that he never spoke in haste and bitterness, or called his 
 unceasing toil irksome or failed of dignified good cheer. He 
 was a perfect disciplinarian of his varying boys : the youth 
 ful culprits were commonly rendered helpless in laughter by 
 the tonic phrases of his ingenious wit. It was his skillful 
 arm that fended his wife from knowledge of hardships that 
 are the common lot of woman. 
 
 In his sixty-seventh year, still in his prime, when on duty 
 as a member of the State Board of Trade in 1887, an acci 
 dent caused Mr. Field s death. Concerning the tragedy, the 
 following editorial was written by Judge John E. Richards: 
 
 "The death of Frederick Field is a mournful loss to the 
 community. * * * * * The manner of his taking off seems 
 all unsuited to the quiet, careful method of his days. We 
 think of such men as he going down the shady vale of life 
 in gentleness, gradually withdrawing from the dusty high 
 ways of "business to the retired and love-strewn footpaths 
 of a good old age. It seems almost unkind of Providence to 
 permit the grim Destroyer to exercise so harsh and cruel 
 a method upon so kind and just a man. Yet after all there 
 is a fitness behind it, for he fell in the direct path of duty 
 and in the very midst of endeavor for the public good. * * *" 
 
 His wife wrote of him: "Memorial stones will crumble, 
 
Frederick Field 
 
 but his life of simple unostentatious right-doing has left its 
 strong and abiding impress on all who knew him, and the 
 influence of his sweet, pure, unselfish spirit is as deathless 
 as the eternity of God." 
 
 John Vance Cheney wrote, in part as follows: "Among 
 all the enconiums called forth by the life of Ralph Waldo 
 Emerson, perhaps the highest was addressed not to the 
 poet, not to the scholar and philosopher, but to the man a 
 power tender and paternal has passed from Earth. In oth 
 er words, the thing men reverence most, remember first and 
 last, is a right heart. Such a heart was Mr. Field s. It 
 reached out to the great brotherhood of men. Of the many 
 who sought his aid, not one left him without such aid as he 
 could give. Rarely may one chance on a name so free from 
 damaging criticism, proof against stain. I attended the 
 funeral. As I entered the church a glance was sufficient to 
 show that the respect and affection won by him in the lit 
 tle New England State had followed him to the Western 
 shore: behind the altar and on either side was one mass of 
 fresh white flowers set in green leaves, while against the 
 altar rail leaned a sheaf of ripe wheat, pure gold an em 
 blem fitting as beautiful. A large concourse of mourners 
 crowded the church." 
 
 Dr. Henry Minton said in public address: * * * * * "The 
 plain truth is the highest eulogy. God s best gift to men is 
 a good man. Go not to the probate court to learn what such 
 a man leaves to the world : ask the poor in their poverty, ask 
 the sorrowing in their sadness, the struggling in their con 
 flict, ask the men who knew him best and the neighbors who 
 saw him most. Frederick Field leaves a memory of vastly 
 greater value than a vault stuffed with bonds. We have a 
 regal estate of Blessed Memory of a beautiful faithful life." 
 
 After the lapse of half a lifetime, the remembrance of 
 him makes life dear. 
 
 Mabel Field Hastings. 
 
Po 
 
 ems 
 
 Wedded Love 
 
FREDERICK FIELD 
 
 From a painting by Mabel Field Hastings 
 
TO FREDERICK FIELD 
 
 On his sixtieth birthday 
 
 We live in deeds, not years, the poet said 
 
 O comrade mine, 
 If this be true and thy good deeds were weighed, 
 
 What age is thine! 
 
 With old Methusaleh s thy years compare 
 
 If of deep thought 
 And generous sacrifice and patient care 
 
 Long life be wrought. 
 
 But if we measure youth by warmth of heart, 
 
 By guileless joy, 
 By dauntless faith and hope, how young thou art, 
 
 My graybeard boy! 
 
 Why talk of birthdays? Like an oft heard chime 
 
 We ll let them pass. 
 Years touch not the Immortal Father Time, 
 
 Put up thy glass ! 
 
"SWEETHEART, FROM THIS MOST 
 FATEFUL HOUR" 
 
 To Metta A bbott Taylor on her wedding day in 
 December. 
 
 Sweetheart, from this most fateful hour I pray 
 
 Your life may take such summer radiance on 
 
 That in your calendar the seasons may 
 
 Reversal find, so that when years have gone, 
 
 If one should question: "When does sunshine glow 
 
 Most brightly in this California air? 
 
 When sing the birds best? When do roses blow?" 
 
 Like a frank, happy child, all unaware 
 
 Of telling your sweet secret, you shall say: 
 
 "To me December crowns the golden year, 
 
 To me it is the songful blossoming May, 
 
 Of all the months its sunshine is most clear." 
 
 GOLDEN WEDDING 
 
 To Mr. and Mrs. James Goodrich. 
 (Read at their golden wedding day reception. ) 
 
 Sweet is the morn with dew and glowing bloom 
 And song of waking bird. 
 
 But evening is the time of firelight cheer 
 Clasped hand and thoughtful word. 
 
 And spring is sweet with promise unfulfilled 
 Of opening bud and leaf, 
 
 But autumn is the time of harvest-home, 
 Of vintage and of sheaf. 
 
 46 
 
O Evening, dear to weary eye and hand, 
 O Autumn, end of fears, 
 
 O Harvest of immeasurable wealth, 
 golden crown of Years! 
 
 BENEATH THE LAMP 
 
 Beneath the lamp their shadows blend and fall. 
 She plies her graceful needle art, 
 He reads of distant land and mart 
 
 But far and faintly comes the great world s call, 
 The great world s joy and pain: 
 Their hearts beat one refrain, 
 "The world is wide, the world is wide 
 But you and I are side by side." 
 
 Beneath the lamp their shadows blend and fall, 
 She reads the storied page aloud 
 In low sweet voice, while round them crowd 
 
 The splendid groups that sweep through Fancy s hall, 
 Its world of joy and pain : 
 Their hearts beat one refrain, 
 "The world is wide, the world is wide 
 But you and I are side by side." 
 
 Beneath the lamp their shadows blend and fall, 
 
 Her fingers glance along the keys 
 
 And weave entrancing harmonies, 
 Sadness and gladness come in music s thrall, 
 
 Its world of joy and pain: 
 
 Their hearts beat one refrain, 
 
 "The world is wide, the world is wide 
 
 But you and I are side by side." 
 
 47 
 
COMRADE MARY 
 
 To Colonel and Mrs. Bennett. 
 (Read at their silver wedding day reception) 
 
 Let others sing of wedded love, 
 
 Comrade Mary. 
 There s none will question what they prove, 
 
 Nor even vary 
 
 From all their most romantic views, 
 Nor once a willing ear refuse. 
 
 But I have been where drum and fife 
 
 Were loudly calling, 
 And where the brave in deadly strife 
 
 Were nobly falling; 
 There side by side we comrades fought 
 And our dear land s long rescue wrought. 
 
 We shared each other s joys and cares; 
 
 And ever brightly 
 To me the camp-fire s beacon flares 
 
 Where then we nightly 
 Lay down upon our arms, with dreams 
 Of home s dear, peaceful hills and streams. 
 
 Since then it is the comrade-place 
 
 Seems still the nearest; 
 The comrade-name bears truest grace, 
 
 And ever dearest 
 
 To soldier hearts the song, I ween, 
 That tells about the old canteen! 
 
 Together we will forward go, 
 
 Comrade Mary. 
 Thy loyal heart not weal or woe 
 
 Doth ever vary. 
 
 How sweet the past, since shared by thee! 
 We ll trust the future s comradery. 
 
 Golden, Colorado, 92 
 
 48 
 
KITTY FIELD 
 
 (In a "wedding day book") 
 
 Here s my blessing with my kiss 
 
 Kitty Field! 
 May the cup of wedded bliss 
 
 Only yield 
 
 Honeyed sweetness to your lip, 
 As its chalice deep you sip, 
 
 Kitty Field! 
 
 Well I knew your childhood s wile, 
 
 Kitty Field, 
 Brown bright eyes with tear or smile 
 
 Unconcealed 
 
 Though I left your changeful face 
 And your dawn of maiden grace 
 
 Half revealed. 
 
 Be the same dear child for aye, 
 
 Kitty Field, 
 Honest-hearted, sad or gay, 
 
 And you ll wield 
 Such a scepter as a queen 
 Well might envy you, I ween, 
 
 Kitty Field! 
 
 49 
 
CONGRATULATION 
 
 To Dr. and Mrs. Snouoden on wedding anniversary. 
 
 Not to the fair young bride who trembling stands 
 Her footsteps touching new and doubtful lands, 
 Whose smiles pathetic, flitting come and go, 
 With soft eyes tear-filled, which must not overflow, 
 Her tender heart all loyalty and truth 
 Leaving the sweet allegiances of youth 
 To home and parents, and unquestioning 
 Pledging new fealties to her life s new king. 
 Oh, not on her your gratulations pour 
 And tell her happy fortunes o er and o er 
 For long and shadowy stretch the coming years ; 
 Fickle and frail is man, and bitter tears 
 Are often woman s portion here, where hearts 
 Estranged grow, or death their strong bond parts. 
 But give your words of warmest gladdest cheer 
 To her whose wedded bliss has grown each year 
 Till o er her head a score of them have passed 
 Each brighter, sweeter, dearer than the last; 
 Whose love has no betrayal found, nor trust 
 Met cold response, its idol turned to dust; 
 Who stands serenely at her husband s side 
 Dearer to him than when a white-robed bride, 
 Wearing with matron grace her jewels rare, 
 Her brave bright boys and daughters good and fair; 
 Ruling a sovereign queen, o er hearts most true, 
 The best of earth all hers, and Heaven in view! 
 
 50 
 
BIRD SONG 
 
 To Mr. and Mrs. E. V. Rollins 
 (Read at their golden wedding day reception) 
 
 What a joyous pair of robins 
 Built their happy nest together 
 In the fickle April weather 
 In the sunshine and the snow 
 Long ago! 
 
 What a rapturous pair of robins 
 Saw the little birdlings come 
 To that pleasant, far-off home 
 With the breaking of a dawn 
 Later on! 
 
 What a busy pair of robins 
 Flew about in sun or rain 
 Just to rear those birdlings twain 
 And their every need to fill, 
 Later still! 
 
 What a serious pair of robins 
 Saw those nestlings fly away 
 With the coming of a day 
 One that cometh soon or late, 
 Sure as fate! 
 
 But did ever pair of robins 
 Keep their happy nest together 
 Fifty years of changeful weather- 
 Tell us, you who know bird lore 
 These before? 
 
 51 
 
Such a wondrous pair of robins! 
 Dear John Burroughs, did you ever? 
 Olive Miller, sure you never 
 Had such robins cross your way. 
 Did you, pray? 
 
 Comes their answer: "Keep those Robins; 
 Never such were seen before. 
 Keep them! Prize them! For no more 
 Shall such birds of paradise 
 
 Greet your eyes!" 
 
 52 
 
Motherhood 
 
COMPENSATION 
 
 In sorrow shall thou bring forth children. 
 
 Genesis III, 16. 
 I. 
 
 Dear mother of the race, when fell thy woe 
 
 With what rich counterpoise of blissful fate 
 
 Did heaven endow thy sorrowful estate ! 
 
 How did thy bitter cup with sweets o erflow, 
 
 Thy thorny crown with priceless jewels glow! 
 
 Out of thy curse was born the love most great, 
 
 The matchless love which naught can alienate, 
 
 Nax, which gainst darkness doth most brightly show. 
 
 Could smile of angel-babe such love e er gain 
 As the sad wail that shares the mother s pain? 
 And ah, what pity folds the baby in 
 Whose stainless soul must hide some germ of sin! 
 Veiled in thick cloud still dwells the Supreme Good 
 And glory crowns the cross of Motherhood. 
 
 II. 
 
 If to each yearning mother-heart were sent 
 
 A shining angel who with reverent air, 
 
 As one who royal gift from king doth bear, 
 
 Gave to her arms a little Innocent 
 
 On whom her wealth of love could all be spent; 
 
 Or if, as the quaint legends tell, the fair 
 
 Dear babes were brought with gentlest care 
 
 Beneath their great soft wings, all down-besprent, 
 
 By solemn storks; or if in lily-boat 
 
 The seeker found each pretty waif afloat, 
 
 Such treasure-trove could ne er the rapture bring 
 
 Or boundless love, born of deep suffering. 
 
 Of long, long vigils, prayer and tear and sigh 
 
 And travail pain life s fiercest agony. 
 
 55 
 
MOTHERHOOD 
 
 Across a troubled sea, far, far away, 
 
 My wistful eyes espy 
 A little tremulous sail, at set of day, 
 
 Unfurled against the sky. 
 
 So veiled in soft obscure, so faint to see, 
 
 Its quiet shimmering, 
 Sometimes it seems no human thing to me 
 
 But gleam of angel s wing, 
 
 And yet the current of my life so flows 
 
 Toward this vision fair, 
 I know, I know for me it pales and glows, 
 
 It cannot fade in air. 
 
 With my own heartbeats throbs the wavering sail, 
 
 My sighs the pennons move, 
 And hither seeks the magnet without fail 
 
 The pole-star of my love. 
 
 What precious gifts this shadowy barque do freight 
 
 There is no sign to show, 
 What frail, small mariner there enshrined doth wait 
 
 No mortal yet may know. 
 
 Still on the waters moves the Spirit now 
 
 As neath the olden skies: 
 Before this secret of the Lord I bow 
 
 With veiled and reverent eyes. 
 
 And vainly does my restless thought essay 
 
 To haste the coming sail; 
 But oh, from reef and wreck, dear Pilot, may 
 
 This love of mine avail! 
 
 56 
 
So will I keep my vigil and in awe, 
 
 Like Mary, dwell apart; 
 Unshod toward God s mysteries we draw, 
 
 My brooding mother-heart. 
 
 Ah, heavenly-sweet thy recompense shall be 
 When, every fear at rest, 
 
 The little barque shall lie home, home from sea- 
 Safe anchored on thy breast. 
 
 Dorset, Vermont, 1869. 
 
 From "LULLABY" 
 
 Like a lily asleep on the broad Nile s breast, 
 A cradle of rushes swings at rest, 
 And the poor slave mother by night steals nigh 
 To sing little Moses his lullaby. 
 Lullaby, darling, lullaby. 
 
 Adown the ages soft rolls the strain, 
 Always at nightfall the same refrain, 
 Wherever is heard the baby s cry 
 There rises the mother s lullaby. 
 Lullaby, darling, lullaby. 
 
 Somewhere the first star glimmers down, 
 On fair little Thekla or Hinda brown, 
 Ever the dusk creeps over some sky 
 And the air is astir with lullaby. 
 Lullaby, darling, lullaby. 
 
 57 
 
THE CONFIDANTE 
 
 "Whom shall I tell my dream?" she thought, 
 
 As fled the night 
 "My dream which to my heart hath brought 
 
 Such deep delight. 
 
 "For tis a gleam from Heaven, I wis 
 
 No dream e er pressed 
 With passion and with power like this 
 
 Upon my breast. 
 
 "And ne er before hath midnight spell 
 
 Enthralled me so 
 That to some seeress knew I well 
 
 I straight must go!" 
 
 First to a sleep-sealed ear leaned she, 
 
 Murmuring above, 
 Bee-like, "Not yet, even to thee, 
 
 My dearest love!" 
 
 Then kneeling, whispered rapt and slow 
 
 Her matin prayer, 
 But found no words wherewith to show 
 
 Her secret there. 
 
 Tell Mary Mother! like a flame 
 
 Sprang up the thought 
 But in her prayers that gentle name 
 
 Had ne er been wrought. 
 
 So forth into the fragrant morn 
 
 Her way she took 
 Where welcomes breathed from flower and thorn, 
 
 From bird and brook. 
 
 58 
 
Her snowy robe did her enfold 
 
 With tender care, 
 And round her beauteous head warm rolled 
 
 Her golden hair. 
 
 "Now I shall surely know," saith she, 
 
 "By sign or spell, 
 Which of this goodlie companie 
 
 Twere wise to tell." 
 
 A questioning leaf above her head 
 
 Beckoned to her, 
 "Tell me! Tell me." "Nay, nay," she said, 
 
 "Sweet whisperer." 
 
 Her garment s hem, a flower, dew-wet, 
 
 Reached up to kiss 
 "Nay, little maiden violet, 
 
 To thee, not this!" 
 
 And then she came to where a stream 
 
 Ran murmuring low: 
 "I ve told thee much," she said, "my dream 
 
 Thou mayst not know. 
 
 "Yet by thy luring side I ll sit 
 
 And muse awhile;" 
 And now a blush her face uplit, 
 
 And now a mile. 
 
 Then sudden on her charmed ear 
 
 A bird call stole, 
 A note inviting, urgent, clear, 
 
 From soul to soul. 
 
 Swift to the tryst she answering flew 
 
 Lo! on her nest 
 A brooding dove the secret knew 
 
 All unconfessed! 
 
 59 
 
MADONNAS OF RAPHAEL 
 
 How dear to Raphael the Madonna face! 
 
 With it he made his matchless frescoes glow, 
 
 And with his ardent brush taught men to know 
 
 Ineffable beauty and immortal grace. 
 Who were thy models, Master? In what place 
 
 Dwelt the supernal women thou dost show? 
 
 Couldst thou unaided make such beauty grow? 
 
 Who were thy Marys? What their wondrous race? 
 Perchance his own young mother o er him bent, 
 
 A haloed saint. Or his Beloved One 
 
 Cradling in her dear arms a little son, 
 Moved through his dreaming and the vision lent 
 
 Nay, in all mothers he saw Mary mild, 
 
 And in each innocent babe a Holy Child. 
 
 New York 1910. 
 
 ONCE 
 
 Ah, I remember how with shaded light 
 
 And quiet step I used to go my round 
 
 Among my little flock, all slumber-bound, 
 
 And grow so full of heart at the sweet sight 
 
 I scarce could pray, "God, keep them safe to-night," 
 
 Till I had poured my thanks, too deep for sound of words. 
 
 My God, Thou knowest I never found 
 Heart to rejoice because my path was bright 
 While other mothers bent o er empty beds 
 And mourned for just such little golden heads. 
 But filled with tender ruth for their great woe 
 I cried, "God help them." Then with swift o erflow 
 Of shuddering fear, because of too great bliss, 
 I prayed, "Let this cup pass me! Spare me this!" 
 
 60 
 
ANNIVERSARY 
 
 (Anniversary of the death of three children in 
 the fall of 1 870) 
 
 A year ago ! How long ago it seems 
 Light, love and joy were ours in boundless store. 
 Then Azrael stretched his wing across our sky, 
 And darkness fell upon our sunny home. 
 Quenched was our little lamp, and on the hearth 
 Not even an ember glowed to cheer the gloom, 
 But patient still and with sad hearts of trust 
 We held each other s hands and said through tears, 
 "It is the Lord, He does what seems Him good 
 Joy cometh in the morning, let us wait." 
 
 But when the morn should come athwart our sky 
 There stretched a drear eclipse most like a pall. 
 Oh, will it ever lift? Will turn of sphere 
 Or swift-revolving years give back our light 
 Or clear our heaven of that penumbra vast? 
 
 It fell upon us in the autumn time 
 And now again down drop the dying leaves. 
 With tender ruth, dear friends who love us well, 
 Reach out to us kind hands and say low words, 
 "God pity you, in this heart-breaking time!" 
 "Heaven help you through these anniversaries!" 
 
 My God! My God! How little do they know 
 
 There are no times and seasons to our grief, 
 
 No ebb or flow to this great ocean flood, 
 
 All days and hours are our memorial time, 
 
 Each new recurring day or month or year 
 
 Makes but another day or month or year 
 
 Of sorrow, not revived but still prolonged. 
 
 Thou only knowest, Thou who knowest all 
 
 Through the thick darkness still we grope for Thee. 
 
 O, speak to us, our God, for we are blind 
 
 By reason of our tears. As once beside 
 
 The still, dark sepulchre there cried a voice, 
 
 61 
 
Real, audible, "Behold the Lord is risen!"; 
 So send some pitying angel, not too bright 
 For our poor vision, who shall say to us, 
 "Your dead are risen! Lo they are not here!" 
 
 Then might our sky be radiant once more 
 
 A glorious Easter morn should end our night, 
 
 And all our days of earthly pilgrimage 
 
 Be blessed Easter anniversaries. 
 
 PARTED 
 
 Unto our cottage door one morn there came 
 
 Two wandering cherubs innocent and sweet, 
 
 No dust of travel on their small bare feet, 
 
 Spake not our language, answered to no name. 
 
 Straightway we bade them welcome, took them in, 
 
 Clothed them and fed them, grudged no added care, 
 
 Nor entertained our angels unaware, 
 
 But sought to fold them safe from harm and sin. 
 
 Each was most lovely in his own dear way, 
 
 One claimed our love because he was so brave and bright, 
 
 And one because a lingering heavenly light 
 
 About his gentle face and mien did stay. 
 
 We made them ours, and human-wise began 
 
 To paint their blended future rainbow hued, 
 
 Two pleasant pathways lying side by side 
 
 Nor ever once diverging as they ran. 
 
 For see, we said, how plainly we can read 
 
 The good Lord s thought for these His little ones, 
 
 The unity which through their being runs, 
 
 How each conforms unto the other s need. 
 
 62 
 
One in life s field will boldly do and dare 
 
 And cheer his brother with his dauntless eyes, 
 
 While one will humblest things idealize 
 
 And fold both lives in atmosphere of prayer. 
 
 Forth fared the little pilgrims hand in hand, 
 
 And all our cherished hopes did prove most true; 
 
 The pleasant years on noiseless pinions flew, 
 
 Each blessed the other even as we had planned. 
 
 Then fell a woful darkness on our day. 
 
 The gentle boy turned heavenward his look, 
 
 Spoke mystic words, how he "must cross a brook," 
 
 Laid his frail hands in ours, then went away. 
 
 Leaving us, ah so desolate! 
 
 Our joy a wreck, our hopes dashed down to earth, 
 
 And the poor child so favored in his birth 
 
 Now doubly wretched in his lonely fate. 
 
 Father in heaven! Hear Thy children s moan, 
 
 Open our grief-blind eyes that we may see 
 
 A ministering spirit sent by Thee 
 
 Wearing our darling s shape immortal grown. 
 
 Still let us catch a gleam of his dear face 
 
 Helpful and sweet, a heavenly guiding star 
 
 Soft shining on his brother s path from far 
 
 And making sacred each familiar place. 
 
 The way is short though seeming long, we know 
 
 A thousand years are in Thy sight a day, 
 
 The paths will only part a little way 
 
 Even if to life s far bound this child should go 
 
 And if at last, a worn old man, should come 
 
 Unto "the little brook" so long before 
 
 His brother crossed, upon the farther shore 
 
 Will not two rapturous souls seek one blest home. 
 
 63 
 
INDIAN FUNERAL 
 
 On a low pile of logs lay the dead form of Sally, the old squaw. Upon 
 
 her heart was placed her papoose basket. " 
 "Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevadas" by King 
 
 Around the waiting pile 
 The women wail and moan, 
 
 She has wandered long with them, 
 Now she goes forth alone. 
 
 What parting gift shall they place 
 Within her clay-cold hand? 
 
 What will she yet hold dear 
 Afar in the spirit-land? 
 
 She loved her slender spear, 
 Her bow so lithe and strong 
 And her toil s rude implements 
 Which had served her well and long. 
 Dear to her woman s heart 
 Her blanket s gaudy fold 
 And her shining ornaments 
 Of rude barbaric mould. 
 
 But are these the treasures heaped 
 Above the pulseless breast? 
 For these do the dumb lips plead 
 As her dearest and her best? 
 Nay, holier instincts far 
 Run with their wild swift blood, 
 And their untaught souls are rich 
 In the lore of motherhood. 
 
 64 
 
On her quiet heart they lay 
 Her papoose basket small 
 For this in the hour supreme 
 They hear the still voice call, 
 The quaintly beauteous thing 
 Her wild sweet fancy planned 
 And wrought with the patient skill 
 Of her cunning artist hand! 
 
 The pale-face mother shapes 
 Robes for her darlings wear 
 Broidering her tenderness 
 In the garments soft and fair; 
 And the Indian mother weaves 
 Her papoose basket fine, 
 Writing love s heiroglyph 
 In willowy curve and line. 
 
 It has held her dusky babes 
 As she roamed over vale and hill, 
 Been their bough-hung breeze-rocked nest- 
 To her it holds them still. 
 With hers shall its ashes blend 
 And its pale shade float above, 
 Shrine of her dearest joys, 
 Type of her deathless love! 
 
 Thou hast made all mother-hearts, 
 Lord of the living and dead, 
 Thou hast made them of one blood 
 Even as Thy Word hath said : 
 Deep calleth unto deep 
 In the soul s unfathomed sea 
 I would that my babies cradle 
 Might moulder to dust with me! 
 
 Dorset, Vt., 1869. 
 
 65 
 
MATER DOLOROSA 
 
 Because of little low-laid heads all crowned 
 
 With golden hair, 
 Forevermore all fair young brows to me 
 
 A halo wear; 
 I kiss them reverently, alas, I know 
 
 The pain I bear. 
 
 Because of dear, but close-shut, baby eyes 
 
 Of heaven s own blue, 
 All little eyes do fill my own with tears 
 
 Whate er their hue; 
 And lovingly I bend their innocent 
 
 Clear depths to view. 
 
 Because of little pallid lips which once 
 
 My name did call, 
 No childish voice in vain appeal upon 
 
 My ear doth fall; 
 I count it all my joy their joys to share 
 
 And sorrows small. 
 
 Because of little dimpled cherished hands 
 
 Which folded lie, 
 All little hands henceforth to me do have 
 
 A pleading cry; 
 I clasp them as they were small wandering birds 
 
 Lured, home to fly. 
 
 Because of little death-cold feet for earth s 
 
 Rough roads unmeet, 
 I d journey leagues to save from wrong or harm 
 
 Such little feet, 
 And count the lowliest service done for them, 
 
 Most sacred-sweet. 
 
 66 
 
FROM "CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR" 
 
 (A fragment) 
 
 Once I clasped my little baby 
 
 In its mortal agony; 
 Saw the sweet light fading, fading, 
 
 From bright lip and azure eye, 
 Called from mid the whelming billows, 
 
 "Father, spare my little child!" 
 Only heard for sign or answer 
 
 Voice of winds and waters wild, 
 
 Only held the waxen casket 
 
 Where my priceless gem once shone, 
 Veiled my face before its whiteness, 
 
 Uttered neither word nor moan: 
 For the whiteness awed my weakness, 
 
 And the stillness breathed a hymn 
 Crying, Holy, Holy, Holy! 
 
 Like the song of cherubim. 
 
 67 
 
EL DIA DE LOS CHIQUITOS 
 (THE DAY OF THE CHILDREN) 
 
 There is a beautiful tradition in Mexico that on the day 
 preceding All Saints Day, the spirits of all little children 
 who have died return to visit their homes, where a small 
 feast is spread for them. Tiny candles are also made ready 
 for the small guests to use in the evening when they form 
 a procession and go to the church to attend the Hallowe en 
 midnight mass. At daybreak they return to Paradise. 
 
 At the dawn of the day, each her bundle of linen bearing 
 
 On her motionless head, 
 The Mexican lavanderas are riverward faring 
 
 With their Juno-like tread. 
 
 Juanita leads the procession, the beautiful maiden, 
 
 Yet with daughterly care 
 
 Guides the steps of her grandmother Petra, who loves, 
 though year-laden, 
 
 Their toiling to share. 
 
 Josefa and Concha and Carmen come talking together 
 While, clear through the din, 
 
 Rise voices which cannot but sing in the heavenly weather 
 That folds them all in. 
 
 Beside them run tireless the children, now flocking with 
 others, 
 
 Now darting away, 
 
 With teasing and laughter beguiling the hearts of their 
 mothers 
 
 To join in their play. 
 
 From his safe shoulder-perch little Pablo is shouting with 
 gladness, 
 
 He is king of them all; 
 
 And yet there is one whom his glee cannot win from her 
 sadness, 
 
 One whose tears slowly fall. 
 
Ramona goes lonely and grieving ah, silent forever 
 
 To joy and to pain, 
 Will slumber her own little Pablo, awakening never 
 
 In sunshine or rain. 
 
 Only a week since he left her, so fresh is her sorrow; 
 
 Old is Petra s, the wise, 
 
 And she comforting speaks: "Our angels will come back 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Like birds from the skies." 
 
 To her words swift responded the thought of each listening 
 mother, 
 
 And all the day long 
 
 With murmurous tones, mid their work, they talked thus 
 with each other 
 
 In their speech, which is song: 
 
 Josef a : 
 
 "Sweetest of all the fiestas is this of the children; 
 
 When, dropping down with the sunbeams or adrift on 
 
 zephyrs, 
 The dear little wandering spirits flit silently homeward." 
 
 Maria : 
 
 "I fancy to-day they are busily planning their journey 
 
 The pretty, the venturesome darlings!" 
 
 Carmen : 
 
 "All dimpling and smiling 
 
 And gay at their daring, they ll slip from their heavenly 
 guardians 
 
 And leave their bright comrades the cherubs and starry- 
 eyed seraphs, 
 
 Who never knew earth and its mothers." 
 
 69 
 
Ram ona : 
 
 "Ah, sadly they ll miss them 
 
 Up there in the heavenly places, for how a day lengthens 
 Lacking the joy of their presence!" 
 
 Manuela : 
 
 "Not ever forgetting 
 How long I have mourned my Benito !" 
 
 All: 
 
 "No never forgetting!" 
 
 Mercedes : 
 
 "Oh my chiquita Abrama, my precious Dario, 
 In a moment swept from me, the terrible day of the earth 
 quake !" 
 
 Many voices: 
 
 "The terrible day of the earthquake! The roar and the 
 shrieking !" 
 
 Concha : 
 
 "And the time of the famine and fever, how woful the 
 
 memory, 
 When in every house there was wailing for children who 
 
 perished." 
 
 Petra: 
 
 "Let us speak no more of their going, it but brings back the 
 
 anguish. 
 Mother of angels! Talk now of their coming to-morrow." 
 
 Josef a : 
 
 "Crowding in at the doorways and hovering over the tables 
 That are spread with fruits and with sweets for their inno 
 cent feasting, 
 Shall we not almost see them, our beautiful darlings?" 
 
 70 
 
Juanita : 
 
 "Surely that which pleased them when here must ever de 
 light them; 
 
 I have a melon zapote to offer my brother, 
 Our little Luis who was drowned in this treacherous river." 
 
 Petra: 
 
 " Tis the fragrance and beauty they covet and chiefly the 
 
 loving, 
 Which incense-like breathes from the fond preparation." 
 
 Josef a : 
 
 "Nor will we 
 
 Forget the small candles they need for the evening paseOc 
 How lovely must be that little angelic procession ! 
 All the Saints guard them, and surely a blessing must follow 
 As they wind through the streets and around the plazas 
 
 familiar 
 
 Till they hear the deep bells for the midnight mass out- 
 pealing." 
 
 Carmen : 
 
 "Adown the still aisles how sweet to know they are passing 
 
 With their folded wings, their white robes, and shy glances 
 
 down dropping, 
 And each with his mystic invisible taper soft glowing!" 
 
 Manuela : 
 
 "At the sacred stations and pictures they linger low-kneel 
 ing, 
 
 And ever the Holy Child seems longing to join them, 
 And ever the Blessed Mother doth yearn to embrace them." 
 
 Many voices : 
 
 "Oh that our eyes could behold them, our fond arms enfold 
 them!" 
 
 Ramona : 
 
 "Alas, alas, they are not for our mortal embracing!" 
 
 71 
 
Petra: 
 
 "But we know that they come and we know that still do they 
 
 love us, 
 And love the poor homes of Earth once blest with their 
 
 presence." 
 
 Ramona (weeping) : 
 
 "With the daybreak they leave us." 
 
 Petra: 
 
 "Ah yes, but enriched by their coming; 
 It is a foretaste of heaven this day with our angels. 
 Hear us, sweet Mary Mother, when toiling and sorrow 
 Are ended forever, oh then let us go to our children!" 
 
 All: 
 
 "Let us go at last to our children! 
 
 Amen, ah, amen!" 
 
 Guanajuato, Mexico, 1907. 
 
 72 
 
Poems of Faith 
 
ULTIMA THULE 
 
 The last poem written. 
 (Dated New York, Easter 1908) 
 
 O sacred Past, whose sorrows now seem vales 
 
 Softened by mists that o er them ebb and flow, 
 
 Whose joys are like far peaks where sunlight fails 
 Only to melt in evening s alpine glow. 
 
 O peaceful Present! Storm and stress are past. 
 
 We are like mariners who as skies grow dim 
 And tides set shoreward, turn their prows at last 
 
 To harbor lights on the horizon s rim- 
 
 O blessed Future! Faith and Hope are ours, 
 
 Around us earth is growing green with spring, 
 
 Birds are exultant, wake the happy flowers: 
 
 Shall there not be for us new bourgeoning. 
 
 HYMN OF LABOR 
 
 O patient Christ of Galilee, 
 
 Our yoke by Thee was borne, 
 
 Thy meek brow wet with toil we see, 
 Thy garments poor and worn. 
 
 Neath heavy loads Thy form is bent, 
 Thy hands are hard and brown, 
 
 And at day s close all sad and spent 
 Thy gracious head bows down. 
 
 We bless Thee that each toiling life 
 May know this life of Thine, 
 
 May feel through weariness and strife 
 Thy company divine. 
 
 The lowly roof of Nazareth 
 
 Becomes our own rooftree, 
 
 Our burdens fall before Thy breath, 
 Brother of Galilee! 
 
 75 
 
MINISTERING SPIRITS 
 
 (Dated 1888) 
 
 In olden days it brought no deep surprise 
 
 Nor fright nor guilty shame 
 If unannounced adown the fresh young skies 
 
 God s glorious angels came. 
 
 They spake with men as loving brothers speak 
 
 With tenderest look and tone, 
 They comforted the poor, upheld the weak, 
 
 Guided the wanderer lone. 
 
 So sweet it seems that as we read the tale 
 
 We wonder, are we then 
 So far estranged, or doth our faith so fail? 
 
 Care they no more for men? 
 
 Ah no! Above the world s wild sorrow still 
 
 Throbs the great heart of love. 
 God s messengers still haste to do His will, 
 
 Still o er us broods the I>ove. 
 
 But in dear human form the angels hide, 
 
 They use familiar speech, 
 Their voices to our own are near allied, 
 
 Their hands to ours they reach, 
 
 Their warm tears fall with ours above our dead, 
 
 They whisper words of cheer, 
 And all that shining ones e er did or said 
 
 In them we see and hear. 
 
 O friends beloved ! I lift my tear-stained face, 
 
 I bless you in my prayer 
 How could I ever thus have entertained 
 
 My angels unaware! 
 
 76 
 
BIRTHDAY GIFT 
 
 I saw an angel, gracious-browed and calm, 
 
 Float down from the blue heaven, 
 His left hand bore all lovely gifts and rare 
 
 Which unto men are given. 
 
 Beauty and strength and wealth and rank and fame 
 
 Dropped from this hand like rain, 
 To some he gave unasked, unsought, unearned, 
 
 To some gave power to gain. 
 
 But in his strong right hand he bore aloft 
 
 Far other gifts than these: 
 Poverty, pain and loneliness of heart, 
 
 Wan death and dire disease. 
 
 Yet with a brow as fair, as sweet a smile, 
 
 These right hand gifts he gave, 
 With love-lit glance to one sent life-long woe, 
 
 To one an early grave. 
 
 I saw him bend above your golden head 
 
 And in strange wise he smiled, 
 While like far music fell the heavenly voice, 
 
 "Your birthday gift, dear child! 
 
 "And all because you are so dear, so dear, 
 
 Your soul so white and pure, 
 I lay on your young life the heritage 
 
 Of sorrow to endure. 
 
 "Then shall your broken heart feel others woe, 
 
 And like a healing balm 
 Upon all stormy griefs your sympathy 
 
 Shall lay a heavenly calm. 
 
 "And so your life shall flow with blessedness, 
 
 Your heart be glad with love, 
 Each birthday bring you deeper depths of joy 
 
 Till you are born above." 
 
 77 
 
"UNTO ME" 
 
 I bend to help a little straying child 
 
 And soothe away its fears 
 When lo! the Wondrous Babe, all undefiled, 
 
 Looks at me through its tears. 
 
 Beside a cot I kneel with pitying eyes, 
 
 A dying brow I fan 
 The pallet seems a cross and on it lies 
 
 One like the Son of Man. 
 
 The way is long, and when I pause to share 
 
 My cup, my crust of bread 
 With some poor wanderer O vision rare! 
 
 A halo crowns his head. 
 
 O er sin s dark wave there comes a drowning cry, 
 
 The woful tide I stem 
 And grasp for one who sinks the Christ is nigh, 
 
 I touch His garment s hem. 
 
 O Presence ever new and ever dear, 
 
 My Master! Can it be 
 In Thy great day of coming, I shall hear: 
 
 "Thou did st it unto Me"? 
 
 ALMOND BLOSSOMS 
 
 Flowers are poems. On their fragrant pages 
 Pure thoughts are traced addressed to eyes unsealed, 
 Hid from the wise and prudent through the ages 
 But unto babes revealed. 
 
 Lyric and ballad waiting the musician 
 Shine in these leaflets decked in blue and gold, 
 Long has their language been a sweet tradition 
 In folk-lore sung and told. 
 
 78 
 
Within the orange blossom s waxen whiteness 
 The madrigal of youth must ever glow 
 But from the almond s tenderer, clearer, brightness 
 The song of age doth flow. 
 
 Not words but vision :lo, a summit hoary 
 To which a soul hath climbed through night and day, 
 Whose silver sheen foretells a crown of glory 
 Which shall not fade away. 
 
 blessed heights! O surcease of life s dreaming! 
 Past are the nights from which one weeping wakes; 
 Past winter, like these blooms with spring foregleaming- 
 The Spring eternal breaks! 
 
 LENTEN PRAYER 
 
 If every staining thought 
 Struck out with staining trace, 
 If like a leprous spot 
 It shone upon the face, 
 If sins but dreamed, not wrought, 
 Should mar some outward grace: 
 Ah, who could tell our shame ! 
 What blanchings of wild dread, 
 What shrinkings of the frame, 
 What hidings of the head 
 All for poor human blame 
 What longings to be dead! 
 
 O Thou, our frailty s stay, 
 All, all is known to Thee: 
 Abased, forespent, we pray 
 Ourselves no more to see, 
 But oh, that Thy Love may 
 Our Shield and Refuge be ! 
 
 79 
 
RESURRECTION 
 
 Upon her little pallet, cold and fair, 
 
 The Ruler s darling lay, 
 More still than the white lilies near her there, 
 
 More white and still than they. 
 
 The wailers o er and o er bemoaned her fate, 
 
 And in her anguish wild 
 The mother sobbed: "Her father brings too late 
 
 The Healer to our child." 
 
 Then Christ spake there : "She sleeps, she is not dead." 
 Hushed were the clamorous cries; 
 
 And taking the small hand He gently said, 
 "Maiden, I bid thee rise." 
 
 She hears His voice even in Paradise, 
 
 The starry eyes unclose, 
 To pallid lip and cheek the warm blood flies, 
 
 And the dear child arose! 
 
 Raptured they clasped her and adoring fell 
 
 Low at His feet to stay, 
 But He, with grave sweet face inscrutable, 
 
 Turned to His lonely way. 
 
 Upon His heart still lay the great world s pall, 
 
 Still weighed its grief and loss, 
 While near He saw Gethsemane s darkness fall, 
 
 And shadowings of a Cross. 
 
 O Love divine, as by our graves to-day 
 
 Our sorrowing watch we keep, 
 Speak to the ear of faith and once more say : 
 
 "They are not dead, they sleep." 
 
 80 
 
CHRIST AND WOMAN 
 
 To Harriet Lewis on her departure as a missionary to 
 Canton, China 
 
 As in an ancient missal every leaf 
 
 With heavenly hues doth glow, 
 And seraph faces shine mid halos, wrought 
 
 By Fra Angelico; 
 
 The women of the Gospels, high and pure, 
 
 Yet with meek downward look, 
 Divinely sketched, with pearl-like rays illume 
 
 The pages of the Book. 
 
 They throng the Master s footsteps day by day, 
 
 They share His grief and scorn, 
 Deepen the shadows of the Cross, and light 
 
 The Resurrection Morn. 
 
 No tint e er fades, each word and look abides 
 
 In that immortal air; 
 The alabaster box forever gleams 
 
 Through Mary s golden hair. 
 
 And down the ages sacred beacons shine 
 
 Lit by pure woman souls, 
 Where saints and martyrs kneel on altar stairs 
 
 Crowned with bright aureoles. 
 
 Still on the blessed feet they daily pour 
 
 Their priceless hoards of love, 
 And the sweet incense of their offered lives 
 
 Ascendeth yet above. 
 
 While from the cloud the Master s voice yet speaks, 
 "This deed which she hath wrought 
 
 Shall still be told in memory of her 
 Where er my Truth is taught." 
 
 81 
 
HOME-COMING 
 
 (At the grave of Frederick Field, Dorset, Vermont] 
 
 Here in God s acre, room for this dear dust 
 
 We ask, O Mother Earth; 
 He loved you well, green hills, and seeks once more 
 
 The land that gave him birth. 
 
 Trees that he planted, wave your leafy joy, 
 
 And fleck with shine and shade 
 This peaceful home, that neath his native sky 
 
 Our reverent hands have made. 
 
 Dear kindred dead, we know that you would fain 
 Swing wide each green tent door, 
 
 As in the days gone by with unchanged smile 
 To welcome him once more. 
 
 And little hands, folded so long ago, 
 
 Dear little hands! it seems, 
 When he lies down beside you, you reach out, 
 
 As if in pleasant dreams. 
 
 Dear faithful mountains, still keep watch and ward 
 
 Our blessed dead above; 
 Till the great day of rising they are left 
 
 Unto your sheltering love. 
 
 O Sharer of Earth s graves! Our tear-blind eyes 
 
 We lift at last to Thee; 
 Write Thou Thy resurrection promise here 
 
 And give us faith to see. 
 
 82 
 
Photograph by Miss Brophy 
 
 EAST DORSET, VERMONT 
 
Occasional Verse 
 
TO STROTHER BEESON PURDY 
 
 (On receiving in Mexico a baby relative s 
 photograph, unlabeled] 
 
 Who cometh this sunny morn 
 
 From the far north-land to me? 
 Oh whom from the treasured past 
 
 Shall quickly my glad eyes see? 
 Ah, kinfolk and friends beloved, 
 
 What memories crowd my heart 
 As I watch for the old-time face 
 
 That shall bid my fond tears start! 
 
 So I muse as with eager hands 
 
 I loose the wrappings thta hold 
 The mystery hid from my eyes, 
 
 Till gone is each hindering fold 
 And lo, tis a baby s face 
 
 That looks forth bravely and clear; 
 Bold little rover indeed 
 
 To seek me alone, and here! 
 
 But tell me your name, my sweet, 
 
 And where is your home, I pray? 
 Comes never a sign to reveal 
 
 And never a word does he say! 
 Yet O, let me kiss you, dear, 
 
 Let me clasp you close to my breast, 
 Birdling from out of the north 
 
 So far from your cradle nest. 
 
 For I m finding the old home look 
 
 In your brow and your eyes of blue; 
 The generations agone 
 
 Are meeting and blending in you. 
 Darling, I claim you as mine, 
 
 In your telltale face I see 
 You are mine to have and to hold, 
 
 Bright flower on the ancient tree! 
 
 Mexico City, November, 1906. 
 
 87 
 
"WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR" 
 
 To William Richards Field, in his seventh year 
 
 Frederick is little but troubles are tall; 
 Mother s gone shopping and lost is the ball, 
 His new red balloon has gone up out of sight, 
 Kitty s a crosspatch and nothing is right. 
 
 William the Conqueror! Come to our aid, 
 Gentlest of heroes but never afraid, 
 Never a battle too doubtful for you, 
 Never a tangle you cannot undo. 
 
 What s a big brother for if not for this? 
 Drive all the blues away just with a kiss, 
 Whisper of cookies, of frolic, of fun 
 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR! Victory s won! 
 
 WHAT AILS GRANDMA? 
 
 To Frederick Field, in his fifth year. 
 
 What makes Grandma Field so gay, 
 Smiling to herself all day 
 In a sweet, mysterious way? 
 Frederick loves her! 
 
 What does Grandma whisper low 
 To the winds that westward blow 
 (Just as if the winds could know!) 
 Frederick loves her! 
 
 Ah, to-day a letter came 
 If she s silly, who s to blame? 
 It was signed with Frederick s name, 
 Frederick loves her! 
 
 88 
 
THE IMPRISONED SMILE 
 
 To the portrait bust of a child* 
 
 Here s a little wandering baby 
 Out of dreamland straying, 
 
 One of Raphael s cherubs maybe 
 Come to earth amaying, 
 
 With the Paradisic radiance 
 
 Round his head still playing. 
 
 Young bright eye, that drops its curtain 
 
 At our earnest glances, 
 Fair broad forehead, with a certain 
 
 Gleam of deeper fancies, 
 Dimpled contours where are written 
 
 Childhood s sweet romances. 
 
 Can he be a little mortal 
 
 To be praised or chidden, 
 
 Slipping from some human portal 
 After fruit forbidden, 
 
 All the ancient Eden story 
 
 In his small heart hidden? 
 
 Vain are all our thoughts and guesses, 
 Naught can coax him nearer, 
 
 Nothing that veiled eye confesses 
 Shows the mystery clearer; 
 
 Yet his very silence even 
 
 Makes him dear and dearer. 
 
 Ah, the art that thus can capture 
 
 Childhood s flying hour 
 And imprison its swift rapture, 
 
 Hints a Higher Power, 
 Which may give to Earth s brief passion 
 
 An immortal flower! 
 
 ^Sculptured by T. B. Jackson, 1886 
 
 89 
 
TO FLORA BEAL 
 
 Over her cradle the mother said, 
 "Now what shall I name my little maid? 
 Would Lily or Rose or Violet, 
 My bud of promise best befit? 
 
 "Nay, I will name her for all the flowers 
 Of wayside or woodland or garden bowers, 
 Then she may bloom at her own sweet will, 
 Flora will match with my blossom still!" 
 
 Oh wise young mother to read so well 
 The secret that only the years could tell! 
 For lily and rose and violet 
 In her gracious womanhood are met. 
 
 TO MY VALENTINE 
 
 To Dorothy Gilbert, Dorset, Vermont 
 
 Little Dorothy blithe and gay 
 Sent her heart to me to-day 
 Surely she s not far to find, 
 She ll not heartless lag behind. 
 
 What dear little girl is this 
 Tripping in with smile and kiss? 
 Ah, I very plainly see, 
 This is my sweet Dorothy G. ! 
 
 Is it a dream? Well then I ll try 
 Not to let it quickly fly; 
 Into my heart to stay with me 
 Enter little Dorothy G.! 
 
 San Diego, California, February fourteenth, 1912. 
 
 90 
 
VIDA S BAPTISM 
 
 Like dew upon a flower the chrismal drops 
 
 Gleam mid her golden hair, 
 Above her little head low vows are breathed 
 
 And tender words of prayer, 
 While o er and o er we say her precious name, 
 
 Her name so sweet and rare, 
 Vida, beloved. 
 
 Tears steal into our eyes all unaware, 
 And smiles shine through our tears, 
 
 Fears tremble through our brightest hopes for her, 
 Hopes waver mid our fears 
 
 Our little stricken lamb, whose early cross 
 A thousand fold endears, 
 Vida, beloved. 
 
 Peace troubled souls, if our poor human love 
 
 Deepens through sympathy, 
 How dearer far to the great Heart of God 
 
 His wounded ones must be! 
 Accept His chrism of pain, His seal of love 
 
 For all eternity, 
 
 Vida, beloved. 
 
 TO BERTHA BRUCE 
 
 (In a child s "autograph album") 
 
 O little maiden with southern tints 
 In your starry eyes and cheeks aflame 
 But with northern hints in your sturdy ways 
 And your grand old Saxon name. 
 
 Keep your heart aglow with the tropic warmth 
 That mantles your lip and cheek; 
 But when brain and soul need truth and force, 
 Let the brave old Norse blood speak! 
 
 91 
 
SANTA MARIA 
 
 To Maria Holly on her betrothal 
 
 In far off lands by summer seas, 
 The sweetest tones borne on the breeze 
 In words of fervent prayer are these: 
 Santa Maria! 
 
 Whate er befalls the dark-eyed race 
 They have one cry for help and grace, 
 One name for succor s hiding-place: 
 Santa Maria ! 
 
 And strange howe er may seem the tale, 
 I know a green New England dale 
 Where the same worship doth prevail 
 Santa Maria! 
 
 At her dear shrine bow man and maid, 
 The children seek her unafraid, 
 The lowliest soul is undismayed 
 Santa Maria! 
 
 Nor doth the church disturb her reign, 
 The cause to every eye is plain, 
 Parson and deacons swell her train 
 Santa Maria ! 
 
 Higher than pope s or bishop s art, 
 This sweet saint-making of the heart 
 Ah lonely vale, if thou depart, 
 Santa Maria! 
 
 92 
 
TO MABEL FIELD HASTINGS 
 
 If by her cradle side a form had stood, 
 
 Unearthly fair and girt with heavenly light 
 
 Yet not too blinding for my raptured sight, 
 
 And in his hands all gifts our thoughts hold good, 
 
 Beauty and Strength and that wide Love which should 
 
 Hold hearts in sway, Wit, Grace, Discernment bright, 
 
 With Wisdom all high power to use aright 
 
 Bidding me choose from these, in gracious mood: 
 
 And I with infinite desire aflame, 
 
 Breathless with haste yet hesitant with fear, 
 
 Had reached out trembling o er her little head, 
 
 Dear God! not even my love had made such claim 
 
 On Thy best gifts, such choice, such mingling clear, 
 
 As Thy good Hand upon her life has shed. 
 
 TO BETTY TISDALE 
 
 (In a child s "autograph album") 
 
 I knew your mother, dear, in auld lang syne 
 When she was but a merry little maiden, 
 
 And now her youth comes back to me in thine 
 And I forget the years with changes laden. 
 
 What better can I wish for you, my dear, 
 
 Than that your life, like hers, may be made beautiful 
 
 With love and home, and (maybe you ll smile here) 
 A little daughter ever dear and dutiful. 
 
 93 
 
TO LUCY WEBB HAYES 
 
 (Read at the reception in San Jose to President and Mrs. Rutherford 
 
 Hayes, under the auspices of the W. C. T. V., of which Mrs. 
 
 Hayes was a devoted member. 
 
 Far off where the dear world of English song 
 
 Lies in the shadow of its dim gray dawning, 
 
 On her white palfrey Lady Una moves, 
 
 Pure, solitary, like the star of morning. 
 
 Fair type of truth and stainless innocence 
 
 And singleness of purpose, high and fearless; 
 
 While by her side meek-tamed by her soft touch, 
 A mighty lion paces slow and peerless. 
 
 So through our modern times our Una goes, 
 
 White-panoplied with truth and courage holy. 
 
 Lays her fair hand upon a giant wrong, 
 
 And at her gentle feet it crouches lowly. 
 
 Well may they paint her on historic walls 
 
 *And write her own fit name to tell the story; 
 
 Lit by her torch a brighter dawn doth glow, 
 
 And the long years shall but enhance its glory. 
 
 Hail to her footsteps when they tread our ways! 
 
 To all your golden fields and sunny bowers 
 Hasten, young Daughters of the West, and bring 
 
 Sweet offerings of rarest fruits and flowers! 
 
 Rain sunshine on her gracious head, O sky! 
 
 With banners and with songs let childhood meet her, 
 And womanhood go forth with cordial hands 
 
 And beaming eyes and grateful hearts to greet her! 
 
 Hark while we pledge her, not with sparkling wine, 
 But in our sweetest, purest, brightest water: 
 
 Long life and all good gifts of God be hers, 
 
 Our Lady of the Light, our Nation s Daughter! 
 
 *Lucy, from the Latin lux (light). 
 
 94 
 
IN THE HERBARIUM 
 
 Oh not shut in by walls are we, 
 
 Nor through dim windows need we peer, 
 
 The dear blue sky is our roof tree, 
 
 The blessed outdoor world is here! 
 
 We breathe the fragrance of the pine, 
 
 The odor of the spruce and fir, 
 While flower and fern and trailing vine 
 
 With wild-wood dreams our senses stir. 
 
 Above us droop the clustering cones, 
 
 From mountain height or wave-beat shore; 
 Oh hark, what songs and antiphones, 
 
 Of murmurous woods and ocean s roar! 
 
 This is the camp fire s cheerful play; 
 
 No bonds or forms shall here hold good 
 Where gentle outlaws hold a sway 
 
 As free as that of Robin Hood. 
 
 Dear Mother Nature, take our praise! 
 
 So fold us all to thy great heart 
 That all our evening hearth fire s blaze 
 
 May seem, like this, of thee a part. 
 
 95 
 
FORTY YEARS 
 
 To Rev. P. S. Pratt on the fortieth anniversary of his pastorate 
 in Dorset, Vermont. 
 
 How like the Holy Book the record reads! 
 
 Our hearts must needs recall 
 The days of Moses and of Joshua, 
 
 Of David and of Saul. 
 
 Before us Hermon rears his snowy head, 
 
 Above us softly shine 
 Judean skies, and bloom around our feet 
 
 Lilies of Palestine, 
 
 As that dim, old-time boundary is placed 
 
 Our sea of life beside, 
 Marking for us one mighty ebb and flow 
 
 Of its slow moving tide. 
 
 And not unmeet to us it seems to write 
 
 Another, later name 
 Among the saints and heroes there enrolled 
 
 For long and sacred fame. 
 
 Dear Shepherd, who hast led us forty years 
 
 With love that never fails, 
 Through calm and storm, on sunny heights or down 
 
 Through shadow-haunted vales. 
 
 Thy voice has fallen in blessing on our babes, 
 
 Our joys have all been thine, 
 And to our sorrows thou hast ministered 
 
 With comfort all divine. 
 
 Oh, linked to us by every tender tie, 
 
 With eyes made dim by tears, 
 We turn the pages and bless God for thee 
 
 Through these dear forty years. 
 
 96 
 
"SANS DIEU RIEN" 
 
 The legend on the Field coat of arms 
 
 Oh wise and reverent legend, traced 
 The old armorial signs among! 
 
 Fit motto for a noble line, 
 
 "San Dieu rien! Sans Dieu rien!" 
 
 No idle boast of brave deeds done, 
 No vaunt of wealth or rank or fame, 
 
 No haughty menace to a foe, 
 No arrogant imperial claim. 
 
 But simply true and simply grand 
 And couched in language briefly strong, 
 
 They wrote the story of their faith: 
 "San Dieu rien! Sans Dieu rien!" 
 
 O favored ones who trace your blood 
 Adown this good ancestral line, 
 
 Claim the escutcheon s pictured scroll, 
 Of knightly deeds the honored sign. 
 
 But best inheritance of all, 
 
 That strain like Eden s morning song 
 
 Ah, hand it down from sire to son: 
 "San Dieu rien! Sans Dieu rien!" 
 
 The crest was won by John Field, English astronomer, who corrected 
 the calendar. 
 
 97 
 
Humor 
 
AS WE RIDE 
 
 Berkeley College Song 
 
 Oh be gay, my boys, be gay 
 
 As we ride, as we ride! 
 For the world s a jaunting-car 
 And we re spinning round a star, 
 So tis all a holiday, 
 Let s be jolly while we may 
 
 As we ride, as we ride ! > , 
 
 Not a carriage shall we spy 
 
 As we ride, as we ride, 
 
 That can match with this of ours 
 
 All bedecked with trees and flowers, 
 
 Nor can any pass us by 
 
 With a scornful lip or eye 
 
 As we ride, as we ride! 
 
 If we seem to be at work 
 
 As we ride, as we ride, 
 Tis because it s better so, 
 For the way is long, you know, 
 And not one of us would shirk 
 Though he s lordly as a Turk 
 As we ride, as we ride! 
 
 TREASURER S APPEAL 
 
 When I was young my teachers said 
 
 That it was very plain, 
 Whate er I lacked, I surely had 
 
 The mathematic brain. 
 
 Mrs. Field served as treasurer for the W. C. T. U. 
 
 101 
 
I used to sit upon a bench 
 
 And figure out my sums 
 At close of school, while other babes 
 
 Searched their small pails for crumbs. 
 
 And when we long division reached 
 And others wept full sore, 
 
 My pencil through the problems flew 
 And then I asked for more! 
 
 No wonder when my years were ripe 
 And Treasurers were sought, 
 
 They snapped me up. Who wouldn t do 
 Such easy work? I thought. 
 
 How little dreamed I that the times 
 
 So very hard would grow 
 That blood from turnips could be made 
 
 Much easier to flow 
 
 Than dimes from purses ! Ah, my friends, 
 Twould melt a heart of stone 
 
 To hear the tales that I must hear, 
 Enforced with sigh and groan. 
 
 I didn t once suppose that dues 
 
 Were personal to me, 
 And that I d have to ask for them 
 
 With meek humility. 
 
 Our landlord knows no day but one, 
 
 The salaries fall due 
 But where, oh where, to get the cash 
 
 I wildly ask of you! 
 
 Would that the Klondike nearer were, 
 
 I d seize a pick and go, 
 And every nugget that I found 
 
 Would help to ease my woe. 
 
 102 
 
Or might a fortune fall to me 
 
 From relatives afar, 
 I d never mention dues again 
 
 But buy our stock at par. 
 
 Oh could I learn the secret sought 
 
 By alchemists of old, 
 Fd turn my worn out pots and pans 
 
 To marketable gold! 
 
 An awful thought my soul doth seize 
 
 I ll learn to silver fuse, 
 I ll buy some stamps and dies and things 
 
 That counterfeiters use! 
 
 I see my father s frowning ghost, 
 
 I see a grated door! 
 Oh, friends, make haste to save me, ere 
 
 I fall to rise no more! 
 
 THE MONDAY CLUB OF SAN JOSE 
 
 A consolatory prophecy 
 
 They were a band of gentle dames 
 
 With noble ends in view. 
 Young? Oh, of course, though each did own 
 
 Some spectacles, tis true. 
 
 They give one dignity, you know, 
 
 And that reflective look 
 The scholar has whose midnight lamp 
 
 Lights his beloved book. 
 
 If Time had sprinkled silver hair 
 
 Above their placid brows, 
 He d also lightened many a care 
 
 Of children and of house. 
 
 103 
 
So now the intellectual fires 
 
 Which years had smothered down 
 Rose fresh and free, their spirits burned 
 
 For deeds of high renown. 
 
 They met in conclave long and full, 
 They laid their plans right well, 
 
 But all they said and all they did 
 Transcends my power to tell. 
 
 Suffice it that they longed to know, 
 
 And ever more to know, 
 To know and know and know and know, 
 
 And still to know and know! 
 
 As Emerson advised, they hitched 
 
 Their wagon to a star, 
 And where that star careered along 
 
 They followed fast and far. 
 
 They quaffed the mighty literatures 
 
 Of modern days and old, 
 Just lived on Shakespeare s tragedies 
 
 And Milton s measures bold. 
 
 Great Dante s flights they reckless took 
 Down spaces vast and dim, 
 
 Then heard old Homer s clanging lyre 
 And breathless followed him. 
 
 They solved the problems Goethe raised, 
 The riddles Browning framed, 
 
 And tackled other mystic bards 
 Too numerous to be named. 
 
 Then History their zeal invoked, 
 They knelt at Clio s shrine, 
 
 And quite like bacchanals they drank 
 Of her Pierian wine. 
 
 104 
 
Where falls the shadow of the Sphinx 
 They stirred the mummy dust, 
 
 And peered through every grated door, 
 Quite undeterred by rust. 
 
 They camped among Assyrian mounds, 
 They dwelt in Greece and Rome, 
 
 In England, France and Germany 
 They made themselves at home. 
 
 Old China yielded all it held 
 Before their tireless quest, 
 
 Then India spread its hoary scrolls, 
 But still they took no rest! 
 
 Long time they wrestled with the Czars, 
 And then wore out their shoes 
 
 (To speak in figures) traveling round 
 Among the ancient Jews. 
 
 At last they struck our own dear land 
 Like locusts from the east, 
 
 With appetites omnivorous 
 
 They hied them to their feast. 
 
 Of the poor aborigines 
 
 They made a lengthy meal, 
 
 Then sped them on to watch intent 
 Each old Discoverer s keel. 
 
 They gloated o er the tales that grew 
 
 Beneath Colonial skies; 
 Our statesmen, scholars, poets, all 
 
 They viewed with critics eyes. 
 
 No institutions, no events, 
 
 Escaped their watchful ken 
 
 Such zeal methinks would take the kinks 
 From any writer s pen! 
 
 105 
 
They are my friends, my dearest friends, 
 These women sweet and strong, 
 
 And o er their swift advance I paused 
 In meditation long. 
 
 Greatly I feared an end they d reach 
 Ah, who could paint their woe 
 
 If all the fields of earth were gleaned 
 And naught were left to know! 
 
 I thought of Hegel and of Kant, 
 Of Spencer name for doubt 
 
 Would they attack the UNKNOWABLE, 
 If all the Known gave out? 
 
 My anxious heart this burden bore 
 
 Till, frankly I confess, 
 It haunted me by night and day, 
 
 A boding and distress. 
 
 And then by chance Du Maurier came 
 
 My guiding light to be, 
 I read his "Martian" and in sleep 
 
 A Martian came to me! 
 
 "O friend," she said, "your Earth is young, 
 Its power not half revealed, 
 
 Behold in days at hand the sky 
 
 Its treasured hoards will yield. 
 
 "Your little phones will, wireless, throb 
 
 Along the ether s flow, 
 Alcyone will one day hear 
 
 Your far and faint Hello ! 
 
 "And every glimmering speck that shines 
 
 Against the endless blue 
 Has its own literature and art 
 
 And history, like you!" 
 
 106 
 
I woke, I smiled, I seemed to see 
 The Monday Club begin 
 
 Its studies on the Martian folk, 
 As nearest us of kin. 
 
 And then their flying steps I trace 
 Where Milky Ways do flow 
 
 Oh joy, they ll never pause nor tire 
 But know, and know, and know! 
 
 POLLY S THEOLOGY 
 
 To Polly Carter 
 
 Winsome little Polly flits about the dwelling, 
 
 Hither, thither go her footsteps small; 
 Every one must listen to stories of her telling, 
 
 Answers to her questions she must have from all. 
 
 And of these responses to her brisk demandings 
 Nothing seems to suit the little maid so well 
 
 As an "All right, Polly" then no misunderstandings, 
 Only full assurance in her heart can dwell. 
 
 When this eve at twilight she knelt for her brief praying, 
 Like a little cherub gowned in softest white, 
 
 Folded palms and eyes close shut while she was saying, 
 "Bless us all, dear God, and keep us safe to-night" 
 
 Suddenly she waited, turned her pretty head as trying 
 Some assent from heaven at least to faintly hear, 
 
 Then gave up the puzzle, just did her own replying, 
 Said in cheerful accents, "All right, Polly dear!" 
 
 O our little darling, your sunny wisdom teach us: 
 
 What though clouds and silence shut out the far-off sky 
 Still our own great longings drop blessings that shall reach 
 
 us, 
 
 Prayers include their answers, echoing backward to our 
 cry. 
 
 107 
 
FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND 
 
 (For celebration of the birthday of the missionary, Mrs. Mary 5. Carey, 
 February twenty-second, 1882.) 
 
 Fair dawns the day that gave to us 
 
 The father of our nation, 
 And full of patriotic zeal 
 
 We join the celebration. 
 
 The air is rife with drum and fife, 
 
 Out float the starry banners, 
 Each woman dons her best attire 
 
 And her most charming manners. 
 
 The happy children, freed from school, 
 
 Make all the air hilarious, 
 While old and young and rich and poor 
 
 Rejoice in fashions various. 
 
 And now to give an added zest 
 
 To all our merrymaking, 
 We find we have a double cause 
 
 For thus our pleasure taking. 
 
 To save its ammunition still 
 
 The Yankee heart is willing 
 Who has not heard the saw about 
 
 Two birds with one stone killing? 
 
 Lavish is nature; little George 
 
 Was doubtless a fine baby, 
 But just as nice ones have been born 
 
 Upon his birthday, maybe! 
 
 And henceforth on this festal day 
 
 Our program we will vary 
 Three rousing cheers for Washington, 
 
 And three for Mrs. Carey! 
 
 108 
 
What though our gentle heroine 
 Has set no trumpets blowing; 
 
 Stronger than fame the bands which she 
 Round human hearts is throwing. 
 
 Better than war are love and peace, 
 And heroes deeds shine faintly 
 
 Beside the bloodless victories 
 Achieved by women saintly. 
 
 We know how oft her name is breathed 
 In broken prayer and lowly 
 
 How fondly cling to her the lives 
 She leads in pathways holy. 
 
 And far away in alien lands 
 
 Sweet Christian homes are growing 
 And sending out their shining rays 
 
 From love-lights she set glowing. 
 
 There poor Sing Ling clasps close and fond 
 
 Her darling little Mary, 
 And says the sweet name o er and o er 
 
 Of dear godmother Carey. 
 
 The wide world round, so sailors tell, 
 Where er the storm cloud thickens, 
 
 There safe and joyous skim and whirl 
 The Mother Carey chickens. 
 
 Thus far and wide this mother sends 
 A brood like sea gulls flying, 
 
 They ll sing her songs in storm and shine 
 In living and in dying. 
 
 Heaven crown the loving life with years 
 To match its generous sweetness, 
 
 And send to more historic days 
 
 Such new and fine completeness. 
 
 109 
 
And so we bring our birthday gift, 
 Its value slight confessing, 
 
 Save that its worth is in our love, 
 Its sweetness in our blessing. 
 
 BIDDY HIGHFLY 
 
 (For a child s recitation at a church banquet) 
 
 I had a little hen 
 
 And she had a cropple-crown, 
 I think you must have seen her 
 
 As she wandered round the town. 
 
 Such a cunning little hen 
 
 With feathers on each leg, 
 
 And every day she laid me 
 The nicest little egg. 
 
 I called her Biddy Highfly 
 
 Perhaps you think that s funny! 
 
 I sold her eggs to papa 
 
 And made a lot of money. 
 
 I bought some candy with it 
 
 And I bought my doll some shoes, 
 And I put some out at interest 
 
 That I didn t want to use. 
 
 Now if you have a hen 
 
 And through winter cannot keep her, 
 The next best thing to do 
 
 I m sure is just to eat her. 
 
 So we ve cooked my little hen 
 
 And brought her here to-night 
 
 I love to share with others 
 For that is kind and right. 
 
 110 
 
DEACON S BOY 
 
 (A parody) 
 
 (The author was only ten years old when she com 
 posed this naughty parody on Moore s heroic strains the 
 occasion being the discomfiture of her eldest brother under 
 bungling remodeling of an old-fashioned tailoress.) 
 
 (The minstrel boy to the war is gone.) 
 The deacon s boy to the church is gone. 
 
 (In the ranks of death you ll find him.) 
 In his father s pew you ll find him. 
 
 (His father s sword he hath girded on.) 
 His father s coat he hath girded on. 
 
 (And his wild harp slung behind him.) 
 And his breeches sag down behind him ! 
 
 INCONSTANCY 
 
 ( Berkeley College Song) 
 
 Ah, once I had a sweetheart dear, 
 Her name my heart is on 
 
 But here I ve had to give my thoughts 
 To little Polly gon, 
 
 Stiff little polygon! 
 
 And once I knew a maid who seemed 
 
 Of other maids the gem 
 But here I bow my head in awe 
 
 To stately Theo rem, 
 
 Cold, stately theorem! 
 
 And once the power of Katie s charms 
 Made evening hours to flee 
 
 But here I burn the midnight oil 
 With Etta mology, 
 Old etymology! 
 
 111 
 
IMPROMPTU on receiving a gift o/ca^e, with love from 
 Mrs. L. A. Kelley, San Francisco, 1900 
 
 Dear Mrs. Kelley, 
 
 We thank you really! 
 
 In our finances 
 
 (Whatever mischances 
 
 Befall the nation s) 
 
 The heart s dear coinage 
 Shall never fail 
 
 And oh the sweetness, 
 
 The full completeness 
 
 Of your bestowal, 
 
 With joy we hail! 
 
 That gift was ample, 
 But you can never 
 (Or "hardly ever") 
 Be less than lavish 
 
 To those you love, 
 And so you added 
 This choice confection 
 Of rich perfection 
 
 All praise above! 
 
 Its luscious slices 
 We ll eat like mices 
 
 From day to day 
 And praise your cooking 
 While "How good-looking 
 And nice and clever 
 She is!" We ll never 
 
 Forget to say. 
 
 112 
 
Madrigals 
 
ALOHA NUI 
 
 (Hawaiian Salutation: "Much Love to You") 
 
 Oh sweet our English greetings are, 
 
 Dear love of mine! Dear love of mine! 
 
 But I will teach one sweeter far 
 
 To those bright docile lips of thine : 
 "Aloha Nui!", "Love to you!" 
 
 I learned it in a happy isle 
 
 Afar amid the tropic seas, 
 
 Whose language caught its tender wile 
 From fervid sun and balmy breeze 
 "Aloha Nui!", "Love to you!" 
 
 Too fond for this cold speech of ours 
 
 Which shaped itself in cloud and storm, 
 
 In lands w r here grow no passion-flowers, 
 And warmest love is not too warm 
 "Aloha Nui!", "Love to you!" 
 
 But thou and I, dear, thou and I, 
 
 We dwell in love s enchanted isle, 
 
 A cloudless sun is in our sky 
 
 And starry nights above us smile 
 Aloha Nui!, Love to you! 
 
 115 
 
A MADRIGAL 
 
 To Maria Middlebrook 
 
 Oh, who can with my love compare? 
 
 Such gentle grace 
 
 Of form and face 
 Yet she hath silvery shining hair. 
 
 Her brow is written o er and o er 
 
 With little lines 
 
 Of quaint designs 
 That speak of thoughts, a golden store. 
 
 And, oh, the love-light in her eyes 
 
 That sweetly tells 
 
 What kindness dwlels 
 Deep where her heart s pure fountain lies ! 
 
 Let others praise the young and fair, 
 
 The hair of gold, 
 
 The cheek s soft mould, 
 Give me my love with silver hair! 
 
 116 
 
Descent 
 and other poems 
 
FROM THE FRENCH (TRANSLATION) 
 
 Fathoms deep beneath the ocean yawn the craggy sunless 
 
 caves, 
 
 Over them the dreaming sailor lightly tosses on the waves; 
 Far above us heaven s spaces ever deepen to our view, 
 And the worlds, like golden galleons, float adown the mystic 
 
 blue: 
 But more deep than sea abysses, more remote than vaulted 
 
 skies, 
 Glow or gloom our veiled spirits, part of God s eternities. 
 
 TO FRANCES WILLARD, OUR 
 COLOR-BEARER 
 
 How oft have men faced death on bloody fields, 
 
 Or up the frowning ramparts heedless flown, 
 
 Or led a hope forlorn in fatal charge, 
 
 If but the banner that they loved there shone ! 
 
 How oft has the poor captive taken heart 
 If suddenly upon the far-off shore 
 
 He saw the flag of his dear native land 
 
 Its gracious, starry folds unfurl once more! 
 
 No wild alarm of war is in the air, 
 
 No trumpet calls to deeds of high emprise; 
 Yet is there waged a battle fierce and long, 
 
 And hearts stand still for news of victories. 
 
 Still are there strongholds to be stormed, and oh, 
 What rescues to be made ere day shall close ! 
 
 Through fen and forest, up the rugged steep, 
 Oh, follow, follow where our Leader goes! 
 
 119 
 
BY AN ANT-HILL 
 
 Whither away, small neighbor, and what is thy frantic 
 
 quest? 
 
 Why such a hurry and skurry with never a thought of rest? 
 What wild compulsion or longing possesses thy little breast? 
 
 Brief is thy want, mad racer, surely thou shalt be fed, 
 Well has the bountiful mother scattered thy wine and bread, 
 Nor should winter needs oppress thee, hushed in thy dream 
 less bed. 
 
 Pray why dost thou build thy dwelling this crowded way be 
 side, 
 
 Where any footstep may crush thee or bring to thee ruin 
 wide, 
 
 Wrecking the secret chambers where thy helpless brood 
 doth hide? 
 
 And why dost push thy comrade so fiercely against the 
 
 wall? 
 Why dost thou plunder and murder when earth has room 
 
 for all? 
 Why lead forth armies to battle, thou Alexander small? 
 
 Never a glance responsive, thou givest no word or sign, 
 Nor stayest an instant thy fury for any pleading of mine 
 Yet comes to my soul an answer graven with a seal divine. 
 
 "Lo! a symbol and warning set here that the runner may 
 
 read 
 
 Look at thyself, O Mortal, such is thy haste and greed, 
 Such is thy frenzied grasping, careless of others need! 
 
 "Vainly the daily miracle passes before thine eye, 
 Vainly the ocean thunders, vainly the zephyrs sigh, 
 Vainly above thy moiling arches the starry sky!" 
 
 120 
 
Lookers from out high Heaven! Are we such before your 
 
 ken? 
 Then is there a day of judgment for the ant-hill swarm of 
 
 men 
 When the tread of God s great angels shall leave Earth bare 
 
 again. 
 
 WINTER SUNSHINE 
 
 In San Jose, California 
 
 Is this mid- winter? In my pleasant room 
 I throw the casement wide. The generous sun 
 Gives me a summer greeting; pours his sweet 
 And wholesome rays unstinted down, as kings 
 Of old tossed gold and gems to kneeling crowds. 
 I take the gift with joy. Better than mines 
 Of Ophir is this golden shower. 
 
 The air: 
 
 Is like new wine. O rare intoxicant! 
 For once I turn abacchanal and quaff 
 Deep and inspiring draughts. Nor are the birds 
 
 Gone from us for I hear the merry notes 
 Of little sparrows welcoming the sun 
 With happy roundelays. And here beside 
 
 My window trellis, see the climbing rose, 
 Undaunted by the frost, throws fearless out 
 Its long pink pennons to the morning breeze. 
 
 O heart of mine be glad ! Be glad indeed 
 
 That neath such skies, and mid such scenes as these 
 
 Your lot is cast. Mourn not for your lost youth ; 
 
 Banish the winter of your discontent; 
 
 Your thoughts and words and deeds should match 
 
 these skies. 
 
 Where er you go, whatever your task to-day, 
 Carry God s sunshine in your face, and let 
 Your love be all-embracing as these airs 
 Of heaven. Be of good cheer as is yon bird, 
 And like this sweet brave rose you too shall turn 
 Your life s December into blossoming May. 
 
 121 
 
DESCENT 
 
 Oh not the warm red blood makes closest tie 
 Of kinship. Occult cells of being flow 
 
 Along its pulsing life-tides and thereby 
 The strong sweet bonds of family upgrow. 
 As in a glass face answereth to face, 
 
 And side by side in peace or war, the clan 
 Responds to roll-call, and for love of race 
 Would proudly die to the last dauntless man- 
 Yet, ah how oft, even by the full hearth-side 
 
 There dwells a stranger, yet among them born, 
 Alien in spirit though by blood allied, 
 Remote and solitary and forlorn! 
 
 Not thus, not thus is the souPs kinship tried. 
 On what strange ichor floats its germinal seed! 
 
 Full well it knows o er trackless wastes to glide 
 And Time s millenniums hinder not its speed. 
 
 Far off it finds its lodgement, being new, 
 
 A soul to welcome it with joy divine, 
 And springs to life unharmed, immortal, true 
 To its great source the sovran heavenly line! 
 
 The young seer lifts his head and reverent knows 
 His father s house : ah, with what rapture wild 
 He cries, "I am of David s seed!" or, "In me flows 
 Great Plato s blood!" or, "I am Shakespeare s child!" 
 
 122 
 
Contents 
 
 Biography 
 
 Portrait 1C 
 
 Biographical Sketches of Mary Field - 11-22 
 
 By Maria Holly Sheldon, Lucy Washburn, Mabel Field Hastings, 
 and John E. Richards 
 
 Portrait Bust 15 
 
 Letters 23-27 
 
 Autobiographical Sketch 28 
 
 Biographical Sketch of Frederick Field 33 
 
 By Mabel Field Hastings 
 
 Poems 
 
 Wedded Love 
 
 To Frederick Field 45 
 
 "Sweetheart from this most fateful hour" 46 
 
 Golden Wedding 46 
 
 Beneath the Lamp 47 
 
 Comrade Mary 48 
 
 Kitty Field 49 
 
 Congratulations 50 
 
 Bird Song 51 
 
 Motherhood 
 
 Sonnet: Compensation 55 
 
 I. "Dear mother of the race" 
 II. "If to each yearning mother-heart." 
 
 Motherhood 56 
 
 From "Lul laby" 57 
 
 The Confidante 58 
 
 Madonnas of Raphael 60 
 
 Once 60 
 
 Anniversary 61 
 
 Parted 62 
 
Indian Funeral 64 
 
 Mater Dolorosa 66 
 
 From "Christus Consolator" 67 
 
 El Dia De Los Chiquitos 68 
 
 Poems of Faith 
 
 Ultima Thule 75 
 
 Hymn of Labor 75 
 
 M inistering Spirits 76 
 
 Birthday Gift 77 
 
 "Unto Me" , 78 
 
 Almond Blossoms ,. 78 
 
 Lenten Prayer ,. 79 
 
 Resurrection 80 
 
 Christ and Woman 81 
 
 Home-coming (At the grave of Frederick Field) 82 
 
 Occasional Verse 
 
 To Strother Beeson Purdy 87 
 
 To William Richards Field 88 
 
 To Frederick Field, Jr 89 
 
 The Imprisoned Smile (To the portrait bust of a child.) 89 
 
 To Flora Beal : , 90 
 
 To My Valentine 90 
 
 Vida s Baptism , 91 
 
 To Bertha Bruce 91 
 
 Santa Maria , 92 
 
 To Mabel Field Hastings 93 
 
 To Betty Tisdale 93 
 
 To Lucy Webb Hayes 94 
 
 In the Herbarium 95 
 
 Forty Years , 96 
 
 Sans Dieu Rien 97 
 
 Humor 
 
 As We Ride - 101 
 
 Treasurer s Appeal 101 
 
 The Monday Club of San Jose 103 
 
 Polly s Theology 107 
 
 February Twenty-second 108 
 
 Biddy Highfly 110 
 
 Deacon s Boy 1 1 1 
 
 I nconstancy 
 
 Impromptu - 112 
 
Madrigals 
 
 Aloha N ui -j 1 5 
 
 To Maria Middlebrook " ng 
 
 Descent and Other Poems 
 
 From the French (translation) 119 
 
 To Frances Willard H 9 
 
 By an Ant-Hill i 2 n 
 
 Winter Sunshine 121 
 
 Descent " 122 
 
VD 03125 
 
 909270 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY